The Second World War (1939-1945)Factors Leading to the War
Treaty
of Versailles
By this
treaty
ü Germany
suffered internal territorial loses-Alsace-Lorraine to France, Rhine land to
Allied forces.
ü Many
colonial possessions were lost to Britain and France.
ü Besides
the treaty was humiliating for Germans
ü The
German troops were reduced and imposed restrictions on arms and weapons.
ü They
were forced to accept the war guilt cause and were made to pay huge war
reparations. Most importantly the vast territorial loss caused great public
resentment in Germany
ü So
Hitler followed an aggressive foreign policy to undo the clause of the Treaty
of Versailles
2 World Wide Economic Depression
ü The
worldwide economic depression had been one of the major cause that led to the
outbreak of the war was the Great Depression of 1930
ü After
the WWI countries like Italy, Germany, and Japan faced a severe economic crisis
ü These
countries began looking for the colonial expansion to recover the economic loss
and they launched aggressive foreign policy violating the Versailles Treaty
ü Hence
the instable economic condition helped Hitler to rise to power.
ü Similarly
Mussolini rose to power in Italy
ü Thus
Germany, Japan and Italy became more aggressive and violated the Treaty of
Versailles by withdrawing from the League of Nations
3. Weakness of the league of Nation
ü The
greatest weakness of the league of nation was the lack of its own military and
economic powers.
ü As a
result, Germany, Italy and Japan turn out to be more aggressive and made the
war inevitable.
4. Extreme Nationalism of Germany
ü There
was a general agreement and opinion outside Germany that Hitler was to be
blamed for the war, by attacking Poland instead of occupying the city of Danzig
and corridor, Hitler showed that he intended not only to recover the German
lost territories at Versailles, but also to destroy Poland.
ü The
main motive of Hitler was to remove the stigma of the defeat in the world
ü He
believed the defeat in the WWI was the victory in the next. He only became the
alternative to the weak Weimar government but also promised to solve the
economic and unemployment problem.
ü As a
result he got the public support from various sections of the society. Thus,
Hitler gradually came to the power and began his Nazi propaganda.
5.
Anglo-
French Appeasement Policy
ü The Anglo
French appeasement policy was also responsible for the outbreak of the WWII.
ü Britain
and France failed to take action against the Germans when Hitler violated the
clauses of the Versailles Treaty and Locarno Pact.
ü They
too failed in 1936 when Germany and Italy intervened in Spanish Civil War.
ü In fact
Hitler had used Spanish civil war as his testing field to test his weapons
ü Similarly
England andFrancefailed intervene during Japans attack on China, Italy’s
aggression on Abyssinia and Germany’s occupation of Rhineland.
ü Thus
success and the absence of resistance tempted Hitler to reach out further to
bigger risks. So, appeasement policy of Chamberlain encouraged Hitler to be
more aggressive in his foreign policy.
6.
Suspicions
role of Russia
ü Russia
was to be equally blamed for the outbreak of WWII.
ü Russia
made the war inevitable by signing the Non Aggression Pact with Germany
ü Russia
should have joined the Allied Power with Poland by Frightening Hitler.
ü However
on the other hand Russia and their communism were distrusted by Allied Powers.
Whatever may be the cause, Russia shouldn’t have sided with Germany when WWII
broke out
7.
Invasion
of Poland by Germany (I ST September, 1939)
ü Hitler
was less concern by the Anglo French Conference which guarantees that they
would allow Poland to suffer the same fate as Czechoslovakia.
ü Hitler
thought that Chamberlain would appease him again. As a safeguard, Hitler signed
a Non Aggression Pact with Russia in 1939 to divide Poland between two. This
was a bribe that probably won the Russian support.
ü Hitler
reinforced by the knowledge that he need to longer fear a war on two fronts,
invaded Poland on 1st September 1939.
ü Chamberlain
had still not given up appeasement and suggested that if Germany withdrew her
troops, a conference would be held. There was no response from Germans and the
ultatium expired at 11 AM on 3rd September, 1939 and thus Britain
declared war on Germany.
Course of the war
The
Second World War was a war of speed and movement instead of a war of position.
The Germans adopted a new technique of warfare called BLITZKRIEG- the lighting
thrust by planes, tanks and artillery which took the enemy by storms. In Europe,
the Germans were the first to perfect a method of warfare called BLITZKRIEG. It
relied on a surprise attack with overwhelming numbers of tanks to overrun a
country’s defenses. While a tanks pushed forward, air craft (Luftwaffe) moved
in behind to bomb any defenses the tank missed. Then infantry units moved in to
wipe out any remaining pockets of resistance.
The World
War II was a rapid movement and was a more complex affair with major taking
place in the pacific and the Far East, in North Africa and in Russia as well as
in central and Western Europe and the Atlantic region. The main courses of the
war falls under four important stages;
1. Opening
Moves- from September 1939 to December
1940
2. The
Axis offensive widen- from January 1941
to summer 1942
3. Offensive
held in check- summer 1942 to summer 1943
4. The
Axis power defeated- July 1943 to August
1945
Opening Moves- from September 1939 to December 1940
Invasion of Poland by Germany
ü The
German BLITZKRIEG invaded Poland and destroyed immediately the Polish railway
system and the air force and the country was defeated within 3 weeks.
ü The
resistance of the Polish army was heroic but failed because they had no
motorized divisions to retaliate the German Invasions.
ü Britain
and France failed completely to help Poland. When the Russian invaded Poland,
the resistance of Poland collapsed on 29th September, 1939.
Invasion of Poland by Russia
ü Simultaneously,
with the Nazi invasion, Russians too marched their troops across the polish
border and Poland was portioned between Russia and Germany.
ü Immediately
after the conquest of Poland, Hitler threw out Peace Feelers to the Allies
expecting that Britain and France would negotiate a peace.
ü However,
Britain and France were not in mood to come to terms with him. This lack of
action on the part of Britain and France for seven months pleased the German
generals. This period has been described by the American press as the Phoney War
War in 1940 (Invasion of Denmark and Norway)
ü The
year 1940 was a year of disaster for the Allies. The Phoney war was finally
shattered in April-1940. When German won lightning victorious and in 1940 over
ran Demark and Norway. Control of Norway was very important for Germany
because:
ü Norway was
of strategic importance to Hitler as a springboard for aerial attack against
Britain
ü It was
also important because Narvik was the main outlet for Swedish iron-ore
Significance of the invasion of Norway
ü Though
Germany lost some of her warships during the battle, Germany got control over
the base and her Iron-ore supplies from Sweden through the port Narvik.
ü The
campaign also exposed to incompetence of Chamberlain’s government. He was
forced to resign and was replaced by Winston Churchill as the new Prime
Minister of England.
Invasion of Holland, Belgium and France
ü The
spate of German victory continued with their Blitzkrieg and by the end of May,
Holland, Belgium and Luxemburg were conquered by the Nazis.
ü The
Dutch surrendered within four days, but Belgium held out longer, but finally at
surrendered at the end of May.
ü The
fall of Belgium spelt disaster for the British for the British and French.
Almost 350,000 British and French troops were trapped in Dunkirk in Northern
France. But the British forces carried out heroic evacuation operations by the
British navy. Churchill used this propaganda to boost British Morale with the
Dunkirk spirit.
ü This
marvelous feat of evacuation saved England from complete defeat. The Dunkirk
incident is important for Britain because this campaign saved England from
total defeat and also helped in boosting the morale of the British
The battle of Britain (12th august-30th September, 1940)
ü The
battle of Britain was fought in the air when the Germanair force-Luftwaffe
tried to breakdown the morale of the English people.
ü Under
dynamic Winston Churchill, the British continued the Nazis checked in the
battle of Britain.
ü Wave
after wave German Luftwaffe fighters and bombers destroyed the important places
like airports, Ruder station, armament factories etc in the hope of breaking
the English morale but the British didn’t yield.
ü The
royal air force bravely fought back, inflicting heavy losses on the German Air
Force. It became clear that British Air power was far from being destroyed. Hitler
called off the invasion of Britain. Thus the Battle of Britain was the first
major turning point of the WWII.
For the
first time Germans had been checked. It became clear that they were not
invincible.
Germany’s
failure in the Battle of Britain became one of the major reasons for the
ultimate defeat of Germany later. Because Germany was able to remain in the war
and forced Hitler with the fatal situation of war on two fronts
The war in North Africa (Invasion of Egypt)
ü In
September 1940, the Italians opened a second front in North Africa. But the
Italians were hopelessly defeated and might have suffered a worse fate had they
not been rescued by the Germans under General Rommel, the Desert Fox.
ü The
British also drove out the Italians from Italians Somaliland and Eritrea and
restored Ethiopia to his ancestral throne the Greek forced the Italians back
and invaded Albania. Which clearly indicate Mussolini was to be a big burden
for Hitler
The Axis offensive widens (January 1941-Summer of 1942)
In
1941, Hitler helped Mussolini by sending the German troops under the general
Rommel and with the Italian troops, they drove British out of Libya and by June
1942, the German were in Egypt, In April 1941, the German forces invaded Greece
and captured the island of Crete using parachute invasion and again the British
were forced to withdraw.
Important Results
ü The
Allied powers suffered heavy losses in man power and armament and many of the
troops were removed from North Africa.
ü Hitler’s
involvement in Greece and Yugoslavia had delayed his attack on Russia by 5
weeks
ü If
German’s invasion on Russia had taken place in time, the Germans might have
taken Moscow before the winter started.
The German invasion of Russia (Operation barborassa-22nd june-1941)
Hitler’s
aim of Russian invasion seem to have a mixed idea
ü Hitler
was afraid of Russian attack when she was busy in the Northern front
ü Thought
the Japanese would attack Russia in the Far East
ü How
ever there was hatred of Communism and control it permanently. It has been said
that the attack on Russia was Hitler’s greatest mistake. Moreover, Hitler had
realized that the war would be a long drawn one and he therefore wanted to
ensure a regular supply of food and oil which the Ukraine and Caucasus could
supply in abundance.
The attack was made in three directions:
ü In the North towards Leningrad
ü In the centre towards Moscow
ü In the South through Ukraine
On 22nd
June, 1941, the Germans armies invaded Russia, in violation of the Non
Aggression Pact which was signed on August 1939. It was German Blitzkrieg once
again on a large scale. Important cities were capture within a very short time;
the Herman army advanced within the striking distance of Leningrad and Moscow,
but was held up by the Russian resistance. The Russians had long apprehended a
German invasion and had taken steps to strengthen her defenses. The German
advanced through Ukraine was spectacular and very soon the Germans reached as
far as Caucasus. The retreating Russian army then destroyed all bridges,
factories, railways to prevent German advancement. This was known as Scorched Earth Policy.
The
Germans were severely hampered by the heavy rains of October and by the severe
frost of November and December month. The temperature fell down to -38degree
Celsius. The Germans had inadequate winter clothing because Hitler expected the
war to be over before winter. No progress was made in the north and the centre
and in the summer of 1942, Hitler decided to invade South East Russia towards
Caucasus to capture the oilfields.
The Battle of Stalingrad (Russia, Feburary1942)
At
Stalingrad invasion of Russia reached deep inside the country but was finally
checked by the Russians. The Germans reached Stalingrad at the end of August
1942 and destroyed the city but the Russians refused to surrender. A serious
war broke out in November and the Russians counter attacked dangerously trapped
the Germans and cutoff their supply lines. By February 1943, the Germans
surrendered and general Von Paulus with about 100,000 soldier’s.
Significance of the Battle of Stalingrad
ü Defeat
of the Germans was a great blow
ü This
battle shattered the belief that Germans were invincible and helped in boosting
the Russian morale
ü The
Russian followed with more counter attack facing the Germans to retreat from
Moscow and Leningrad and prepared them for the final situation of Germany
Entry of USA in to the war
In the
Far East, Japan won victories. By the middle of the year, indo-china, Malaya,
Singapore and Burma had been conquered by Japan. Even India was threatened by the
Japanese. The relation between Japan and America was not cordial. The American
helped Chinese in the war against Japan. So, the president Franklin Roosevelt
demanded the withdrawal of the Japanese forces and put sanction on oil supplies
to Japan. Thus, the war seemed inevitable.
The
Japanese attack was brilliantly organized by Admiral Yamato. There was no
declaration of war. The Japanese reached Pearl Harbor undetected. Thus, the
Japanese bombing of the U.S naval base at Pearl Harbor in December 1941 brought
both United States and Japan into the war. The U.S.A joined the war with the
Allied Powers.
The Battle of Pacific/Midway Island-June 1943
At
Midway Island in the Pacific region, the American defeated a powerful Japanese
attack. The Japanese forces became weaker due to loss of their carrier and
strike planes, especially dive bombers. Gradually, American recovered the
Pacific islands. The struggle continued through 1943 and 1944 by a process
known as Island Hooping.
The
Axis powers were defeated by the Americans because the American had broken the
Japanese radio code and knew exactly where and when attack was to be made. Also
Japanese were over confident and made important mistakes by splitting their
forces at a time. It became a crucial point in the battle for the pacific
because the loss of their warships and fighter planes seriously weakened the
Japanese which helped Americans to maintain their lead.
The Battle of El-Alamein, October 1942-1943(North Africa in Egypt)
In
North Africa the battle of El-Alamein in late October, turned the tide for the
British and the German and Italian troops were on the retreat. They drove the
Nazi and Italians out of North Africa and invaded Sicily. The British General
Montgomery defeated Rommel’s arm at Alamein in October, 1942 and was driven out
of Egypt by the Allied force.
Reason for the success of the Allied forces in the battle of El-Alamein
ü They
received heavy reinforcements during the seven weeks pause and the Germans and
Italians were heavily outnumbered.
ü The
Allied power constantly attacked the air forces, sinking the supply ships
across the Mediterranean Sea. By October, the Axis power suffered a serious
shortage of food, fuel and ammunitions.
Significance of Battle of El-Alamein
ü It led
to the complete removal of Axis forces from North Africa, Egypt the Suez Cannel
and other countries saved from falling into Germans hand.
ü It
encouraged Allied forces from North Africa to Sicily for the final invasion of
Italy. About 300,000 German and Italian soliders were forced to surrender into
the hands of the Allied forces in North Africa. This was proved to be a serious
drain on German resources and faced difficult situation while fighting with the
Russians.
The Axis power Defeated-July1943-August 1945
The
fall of Italy was the final stage in the Axis collapse. The Allied troops
landed in Sicily from the sea and air and quickly captured the whole island.
This resulted in the downfall of Mussolini who was dismissed by the king Victor
Emmanuel III. Thereafter, the Allied forces captured many cities including
Naples in October 1943. By this time, Marshall Badglio, Mussolini’s successor
accepted the defeat of Italy and forced a separate peace on 3rd
September, 1943 with this Italy was brought into the war on Allied side.
However,
the German army in Italy offered a tough resistance for almost five months. The
Allied forces moved towards the North and captured Rome and finally Northern
part including Milan was captured in April 1945. Mussolini unable to get the
help from Hitler tried to escape to Switzerland but on the way, he was caught by
his enemies- Partisons and was shot
dead and hanged
Operation Overload-6th June, 1944
To work
out joint scheme of warfare against the Axis powers, a summit meeting of
Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin had hold. Stalin insisted that the Allied
powers should open a second front against Germany to:
ü Relieve
Nazi pressure on Russia and
ü To
hasten Allied Victory
As
agreed among the Allies at Tehran, Great Britain and U.S.A launched on invasion
of France. The invasion of France known as second front began on D-Day1944. The
British and American troops launched at Normandy beaches. Preparation for D-Day
had been meticulously made under the Allied supreme commander General
Eisenhower of the U.S.A within few weeks, Paris was liberated on 25th
August, in the face of strong German resistance. Slowly, the Allied forces
recaptured Belgium, Holland, Norway and others from Germany.
Attack on Germany- After Operation Overload
The
British General Montgomery wanted a rapid thrust to reach Berlin before
Russians, the American General Eisenhower led his forces on a 60 miles through
American lines, causing a huge Bulge in the front line. But the strong Allied
forces checked the advance and pushed the Germans back to their front line.
The
battle of Bulge which followed was mainly tank warfare and was very important
because Hitler put all his German resources and manpower in the war but
ultimately lost 200,000-500,000 soldiers and about 600 tanks which at this
stage could not be replaced. Early in 1945, Germany was invaded on both the
fronts-Eastern and western. The British still wanted to push a ahead and take
Berlin before the Russians, but the supreme commander Eisenhower refused and
thus Berlin fell in the hands of Russia in April, 1945. As the fall of Berlin
became inevitable, Hitler committed suicide on May7, 1945. Thus, Germany had to
surrender unconditionally.1945
The defeat of Japan-August 14th
Though
Germany and Italy surrendered, Japan continued the fight. The war against Japan
was pursued with great vigorous president Truman who had succeeded Roosevelt on
his death in April 1945 sent an ultimatum to the Japanese government to
surrender unconditionally. He also threatened to use secret and devastating
weapons. Despite the threat, the Japanese rejected the ultimatum, and the
Americans used the atom bomb for the first time to force Japan to surrender.
The first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on 6th August and second on
Nagasaki on 9th August causing large scale destruction of fire. Thus,
Japan surrendered on 14th August and the Second World War came to an
end.
Reasons for the defeat of the Axis powerShortage of Raw Materials
The
German army was always regarded as inevitable, but the myth gradually came to
an end. The basic weakness of the Axis power was the shortage of the raw
materials. Both Italy and Japan had to import the supplies and ever Germany was
short of rubber, cotton nickel and after mid 1944 oil. To win the war, the
constant supply of raw material was urgently needed and at this point, the Axis
powers were very much handicapped. In the initial stage, the German Blitzkrieg
played a vital role. However, the survival of Britain in 1940 was a turning
point for the Axis powers because it kept the western front alive until U.S.A
entered the war.
The Allies learnt from their early Failures
At
first Allied forces couldn’t understand how to cope with the German Blitzkrieg.
But very soon they learnt from their early failures on how to checkBlitzkrieg
attacks and very soon the Allied powers realized the importance of air force
and aircraft carrier. Thus, the BritishRoyal Air force played a vital role in
checking the German attacks. Consequently, within the superior air and naval
power, they won the battles of Atlanta and pacific and slowly cutoff the
supplies of the Axis Power.
The combined resources of U.S.A, USSR and British Empire
The
combined resources of America, Russia and Britain were so great that the longer
the war lasted, the less chance the Axis had of their victory. The Russians
reconstructed their industries and continued production to a large extend even
though the Germany Had occupied vast areas in the west. It had been estimated
that by 1949, they had four times as many tanks as the Germans and could put
twice as many men in the field.
Similarly,
when the American war machine peak production, it could turn over 70,000 tanks
and 1200 aircraft in a year which the Germans and Japanese could not compete at
all. Moreover, with the land lease American with her huge armaments came
forward to help the Allied powers against Hitler. America, thus, became the
Arsenal of Democracy as per the land lease act.
Serious Tactical mistakes made by Axis Power
The
Axis power also made a number of tactical mistakes which they could not afford
The
Japanese failed to learn the lesson about the importance of aircraft carriers
and gave more importance on producing large number of battle ships. Moreover,
Japan did not possess the reserves of men and materials to meet the counter
attack which she deliberately invited.
Hitler
failed to provide for a winter campaign in Russia and became obsessed with the
idea that Germans must not retreat. This led to much disaster in Russia,
especially Stalingrad and left his troops badly exposed in Normandy- France
1944. As a result German army faced a terrible loss of man power and German
army was then reduced to 12,000 from its original strength of 3, 30,000.
The
most serious of all was Hitler’s decision to concentrate on producing V-Rockets
when he could have given more importance on Jet aircraft.
The Axis power took on too much
The
great battle of Britain became a turning point for Hitler. He didn’t seem to
understand that war against Britain would involve her empire as well that his
troops were bound to be thinly spread on the Russian front, on both sides of
Mediterranean and on the western coastline of France.
Similarly,
Japan made the same mistake as they became stretched out far beyond their basic
capacity for holding their gains. Above all, in Germany’s case incompetence was
a constant drain on Hitler’s resources and a burden too.
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