Introduction to the Korean War Allan R.Millett-2001

Millett-2001.pdf

The George C. Marshall Lecture in Military History

Introduction to the Korean War

Allan R. Millett

TTVROM his pedestal above the twelve lanes of traffic moving hy fits and

X starts along King Sejong Boulevard in Seoul, the statue of Admiral Yi

Sun-shin watches the Korean people enjoy the dubious luxuries of prosperity and peace. However perilous that well-being sometimes seems at

the dawn of the twenty-first century, the Republie of Korea stands as a

sturdy example of postcolonial survival. In a sense the Republic of

Korea—Daehan Minguk—and its socialist sister the Democratic People's

Republic of Korea—are "new nations," but they are built on the wreckage of a failed traditional society, forty years of Japanese colonialism, the

leaching effect of Japan's wars (1937^5), and the trauma of political

division and revolutionary social change. Koreans who were young in

1945 can hardly believe they live in the same county. But always there

is the memory of "the war."

The Korean people know war. One bit of their lore is that the country has been invaded at least six hundred times in the last three millennia, although the counting includes incidents of piracy, minor punitive

expeditions, and naval encounters along Korea's long and island-dotted

coastline. Nevertheless, the Koreans have a record of victimization that

rivals that of the Jews, Poles, and Irish. Four hundred years ago Admiral

Yi Sun-shin battled the fleets of the Japanese tyrant Hideyoshi Toyotomi,

but despite three miraculous naval victories—won by the novel armored

"turtle boats" of revered memory—^Admiral Yi could not prevent

Hideyoshi's armies from ravishing Korea's villages, farmlands, and precious Buddhist temples. As Yi wrote in despair: "The mountains and the

rivers tremble . . . blood dyes hills and streams."' According to Korean

1. Yi Ch'ungmu-gong Chonso, vol. 1 oí Imjin Changck'o: Admiral Yi Sun'sin's

Memorials to Court, transiated by Ha Tae-hung and edited by Lee Ghong-young

(Seoul: Yonsei University Press, 1981), 197.

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ALLAN R. MILLETT

legend, the stone in the forehead of the Great Buddha of Sökkuram

Grotto turns red every time Japan threatens to invade. It would be

appropriate to have a similar warning system for China.