WWIIMajor Battles in the Pacific

and EuropeMr. Jack Merrill

US History IIClass #79/2/14

WWII: Overview• World War II (WWII or WW2), also known as the Second World War,

was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, though related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people, from more than 30 different countries. In a state of "total war", the major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust, the Three Alls Policy, the strategic bombing of enemy industrial and/or population centers, and the first use of nuclear weapons in combat, it resulted in an estimated 50 million to 85 million fatalities. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history.

Axis Powers

Troubles in Europe After WWI; Germany

• WWI ends in November 1918• The Treaty of Versailles imposed tough financial war

reparations and restrictions on Germany in the aftermath of World War I

• As a result of these reparations, Germany is in dire financial straights after the war.

• 1921: Adolph Hitler becomes leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NAZI)

• 1922: Germany and USSR re-establish diplomatic relations after WWI

• 1923: Hitler and Nazi Party attempt to overthrow the German Government in the unsuccessful Beer Hall Putsch. They are unsuccessful and Hitler is put in prison for 9 months.

Troubles in Europe after WWI;Italy

• 1922: Fascist leader Benito Mussolini is appointed prime minister of Italy by king Victor Emmanuel III after the March on Rome.

• 6/1924: Fascists win elections in Italy with a 2/3 majority. Italian Fascists kidnap and kill socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti in Rome.

• 1928: Italy and Ethiopia sign the Italo-Ethiopian Treaty, pledging cooperation and friendship.

• 1935: Italy invades Ethiopia, beginning the Second Italo–Abyssinian War.

• 1937: Italy joins the Anti-Comintern Pac• 1939: Italy invades Albania with little in the way of military

resistance. Albania is later made part of Italy through a personal union of the Italian and Albanian crown.

Troubles in Europe After WWI; Germany

• 1925: Adolf Hitler's autobiographical manifesto Mein Kampf is published.

• 1929: The Young Plan, which sets the total World War I reparations owed by Germany at US$26,350,000,000 to be paid over a period of 58½ years, is finalized. It replaces the earlier Dawes Plan. The Great Depression begins with the Wall Street Crash.

• 1933: Nazi leader Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg. Germany's first concentration camp, Dachau, is completed. The Reichstag passes the Enabling Act, making Adolf Hitler dictator of Germany.

Troubles in Europe After WWI; Germany

• 1933: Germans are told to boycott Jewish shops and businesses. Hitler outlaws trade unions. All non-Nazi parties are banned in Germany. The Nazi party becomes the official party of Germany. Homeless, alcoholic, and unemployed sent to Nazi concentration camps.

• 1934: The SS becomes an organization independent of the Nazi Party, reporting directly to Adolf Hitler. Upon the death of President Paul von Hindenburg, Adolf Hitler makes himself Führer of Germany, becoming Head of State as well as Chancellor.

• 1936: In violation of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany remilitarizes the Rhineland. The Anti-Comintern Pact is signed by Japan and Germany. The signing parties agree to go to war with the Soviet Union if one of the signatories is attacked by the Soviet Union

Troubles in Europe After WWI; Germany

• 1938: The Munich Agreement is signed by Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Italy. The agreement allows Germany to annex the Czechoslovak Sudetenland area in exchange for peace in an attempt to appease Hitler• 1938: The Kristallnacht pogrom begins in

Germany; Jewish shops and synagogues are smashed, looted, burned, and destroyed throughout the country

Troubles in Asia after WWIJapan

• 1928: The Jinan Incident begins, a limited armed conflict between the Republic of China and Japan

• 1929: Japan withdraws troops from China, ending the Jinan Incident.• 1931: Japanese invade Manchuria• 1932: January 28 Incident: using a flare-up of anti-Japanese violence

as a pretext, the Japanese attack Shanghai, China. Fighting between China and Japan in Manchuria ends with Japan in control of Manchuria.

• 1933: Japan leaves the League of Nations over the League of Nations' Lytton Report that found that Manchuria belongs to China and that Manchukuo was not a truly independent state.

• 1936: The Anti-Comintern Pact is signed by Japan and Germany. The signing parties agree to go to war with the Soviet Union if one of the signatories is attacked by the Soviet Union

The Last Straws…1939• The Pact of Steel, known formally as the "Pact of Friendship and

Alliance between Germany and Italy", is signed by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. The Pact declares further cooperation between the two powers, but in a secret supplement the Pact is detailed as a military alliance.

• The Einstein-Szilárd letter is sent to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Written by Leó Szilárd and signed by Albert Einstein, it warned of the danger that Germany might develop atomic bombs. This letter prompted action by Roosevelt and eventually resulted in the Manhattan Project.

• The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is signed between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, with secret provisions for the division of Eastern Europe - joint occupation of Poland and Soviet occupation of the Baltic States, Finland and Bessarabia. This protocol removes the threat of Soviet intervention during the German invasion of Poland

• September 1: Germany invades Poland, the official start of World War II.

Allied Powers: 1939

WWII: 1939-1940• On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland under the

false pretext that the Poles had carried out a series of sabotage operations against German targets.

• Two days later, on 3 September, France and United Kingdom, followed by the fully independent dominions of the British Commonwealth– Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa – declared war on Germany

• Germany launched an offensive against France and, for reasons of military strategy, also attacked the neutral nations of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg on 10 May 1940.

• On 10 June, Italy invaded France, declaring war on both France and the United Kingdom.

WWII: 1939-1940• Paris fell to the Germans on 14 June and eight days later France

surrendered and was soon divided into German and Italian occupation zones

• After having his peace proposal turned down by officials in the United Kingdom, Hitler’s Germany began an air superiority campaign over the United Kingdom (the Battle of Britain) to prepare for an invasion.

• Using newly captured French ports, the German Navy enjoyed success against an over-extended Royal Navy, using U-boats against British shipping in the Atlantic.[89] The British scored a significant victory on 27 May 1941 by sinking the German battleship Bismarck.[90] Perhaps most importantly, during the Battle of Britain the Royal Air Force had successfully resisted the Luftwaffe's assault, and the German bombing campaign largely ended in May 1941.

WWII: 1939-1940

WWII: 1939-1940

WWII: 1941• Hitler believed that Britain's refusal to end the war was based on the

hope that the United States and the Soviet Union would enter the war against Germany sooner or later. He accordingly decided to try to strengthen Germany's relations with the Soviets, or failing that, to attack and eliminate them as a factor.

• On 22 June 1941, Germany, supported by Italy and Romania, invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, with Germany accusing the Soviets of plotting against them. They were joined shortly by Finland and Hungary.

• By October Axis operational objectives in Ukraine and the Baltic region were achieved, with only the sieges of Leningrad and Sevastopol continuing. A major offensive against Moscow was renewed; after two months of fierce battles in increasingly harsh weather the German army almost reached the outer suburbs of Moscow, where the exhausted troops were forced to suspend their offensive

WWII: 1941

WWII: 1941• Japan planned to rapidly seize European colonies in Asia to

create a large defensive perimeter stretching into the Central Pacific; the Japanese would then be free to exploit the resources of Southeast Asia while exhausting the over-stretched Allies by fighting a defensive war.

• To prevent American intervention while securing the perimeter it was further planned to neutralize the United States Pacific Fleet and the American military presence in the Philippines from the outset.

• On 7 December 1941, Japan attacked British and American holdings with near-simultaneous offensives against Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific. These included an attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, landings in Thailand and Malaya and the battle of Hong Kong.

WWII: 1941

WWII: 1942• By the end of April 1942, Japan and its ally Thailand had

almost fully conquered Burma, Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, Singapore, and Rabaul, inflicting severe losses on Allied troops and taking a large number of prisoners

• Battle of Guadalcanal, codenamed Operation Watchtower by Allied forces, was a military campaign fought between 7 August 1942 and 9 February 1943 on and around the island of Guadalcanal in the Pacific theatre of World War II. It was the first major offensive by Allied forces against the Empire of Japan.

• 7,100 American deaths• 31,000 Japanese deaths

WWII: 1942 Pacific

1942-1943: Europe/Africa/Russia• By mid-November, the Germans had nearly taken Stalingrad in bitter

street fighting when the Soviets began their second winter counter-offensive, starting with an encirclement of German forces at Stalingrad. By early February 1943, the German Army had taken tremendous losses; German troops at Stalingrad had been forced to surrender.

• Exploiting poor American naval command decisions, the German navy ravaged Allied shipping off the American Atlantic coast. By November 1941, Commonwealth forces had launched a counter-offensive, Operation Crusader, in North Africa, and reclaimed all the gains the Germans and Italians had made.

1943-1944: Europe• On 3 September 1943, the Western Allies invaded the Italian

mainland, following an Italian armistice with the Allies. Germany responded by disarming Italian forces, seizing military control of Italian areas and creating a series of defensive lines.

• German special forces then rescued Mussolini, who then soon established a new client state in German occupied Italy named the Italian Social Republic.

• On 6 June 1944 (known as D-Day), after three years of Soviet pressure, the Western Allies invaded northern France.

• The largest seaborne invasion in history, the operation began the invasion of German-occupied western Europe, led to the restoration of the French Republic, and contributed to an Allied victory in the war

WWII: D-Day

WWII: 1944-1945• After D-Day, the Allies push east through France and into

Germany, leading up to the battles in the German forest of Bastogne, which has come to be known as the Battle of the Bulge.

• The surprise attack caught the Allied forces completely off guard. United States forces bore the brunt of the attack and incurred the highest casualties for any operation during the war. The battle also severely depleted Germany's war-making resources.

• About 610,000 American forces were involved in the battle, and 89,000 were casualties, including 19,000 killed. It was the largest and bloodiest battle fought by the United States in World War II

WWII: Battle of the Bulge

WWII: Victory in Europe• In early April, the Western Allies finally pushed forward in Italy and

swept across Western Germany, while Soviet and Polish forces stormed Berlin in late April. The American and Soviet forces linked up on Elbe river on 25 April. On 30 April 1945, the Reichstag was captured, signaling the military defeat of the Third Reich.

• German forces surrendered in Italy on 29 April. Total and unconditional surrender was signed on 7 May, to be effective by the end of 8 May.

WWII: Victory in the Pacific• After many years of conflict and the surrender of their Axis

allies, the Japanese continued fighting in the Pacific.• In order to bring about a swift end to the conflict, the United

States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early August, 1945.

WWII: In the End/Cost of Life