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World War II was the most extensive and costly armed conflict in the
history of the world, involving the great majority of the
world's nations, being fought simultaneously in several major theaters, and costing approximately 50 million lives. The war was
fought mainly between an alliance of the British
Commonwealth, France, the United States, the Soviet Union, and China—collectively known as the Allies; and the
Axis Powers, an alliance between Germany, Italy, and Japan. Most of
the fighting occurred in the Atlantic theater in and around Europe,
and in the Pacific theater in the Pacific and East Asia.
The German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939 is the most common date in the West for the start of
World War II. Others cite the Japanese invasion of China in 1937 as the war's beginning, or even the 1931 Japanese incursion into
Manchuria. The war in Europe ended with the surrender of Germany on May 8, 1945, but continued in Asia and the Pacific until
September 2, 1945, when Japan
surrendered.
The war was significant in that it was the first war in which air power was a significant factor. Indeed, the first combat
operation in World War II was a German bombing attack against Poland, while the last combat operation was the American atom bomb
attack against Nagasaki. The war also saw the re-emergence of the United
States from its isolationism, the destruction and rebuilding of
Germany and Japan into major industrial
powers, and the emergence of the United States and the Soviet Union as global superpowers. The war also directly led to the United Nations, which was founded by the victorious Allies in order to prevent such a large and destructive conflict from ever again happening.
Battle of Stalingrad
The war caused more civilian casualties than any war in history. This was partly due to its unprecedented scale, the first
uses of mass aerial bombings against civilian populations (a policy initiated by the German Luftwaffe against Poland, and later used more extensively against
German cities by the Allies), and the first application of industrial age technology to enable the mass killing of unwanted
civilians in extermination camps. In total, World War II
produced about 50 million deaths (about two percent of the population of the world). (For details, see the list of World War II
casualties by country.)
Preliminaries
Main article: Preceding events of the European Theater of World War II
Resentment of the victorious powers' treatment of
the Weimar Republic in the aftermath of World War I, and economic difficulties caused by war reparations and the Great
Depression, allowed Adolf Hitler's extreme nationalist NSDAP movement to come to power in Germany. Due to
the fragile political situation, Hitler could assume emergency power and virtually total control of the country. Defying
post-World War I treaties he redeveloped the German military by means of the
democratic constitution that then was put aside. He remilitarized the border zone next to France, enforced the re-unification
with Austria, and with Franco-British approval he annexed parts of Czechoslovakia.
In 1922 Benito Mussolini
and the Fascist party had risen to power in Italy. Mussolini's Italian fascists
shared some ideological goals with the German National
socialists, and although Mussolini distrusted Hitler, the two countries formed an agreement that became known as the
"Rome-Berlin Axis" in 1936.
European Theater
Main article: European Theater
of World War II, The end of World
War II in Europe
In 1939, Hitler laid claim to parts of Poland
and concluded the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with the
Soviet Union in response to Britain's and France's supportive defense
alliance with Poland, of March 1939. The German Wehrmacht then invaded Poland on September 1, and on 3rd September, 1939, Britain and
France declared war on Germany. The Polish government collapsed, with President Ignacy Moscicki fleeing into exile on the 18th. Within weeks the Soviet Red
Army also invaded Poland, and hostilities ended with French and British troops giving no assistance to the Poles.
The period from the conclusion of the invasion of Poland in October 1939, till the German invasion of Benelux and France in May 1940, became known as the Phony War. The German and Soviet forces were moved from the attack on Poland. The
Red Army concentrated on the Baltic Countries and on Finland, where the Winter
War came in focus of the world's interest in absence of other hostilities. The Wehrmacht moved to the west, and invaded meanwhile Denmark and Norway. France mobilized and manned
its heavily defended border against the Rhine; and the British sent a large expeditionary force to France. Apart from a brief
attack by the French across the Rhine there were little hostilities as both sides built
up their forces.
In May of 1940 German forces attacked the Low Countries (The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg). The three
countries were occupied quickly with all of their governments and monarchs fleeing to London, except for the Belgian king Leopold III who stayed in
his country. France was then promptly invaded. The Germans' Blitzkrieg tactics succeeded in defeating the French and British armies in France. The British
Expeditionary Force (BEF) evacuated from Dunkirk leaving their
heavy equipment behind, and the French government made a peace, which left the Germans in control of the North and the Vichy government in charge of the South.
Luftwaffe was unable to defeat the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain
and gain the air superiority needed to invade Britain. Instead they began a strategic bombing campaign which the British called the
Blitz, and to blockade Britain into submission in the Battle of the Atlantic. Britain failed to succumb to either.
In June 1941 Germany attacked the Soviet Union, with whom they had a
non-aggression pact, in Operation Barbarossa, starting what is known in Russia as Great Patriotic War (Великая
Отечественная
Война). The Russians were caught largely by surprise and the Wehrmacht initially conquered
vast areas of territory, and captured hundreds of thousands of troops. The Soviets withdrew, and managed to move most of their
heavy industry away from the front line and re-establish it in more remote areas. Tenacious, sacrificial defense prevented the
Germans from capturing Moscow (Hero
City) by the time winter set in (see Battle of Moscow). Hitler,
expecting the campaign to be over in a few months, had not equipped their armies for winter fighting. Five days after the Soviets
launched their counter attack, on December 11, 1941, Germany declared war on the United
States following the Attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan - see Asian
Theater.
In spring the German army made further attacks in the Soviet Union, but appeared to be unable to choose between a direct
attack on Moscow and the capture of the Caucasian oilfields. Moscow was again spared, and at the end of 1942 the Soviets succeeded in smashing the Axis'
front lines in the south, and surrounding the German 6th Army in the Battle of Stalingrad (Hero City). In February 1943 the
paltry remnant of the 300,000 man army surrendered. In the spring the Wehrmacht was able to restore the front line and make a
successful riposte in the Second Battle of Kharkov,
but their offensive at the massive Battle of Kursk (July 1943) was so
unsuccessful that the Red Army were able to counterattack and regain the ground previously lost. From that time forward the
Soviet Union had the initiative in the East.
The German disaster at Stalingrad was promptly followed by a disaster of similar scale in Tunisia (see African theater below), resulting in the loss of
the last Axis foothold in North Africa and the capture of a quarter of a million German and Italian POWs (May 1943). Thereafter the Allies used North Africa as a springboard for the invasion of Sicily (July 1943) and mainland Italy (September 1943), which Winston Churchill described as "the soft underbelly of Europe". Italy surrendered, but German troops
moved to disarm the Italians and set about defending the country on their own. They established a series of tough defensive lines
in mountainous country that was ideally suited to defense, and progress by the Allies was slow.
The Allies invaded Normandy in Operation Overlord in June 1944 and liberated most of France and
the Low Countries by the end of the year. After a desperate counteroffensive by the German army in the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, the Allies entered Germany in
1945. By now the Soviets had reached the Eastern borders of the German Reich, and her fate was sealed. Following Hitler's suicide as the Russians entered Berlin, The German armed forces surrendered unconditionally on 7 May 1945.
The Pacific War
Main article: Pacific War
The Japanese had already invaded China before World War II started in Europe. With the
United States and other countries cutting exports to Japan, Japan decided to bomb Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 without warning or declaration of war. Severe damage was done to the American Pacific Fleet, although the aircraft
carriers escaped as they were at sea. Japanese forces simultaneously invaded the British possessions of Malaya and Borneo and the American occupied Philippines, with the intention of seizing the oilfields of the Dutch East Indies. The British island fortress of Singapore was captured in what Churchill considered one of the most humiliating British
defeats of all time.
In May 1942, a Japanese naval attack on Port Moresby, New Guinea which had it succeeded would have put them within striking range of Australia, was thwarted by the Allied navies in the Battle of the Coral Sea, becoming both the first successful
opposition to Japanese plans and the first naval battle fought only between aircraft carriers. A month later the U.S. Navy again
prevented the invasion of Midway island, this time destroying four
Japanese carriers, which Japanese industry could not replace, and putting the Japanese navy on the defensive.
However, in July the Japanese Army attempted an overland attack on Port Moresby, along the rugged Kokoda Track. Australian reservists, many
of them of very young and untrained, fought a stubborn rearguard action, until they were relieved by Australian regular troops
returning from action in the Middle East.
The Allied leaders had agreed even prior to the American entry to the war that priority should be given to the defeat of
Germany. Nonetheless US and Australian forces under General Douglas
MacArthur began to attack captured territories, beginning with, against the bitter and determined defense of Japanese troops,
Guadalcanal Island. On August 7, 1942 the island was assaulted by United States Marines. In late August and early September, while battle raged on Guadalacanal,
Australian and US forces fought off a Japanese amphibious attack on the eastern tip of New Guinea at Milne Bay, the first conclusive defeat suffered by Japanese land
forces. US forces triumphed on Guadalcanal in February 1943.
Australian and US forces then strove to retake the occupied parts of New
Guinea and the Dutch East Indies. The rest of the Solomon Islands
were retaken in 1943, New Britain and New Ireland in 1944. The Philippines were attacked in late 1944 following the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
US and Allied submarines and aircraft also attacked Japanese merchant shipping, depriving Japanese industry of the raw
materials she had gone to war to obtain. The effectiveness of this stranglehold increased as the U.S. captured islands closer to
the Japanese mainland.
The Nationalist Kuomintang Army under Chiang Kai-shek and the Communist Chinese Army under Mao Zedong both
opposed the Japanese occupation of China, but never truly allied against the Japanese. Conflict between Nationalist and Communist
forces continued after and, to an extent, even during the war.
Capture by the Allies of islands such as Iwo Jima and
Okinawa close to Japan brought the homeland within range of naval
and air attacks, Tokyo was firebombed and later a nuclear bomb destroyed Hiroshima. On August 8, 1945 the Soviet
Union declared war on Japan, attacking her possessions in Manchuria. On August 9th, Nagasaki was atom bombed. The Japanese surrendered on August 14, 1945, signing official surrender papers on
September 2, 1945.
African and Middle Eastern Theater
The North African Campaign began in 1940, when small British forces in Egypt turned back an
Italian advance from Libya. This advance was stopped in 1941 when German forces under Erwin Rommel landed in Libya. In addition, in June
1941 the Australian Army and
allied forces invaded Syria and Lebanon,
capturing Damascus on June 17. Rommel's
Afrika Korps advanced rapidly eastward, laying siege to the vital seaport
of Tobruk. The Australian and British troops in the city resisted all until relieved,
but a renewed Axis offensive captured the city and drove the Eighth Army back to a line at El Alamein.
The First Battle of El Alamein took place
between July 1 and July 27, 1942. German forces had advanced to the last defensible point before Alexandria and the Suez Canal. However they had outrun
their supplies, and a British and Commonwealth defense stopped their thrusts. The Second Battle of El Alamein occurred between October 23 and November 3, 1942 after Bernard Montgomery had replaced Claude Auchinleck as commander of the Eighth Army. Commonwealth forces
took the offensive and destroyed the Afrika Korps. Rommel was pushed back, and this time did not stop falling back until Tunisia.
To complement this victory, on 8 November 1942, American and British troops landed in Morocco and Algeria in Operation Torch. The
local forces of Vichy France put up limited resistance before joining the
Allied cause. Ultimately German and Italian forces were caught in the pincers of a twin advance from Algeria and Libya. Advancing from both the east and west, the Allies completely pushed the Wehrmacht out of
Africa and on May 13, 1943, the remnants of the Axis forces in North Africa surrendered. 250,000 prisoners were taken; as many as at
Stalingrad.
North Africa was used as the jumping-off point for the invasions of Sicily and
Italy in 1943.
Historical significance
In contrast to World War I, the Western victors in the Second World War
did not demand compensation from the defeated nations. On the contrary, a plan created by U. S. Secretary of State George Marshall, the "Economic Recovery Program", better known as the
Marshall Plan, called for the U.S. Congress to allocate billions of dollars for the reconstruction of Europe.
Since the League of Nations had obviously failed to prevent
the war, a new international order was constructed. In 1945 the United
Nations was founded.
The portion of Europe occupied or dominated by the Soviet Union did not benefit from
the Marshall Plan. In the Paris Peace Treaty,
the Soviet Union's enemies Hungary, Finland and Romania were required to pay war reparations of $300,000,000 each (in 1938 dollars) to USSR and her
satellites. Italy was required to pay $360,000,000, shared chiefly between Greece, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union.
In the areas occupied by the Soviet Union at the end of the war, puppet regimes were installed, over the objections of the
other Allies and the governments in exile. Germany was partitioned into four zones of occupation, with the American, British and
French zones grouped as West Germany and the Soviet zone becoming a
Soviet satellite state, called East Germany. Austria was once again separated from Germany and
it, too, was divided into four zones of occupation, but the Soviet zone was eventually submerged into a re-united state of
Austria. In Churchill's words, "an Iron Curtain has descended across
Europe". In due course this would lead to a commitment from America to help protect Western Europe, the formation of NATO and the Cold War.
The repatriation, pursuant to the terms of the Yalta Conference,
of two million Russian soldiers who had came under the control of advancing American and British forces, resulted for the most
part in their deaths.
The massive research and development involved in the Manhattan
Project in order to quickly achieve a working nuclear
weapon design greatly impacted the scientific community, among other things creating a network of national laboratories in
the United States.
In the military sphere, World War II marked the coming of age of airpower, mostly at the expense of warships. While the
pendulum continues to swing in this never-ending competition, air powers are now a full partner in any military action.
The war was the high-water mark for mass armies. While huge armies of low-quality troops would be seen again (during the
Korean War and in a number of African conflicts), after this victory the major
powers relied upon small highly-trained and well-equipped militaries.
After the war, many high-ranking Germans were prosecuted for war crimes, as
well as the mass murder of the Holocaust committed mainly on the area of General Government, in the Nuremberg trials. Similarly Japanese leaders were prosecuted in the Tokyo War Crime Trial. In other countries, notably in Finland, the Allies demanded the
political leadership to be prosecuted in "war-responsibility trials" - i.e. not for crimes of war.
The defeat of Japan, and her occupation by American Forces, led to a westernization of Japan that was surely more far-reaching than would otherwise have occurred. Japan
approximated more closely to a Western style democracy and, because of her defeat by the USA, set out to imitate the United
States. This huge national effort led to the post-war Japanese economic miracle and Japan's rise to become the world's second
largest economy.
Military engagements
Battles
Sieges
- Siege of Leningrad
- Siege of Lwów
- Siege of Modlin
- Siege of
Novorossiysk
- Siege of Odessa
- Siege of
Sevastopol
- Siege of Tobruk
- Siege of Warsaw
Naval engagements
Major bombing campaigns
See also Strategic bombing survey for the
overall impact of the bombing.
Defensive lines
Political and Social Aspects of the War
Production and logistics
The Axis lost, at least partly because the Allies, after the USA's and the Soviet Union's entrance into the war, had greater
productive resources, and were able to turn these resources into greater numbers of soldiers and weapons than the Axis.
World War II military history by country
Related articles
Lists
External links
References
- Winston Churchill, The Second World War, 6 vols.
(1948-1953)
- Martin Gilbert,
Second World War, Phoenix, 1995. ISBN 1857993462
- John Keegan, The Second World War (1989)
- B.H. Liddell Hart, History of the Second World War
(1970)
- Williamson Murray
and Allan R. Millett,
A War to Be Won: Fighting the Second World War (2000) ISBN 067400163X
- Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won, Pimlico, 1995. ISBN 0712674535
- Gerhard L.
Weinberg, A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II (1994) ISBN 0521443172
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