From May through September 1939, the Soviet Union and Japan waged hard-fought battles on the wind-swept deserts along the border of eastern Mongolia. Antagonism ran deep. The decline of the Chinese empire had whetted the territorial appetites of its neighbors, and the expanding empires of Russia and Japan collided in Korea and Manchuria. Their conflicting ambitions sparked the Russo-Japanese War of 1904, which ended in a stunning victory for Japan in 1905.

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in World War II magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

In 1918, following the disintegration of the tsarist empire, the Japanese army occupied Russia's far eastern provinces and parts of Siberia. The consolidation of the Communist regime, however, compelled a reluctant Japan to withdraw from those territories in 1922. Japan resumed its imperial march in 1931 with the occupation of Manchuria and the establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo. In 1937, the Japanese invaded China, seizing Shanghai and Nanking.

That, along with the Anti-Comintern Pact signed in 1936 between Germany and Japan, alarmed the Soviet Union. A treaty concluded between Josef Stalin and Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang government in 1937 furnished Soviet financial and military aid to the Chinese. About 450 Soviet pilots and technicians and 225 Soviet warplanes were soon sent to China.

Incidents along the 3,000 miles of ill-defined border between Manchukuo and the Soviet Union numbered in the hundreds from 1932 on. In the summer of 1938, a major clash erupted at Lake Khasan, 70 miles southwest of Vladivostok at the intersection of the Manchukuoan, Korean and Soviet borders, leaving the Soviets in possession of the ground.

The lifeline of the Soviet position in the Far East and Siberia was the Trans-Siberian Railroad, which served as the only link between those regions and European Russia. Outer Mongolia was the key to strategic control of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. To ensure the protection of that vital artery, the Soviets had established the puppet Mongolian People's Republic (MPR) in Outer Mongolia. A treaty of mutual assistance between the Soviet Union and the MPR had been signed in 1936.

Part of the reason for the escalating tensions in the area was due to the 'Strike North' faction in the Japanese high command — a faction found predominantly among the staff officers of the Kwantung Army stationed in Manchukuo. Once it had severed the Trans-Siberian lifeline, the Strike North officers argued, the Japanese empire could then be expanded to include all of Mongolia, the Soviet maritime provinces and parts of Siberia. Shielded by those buffer territories, the natural resources and heavy industries of Manchukuo could then be fully developed by the Japanese. Bereft of outside support, Chinese resistance would collapse.

A minor border dispute in a remote area provided the Strike North faction with the opportunity needed to pursue its ambitious plan. The Japanese claimed the Halha River as the western border of Manchukuo. However, the Soviets argued that the frontier was 15 miles east of the Halha, close to the village of Nomonhan.

The Kwantung Army's staff was convinced that they enjoyed a decisive logistical advantage in that remote area. Japanese railheads were located 100 miles east of Nomonhan. Two dirt roads had been cleared to the village. In sharp contrast, the nearest Russian railhead was 434 miles away at Borzya. The Japanese were sure that the Russians could not commit more than two infantry divisions to operations in that area. The Japanese were also convinced that Stalin's Great Purge of 1935 to 1937 had effectively crippled the Soviet officer corps.

The Halha River, often referred to as the Khalkhin Gol, flowed north–south, parallel with the battle front. At the center of the front, the Holsten River bisected the Halha. Terrain was hilly east of the Halha, but west of the river stretched a vast and barren desert plateau. During July and August, temperatures ranged as high as 104 degrees. Available water in the area was brackish, and water purification was a major problem for both armies. Hordes of voracious mosquitoes from the marshes tormented the soldiers of both sides.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to