World War II transformed the political, economic, and social structures of the world, and established the foundation of international relations for the rest of the 20th century and into the 21st century. TheUnited Nations was created to foster international cooperation and prevent future conflicts, with the victoriousgreat powers—China, France, the Soviet Union, the UK, and the U.S.—becomingthe permanent members ofits security council. The Soviet Union and U.S. emerged as rival globalsuperpowers, setting the stage for the half-centuryCold War. In the wake of Europe's devastation, the influence of its great powers waned, triggering thedecolonisation of Africa andAsia. Many countries whose industries had been damaged moved towardseconomic recovery and expansion.
To prevent a future world war, theLeague of Nations was established in 1920 by theParis Peace Conference. The organisation's primary goals were to prevent armed conflict through collective security, military, andnaval disarmament, as well as settling international disputes through peaceful negotiations and arbitration.[17]
Despite strong pacifist sentimentafter World WarI,[18]irredentist andrevanchistnationalism had emerged in several European states. These sentiments were especially marked in Germany because of the significant territorial, colonial, and financial losses imposed by theTreaty of Versailles. Under the treaty, Germany lost around 13 percent of its home territory and allits overseas possessions, while German annexation of other states was prohibited,reparations were imposed, and limits were placed on the size and capability of the country'sarmed forces.[19]
Germany and Italy
The German Empire was dissolved in theGerman revolution of 1918–1919, and a democratic government, later known as theWeimar Republic, was created. The interwar period saw strife between supporters of the new republic and hardline opponents on both the political right and left. Italy, as an Entente ally, had made some post-war territorial gains; however, Italian nationalists were angered that thepromises made by the United Kingdom and France to secure Italian entrance into the war were not fulfilled in the peace settlement. From 1922 to 1925, theFascist movement led byBenito Mussolini seized power in Italy with a nationalist,totalitarian, andclass collaborationist agenda that abolished representative democracy, repressed socialist, left-wing, and liberal forces, and pursued an aggressive expansionist foreign policy aimed at making Italy a world power, promising the creation of a "New Roman Empire".[20]
The United Kingdom, France and Italy formed theStresa Front in April 1935 in order to contain Germany, a key step towardsmilitary globalisation; however, that June, the United Kingdom made anindependent naval agreement with Germany, easing prior restrictions. The Soviet Union, concerned by Germany'sgoals of capturing vast areas of Eastern Europe, drafted a treaty of mutual assistance with France. Before taking effect, though, theFranco-Soviet pact was required to go through the bureaucracy of the League of Nations, which rendered it essentially toothless.[23] The United States, concerned with events in Europe and Asia, passed theNeutrality Act in August of the same year.[24]
China appealed to theLeague of Nations to stop the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Japan withdrew from the League of Nations after beingcondemned for its incursion into Manchuria. The two nations then fought several battles, inShanghai,Rehe andHebei, until theTanggu Truce was signed in 1933. Thereafter, Chinese volunteer forces continued the resistance to Japanese aggression inManchuria, andChahar and Suiyuan.[30] After the 1936Xi'an Incident, the Kuomintang and CCP forces agreed on a ceasefire to presenta united front to oppose Japan.[31]
TheSecond Italo-Ethiopian War was a briefcolonial war that began in October 1935 and ended in May 1936. The war began with the invasion of theEthiopian Empire (also known asAbyssinia) by the armed forces of theKingdom of Italy (Regno d'Italia), which was launched fromItalian Somaliland andEritrea.[32] The war resulted in themilitary occupation of Ethiopia and itsannexation into the newly created colony ofItalian East Africa (Africa Orientale Italiana); in addition it exposed the weakness of theLeague of Nations as a force to preserve peace. Both Italy and Ethiopia were member nations,but the League did little when the former clearly violated Article X of the League'sCovenant.[33] The United Kingdom and France supported imposing sanctions on Italy for the invasion, but the sanctions were not fully enforced and failed to end the Italian invasion.[34] Italy subsequently dropped its objections to Germany's goal of absorbingAustria.[35]
When civil war broke out in Spain, Hitler and Mussolini lent military support to theNationalist rebels, led by GeneralFrancisco Franco. Italy supported the Nationalists to a greater extent than the Nazis: Mussolini sent more than 70,000 ground troops, 6,000 aviation personnel, and 720 aircraft to Spain.[36] The Soviet Union supported the existing government of theSpanish Republic. More than 30,000 foreign volunteers, known as theInternational Brigades, also fought against the Nationalists. Both Germany and the Soviet Union used thisproxy war as an opportunity to test in combat their most advanced weapons and tactics. The Nationalists won the civil war in April 1939; Franco, now dictator, remained officially neutral during World WarII butgenerally favoured the Axis.[37] His greatest collaboration with Germany was the sending ofvolunteers to fight on theEastern Front.[38]
In March 1938, Nationalist Chinese forces won theirfirst major victory at Taierzhuang, but then the city ofXuzhouwas taken by the Japanese in May.[45] In June 1938, Chinese forces stalled the Japanese advance byflooding the Yellow River; this manoeuvre bought time for the Chinese to prepare their defences atWuhan, but thecity was taken by October.[46] Japanese military victories did not bring about the collapse of Chinese resistance that Japan had hoped to achieve; instead, the Chinese government relocated inland toChongqing and continued the war.[47][48]
In the mid-to-late 1930s, Japanese forces inManchukuo had sporadic border clashes with the Soviet Union andMongolia. The Japanese doctrine ofHokushin-ron, which emphasised Japan's expansion northward, was favoured by the Imperial Army during this time. This policy would prove difficult to maintain in light of the Japanese defeat atKhalkin Gol in 1939, the ongoing Second Sino-Japanese War[49] and ally Nazi Germany pursuing neutrality with the Soviets. Japan and the Soviet Union eventually signed aNeutrality Pact in April 1941, and Japan adopted the doctrine ofNanshin-ron, promoted by the Navy, which took its focus southward and eventually led to war with the United States and the Western Allies.[50][51]
In Europe, Germany and Italy were becoming more aggressive. In March 1938, Germanyannexed Austria, again provokinglittle response from other European powers.[52] Encouraged, Hitler began pressing German claims on theSudetenland, an area ofCzechoslovakia with a predominantlyethnic German population. Soon the United Kingdom and France followed the appeasement policy of British Prime MinisterNeville Chamberlain and conceded this territory to Germany in theMunich Agreement, which was made against the wishes of the Czechoslovak government, in exchange for a promise of no further territorial demands.[53] Soon afterwards, Germany and Italy forced Czechoslovakia tocede additional territory to Hungary, and Poland annexed theTrans-Olza region of Czechoslovakia.[54]
The situation became a crisis in late August as German troops continued to mobilise against the Polish border. On 23 August the Soviet Union signeda non-aggression pact with Germany,[60] after tripartite negotiations for a military alliance between France, the United Kingdom, and Soviet Union had stalled.[61] This pact had a secret protocol that defined German and Soviet "spheres of influence" (westernPoland and Lithuania for Germany;eastern Poland, Finland,Estonia,Latvia andBessarabia for the Soviet Union), and raised the question of continuing Polish independence.[62] The pact neutralised the possibility of Soviet opposition to a campaign against Poland and assured that Germany would not have to face the prospect of a two-front war, as it had in World WarI. Immediately afterwards, Hitler ordered the attack to proceed on 26 August, but upon hearing that the United Kingdom had concluded a formal mutual assistance pact with Poland and that Italy would maintain neutrality, he decided to delay it.[63]
In response to British requests for direct negotiations to avoid war, Germany made demands on Poland, which served as a pretext to worsen relations.[64] On 29 August, Hitler demanded that a Polishplenipotentiary immediately travel to Berlin to negotiate the handover ofDanzig, and to allow aplebiscite in thePolish Corridor in which the German minority would vote on secession.[64] The Poles refused to comply with the German demands, and on the night of 30–31 August in a confrontational meeting with the British ambassadorNevile Henderson, Ribbentrop declared that Germany considered its claims rejected.[65]
Germanyannexed western Poland andoccupied central Poland; the Soviet Unionannexed eastern Poland; small shares of Polish territory were transferred toLithuania andSlovakia. On 6 October, Hitler made a public peace overture to the United Kingdom and France but said that the future of Poland was to be determined exclusively by Germany and the Soviet Union. The proposal was rejected[65] and Hitler ordered an immediate offensive against France,[77] which was postponed until the spring of 1940 due to bad weather.[78][79][80]
After the outbreak of war in Poland, Stalin threatenedEstonia,Latvia, andLithuania with military invasion, forcing the threeBaltic countries to signpacts allowing the creation of Soviet military bases in these countries; in October 1939, significant Soviet military contingents were moved there.[81][82][83]Finland refused to sign a similar pact and rejected ceding part of its territory to the Soviet Union.The Soviet Union invaded Finland in November 1939,[84] and was subsequently expelled from theLeague of Nations for this crime of aggression.[85] Despite overwhelming numerical superiority, Soviet military success during theWinter War was modest,[86] and the Finno-Soviet war ended in March 1940 withsome Finnish concessions of territory.[87]
In June 1940, the Soviet Unionoccupied the entire territories of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania,[82] as well as the Romanian regions ofBessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and the Hertsa region. In August 1940, Hitler imposed theSecond Vienna Award on Romania which led to the transfer ofNorthern Transylvania to Hungary.[88] In September 1940, Bulgaria demandedSouthern Dobruja from Romania with German and Italian support, leading to theTreaty of Craiova.[89] The loss of one-third of Romania's 1939 territory caused a coup against King Carol II, turning Romania into a fascist dictatorship under MarshalIon Antonescu, with a course set towards the Axis in the hopes of a German guarantee.[90] Meanwhile, German-Soviet political relations and economic co-operation[91][92] gradually stalled,[93][94] and both states began preparations for war.[95]
On the same day, Germanylaunched an offensive against France. To circumvent the strongMaginot Line fortifications on the Franco-German border, Germany directed its attack at the neutral nations ofBelgium,the Netherlands, andLuxembourg.[99] The Germans carried out a flanking manoeuvre through theArdennes region,[100] which was mistakenly perceived by the Allies as an impenetrable natural barrier against armoured vehicles.[101][102] By successfully implementing newBlitzkrieg tactics, theWehrmacht rapidly advanced to the Channel and cut off the Allied forces in Belgium, trapping the bulk of the Allied armies in a cauldron on the Franco-Belgian border near Lille. The United Kingdom was ableto evacuate a significant number of Allied troops from the continent by early June, although they had to abandon almost all their equipment.[103]
In November 1939, the United States was assisting China and the Western Allies, and had amended theNeutrality Act to allow "cash and carry" purchases by the Allies.[112] In 1940, following the German capture of Paris, the size of theUnited States Navy wassignificantly increased. In September the United States further agreed to atrade of American destroyers for British bases.[113] Still, a large majority of the American public continued to oppose any direct military intervention in the conflict well into 1941.[114] In December 1940, Roosevelt accused Hitler of planning world conquest and ruled out any negotiations as useless, calling for the United States to become an "arsenal of democracy" and promotingLend-Lease programmes of military and humanitarian aid to support the British war effort; Lend-Lease was later extended to the other Allies, including the Soviet Union after it wasinvaded by Germany.[115] The United States started strategic planning to prepare for a full-scale offensive against Germany.[116]
At the end of September 1940, theTripartite Pact formally united Japan, Italy, and Germany as theAxis powers. The Tripartite Pact stipulated that any country—with the exception of the Soviet Union—that attacked any Axis Power would be forced to go to war against all three.[117] The Axis expanded in November 1940 whenHungary,Slovakia, andRomania joined.[118]Romania andHungary later made major contributions to the Axis war against the Soviet Union, in Romania's case partially to recaptureterritory ceded to the Soviet Union.[119]
In early June 1940, the ItalianRegia Aeronauticaattacked and besieged Malta, a British possession. From late summer to early autumn, Italyconquered British Somaliland and made anincursion into British-held Egypt. In October,Italy attacked Greece, but the attack was repulsed with heavy Italian casualties; the campaign ended within months with minor territorial changes.[120] To assist Italy and prevent Britain from gaining a foothold, Germany prepared to invade the Balkans, which would threaten Romanian oil fields and strike against British dominance of the Mediterranean.[121]
GermanPanzer III of theAfrika Korps advancing across the North African desert, April 1941
In December 1940, British Empire forces begancounter-offensives against Italian forces in Egypt andItalian East Africa.[122] The offensives were successful; by early February 1941, Italy had lost control of eastern Libya, and large numbers of Italian troops had been taken prisoner. TheItalian Navy also suffered significant defeats, with the Royal Navy putting three Italian battleships out of commission after acarrier attack at Taranto, and neutralising several more warships at theBattle of Cape Matapan.[123]
With the situation in Europe and Asia relatively stable, Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union made preparations for war. 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 inSoutheast Asia, the two powers signed theSoviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact in April 1941.[131] By contrast, the Germans were steadily making preparations for an attack on the Soviet Union, massing forces on the Soviet border.[132]
Hitler believed that the United Kingdom's refusal to end the war was based on the hope that the United States and the Soviet Union would enter the war against Germany sooner or later.[133] On 31 July 1940, Hitler decided that the Soviet Union should be eliminated and aimed for the conquest ofUkraine, theBaltic states andByelorussia.[134] However, other senior German officials like Ribbentrop saw an opportunity to create a Euro-Asian bloc against the British Empire by inviting the Soviet Union into the Tripartite Pact.[135] In November 1940,negotiations took place to determine if the Soviet Union would join the pact. The Soviets showed some interest but asked for concessions from Finland, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Japan that Germany considered unacceptable. On 18 December 1940, Hitler issued the directive to prepare for an invasion of the Soviet Union.[136]
The diversion of three-quarters of the Axis troops and the majority of their air forces from France and the central Mediterranean to theEastern Front[145] prompted the United Kingdom to reconsider itsgrand strategy.[146] In July, the UK and the Soviet Union formed amilitary alliance against Germany[147] and in August, the United Kingdom and the United States jointly issued theAtlantic Charter, which outlined British and American goals for the post-war world.[148] In late August the British and Sovietsinvaded neutral Iran to secure thePersian Corridor, Iran'soil fields, and preempt any Axis advances through Iran toward the Baku oil fields or India.[149]
By October, Axis powers had achievedoperational objectives in Ukraine and the Baltic region, with only the sieges ofLeningrad[150] andSevastopol continuing.[151] A majoroffensive against Moscow was renewed; after two months of fierce battles in increasingly harsh weather, the German army almost reached the outer suburbs of Moscow, where the exhausted troops[152] were forced to suspend the offensive.[153] Large territorial gains were made by Axis forces, but their campaign had failed to achieve its main objectives: two key cities remained in Soviet hands, the Sovietcapability to resist was not broken, and the Soviet Union retained a considerable part of its military potential. Theblitzkriegphase of the war in Europe had ended.[154]
By early December, freshly mobilisedreserves[155] allowed the Soviets to achieve numerical parity with Axis troops.[156] This, as well asintelligence data which established that a minimal number of Soviet troops in the East would be sufficient to deter any attack by the JapaneseKwantung Army,[157] allowed the Soviets to begin amassive counter-offensive that started on 5 December all along the front and pushed German troops 100–250 kilometres (62–155 mi) west.[158]
Following the Japanesefalse flagMukden incident in 1931, the Japanese shelling of the AmericangunboatUSS Panay in 1937, and the 1937–1938Nanjing Massacre,Japanese-American relations deteriorated. In 1939, the United States notified Japan that it would not be extending its trade treaty and American public opinion opposing Japanese expansionism led to a series of economic sanctions—theExport Control Acts—which banned U.S. exports of chemicals, minerals and military parts to Japan, and increased economic pressure on the Japanese regime.[115][159][160] During 1939 Japan launched itsfirst attack against Changsha, but was repulsed by late September.[161] Despiteseveral offensives by both sides, by 1940 the war between China and Japan was at a stalemate. To increase pressure on China by blocking supply routes, and to better position Japanese forces in the event of a war with the Western powers, Japan invaded andoccupied northern Indochina in September 1940.[162]
German successes in Europe prompted Japan to increase pressure on European governments inSoutheast Asia. The Dutch government agreed to provide Japan with oil supplies from theDutch East Indies, but negotiations for additional access to their resources ended in failure in June 1941.[167] In July 1941 Japan sent troops to southern Indochina, thus threatening British and Dutch possessions in the Far East. The United States, the United Kingdom, and other Western governments reacted to this move with a freeze on Japanese assets and a total oil embargo.[168][169] At the same time, Japan wasplanning an invasion of the Soviet Far East, intending to take advantage of the German invasion in the west, but abandoned the operation after the sanctions.[170]
Since early 1941, the United States and Japan had been engaged in negotiations in an attempt to improve their strained relations and end the war in China. During these negotiations, Japan advanced a number of proposals which were dismissed by the Americans as inadequate.[171] At the same time the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands engaged in secret discussions for the joint defence of their territories, in the event of a Japanese attack against any of them.[172] Roosevelt reinforcedthe Philippines (an American protectorate scheduled for independence in 1946) and warned Japan that the United States would react to Japanese attacks against any "neighboring countries".[172]
Frustrated at the lack of progress and feeling the pinch of the American–British–Dutch sanctions, Japan prepared for war. EmperorHirohito, after initial hesitation about Japan's chances of victory,[173] began to favour Japan's entry into the war.[174] As a result, Prime MinisterFumimaro Konoe resigned.[175][176] Hirohito refused the recommendation to appointPrince Naruhiko Higashikuni in his place, choosing War MinisterHideki Tojo instead.[177] On 3 November, Nagano explained in detail the plan of theattack on Pearl Harbor to the Emperor.[178] On 5 November, Hirohito approved in imperial conference the operations plan for the war.[179] On 20 November, the new government presented an interim proposal as its final offer. It called for the end of American aid to China and for lifting the embargo on the supply of oil and other resources to Japan. In exchange, Japan promised not to launch any attacks in Southeast Asia and to withdraw its forces from southern Indochina.[171] The American counter-proposal of 26 November required that Japan evacuate all of China without conditions and conclude non-aggression pacts with all Pacific powers.[180] That meant Japan was essentially forced to choose between abandoning its ambitions in China, or seizing the natural resources it needed in the Dutch East Indies by force;[181][182] the Japanese military did not consider the former an option, and many officers considered the oil embargo an unspoken declaration of war.[183]
These attacks led theUnited States,United Kingdom, China, Australia, and several other states to formally declare war on Japan, whereas the Soviet Union, being heavily involved in large-scale hostilities with European Axis countries, maintained its neutrality agreement with Japan.[189] Germany, followed by the other Axis states, declared war on the United States[190] in solidarity with Japan, citing as justification the American attacks on German war vessels that had been ordered by Roosevelt.[137][191]
During 1942, Allied officials debated on the appropriategrand strategy to pursue. All agreed thatdefeating Germany was the primary objective. The Americans favoured a straightforward,large-scale attack on Germany through France. The Soviets demanded a second front. The British argued that military operations should target peripheral areas to wear out German strength, leading to increasing demoralisation, and bolstering resistance forces; Germany itself would be subject to a heavy bombing campaign. An offensive against Germany would then be launched primarily by Allied armour, without using large-scale armies.[195] Eventually, the British persuaded the Americans that a landing in France was infeasible in 1942 and they should instead focus on driving the Axis out of North Africa.[196]
At theCasablanca Conference in early 1943, the Allies reiterated the statements issued in the 1942 Declaration and demanded theunconditional surrender of their enemies. The British and Americans agreed to continue to press the initiative in the Mediterranean by invading Sicily to fully secure the Mediterranean supply routes.[197] Although the British argued for further operations in the Balkans to bring Turkey into the war, in May 1943, the Americans extracted a British commitment to limit Allied operations in the Mediterranean to an invasion of the Italian mainland, and to invade France in 1944.[198]
Pacific (1942–1943)
Map of Japanese military advances through mid-1942
In early May 1942, Japan initiated operations tocapture Port Moresby byamphibious assault and thus sever communications and supply lines between the United States and Australia. The planned invasion was thwarted when an Allied task force, centred on two American fleet carriers, fought Japanese naval forces to a draw in theBattle of the Coral Sea.[205] Japan's next plan, motivated by the earlierDoolittle Raid, was to seizeMidway Atoll and lure American carriers into battle to be eliminated; as a diversion, Japan would also send forces tooccupy the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.[206] In mid-May, Japan started theZhejiang-Jiangxi campaign in China, with the goal of inflicting retribution on the Chinese who aided the surviving American airmen in the Doolittle Raid by destroying Chinese air bases and fighting against the Chinese 23rd and 32nd Army Groups.[207][208] In early June, Japan put its operations into action, but the Americans had brokenJapanese naval codes in late May and were fully aware of the plans and order of battle, and used this knowledge to achieve a decisivevictory at Midway over theImperial Japanese Navy.[209]
With its capacity for aggressive action greatly diminished as a result of the Midway battle, Japan attempted to capturePort Moresby by anoverland campaign in theTerritory of Papua.[210] The Americans planned a counterattack against Japanese positions in the southernSolomon Islands, primarilyGuadalcanal, as a first step towards capturingRabaul, the main Japanese base in Southeast Asia.[211]
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 thenorthern part of the island, where they faced Australian and United States troops in theBattle of Buna–Gona.[212] Guadalcanal soon became a focal point for both sides with heavy commitments of troops and ships in the battle for Guadalcanal. By the start of 1943, the Japanese were defeated on the island andwithdrew their troops.[213] In Burma, Commonwealth forces mounted two operations. The first was a disastrousoffensive into the Arakan region in late 1942 that forced a retreat back to India by May 1943.[214] The second was theinsertion of irregular forces behind Japanese frontlines in February which, by the end of April, had achieved mixed results.[215]
Despite considerable losses, in early 1942 Germany and its allies stopped a major Soviet offensive incentral andsouthern Russia, keeping most territorial gains they had achieved during the previous year.[216] In May, the Germans defeated Soviet offensives in theKerch Peninsula and atKharkov,[217] and then in June 1942 launched their mainsummer offensive against southern Russia, to seize theoil fields of the Caucasus and occupy theKubansteppe, while maintaining positions on the northern and central areas of the front. The Germans splitArmy Group South into two groups:Army Group A advanced to the lowerDon River and struck south-east to the Caucasus, whileArmy Group B headed towards theVolga River. The Soviets decided to make their stand at Stalingrad on the Volga.[218]
By mid-November, the Germans hadnearly taken Stalingrad in bitterstreet fighting. The Soviets began their second winter counter-offensive, starting with anencirclement of German forces at Stalingrad,[219] and an assault on theRzhev salient near Moscow, though the latter failed disastrously.[220] By early February 1943, the German Army had taken tremendous losses; German troops at Stalingrad had been defeated,[221] and the front-line had been pushed back beyond its position before the summer offensive. In mid-February, after the Soviet push had tapered off, the Germans launched anotherattack on Kharkov, creating asalient in their front line around the Soviet city ofKursk.[222]
Western Europe/Atlantic and Mediterranean (1942–1943)
Exploiting poor American naval command decisions,the German navy ravaged Allied shipping off the American Atlantic coast.[223] By November 1941, Commonwealth forces had launched a counter-offensive in North Africa,Operation Crusader, and reclaimed all the gains the Germans and Italians had made.[224] The Germans also launched a North African offensive in January, pushing the British back to positions at theGazala line by early February,[225] followed by a temporary lull in combat which Germany used to prepare for their upcoming offensives.[226] Concerns that the Japanese might use bases inVichy-held Madagascar caused the British toinvade the island in early May 1942.[227] An Axisoffensive in Libya forced an Allied retreat deep inside Egypt until Axis forces werestopped at El Alamein.[228] On the Continent, raids of Alliedcommandos on strategic targets, culminating in the failedDieppe Raid,[229] demonstrated the Western Allies' inability to launch an invasion of continental Europe without much better preparation, equipment, and operational security.[230]
In June 1943, the British and Americans begana strategic bombing campaign against Germany with a goal to disrupt the war economy, reduce morale, and "de-house" the civilian population.[237] Thefirebombing of Hamburg was among the first attacks in this campaign, inflicting significant casualties and considerable losses on infrastructure of this important industrial centre.[238]
In the Soviet Union, both the Germans and the Soviets spent the spring and early summer of 1943 preparing for large offensives incentral Russia. On 5 July 1943, Germanyattacked Soviet forces around the Kursk Bulge. Within a week, German forces had exhausted themselves against the Soviets' well-constructed defences,[242] and for the first time in the war, Hitler cancelled an operation before it had achieved tactical or operational success.[243] This decision was partially affected by the Western Allies'invasion of Sicily launched on 9 July, which, combined with previous Italian failures, resulted in theousting and arrest of Mussolini later that month.[244]
On 12 July 1943, the Soviets launched their owncounter-offensives, thereby dispelling any chance of German victory or even stalemate in the east. The Soviet victory at Kursk marked the end of German superiority,[245] giving the Soviet Union the initiative on the Eastern Front.[246][247] The Germans tried to stabilise their eastern front along the hastily fortifiedPanther–Wotan line, but the Soviets broke through it atSmolensk and theLower Dnieper Offensive.[248]
German operations in the Atlantic also suffered. ByMay 1943, as Allied counter-measures became increasingly effective, the resulting sizeable German submarine losses forced a temporary halt of the German Atlantic naval campaign.[254] In November 1943,Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met withChiang Kai-shekin Cairo and then with Joseph Stalinin Tehran.[255] The former conference determined the post-war return of Japanese territory[256] and the military planning for theBurma campaign,[257] while the latter included agreement 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.[258]
By the start of July 1944, Commonwealth forces in Southeast Asia had repelled the Japanese sieges inAssam, pushing the Japanese back to theChindwin River[285] while the Chinese captured Myitkyina. In September 1944, Chinese forcescaptured Mount Song and reopened theBurma Road.[286] In China, the Japanese had more successes, having finallycaptured Changsha in mid-June and the city ofHengyang by early August.[287] Soon after, they invaded the province ofGuangxi, winning major engagements against Chinese forces atGuilin and Liuzhou by the end of November[288] and successfully linking up their forces in China and Indochina by mid-December.[289]
In the Pacific, U.S. forces continued to push back the Japanese perimeter. In mid-June 1944, they began theiroffensive against the Mariana and Palau islands and decisively defeated Japanese forces in theBattle of the Philippine Sea. These defeats led to the resignation of the Japanese Prime Minister,Hideki Tojo, and provided the United States with air bases to launch intensive heavy bomber attacks on the Japanese home islands. In late October, American forcesinvaded the Filipino island of Leyte; soon after, Allied naval forces scored another large victory in theBattle of Leyte Gulf, one of the largest naval battles in history.[290]
On 16 December 1944, Germany made a last attempt to split the Allies on the Western Front by using most of its remaining reserves to launcha massive counter-offensive in the Ardennes andalong the French-German border, hoping to encircle large portions of Western Allied troops and prompt a political settlement after capturing their primary supply port atAntwerp. By 16 January 1945, this offensive had been repulsed with no strategic objectives fulfilled.[291] In Italy, the Western Allies remained stalemated at the German defensive line. In mid-January 1945, the Red Army attacked in Poland,pushing from the Vistula to the Oder river in Germany, andoverran East Prussia.[292] On 4 February Soviet, British, and U.S. leaders met for theYalta Conference. They agreed on the occupation of post-war Germany, and on when the Soviet Union would join the war against Japan.[293]
In May 1945, Australian troopslanded in Borneo, overrunning the oilfields there. British, American, and Chinese forces defeated the Japanese in northernBurma in March, and the British pushed on to reachRangoon by 3 May.[304] Chinese forces started a counterattack in theBattle of West Hunan that occurred between 6 April and 7 June 1945. American naval and amphibious forces also moved towards Japan, takingIwo Jima by March, andOkinawa by the end of June.[305] At the same time, a naval blockade bysubmarines was strangling Japan's economy and drastically reducing its ability to supply overseas forces.[306][307]
The call for unconditional surrender was rejected by the Japanese government, which believed it would be capable of negotiating for more favourable surrender terms.[311] In early August, the United Statesdropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities ofHiroshima andNagasaki. Between the two bombings, the Soviets, pursuant to the Yalta agreement,declared war on Japan,invaded Japanese-held Manchuria and quickly defeated theKwantung Army, which was the largest Japanese fighting force.[312] These two events persuaded previously adamant Imperial Army leaders to accept surrender terms.[313] The Red Army also captured thesouthern part of Sakhalin Island and theKuril Islands. On the night of 9–10 August 1945, Emperor Hirohito announced his decision to accept the terms demanded by the Allies in thePotsdam Declaration.[314] On 15 August, the Emperor communicated this decision to the Japanese people through a speech broadcast on the radio (Gyokuon-hōsō, literally "broadcast in the Emperor's voice").[315] On 15 August 1945,Japan surrendered, with thesurrender documents finally signed atTokyo Bay on the deck of the American battleshipUSS Missouri on 2 September 1945, ending the war.[316]
The Allies established occupation administrations inAustria andGermany, both initially divided between western and eastern occupation zones controlled by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, respectively. However, their paths soon diverged. In Germany, thewestern andeastern occupation zones controlled by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union officially ended in 1949, with the respective zones becoming separate countries,West Germany andEast Germany.[317] In Austria, however, occupation continued until 1955, when a joint settlement between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union permitted the reunification of Austria as a democratic state officially non-aligned with any political bloc (although in practice having better relations with the Western Allies). Adenazification program in Germany led to the prosecution of Nazi war criminals in theNuremberg trials and the removal of ex-Nazis from power, although this policy moved towards amnesty and re-integration of ex-Nazis into West German society.[318]
Post-war division of the world was formalised by two international military alliances, the United States-ledNATO and the Soviet-ledWarsaw Pact.[341] The long period of political tensions and military competition between them—theCold War—would be accompanied by an unprecedentedarms race and number ofproxy wars throughout the world.[342]
In China, nationalist and communist forces resumedthe civil war in June 1946. Communist forces were victorious and established the People's Republic of China on the mainland, while nationalist forces retreated toTaiwan in 1949.[345] In the Middle East, the Arab rejection of theUnited Nations Partition Plan for Palestine and thecreation of Israel marked the escalation of theArab–Israeli conflict. While European powers attempted to retain some or all of theircolonial empires, their losses of prestige and resources during the war rendered this unsuccessful, leading todecolonisation.[346][347]
The global economy suffered heavily from the war, although participating nations were affected differently. The United States emerged much richer than any other nation, leading to ababy boom, and by 1950 its gross domestic product per person was much higher than that of any of the other powers, and it dominated the world economy.[348] The Allied occupational authorities pursued a policy ofindustrial disarmament in Western Germany from 1945 to 1948.[349] Due to international trade interdependencies, this policy led to an economic stagnation in Europe and delayed European recovery from the war for several years.[350][351]
At theBretton Woods Conference in July 1944, the Allied nations drew up an economic framework for the post-war world. The agreement created theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF) and theInternational Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), which later became part of theWorld Bank Group. TheBretton Woods system lasted until 1973.[352] Recovery began with the mid-1948currency reform in Western Germany, and was sped up by the liberalisation of European economic policy that the U.S.Marshall Plan economic aid (1948–1951) both directly and indirectly caused.[353][354] The post-1948 West German recovery has been called theGerman economic miracle.[355] Italy also experienced aneconomic boom[356] and theFrench economy rebounded.[357] By contrast, the United Kingdom was in a state of economic ruin,[358] and although receiving a quarter of the total Marshall Plan assistance, more than any other European country,[359] it continued in relative economic decline for decades.[360] The Soviet Union, despite enormous human and material losses, also experienced rapid increase in production in the immediate post-war era,[361] having seized and transferred most of Germany's industrial plants and exactedwar reparations from its satellite states.[c][362] Japan recovered much later.[363] China returned to its pre-war industrial production by 1952.[364]
Estimates for the total number of casualties in the war vary, because many deaths went unrecorded.[365] Most suggest that some 60 million people died in the war, including about20 million military personnel and 40 million civilians.[366][367][368]
The Soviet Union alone lost around 27 million people during the war,[369] including 8.7 million military and 19 million civilian deaths.[370] A quarter of the total people in the Soviet Union were wounded or killed.[371] Germany sustained 5.3 million military losses, mostly on the Eastern Front and during the final battles in Germany.[372]
In Asia and the Pacific, the number of people killed by Japanese troops remains contested. According to R.J. Rummel, the Japanese killed between 3million and more than 10 million people, with the most probable case of almost 6,000,000 people.[383] According to the British historianM. R. D. Foot, civilian deaths are between 10 million and 20 million, whereas Chinese military casualties (killed and wounded) are estimated to be over five million.[384] Other estimates say that up to 30 million people, most of them civilians, were killed.[385][386] The most infamous Japanese atrocity was theNanjing Massacre, in which fifty to three hundred thousand Chinese civilians were raped and murdered.[387] Mitsuyoshi Himeta reported that 2.7 million casualties occurred during theThree Alls policy. GeneralYasuji Okamura implemented the policy inHebei andShandong.[388]
The Soviet Union was responsible for theKatyn massacre of 22,000 Polish officers,[394] and the imprisonment or execution ofhundreds of thousands of political prisoners by theNKVD secret police, along withmass civilian deportations to Siberia, in theBaltic states andeastern Poland annexed by the Red Army.[395] Soviet soldiers committed mass rapes in occupied territories, especiallyin Germany.[396][397] The exact number of German women and girls raped by Soviet troops during the war and occupation is uncertain, but historians estimate their numbers are likely in the hundreds of thousands, and possibly as many as two million,[398] while figures for women raped by German soldiers in the Soviet Union go as far as ten million.[399][400]
The SovietGulag became ade facto system of deadly camps during 1942–43, when wartime privation and hunger caused numerous deaths of inmates,[408] including foreign citizens of Poland andother countries occupied in 1939–40 by the Soviet Union, as well as AxisPOWs.[409] By the end of the war, most Soviet POWs liberated from Nazi camps and many repatriated civilians were detained in special filtration camps where they were subjected toNKVD evaluation, and 226,127 were sent to the Gulag as real or perceived Nazi collaborators.[410]
Japaneseprisoner-of-war camps, many of which were used as labour camps, also had high death rates. TheInternational Military Tribunal for the Far East found the death rate of Western prisoners was 27 percent (for American POWs, 37 percent),[411] seven times that of POWs under the Germans and Italians.[412] While 37,583 prisoners from the UK, 28,500 from the Netherlands, and 14,473 from the United States were released after thesurrender of Japan, the number of Chinese released was only 56.[413]
At least five million Chinese civilians from northern China and Manchukuo were enslaved between 1935 and 1941 by theEast Asia Development Board, orKōain, for work in mines and war industries. After 1942, the number reached 10 million.[414] InJava, between 4and 10 millionrōmusha (Japanese: "manual labourers"), were forced to work by the Japanese military. About 270,000 of these Javanese labourers were sent to other Japanese-held areas in Southeast Asia, and only 52,000 were repatriated to Java.[415]
Polish civilians wearing blindfolds photographed just before being massacred by German soldiers inPalmiry forest, 1940
In Europe, occupation came under two forms. In Western, Northern, and Central Europe (France, Norway, Denmark, the Low Countries, and theannexed portions of Czechoslovakia) Germany established economic policies through which it collected roughly 69.5 billion reichsmarks (27.8 billion U.S. dollars) by the end of the war; this figure does not include theplunder of industrial products, military equipment, raw materials and other goods.[416] Thus, the income from occupied nations was over 40 percent of the income Germany collected from taxation, a figure which increased to nearly 40 percent of total German income as the war went on.[417]
In Asia, Japan termed nations under its occupation as being part of theGreater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, essentially a Japanesehegemony which it claimed was for purposes of liberating colonised peoples.[423] Although Japanese forces were sometimes welcomed as liberators from European domination,Japanese war crimes frequently turned local public opinion against them.[424] During Japan's initial conquest, it captured 4,000,000 barrels (640,000 m3) of oil (~550,000 tonnes) left behind by retreating Allied forces; and by 1943, was able to get production in the Dutch East Indies up to 50 million barrels (7,900,000 m3) of oil (~6.8 million tonnes), 76 percent of its 1940 output rate.[424]
In the 1930s Britain and the United States together controlled almost 75% of world mineral output—essential for projecting military power.[425]
In Europe, before the outbreak of the war, the Allies had significant advantages in both population and economics. In 1938, the Western Allies (United Kingdom, France, Poland and the British Dominions) had a 30 percent larger population and a 30 percent higher gross domestic product than the European Axis powers (Germany and Italy); including colonies, the Allies had more than a 5:1 advantage in population and a nearly 2:1 advantage in GDP.[426] In Asia at the same time, China had roughly six times the population of Japan but only an 89 percent higher GDP; this reduces to three times the population and only a 38 percent higher GDP if Japanese colonies are included.[426]
The United States produced about two-thirds of all munitions used by the Allies in World War II, including warships, transports, warplanes, artillery, tanks, trucks, and ammunition.[427] Although 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 and the war evolved into one ofattrition.[428] While the Allies' ability to out-produce the Axis was partly due to more access to natural resources, other factors, such as Germany and Japan's reluctance to employ women in thelabour force,[429] Alliedstrategic bombing,[430] and Germany's late shift to awar economy[431] contributed significantly. Additionally, neither Germany nor Japan planned to fight a protracted war, and had not equipped themselves to do so.[432] To improve their production, Germany and Japan used millions ofslave labourers;[433]Germany enslaved about 12 million people, mostly from Eastern Europe,[406] whileJapan used more than 18 million people in Far East Asia.[414][415]
Aircraft were used forreconnaissance, asfighters,bombers, andground-support, and each role developed considerably. Innovations includedairlift (the capability to quickly move limited high-priority supplies, equipment, and personnel);[434] andstrategic bombing (the bombing of enemy industrial and population centres to destroy the enemy's ability to wage war).[435]Anti-aircraft weaponry also advanced, including defences such asradar and surface-to-air artillery, in particular the introduction of theproximity fuze. The use of thejet aircraft was pioneered and led to jets becoming standard in air forces worldwide.[436]
Land warfare changed from the static frontlines oftrench warfare of World War I, which had relied on improvedartillery that outmatched the speed of bothinfantry andcavalry, to increased mobility andcombined arms. Thetank, which had been used predominantly for infantry support in the First World War, had evolved into the primary weapon.[446] In the late 1930s, tank design was considerably more advanced than it had been during World WarI,[447] andadvances continued throughout the war with increases in speed, armour and firepower.[448][449] At the start of the war, most commanders thought enemy tanks should be met by tanks with superior specifications.[450] This idea was challenged by the poor performance of the relatively light early tank guns against armour, and German doctrine of avoiding tank-versus-tank combat. This, along with Germany's use of combined arms, were among the key elements of their highly successful blitzkrieg tactics across Poland and France.[446] Many means ofdestroying tanks, includingindirect artillery,anti-tank guns (both towed andself-propelled),mines, short-ranged infantry antitank weapons, and other tanks were used.[450] Even with large-scale mechanisation, infantry remained the backbone of all forces,[451] and throughout the war, most infantry were equipped similarly to World War I.[452] The portable machine gun spread, a notable example being the GermanMG 34, and varioussubmachine guns which were suited toclose combat in urban and jungle settings.[452] Theassault rifle, a late war development incorporating many features of the rifle and submachine gun, became the standard post-war infantry weapon for most armed forces.[453]
^Reparations were exacted fromEast Germany,Hungary,Romania, andBulgaria using Soviet-dominated joint enterprises. The Soviet Union also instituted trading arrangements deliberately designed to favour the country. Moscow controlled the Communist parties that ruled the satellite states, and they followed orders from the Kremlin. Historian Mark Kramer concludes: "The net outflow of resources from eastern Europe to the Soviet Union was approximately $15 billion to $20 billion in the first decade after World War II, an amount roughly equal to the total aid provided by the United States to western Europe under theMarshall Plan."
^Texts of Soviet–Japanese Statements; Peace Declaration Trade Protocol.Archived 9 December 2021 at theWayback MachineThe New York Times, page 2, 20 October 1956. Subtitle: "Moscow, October 19. (UP) – Following are the texts of a Soviet–Japanese peace declaration and of a trade protocol between the two countries, signed here today, in unofficial translation from the Russian". Quote: "The state of war between the U.S.S.R. and Japan ends on the day the present declaration enters into force [...]"
^Coogan 1993: "Although some Chinese troops in the Northeast managed to retreat south, others were trapped by the advancing Japanese Army and were faced with the choice of resistance in defiance of orders, or surrender. A few commanders submitted, receiving high office in the puppet government, but others took up arms against the invader. The forces they commanded were the first of the volunteer armies."
^Zabecki, David T. (2015).World War II in Europe: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. p. 1663.ISBN978-1-1358-1242-3.Archived from the original on 7 March 2023. Retrieved17 June 2019.The earliest fighting started at 0445 hours when marines from the battleship Schleswig-Holstein attempted to storm a small Polish fort in Danzig, the Westerplate
^Keegan 1997, p. 35. Cienciala 2010, p. 128, observes that, while it is true that Poland was far away, making it difficult for the French and British to provide support, "[f]ew Western historians of World War II ... know that the British had committed to bomb Germany if it attacked Poland, but did not do so except for one raid on the base of Wilhelmshaven. The French, who committed to attacking Germany in the west, had no intention of doing so."
^Ginsburgs, George (1958). "A Case Study in the Soviet Use of International Law: Eastern Poland in 1939".The American Journal of International Law.52 (1):69–84.doi:10.2307/2195670.JSTOR2195670.S2CID146904066.
^Nuremberg Documents C-62/GB86, a directive from Hitler in October 1939 which concludes: "The attack [on France] is to be launched this Autumn if conditions are at all possible."
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^Glantz 2001, p. 26: "By 1 November [the Wehrmacht] had lost fully 20% of its committed strength (686,000 men), up to 2/3 of its ½ million motor vehicles, and 65 percent of its tanks. The German Army High Command (OKH) rated its 136 divisions as equivalent to 83 full-strength divisions."
^Beevor 1998, pp. 41–42;Evans 2008, pp. 213–214, notes that "Zhukov had pushed the Germans back where they had launched Operation Typhoon two months before. ... Only Stalin's decision to attack all along the front instead of concentrating his forces in an all-out assault against the retreating German Army Group Centre prevented the disaster from being even worse."
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^Wood 2007, p. 9, listing various military and diplomatic developments, observes that "the threat to Japan was not purely economic."
^Dower 1986, p. 5, calls attention to the fact that "the Allied struggle against Japan exposed the racist underpinnings of the European and American colonial structure. Japan did not invade independent countries in southern Asia. It invaded colonial outposts which the Westerners had dominated for generations, taking absolutely for granted their racial and cultural superiority over their Asian subjects." Dower goes on to note that, before the horrors of Japanese occupation made themselves felt, many Asians responded favourably to the victories of the Imperial Japanese forces.
^Dunn 1998, p. 157. According toMay 1955, p. 155, Churchill stated: "Russian declaration of war on Japan would be greatly to our advantage, provided, but only provided, that Russians are confident that will not impair their Western Front."
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