World War II
World War II (in Russia also known as The Great Patriotic War (for the war after June 1941) and The War Against Aggression) was fought chiefly between the Allies and the Axis Powers. Most of the fighting occurred in the European theatre in and around Europe, and in the Asian theatre in the Pacific and East Asia.
The war in Europe began on September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. However, Japan had invaded China already in 1937 the (Second Sino-Japanese War), which sometimes is considered the start of the Second World War (Withdrawal of the Japanese after their defeat also catalysed the Chinese Communist Revolution.) Nazi Germany surrendered on May 7, 23:51 PM 1945, ending the war in Europe. The war in the Pacific ended on September 2, 1945, when Japan surrendered.
It was the largest armed conflict in history, spanning virtually the entire world and involving more countries than any other war, introducing powerful new weapons, and culminating in the first use of nuclear weapons. However, despite the name, not all countries of the world were involved; some through maintained neutrality (such as Éire, Sweden and Switzerland), others through strategic insignificance (as Mexico). However, whilst not all countries were involved, it is clear that the Second World War has had a lasting effect in shaping the political climate of the world as we know it today.
The war ravaged civilians more severely than any previous conflict (bringing to its first fruition the concept of total war) and served as a backdrop for genocidal killings by Nazi Germany as well as several other mass slaughters of civilians which, although not technically genocide, were significant.
These included the massacre of millions of Chinese and Korean nationals by Japan, internal mass killings in the Soviet Union, and the bombing of civilian targets in German and Japanese cities by the Allies, and bombing of European cities by Nazi Germany. In total, World War II produced about 50 million deaths, more than any other war to date (see the List of World War II casualties by country).
European Theatre
See: European Theatre of World War II, Preceding events of the European Theatre of World War II and The end of World War II in Europe
Germany got into debt after World War I, especially with the depression. Italy had already gotten facism as its form of government. Adolf Hitler rose up in the ranks of the German government and got emergency powers. He became dictator and used his own, infamous brand of totalitarianism. The then tried to conquer all of Europe. Britian and France could only appease him for so long. When he invaded Poland, the war in Europe started. However, the axis swept westward, taking over the parts of continental Europe in its path, stopping at Spain, since Ferdinand Marcos had a friendly regime. The Nazis got into Russia, but were driven back by the Soviets. The British staved off invasion, although they got bombed. After Americans arrived on the coast of France, the British, French, and Americans swept eastward. The Soviets swept westward after Hitler made bad moves in Russia. Hitler committed suicide before his regime fell. While the allies were sweeping Europe, they discovered that Hitler was in the middle of exterminating European Jews and other groups.
Asian Theatre
Main Article: Asian Theatre of World War II
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 in 1942. This basically put Japan into a war it could not win. After Tokyo was firebombed and nuclear bombs hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese surrendered.
African and Middle Eastern Theatre
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. Thus began a seesaw campaign that culminated in the two Battles of El Alamein. In addition, In June 1941 the Australian Army and allied forces invaded Syria and Lebanon, capturing Damascus on June 17.
The First Battle of El Alamein took place between July 1 and July 27, 1942. The Germans had advanced to El Alamein, the last defensible point before Alexandria and the Suez Canal. However, as in the Soviet Union, they had outrun their supplies, and a British defence stopped their thrusts.
The Second Battle of El Alamein occured between October 23 and November 3, 1942. It saw British forces take the offensive. 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 Germans out of Africa and on May 13, 1943, the remnants of the Axis forces in North Africa surrendered. Not widely known is that the number of prisoners taken in this incident, 250,000 was as many as at Stalingrad.
Most likely learning from the example of 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 US Congress to allocate billions of dollars for the reconstruction of Europe.
The portion of Europe occupied or dominated by the Soviet Union did not participate in the Marshall Plan. In the Paris Peace Treaty Soviet's enemies Hungary, Finland and Rumania were required to pay war reparations of $300,000,000 each (in 1938 year's value) to USSR and her satellites. From Italy was required $360,000,000, shared chiefly between Greece, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union.
As mentioned, the Soviets bore the heaviest casualties of World War II. Russia had been invaded three times in the 150 years before the Cold War: during the Napoleonic Wars, World War I, and World War II, suffering tens of millions of causalities. This is sometimes proposed as an explanation for much of Russia's behavior after the war, when the Soviet Union continued to occupy and dominate Eastern Europe as a "buffer zone" against another invasion from the West.
At the same time, the United States and the Soviet Union consolidated their military presence and links in Europe as preparation against possible aggression. In Churchill's words, an Iron Curtain had descended across Europe and a new phase of the conflict between the democracies and Soviet Union, the Cold War, began.
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. Some of the prisoners committed suicide, others were shot once taken into Soviet custody, and still others (including General Andrei Vlasov) were executed after trial. The balance of the soldiers were sent to Soviet forced-labor camps, where they died.
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, it seems 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-trained militaries.
After the war, many high-ranking Nazis 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 Westernisation 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 ape 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.
The Allies won, and the Axis lost, because the Allies had greater productive resources, and were able to turn these resources into greater numbers of soldiers and weapons than the Axis.
Historical significance
Military engagements
Battles
Naval engagements
Major bombing campaigns
See also Strategic bombing survey for the overall impact of the bombing. Common weapons
Defensive lines
Political and Social Aspects of the War
Production and logistics
(This section should be expanded to with links to other articles about production and logistics in WW2, as those articles are written)Related articles
Lists
External links
References
