User:Hadseys/sandbox
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| World War II | |||||||
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 Clockwise from top left: Commonwealth troops in the desert; Chinese civilians being buried alive by Japanese soldiers; Soviet forces during a winter offensive; Carrier-borne Japanese planes readying for take off; Soviet troops fighting in Berlin; A German submarine under attack. |
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| Allies | Axis powers | ||||||
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| Allied leaders | Axis leaders | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Military dead: Over 14,000,000 Civilian dead: Over 36,000,000 Total dead: Over 50,000,000 ...further details. |
Military dead: Over 8,000,000 Civilian dead: Over 4,000,000 Total dead Over 12,000,000 ...further details. |
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World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a worldwide military conflict; the amalgamation of two separate conflicts, one beginning in Asia, 1937, as the Second Sino-Japanese War and the other beginning in Europe, 1939, with the invasion of Poland. It is regarded as the historical successor to World War I.
This global conflict split a majority of the world's nations into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. Spanning much of the globe, World War II resulted in the deaths of over 70 million people, making it the deadliest conflict in human history.[1]
World War II was the most widespread war in history, and countries involved mobilized more than 100 million military personnel. Total war erased the distinction between civil and military resources and saw the complete activation of a nation's economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities for the purposes of the war effort; nearly two-thirds of those killed in the war were civilians. For example, nearly 11 million of the civilian casualties were victims of the Holocaust, which was largely conducted in Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union.
The conflict ended in an Allied victory. As a result, the United States and Soviet Union emerged as the world's two leading superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War for the next 45 years. Self determination gave rise to decolonization/independence movements in Asia and Africa, while Europe itself began traveling the road leading to integration.
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[edit] Overview
- See also: Timeline of World War II
In September 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria under false pretexts and captured it from the Chinese. In July 1937, Japan launched a large scaled invasion of mainland China, beginning with the bombing of Shanghai and Guangzhou and followed by the Nanking massacre in December.
In 1933, Adolf Hitler of the Nazi Party became leader of Germany. Under the Nazis, Germany began to rearm and to pursue a new nationalist foreign policy. By 1937, Hitler also began demanding the cession of territories which had historically been part of Germany.
In Europe, Germany, and to a lesser extent Italy, asserted increasingly hostile and aggressive foreign policies and demands, which the United Kingdom and France attempted to defuse through diplomacy and appeasement.
In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland in cooperation with the Soviet Union, and war in Europe followed. The United Kingdom and France declared war. During the winter of 1939–1940 there was little overt indication of hostilities since neither side was willing to engage the other directly. This period was called the Phoney War.
In spring 1940, Germany captured Denmark and Norway, and in the early summer France and the Low Countries. Italy declared war in June 1940 and the Italian Army attacked France just before their surrender. The United Kingdom was then targeted; the Germans attempted to cut off the island from vitally needed supplies and attempted to gain air superiority in order to initiate a seaborne invasion. This never came to pass, but the Germans continued to attack the British mainland throughout the war. Unable to engage German forces on the continent, the United Kingdom concentrated on combating German and Italian forces in the Mediterranean. This tactic had limited success however; it failed to prevent the Axis powers conquest of the Balkans and fought indecisively in the Western Desert Campaign. It had greater success in the Mediterranean Sea, dealing severe damage to the Italian Navy, and dealt the first major defeat to Germany by winning the Battle of Britain.
In June 1941, the extent of the war increased when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, bringing the Soviet Union into alliance with the United Kingdom. The German attack was initially successful, overrunning great tracts of Soviet territory, but began to stall by the winter.
Since invading mainland China and French Indochina in 1940, Japan had been subject to increasing economic sanctions and was attempting to reduce these sanctions through diplomatic negotiations. In December 1941, however, the war expanded once more when Japan, launched attacks against the United States and British assets in Southeast Asia; four days later, Germany declared war on the United States. This brought the United States and Japan into the greater conflict and turned the Asian and European wars into a global one.
In 1942 the tide began to turn. Japan suffered its first major defeat against American forces in the Battle of Midway. German forces in Africa were pushed back by Anglo-American forces, and Germany’s renewed summer offensive in the Soviet Union had ground to a halt.
In 1943 Germany suffered devastating losses to the Soviets at Stalingrad, and then again at Kursk, the greatest tank battle in military history. Their forces were expelled from Africa, and Allied forces began driving northward up through Italy. Italy was forced to sign the Italian Armistice in September 1943. The Japanese continued to lose ground as the American forces seized island after island in the Pacific Ocean.
In 1944, the course of the war was clearly becoming unfavourable for the Axis powers. Germany became closed in as the Soviet offensive became a juggernaut in the east, pushing the Germans out of Russia, the Western Allies invaded mainland Europe, liberating France and the Low Countries and reaching Germany’s western borders. While Japan launched a successful offensive in China, in the Pacific, their navy suffered continued heavy losses due to aerial bombardment by the American military.
In 1945 the war ended. In Europe, a final German counter-attack in the west failed, while Soviet forces captured Berlin, forcing Germany to surrender. In Asia, American forces captured the Japanese islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa while British forces in South East Asia managed to expel Japanese forces. Initially unwilling to surrender, Japan finally capitulated after the Soviet Union invaded Manchukuo and the United States dropped atomic bombs on mainland Japan.
[edit] Causes of the war in Europe
Germany and France had been struggling for dominance in Continental Europe for 80 years and had fought two previous wars, the Franco-Prussian War and World War I. Following the Russian Revolution, Communist movements began spreading across Europe; in response, fascist and nationalist groups were born.[2]
In 1922, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his fascist party took control of the Italy and set the model for German dictator Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party, which, aided the civil unrest took power in Germany and eliminated its democratic government. The two leaders began to re-arm their countries. Mussolini first conquered the African nation of Abyssinia and then seized Albania, with both Italy and Germany actively supporting Francisco Franco's fascist party in the Spanish Civil War against the Second Spanish Republic. Hitler then broke the Treaty of Versailles by increasing the size of the Germany’s military, and remilitarized the Rhineland. He started his own expansion by annexing Austria and sought the same against the German-speaking regions of Czechoslovakia.
The British and French governments followed a policy of appeasement to avoid military confrontation. This policy culminated in the Munich Agreement, which would give the Sudetenland to Germany in exchange for Germany making no further territorial claims in Europe.[3][4] In March 1939, Germany annexed the remainder of Czechoslovakia. Mussolini, following suit, invaded and annexed Albania in April.
The failure of the Munich Agreement pushed the United Kingdom and France to prepare for war with Germany. France and Poland pledged on May 19, 1939, to provide each other with military assistance in the event either was attacked. The following August, the British guaranteed the same.
On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact which provided for sales of oil and food from the Soviets to Germany, thus reducing the danger of a British blockade such as the one that had nearly starved Germany in World War I. Also included was a secret agreement that would divide Central Europe into German and Soviet areas of interest, including a provision to partition Poland. Each country agreed to allow the other a free hand in its area of influence, including military occupation.
[edit] Causes of the war in Asia
After World War I, the victorious Western powers adopted policies that recognized Japan as a colonial power. Many Japanese politicians and militarist leaders, such as Fumimaro Konoe and Sadao Araki, promoted the idea that Japan had a right to conquer Asia and unify it, under the rule of Emperor Hirohito.
Japan invaded Manchuria under the diplomatic pretext of the staged Mukden Incident, and converted Manchuria into the puppet state of Manchukuo. Japan invaded China in 1937 to bolster its stock of natural resources, to relieve Japan from population pressures and to extend its colonial realm to a wider area. The Japanese made initial advances but were stalled in the Battle of Shanghai. The city eventually fell to the Japanese in December 1937. As a result, the Chinese government, run by the Kuomintang party moved its seat to Wuhan and then to Chongqing for the remainder of the war. Conquered areas of China became subject to a harsh occupation, with many atrocities against civilians. The Japanese Army also frequently used chemical weapons. Neither Japan or China officially declared war, for a similar reason fearing Europe and the United States might cut off supplies badly needed to continue their war efforts.
In Spring 1939, Soviet and Japanese forces clashed in Mongolia. The growing Japanese presence in the Far East was seen as a major strategic threat by the Soviet Union, and Soviet fear of having to fight a two front war was a primary reason for the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with the Nazis. The Japanese invasion of Mongolia was repulsed by Soviet units. Following this battle, the Soviet Union and Japan were at peace until 1945. Japan looked south to expand its empire, leading to conflict with the United States over the Philippines and control of shipping lanes to the Dutch East Indies. The Soviet Union and Japan eventually signed a non-aggression pact in 1941. The Soviet Union focused on the west, with their eastern flank secured, while the Japanese directed their attention south, towards the British, Dutch, and American colonies of the South Pacific.
Japanese forces invaded French Indochina in 1940. The United States, United Kingdom, Australia and the Netherlands reacted in 1941 by instituting embargoes on exports of natural resources to Japan. The western powers also began making loans to China and providing covert military assistance.
Japan was faced with the choice of withdrawing from China and Indochina, negotiating some compromise, buying what they needed somewhere else, or going to war to conquer territories that contained oil, iron ore, bauxite and other resources necessary for continued operations in China. Japan's leaders believed that the existing Allies were preoccupied with the war against Germany, and that the United States would not be war-ready for years and would compromise before waging full-scale war. Japan thus proceeded with its plans for the war in the Pacific by launching nearly simultaneous attacks on Malaya, Thailand, Hong Kong, Hawaii, the Philippines, and Wake Island.
For propaganda purposes, Japan's leaders stated that the goal of its military campaigns was to create the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. This, they claimed, would be a co-operative league of Asian nations, freed by Japan from European imperialist domination, and liberated to achieve autonomy and self-determination. In practice, occupied countries and peoples were completely subordinate to Japanese authority.
[edit] European theatre of World War II
[edit] Blitzkrieg
On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, using the false pretext of a faked "Polish attack" on a German border post. On September 3, the United Kingdom issued an ultimatum to Germany. No reply was received, and Britain, Australia and New Zealand declared war on Germany, followed later that day by France. Soon afterwards, South Africa, Canada and Nepal also declared war on Germany. Immediately, the UK began seizing German ships and implementing a blockade.
On September 8, the Germans reached Warsaw, after having ripped through the Polish defences. On September 17, the Soviet Union, pursuant to its prior agreement with Germany, invaded Poland from the east. Poland was soon overwhelmed, and the last Polish units surrendered on October 6.
After Poland fell, Germany paused to regroup during the winter while the British and French stayed on the defensive. The period was referred to by journalists as "the Phoney War" because of the inaction on both sides. In Eastern Europe, the Soviets began occupying Baltic states leading to a confrontation with Finland, a conflict which ended with land concessions to the Soviets. In early April 1940, both German and Allied forces launched nearly simultaneous operations around Norway over access to Swedish iron ore. It was a two month campaign which resulted in German control of Denmark and Norway, though at a heavy cost to their surface navy. The fall of Norway led to the Norway Debate in London, which resulted in the resignation of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who was replaced by Winston Churchill.
On May 10, 1940, the Germans invaded France and the Low Countries. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and the French Army advanced into Flanders and planned to fight a mobile war in the north, while maintaining a continuous front along the Maginot Line further south. This was foiled by an unexpected German thrust through the Ardennes, splitting the Allies in two. The BEF and French forces, encircled in the north, were evacuated from Dunkirk in Operation Dynamo. Italy attacked France in the Alps on June 10, 1940. France, overwhelmed by the blitzkrieg, was forced to sign an armistice with Germany on June 22, 1940, leading to the German occupation of Paris and two-thirds of France, and the creation of a puppet state known as Vichy France.
With only the United Kingdom remaining as an opposing force in Europe, Germany began to prepare Operation Sealion, the invasion of Britain. Most of the British Army's heavy weapons and supplies had been lost at Dunkirk, but the Royal Navy was still stronger than the Kriegsmarine and kept control of the English Channel. The Germans attempted to gain air superiority by destroying the Royal Air Force (RAF) using the Luftwaffe. The ensuing air war became known as the Battle of Britain. The Luftwaffe initially targeted RAF Fighter Command aerodromes and radar stations, but Luftwaffe Commander Hermann Göring and Hitler switched their attention towards bombing British cities, which became known as The Blitz. This diversion of resources allowed the RAF to rebuild their airbases, eventually leading Hitler to give up on his goal of establishing air superiority over the English Channel.
With Germany and her allies having total control of the continent, the United Kingdom and its allies settled for strategic bombing and special forces operations in mainland Europe. Many of the conquered nations formed governments in exile and military units within the United Kingdom as well as domestic resistance movements. Germany, meanwhile, fortified its position by constructing the Atlantic Wall.
[edit] Battle of the Atlantic
The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continuous military campaign of World War II, running from 1939 through the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, and was at its height from mid-1940 through to about the end of 1943. The campaign pitted the German Navy’s surface raiders and U-boats against Allied convoys from North America and the South Atlantic to the United Kingdom and Russia, protected mainly by the British and Canadian navies and air forces, later aided by United States ships and aircraft. The German U-boats were joined by Italian submarines after Italy entered the war on 16 May 1940.
[edit] Mediterranean, African and Middle-Eastern theatres
Control of Southern Europe, the Mediterranean Sea and North Africa was important because the British Empire depended on shipping through the Suez Canal. If the canal fell into Axis hands or if the Royal Navy lost control of the Mediterranean, then transport between the United Kingdom, India, and Australia would have to go around the Cape of Good Hope, an increase of several thousand miles.
Almost immediately after declaring war on France and the United Kingdom in June 1940, Italy initiated the siege of Malta, an island under British control located in the Mediterranean between mainland Italy and its colony in Libya. Minimal resources were initially placed by both sides though, the Italians needing to reserve their strength for other planned invasions and the British not believing they could effectively defend it. As the importance of the campaigns in North Africa increased though, so did that of Malta and the disruptions of Axis supply lines that Allied forces stationed there could provide.
Following the French surrender, the British attacked the French Navy anchored in North Africa in July 1940, out of fear that it might fall into German hands; this contributed to a souring of British-French relations for the next few years. Soon following this action was the Battle of Calabria, the first large conflict between the Allied navies and the Italian Navy (Regia Marina).
In June 1940 the Italians made small incursions into British-protected Egypt, starting the North African campaign, and into Sudan and Kenya. In August, Italy invaded British Somaliland, located in the Horn of Africa, expelling British Commonwealth forces and enlarging the Italian Empire in Italian East Africa.
The Allies, including Free French Forces, under Charles de Gaulle, then attempted to replace Vichy control over French territories with that of the Free French. In September, 1940, they made a failed attempt to capture French West Africa, though in November, they later succeeded in French Equatorial Africa.
Starting in November of 1940, the Allies had a string of successful operations against Italian forces. On November 12 they launched the first all-aircraft naval attack against the Italian fleet at Taranto. Then, in December, British Commonwealth forces under General Archibald Wavell, launched Operation Compass, expelling Italian forces from Egypt and pushing them all the way west across Libya. Starting in January, 1941, British Commonwealth forces began a offensive into Italian East Africa, culminating in an Italian defeat. Italy was also facing problems in the Balkans, where the Greek Army had pushed the Italians out of Greece and were now stalemated in southern Albania.
Alarmed by the Italian setbacks, Hitler authorized reinforcements, and sent German forces to Africa in February. British Commonwealth leader started redeploying their forces, sending soldiers from North Africa to Greece starting in early March; in an effort to secure their transportation lines, the Allied navies managed to engage the Regia Marina in the Battle of Cape Matapan, doing significant damage to the Italian fleet. The German forces in Africa, led by German General Erwin Rommel, however, launched an offensive against the now depleted British Commonwealth forces near the end of March. During this offense, the Allies also feared having their oil supply cut due to a coup d'état in Iraq in early April. They were further pressed when the Germans invaded Greece and Yugoslavia. By the middle of April, Rommel's forces had pushed British Commonwealth forces forces back into Egypt with the exception of the port of Tobruk. Shortly after, the British responded to the coup in Iraq by invading and occupying the country. By the end of April, German forces (with Italian and other Axis Armies) had conquered Yugoslavia, mainland Greece and further captured the island of Crete, forcing a withdraw of all British Commonwealth forces from the Balkans.
In June 8, British Commonwealth and Free French forces invaded Vichy controlled Syria and Lebanon. A week later, Wavell launched Operation Battleaxe, which was intended to be a major offensive in the Western Desert, but resulted in the loss of nearly half of the British Commonwealth tanks in the region. Frustrated by the lack of success, Churchill had Wavell replaced with Claude Auchinleck in early July. In late August, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the British and the Soviets launched a joint invasion of Iran to secure its oilfields and the Persian Corridor supply route for Soviet use.
There was then a lull in activity. The Soviet-German war had significantly reduced the importance of the Mediterranean theatre to the Germans and the British Commonwealth armies were re-grouping. On November 18, the Allies launched Operation Crusader, an offensive in the Western Desert which pushed Rommel back to his original starting point at El Agheila in Libya. The British suffered a significant blow in the Mediterranean sea though, losing several ships shortly after the First Battle of Sirte.
With the entry of Japan into the war in December 1941, the British Commonwealth forces were again forced to withdraw units in North Africa, transferring some to Burma.
Once again Rommel took advantage of the situation, and on January 21, launched an offensive which pushed the British Commonwealth forces back to [[Gazala. There was another lull in activity as both sides built up their forces. In May, after the Japanese Indian Ocean raid, British Commonwealth forces invaded Vichy controlled Madagascar to prevent the Imperial Japanese Navy from using it as launch point for such attacks. Rommel launched his own attack in late May, overrunning successively the British position in the Western Desert (Battle of Tobruk) and chasing them into Egypt, being halted at El Alamein. Shortly after, the Royal Navy suffered significant damage getting much needed supplies to Malta from the Italian Regia Marina.
In late October, after building up his forces, Montgomery launched his offensive, pushing the Axis forces back and pursuing them across the desert. In November, Allied forces landed in Vichy-controlled Northwest Africa with minimal resistance; in retaliation, the Germans seized the remainder of mainland France, though they failed to capture the remainder of the French Navy. Soon, Rommel's forces were pincered in Tunisia and by May of 1943, were forced to evacuate Africa entirely.
In July, the Italian Campaign began with the Allied invasion of Sicily. The continued series of Italian defeats led to Mussolini being dismissed by the King of Italy. His successor, Pietro Badoglio, then began negotiating surrender with the Allies. On September 3 the Allies invaded Italy itself and the Italians signed an armistice. This was made public on September 8, the same day the Allies launched a subsequent invasion of the Italian held Dodecanese islands. Germany had been planning for such an event though, and executed Operation Achse, the seizure of northern and central Italy. A few days later, Mussolini was rescued by German special forces and before the end of September created the Italian Social Republic, a German client state.
From October until mid-1944, the Allies fought through a series of defensive lines and fortifications designed to slow down their progress. One of the strongest of the German defensive lines, the Winter Line, was breached nearly simultaneously in May at Monte Cassino by British-led forces and at Anzio by the Americans; though the Allies could have encircled and potentially destroyed the bulk of German forces in Italy, the American forces instead moved towards Rome, capturing the city on June 4.
In August, Allied forces in Italy were divided, with a significant portion sent to southern France to assist in the liberation of Western Europe while the remainder pressed north to engage the remaining German forces, notably at the Gothic Line. On April 25, 1945, a little over a year and half after its creation, the Italian Social Republic was overthrown by Italian partisans; Mussolini, his mistress and several of his ministers were captured by the partisans while attempting to flee and executed. Fighting in Italy would continue until early May, 1945, only a few days prior to the general German surrender.
