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Concept
Kwantung Army
Summary
The Kwantung Army (Japanese: 関東軍, Kantō-gun) was a general army of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1919 to 1945.
The Kwantung Army formed in 1906 as a security force for the Kwantung Leased Territory and South Manchurian Railway Zone after the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, and expanded into an army group during the Interwar period to support Japanese interests in China, Manchuria, and Mongolia. The Kwantung Army became the most prestigious command in the Imperial Japanese Army, and many of its personnel won promotion to high positions in the Japanese military and civil government, including Hideki Tōjō and Seishirō Itagaki. The Kwantung Army was largely responsible for the establishment of the Japanese puppet-state of Manchukuo in Manchuria and functioned as one of the main Japanese fighting forces during the 1937–1945 Second Sino-Japanese War from 1937.
In August 1945 Soviet troops engaged the Kwantung Army during the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation. The Kwantung Army surrendered to the Soviets on 16 August 1945 – the day after the Surrender of Japan – and was subsequently dissolved.
The Kwantung Army perpetrated several war crimes during World War II, sponsoring Unit 731, which both carried out acts of biological warfare and performed unethical human experimentation on civilians and Allied prisoners of war.
In 1895, Qing China had granted the Kwantung Leased Territory, a valuable concession territory on the Liaodong Peninsula, to the Empire of Japan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki after their victory in the First Sino-Japanese War. The term "Kwantung" () means "east of Shanhaiguan", a guarded pass west of Manchuria, which was rendered in Japanese as "Kantō". The Russian Empire had particular interest in Kwantung, being one of the few areas in the region with potential to develop ice-free ports for its own expansion in the Far East, and Qing authorities withdrew the lease from the Japanese following the Triple Intervention, only weeks after it had been granted.
Official source
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