WW2 POSTERS

World War 2:
Diplomatic History - Expansion on the War: 1939 - 1941

Poland, the Baltic States, and Scandinavia
German Mastery over Western Europe
Intervention of Italy
Diplomatic Reverses for the Axis Powers
Nazi-Soviet Friction
German Attack on the Soviet Union
United States Abandonment of Strict Neutrality
Japanese Steps Toward War

Poland, the Baltic States, and Scandinavia

The Nazi-Soviet cooperation that had enabled Adolf Hitler to launch World War II was strengthened in the first phase of that conflict. On Sept. 17, 1939, Soviet forces moved into Poland, and on September 28 the German and Soviet foreign ministers, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav M. Molotov, revised the terms of the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 23. The USSR conceded to Germany control over a slightly larger portion of Poland, and in exchange Germany recognized a Soviet sphere of influence in Lithuania as well as in Estonia and Latvia. The new German-Soviet frontier through Poland approximated the one generally known as the Curzon Line . A Polish government in exile; established first in Paris and later in Angers, moved to London in 1940. There it organized emigre troops for the Allied cause and endeavored to promote the revival of a large Polish state after the war. Meanwhile, Joseph Stalin did not delay in collecting the other territories that Hitler had allotted to him. On Sept. 28, 1939, under Soviet military pressure, Estonia signed a nonaggression pact granting the USSR naval and air bases. Similar concessions were won from Latvia on October 5, and from Lithuania on October 10.

The Finns caused Stalin greater difficulty. On October 12, the USSR offered to trade Soviet territory for strategic Finnish areas, but negotiations were broken off on November 9, and on November 30 the Soviet Army struck at Finland. The republic's stubborn resistance aroused much sympathy in the West. Great Britain and France considered intervention, the League of Nations expelled the USSR, and Americans discussed the severance of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. On March 12, however, before any assistance materialized, the Finns were forced to accept Soviet peace terms. As shown in Map 3, the USSR acquired the entire Karelian Isthmus, islands in the Gulf of Finland, territory northeast of Lake Ladoga, and a strip of central eastern Finland, as well as a 30-year lease on the Hango (Hanko) Peninsula for use as a naval base and transit rights to Sweden and Norway.

In the meantime, in February and March, Anglo-French diplomacy sought unsuccessfully to win Norwegian and Swedish approval of a proposed Scandinavian front. But it was Germany rather than the Allies that opened the Scandinavian campaign, on April 9 launching simultaneous attacks on Denmark and Norway without diplomatic preliminaries. Within hours the Danish cabinet and king agreed reluctantly to German occupation of their country. Britain and France sent troops to Norway, but the last of the Allied forces were evacuated on June 8. Organized Norwegian resistance ceased, and the king and cabinet set up a government in exile in London.

German Mastery over Western Europe

Until May 1940, the war in the west was peculiarly inactive. Addressing the Reichstag on Oct. 6, 1939, Hitler stated that the acquisition of colonies was his only remaining ambition. While vowing that the "Poland of the Versailles Treaty will never rise again," he proposed a peace conference. The response of Premier Edouard Daladier and Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was cold. During the Polish campaign and even while making peaceful overtures, Hitler was planning attacks on France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium. When German forces drove into these nations on May 10, Berlin tried to persuade the Low Countries to accept German protection of their neutrality. The German diplomatic overtures failed, but German military success was swift. Luxembourg fell in a day, and the Netherlands capitulated in five days. Meanwhile, the Dutch royal family and cabinet left for London to form a government in exile, which thereafter concerted its policy with that of Great Britain and the United States for the protection of its possessions overseas. Belgium capitulated 18 days after the attack of May 10. Its king, Leopold III, surrendered against the advice of his ministers with only a few hours' notice to the British and French, and it was left to the Belgian premier to establish a government in exile.

In London, Winston Churchill had replaced Chamberlain as prime minister on May 10, but for the moment this step failed to improve Anglo-French fortunes. Virtually all of the British troops in France, as well as some French and Belgians, were evacuated from Dunkerque by June 4. Meanwhile, the Germans advanced across northern France. They entered Paris on June 14. Premier Paul Reynaud resigned on June 16, and the next day his successor, Marshal Philippe Petain, sought an armistice. The French accepted the German armistice terms at Compiegne on June 22. The northern and western half of France, including the entire Atlantic coast south to the Spanish frontier, was to be occupied by Germany. The French Fleet was not permitted to join the British to continue the war, but was to be demobilized and disarmed. Approximately 1,500,000 French prisoners of war were to remain German captives-hostages for the good behavior of France -until the end of the war. Although Free French leaders would soon rally around Gen. Charles. de Gaulle in London and work with the Allies, the pliant government of Petain continued to function in France, establishing itself at Vichy because Paris was in the zone of German occupation. The armistice left. Hitler in control of Europe from the Vistula River to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Pyrenees to the Arctic Circle.

Intervention of Italy

Two days after the ceremony of June 22 at Compiegne, an emptier one was staged in Rome, giving Benito Mussolini the right to occupy a tiny area in southeastern France and creating a demilitarized zone 50 kilometers wide on the Italian frontier. The duce's meager reward matched his contribution to the victory over France. In 1939 he had avoided entering the conflict. Now, on June 10, 1940, with French defeat assured, he had declared war on France and Great Britain with the approval of King Victor Emmanuel III. His 32 divisions had soon been halted when they moved against the French, and Hitler would not approve his request for an Italian occupation of the Rhone Valley, Toulon, and Marseille. The armistice left Italy with almost nothing to show for its first military effort in support of the Axis.

Diplomatic Reverses for the Axis Powers

In the summer of 1940, Hitler let it be known publicly and privately that he was prepared to make peace with Britain if she would restore the colonies that Germany had lost in 1919 and renounce any influence in continental Europe. When the British showed no interest in his proposals even after they had been made in public on July 19, he intensified his planning for a direct assault on Britain, and by early September a German invasion force was held in readiness on the French coast. But German efforts to achieve air superiority in the Battle of Britain and the necessary naval strength fell short of success, and Hitler renounced an invasion in 1940.

Setbacks in the war against Britain required Germany to undertake new diplomatic maneuvers. On September 27, Germany, Italy, and Japan formalized the Axis coalition by signing the Tripartite Pact in Berlin. Under its provisions, Japan recognized the. new order that Germany and Italy were creating in Europe; Germany and Italy recognized Japan's right to create a new order in the Pacific region; and all three nations pledged themselves to form a military alliance against any power that might enter the war against one of them (it was well understood that this provision was directed against the United States). But the pact did not disguise the fact that Hitler's plans for vanquishing Britain had failed.

Hitler's inability to counter British defiance, obvious by October, had other major repercussions. The policies of Portugal and Spain, for example, were unavoidably affected. Both nations, previously on good terms with Berlin, refused to respond to attempts to bring them into the war on the Axis side. Petain, too, thwarted Hitler by declining to engage France in military action against Britain. And in Florence on October 28, in a conference with Mussolini, the fuhrer met fresh disappointment. The duce had wished to strike for territorial gains in the Balkans when he entered the war in June, but Hitler, who had his own plans for the peninsula, held him back. The Italian dictator greeted the fi.ihrer in Florence with the proud announcement that Italian troops had crossed the Greek frontier at dawn. Although Hitler feared that this step would provoke British intervention in the Balkans, he could only contain his rage and return to Berlin.

Nazi-Soviet Friction

There were further disturbing developments for Hitler in November 1940. In that month he reached a stalemate in his negotiations with the USSR, and in crucial conferences with Molotov was unable to buy him off. Hitler's cooperation with the Soviet Union had been rewarding. It had hastened Poland's fall in 1939. It had also brought economic advantages: by June 1940, 22 percent of all German imports were received from the Soviet Union and the Baltic states. But tension had arisen between Berlin and Moscow. Just when German troops were most deeply committed in the west and Hitler could not prevent Soviet expansion, the Kremlin used military pressure to incorporate the three Baltic states in the Soviet Union ( June 15-Aug. 6, 1940). At the same time, the USSR moved against Rumania. On June 23, the day after the French surrendered at Compiegne, Molotov informed Germany that the Bessarabian question must be settled at once. The Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939 had promised the USSR a free hand in Bessarabia, but now Molotov laid claim to Bucovina, which had not been recognized as part of the Soviet sphere of influence. Berlin remonstrated with him, and on June 26 the Soviets agreed to limit their demands to Bessarabia and the northern portion of Bucovina. On June 28, the Soviet Army moved into the coveted areas, which were immediately incorporated in the USSR.

Hitler was now determined to prevent further Soviet expansion in central-eastern Europe. Ignoring the fact that the Nazi-Soviet Pact had placed Finland in the Soviet sphere of influence, Berlin on September 12 concluded an agreement with Helsinki that permitted its troops to cross Finnish territory to Norway. On November 20, Hungary joined the Tripartite Pact, and Rumania and Slovakia followed its example on November 22. While the original pact had been directed against the United States, the new additions obviously formed an anti-Soviet bloc.

There was more reason for Stalin to become alarmed than the Soviet dictator realized. On July 31, Hitler had ordered his generals to prepare for a possible invasion of the USSR in May 1941. Before committing himself to war with the Soviet Union, however, he seems to have determined to make a last attempt to reach an agreement that would keep the USSR out of the Balkans and direct its energies against the British Empire. On Nov. 12, 1940, Molotov arrived in Berlin for important negotiations. When Hitler and Ribbentrop proposed that the USSR move toward the Indian Ocean against the British positions in Iran and India, Molotov demanded instead that German troops be withdrawn from Finland, indicated that the USSR planned additional annexations there, requested that Germany's guarantee of Rumania be revoked, and insisted that the Soviet Union had greater interest in Rumania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey, and the Dardanelles than in expansion toward the Indian Ocean. The meetings ended inconclusively, and on December 5, Hitler approved plans for an attack on the USSR that were embodied in the directive of December 18 for Operation Barbarossa. The attack was to be ready by May 15, 1941.

In the next few months diplomatic and military preparations for the invasion of the USSR were pressed forward. In December 1940, in order to clear his southern flank, Hitler approved plans to move German forces through Bulgaria to aid Italy against the Greeks. Bulgaria came under effective German domination in February 1941, and signed the Tripartite Pact on March 1. Yugoslavia, which had already presented difficulties to German planners, now became even more troublesome. On March 22, Ribbentrop gave Belgrade until the next day to agree to enter a pact with Germany. After agonizing deliberation the Yugoslav government signed the Tripartite Pact in Vienna on March 25, but on March 26-27, Serb patriots revolted against the regency government of Prince Paul and proclaimed the adolescent King Peter II of age. That afternoon, Hitler ordered an early attack on Yugoslavia, and on April 6 German bombers struck at Belgrade. Within 11 days the German Army, aided in the north by many Croats, was in control of the country. King Peter and his ministers left Yugoslavia to create a government in exile. Meanwhile, Croatia was proclaimed an independent state and functioned thereafter as an Axis satellite. Germany and Hungary annexed large portions of Yugoslav territory in the north and east, while Italy acquired more than either of them, including the greater part of the coast. In addition, Bulgaria annexed a sizable area of Yugoslav Macedonia.

In Greece the sequel to the German invasion of Yugoslavia was soon completed, and Athens itself fell on April 27. Greece proper was subjected to joint German-Italian occupation and deprived of territory. Italy annexed the Ionian Islands and added Greek territory to its holdings in Albania, while Bulgaria was permitted to seize part of Greek Macedonia and Thrace, thereby restoring the frontier of 1913. The Greek government joined others in exile.

Thus, by the spring of 1941 almost all of Europe west of the USSR was under the direct or indirect control of Germany. But the German attack on the Soviet Union was launched a full month later than Hitler had planned. In delaying Germany, Yugoslavia and Greece had made an important contribution to the ultimate Allied victory.

German Attack on the Soviet Union

Aside from Hitler's overt actions, which should have demonstrated to Stalin what was coming, Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt warned the Kremlin of German preparations to attack the USSR. It appears, however, that the Soviet armies were taken by surprise when the German invasion began on June 22, 1941. Hitler did not act alone. On the day of the German attack, Italy and Rumania declared war on the USSR; Slovakia joined them on June 23; Finland followed their example on June 26, and Hungary on June 27. Japan, Hitler's partner in the Far East, remained neutral, and Bulgaria, though occupied by German military missions, also was formally neutral.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles from the Soviet battlefields, decisions were made that transformed the conflict into a global war, assured the eventual defeat of the Axis powers, and laid the basis for a new balance of power after 1945.

United States Abandonment of Strict Neutrality

In the first months of the war the United States was aroused against the Soviet Union as well as against Nazi Germany, but existing neutrality legislation and isolationist sentiment made it impossible for President Roosevelt to take effective action with regard to either nation. Material aid, even after the lifting of the strict embargo on arms shipments with the amendment of the Neutrality Act of 1937 on Nov. 3, 1939, was limited to what the British and French could purchase for cash and transport without using American ships. Pro-Allied sentiment was intensified by the Nazi victories in the spring of 1940 and by Italy's declaration of war against France and Great Britain in June. Thereafter some weapons and ammunition were made available to the British, British pilots were trained in Florida, and British warships were repaired in American shipyards. Then, on September 3, the White House announced more significant support for Britain: the trade (by executive agreement) of 50 overage destroyers in return for rent-free leases of 99 years on sites for American military bases in Newfoundland, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Jamaica, other Caribbean islands, and British Guiana. Congress adopted the Selective Service Act (signed September 16), authorizing the first peacetime military conscription in American history.

Reelected to a third term as president in November, Roosevelt proposed in December a new form of aid to the Allies, which was adopted by Congress as the Lend-Lease Act of March 11, 1941. With supporting appropriations, the act provided at the outset $7 billion worth of war materials for nations whose defense the president deemed "vital to the defense of the United States." At the end of March, 69 Italian, German, and Danish ships in American ports and Philippine waters were seized, and approximately 875 seamen were jailed for "attempted sabotage." Other semibelligerent steps were taken by Washington during the first half of the, year. Beginning in January, informal military and naval staff talks were conducted by American and British officers, who made tentative plans for joint efforts in the event that the United States should be drawn into war with Germany or Japan. On April 9, by agreement with Denmark's minister to Washington, the United States, fearful that Germany might take over Greenland, occupied the Danish island. From similar motives the United States assumed in July the defense of Iceland that Britain had provided since May 1940. Meanwhile, on May 27, 1941, stressing the dangers of nazism to the Western Hemisphere, Roosevelt proclaimed an unlimited national emergency. On June 14, all German and Italian assets in the United States (and those of other Axis-controlled European countries not previously affected) were frozen. June also saw the closing of all German and Italian consulates in the United States and of American consulates in Germany and Italy.

Hitler's. attack that month on the USSR (for which few Americans had previously shown cordiality) brought quick promises of American as well as British aid to the beleaguered Soviet Union. Despite provisions of the Neutrality Act, United States ships were permitted to carry aid goods to Soviet ports. To coordinate joint defense measures and provide a basic declaration of common war aims, Roosevelt and Churchill met in August on shipboard off Argentia, Newfoundland. In the Atlantic Charter (q.v. ), issued after the meeting, they subscribed to certain general principles for achieving peace. The two leaders stated that no territorial changes should be made contrary to the wishes of the inhabitants of the territories involved, and they recognized the right of people to choose their own forms of government. Greater freedom of trade and freedom of the seas were affirmed as war aims, as was 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. In addition, the aggressor nations were to be disarmed.

Since midsummer, American naval vessels had been employed to convoy merchant ships bound for Great Britain. Then, on September 11, Roosevelt announced that henceforth naval ships on convoy duty would not wait for hostile action but would take the initiative in attacking Axis war vessels. In carrying out this policy, an American destroyer, the Reuben James, was sunk by a German submarine west of Iceland on October 30. On November 13, Congress repealed the most troublesome provisions of the Neutrality Act of 1939, thereby sanctioning trade with Great Britain and permitting American merchant vessels to be armed. Hoping to avoid full-scale intervention by the United States, Hitler and Mussolini (like Roosevelt himself) had refused to be provoked into an open declaration of war. Having moved hesitantly toward belligerency in the Atlantic, the United States found that war came instead in the Pacific.

Japanese Steps Toward War

The outbreak of war in Europe in 1939 at first left Japanese prospects in the Far East relatively unchanged. The situation became much more advantageous for Japan in the early summer of 1940, when Germany overran the Low Countries and France. Indochina, with its resources of rice and rubber, could not rely on support from Vichy France if Japan moved to extend its sway there; the Netherland East Indies, with its oil, could no longer be effectively protected by the Dutch; and, since Great Britain was hard pressed by Germany, even British Malaya's rubber and the strategic base at Singapore lay exposed to attack as never before in the 20th century. The European war had created a power vacuum in Southeast Asia and the Southwest Pacific, presenting Japan with a unique opportunity for expansion. Only the USSR and the United States could stand in its way, and both powers seemed preoccupied with the war in Europe.

In Washington it was hoped that Japan might be contained by diplomatic and economic measures. Thus, on July 25 and July 31, 1940, the United States in effect placed an embargo on the export of scrap metal and petroleum without a special license and of all aviation gasoline to Japan, while continuing to permit trade in other commodities. The creation on July 17 of a new cabinet headed by Prince Fumimaro Konoye made uncertain at best the prospects of containing Japan peacefully. The new foreign minister, Yosuke Matsuoka, was ambitious in his objectives and rash in his methods. Late in July, the cabinet reached an agreement on basic foreign policy objectives. The possibility of launching an attack in the south before the end of hostilities with China was discussed. If Japan should strike in the south, an attempt would be made to limit the war to Britain. Since this course might make war with the United States inevitable, however, Japan must prepare thoroughly for that possibility, while endeavoring to keep the United States neutral. The cabinet began at once to implement the new policy. An ultimatum of September 22 was followed by the movement of Japanese troops into northern Indochina. On September 26, immediately after the ultimatum became known, the United States proclaimed a total embargo on the sale of scrap iron and steel to Japan. The next day, Japan entered into the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, having reached the decision to do so before proclamation of the embargo. It was the hope of the cabinet that this step would keep the United States from attempting to block Japanese expansion.

Shortly after occupying northern Indochina, Japan increased its efforts to force Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek to capitulate. The United States reaction to this campaign, as well as to the occupation of northern Indochina and the conclusion of the Tripartite Pact, was to expand its aid to China. Meanwhile, Japanese pressure on the Netherlands East Indies grew, and by January 1941 there was talk in Tokyo of using force in that area. Because of concern that this pressure might lead to armed conflict with the United States, Japanese intelligence services were ordered to intensify their collection of data on American naval strength and placement. In January, Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, commander in chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet, secretly suggested the possibility of a surprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. At the same time, United States, British, and Dutch leaders began trying to coordinate defense measures in preparation for a possible attack on the Indies.

The German invasion of the USSR in June gave the Japanese more certain assurance than the neutrality pact that Matsuoka had concluded in Moscow on April 13 that Japan could advance toward the south without concern for the possibility of Soviet action in Manchuria. For Matsuoka, however, the invasion had different implications. For years Japanese militarists had justified their imperialistic policies in Manchuria and China proper as defensive measures against Soviet communism and had looked forward to the day when Japan could attack the USSR. The German invasion presented a unique opportunity for an anti-Bolshevik crusade in Asia, and on June 22, Matsuoka recommended to Emperor Hirohito that Japan make war on the Soviet Union. But now that the moment had arrived for action, it was passed over, and in mid-July, Matsuoka was dropped from the cabinet. Meanwhile, on July 2, an Imperial Conference determined that Japan's first objective in the new circumstances would be to bring the war in China to a successful conclusion, while simultaneously advancing toward the south. Japan would "not decline a war with England and the United States" if this should become necessary to achieve her objectives.

The decisions of July 2 were soon implemented. Under an agreement forced on Vichy France on July 23, Japan occupied southern Indochina. In response, Japanese assets in the United States were frozen on July 25, and similar action was taken by Great Britain and the Netherlands. A new cabinet was formed in Japan on October 18. Gen. Hideki Tojo, minister of war in the Konoye cabinet, retained that position and also became prime minister and minister of home affairs. On November 5, after weeks of high-level discussions, an Imperial Conference decided on a final attempt to reach an agreement with the United States. But if a settlement favorable to Japan was not achieved by December 1, war would begin forthwith.

On November 20, the Japanese ambassador in Washington, Adm. Kichisaburo Nomura, and a special envoy, Saburo Kurusu, were instructed to present Japan's last proposal for a temporary settlement. Under its terms both countries would agree to begin no new armed expansion in Southeast Asia or the South Pacific; Japan would withdraw its troops from southern Indochina on the conclusion of the agreement and from northern Indochina when the war with China was ended; the United States would give Japan a free hand to bring the war against China to a successful conclusion; and it would lift the embargo on strategic exports to Japan, release Japanese assets in the United States, agree to supply petroleum as generously as in the period 1936-1940, and join with Japan to ensure access by both countries to the resources of the Netherlands East Indies. This proposal was an ultimatum. A government that had no concern for the global balance of power might have agreed to it; the American leaders could not. From decoded Japanese messages the United States government knew that rejection of the proposal would very likely be followed by a Japanese resort to war, probably against Southeast Asia. In rejecting the proposal on November 26, the United States presented a counterproposition. It suggested that Japan evacuate both China and Indochina immediately and recognize Chiang Kai-shek's regime as the only government of China. A favorable trade treaty would be negotiated between Japan and the United States, and Japanese assets would be unfrozen. In addition, the two governments would enter into a multilateral nonaggression pact for the Far East.

On December 1, an Imperial Conference reached a formal decision for war with the United States. A last message to the United States government was drafted in Tokyo, to be delivered in Washington on the eve of the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was not an explicit declaration of war, but a rejection of Secretary of State Cordell Hull's proposals of November 26; it declared that negotiations were being broken off. Because of technical delays in the Japanese embassy in Washington, Hull was given the message by Japan's representative at 2:20 P.m. on Dec. 7, 1941, more than an hour after the first bombs fell at Pearl Harbor.

The specific attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7 came as a surprise to the commanders there and to officials in Washington. It accomplished the formal entry of the United States into World War II. On December 8, Congress declared that a state of war had been thrust on the United States by Japan. In accordance with the Tripartite Pact and in response to Japanese requests, Germany and Italy on December 11 declared war on the United States; Congress reciprocated the same day. The conflict begun by Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939 was now in fact a global war.