|
World War 2:
War in Brief
Events Leading to War
At the end of World War I the victorious nations formed
the League of Nations for the purpose of airing international disputes,
and of mobilizing its members for a collective effort to keep the peace
in the event of aggression by any nation against another or of a breach
of the peace treaties. The United States, imbued with isolationism,
did not become a member. The League failed in its first test. In 1931
the Japanese, using as an excuse the explosion of a small bomb under
a section of track of the South Manchuria Railroad ( over which they
had virtual control), initiated military operations designed to conquer
all of Manchuria. After receiving the report of its commission of inquiry,
the League adopted a resolution in 1933 calling on the Japanese to withdraw.
Thereupon, Japan resigned from the League. Meanwhile, Manchuria had
been overrun and transformed into a Japanese puppet state under the
name of Manchukuo. Beset by friction and dissension among its members,
the League took no further action.
In 1933 also, Adolf Hitler came to power as dictator
of Germany and began to rearm the country in contravention of the provisions
of the Treaty of Versailles. He denounced the provisions of that treaty
that limited German armament and in 1935 reinstituted compulsory military
service. That year the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini began his long-contemplated
invasion of Ethiopia, which he desired as an economic colony. The League
voted minor sanctions against Italy, but these had slight practical
effect. British and French efforts to effect a compromise settlement
failed, and Ethiopia was completely occupied by the Italians in 1936.
Alarmed by German rearmament, France sought an alliance
with the USSR. Under the pretext that this endangered Germany, Hitler
remilitarized the Rhineland in 1936. It was a dangerous venture, for
Britain and France could have overwhelmed Germany, but, resolved to
keep the peace, they took no action. Emboldened by this success, Hitler
intensified his campaign for Lebensraum ( space for living) for the
German people. He forcibly annexed Austria in March 1938, and then,
charging abuse of German minorities, threatened Czechoslovakia. In September,
as Hitler increased his demands on the Czechs and war seemed imminent,
the British and French arranged a conference with Hitler and Mussolini.
At the Munich Conference they agreed to German occupation of the Sudetenland,
Hitler's asserted last claim, in the hope of maintaining peace. This
hope was short lived, for in March 1939, Hitler took over the rest of
Czechoslovakia and seized the former German port of Memel (Klaipeda)
from Lithuania. There followed demands on Poland with regard to Danzig
(Gdansk) and the Polish Corridor. The Poles remained adamant, and it
became clear to Hitler that he could attain his objectives only by force.
After surprising the world with the announcement of a non-aggression
pact with his sworn foe, the Soviet Union, he sent his armies across
the Polish border on Sept. 1, 1939. Britain and France, pledged to support
Poland in the event of aggression, declared war on Germany two days
later.
As the Germans ravaged Poland, the Russians moved into
the eastern part of the country and began the process that was to lead
to the absorption in 1940 of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. They also
made demands on Finland. The recalcitrant Finns were subdued in the
Winter War of 1939-4940, but only after dealing the Russians several
humiliating military reverses.
Meanwhile, Japan had undertaken military operations
for the subjugation of China proper, and was making preparations for
the expansion of its empire into Southeast Asia and the rich island
groups of the. Southwest Pacific. Mussolini watched the progress of
his fellow dictator, Hitler, while preparing to join in the war at a
propitious moment.
Military Course of the War
The bitter struggles and the enormous casualties suffered
by Great Britain and France in World War I had engendered in their military
leaders a defensive attitude with a reliance on such permanent fortifications
as the Maginot Line and on blockade as means of subduing a resurgent
Germany. Placing their faith in the impotent League of Nations, both
countries neglected the development of armaments and allowed those they
possessed and their armed forces to deteriorate. The Germans, on the
other hand, smarting under their failure in World War I to capitalize
on initial breakthroughs of the Allied lines because of lack of sustained
power, developed fast, hard-hitting tank-airplane forces and the strategy
of the blitzkrieg (lightning war). Since they had been disarmed by the
Allies, they were unencumbered by obsolescent armaments and could equip
their forces with the most modern weapons. As a result, initial German
operations met with surprisingly rapid success.
In less than a month, Poland had been conquered. There
followed an inactive period (dubbed the Phony War) that lasted until
April 1940. Then, despite Allied intervention, the Germans quickly seized
Denmark and Norway. In May the blitzkrieg struck the western front in
all its fury. Within six weeks the British had been driven from the
Continent, and the French had been forced to surrender. The speed of
the advance also surprised Hitler, who was not ready to follow his success
with an invasion of the British Isles. The Luftwaffe, called upon to
soften the islands and gain air superiority while preparations were
made for invasion, received a stunning defeat at the hands of the small
but highly competent and brave Royal Air Force. Frustrated in the west,
Hitler turned against the USSR in June 1941. In a series of brilliant
military maneuvers in which several million Russians were captured,
he reached the gates of Moscow in December, only to be stopped by bad
weather and Russian reinforcements rushed to defend the city.
Meanwhile, Mussolini sought to realize his dream of
an Italian Mediterranean empire. In the late summer and fall of 1940
he launched an offensive from Libya against the British in Egypt and
an invasion of Greece from Albania (which he had occupied in 1939) .
Both enterprises eventually proved disastrous for the Italians, and
German forces were sent to their rescue. Greece fell to the Germans,
but they met stiff British opposition in Africa. In December 1941, Japan
thought the time ripe to extend her empire into a Greater East Asia
Coprosperity Sphere (see Map 35), which it did very rapidly against
meager opposition. It was the Japanese plan to fortify this area so
strongly as to withstand American counterattacks and eventually gain
a negotiated peace based on the status quo. The attacks on Pearl Harbor
and the Philippines brought the United States into the war and greatly
altered the balance of power in favor of the Allies.
The year 1942 saw the turn of the tide for the Allies.
In June, Japanese naval airpower was decimated by the United States
Navy in the Battle of Midway. Having been repulsed at Moscow, Hitler
turned to the Caucasus; but the Germans were severely defeated and turned
back at Stalingrad (now Volgograd) by the Russians in the closing months
of the year. At the same time the British dealt the Germans and Italians
a defeat at El Alamein that sent them reeling in retreat westward along
the African Mediterranean coast. In Tunisia they encountered newly landed
British and American forces and were expelled from Africa in May 1943.
The Allies now had the initiative and, with the vast
production facilities of the United States in full operation, took the
offensive on all fronts. Resistance was bitter, and progress slow though
inexorable. From bases in Africa the Allies invaded and captured Sicily
in July-August 1943. In September, Italy was forced out of the war.
British', American, and French forces began a methodical and relentless
advance up the Italian Peninsula against the Germans, who had been rushed
in to defend it.
(The term "British," as applied to military
forces, includes where appropriate other Commonwealth forces: Canadian,
Australian, New Zealand, South African, and Indian-which performed outstandingly
during the war and deep into Germany. Assailed on all sides, and their
major cities devastated by aerial bombardment, the Germans surrendered
on May 7, 1945.)
After Stalingrad the Russians, in a series of alternating
offensives, gradually forced the Germans back with heavy losses, until
by late April 1945 they were approaching Berlin.
Following a massive buildup of troops, air and naval
power, and equipment in the British Isles, American, British, and French
troops landed on the Normandy coast of France in June 1944 and pressed
the Germans back to the West Wall. There, in December, the Germans launched
a final counterattack, which failed. Aided by troops landed in southern
France from Italy, the Allies forced the Germans back across the Rhine
River
Because of a lack of resources, Allied strategy had
envisioned the prior defeat of Germany while remaining on the defensive
against the Japanese. Only after victory in Europe would the full Allied
power be applied to Japan. American industrial production increased
so rapidly, however, that limited offensives could be initiated against
the Japanese as early as August 1942. Thereafter, a persistent two-pronged
offensive across the Central Pacific and along the Solomon Islands-New
Guinea axis steadily pushed the Japanese back. By the fall of 1944,
American forces were landing in the Philippines, and they regained the
islands the next spring. Then the island of Okinawa, at the threshold
of Japan proper, was captured, and preparations were begun for the invasion
of the home islands. Meanwhile, the Japanese position in Asia progressively
deteriorated. By the summer of 1945, with its navy and air force virtually
destroyed, its cities at the mercy of American aircraft, and cut off
from sources of supply of muchneeded raw materials, the Japanese foresaw
doom. The dropping of two atomic bombs on Japanese cities and the Soviet
invasion of Manchuria hastened their decision to capitulate, which they
did on August 14.
Diplomatic History of the War and Postwar Period
The League of Nations having failed through inertia
and internal discord to prevent war, the major powers aligned themselves
in rival groups. In September 1940, Germany, Italy, and Japan signed
the Tripartite Pact in Berlin, formalizing the Axis coalition. Hitler's
invasion forced the Russians into the Franco-British camp. As the war
progressed, the United States departed from its policy of strict neutrality
and rendered greater and greater aid short of war to the beleaguered
Allies. Blocked in negotiations with the United States from furthering
its aims of expansion, Japan attacked the American base at Pearl Harbor
in December 1941 and forced the United States into the war.
Meanwhile, in August 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt and
Winston Churchill met on shipboard off Newfoundland and subsequently
issued the Atlantic Charter, in which they subscribed to certain general
principles for achieving peace. The charter forbade territorial changes
contrary to the wishes of the inhabitants; recognized the right of people
to choose their own forms of government; promised greater freedom of
trade and of the seas; and supported international cooperation to improve
conditions of labor and social security. Armaments were to be reduced,
and a permanent system of general security was to be created. The aggressor
nations were to be disarmed. On Jan. 1, 1942, the United States, Great
Britain, France, the USSR, China, and 21 other countries signed in Washington
the Declaration by United Nations, pledging mutual assistance and promising
not to enter into separate armistice or peace negotiations with the
Axis powers. The member nations also subscribed to the Atlantic Charter's
purposes and principles.
At the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, Roosevelt
and Churchill-most probably to allay Joseph Stalin's suspicions of the
loyalty of his allies-proclaimed a policy of unconditional surrender
for Germany, Italy, and Japan as the only means of maintaining the peace.
This policy may have prolonged the war, but it solidified the Allied
nations and may have forestalled Soviet efforts toward a separate peace
with Germany in 1943.
At the Teheran Conference in late 1943, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin
agreed on broad principles of operation for an international organization
to mediate differences between nations and maintain peace. At Dumbarton
Oaks in Washington in the fall of 1944 details were worked out, and
it was decided to call the new organization the United Nations. The
San Francisco Conference convened on April 25, 1945, to organize the
United Nations; its charter was adopted unanimously on June 26.
War's end found the United States and the USSR the two
greatest powers in the world. By the time of the signing of the Axis
satellite treaties early in 1947, the two countries were drawing apart.
Friction over the treaties with Austria, Germany, and Japan and Soviet
aggressive designs in eastern Europe brought increasing tension, and
by the end of 1948 their relationship could be considered one of cold
war. In 1950 armed conflict arose in Korea between Sovietbacked Communist
forces and United Nations forces led by the United States. The cold
war between the East and West continued thereafter, with the Communists
striving for world domination through subversion and infiltration, and
the West seeking to frustrate their designs.
|
|
