The deserted steppe on the banks of the KhalkhinGol had marked the extreme limit of Japanese expansion on the Asian continent. China, invaded in 1937, still resisted, but the imperial hold on Manchuria, annexed in 1931, was without weakness.
It was in this wild setting of the Republic of Mongolia that we were going to take the measure of Soviet military power. Thirty-five years earlier, Japan had astonished the world by inflicting a bloody defeat on the armies of the Tsar. Perhaps the moment was favorable to take advantage of a border incident and launch a deep attack as far as the Trans-Siberian Railway?
The spine of the Soviet giant once broken, the riches of Russia in the Far East, with the port of Vladivostok, would be at the mercy of the forces of the mikado.
The highest Japanese military authorities had always been divided into two clans.
One advocated hitting north, that is, Russia; the other towards the south, towards Southeast Asia and the large archipelagos of the Pacific. Emperor Hirohito decided for the South, which was to lead to Pearl Harbor, Singapore... and Hiroshima. But many Imperial Army officers persisted in their burning desire to attack Russia, and the Kwangtung Army High Command in Manchuria was no exception.
A series of border incidents in July and August 1938 in the Khanka Lake area near Vladivostok revealed real deficiencies in the Red Army after Stalin's terrible purges. A general officer by the name of Lyouchkov had deserted and provided the Kwangtung army with all the details on the Russian posture and on the subjects of military dissatisfaction.
Unbeknownst to Emperor Hirohito and, later, in complete contradiction to the orders received, the Kwangtung command launched an attack against the Russians. Success smiled on him until the intervention of Soviet armored and air forces, superior in number. Mad with rage, Hirohito forbade the air force to support the army which had disregarded the instructions and the affair ended in a return to the status quo. But Hirohito could not make his officers lose face - this was a permanent concern of the imperial regime - as soon as the ceasefire on Lake Khanka was concluded, Hirohito hastened to approve a plan of the state- major general, who was planning a showdown further west, in Mongolia, for the following summer.
The border area chosen by the Japanese general staff ran along the KhalkhinGol River, the course of which, for almost its entire length, served as the border between occupied Manchuria (or Manchukuo), to the east, and the People's Republic of Mongolia, West. The latter was subject to Russia by a treaty of “mutual assistance” dating from March 1936. At one point, however, east of the river, the border protruded around the village and hill of Nomonhan. It was at this strategic narrow, 75 kilometers wide, that the Japanese decided to see to what extent the Soviets would respect their commitments. The region offers the typical landscape of the steppe in summer:green-blue, grass color. To the east of the river, the relief is more accentuated, with ravines, dunes and even quicksand. The population consists of sparse tribes of nomadic pastoralists.