The Course of WWII

• Hitler made clear to his generals that victory was the only important thing in war. The destruction of Poland was his objective. The generals were not to pity anyone. This was a precursor to the worst war in history.

Victory and Stalemate

• Hitler stunned Europeans by unleashing his Blitzkrieg  or “lightening war”. His armored columns or “panzer divisions” (a strike force of about 300 tanks and forces/supplies)
• Airplanes were also present and this overwhelmed the Polish. Infantry then came in to secure the territory. Four weeks later, Poland surrendered and USSR and Germany divided the land. France and Britain declared war on Sept. 3rd although Hitler was optimistic that he would come out on top. France and Britain did not go on the offensive thinking it was another war of blockade.
• Maginot Line – steel fortifications armed with heavy artillery built by the French, France was quite satisfied by her protective shell and didn’t do any further intervention. Hitler did not do anything for the winter but the resumed the war on April 9, 1940 with a Blitzkrieg against Denmark and Norway. May 10, Germans launch attack on Netherlands, Belgium, and France. British and French troops were caught off guard by Hitler’s attack through Luxembourg and Ardennes forest.
• Panzer divisions broke through weak French defensive positions and outflanked the Maginot Line. The maneuver split the Allied troops and trapped the French and British against the beaches of Dunkirk. Britain came to the rescue with her ships and 330000 men on the Allied side were rescued to Britain to fight another day.
• June 5- Germans launch offensive on southern France. 5 days later, Mussolini, thinking the war was over, declared war on France and invaded from the south. France surrendered on June 22. German army occupied 3/5ths of France while the rest was ruled by authoritarian Marshal Henri Petian, a WWI hero for France. This regime was called Vichy France.
• Allies thought Vichy France was a puppet state of the Nazis. Former French gov’t exiled and escaped to Britain. Germany controlled west and central Europe…except Britain.
• May 10th, 1940, Winston Churchill replaces Neville Chamberlain.
• Churchill was optimistic that Britain could win. He was an inspiring leader with powerful speeches directed at the British. Hitler only wished that Britain would go for peace and leave Germany alone to her eastward expansion.
• Britain refused to back down under Churchill and Hitler was forced to invade Britain, something he was not optimistic about. His only way was to invade and control airspace. The Luffwaffe (German air force) launched offensive against British Air and naval bases, comm. centers, and war industries.
• The British had a radar system to alert them ahead of time of German attacks. Extra intelligence managed to obtain information about what the Germans would target next. The air force still suffered lots of damage and Hitler changed his strategy to intense bombing of cities.
• The British rebuilt the air force and inflicted major losses on the Luffwaffe. Germany had lost the Battle of Britain and postponed the invasion of Britain.
• Hitler planned to capture the Suez Canal, cutting off the Mediterranean to British ships closing off the supply of oil if they could take Egypt. He wasn’t ever fully committed to this plan and this intial plan was to let the Italians secure the Balkan and Mediterranean and to defeat the British in Northern Africa. Of course the British routed the Italians and ruined that plan for Hitler. Hitler was not concerned for he wanted to get his land in the east.
• July 1940, Hitler told leaders to prepare for invasion of the Soviet Union. Hitler believed the British were only in the war because they hoped the Soviet Union would come and help. If the Soviet Union was defeated, then the British would stop fighting too. He believed the Soviets, with the Jewish-Bolshevik leaders, could be annihilated easily. The attack was scheduled for Spring of 1941 but delayed due to Balkan problems. Hitler got Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania to cooperate with him but Mussolini failed in his invasion of Greece in October 1940 therefore exposing Hitler’s southern flank to British air bases in Greece. German troops seized Yugoslavia and Greece in April reassuring Hitler that things would go according to plan. He turned to the east and invaded USSR on June 22, 1941.
• The attack on the Soviets stretched out on a 1800 mile front. Germans managed to capture two million Soviet soldiers. November, one German army group swept thru Ukraine while another swept through Leningrad. A third was advancing 25 miles away from Moscow. Then the Germans were stopped early winter by an unexpected Soviet resistance.
• The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and were occupied with the U.S while the Germans were stopped. Stalin was able to launch a counterattack by transporting troops away from the Siberian Front to the Moscow Front. On December 1941 exhausted the Nazi victories and ended the Germans’ year on a low note. Then Hitler declared war on the U.S…not the best idea. Now it was indeed “world” War II.

War in Asia

• Japan had defeated Chine in 1895, Russia in 1905, and took over many of Germany’s eastern and Pacific colonies in WWI. The Japanese empire also included Korea, Formosa (Taiwan), Manchuria, and Marshall, Caroline, and Mariana Islands.
• Japan had internal tensions in early 1930s because of a population increase from 30 to 80 million. Japan was only able to feed and pay [for resources] depended on manufacture of heavy indust. goods and clothing. Tariffs because of the depression such as the Harley-Smoot Tariff set by the U.S. pretty much messed with the Japanese economy and that led to political disaster.
• Sure political power still rested in the hands of the emperor and his cabinet but Japan was leaning toward some democracy with universal male suffrage in 1924 and mass political parties were formed.
• 1930s economic crisis stopped this democratic growth. Right wingers pushed themselves with the army and navy to push for expansion at expense of China, and USSR. Navy hoped to make Japan self-sufficient in raw materials by conquering British Malaya and Dutch East Indies.
• Japan accomplished…
• 1935- Modern navy
• 1936- Gov’t influenced by military
• 1937 July- started war in Asia by invasion of China
• Expansion caused conflicts with European nations esp Britain and France because of their Asia possessions, namely India/Burma/Malaya and Indochina respectively. Also the East Indies and Netherlands. Even United States disliked it because they were attempting Pacific expansion.
• July 1941- Japanese invade Indochina causing the U.S. to cut oil supplies to Japan. Japan attacked the American Naval fleet.
• Dec. 7, 1941- Pearl Harbor attack. Also attacks on Philippines and advances on Malaya. US declared war on Japan the next day. Three days later Hitler declared war on the US but he wasn’t required to because his alliance with Japan was loose. Roosevelt was able to bring the US into the European conflict and knock down the barrier of isolation.
• Japanese invaded the Dutch East Indies and took over numerous islands in the Pacific. Some cases, Battan peninsula and island of Corregidor in the Philippines, resistance was fierce but not enough and almost all of southeast Asia fell into Japanese hands in Spring 1942.
• Tokyo created the Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, declaring the entire region under Japanese control. He intended to liberate the colonial areas of Southeast Asia from Western control. For now she needed resources though and est. marital law upon the countries.
• Japanese hoped the destruction of the naval fleet would thwart them into admitting defeat but this wasn’t the case. It just made the Americans more acceptant toward Roosevelt’s war policy and US united with European nations and Nationalist China against Japan to push them away from the pacific again.

The Turning Pt (1942-1943)

• The Grand Alliance was created when the U.S. entered. This eventually defeated the Axis powers. However at first the Allied powers (Britain, U.S, and Soviets) had to overcome distrust of each other first before being an effect alliance against the Axis (Germany, Italy and Japan)
• Things that made the Grand Alliance possible
• Germany’s declaration of war on U.S. allowed the U.S. to empathize with the USSR and the British and Germany’s defeat would be top priority meaning the US exports of trucks, planes, and arms to British and USSR increased.
• The agreement to stress military operations above all political differences and post-war agreements.
• 1943- Allies agreed to fight until the Axis powers surrendered unconditionally. This cemented the Grand Alliance and Hitler could do nothing to divide his foes.
• Japanese forces advanced into Southeast Asia while Hitler continued to fight the war in Europe. It seemed that the Germans would claim victory in north Africa and the Afrika Korps under General Erwin Romel broke through British defenses in Egypt and advance toward Alexandria. Germans were also successful in the Battle of the North Atlantic as their subs continued to bash Allied ships that carried supplies to GB. The renewed offensive in USSR by Germans also led to the capture of the entire Crimean peninsula allowing Hitler to give his last optimistic outburst.
• North Africa- British Forces stop Rommel’s troops in El Alamein in summer 1942 forcing the Germans back across the desert.
• November 1942- British and American forces invade French North Africa forcing German and Italian troops to surrender March 1943.
• New detection devices allowed the Allies to destroy more German subs. Eastern front, turning point occurred at Stalingrad, major indust. center. Hitler, instead of concentrating on the Caucasus and the oil fields, charged to Stalingrad. November 1942- Feb 1943, German troops were stopped, surrounded and surrendered on Feb 2. Entire German Sixth Army of 300,000 men died. By Feb. German forces in USSR forced back to positions of June 1942. Spring 1943, Hitler knew he lost against the USSR. Tides were also turned in Asia in the Battle of the Coral Sea. May 7-8, 1942, Am. Naval forces stopped the Japanese allowing Australia to breathe easy for a bit.
• June 4th, Battle of Midway Island, Am. planes destroyed all 4 attacking Japanese aircraft carriers est. Am. naval superiority in Pacific. Bitter engagements near the Solomon Islands led to faded Japanese fortunes.

The Last Years

• Beginning of 1943- tides turned against Axis. Unconditional surrender still miles away. Axis forces first surrendered in Tunisia on May 13, 1943. The Allies carried the war into Italy (Winston Churchill called this the soft underbelly of Europe) Allied forces began invading mainland Italy. Benito Mussolini was arrested and a new government was put in and offered to surrender to the Allied powers. Mussolini was liberated by the Germans and set up a puppet state in northern Italy. German troops then moved in. The allied advancement was quite a blow because of the loss of troops. Rome did not fall to the Allies until July 4, 1944. Italy wasn’t too important and the Allies est. a second front.
• Allies planned a cross channel invasion of France since Fall 1943. They tricked the Axis powers into thinking that they would invade from the northern plains. Americans under Dwight D. Eisenhower landed five assault divisions on Normandy beaches on June 6th. They were able to est a beachhead and within 3 months they landed 2 million men and half million vehicles that broke German defensive lines.
• Allied troops moved south and east to liberate Paris. Supply probs and last minute failed offensive occured at the Battle of the Bulge slowing the Allied advance. March 1945, Allied troops crossed Rhine River and into Germany. End of April, moved into northern Germany moved toward Elbe River finally meeting the Soviets.
• Soviets had advanced a long way since the Battle of Stalingrad. Hitler’s generals urged him to build an east wall based on river barriers to stop the Soviets but he gambled and relied on his heavy tanks. German forces were defeated by the Soviets at the Battle of the Kursk, the greatest tank battle of WWII.
• Germans lost 18 panzer divisions and Soviets could advance westward reoccupying Ukraine at end of 1943. Siege of Leningrad was lifted and they moved back into the Baltic in 1944 moving to the northern front. Occupied Warsaw in Jan. and Berlin in April 1945. Soviet troops also swept the southern Balkan front. Jan 1945, Hitler moved into his bunker in Berlin to direct the end of the war. He continued to arrange his troops as if he could still win. Hitler continued to blame the Jews for his loss and committed suicide on April 30 after Mussolini was shot in Paris. May 7th, Germany surrenders. War in Asia continued, 1943 Am. forces gone on offensive and advanced their way across the Pacific. Am. forces ate up enemy resources esp. at sea. Pres. Harry S Truman and advisers convinced that the loss of Am. Troops could not continue. Finally they decided to drop the A-Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan surrendered unconditionally on Aug. 14th 1945….marking the end of WWII. SEVENTEEN MILLION DIED IN BATTLE AND EIGHTEEN MILLION CIVILIANS DIED. SOME ESTIMATES SAY ALMOST 50 MILLION DIED. WWII was finally over.