World War II

The Sides

• The Allied Powers:– 1) Great Britain– 2) France– 3) the Soviet Union– 4) the United States– 5) China

• The Axis Powers:– 1) Germany– 2) Italy– 3) Japan

Reasons for War

• In many ways the war resulted from the renewal of tensions from WWI that were never resolved

• Japanese expansion sparked conflicts in Asia

• Fascist movements in Europe encouraged military aggression in the name of nationalism

• Germany withdrew from the League of Nations

• Mussolini attacked Ethiopia• Fascism triggered a civil war in

Spain resulting in a fascist takeover in 1939

Onset of War

• 1938 – Hitler invaded the Sudetenland, a German speaking part of Czechoslovakia

• Munich Conference with European powers met to address Czech protests– British PM Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement

let Hitler keep the Sudetenland in exchange for his promise to stop aggression

• Hitler didn’t keep his promise and took all of Czech in March of 1939

• September 1, 1939 – Hitler blitzkrieged Poland• GB and France declared war• Rome-Berlin Axis joined Italy and Germany in an

alliance

War in Asia

• Fighting had already begun in China as Japan attacked cities and railroads in 1937

• Japan used outbreak of war in Europe to seize Indochina from France and Malaya and Burma from GB

• 1940 – GER, IT, and Japan joined together with the Tripartite Pact – became the Axis Powers

• War was in two theaters: Europe and the Pacific

The Nature of War

• GB and France had done little to prepare for the war– Still not recovered from WWI– Late 1938, GB began

increasing military production

• WWII was also a total war – even more so than WWI– All WWI technology was

used, plus new items: aircraft carries, bombers, rockets, and the atomic bomb

– Women went to the factories, economies had to ration, governments used propaganda

• War not just on the battlefront, but bombing raids were launched on cities and targeting civilian populations

• Germans used new warfare called blitzkrieg:– 1) fighter planes went in and

scattered enemy troops and disrupted communications

– 2) tanks rolled over enemy defensive lines

– 3) infantry invaded and occupied the enemy lands

• This tactic was used on Poland, Austria, Norway, Denmark, Belgium and Luxembourg who all fell in first three months

• France fell by mid 1940• Then ruled by a puppet government in German-

controlled Vichy by the Nazis• French resistance forces staged guerrilla attacks in

South France for years• Britain was basically alone in resisting Germany until

Russia and the US stepped in in 1941

• Battle of Britain:– GB protected from blitzkrieg because it was an island– Operation Sea Lion – German massive air attack on GB

from June 1940-Sept. 1940– The RAF successfully repelled the Luftwaffe, partly

because they had developed radar– Hitler had to give up trying to take GB

• Operation Barbarossa:– Hitler violated his Non-

Aggression Pact with Stalin and invaded Russia in 1941

– Within 5 months he had conquered Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine and half of European Russia

– The Soviet Union quickly joined the side of the Allies

– Hitler had not learned from Napoleon’s mistakes– Winter came quickly, supply lines were over extended and

his army was seriously diminished – Battle of Stalingrad (1942) was the first Allied victory of

the war– Stalin poured all resources into a counterattack and began

to drive the Germans out

US Involvement

• FDR had known the US would get involved in the war even though popular opinion did not support it

• Congress even passed laws to keep him from getting involved by limiting sales of weapons to countries at war

• FDR eventually got around those laws by “leasing” weapons, destroyers, etc. to GB in returned for land for US military bases for 99 years

• GB’s Winston Churchill pushed for the US to get involved

• FDR knew the only thing standing between the US and Germany was Great Britain

• Japan seized European colonies in SE Asia and the Pacific, GB and US stopped shipments of steel and oil to Japan– Demanded Japan withdraw

and they refused

• December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and decimated the Pacific fleet– Congress declared war the next

day, on December 8– GER and IT declared war on the

US on December 10

• Japan quickly took Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines by March of 1942

• US Navy stopped Japan from taking Australia at the Battle of Coral Sea (May 1942)

• At the Battle of Midway (June 1942), the US destroyed 4 of 6 Japanese aircraft carriers

• Then began an “island-hopping” campaign across the Pacific taking strategic islands where they could build air force bases

• Operation Torch:– Late 1941, the US and GB planned the invasion of North

Africa which Germany controlled (except for Egypt)– They broke Germany’s secret codes and were able to drive

the Nazis from Africa in May of 1943

• The Soft Underbelly:– Stalin begged for the US and GB to open a western front in

France to take pressure off the eastern front in Russia• FDR and Churchill didn’t believe they were strong or prepared

enough for that

– So, from Africa, they planned to hop across the Med Sea and take Sicily and invade Italy (the soft underbelly)• Italy signed an armistice in 1943

• D-Day:– June 6, 1944 – GB and the US finally felt strong enough

and prepared enough to open a western front– It was the largest air-land-sea invasion in history– Invaded the beaches of Normandy, France and pushed

across the country, freeing France after 4 years of Nazi occupation

• Battle of the Bulge:– Hitler knew his days were numbered– Poured what resources and men he had into one last

battle….and lost– British, French and American forces marched east across

Germany– The Russians pushed west across Germany

• The Fuehrer’s Suicide:– As the Allies closed in from all sides, Hitler committed

suicide– A week later, on May 7, 1945, German military

commanders surrendered to the Allies– The war in the European Theater was over

• Meanwhile….back to Japan:– The war in the Pacific continued as the US defeated the

Japanese at two devastating battles on Iwo Jima and Okinawa

– Now the US was faced with a huge decision:• 1) invaded mainland Japan and possibly lose hundreds of

thousands of soldiers, or• 2) drop an atomic weapon

A Change in Leaders

• April, 1945 – FDR died and Harry Truman became the president

• July, 1945 – Clement Atlee replaced Churchill as Prime Minister of GB

Da Bombs

• Truman warned Japan they faced “prompt and utter destruction” if they did not surrender

• They didn’t listen• August 6, 1945 – Little Boy was

dropped on Hiroshima killing 80,000 immediately– Another 120,000 from after-effects

• Still no surrender• August 9, 1945 – Fat Man was

dropped on Nagasaki• Emperor Hirohito ordered

surrender on August 14, 1945

The Holocaust

• Outbreak of war meant no more forced emigration• Nazis turned to another option – the “Final Solution”• As Hitler/Nazis took over other places in Europe, they

also “inherited” Jews in those places• Forced labor camps and extermination camps

• Some were subject to disease injections, sterilization, genetic testing, “mercy killings”, etc.

• Millions more “undesirables” also killed by the Nazis• Russians, Polish, Gypsies, Slavs, mentally or physically

handicapped, homosexuals, communists, etc.

Death and Destruction

• Most destructive war in history• Est. 60 million deaths• ½ of those were civilians• Heavy bombers, jet fighters, missiles, atomic

weapons contributed helped contribute to this • Civilian and military targets hit• Millions more homeless• Raping, looting, burning

A New World Order• WWII marked end of European domination• European nations began losing or giving up their colonies• Two superpowers emerged – the US and SU

– 1st World – those that aligned with the US– 2nd World – those that aligned with the SU– 3rd World – those whose support the US and SU wanted– They dominate from 1945-1991

• Interdependence between nations was greater than ever• More countries began to industrialize

Cold War Politics • Rivalry between the US and SU began before the war

was over• Neither the US or GB trusted or approved of Stalin or

communist Soviet Union– Stalin believed the US and GB were essential to survival,

but did not trust them

• Tensions became clear in the last half of the war– Especially at the three Allied conferences held between

the three nations

• Tehran Conference (1943)– Stalin wanted a western front opened

• Upset that it took until mid-1944

– With US and GB focused on France, it left SU to dominate and occupy eastern Europe as they pushed the Germans back

– GB negotiated with SU to maintain western dominance in Greece and influence in Yugo and Hungary

– But the US supported self-determination for them

• Yalta Conference (1945)– The Big Three could not agree on what to do with postwar

Germany• So they agreed to divide it into four occupation zones• One each for the US, GB, FR and the US

– SU wanted to destroy all German industry but GB and US would not agree

– Agreed that war criminals would be tried before an international court

– They argued over the status of eastern European countries• Stalin wanted to control their gov’ts, US and GB wanted them to

be allies

• Potsdam Conference (July 1945)– War in Europe over, still going on in Pacific– SU had installed communist regimes in Romania, Bulgaria,

Poland, Hungary and Yugoslavia• Had dismantled industries in their zone of Germany and also in

Austria and Hungary

– Truman and Churchill protested these actions• Stalin told them he had no intention of keeping promises made at

Yalta

– Talked about terms of Japanese surrender– Talked about SU joining war against Japan– Truman told Churchill he was going to use the atomic

bomb, but not Stalin– This conference really set the stage for post-war political

divisions• Democracy v. Communism

The Emergence of the Superpowers• Because of rising hostility b/w the US

and SU, there was no peace treaty signed with Germany

• 8 million Germans fled to western European countries

• By late 1940’s:– the SU zone of Germany was East Germany– the US, GB and France had combined their

zones into one making West Germany

• Same thing happened in Asia– SU occupied northern part of Korea and the

US the southern part of Korea– Couldn’t agree on countrywide free

elections, so the two became sovereign nations in 1948 (divided at the 38th parallel)

• The US occupied Japan alone

• Truman Doctrine (1947)– Purpose was to deter

communism from southern and western Europe• Specifically at this time from

Greece and Turkey

– Truman said it was the policy of the US to support people who are resisting communism

• Marshall Plan– Provided loans to help nations of western Europe rebuild

after the war– Probably the most successful foreign policy in US history– SU thought the US was trying to dominate Europe

economically

• Line drawn in the sand between the two– Especially when Churchill gave his famous “iron curtain”

speech

• Berlin Airlift– 1947 – Stalin blockaded the city of Berlin from the other

Allies– The people of the city were beginning to starve– US and GB airlifted hundreds of tons of supplies and

dropped them to the people– After a year, Stalin lifted the blockade

• 1949 – SU developed the atomic bomb– This began an arms race that lasted into the 1980’s

• In 1961, because thousands of East Berliners were fleeing to West Berlin, the Soviet leader, Krushchev, had the Berlin Wall built

• Two military alliances were created:– NATO = alliance of western European countries, Canada

and the US– Warsaw Pact = the Soviet Union and eastern European

countries

United Nations

• Before the war was over, FDR and Churchill had signed the Atlantic Charter– Would establish a world

peacekeeping organization

• They believed it would work if they corrected early administrative and structural mistakes of the League of Nations

• It created two bodies:– General Assembly – made up of

representatives from all member nations

– Security Council – five permanent members and 7 rotating members

– The permanent members all had to approve any action the UN took in a world crisis

– The General Assembly votes on non-security issues– Huge bureaucracy – Headed by a Secretary General– Security Council mostly helpless during Cold War because

US and SU were on opposite sides of issues– Plus when China became communist in 1949, the UN

rejected its legitimacy until 1972

– One crisis solved during early years of UN but only because the Soviet Union was absent when the decision was made

– The Sec. Council voted to condemn the actions of communist N. Korea when it invaded non-communist S. Korea in 1950

– The UN sent troops as did the US.

Permanent Members: US, Russia, GB, France and China

Non-permanent members: Angola, Chad, Chile, Jordan, Lithuania, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Spain, Venequela