World War II

World War II or the Second World War was a global military conflict, the joining of what had initially been two separate conflicts. The first began in Asia in 1937 as the Second Sino-Japanese War; the other began in Europe in 1939 with the German invasion of Poland.

This global conflict split the majority of the world's nations into opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. It involved the mobilization of over 100 million military personnel, making it the most widespread war in history, and placed the participants in a state of "total war", erasing the distinction between civil and military resources. This resulted in the complete activation of a nation's economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities for the purposes of the war effort. Over 70 million people, the majority of them civilians, were killed, making it the deadliest conflict in human history. The financial cost of the war is estimated at about a trillion 1944 U.S. dollars worldwide, making it the most costly war in capital as well as lives.

The Allies were victorious, and, as a result, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as the world's leading superpowers. This set the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 45 years. The United Nations was formed in the hope of preventing another such conflict. The self determination spawned by the war accelerated decolonization movements in Asia and Africa, while Western Europe itself began moving toward integration.

Background

Main article: Causes of World War II

In the aftermath of World War I, the defeated German Empire signed the Treaty of Versailles. This caused Germany to lose a significant portion of its territory, prohibited the annexation of other states, limited the size of German armed forces and imposed massive reparations. Russia's Civil war led to the creation of the Soviet Union which soon was under the control of Joseph Stalin. In Italy, Benito Mussolini seized power as a fascist dictator promising to create a "New Roman Empire." The ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party in China launched a unification campaign against rebelling warlords in the mid-1920s, but was soon embroiled in a civil war against its former Chinese communist allies. In 1931, an increasingly militaristic Japanese Empire, which had long sought influence in China as the first step of its right to rule Asia, used the Mukden Incident as justification to invade Manchuria; the two nations then fought several small conflicts until the Tanggu Truce in 1933.

German troops at the 1935 Nuremberg Rally

National Socialist Adolf Hitler became the leader of Germany in 1933 and soon began a massive rearming campaign. This worried France and the United Kingdom, who had lost much in the previous war, as well as Italy, which saw its territorial ambitions threatened by those of Germany. To secure its alliance, the French allowed Italy a free hand in Ethiopia, which Italy desired to conquer. The situation was aggravated in early 1935 when the Saarland was legally reunited with Germany and Hitler repudiated the Treaty of Versailles, speeding up remilitarization and introducing conscription. Hoping to contain Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy formed the Stresa Front. The Soviet Union, concerned due to Germany's goals of capturing vast areas of eastern Europe, concluded a treaty of mutual assistance with France.

Before taking effect though, the Franco-Soviet pact was required to go through the bureaucracy of the League of Nations, rendering it essentially toothless and in June of 1935, the United Kingdom made an independent naval agreement with Germany easing prior restrictions. The United States, concerned with events in Europe and Asia, passed the Neutrality Act in August. In October, Italy invaded Ethiopia, with Germany the only major European nation supporting her invasion. Italy then revoked objections to Germany's goal of making Austria a satellite state.

In direct violation of the Versailles and Locarno treaties, Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland in March of 1936. He received little response from other European powers. When the Spanish Civil War broke out in July, Hitler and Mussolini supported fascist Generalísimo Francisco Franco's nationalist forces in his civil war against the Soviet-supported Spanish Republic. Both sides used the conflict to test new weapons and methods of warfare and the nationalists would prove victorious in early 1939.

With tensions mounting, efforts to strengthen or consolidate power were made. In October, Germany and Italy formed the Rome-Berlin Axis and a month later Germany and Japan, each believing communism and the Soviet Union in particular to be a threat, signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, which Italy would join in the following year. In China, the Kuomintang and communist forces agreed on a ceasefire to present a united front to oppose Japan.

Course of the war

See also: Timeline of World War II

War breaks out

Japanese forces during the Battle of Wuhan

In mid-1937, following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, Japan began a full invasion of China. The Soviets quickly lent support to China, effectively ending China's prior cooperation with Germany. Starting at Shanghai, the Japanese pushed Chinese forces back, capturing the capital Nanjing in December. In June of 1938 Chinese forces stalled the Japanese advance by flooding the Yellow River; though this bought time to prepare their defenses at Wuhan, the city was still taken by October. During this time, Japanese and Soviet forces engaged in a minor skirmish at Lake Khasan; in May of 1939, they became involved in a more serious border war.

In Europe, Germany and Italy were becoming bolder. In March 1938, Germany annexed Austria, again provoking little response from other European powers. Encouraged, Hitler began making claims on the Sudetenland; France and Britain conceded these for a promise of no further territorial demands. Germany soon reneged, and in March 1939 fully occupied Czechoslovakia.

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Soviet and German officers in Poland

Alarmed, and with Hitler making further demands on Danzig, France and Britain guaranteed their support for Polish independence; when Italy conquered Albania in April, the same guarantee was extended to Romania and Greece. The Soviet Union also attempted to ally with France and Britain, but was rebuffed due to western suspicions about Soviet motives and capability. Shortly after the Franco-British pledges to Poland, Germany and Italy formalized their own alliance with the Pact of Steel; following this, in a move that shocked all other major powers, Germany and the Soviet Union concluded a non-aggression pact, including a secret agreement to split Poland and eastern Europe between them.

By the start of September 1939, the Soviets had routed Japanese forces and the Germans invaded Poland. France, Britain, and the countries of the Commonwealth declared war on Germany but lent little support other than a small French attack into the Saarland. In mid-September, after signing an armistice with Japan, the Soviets launched their own invasion of Poland. By early October, Poland had been divided between Germany and the Soviet Union. During the battle in Poland, Japan launched its first attack against Changsha, a strategically important Chinese city, but was repulsed by early October.

Axis advances

British and French soldiers taken prisoner in Northern France

Following the invasion of Poland, the Soviets began moving troops into the Baltic region. Finnish resistance in late November led to a four-month war, ending with Finnish concessions. France and the United Kingdom, treating the Soviet attack on Finland as tantamount to entering the war on the side of the Germans responded to the Soviet invasion by supporting its expulsion from the League of Nations. Though China had the authority to veto such an action, it was unwilling to alienate itself from either the Western powers or the Soviet Union and instead abstained. The Soviet Union was displeased by this course of action and as a result suspended all military aid to China. By mid-1940, the Soviet Union's occupation of the Baltics was completed with the installation of pro-Soviet governments.

In Western Europe, British troops deployed to the Continent, but neither Germany nor the Allies launched direct attacks on the other. In April, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway to secure shipments of iron-ore from Sweden which the allies would try to disrupt. Denmark immediately capitulated, and despite Allied support, Norway was conquered within two months. British discontent over the Norwegian campaign led to the replacement of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain by Winston Churchill on May 10, 1940.

On that same day, Germany invaded France and the Low Countries. Using blitzkrieg tactics, the Netherlands and Belgium were overrun and British troops were forced to evacuate the continent, abandoning their heavy equipment by the end of the month. On June 10th, Italy invaded, declaring war on both France and the United Kingdom; twelve days later France surrendered and was soon divided into German and Italian occupation zones, and an unoccupied rump state under the Vichy Regime. In early July, the British attacked the French fleet in Algeria to prevent their seizure by Germany.

German bombers during the Battle of Britain

With France neutralized, Germany began an air superiority campaign over Britain to prepare for an invasion and enjoyed success against an over-extended Royal Navy, using U-boats against British shipping in the Atlantic. Italy began operations in the Mediterranean, initiating a siege of Malta in June, conquering British Somaliland in August, and making an incursion into British-held Egypt in early September. Japan increased its blockade of China in September by seizing several bases in the northern part of the now-isolated French Indochina.

Throughout this period, the neutral United States took measures to assist China and the Western Allies. In November 1939, the American Neutrality Act was amended to allow Cash and carry purchases by the Allies. In 1940, following the German capture of Paris, the size of United States Navy was significantly increased and after the Japanese incursion into Indochina, the United States embargoed iron, steel and mechanical parts against Japan. In September, the United States further agreed to a trade of American destroyers for British bases.

At the end of September the Tripartite Pact between Japan, Italy and Germany formalized the Axis Powers. The pact stipulated, with the exception of the Soviet Union, any country not in the war which attacked any Axis Power would be forced to go to war against all three. The Soviet Union expressed interest in joining the Tripartite Pact, sending a modified draft to Germany in November and offering a very German-favourable economic deal; while Germany remained silent on the former, they accepted the latter. Regardless of the pact, the United States continued to support the United Kingdom and China by introducing the Lend-Lease policy and creating a security zone spanning roughly half of the Atlantic Ocean where the United States Navy protected British convoys.

In October, Italy invaded Greece but within days were repulsed and pushed back into Albania, where a stalemate soon occurred. Shortly after this, in Africa, Commonwealth forces launched offensives against Libya and Italian East Africa. By early 1941, with Italian forces having been pushed back into Libya by the Commonwealth, Churchill ordered a dispatch of troops from Africa to bolster the Greeks. The Italian Navy also suffered significant defeats, with the Royal Navy putting three Italian battleships out of commission via carrier attack at Taranto, and several more warships neutralized at Cape Matapan.

German paratroopers invading Crete

The Germans soon intervened to assist Italy. Hitler sent German forces to Libya in February and by the end of March they had launched an offensive against the diminished Commonwealth forces. In under a month, Commonwealth forces were pushed back into Egypt with the exception of the besieged port of Tobruk. The Commonwealth attempted to dislodge Axis forces in May and again in June, but failed on both occasions. In early April the Germans similarly intervened in the Balkans, invading Greece and Yugoslavia; here too they made rapid progress, eventually forcing the Allies to evacuate after Germany conquered the Greek island of Crete by the end of May.

The Allies did have some successes during this time though. In the Middle East, Commonwealth forces first quashed a coup in Iraq which had been supported by German aircraft from bases within Vichy-controlled Syria, then, with the assistance of the Free French, invaded Syria and Lebanon to prevent further such occurrences. In the Atlantic, the British scored a much needed public morale boost by sinking the German flagship Bismarck. Perhaps most importantly, the Royal Air Force had successfully resisted the Luftwaffe's assault, and on May 11, 1941, Hitler called off the bombing campaign over Britain.

In Asia, in spite of several offensives by both sides, the war between China and Japan was stalemated by 1940. In August of that year, Chinese communists launched an offensive in Central China; in retaliation, Japan instituted harsh measures in occupied areas to reduce human and material resources for the communists. Mounting tensions between Chinese communist and nationalist forces culminated in January 1941, effectively ending their co-operation.

With the situation in Europe and Asia relatively stable, Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union made preparations. With the Soviets wary of mounting tensions with Germany and the Japanese planning to take advantage of the European War by seizing resource-rich European possessions in Southeast Asia the two powers signed a neutrality agreement in April, 1941. By contrast the Germans were steadily making preparations for an attack on the Soviet Union, amassing forces on the Soviet border, particularly in Finland and Romania.

The war becomes global

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German soldiers in the Soviet Union, 1941

In late June, Germany, along with other European Axis members and Finland, invaded the Soviet Union. They made significant gains into Soviet territory, inflicting large numbers of casualties, and by the start of December had almost reached Moscow, with only the besieged cities of Leningrad and Sevastopol behind their front-lines left unconquered. With the onset of a fierce Soviet winter though, the Axis offensive was ground to a halt and the Soviets launched a counter-offensive using reserve troops brought up from the border near Japanese Manchukuo.

Following the German attack on the Soviets, the United Kingdom began to regroup. In July, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union formed a military alliance against Germany and shortly after jointly invaded Iran to secure the Persian Corridor and Iran's oilfields. In August, the United Kingdom and United States jointly issued the Atlantic Charter, a vision for a post-war world which included "the right of all peoples to choose their form of government". In November, Commonwealth forces launched a counter-offensive in the desert, reclaiming all gains the Germans and Italians had made.

Japan, hoping to utilize Germany's control over the Netherlands, made several demands, including a steady supply of oil, from the Dutch East Indies; these talks, however, broke down in June. In July, Japan seized military control of southern Indochina since it would not only put them in a better position to coerce the Dutch East Indies into yielding, but it would also be a blow against China; should war be necessary, it also improved their strategic position against the Americans and British. The United States, United Kingdom and other western governments responded to Japan's incursion by freezing all Japanese assets and the United States, which supplied 80% of Japan's oil, further placed an oil embargo against Japan. With the unexpected embargo, Japan was essentially forced to choose between withdrawing from their aggression in Asia, or seizing the oil they needed directly; the Japanese military did not consider the former an option, and many of them considered the oil embargo as an unspoken declaration of war.

The Imperial General Headquarters thus planned to create a large perimeter stretching into the Central Pacific in order to facilitate a defensive war while exploiting the resources of Southeast Asia; to prevent intervention while securing the perimeter it was further planned to neutralize the United States Pacific Fleet on the outset. On December 7th Japan attacked British, Dutch and American holdings with near simultaneous offensives against Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific, including an attack on the American naval base of Pearl Harbor.

These attacks prompted the United States, United Kingdom, China, and other Western Allies to declare war on Japan. Italy, Germany, and the other members of the Tripartite Pact responded by declaring war on the United States. In January, the United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union and China, along with twenty-two smaller or exiled governments, issued the Declaration by United Nations, affirming the Atlantic Charter and formalizing their alliance against the Axis Powers. The Soviet Union did not adhere fully to the declaration though, as they maintained their neutrality agreement with Japan and exempted themselves from the principle of self-determination.

British soldiers surrendering from the Battle of Singapore

The Axis Powers, however, were able to continue their offensives. Japan had almost fully conquered Southeast Asia with minimal losses by the end of April, 1942, chasing the Allies out of Burma and taking large numbers of prisoners in the Philippines, Malaya, Dutch East Indies and Singapore. They further bombed the Allied naval base at Darwin, Australia and sunk significant Allied warships not only at Pearl Harbor, but also in the South China Sea, Java Sea and Indian Ocean. The only real successes against Japan were a repulsion of their renewed attack on Changsha in early January, 1942, and a psychological strike from a bombing raid on Japan's capital Tokyo in April.

Germany was able to regain the initiative as well. Exploiting American inexperience with submarine warfare, the German Navy sunk significant resources near the American Atlantic coast. In the desert, they launched an offensive in January, pushing the British back to positions at the Gazala Line by early February. In the Soviet Union, the Soviet's winter counter-offensive had ended by March. In both the desert and the Soviet Union, there followed a temporary lull in combat which Germany used to prepare for their upcoming offensives.

The tide turns

American aircraft attacking a Japanese cruiser at Midway

In early May, Japan initiated operations to capture Port Moresby via amphibious assault and thus sever the line of communications between the United States and Australia. The Allies, however, intercepted and turned back Japanese naval forces, preventing the invasion. Japan's next plan, motivated by the earlier bombing on Tokyo, was to seize the Midway Atoll as this would seal a gap in their perimeter defenses, provide a forward base for further operations, and lure American carriers into battle to be eliminated; as a diversion, Japan would also send forces to occupy the Aleutian Islands. In early June, Japan put their operations into action but the Americans, having broken Japanese naval codes in late May, were fully aware of the Japanese plans and force dispositions and used this knowledge to achieve a decisive victory over the Imperial Japanese Navy. With their capacity for amphibious assault greatly diminished as a result of the Midway battle, Japan chose to focus on an overland campaign on the Territory of Papua in another attempt to capture Port Moresby. For the Americans, they planned their next move against Japanese positions in the southern Solomon Islands, primarily against the island of Guadalcanal, as a first step towards capturing Rabaul, the primary Japanese base in Southeast Asia. Both plans started in July, but by mid-September the battle for Guadalcanal took priority for the Japanese, and troops in New Guinea were ordered to withdraw from the Port Moresby area to the northern part of the island. Guadalcanal soon became a focal point for both sides with heavy commitments of troops and ships in a battle of attrition. By the start of 1943, the Japanese were defeated on the island and withdrew their troops.

In Burma, Commonwealth forces mounted two operations. The first, an offensive into the Arakan region in late 1942 went disastrously, forcing a retreat back to India by May of 1943. The second was the insertion of irregular forces behind Japanese front-lines in February which, by the end of April, had achieved dubious results.

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Soviet soldiers in the Battle of Stalingrad

On Germany's eastern front, the Axis defeated Soviet offensives in the Kerch Peninsula and at Kharkov and then launched their main summer offensive against southern Russia in June, 1942, to seize the oil fields of the Caucasus. The Soviets decided to make their stand at Stalingrad which was in the path of the advancing German armies and by mid-November the Germans had nearly taken Stalingrad in bitter street fighting when the Soviets began their second winter counter-offensive, starting with an encirclement of German forces at Stalingrad and an assault on the Rzhev salient near Moscow, though the latter failed disastrously. By early February, the German Army had taken tremendous losses; their troops at Stalingrad had been forced to surrender and the front-line had been pushed back beyond its position prior to their summer offensive. In mid-February, after the Soviet push had tapered off, the Germans launched another attack on Kharkov, creating a salient in their front-line around the Russian city of Kursk.

In the west, concerns that the Japanese might utilize bases in Vichy-held Madagascar caused the British to invade the island in early May, 1942. This success was off set soon after by an Axis offensive in Libya which pushed the Allies back into Egypt until Axis forces were stopped at El Alamein. On the Continent, Allied commandos had conducted a series of increasingly ambitious raids on strategic targets, culminating in a disastrous amphibious raid on the German held port of Dieppe. In August the Allies succeeded in repelling a second attack against El Alamein and, at a high cost, managed to get desperately needed supplies to the besieged Malta. A few months later the Allies commenced an attack of their own in Egypt, dislodging the Axis forces and beginning a drive west across Libya. This was followed up shortly after by an Anglo-American invasion of French North Africa which resulted in the region joining the Allies. Hitler responded to the defection by ordering the occupation of Vichy France, though the Vichy Admiralty managed to scuttle their fleet to prevent its capture by German forces. The now pincered Axis forces in Africa withdrew into Tunisia, which was conquered by the Allies by May, 1943.

Allies gain momentum

A British mortar detachment fighting in Burma

In mainland Asia, the Japanese launched two major offensives. The first, started in March, 1944, was against British positions in Assam, India and soon led to Japanese forces besieging Commonwealth positions at Imphal and Kohima; by May however, other Japanese forces were being besieged in Myitkyina by Chinese forces which had invaded Northern Burma in late 1943. The second was in China, with the goal of destroying China's main fighting forces, securing railways between Japanese-held territory, and capturing Allied airfields. By June the Japanese had conquered the province of Henan and begun a renewed attack against Changsha in the Hunan province.

Following the Guadalcanal Campaign, the Allies initiated several operations against Japan in the Pacific. In May, 1943, American forces were sent to eliminate Japanese forces from the Aleutians, and soon after began major operations to isolate Rabaul by capturing surrounding islands, and to breach the Japanese Central Pacific perimeter at the Gilbert and Marshall Islands. By the end of March, 1944, the Allies had completed both of these objectives, and additionally neutralized another major Japanese base in the Caroline Islands. In April, the Allies then launched an operation to retake Western New Guinea.

In the Mediterranean, Allied forces launched an invasion of Sicily in early July, 1943. The attack on Italian soil, compounded with previous failures, resulted in the ousting and arrest of Mussolini later that month. The Allies soon followed up with an invasion of the Italian mainland in early September, following an Italian armistice with the Allies. When this armistice was made public on September 8th, Germany responded by disarming Italian forces, seizing military control of Italian areas, and setting up a series of defensive lines. On September 12th, German special forces further rescued Mussolini who then soon established a new client state in German occupied Italy. The Allies fought through several lines until reaching the main German defensive line in mid-November. In January 1944, the Allies launched a series of attacks against the line at Monte Cassino and attempted to outflank it with landings at Anzio. By late May both of these offensives had succeeded and, at the expense of allowing several German divisions to retreat, on June 4th Rome was captured.

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A Soviet tank during the Battle of Kursk

German operations in the Atlantic also suffered. By May 1943, German submarine losses were so high that the naval campaign was temporarily called to a halt as Allied counter-measures became increasingly effective.

In the Soviet Union, the Germans spent the spring and early summer of 1943 making preparations for a large offensive in the region of Kursk; the Soviets anticipated such an action though and spent their time fortifying the area. On July 4th, the Germans launched their attack, though only about a week later Hitler cancelled the operation. The Soviets were then able to mount a massive counter-offensive and, by June 1944, had largely expelled Axis forces from the Soviet Union and made incursions into Romania.

In November, 1943, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met with Chiang Kai-shek in Cairo and then with Joseph Stalin in Tehran. At the former conference, the post-war return of Japanese territory was determined and in the latter, it was agreed that the Western Allies would invade Europe in 1944 and that the Soviet Union would declare war on Japan within three months of Germany's defeat.

Allies close in

Assault landing at Omaha Beach in Normandy

In June, 1944, the Western Allies invaded northern France and in August, after reassigning several Allied divisions in Italy, then invaded southern France; by 25 August the Allies had liberated Paris. During the latter part of the year, the Western Allies continued to push back German forces in western Europe, and in Italy ran into the last major defensive line.

On the Germans eastern front, the Soviets launched a series of powerful offensives. Starting in early June the Soviets launched massive assaults against Finland, Belarus, Ukraine and Eastern Poland, Romania, and Hungary. These operations resulted in great successes, with Bulgaria, Romania and Finland signing armistices with the Soviet Union, and prompted Polish resistance forces to initiate several uprisings in Poland, though the largest of these, in Warsaw, was conducted without Soviet assistance and put down by German forces.

By the start of July, Commonwealth forces in Southeast Asia had repelled the Japanese sieges in Assam, pushing the Japanese back to the Chindwin River while the Chinese captured Myitkyina. In China, the Japanese were having greater successes, having finally captured Changsha in mid-June and the city of Hengyang by early August. Soon after, they further invaded the province of Guangxi, winning major engagements against Chinese forces at Guilin and Liuzhou by the end of November and successfully linking up their forces in China and Indochina by the middle of December.

In the Pacific, American forces continued to press back the Japanese perimeter. In the middle of June, 1944, they began their offensive against the Mariana and Palau islands, scoring a decisive victory against Japanese forces in the Philippine Sea within a few days. In late October, American forces invaded the Filipino island of Leyte; soon after, Allied naval forces scored another large victory against the Japanese in the Leyte Gulf.

Axis collapse, Allied victory

American and Soviet troops meet east of the Elbe River

On December 16 1944 German forces counter-attacked in the Ardennes against the Western Allies. It took six weeks for the Allies to repulse the attack. The Soviets attacked through Hungary, while the Germans abandoned Greece, Albania and were driven out of southern Yugoslavia by partisans. In Italy, the Western Allies remained stalemated at the German defensive line. In mid-January 1945, the Soviets attacked in Poland, pushing from the Vistula to the Oder river in Germany, and overran East Prussia.

On February 4, U.S., British, and Soviet leaders met in Yalta. They agreed on the occupation of post-war Germany, and when the Soviet Union would join the war against Japan.

In February, Western Allied forces entered Germany and closed to the Rhine river, while the Soviets invaded Pomerania and Silesia. In March, the Western Allies crossed the Rhine north and south of the Ruhr, encircling a large number of German troops, while the Soviets advanced to Vienna. In early April the Western Allies finally pushed forward in Italy and swept across western Germany, while in late April Soviet forces stormed Berlin; the two forces linked up on Elbe river on April 25.

Several changes in leadership occurred during this period. On April 12, U.S. President Roosevelt died; he was succeeded by Harry Truman. Mussolini was killed by Italian partisans on April 28th and two days later Hitler committed suicide, succeeded by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz.

German forces surrendered in Italy on April 29th and Germany itself surrendered on May 7.

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Nuclear explosion at Hiroshima

In the Pacific theater, American forces advanced in the Philippines, clearing Leyte by the end of 1944. They landed on Luzon in January 1945 and Mindanao in March. British and Chinese forces defeated the Japanese in northern Burma from October to March, then the British pushed on to Rangoon by May 3. American forces also moved toward Japan, taking Iwo Jima by March, and Okinawa by June. American bombers destroyed Japanese cities, and American submarines cut off Japanese imports.

On July 11, the Allied leaders met in Potsdam, Germany. They confirmed earlier agreements about Germany, and reiterated the demand for unconditional surrender by Japan, specifically stating that "the alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction". During this conference the United Kingdom held its general election and Clement Attlee replaced Churchill as Prime Minister.

When Japan continued to reject the Potsdam terms, the United States then dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early August. Between the two bombs, the Soviets invaded Japanese-held Manchuria, as agreed at Yalta. On August 15 1945 Japan surrendered, ending the war.

Aftermath

Main article: Aftermath of World War II

In an effort to maintain international peace, the Allies formed the United Nations, which officially came into existence on 24 October, 1945.

Regardless of this though, the alliance between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union had begun to deteriorate even before the war was over, and the two powers each quickly established their own spheres of influence. In Europe, the continent was essentially divided between Western and Soviet spheres by the so-called Iron Curtain which ran through and partitioned Allied occupied Germany and occupied Austria. In Asia, the United States occupied Japan and administrated Japan's former islands in the Western Pacific while the Soviets annexed Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands; the former Japanese governed Korea was divided and occupied between the two powers. Mounting tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union soon evolved into the formation of the American-led NATO and the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact military alliances and the start of the Cold War between them.

In many parts of the world, conflict picked up again within a short time of World War II ending. In China, nationalist and communist forces quickly resumed their civil war. Communist forces were eventually victorious and established the People's Republic of China on the mainland while nationalist forces ended up retreating to the reclaimed island of Taiwan. In Greece, civil war broke out between Anglo-American supported royalist forces and communist forces, with the royalist forces victorious. Soon after these conflicts ended, war broke out in Korea between South Korea, which was backed by the western powers, and North Korea, which was backed by the Soviet Union and China; the war resulted in essentially a stalemate and ceasefire.

Following the end of the war, a rapid period of decolonization also took place within the holdings of the various European colonial powers. These primarily occurred due to shifts in ideology, the economic exhaustion from the war and increased demand by indigenous people for self-determination. For the most part, these transitions happened relatively peacefully, though notable exceptions occurred in countries such as Indochina, Madagascar, Indonesia and Algeria. In many regions, divisions, usually for ethnic or religious reasons, occurred following European withdrawal; this was seen prominently in the Mandate of Palestine, leading to the creation of Israel and Palestine, and in India, resulting in the creation of the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan.

Economic recovery following the war was varied in differing parts of the world, though in general it was quite positive. In Europe, West Germany recovered quickly and doubled production from its pre-war levels by the 1950s. Italy came out of the war in poor economic condition, but by 1950s, the Italian economy was marked by stability and high growth. The United Kingdom was in a state of economic ruin after the war, and continued to experience relative economic decline for decades to follow. France rebounded quite quickly, and enjoyed rapid economic growth and modernization. The Soviet Union also experienced a rapid increase in production in the immediate post-war era. In Asia, Japan experienced incredibly rapid economic growth, and led to Japan becoming one of the most powerful economies in the world by the 1980s. China, following the conclusion of its civil war, was essentially a bankrupt nation. By 1953 economic restoration seemed fairly successful as production had resumed pre-war levels. This growth rate mostly persisted, though it was briefly interrupted by the disastrous Great Leap Forward economic experiment. At the end of the war, the United States produced roughly half of the worlds industrial output; by the 1970s though, this dominance had lessened significantly.

Impact of the war

Casualties and atrocities

Main articles: World War II casualties and List of war crimes

Between 50 and 70 million people were killed as a result of the war, with about two thirds of them being civilians.

Many of these deaths were a result of genocidal actions committed in Axis-occupied territories and other war crimes committed by German and Japanese forces. Widely considered the most notorious of German atrocities is The Holocaust, the systematic purging of Jews in Europe which resulted in the murder of roughly six million Jewish people. In addition to this, the Nazi's also targeted other groups, including Roma, Slavs and homosexuals, exterminating roughly five million additional people. For Japan, the most well-known atrocity is probably the Nanking Massacre, in which several hundred thousand Chinese civilians were raped and murdered.

Limited Axis usage of biological and chemical weapons is also known. The Italians used mustard gas during their conquest of Abyssinia, while the Japanese Imperial Army used a variety of such weapons during their invasion and occupation of China and in early conflicts against the Soviets. Both the Germans and Japanese tested such weapons against civilians and, in some cases, on prisoners.

While many of the Axis atrocities were brought to trial in the worlds first international tribunals, incidents caused by the Allies were not. Examples of such actions include population transfer in the Soviet Union, ethnic internment in the United States, the Soviet massacre of Polish citizens and the controversial mass-bombing of civilian areas in enemy territory, most notably at Dresden.

Large numbers of deaths can also be attributed, if even partially, indirectly to the war, such as the Bengal famine of 1943.

Home fronts and production

Main articles: military production during World War II and Home front during World War II

Allied to Axis GDP ratio.

In Europe, prior to the start of the war, the Allies had significant advantages in both population and economics. In 1938, the Western Allies (United Kingdom, France, Poland and British Dominions) had a 30% larger population and a 30% higher gross domestic product then the European Axis (Germany and Italy); if colonies are included, it then gives the Allies more then a 5:1 advantage in population and nearly 2:1 advantage in GDP. In Asia at the same time, China had roughly six times the population of Japan, but only a 89% higher GDP; this is reduced to three times the population and only a 38% higher GDP if Japanese colonies are included.

Though the Allies economic and population advantages were largely mitigated during the initial rapid blitzkrieg attacks of Germany and Japan, they became the decisive factor by 1942, after the United States and Soviet Union joined the Allies, as the war largely settled into one of attrition.

While the Allies ability to out-produce the Axis is often attributed to the Allies having more access to natural resources, other factors, such as Germany and Japan's reluctance to utilize women in the labour force, Allied strategic bombing, and Germany's late shift to a war economy contributed significantly. Additionally, neither Germany nor Japan planned on fighting a protracted war, and were not equipped to do so. To improve their production, Germany and Japan used millions of slave labourers; Germany used about 12 million people, mostly from Eastern Europe, while Japan pressed more than 18 million people in Far East Asia.

War time occupation

Main articles: Collaboration during World War II and Resistance during World War II

In Europe, occupation came under two very different forms. In western, northern and central Europe (France, Norway, Denmark, the Low Countries, and the annexed portions of Czechoslovakia) Germany established economic policies through which it collected roughly 69.5 billion reichmarks by the end of the war; this figure does not include the sizable plunder of industrial products, military equipment, raw materials and other goods. Thus, the income from occupied nations was over 40% of the income Germany collected from taxation, a figure which increased to nearly 40% of total German income as the war went on.

In the east, the much hoped for bounties of lebensraum were never attained as fluctuating front-lines and Soviet scorched earth policies denied resources to the German invaders. Unlike in the west, the Nazi racial policy encouraged excessive brutality against what it considered to be the "inferior people" of Slavic descent; most German advances were thus followed by mass executions. Although resistance groups did form in most occupied territories, they did not significantly hamper German operations in either the east or the west until late 1943.

In Asia, Japan termed nations under its occupation as being part of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, essentially a Japanese hegemony which it claimed was for purposes of liberating colonized peoples. Although Japanese forces were originally welcomed as liberators from European domination in many territories, their excessive brutality turned local public opinions against them within weeks. During Japan's initial conquest it captured 4 million barrels of oil left behind by retreating Allied forces, and by 1943 was able to get production in the Dutch East Indies up to 50 million barrels, 76% of its 1940 output rate.

Advances in technology and warfare

Main article: Technology during World War II

During the war, aircraft continued their roles of reconnaissance, fighters, bombers and ground-support from World War I, though each area was advanced considerably. Two important additional roles for aircraft were those of the airlift, the capability to quickly move high-priority supplies, equipment and personnel, albeit in limited quantities; and of strategic bombing, the targeted use bombs against civilian areas in the hopes of hampering enemy industry and morale. Anti-aircraft weaponry also continued to advance, including key defences such as radar and greatly improved anti-aircraft artillery, such as the German 88 mm gun. Jet aircraft saw their first limited operational use during World War II, and though their late introduction and limited numbers meant that they had no real impact during the war itself, the few which saw active service pioneered a mass-shift to their usage following the war.

At sea, while advances were made in almost all aspects of naval warfare, the two primary areas of development were focused around aircraft carriers and submarines. Although at the start of the war aeronautical warfare had relatively little success, actions at Taranto, Pearl Harbor, the South China Sea and the Coral Sea soon established the carrier as the dominant capital ship in place of the battleship. In the Atlantic, escort carriers proved to be a vital part of Allied convoys, increasing the effective protection radius dramatically and helping to seal the Mid-Atlantic gap. Beyond their increased effectiveness, carriers were also more economical then battleships due to the relatively low cost of aircraft and their not requiring to be as heavily armoured. Submarines, which had proved to be an effective weapon during the first World War were anticipated by all sides to be important in the second. The British focused development on anti-submarine weaponry and tactics, such as sonar and convoys, while Germany focused on improving its offensive capability, with designs such as the Type VII submarine and Wolf pack tactics. Gradually, continually improving Allied technologies such as the Leigh light, hedgehog, squid, and homing torpedoes proved victorious.

Overland warfare changed drastically from the static front lines experienced during World War I to become much more fluid and mobile. An important change was the concept of combined arms warfare, wherein tight coordination was sought between the various elements of military forces; the tank, which had been used predominantly for infantry-support in the first World War, had evolved into the primary weapon of these forces during the second. In the late 1930s, tank design was considerably more advanced in all areas then it had been during World War I, and advances continued throughout the war in increasing speed, armour and fire-power. At the start of the war, most armies considered the tank to be the best weapon against itself, and developed special purpose tanks to that effect. This line of thinking was all but negated by the poor performance of the relatively light early tank armaments against armour, and German doctrine of avoiding tank-to-tank combat; the latter factor, along with Germany's use of combined arms, were among the key elements of their highly successful blitzkrieg tactics across Poland and France. Many means of destroying tanks, including indirect artillery, anti-tank guns (both towed and self-propelled), mines, short-ranged infantry carried anti-tank weaponry, and other tanks were utilized. Even with the large-scale mechanization of the various armies, the infantry remained the backbone of all forces, and throughout the war, most infantry equipment was similar to that utilized in World War I. Some of the primary advances though, were the widespread incorporation of readily portable machine guns, a most notable example being the German MG42, and various submachine guns which were well suited to close quarters combat in urban and jungle settings. The assault rifle, a late war development which incorporated many of the best features of the rifle and submachine gun, became the post-war standard infantry weapon for nearly all armed forces.

In terms of communications, most of the major belligerents attempted to solve the problems of complexity and security presented by utilizing large codebooks for cryptography with the creation of various ciphering machines, the most well known being the German Enigma machine. SIGINT (signals intelligence) was the countering process of decryption, with the notable examples being the British ULTRA and the Allied breaking of Japanese naval codes. Another important aspect of military intelligence was the use of deception operations, which the Allies successfully used on several occasions to great effect, such as operations Mincemeat and Bodyguard, which diverted German attention and forces away from the Allied invasions of Sicily and Normandy respectively.

Other important technological and engineering feats achieved during, or as a result of, the war include the worlds first programmable computers (Z3, Colossus, and ENIAC), guided missiles and modern rockets, the Manhattan Project's development of nuclear weapons, the development of artificial harbours and oil pipelines under the English Channel.

See also

• Battles (list)
• Military operations (list)
• Commanders
• Depictions

External links

Directories

• Yahoo — "World War II"
• Directory of Online World War II Indexes & Records
• WWW-VL: History: WWII

General

• World War II Database
• The Second World War — Spartacus Educational
• Deutsche Welle special section on World War II created by one of Germany’s public broadcasters on World War II and the world 60 years after.
• Canada and WWII
• End of World War II in Germany
• World War II Encyclopedia by the History Channel
• World War II Awards and their recipients

Media

• U.S. National Archives Photos
• World War II Poster Collection hosted by the University of North Texas Libraries'
• Digital Collections
• World War II Propaganda Leaflet Archive
• World War 2 Pictures In Colour
• Thousands of World War II Photographs & Movies
• World War II Zone Photo and Multi-media gallery (Blanked, requires registration)
• Multimedia map — Presentation that covers the war from the invasion of the Soviet Union to the fall of Berlin
• Radio news from 1938 to 1945
• The Art of War Online Exhibition at the UK National Archive

On-line documents

• World War II Military Situation Maps. Library of Congress
• After Action Reports (AAR’s) and other official documents about the American Divisions during the Second World War
• Maps from the Pacific and Italian theaters
• Officially Declassified U.S. Government Documents about World War II
• The Soviet History of World War II, 28 October 1959 — Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Current Intelligence.
• Daily German action reports

Stories

• WW2 People's War — A project by the BBC to gather the stories of ordinary people from World War II

Documentaries

• The World at War (1974) is a 26-part Thames Television series that covers most aspects of World War II from many points of view. It includes interviews with many key figures (Karl Dönitz, Albert Speer, Anthony Eden etc.) (Imdb link)
• The Second World War in Colour (1999) is a three episode documentary showing unique footage in color (Imdb link)
• Battlefield (documentary series) is a television documentary series initially issued in 1994–1995 that explores many of the most important battles fought during the Second World War
• The War (2007) is 7-part PBS documentary recounting the experiences of a number of individuals from American communities.