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SECOND WORLD WAR
World War II, also called Second World War, conflict that
involved virtually every part of the world during the years 1939–45. The principal
belligerents were the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) and the Allies
(France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union). The war was in many
respects a continuation, after an uneasy 20-year hiatus, of the disputes left
unsettled by World War I. The 40,000,000–50,000,000 deaths incurred in World
War II make it the bloodiest conflict, as well as the largest war, in history.
1. MAJOR BLOCS
a. Allied powers:
United States of America , UK , France , Soviet Union (central
position in post second world war world)
b. Axis powers:
Germany , Japan , Italy
2. CAUSES
a. Marginalization of Germany after WW-I
The devastation of the Great War (as World War I was known at the time)
had greatly destabilized Europe, and in many respects World War II grew out of
issues left unresolved by that earlier conflict. In particular, political and economic
instability in Germany, and lingering resentment over the harsh terms imposed by
the Versailles Treaty, fueled the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and his National
Socialist (Nazi) Party.
b. Rapid Militarization
In September 1939 the Allies, namely Great Britain, France, and Poland,
were together superior in industrial resources, population, and military manpower,
but the German Army, or Wehrmacht, because of its armament, training, doctrine,
discipline, and fighting spirit, was the most efficient and effective fighting force
for its size in the world.
The aircraft production of combatant of WW-II over the period is given
below to illustrate the increase in military production
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German aircraft production by years
combat other
Year
types types
1933 0 368
1934 840 1,128
1935 1,823 1,360
1936 2,530 2,582
1937 2,651 2,955
1938 3,350 1,885
1939 4,733 3,562
The corresponding table shows the number of first-line military aircraft available to the Allies at the outbreak of war.
Allied air strength, September 1939
aircraft British French Polish
bombers 536 463 200
Fighters 608 634 300
reconnaissance 96 444 —
coastal command 216 — —
fleet air arm 204 194 —
c. Rise of Nazi
After becoming Reich Chancellor in 1933, Hitler swiftly consolidated
power, anointing himself Führer (supreme leader) in 1934. Obsessed with the idea
of the superiority of the “pure” German race, which he called “Aryan,” Hitler
believed that war was the only way to gain the necessary “Lebensraum,” or living
space, for that race to expand. In the mid-1930s, he began the rearmament of
Germany, secretly and in violation of the Versailles Treaty.
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d. Rise of fascism in Europe
e. Failure of League of Nations
After the WW-I, League of Nations was developed to avoid any world war
in future. It was also aimed at disarmament and resolving the issues between the
member states.
Unfortunately League was helping and solving matters of minor states because of
influence of BIG POWERS on world stage, League failed to implement its will on
them which gave a true picture of its contradiction of covenant.
League failed in its main object of maintaining peace in the world. Despite its
efforts for two decades, the world was involved in a war in 1939. By that time, the
machinery of the League of Nations had completely broken down.
f. Secret negotiations and agreements
Germany’s alliance with Italy and Japan
After signing alliances with Italy and Japan against the Soviet Union, Hitler
sent troops to occupy Austria in 1938 and the following year annexed
Czechoslovakia. Hitler’s open aggression went unchecked, as the United States
and Soviet Union were concentrated on internal politics at the time, and neither
France nor Britain (the two other nations most devastated by the Great War) were
eager for confrontation.
Hitler neutralizing Soviet Union
By 1939 the German dictator Adolf Hitler had become determined to invade
and occupy Poland. Poland, for its part, had guarantees of French and British
military support should it be attacked by Germany. Hitler intended to invade
Poland anyway, but first he had to neutralize the possibility that the Soviet Union
would resist the invasion of its western neighbor. Secret negotiations led on August
23–24 to the signing of the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact in Moscow. In a
secret protocol of this pact, the Germans and the Soviets agreed that Poland should
be divided between them, with the western third of the country going to Germany
and the eastern two-thirds being taken over by the U.S.S.R.
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Having achieved this cynical agreement, the other provisions of which
stupefied Europe even without divulgence of the secret protocol, Hitler thought
that Germany could attack Poland with no danger of Soviet or British intervention
and gave orders for the invasion to start on August 26.
News of the signing, on August 25, of a formal treaty of mutual assistance
between Great Britain and Poland (to supersede a previous though temporary
agreement) caused him to postpone the start of hostilities for a few days. He was
still determined, however, to ignore the diplomatic efforts of the western powers to
restrain him. Finally, on August 31, 1939, Hitler ordered hostilities against Poland
to start next morning. The invasion began as ordered. In response, Great Britain
and France declared war on Germany on September 3. World War II had begun.
On September 17, Soviet troops invaded Poland from the east. Under attack
from both sides, Poland fell quickly, and by early 1940 Germany and the Soviet
Union had divided control over the nation, according to a secret protocol appended
to the Nonaggression Pact. Stalin’s forces then moved to occupy the Baltic States
(Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) and defeated a resistant Finland in the Russo-
Finish War. During the six months following the invasion of Poland, the lack of
action on the part of Germany and the Allies in the west led to talk in the news
media of a “phony war.” At sea, however, the British and German navies faced off
in heated battle, and lethal German U-boat submarines struck at merchant shipping
bound for Britain, sinking more than 100 vessels in the first four months of World
War II.
WORLD WAR II IN THE WEST (1940-41)
On April 9, 1940, Germany simultaneously invaded Norway and occupied
Denmark, and the war began in earnest. On May 10, German forces swept through
Belgium and the Netherlands in what became known as “blitzkrieg,” or lightning
war. Three days later, Hitler’s troops crossed the Meuse River and struck French
forces at Sedan, located at the northern end of the Maginot Line, an elaborate chain
of fortifications constructed after World War I and considered an impenetrable
defensive barrier. In fact, the Germans broke through the line with their tanks and
planes and continued to the rear, rendering it useless. The British Expeditionary
Force (BEF) was evacuated by sea from Dunkirk in late May, while in the south
French forces mounted a doomed resistance. With France on the verge of collapse,
Benito Mussolini of Italy put his Pact of Steel with Hitler into action, and Italy
declared war against France and Britain on June 10.
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On June 14, German forces entered Paris; a new government formed by Marshal
Philippe Petain (France’s hero of World War I) requested an armistice two nights
later. France was subsequently divided into two zones, one under German military
occupation and the other under Petain’s government, installed at Vichy. Hitler now
turned his attention to Britain, which had the defensive advantage of being
separated from the Continent by the English Channel. To pave the way for an
amphibious invasion (dubbed Operation Sea Lion), German planes bombed Britain
extensively throughout the summer of 1940, including night raids on London and
other industrial centers that caused heavy civilian casualties and damage. The
Royal Air Force (RAF) eventually defeated the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) in
the Battle of Britain, and Hitler postponed his plans to invade. With Britain’s
defensive resources pushed to the limit, Prime Minister Winston Churchill began
receiving crucial aid from the U.S. under the Lend-Lease Act, passed by Congress
in early 1941.
OPERATION BARBAROSSA (1941-42)
By early 1941, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria had joined the Axis, and
German troops overran Yugoslavia and Greece that April. Hitler’s conquest of the
Balkans was a precursor for his real objective: an invasion of the Soviet Union,
whose vast territory would give the German master race the “Lebensraum” it
needed. The other half of Hitler’s strategy was the extermination of the Jews from
throughout German-occupied Europe. Plans for the “Final Solution” were
introduced around the time of the Soviet offensive, and over the next three years
more than 4 million Jews would perish in the death camps established in occupied
Poland.
On June 22, 1941, Hitler ordered the invasion of the Soviet Union,
codenamed Operation Barbarossa. Though Soviet tanks and aircraft
greatly outnumbered the Germans’, their air technology was largely
obsolete, and the impact of the surprise invasion helped Germans get within
200 miles of Moscow by mid-July. Arguments between Hitler and his
commanders delayed the next German advance until October, when it was
stalled by a Soviet counteroffensive and the onset of harsh winter weather.
WORLD WAR II IN THE PACIFIC (1941-43)
With Britain facing Germany in Europe, the United States was the only nation
capable of combating Japanese aggression, which by late 1941 included an
expansion of its ongoing war with China and the seizure of European colonial
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holdings in the Far East. On December 7, 1941, 360 Japanese aircraft attacked the
major U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, taking the Americans completely
by surprise and claiming the lives of more than 2,300 troops. The attack on Pearl
Harbor served to unify American public opinion in favor of entering World War II,
and on December 8 Congress declared war on Japan with only one dissenting vote.
Germany and the other Axis Powers promptly declared war on the United States.
After a long string of Japanese victories, the U.S. Pacific Fleet won the Battle of
Midway in June 1942, which proved to be a turning point in the war. On
Guadalcanal, one of the southern Solomon Islands, the Allies also had success
against Japanese forces in a series of battles from August 1942 to February 1943,
helping turn the tide further in the Pacific. In mid-1943, Allied naval forces began
an aggressive counterattack against Japan, involving a series of amphibious
assaults on key Japanese-held islands in the Pacific. This “island-hopping” strategy
proved successful, and Allied forces moved closer to their ultimate goal of
invading the Japanese homeland.
TOWARD ALLIED VICTORY IN WORLD WAR II (1943-45)
In North Africa, British and American forces had defeated the Italians and
Germans by 1943. An Allied invasion of Sicily and Italy followed, and Mussolini’s
government fell in July 1943, though Allied fighting against the Germans in Italy
would continue until 1945.
On World War II’s Eastern Front, a Soviet counteroffensive launched in November
1942 ended the bloody Battle of Stalingrad, which had seen some of the fiercest
combat of the war. The approach of winter, along with dwindling food and medical
supplies, spelled the end for German troops there, and the last of them surrendered
on January 31, 1943.
On June 6, 1944–celebrated as “D-Day”–the Allied began a massive invasion of
Europe, landing 156,000 British, Canadian and American soldiers on the beaches
of Normandy, France. In response, Hitler poured all the remaining strength of his
army into Western Europe, ensuring Germany’s defeat in the east. Soviet troops
soon advanced into Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania, while Hitler
gathered his forces to drive the Americans and British back from Germany in the
Battle of the Bulge (December 1944-January 1945), the last major German
offensive of the war. An intensive aerial bombardment in February 1945 preceded
the Allied land invasion of Germany, and by the time Germany formally
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surrendered on May 8, Soviet forces had occupied much of the country. Hitler was
already dead, having committed suicide on April 30 in his Berlin bunker.
WORLD WAR II ENDS (1945)
At the Potsdam Conference of July-August 1945, U.S. President Harry S. Truman
(who had taken office after Roosevelt’s death in April), Churchill and Stalin
discussed the ongoing war with Japan as well as the peace settlement with
Germany. Post-war Germany would be divided into four occupation zones, to be
controlled by the Soviet Union, Britain, the United States and France.
3. BRIEF COURSE OF WAR
a. FIRST 1939 TO 1941 PERIOD
i. Axis powers had the upper hand
b. SECOND PHASE 1941 TO 1945
The allied stood to get victorious
4. RESULTS & LEGACY
a. Rise of USA and Soviet Union as the major super powers
b. Decline of the colonial empires ( decolonization)
c. Devolution of League of Nations
d. Formulation of United Nations
e. The beginning of the cold war.
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