"The Sequel to the War to End All Wars" aka World War II

Top left Battle of Wanjialing
Top right First Battle of El Alamein
Middle left Battle of Stalingrad
Middle right German dive bombers over Eastern Front winter 1943-1944
Bottom left Wilhelm Keitel signing German Instrument of Surrender
Bottom right Invasion of Lingayen Gulf

The League of Nations opened its doors for business in 1920. The terms of that business were outlined in its charter and could be summed up as guaranteeing the territorial integrity and political independence of member states. To do this, the League of nations was authorized to take "any action...to safeguard the peace." But as you just read, many nations in the 1920s and 1930s weren't exactly peaceful. (And, in the case of Japan and China, they weren't exactly respecting their neighbor's territorial integrity either.) Plus, the treaty that created the League of Nations included a segment that prohibited Germany from building an offensive military. But as you just read, the Germans began re-militarizing when Hitler rose to power (and they weren't exactly quiet about it as they sent military support to General Franco in Spain during the Spanish Civil War.)

What, you may ask, were the League of Nations and the former Allied Powers doing in response to the blatant abuse of territorial integrity and German remilitarization? Not much. As the United States never joined the League of Nations, the leadership of the League fell to France and Great Britain—both of whom were very preoccupied in rebuilding their own nations and surviving the Great Depression. Therefore...

When Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, there were no coordinated international punishments.
When Italy invaded Ethiopia (a nation Italians had embarrassingly not been able to colonize during the "Scramble for Africa") in 1935, the League of Nations imposed sanctions but many individual nations did not participate in these sanctions.
When Germany supplied air and armored military units to support General Franco during the Spanish Civil War in 1936, there were no coordinated international punishments.

The leaders of these nations learned a valuable lesson from the international disregard to these actions—they could proceed with their expansionist aims and not suffer for it. (And that is not a lesson most people want expansionists to learn—especially the neighbors of those expansionists! Can you guess what happened next?)

Japan

Italy

Germany

1936 : Signs pact with Germany creating a military alliance should the USSR attack Japan's Manchuria—Anti-Comintern Pact

1937 : Invades China beginning the Second Sino-Japanese War; takes Shanghai and Nanjing (Rape of Nanjing)

1935 : Invasion of Ethiopia

1936 : Begins process of achieving expansionist ambitions in Europe by supporting General Franco during the Spanish Civil War

1938 : Invasion of Albania

1937 : Joins the Anti-Comintern Pact

1939 : Signs Pact of Steel uniting with Germany as a partner in the production of war material and as an alliance in the event of war

1936 : Remilitarizes the Rhineland (the area between Germany and Belgium that was demilitarized following World War I)

1938 : Germany annexes Austria in the Anschluss to create the "Greater Germany"

1938 : European nations sign the Munich Agreement allowing Germany to annex the Sudetenland (the German-speaking portion of Czechoslovakia)

1939 : Invasion of the rest of Czechoslovakia

1939 : Signs Non-Aggression Pact with the Soviet Union (USSR) agreeing that neither nation would invade the other

1939 : Invasion of Poland

And just as the League of Nation's failure to respond to Japanese, Italian and German acts of aggression taught those nations that they could make their expansionist goals a reality, the lack of action also taught Great Britain that the notion of an international effort towards collective security was a dream. To that end, Great Britain adopted a policy of "appeasement" towards Germany. At the time, Neville Chamberlain served as the British prime minister. Under the appeasement policy, Chamberlain chose to believe Hitler's assertions that his expansions were limited solely to those areas that were either previously part of Germany or contained a substantial German-speaking population.

Europe Falls

When Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, the policy of appeasement quickly ended. (Great Britain had an agreement with Poland to defend them should an invasion come. So it can be suggested that Great Britain's leaders did not completely believe Hitler's claims.) On September 3, 1939, Great Britain and France jointly declared war on Germany—and World War II officially began.

Germany was incredibly successful at the beginning of the war. During the first year, German troops took over Poland, France, Norway, Denmark, Luxembourg, Belgium and Holland. With each conquest, Hitler set up "puppet governments." In no time at all, the continent of Europe seemed more like one police state than a collection of nations.

Map of Europe during WWII

Also during that first year, Germany, Italy and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact officially allying themselves with each other as the Axis Powers for the duration of the war. As most of Europe had fallen to the German war machine, Great Britain was the only powerful nation left in Europe to stand up against Germany. Therefore, Germany turned its gaze towards the island nation—a description that was not lost on German military strategists. They knew that they could not get around Great Britain's navy in order to invade Great Britain. Therefore, they settled on an aerial strategy in the hopes that Great Britain would surrender. For months, Germany subjected Great Britain to daily air raids. Known as the Battle of Britain, these air raids included attacks on military and civilian targets alike. Britons came to dread the setting of the sun when German air planes flew over Great Britain dropping massive amounts of bombs in a strategy called "the blitz." The bombardment of Great Britain lasted for months but did not result in a British surrender. Instead, the Luftwaffe (the German air force) ended its involvement when they realized that they could not get around Great Britain's impressive air defense network or defeat Great Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF). During the Battle of Britain, new British Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared, "Never was so much owed by so many to so few," to honor the successes of the RAF in protecting the nation.

RAF Poster - Never was so much owed by so many to so few

The Axis Powers Awaken a Bear and an Eagle*

^{*The Bear and the Eagle are the animal "mascots" or symbols for the nations of Russia/Soviet Union and the United States, respectively}

In 1941 CE, Hitler gave the order to void its Non-Aggression Pact with the Soviet Union by launching an invasion against the USSR. Out of options, the Soviet Union joined (what was left of) the Allied Powers against Germany. The German invasion of the Soviet Union involved one hundred-seventy divisions with three thousand tanks and over three million men—it was and is the largest invasion force of history. Known as Operation Barbarossa, the invasion was incredibly successful — by the year's end, German troops were poised to take over Moscow.

Also in 1941, the Japanese air force flew over the islands of Hawaii, destroying the American naval base at Pearl Harbor and ending the United States' neutrality. Prior to that, the Japanese military was taking over Asia and the Pacific islands with the same level of success as the Germans in Europe.

Map of the Japanese Empire in WWII

Photo of Attack on Pearl Harbor In the early hours of December 7, 1941, Japanese airplanes began their attacks from the air as the Japanese navy began their torpedoing of American ships. The Japanese intended to effectively cripple the United States' Pacific Fleet to prevent an American response to future Japanese conquests. (And these conquests were becoming increasingly important. Already, the United States had stopped exporting oil, scrap iron and steel to Japan—therefore, the Japanese desperately needed to acquire these resources through other means. This meant it needed to take the Dutch East Indies—and to do so, they needed to know that the United States wouldn't interfere.) The attack lasted roughly ninety minutes and sunk or crippled five of the eight American battleships. Thousands of American navy and army personnel were killed. The next day, Great Britain and the United States declared war on Japan—the United States then declared war on Germany and Italy.

Map of nations participating in WWII

With the entrance of the Soviet Union and the United States into the war, the Allied Powers received a huge boost—in physical support and emotional morale. In 1943, the leaders of the United States, the Soviet Union and Great Britain met in Tehran, Iran to discuss how to win the war. Topics discussed at the Tehran Conference included D-Day, war strategy and defeating Japan. It took time, but the war started to turn in favor of the Allies.

European Theater

African Theater

Pacific Theater

From 1942 to 1943, Soviet forces battled with the Axis troops to prevent the takeover of the Soviet Union. The biggest turning point, in favor of the USSR, came at the Battle of Stalingrad (southern USSR) and the Battle of Kursk (outside of Moscow in the north.) The Soviet victories during those battles allowed for the Soviet troops to slowly push the Eastern Front lines towards Germany as the Axis Powers retreated.

In July 1943, Allied troops landed on Sicily (the large island at the toe of Italy.) From there, the Allies pushed the Axis north through Italy. On July 25, 1943, Italians forced Mussolini to resign as leader and arrested him. In September, the Italians surrendered but fighting continued as German troops continued on.

On June 6, 1944, Allied forces broke through Germany's Atlantic Wall (a heavily defended line along the English Channel.) Known as D-Day, it marks the return of Allied forces to French soil. From there, the Allies pushed across Europe towards Germany.

In November 1942, Allied forces launched "Operation Torch."

Allied armies landed in French North Africa (Morocco and Algeria today) and started their push east.

On the other side of North Africa, British forces fought in the Second Battle of El Alamein in October and November 1942. The British victory prevented an Axis takeover of the Suez Canal.

In May 1943, Axis forces in North Africa surrendered to the Allies in Tunisia

As Japan launched its attack on Pearl Harbor, it invaded other Pacific Islands. The Japanese made short work in taking over the Pacific Theater.

The turning point for the Allied forces came at the Battle of Midway and the Battle of Guadalcanal, when Allied forces began their first major offensives against the Japanese in 1942.

Japan sustained heavy losses and the United States gained naval superiority in the Pacific.

From there, the Allies launched their island hopping offensive. The Allies "hopped" from island to island to engage in battles with the Japanese—pushing ever closer to the islands of Japan.

The War Ends

Allied troops spent the years from 1943 to 1945 pushing the Axis troops into retreat—it was slow-going. Finally, in 1945, the Allied troops entered Germany from the East, the West and the South. On April 30, 1945, with Allied troops closing in on their final destination of Berlin, Adolf Hitler committed suicide. On May 8, 1945, Germany signed a surrender to the Allies on all fronts. The Allies were victorious and the date is referred to as V-E Day (Victory in Europe.)

Churchill waving to the crowds

With the war over in Europe and Africa, the Allied Powers were free to focus on the war in the Pacific Theater. In the Spring of 1945 (just before Germany surrendered,) the Allies fought two battles that placed them within striking distance of Japan—the Battle of Iwo Jima and the Battle of Okinawa. From there, the Allies stepped up their direct aerial attacks on the home islands of Japan with night bombings of major cities. During the time between the Battle of Okinawa and the surrender of Japan, the Allies dropped more than 100,000 tons of firebombs on the cities of Japan. As many of the cities in Japan were constructed out of wood, the devastation was almost total in Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya, Kobe, Osaka and others. On July 26, 1945, the Allies issued an ultimatum to Japan to surrender. The Japanese rejected the ultimatum which made no reference to America's new secret weapon- the atomic bomb. On August 6, 1945, an American plane dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, decimating it. America dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki three days later. At this point, Japan surrendered—the war ended on August 14, 1945 (known as V-J Day.)

Photo of the aftermath of Hiroshima bombing

Effects of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. View from the top of the Red Cross Hospital looking northwest. Frame buildings recently erected. 1945

World War II was a costly war—in money, in land, in European influence, but especially in people.

Graph of the casualities in WWII

Recap Section

Map of European Theater

Map of Pacific Theater

RESOURCES IN THIS MODULE ARE OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES (OER) OR CREATED BY GAVS UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED. SOME IMAGES USED UNDER SUBSCRIPTION.