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World War Two: A Brief Summaryleft217170The Big Idea:Began when aggressive empire building by Germany, Italy and Japan was opposed by Britain and France.WWII was very destructive because of the technological power of the new weaponry.Was a total war that involved civilians as well as the military.Created political and geographical divisions within Europe.Affected global politics and culture for many years.00The Big Idea:Began when aggressive empire building by Germany, Italy and Japan was opposed by Britain and France.WWII was very destructive because of the technological power of the new weaponry.Was a total war that involved civilians as well as the military.Created political and geographical divisions within Europe.Affected global politics and culture for many years.Section OverviewDuring the 1930s, Italy, Germany and Japan sought to build new empires. At first, the democractic powers did not stop them. When German aggression became impossible to ignore, in 1939, World War II began. With advanced technology, the war covered a larger area and was more destructive than any before. Civilians became involved on a larger scale as well. At first, the Axis Powers – Germany, Italy, Japan – won major victories. After the entry of the United States and the Soviet Union into the war on the Allied side, however, the tide began to turn. The war finally ended in 1945. It had many lasting effects. There was enormous losses of life and property, the United Nations was formed to try and maintain peace, and Europe became divided, with communist governments in Eastern Europe and democratic governments in Western Europe.Causes of the WarIn the 1930s, Italy, Germany and Japan aggressively sought to build new empires. The League of Nations was weakened by the lack of an armed forces and the absence of the United States. Western countries were busy trying to recover from the Great Depression and did not want any more war. As a result of these circumstances, the acts of aggression by Germany, Italy and Japan are going to be allowed to go unchecked in order to avoid conflict.Japan Invades ChinaThe militaristic leaders of Japan wanted to build a Japanese empire. In 1931, Japan seized the Chinese territory of Manchuria. When the League of Nations condemned the action, Japan merely withdrew its membership from the League. This incident, known as the Manchurian Incident, strengthened the militarism in Japan. In 1937, the Japanese army invaded the Chinese mainland. They established a puppet government (a type of government under the control of an outside power) in the former Chinese Nationalist capital of Nanjing. Their invasion of this city was so brutal that it became known as the “Rape of Nanjing”. Japan continued to gain territory during the period of war with China that followed their invasion.Italy Attacks EthiopiaIn 1935, the Italian army under the direction of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, invaded the African country of Ethiopia. The Ethiopians attempted to resist the attack, but their weapons were no match for the armored vehicles, aircraft, and poison gas of the Italians. The Ethiopian king appealed to the League of Nations, but the only action that the League of Nations was able to take was to agree to stop nations from selling weapons and other war materials to Italy. However, this action of the League of Nations was not honored by all nations an Italy soon controlled Ethiopia.German Aggression in EuropeAs part of the nationalistic agenda of the Nazis, Adolf Hitler glorified war as a mean of restoring German national pride. This philosophy led to a policy of German territorial expansion and Treaty of Versailles violations.Hitler rebuilt the German army in violation of the Treaty of Versailles.In 1936 Hitler sent troops into the Rhineland. This was an area located on Germany’s border with France. The Treaty of Versailles had required that Germany remove all troops and military support from this border region to prevent France from begin invaded.In 1938 Hitler made Austria part of the German empire, which was a direct violation of the Anschluss clause of the Treaty of Versailles. This clause prohibited an alliance or union between the countries of Germany and Austria.Later in 1938 Hitler forced Czechoslovakia to give Germany a border area called the Sudetenland, where many Germans lived.AppeasementWestern democracies adopted a policy of appeasement. Under this policy, nations gave in to aggressive demands to avoid war and maintain the peace. The western democracies responded weakly to German aggression. At the Munich Conference in 1938, western democracies agree that Germany would seize control of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. World War Two BeginsIn the face of the appeasement policies and weakness of the Western democracies, Italy, Germany and Japan formed the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis. These nations agreed to fight Soviet communism and not stop each other from making foreign conquests. It began to be clear that appeasement had failed. Several events led to a declaration of war. In March 1939, Hitler took over the rest of Czechoslovakia. In August 1939, he made a pact with Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union. In the Nazi-Soviet pact, the two enemies agreed not to fight each other. In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Finally Britain and France responded by declaring war on Germany. World War II had begun.The Axis Powers AdvanceThe war was fought between the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy and Japan) and the Allied Powers (France and Britain – later joined by the Soviet Union, China and USA). At first, Germany and its allies prevailed. Nazi forces conquered Poland in a swift, massive attack known as blitzkrieg, or lightning warfare. Hitler had developed the blitzkrieg to avoid getting bogged down in trench warfare like he had experienced in World War One. The blitzkrieg was a three-step attack. It began with a massive bombing campaign by the Luftwaffe (Germany’s new airforce) and was quickly followed by a quick and powerful invasion of tanks. The final step of the blitzkrieg was to bring in large numbers of ground troops to control the regions that had been bombed and invaded by tanks. The Blitzkrieg:center1016000Using the blitzkrieg, Hitler continued his march across Europe and by April 1940 he had overran Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium. By June 1940, the Germans had entered Paris and were poised to capture the entire French and British armies. In what became known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, hundreds of thousands of British and French soldiers were evacuated from the coastal regions of France near the town of Dunkirk and ferried by all variety of ships and boats across the English Channel to the coast of England. Charles de Gaulle, a French leader, formed a French Government in exile (living abroad), calling on French forces to continue fighting for Germany. These “Free French” worked from England to liberate their homeland. Meanwhile, during the 1939-1940 years of the war, Italian forces were making progress taking over lands across eastern Europe and large portions of Africa. The Japanese Imperial Army continued to take territory in China and Southeast Asia, as well as across many of the island nations of the Pacific, almost all the way to Australia. By the end of 1940, the Axis Powers had reached their maximum extent of expansion and controlled large portions of the eastern hemisphere. center19050000Maximum Extent of Axis Control in 1940Turning Points of the WarThe Axis powers won quick victories in the first several years of the war. Several events after 1940, however, are seen as turning points for the Allies.The Entry of the United States (1941)Although the United States had declared neutrality in the war, President Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) met with England’s prime minister Winston Churchill, in August 1941, and they declared their common desire to defeat Nazi tyranny. Roosevelt continued to supply arms to the Allies. To stop Japanese aggression, the United States banned the sale of war materials to Japan. Angered by the ban, Japan launched a surprise attack on American military bases at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. More than 2,400 people were killed, and many ships and planes were destroyed. In response, President Franklin Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan and the United States officially entered WWII on the side of the Allies. The entry of the United States into the war gave the Allies added strength to begin taking back land from the Axis powers.Battle of Stalingrad (1942 – 1943)The Germans invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. After steadily advancing, they became stalled outside of Moscow and Leningrad. Hitler turned south in 1942 to try and take the city of Stalingrad (would be seen as a symbolic victory to seize the city named after Stalin). Stubborn resistance from the Russian troops and a freezing winter caused the German invaders to surrender in 1943. The Red Army (Soviet Army) drove the Germans out of the Soviet Union. Soon, Soviet troops were advancing west towards Germany.El Alamein (1942)The Germans, under General Erwin Rommel, known as the Desert Fox, gained many victories in North Africa in 1941 and 1942. British forces in Egypt finally stopped Rommel’s advance during the Battle of El Alamein in 1942. With the help of American forces advancing across the western portion of North Africa, the Allies trapped Rommel’s army in 1943 and he surrendered.Invasion of Italy (1943)The victory in North Africa allowed the British and Americans to land in Italy in July 1943. Hitler was forced to send troops to Italy, weakening his forces in Western Europe. During the 1943-1944 years, the Allies slowly fought their way north through the Italian peninsula, pushing the Fascist Italian and Nazi armies back towards central Europe.Invasion of Normandy (1944)The Allies invaded France on June 6, 1944 in the largest land-invasion in history, which is now known as D-Day. Allied troops were ferried across the English Channel, landing on the beaches of Normandy, France. They broke through the German defenses to advance toward Paris and freed France from German control. The Allies then began moving from France into the country of Germany itself.The War EndsThe war in Europe ended on May 7, 1945 with the Germans’ surrender. Fighting in the Pacific would continue until the Japanese surrendered in August 1945.Yalta ConferenceIn February 1945, Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met at a Soviet resort called Yalta. They knew then that the war was close to an end. The three leaders decided that at war’s end they would divide Germany temporarily. British, French, American and Soviet forces would each control a zone of Germany. They also agreed that Stalin would oversee the creation of a new government in Eastern Europe.Victory in the PacificJapan was greatly weakened and the United States took to the offensive after two Japanese fleets were severely damaged by Americans at the Battle of Midway in 1942. Gradually, American forces recaptured Japanese-held islands south of Japan and advanced north towards mainland Japan. The Allies adopted a strategy known as island-hopping in which the attacked certain strategic islands and skipped over others as they fought towards Japan. By 1944 the Americans had begun to bomb Japanese cities. The Japanese, however, refused to surrender.Hiroshima and NagasakiWith the war in Europe ending in May 1945, the Allies poured resources into the Pacific. By mid-1945, most of the Japanese navy and air force had been destroyed. Japan’s army was still strong, however. More importantly, the Japanese soldiers refused to surrender or be captured and would fight on each island until nearly all had been killed. Additionally, the Japanese army was training and arming all civilians to fight in defense of the homeland when the Allied forces eventually invaded. The United States government feared that an invasion of Japan would cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and would take years to end. In response to this potentially devastating invasion, U.S. president Harry Truman authorized the dropping of a top-secret new weapon known as the atomic bomb onto Japanese cities. On August 6, 1945, an American plane dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The bomb instantly flattened 4 square miles of the city and killed 70,000 people. They dropped another bomb on Nagasaki three days later, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Some Japanese militarists wanted to hold out, but on August 10th, Japanese emperor Hirohito forced his government to surrender. Japan signed a peace treaty on September 2, 1945.Civilian Life and Total WarBoth the Allied powers and the Axis powers had engaged in total war. In this type of war, all aspects of a country are organized towards winning the war effort and civilian targets become just as important as military targets. In 1940, Germany began a blitz, or massive bombing, of London using warplanes. Winston Churchill, prime minister of Great Britain, rallied his people against the bombings and the British refused to surrender despite massive civilian casualties. Democratic governments sometimes limited the rights of individuals during the period of total war. In the United States and Canada, some people of Japanese descent were forced into internment camps that separated them from the general population out of fear that they sympathized with the enemy. The British took similar action with those of German ancestry.As men went off by the millions to join the war, women took up the work in the factories making the weapons and supplies of war. They helped produce planes, ships and ammunition. British and American women served in the armed forces by driving trucks and ambulances, decoding messages and serving as nurses at field hospitals. In addition, countries adopted policies of rationing, which limited the amounts of resources and food for civilians so that more could be diverted to the war effort. All countries involved in the conflict also used many forms of propaganda, designed to influence how people felt about the war and build support and financial resources to aid them in their efforts. The HolocaustOne of Hitler’s goals was to create “living space” for Germans who he considered racially superior. He planned to destroy people he considered racially inferior. Jews were the main target, but he also wanted to destroy or enslave others, including Slavs, Gypsies and the mentally or physically disabled. The attempt to destroy and entire ethnic or religious groups is called genocide. Hitler committed genocide against Jews. He began by limiting the rights and encouraging violence against Jews. On November 8, 1938, a night called Kristellnacht, organized violence began. Thousands of Jewish synagogues, businesses, cemeteries, schools and homes were destroyed. The next day, 30,000 Jews were arrested for being Jewish and more restrictive laws on Jews and Jewish businesses began. Jews were forced to live in separate areas of many cities in what became knowns as ghettos, usually with unsanitary conditions and food shortages. Finally, Hitler set up concentration camps in which Jewish and other prisoners were sent to either do labor for the German Reich or to await transfer to another camp. Certain concentration camps, like Auschwitz, eventually became death camps in which prisoners were sent to be either starved, shot or gassed to death. By 1945, over 6 million Jews and 5 million others had been killed in what became known as the Holocaust.Other Wartime AtrocitiesThe Holocaust stands out as the starkest example of wartime inhumanity. However, several other incidents also stand out as especially brutal aspects of World War II:The Japanese invasion of Nanjing in 1937 involved mass shootings and terrible brutality. As many as 250,000 Chinese were killed.In the Philippines, Japanese soldiers forced American and Filipino prisoners of war on a march up the Bataan Peninsula. Along the way, prisoners were beaten, stabbed and shot. This event became known as the Bataan Death March.In Poland, Soviet troops subjected thousands of Poles to imprisonment, torture and execution.Impact of World War IIHuman LossesWorld War II had killed as many as 75 million people. In European countries alone, about 38 million people died. The Soviets, however, suffered the heaviest losses, with more than 22 million dead. The Holocaust had inflicted death and misery on millions of Jews and others in the Nazi concentration camps.Economic LossesThroughout Europe and parts of Asia, cities were in ruins. Aerial bombardment had been very destructive. Coventry in England, Hamburg and Dresden in Germany and Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan were some of the hardest hit cities. The European countryside was devastated as well. The economies of war-torn countries took many years to recover and the economic losses were measured well into the billons of dollars for the countries hit the hardest.War Crime TrialsAt meetings during the war, Allied leaders had agreed to punish those responsible for “crimes against humanity”. Trials were held in Nuremberg, Germany from November 1945 – September 1946. Hitler was already dead, having committed suicide just before Germany surrendered, but 22 surviving Nazi leaders were tried at the Nuremberg Trials. Some received the death penalty; others were imprisoned. Additional trials were held in Italy and Japan. The trials demonstrated that leaders could be held accountable for their actions during the war. Occupied NationsIn order to prevent another world war and to promote democracy, western nations occupied West Germany and Japan. They built new governments with democratic constitutions which protected individual rights and liberties. However, Soviet forces occupied East Germany and most of Eastern Europe. They established communist governments in these nations, backed by the power of the Soviet Union. Thus, Europe was divided in two – between democracy in the West and Communist in the East. This division is ultimately what becomes the cause of the next great conflict in world history – The Cold War.The United NationsWorld War II resulted in the formation of a new international body to replace the ineffective League of Nations that had failed to prevent the conflict. In April 1945, representatives from around the world met in San Francisco to establish the United Nations. The purpose of the United Nations is to provide a place to discuss world problems and develop solutions. The two main bodies of the United Nations are:The General Assembly – which includes representatives from all member nations. Each representative has one vote.The Security Council – with 15 member nations, five of which are permanent members; the United States, Russia, France, Great Britain and China.SummaryGermany, Italy and Japan tried in the 1930s to build world empires. When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, World War II began and the world faced the most devastating conflict in human history. During World War II, new weapons with massive power caused the loss of millions of lives. Civilians were greatly affected by the war, facing rationing, military attacks and sometimes severe repression. The conflict continued until 1945. World War II resulted in millions of deaths, heavy economic losses and brutality on a scale such as the world had never seen before. After 1945, the world would become divided between communist and democratic forms of government in what is knowns as the Cold War. ................
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