World war 2 (Part 2)

  World war 2 (1939 to 1945)

Events Leading Up to World War II:

Toward Security and Peace The causes of the breakdown of collective security were inherent in the First World War and the political and economic arrangements that followed. During the peace negotiations at theend of the First World War, French representatives made sure that their country would remain safe from further German aggression. President Wilson struggled to incorporate into the Paris treaties the peacemaking ideals he had expressed in the fourteen points. The Allied powers concluded the Peace of Paris in June 1919. The League of Nations assembled for the first time in Geneva without representatives from the US. The American Senate had rejected the treaties that Wilson signed at Paris. This left the League under British and French domination. During most crises, the League usually played little or no role at all. The formation of the League of Nations did not transform the international relations. Totalitarianism in Italy, Germany and Japan had posed a new threat to peace.

German troops in Paris after the fall of France

Italy under the leadership of Benito Mussolini, had inaugurated the first totalitarian state in 1922. Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, improved on the Italian model. Japan borrowed methods and techniques from these European powers. Totalitarianism had developed in those states that had suffered defeat in the First World War. To them democratic processes were too slow for the reforms.

Defense Alliances

At the time of the Paris peace negotiations, the US and Britain concluded an agreement with France. They pledged to aid France if Germany ever attacked. Months later, the Americans and British withdrew their promise of assistance. France built a new system to restrain Germany by arranging defense treaty with Belgium (1920) and Poland (1921).

The Quest for Improved Relations

French and British leaders convened an economic conference at Genoa, Italy in April 1922. They hoped to stimulate European economic recovery by getting the Soviet government to pay foreign debts left by imperial Russia. But a resolution of the economic conflict became impossible.

The Rapallo Treaty

Before the Genoa conference ended, the Germans and Soviets revealed that they had recently met in Rapallo, Germany to sign a treaty of friendship and economic cooperation. 

The Locarno Agreements

In 1925, European leaders held extended negotiations in Locarno, Switzerland that produced better results than Genoa meeting. These Locarno conferences led to a series of treaties that ended disagreements about the location of German, Belgian, and French borders. These three nations decided to accept existing boundaries. The Locarno agreements left many international problems unsettled. 

Beginning of World War II

World War II began on September 3, 1939, two days after Hitler’s armies invaded Poland. Poland’s sovereignty was guaranteed by Britain and France. When the protests by the two fell on Hitler’s deaf years, they declared war. The war would be fought between the Axis Powers consisting of Germany, Italy and Japan and the Allies – Britain, France, the Commonwealth countries, the United States and the Soviet Union.

To know more about the differences between Axis and Central Powers, visit the linked article

Initially, Hitler had signed a nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union launched an invasion of Poland from the east. It also took over Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and launched campaigns against Finland. Nazi Germany followed up its invasion of Poland with the conquest of Denmark, Norway, and Belgium in the Spring of 1940. The invasion of France later lasted from 10 May 1940 – 25 June 1940. It was the pinnacle of the German ‘Blitzkrieg’ campaign. Only Britain stood against the full might of Germany. Italy joined the war in June 1940. 

To invade Britain, it was necessary to achieve total air superiority. Thus the German air force, the Luftwaffe, attacked southeast England and London in daylight raids. In August and September, the battle of Britain was fought over its skies in which the numerically inferior British Royal air force defeated the German air force. It shelved any future plans of the Germans to invade Britain, but it did not stop bombing campaigns that saw the devastation of many British cities and towns in the following months.

Expansion of the Conflict

A new battlefront opened in September 1940 when Italian troops invaded Egypt. They clashed with the British troops stationed there. By February 1941, the British managed to defeat the Italian army and even managed to push into Italian held-Libya. By February 1941, the Italians had been defeated, but German troops, commanded by Field-Marshal Rommel, then arrived and managed to push back British troops back to the Egyptian border.

Buoyed by his success in Europe, Hitler declared war on his former ally, the Soviet Union in June 1941 invading the country with the help of Finland, Hungary and Romania. By the end of 1941, however, Allied fortunes were about to change as the United States joined the war, following the unprovoked attack on its navy at Pearl harbour in Hawaii, by the Japanese air force.

The attack on the Pearl harbour marked the start of the war in the Pacific and by May 1942, Japan had taken control of Southeast Asia including Burma, Singapore, the Philippines and New Guinea, from where they threatened the coast of Australia. The Japanese also took control of many islands in the Pacific, but by August 1942, the US Navy had defeated the Japanese at the battles of the Coral Sea, Midway Island and Guadalcanal and stopped them from invading any more territory. More victory followed in which several pacific islands held by the Japanese fell. This gave them bases from which they could bomb Japan.

The Tide turns against the Axis

In Africa, British troops led by Field-Marshal Montogomery won a decisive battle at El Alamein in October and November 1942. Montgomery quickly advanced across Libya to meet allied forces in Morocco and Algeria. The Axis armies trapped between the Allies were forced to surrender in May 1943.

German troops fighting in Russia fared no better. Although they had been within sight of  Moscow by November 1941, the Russians had begun to fight back and they had defeated the Germans at the Battle of Stalingrad. It took until August 1944 to expel the last German troops from the Soviet Union, by which time they were needed in the west to defend Germany itself from an Allied invasion.

The Allied invasion of Europe started on June 6, 1944, and by July 2 one million troops had landed in Normandy, France and started to advance towards Germany via Belgium and via the Netherlands. Reinforced by troops coming from the Soviet Union, launched a last-ditch counter-attack to reverse their fortunes in December 1944. But by January 1945, the offensive had failed. In March 1945 Allied troops had crossed the Rhine and reached the Ruhr valley, the heartland of Germany’s manufacturing production. At the same time, the Soviet army pushed in from the East

Realizing that the war was lost, Hitler committed suicide in his bunker on April 30, 1945. On May 2nd Soviet Troops captured Berlin. On May 7th, 1945 World War 2 came to an end with the surrender of Nazi Germany at Reims in France. This became official when the surrender documents were signed on May 9th in Berlin.