Lytton-Report

The Lytton Report (リットン 調査 団, Ritton Chōsandan ) is the name of the presented on October 2, 1932 report of the Lytton Commission appointed by the League of Nations on 21 November 1931. The Commission was appointed on the proposal of the Japanese representative from the League of Nations, Yoshizawa Kenkichi to investigate the past two months Mukden Incident.

The Commission

The term Lytton Commission derives from the name of the chairman, the former Viceroy of India, Victor Bulwer- Lytton. Other members were the French General Henri Claudel, the Italian Count Luigi Aldrovandi Marescotti, the American General Frank Ross McCoy and the German Heinrich Schnee.

The report

The Commission should be given full freedom of movement to clarify the question of guilt, but had no authority over the Japanese troops stationed in the region and was therefore only too little knowledge. Japan proposed aware before the establishment of a commission to forge ahead in the meantime, the establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo in the now occupied Manchuria on. The hopes of Japan were verified, for only in September 1932, about a year after the first incident, the report has been completed. In the meantime, the Japanese had completed the establishment of Manchukuo ( proclamation of the State of Manchukuo on 18 February 1932). Due to the limited capacity of the Commission investigation, the report was formulated only very vague, leaving room for interpretation and avoided an open blame for the Mukden Incident. Thus, the Japanese could continue to claim that the attack by the Chinese side went out and they had only acted in self-defense when she was still belabored in the night against Chinese garrisons. Although the illegitimacy of the other Japanese procedures were followed, hit the report to an autonomy of Manchuria within the Republic of China, but the " special rights and interests " of Japan have been recognized.

The Lytton report led to great disappointment in China, since there are no sanctions of the League against Japan were possible on its basis. According to the current state of research, it is assumed that the stop of Mukden a staging of the Japanese Kwantung Army was to have a pretext to occupy Manchuria.

Injury

As early as September 1932, even before the official launch of the report, Japan expanded its relations with Manchukuo from to official diplomatic relations, suggesting that the content of the report to the Japanese previously known and they were happy with this. When the report was presented to the League of Nations in February 1933, there was a request of several States, Japan, despite the report of the blame for the Mukden Incident assign. Then, the Japanese envoy to the League of Nations, Matsuoka Yosuke left the hall and Japan announced on March 27, 1933 its withdrawal from the League of Nations. In the aftermath Japan took advantage of the internal instability of China to expand its position in the north of the country by further military campaigns, and in 1937 came to the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War.