Before taking effect though, the Franco-Soviet pact was required to go through the bureaucracy of the League of Nations, rendering it essentially toothless.[12][13] 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.[14] In October, Italyinvaded 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.[15]
In direct violation of the Versailles and Locarno treaties, Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland in March 1936. He received little response from other European powers.[16] 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[17] 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.[18]
Chronology
The start of the war is generally held to be September 1, 1939 with the German invasion of Poland, although Britain and France entered two days later. Other dates for the beginning of war include the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on September 13, 1931,[19][20] the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on July 7, 1937,[21][22] or one of several other events. Other sources follow A. J. P. Taylor, who holds that there was a simultaneous Sino-Japanese War in East Asia, and a Second European War in Europe and her colonies, but they did not become a World War until they merged in 1941; at which point the war continued until 1945. This article uses the conventional dating.[23] Other important events that happened at the dawn of the war include the Second Italo-Abyssinian War between Ethiopia and Italy on October 1935 that led to the collapse of the League of Nations[24]
The end of the War also has several dates. Some sources state that it ended at the armistice of August 14, 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan (September 2, 1945); in some European histories, it ended on V-E Day (May 8, 1945). The Treaty of Peace with Japan was not signed until 1951.[25]
Politically, the war is best remembered for exposing the inherent weakness of the League of Nations. Like the Mukden Incident in 1931 (the Japanese annexation of three Chinese provinces), the Abyssinia Crisis in 1934 is often seen as a clear example of the ineffectiveness of the League. Both Italy and Ethiopia were member nations and yet the League was unable to control Italy or to protect Ethiopia when Italy clearly violated the League's own Article X. The war is also remembered for the illegal use of mustard gas and phosgene by the Italian armed forces.[24]
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 late September.[42]
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.[62] In 1940, following the German capture of Paris, the size of the United States Navy was significantly increased and, after the Japanese incursion into Indochina, the United States embargoed iron, steel and mechanical parts against Japan.[63] In September, the United States further agreed to a trade of American destroyers for British bases.[64] Still, a large majority of the American public continued to oppose any direct military intervention into the conflict well into 1941.[65]
At the end of September 1940, the Tripartite Pact united Japan, Italy and Germany to formalize the Axis Powers.[66] The pact stipulated that any country, with the exception of the Soviet Union, not in the war which attacked any Axis Power would be forced to go to war against all three.[67] The Soviet Union expressed interest in joining the Tripartite Pact, sending a modified draft to Germany in November, offering a very German-favourable economic deal;[68] while Germany remained silent on the former, they accepted the latter.[69] Regardless of the pact, the United States continued to support the United Kingdom and China by introducing the Lend-Lease policy authorizing the provision of war materiel and other items[70] and creating a security zone spanning roughly half of the Atlantic Ocean where the United States Navy protected British convoys.[71] As a result, Germany and the United States found themselves engaged in sustained, if undeclared, naval warfare in the North and Central Atlantic by October 1941, even though the United States remained officially neutral.[72][73]
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,[84] then, with the assistance of the Free French, invaded Syria and Lebanon to prevent further such occurrences.[85]
In the Atlantic, the British scored a much-needed public morale boost by sinking the German flagship Bismarck.[86] Perhaps most importantly, during the Battle of Britain the Royal Air Force had successfully resisted the Luftwaffe's assault, and on May 11, 1941, Hitler called off the bombing campaign.[87]
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 (the Three Alls Policy) in occupied areas to reduce human and material resources for the communists.[88] Continued antipathy between Chinese communist and nationalist forces culminated in armed clashes in January 1941, effectively ending their co-operation.[89]
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 the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact in April, 1941.[90] By contrast the Germans were steadily making preparations for an attack on the Soviet Union, amassing forces on the Soviet border.[91]
The war becomes global
On June 22, 1941, Germany, along with other European Axis members and Finland, invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. The primary targets of this surprise offensive[92] were the Baltic region, Moscow and Ukraine, with an ultimate goal of ending the 1941 campaign near the A-A line, the line connecting the Caspian and White Seas. Hitler's objectives were to eliminate the Soviet Union as a military power, exterminate Communism, generate so-called 'living space'[93] by dispossessing the native population[94] and guarantee access to the strategic resources needed to defeat Germany's remaining rivals.[95] Although before the war the Red Army was preparing for strategic counter-offensives,[96]Barbarossa forced the Soviet supreme command to adopt a strategic defence. During the summer, the Axis made significant gains into Soviet territory, inflicting immense losses in personnel and matériel. However, by the middle of August, the German Army High Command decided to suspend the offensive of a considerably depleted Army Group Center, and to divert the Second Panzer Group to reinforce troops advancing toward central Ukraine and Leningrad.[97] 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 (the First Battle of Kharkov) possible.
By October, when Axis operational objectives in Ukraine and the Baltic region were achieved, with only the sieges of Leningrad[104] and Sevastopol continuing,[105] a major offensive against Moscow had been renewed. After two months of fierce battles, the German army almost reached the outer suburbs of Moscow, where the exhausted troops[106] were forced to suspend their offensive.[107] Despite impressive territorial gains, the Axis campaign had failed to achieve its main objectives: two key cities remained in Soviet hands, the Soviet capability to resist was not broken, and the Soviet Union retained a considerable part of its military potential. The blitzkriegphase of WWII in Europe had ended.[108]
By early December, freshly mobilized reserves[109] allowed the Soviets to achieve numerical parity with Axis troops.[110] This, as well as intelligence data that established a minimal number of Soviet troops in the East sufficient to prevent any attack by the Japanese Kwantung Army,[111] allowed the Soviets to begin a massive counter-offensive that started on December 5 along a 1000 km front and pushed German troops 100–250 km west.[112]
Japan had seized military control of southern Indochina the previous year, partly to increase pressure on China by blocking supply routes, but also to better position Japanese forces in the event of a war with the western powers.[113] Japan, hoping to capitalize on Germany's success in Europe, made several demands, including a steady supply of oil, of the Dutch East Indies; these attempts, however, broke down in June 1941.[114] The United States, United Kingdom and other western governments reacted to the seizure of Indochina with a freeze on Japanese assets, while the United States (which supplied 80% of Japan's oil[115]) responded by placing a complete oil embargo.[116] Thus Japan was essentially forced to choose between abandoning its ambitions in Asia and the prosecution of the war against China, or seizing the natural resources it 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.[117] Japanese Imperial General Headquarters thus planned to rapidly seize European colonies in Asia to create a large defensive perimeter stretching into the Central Pacific; the Japanese would then be free to exploit the resources of Southeast Asia while exhausting the over-stretched Allies by fighting a defensive war. To prevent American intervention while securing the perimeter it was further planned to neutralize the United States Pacific Fleet from the outset.[118]
These attacks prompted the United States, United Kingdom, Australia,[120] other western Allies[121] and China (already fighting the Second Sino-Japanese War), 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.[122] The Soviet Union did not adhere to the declaration, maintained a neutrality agreement with Japan[123][124] and exempted itself from the principle of self-determination.[103]
Germany retained the initiative as well. Exploiting dubious American naval command decisions, the German navyravaged Allied shipping off the American Atlantic coast.[129] 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.[130] In North Africa, the Germans launched an offensive in January, pushing the British back to positions at the Gazala Line by early February,[131] followed by a temporary lull in combat which Germany used to prepare for their upcoming offensives.[132]
With its capacity for aggressive action greatly diminished as a result of the Midway battle, Japan chose to focus on a belated attempt to capture Port Moresby by an overland campaign in the Territory of Papua.[136] The Americans planned a counterattack against Japanese positions in the southern Solomon Islands, primarily Guadalcanal, as a first step towards capturing Rabaul, the main Japanese base in Southeast Asia.[137] 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, where they faced Australian and United States troops in the Battle of Buna-Gona.[138] 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 and withdrew their troops.[139]
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 1943.[140] The second was the insertion of irregular forces behind Japanese front-lines in February which, by the end of April, had achieved dubious results.[141]
By early February 1943, the German Army had taken tremendous losses; German troops at Stalingrad had been forced to surrender[145] 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 another attack on Kharkov, creating a salient in their front-line around the Russian city of Kursk.[146]
By November 1941, Commonwealth forces had launched a counter-offensive, Operation Crusader, in North Africa, and reclaimed all the gains the Germans and Italians had made.[147] In the west, concerns the Japanese might utilize bases in Vichy-held Madagascar caused the British to invade the island in early May, 1942.[148] This success was offset soon after by an Axis offensive in Libya which pushed the Allies back into Egypt until Axis forces were stopped at El Alamein.[149] On the Continent, raids of Allied commandos on strategic targets, culminating in the disastrous Dieppe Raid,[150] demonstrated the Western allies' inability to launch an invasion of continental Europe without much better preparation, equipment, and operational security.[151]
In the Soviet Union, both the Germans and the Soviets spent the spring and early summer of 1943 making preparations for large offensives in Central Russia. On July 4, 1943, Germanyattacked Soviet forces in the region of the Kursk Bulge. Within a week, German forces had exhausted themselves against the Soviets' deeply echeloned and well-constructed defenses[160][161] and, for the first time in the war, Hitler canceled the operation before it had achieved tactical or operational success.[162] This decision was partially affected by the Western Allies' invasion of Sicily launched on July 9 which, combined with previous Italian failures, resulted in the ousting and arrest of Mussolini later that month.[163] On July 12, 1943, the Soviets launched their own counter-offensives, thereby dispelling any hopes of the German Army for victory or even stalemate in the east. The Germans attempted to stabilize their eastern front along the hastily fortified Panther-Wotan line, however, the Soviets broke it at Smolensk and by the Lower Dnieper Offensives.[164]
German operations in the Atlantic also suffered. By May 1943, as Allied counter-measures became increasingly effective, the resulting sizable German submarine losses forced a temporary halt of the German Atlantic naval campaign .[170] In November 1943, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met with Chiang Kai-shekin Cairo[171] and then with Joseph Stalin in Tehran.[172] The former conference determined the post-war return of Japanese territory[171] 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.[172]
By late May 1944, the Soviets had liberated Crimea, largely expelled Axis forces from Ukraine and made incursions into Romania, which were repulsed by the Axis troops.[176] The Allied offensives in Italy had succeeded and, at the expense of allowing several German divisions to retreat, on June 4 Rome was captured.[177]
The Allies experienced mixed fortunes in mainland Asia. In March 1944, the Japanese launched the first of two invasions, an operation against British positions in Assam, India[178], and soon besieged Commonwealth positions at Imphal and Kohima.[179] In May 1944, British forces mounted a counter-offensive that drove Japanese troops back to Burma,[179] and Chinese forces that had invaded Northern Burma in late 1943 besieged Japanese troops in Myitkyina.[180] The second Japansese invasion attempted to destroy China's main fighting forces, secure railways between Japanese-held territory and capture Allied airfields.[181] By June, the Japanese had conquered the province of Henan and begun a renewed attack against Changsha in the Hunan province.[182]
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[192] 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.[193] Soon after, they further invaded the province of Guangxi, winning major engagements against Chinese forces at Guilin and Liuzhou by the end of November[194] and successfully linking up their forces in China and Indochina by the middle of December.[195]
In the Pacific, American forces continued to press back the Japanese perimeter. In mid-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. These defeats led to the resignation of Japanese Prime Minister Tōjō and provided the United States with air bases to launch intensive heavy bomber attacks on the Japanese home islands. In late October, American forces invaded the Filipino island of Leyte; soon after, Allied naval forces scored another large victory during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history.[196]
Axis collapse, Allied victory
On December 16, 1944, Germany attempted its last desperate measure for success by marshaling German reserves to launch a massive counteroffensive in the Ardennes to attempt to split the Western Allies, encircle large portions of Western Allied troops and capture their primary supply port at Antwerp in order to prompt a political settlement.[197] The offensive was spearheaded by Germany's top army group and over one million total soldiers fought in the battles.[197] The offensive had been repulsed by January with no strategic objectives fulfilled.[197] The Soviets attacked through Hungary, while the Germans abandoned Greece and Albania, and were driven out of southern Yugoslavia by partisans.[198] 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.[199]
On February 4, U.S., British, and Soviet leaders met in Yalta. They agreed on the occupation of post-war Germany,[200] and when the Soviet Union would join the war against Japan.[201]
In an effort to maintain international peace,[213] the Allies formed the United Nations, which officially came into existence on October 24, 1945,[214] and adopted The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, as a common standard of achievement for all member nations.
Soon after the end of World War II, conflict flared again in many parts of the world. 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, North Korea invadedSouth Korea[228], which was backed by the United Nations,[229] while North Korea was backed by the Soviet Union and China. The war resulted in essentially a stalemate and ceasefire, after which North Korean leader Kim Il Sung created a highly centralized and brutal dictatorship, according himself unlimited power and generating a formidable cult of personality.[230][231]
Following the end of the war, a rapid period of decolonization also took place within the holdings of the various European colonial powers.[232] 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.[233] 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 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 Germanyrecovered quickly and doubled production from its pre-war levels by the 1950s.[234]Italy came out of the war in poor economic condition,[235] but by 1950s, the Italian economy was marked by stability and high growth.[236] The United Kingdom was in a state of economic ruin after the war,[237] and continued to experience relative economic decline for decades to follow.[238]France rebounded quite quickly, and enjoyed rapid economic growth and modernization.[239] The Soviet Union also experienced a rapid increase in production in the immediate post-war era.[240] 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.[241]China, following the conclusion of its civil war, was essentially a bankrupt nation.[242] By 1953 economic restoration seemed fairly successful as production had resumed pre-war levels.[242] 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 world's industrial output; by the early 1970s though, this dominance had lessened significantly.[243]
