Introduction to World War Two

In Europe, the origins of the war are closely tied to the rise of fascism, especially in Nazi Germany. A discussion of how the Nazis came to power is a requisite in this context.

The origins of the Second World War are generally viewed as being traced back to the First World War (1914-1918). In that war Germany under the ultra-nationalistic Kaiser Wilhelm II along with its allies, had been defeated by a combination of the United Kingdom, United States, France, Russia and others.

The war was directly blamed by the victors on the miltant nationalism of the Kaiser's Germany; it was Germany that effectively started the war with an attack on France through Belgium.

France, which had suffered a previous defeat at the hands of Prussia (a state that merged one year later with others to form Germany) in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, demanded revenge for its financial devastation during the First World War (and its humiliation in the earlier war) ensured that the various peace treaties, specifically the Treaty of Versailles imposed tough financial reparations and restrictions on Germany.

A new democratic German republic, known as the Weimar Republic, came into being. After some success it was hit by hyperinflation and other serious economic problems.

Right wing nationalist elements under a variety of movements, but most notably the Nazi Party of Adolf Hitler, sought to blame Germany's "humiliating" status on the harshness of the post-war settlement, on the weakness of democratic government, and on the Jews, whom it claimed possessed a financial stranglehold on Germany.

Hitler was appointed Reichskanzler (Chancellor) on January 30, 1933, by the aged President von Hindenburg.

World War 2 History

The origins of the Second World War are generally viewed as being traced back to the First World War (1914-1918). In that war Germany under the ultra-nationalistic Kaiser Wilhelm II along with its allies, had been defeated by a combination of the United Kingdom, United States, France, Russia and others. The war was directly blamed by the victors on the miltant nationalism of the Kaiser's Germany; it was Germany that effectively started the war with an attack on France through Belgium. France, which had suffered a previous defeat at the hands of Prussia (a state that merged one year later with others to form Germany) in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, demanded revenge for its financial devastation during the First World War (and its humiliation in the earlier war) ensured that the various peace treaties, specifically the Treaty of Versailles imposed tough financial reparations and restrictions on Germany.

A new democratic German republic, known as the Weimar Republic, came into being. After some success it was hit by hyperinflation and other serious economic problems. Right wing nationalist elements under a variety of movements, but most notably the Nazi Party of Adolf Hitler, sought to blame Germany's "humiliating" status on the harshness of the post-war settlement, on the weakness of democratic government, and on the Jews, whom it claimed possessed a financial stranglehold on Germany. Hitler was appointed Reichskanzler (Chancellor) on January 30, 1933, by the aged President von Hindenburg. Hitler's government exercised much of its power through the special emergency powers possessed by the President under the constitution.

These powers enabled a government with the President's powers to effectively bypass the Reichstag (federal parliament). Under a further disastrous clause in the Weimar constitution when the President died, his office was temporarily assumed by the Chancellor. As a result, when Hindenburg died, the immense powers of the presidency fell into the hands of Adolf Hitler. Through the possession of those powers and an Enabling Act that allowed the nazi government to bypass and ignore the constitution, Hitler ensured his possession of the presidential powers became permanent and so gained dictatorial control over Germany.

The Italian economy also fell into a deep slump following World War I. Anarchists were endemic, Communist and other Socialist agitators abounded among the trade unions, and many were gravely worried that a Bolshevik-style Communist revolution was imminent.

After a number of liberal governments failed to rein in these threats, Italy's King Victor Emmanuel III invited right-wing politician Benito Mussolini and his Fascist Party to form a government in 1922, following their largely symbolic Marca su Roma (March on Rome). The Fascists maintained an armed paramilitary wing, which they employed to fight Anarchists, Communists, and Socialists.

Within a few years, Mussolini had consolidated dictatorial power, and Italy became a police state. On January 7, 1935, he and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval signed the Italo-French agreements.

Meanwhile in Germany, once political consolidation (Gleichschaltung) was in place, the Nazis turned their attention to foreign policy with several increasingly daring acts.

On March 16, 1935, the Versailles Treaty was violated as Hitler ordered Germany to re-arm. Germany also reintroduced military conscription (the treaty stated that the German Army should not exceed 100,000 men).

These steps produced nothing more than official protests from Britain and France, for they were more serious about enforcing the economic provisions of the treaty than its military restrictions. Many Brits felt the restrictions placed on Germany in Versailles had been too harsh, and they believed that Hitler's aim was simply to undo the extremes of the treaty, not to go beyond that. Faced with no opposition, Hitler moved troops into the Rhineland on March 7, 1936. Under the Versailles treaty, the Rhineland should have been demilitarized, for France wanted it for a buffer between herself and Germany. But, as before, Hitler's defiance was met with inaction.

The first German conquest was Austria. After Italy had joined the Anti-Comintern Pact, thereby removing the main obstacle of a Anschluss of Austria, Germany announced the annexation on March 12, 1938, making it a German province: "Gau Ostmark."

With Austria secured, Hitler turned his attention to Czechoslovakia. His first order of business was to seize the Sudetenland, a mountainous area in northeast part of the country. With Austria in German hands, the tiny state was nearly surrounded. Following lengthy negotiations, and blatant war threats from Hitler, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain went out of his way with French leaders to appease Hitler, even though the United Kingdom had earlier guaranteed the security of Czechoslovakia. However, the Munich Agreement of September 30, 1938, then allowed German troops to occupy the Sudetenland.

Czech representatives were not allowed at the conference; their government strongly opposed giving up the Sudetenland but they were powerless in the face of German military might and British and French unwillingness to support them. A few months after that, in March 1939, the remaining Czech lands passed into German hands as well. March 14 Slovakia declared her independence, recognized by France, Britain and other important powers. The Slovak state tried to avoid nazification, but was finally occupied by Nazi-Germany in September 1944.

Italy, facing opposition to its wars in Abyssinia (Ethiopia) from the League of Nations, forged an alliance with Nazi Germany, which had withdrawn from the League in 1933. In May of 1939, Italy and Germany thus formed the Pact of Steel, which deepened their alliance and established a Rome-Berlin "Axis."

World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII or WW2) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. The war involved the mobilisation of over 100 million military personnel, making it the most widespread war in history. In a state of "total war", the major participants placed their complete economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities at the service of the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Over 70 million people, the majority of them civilians, were killed, making it the deadliest conflict in human history.

The start of the war is generally held to be in September 1939 with the German invasion of Poland and subsequent declarations of war on Nazi Germany by the United Kingdom, France and the British Dominions. Many belligerents entered the war before or after this date, during a period which spanned from 1937 to 1941, as a result of other events. Amongst these main events are the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, the start of Operation Barbarossa, and the attack on Pearl Harbor and British and Dutch colonies in South East Asia.

The Soviet Union and the United States emerged from the war as the world's leading powers. 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 decolonisation movements in Asia and Africa, while Western Europe itself began moving toward integration.

Causes of World War II

In the aftermath of World War I, a defeated Germany 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 Kuomintang (KMT) party in China launched a unification campaign against regional warlords and nominally unified China 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, in Shanghai, Rehe and Hebei until the Tanggu Truce in 1933. Afterwards Chinese volunteer forces continued the resistance to Japanese aggression in Manchuria, and Chahar and Suiyuan.

Adolf Hitler, after an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government in 1923, became the leader of Germany in 1933. He abolished democracy, espousing a radical racially motivated revision of the world order, 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 remilitarisation 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 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 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.

Timeline of World War II

War in China

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 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 1939, they became involved in a more serious border war that ended with signing a cease-fire agreement on September 15 and restoring the status quo.

War breaks out in Europe

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 pressing German claims on the Sudetenland, an area of Czechoslovakia with a predominantly ethnic German population; France and Britain conceded this territory to him, against the wishes of the Czechoslovak government, in exchange for a promise of no further territorial demands. However, soon after that, Germany and Italy forced Czechoslovakia to cede additional territory to Hungary and Poland. In March 1939 Germany invaded the rump of Czechoslovakia and subsequently split it into the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and the pro-German Slovak Republic.

Alarmed, and with Hitler making further demands on Danzig, France and Britain guaranteed their support for Polish independence; when Italy conquered Albania in April 1939, the same guarantee was extended to Romania and Greece. Shortly after the Franco-British pledges to Poland, Germany and Italy formalized their own alliance with the Pact of Steel.

In August 1939 Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact. This treaty included a secret protocol to split Poland and Eastern Europe into separate spheres of influence.

On September 1, 1939, Adolf Hitler launched his invasion of Poland and World War II broke out. France, Britain, and the countries of the Commonwealth declared war on Germany but provided little military support to Poland other than a small French attack into the Saarland. On September 17, 1939, after signing an armistice with Japan, the Soviets launched their own invasion of Poland. By early October, the campaign ended with division of Poland among Germany, the Soviet Union, Lithuania and Slovakia, although officially Poland never surrendered.

At the same time as the battle in Poland, Japan launched its first attack against Changsha, a strategically important Chinese city, but was repulsed by early October.

Following the invasion of Poland, the Soviet Union began moving troops into the Baltic States. Finnish resistance to similar pressure by the Soviet Union in late November led to the four-month Winter 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 June 1940, the Soviet Armed Forces completed the occupation of the Baltic States.

In Western Europe, British troops deployed to the Continent, but neither Germany nor the Allies launched direct attacks on the other. The Soviet Union and Germany entered a trade pact in February of 1940, pursuant to which the Soviets received German military and industrial equipment in exchange for supplying raw materials to Germany to help circumvent a British blockade 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.

The war becomes global

On June 22, 1941, Germany, along with other European Axis members and Finland, invaded the Soviet Union. The primary objectives of this surprise offensive were the Baltic region, Moscow and Ukraine with an ultimate goal to end campaign of 1941 near the line connecting Caspian and White Seas. Hitler's goals were to eliminate the Soviet Union as a military power, exterminate Communism, generate so-called 'living space' by dispossessing the native population and provide guaranteed access to the strategic resources needed to defeat Germany's remaining rivals. Although before the war the Red Army was preparing for a strategic counter-offensive, "Barbarossa"' forced Stavka to adopt a strategic defence. During the summer, Axis made significant gains into Soviet territory, inflicting immense losses in personnel and matériel, however by the middle of August, German OKH decided to suspend the offensive of a considerably depleted Army Group Center, and to divert a part of its armored force to reinforce troops advancing toward central Ukraine and Leningrad. The Kiev offensive was overwhelmingly successful, resulting in encirclement and elimination of four Soviet armies, and made further advance into Crimea and industrially developed Eastern Ukraine possible.

The diversion of three quarters of Axis troops and majority of air forces from France and central Mediterranean to the East prompted the United Kingdom to reconsider her grand stategy. 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 the United States jointly issued the Atlantic Charter. In November, Commonwealth forces launched a counter-offensive in the desert, reclaiming all gains the Germans and Italians had made.

Japan, hoping to capitalize on Germany's success in Europe, 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 her 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 reacted to the seizure of Indochina with a freeze on assets, while the United States (which supplied 80% of Japan's oil) responded by placing a complete oil embargo. Thus Japan was essentially forced to choose between withdrawing from Asia, or seizing the oil she needed by force; the Japanese military did not consider the former an option, and many officers considered the oil embargo 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.

By October, when Axis operational objectives in Ukraine and the Baltic region were achieved, with only Leningrad and Sevastopol resisting in sieges a major offensive against Moscow had been renewed. After two months of fierce battles, the German army almost reached Moscow suburbs, where the exhausted troops were forced to suspend their offensive. Despite impressive territorial gains, no strategic goals of the campaign had been fully accomplished: two major Soviet cities hadn't been captured, Red Army's capability to resist was not broken, and the Soviet Union retained a considerable part of its military potential. The blitzkrieg phase of WWII in Europe had ended.

By early December, freshly mobilized reserves allowed the Soviets to achieve numerical parity with Axis troops. This, as well as intelligence data that established a minimal amount of Soviet troops in the East sufficient to prevent Japanese Kwantung Army from the attack, allowed the Soviets to mount a massive counter-offensive that started on December 5 along 1000 km front and pushed German troops 100-250 km west.

Two days later, on December 7, Japan attacked British, Dutch and American holdings with near simultaneous offensives against Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific. These included an attack on the American naval base of Pearl Harbor and landings in Thailand and Malaya.

These attacks prompted the United States, United Kingdom, other Western Allies and China (already a belligerent), to formally declare war on Japan. 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, China and twenty-two smaller or exiled governments issued the Declaration by United Nations which affirmed the Atlantic Charter. The Soviet Union did not adhere to the declaration, and maintained a neutrality agreement with Japan and exempted herself from the principle of self-determination.

Meanwhile, by the end of April, 1942, Japan had almost fully conquered Burma, Philippines, Malaya, Dutch East Indies, Singapore, inflicting severe losses on Allied troops and taking a large number of prisoners. They also achieved naval victories in the South China Sea, Java Sea and Indian Ocean and bombed the Allied naval base at Darwin, Australia. The only real success against Japan was a reverse at renewed attack on Changsha in early January, 1942. The easy victories over unprepared opponents left Japan severely overconfident, as well as very overextended.

Germany retained the initiative as well. Exploiting dubious American naval command decisions, the U-boat arm sunk significant resources off the American Atlantic coast. Despite this, an American admiral was placed in charge of more experienced Canadian escort forces, which carried out more of this duty in the Atlantic than the U.S. for the duration of the war. Despite considerable losses, European Axis members stopped a major Soviet offensive in Central and Southern Russia, keeping most territorial gains they achieved during the previous year. In North Africa, the Germans launched an offensive in January, pushing the British back to positions at the Gazala Line by early February, followed by a temporary lull in combat which Germany used to prepare for their upcoming offensives.

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 than 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.

Land warfare changed drastically from the static front lines predominating in 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 firepower. 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-versus-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 antitank weapons, and other tanks were utilized. Even with 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. However the United States became the first country to arm its soldiers with a semi-automatic rifle, in this case the M-1 Garand. Some of the primary advances though, were the widespread incorporation of portable machine guns, a 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 standard postwar 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.