The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War (1939–1945). Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states. The Allies became involved in World War II either because they had already been invaded, were directly threatened with invasion by the Axis or because they were concerned that the Axis powers would come to control the world.[1]
The anti-German coalition at the start of the war (September 1, 1939) consisted of France, Poland, the United Kingdom, the British Commonwealth nations, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Union of South Africa (the latter's troops largely fought under Commonwealth command despite being a sovereign nation since 1931).[2] After 1941, the leaders of the British Commonwealth, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the United States of America, known as the "Big Three",[3] held leadership of the allied powers. China,[4][5][6] at that time, was also a major Ally.[7] Other Allies included Belgium, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, Ethiopia, Greece, India (as part of the British Empire), Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway and Yugoslavia.[8]
During December 1941, US President Franklin Roosevelt devised the name "United Nations" for the Allies. He referred to the Big Three and China as a "trusteeship of the powerful", and then later the "Four Policemen".[9] The Declaration by United Nations on 1 January 1942 was the basis of the modern United Nations (UN).[10] At the Potsdam Conference of July–August 1945, Roosevelt's successor, Harry S. Truman, proposed that the foreign ministers of China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States "should draft the peace treaties and boundary settlements of Europe", which led to the creation of the Council of Foreign Ministers.[11]
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In the 1920s China was assisted by the Soviet Union, which helped to reorganise the ruling party, superficially at least, along Leninist lines: a unification of party, state, and army. However, following the nominal unification of China in 1928, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek purged leftists from his party and fought against the Chinese Communist Party, former warlords, and other militarist factions. A fragmented China provided easy opportunities for Japan to gain territories piece by piece without engaging in total war. Following the 1931 Mukden Incident, the puppet state of Manchukuo was established. Throughout the early-to-mid 1930s, Chiang's anti-communist and anti-militarist campaigns continued while he fought small, incessant conflicts against Japan, usually followed by unfavorable settlements and concessions.
In the early 1930s, Germany and China became close partners in military and industrial matters. Nazi Germany provided the largest proportion of Chinese arms imports and technical expertise. Following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 7 July 1937, China and Japan became embroiled in a full-scale war which continued until 1945. The Soviet Union, wishing to keep China in the fight against Japan, supplied China with some military assistance until 1941, when it signed a non aggression pact with Japan.
Even though the Republic of China had been fighting the longest among all the Allied powers, it only officially joined the Allies after the attack on Pearl Harbor, on 7 December 1941. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek thought Allied victory was assured with the entrance of the United States into the war, and he declared war on Germany and the other Axis nations. However, Allied aid remained low because the Burma Road was closed and the Allies suffered a series of military defeats against Japan early on in the campaign. General Sun Li-jen led the R.O.C. forces to the relief of 7,000 British forces trapped by the Japanese in the Battle of Yenangyaung. He then reconquered North Burma and re-established the land route to China by the Ledo Road. But the bulk of military aid did not arrive until the spring of 1945. More than 1.5 million Japanese troops were trapped in the China Theatre, troops that otherwise could have been deployed elsewhere if China had collapsed and made a separate peace.
The original anti-German coalition was formed by France, Britain and Poland, the countries that linked themselves in a military defense pact in August 1939, following Adolf Hitler's explicit threats against Poland, triggering the war.[12]
These countries were allied to each other by a net of common defense pacts and military alliance pacts signed before the war. The Franco-British Alliance dated back to the Entente cordiale of 1904 and the Triple Entente of 1907, active during World War I. The Franco-Polish Alliance was signed in 1921 and then amended in 1927 and 1939. The Polish-British Common Defense Pact, signed on 25 August 1939, contained promises of mutual military assistance between the nations in the event either was attacked by Nazi Germany.[14] The Anglo-French alliance had ended after France had been defeated as a result of German and Italian invasion during the Battle of France.[15]
The invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, started the war in Europe, and the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany on 3 September. Poland fielded the third biggest army[16] among the European Allies, after the Soviet Union and United Kingdom, but before France. The country never officially surrendered to the Third Reich and continued the war effort under the Polish government in exile. However, the Soviet Union unilaterally considered the flight to Romania of President Ignacy Mościcki and Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły on 17 September as an evidence of debellatio causing the extinction of Polish State, and consequently declared itself allowed to invade (according to Soviet position: “to protect”) Eastern Poland starting from the same day.[17]
Home Army, the largest underground force in Europe, and other resistance organizations in occupied Poland provided intelligence that enabled successful operations later in the war and led to uncovering the Nazi war crimes (i.e., death camps) to the Western Allies. Notable Polish units fought in every campaign in Europe and North Africa (outside the Balkans). Polish Armed Forces in the West were created in France and, after its fall, in the United Kingdom. The Soviet Union recognized the London-based government but broke diplomatic relations after the revelation of the Katyn massacre. In 1943, the Soviet Union organized the Polish People's Army under Zygmunt Berling, around which it constructed the post-war successor state People's Republic of Poland. The Polish People's Army took part in the Battle of Berlin, the closing battle of the European theater of war.
The United Kingdom and other members of the British Commonwealth, known as the Dominions, declared war on Germany separately, all within one week of each other; these countries were Canada, Australia, New Zealand & South Africa. However, the Dominion of Newfoundland had given up self-rule and was at the time under effective rule from Britain; it did not join the Dominion of Canada until 1949. Southern Rhodesia, while self-governing, did not have independence in foreign policy or military matters.
Following the Statute of Westminster in 1931, the Dominions of the British Empire had been granted independence in foreign policy. Australia and New Zealand accepted and reiterated the British declaration of war on Germany. The South African Prime Minister, Barry Hertzog, refused to declare war, leading to the collapse of his coalition government on 6 September; the new Prime Minister, Jan Smuts, declared war that same day. Canada declared war on Germany on 10 September; this was necessary as Canada had ratified the Statute.
British India (including the areas and peoples covered by the later Republic of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Burma) and territories controlled by the Colonial Office, namely the Crown Colonies, were controlled politically by the UK and therefore also entered hostilities with Britain's declaration of war. At the outbreak of World War II, the Indian army numbered 205,000 men. Later during World War II the Indian Army became the largest all-volunteer force in history, rising to over 2.5 million men in size.[10] These forces included tank, artillery and airborne forces. Indian soldiers earned 30 Victoria Crosses during the Second World War. It suffered 1,500,000 civilian casualties (more than the United Kingdom), mainly from the Bengal famine of 1943 caused by the fall of Burma to the Japanese[18] and the transfer of food to the war effort, and 87,000 military casualties (more than any Crown colony but fewer than the United Kingdom). The UK suffered 382,000 military casualties.
France experienced several major phases of action during World War II:
The Netherlands became an Allied member after being invaded in 1940 by Germany. Dutch eastern possessions, including the Dutch East Indies were invaded and occupied by Japan from 1941 to 1942. The Netherlands was liberated by Canadian and British forces in 1945.
The Oslo Group was an organisation of officially neutral countries. Four members later joined the Allies, as governments in exile: the Kingdom of Norway, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Kingdom of Belgium and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
The Republic of Finland was attacked by the USSR on 30 November 1939.[20] The war was concluded in March 1940 with Finland ceding 12% of its territory. The uneasy Interim Peace that followed held for a little over a year. Since 25 June 1941 Finland was again engaged in the war against the Soviet Union and in November 1941 signed the renewed Anti-Comintern Pact together with the Germany-occupied Kingdom of Denmark.
The Kingdom of Sweden remained officially neutral. Following the Moscow armistice of September 1944, Finland effectively helped the Allies and expelled German forces. This led to a series of armed campaigns called the Lapland War.
Denmark was invaded by Germany on 9 April 1940. The Danish government did not declare war and it surrendered the same day, on the understanding that it retains control of domestic affairs, but it was disbanded by Germany in 1943. No government-in-exile was formed. Danes fought with both Allied and Axis forces. Iceland, Faroe Islands and Greenland, which were respectively in union with Denmark and a Danish colony, were occupied by the Allies for most of the war. British forces took control in Iceland on 10 May 1940, and it was used to facilitate the movement of Lend Lease equipment. Forces from the United States, although they were officially neutral at the time, occupied Greenland on 9 April 1941. The US also took over in Iceland on 7 July 1941. Iceland declared full independence from Denmark in 1944, but never declared war on any of the Axis powers. Finally, Denmark, only after its liberation on high May 5, 1945 officially joined the Allies, immediately.
Although Portugal remained officially neutral, and the Salazar dictatorship admired Fascist regimes, there was the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance – the world's oldest military alliance (1373) – reactivated by the United Kingdom during World War II, leading to the establishment of an Anglo-American base in Lajes, Terceira Island, Azores, which Salazar finally accepted (in December 1943). From 1940, both Churchill and Roosevelt were facing the possibility of a preventive occupation of the Azores.[21] Portugal also protested the occupation of Portuguese Timor by Allied forces in 1942 but did not actively resist. The colony was subsequently occupied by Japan. Timorese and Portuguese civilians assisted Australian commandos in resisting the Japanese.
Yugoslavia entered the war on the Allied side after invasion by the Axis powers in 1941. The country was occupied, with the anti-Axis resistance movement split between the royalist Chetniks and the communist Yugoslav Partisans of Josip Broz Tito who fought against each other during the war. The Yugoslav Partisans managed to put up considerable resistance to the Axis occupation, forming various liberated territories during the war. In 1944, the leading Allied powers persuaded Tito's Yugoslav Partisans and the royalist Yugoslav government led by Prime Minister Ivan Šubašić to sign the Treaty of Vis that created Democratic Federal Yugoslavia that would be a federal democracy that would hold a referendum on whether to retain the monarchy or become a republic after the war was over. Tito became head of government while Ivan Šubašić became foreign minister.
On 20 August 1939, forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics under General Georgy Zhukov, together with the People's Republic of Mongolia eliminated the threat of conflict in the east with a decisive victory over Japan at the Battle of Khalkhin Gol in eastern Mongolia. On the same day, Soviet party leader Joseph Stalin received a telegram from German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, suggesting that German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop fly to Moscow for diplomatic talks. (After receiving a lukewarm response throughout the spring and summer, Stalin abandoned attempts for a better diplomatic relationship with France and the United Kingdom.)[22] On 23 August Ribbentrop and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov signed the non-aggression pact including secret protocols dividing Eastern Europe into defined “spheres of influence” for the two regimes, and specifically concerning the partition of the Polish state in the event of its "territorial and political rearrangement".[23]
On 15 September 1939, Stalin concluded a durable ceasefire with Japan, to take effect the following day (it would be upgraded to a nonaggression pact in April 1941).[24] The day after that, 17 September, Soviet forces invaded Poland from the east. Although some fighting continued until 5 October, the two invading armies held at least one joint military parade on 25 September, and reinforced their non-military partnership with a German–Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Demarcation on 28 September.
On 30 November, the Soviet Union attacked Finland, for which it was expelled from the League of Nations. The following year, the USSR annexed the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as parts of Romania.
German-Soviet treaties were brought to an end by the German surprise attack on the USSR on 22 June 1941. The Soviet Union so entered in alliance with the United Kingdom. Following the USSR, a number of other communist, pro-Soviet or Soviet-controlled forces fought against the Axis powers during the Second World War. They were as follows: the Albanian National Liberation Front, the Chinese Red Army, the Greek National Liberation Front, the Hukbalahap, the Malayan Communist Party, the People's Republic of Mongolia, the Polish People's Army, the Tuvan People's Republic (annexed by Soviet Union in 1944),[25] the Viet Minh and the Yugoslav Partisans.
Prior to entering the war, the United States supported China, France, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union through commerce and military trade through the Lend Lease Act and consolidated support with the UK through the Atlantic Charter. The US also actively supported Chinese forces in their war against Japan, including cutting off trade of strategic resources to Japan and moving the U.S. Pacific Fleet from San Diego to Hawaii to address the threat of Japan.
On 8 December 1941, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, The United States Congress declared war on Japan at the request of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. This was followed by Germany and Italy declaring war on the United States on 11 December, bringing the country into the European theatre.
The US led Allied forces in the Pacific theatre against Japanese forces from 1941 to 1945. The US led Allied forces in the Western European theatre from 1943 to 1945, taking part in Allied bombings of Axis-controlled Europe and taking part in landings in Italy in 1943 and Normandy which culminated in the defeat of the European Axis powers in 1945.
Initially, Brazil maintained a position of neutrality, trading with both the Allies and the Axis Powers, while Brazilian president Getúlio Vargas's quasi-Fascist policies indicated a leaning toward the Axis powers. However, as the war progressed, trade with the Axis countries became almost impossible and the United States initiated forceful diplomatic and economic efforts to bring Brazil onto the Allied side.
At the beginning of 1942, Brazil permitted the United States to set up air bases on its territory and on 28 January the country severed diplomatic relations with Germany, Japan, and Italy. After that, 36 Brazilian merchant ships were sunk by the German and Italian navies, which led the Brazilian government to declare war against Germany and Italy on 22 August 1942.
Brazil then sent a 25,700 strong Expeditionary Force to Europe that fought mainly on the Italian front, from September 1944 to May 1945. Also, the Brazilian Navy and Air Force acted in the Atlantic Ocean from the middle of 1942 until the end of war. Brazil was the only South American country to send troops to fight in the European theater in the Second World War.
Mexico declared war on Germany in 1942 after German submarines attacked Mexican oil tankers, Potrero del Llano and the Faja de Oro; tankers that were transporting crude oil to the United States. These attacks prompted President Manuel Ávila Camacho to declare war on the Axis powers.
Some 300,000 Mexican citizens went to the United States to work in factories that produced war supplies and to help in any way that would benefit the Allies. Mexico sent 15,000 Mexican soldiers to fight in various fronts around the world; they were led by American generals. Mexico also formed Escuadrón 201, a Mexican fighter squadron, part of the Fuerza Aérea Expedicionaria Mexicana (FAEM—"Mexican Expeditionary Air Force"). The squadron aided the Allied war effort during World War II. The squadron was commonly known, apparently coined by members of the (Toast) squadron during training, by the nickname Aguilas Aztecas, or "Aztec Eagles".[26]
The squadron was attached to the 58th Fighter Group of the United States Army Air Forces during the liberation of the main Philippine island of Luzon in the summer of 1945.[27] The pilots flew P-47D-30-RA "Thunderbolt" single-seat fighter aircraft carrying out tactical air support missions.
The Atlantic Charter was negotiated at the Atlantic Conference by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, aboard warships in a secure anchorage at NS Argentia, Newfoundland (located on Placentia Bay) and was issued as a joint declaration on 14 August 1941.
The Atlantic Charter established a vision for a post–World War II world, despite the fact the United States had yet to enter the war.
In brief, the nine points were:
The Atlantic Charter proved to be one of the first steps towards the formation of the United Nations.
The United States of America joined the Allies following the attack on Pearl Harbor, on 7 December 1941. The Declaration by United Nations, on 1 January 1942, officially united 26 nations as Allies. The informal Big 3 alliance of the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States emerged in the later half of the war, and their decisions determined Allied strategy around the world.
The members of the Pan American Union, who were all neutral between 1939 and 1941, formed a mutual defense pact at a conference of foreign ministers at Havana, from July 21 to 30, 1940. The "Declaration on Reciprocal Assistance and Cooperation for the Defense of the Nations of the Americas" was part of the Final Act of the Second Meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the American Republics at Havana, Cuba, July 30, 1940.[28] There were twenty-one signatories:
From this group, three countries contributed military forces to the Allied war effort:
The other 18 countries from this group contributed given support in many ways on lesser degrees or limited to war declaration.
The alliance was formalised in the Declaration by United Nations on 1 January 1942. There were 26 signatories:
The United Nations began growing immediately after their formation. In 1942, Mexico, the Philippines and Ethiopia adhered to the declaration. The African nation had been restored in its independence by British forces after the Italian defeat on Amba Alagi in 1941, while the Philippines, still dependent on Washington but granted international diplomatic recognition, was allowed to join on 10 June despite their occupation by Japan.
During 1943, the Declaration was signed by Iraq, Iran, Brazil, Bolivia and Colombia. A Tripartite Treaty of Alliance with Britain and USSR formalised Iran's assistance to the Allies.[29] In Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian dictator Getúlio Vargas was considered near to fascist ideas, but realistically joined the United Nations after their evident successes.
In 1944, Liberia and France signed. The French situation was very confused. Free France forces were recognized only by Britain, while United States considered Vichy France as the legal government of the country until Operation Overlord, also preparing US occupation francs. Winston Churchill urged Roosevelt restoring France in its status of a major Power after the liberation of Paris in August 1944: the Prime Minister feared that after the war, Britain could remain the sole great Power in Europe facing Communist threat, as it was in 1941 against Nazism.
During the early part of 1945, Peru, Chile, Paraguay, Venezuela, Uruguay, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria (these latter two French colonies had been declared independent nations by British occupation troops, despite big protests by Petain before, and De Gaulle after) and Ecuador became signatories. Ukraine and Belarus, which were not independent nations but parts of the Soviet Union, were accepted as members of the United Nations as way to provide greater influence to Stalin, who had only Yugoslavia as a communist partner in the alliance.
The Charter of the United Nations was agreed to during the war at the United Nations Conference on International Organization, held between April and July 1945. The Charter was signed by 50 nations on 26 June (Poland had its place reserved and later became the 51st "original" signatory), and was formally ratified shortly after the war on 24 October 1945. The four leading Allied nations, namely China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States met repeatedly during the war, such as at the 1944 conference at Dumbarton Oaks where the formation and permanent seats of the United Nations Security Council were decided. The Security Council met for the first time in the immediate aftermath of war on 17 January 1946.[30]
These are the original 51 signatories (Security Council Permanent members are asterisked):