1. Causes of WWII
a) Revision of the peace settlement after the Great War. Italian, Japanese, and above all German aggressive foreign policy defied the system of international borders established after the Peace of Paris.
b) Economic crisis. Economic depression and social confrontations favoured the creation of totalitarian States willing to expand their areas of influence.
c) Formation of two main alliances: on the one hand, Japan, Italy and Germany constituted the Axis. Originally, the Rome-Berlin Axis, renamed Pact of Steel in 1939, became the Tripartite Pact the following year. On the other, the Allied powers: France, Great Britain and the Commonwealth (Australia, Canada); afterwards the USSR and the USA joined the Allies side.
2. Japan, Italy and Germany: the steps towards the war
Japan considered Asia an area of imperial expansion. After the military faction took the power in Tokio, Japan invaded Manchuria, a Chinese province, and created a puppet State called Manchukuo. As China and Japan were both members of the League of Nations, the former appealed to the League, but no action against the Japanese aggressor was taken. As a matter of fact, Japan withdrew the League of Nations in 1933 and started the invasion of Northern China. In 1937, the Marco Polo Bridge incident was an excuse to take Beijing. The ineffectiveness of the collective security system within the League of Nations encouraged Italy and Germany to follow a similar aggressive military policy. War against the USA began in 1941, when the Japanese air force attacked Pearl Harbor.
Italy was not treated as a victorious power after the Great War, at the level of France or Great Britain. On the contrary, Italy was disappointed by the creation of Yugoslavia, since this country expected to receive territorial acquisitions in Eastern Europe as a compensation for its war efforts. Mussolini, at the time of the foundation of the Fascist State, promised the creation of a new Roman Empire through military expansion. Therefore, Libya and Ethiopia were conquered by 1936, and Albania in 1939. The conquest of Ethiopia (or Abyssinia), a member of the League of Nations, showed the limits of the system of collective security. The Assembly of the League decided to impose economic sanctions against Italy, but they were abandoned later. Since no punishment for the aggressor followed the invasion of a sovereign State, the League peace system was again discredited.
Hitler's Germany withdrew from the League of Nations in 1933, and started the German rearmament. In 1936 he remilitarized Rhineland, an action taken directly against the Versailles settlement. In 1938 forced the Anschluss or union with Austria. Next step was the annexation of the Sudetenland, a Czech region inhabited by Germans. Surprisingly, the governments of Great Britain and France were willing to avoid the war and did not support Czechoslovakia against Hitler: at the Munich Conference (September 1938), Germany was allowed to annex the region. Hitler also invaded Czechoslovakia, occupied Prague, and created the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
The weakness showed by France and Great Britain favoured the signature of the Nazi-Soviet Pact (or Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) in 1939, that divided Eastern Europe into two spheres of influence under Hitler and Stalin. It made possible the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939, and the beginning of WWII.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, 1939
The Government of the German Reich and The Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. have reached the following Agreement:
Article I.
Both High Contracting Parties obligate themselves to desist from any act of violence, any aggressive action, and any attack on each other, either individually or jointly with other Powers.
Article II.
Should one of the High Contracting Parties become the object of belligerent action by a third Power, the other High Contracting Party shall in no manner lend its support to this third Power. (...)
Secret Additional Protocol
Article I.
In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement in the areas belonging to the Baltic States (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), the northern boundary of Lithuania shall represent the boundary of the spheres of influence of Germany and U.S.S.R. In this connection the interest of Lithuania in the Vilna area is recognized by each party.
Article II.
In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish state, the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narev, Vistula and San.
The question of whether the interests of both parties make desirable the maintenance of an independent Polish States and how such a state should be bounded can only be definitely determined in the course of further political developments.
In any event both Governments will resolve this question by means of a friendly agreement.
Article III.
With regard to Southeastern Europe attention is called by the Soviet side to its interest in Bessarabia. The German side declares its complete political disinteredness in these areas.
Article IV.
This protocol shall be treated by both parties as strictly secret.
Moscow, August 23, 1939
The behaviour of France and Great Britain concerning the aggressive foreign policy of Japan, Italy and Germany was based on a wrong assumption. In the view of the British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, there was a need of "appeasement" with respect to Hitler and Mussolini, because their national claims were based on the unfair treatment received after the WWI. Concessions and satisfaction of nationalist grievances would mean the continuity of peace. On the other hand, it was hoped that this approach would provide France and Britain with time to strengthen their military power against the Fascist regimes. Actually, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy had not limits in their expansive objectives. In sum, the new policy of appeasement meant the end of the system of collective security.
Before I come to describe the Agreement which was signed at Munich, I would like to remind the House of two things which I think it very essential not to forget when those terms are being considered. The first is this: We did not go there to decide whether the predominantly German areas in the Sudetenland should be passed over to the German Reich. That had been decided already. Czechoslovakia had accepted the Anglo-French proposals. What we had to consider was the method, the conditions and the time of the transfer of the territory. The second point to remember is that time was one of the essential factors. All the elements were present on the spot for the outbreak of a conflict which might have precipitated the catastrophe. We had populations inflamed to a high degree; we had extremists on both sides ready to work up and provoke incidents; we had considerable quantities of arms which were by no means confined to regularly organised forces. Therefore, it was essential that we should quickly reach a conclusion, so that this painful and difficult operation of transfer might be carried out at the earliest possible moment and concluded as soon as was consistent, with orderly procedure, in order that we might avoid the possibility of something that might have rendered all our attempts at peaceful solution useless.
(.) I would like to say a few words in respect of the various other participants, besides ourselves, in the Munich Agreement. After everything that has been said about the German Chancellor today and in the past, I do feel that the House ought to recognise the difficulty for a man in that position to take back such emphatic declarations as he had already made amidst the enthusiastic cheers of his supporters, and to recognise that in consenting, even though it were only at the last moment, to discuss with the representatives of other Powers those things which he had declared he had already decided once for all, was a real and a substantial contribution on his part. With regard to Signor Mussolini (...). I think that Europe and the world have reason to be grateful to the head of the Italian government for his work in contributing to a peaceful solution.
In my view the strongest force of all, one which grew and took fresh shapes and forms every day war, the force not of any one individual, but was that unmistakable sense of unanimity among the peoples of the world that war must somehow be averted. The peoples of the British Empire were at one with those of Germany, of France and of Italy, and their anxiety, their intense desire for peace, pervaded the whole atmosphere of the conference.
Parliamentary Speech of Neville Chamberlain on the Munich
Conference, October 3, 1938
On the other hand, France was sure of the invincibility of the Maginot Line (a system of fortifications along the border, based on a defensive strategy), and erroneously ignored the new mechanized and offensive weapons such as tanks and planes. As a result, the USSR had little confidence in France as a powerful ally against Germany. This fact explained why Stalin chose to reach an agreement with Hitler instead of facing a war against Nazi Germany without an effective support of the Allies.
3. The War
a) Blitzkrieg (1939-1940)
The German invasion of Poland was a quick success. The victory based on the combined action of both air force and tanks (Panzer divisions): the so called blitzkrieg or "lightning war". In April 1940 the Nazis occupied Denmark and Norway, and afterwards they invaded Belgium in order to attack France. Far from offering a long resistance, the French surrendered in June. That convinced Mussolini to join the German side, and to try to invade Greece and Egypt.
Next objective was Great Britain; nevertheless, in spite of the heavy bombings by the Luftwaffe (German air force) on British cities, the Germans were forced to abandon the project to invade Britain, due to the counterattacks of the Royal Air Force.
Wikimedia Commons
b) The attack on the USSR and the USA (1941-1942)
By 1941 German conquests extended from the Atlantic Ocean to the Balkans. Italian troops were not able to defeat the British in Egypt and to occupy Greece, so that Hitler helped Mussolini and sent the Afrika Korps of Rommel to Northern Africa. The German army successfully invaded Greece. Then Hitler decided to launch operation Barbarossa, or the invasion of the USSR. Although a quick defeat of Soviet forces was expected, by December the Germans could not conquer Moscow, Leningrad or Stalingrad, and the coming of winter allowed the Soviets to reorganize their troops.
Wikimedia Commons
Japan attacked the American base of Pearl Harbor in December, and Hitler declared also the war on the USA. The Japanese empire reached an enormous extension after the conquest of eastern China, Siam, Burma, French Indochina, Indonesia, Malaisia and New Guinea.
c) The defeat of the Axis (1942-1943)
The American industrial power proved to be a great advantage for the Allies: in contrast, German economy began to have difficulties to support war efforts. The reorientation of the American industrial capacities to war objectives made possible the Allies offensives. In the Russian front, the battle for Stalingrad in 1943 was a victory for the Soviets and the beginning of the end for the Nazis.
American and British armies defeated the Germans in Northern Africa (El Alamein), and then invaded Italy. The conquest of Sicily caused the fall of Mussolini, but while the Americans occupied the South, the North, including Rome, became controlled by the Germans. Nevertheless, Rome itself fell in the hands of the Allies in June 1944.
A third front was opened on D day (6 June 1944), when British and American troops landed on the French coast of Normandy (operation Overlord). Soon Paris and Belgium were liberated, and both the British-American troops from the West and the Russians from the East advanced towards Berlin. Nazi resistance ended in a street-by-street battle in the capital, and finally Germany surrendered in May 1945.
The battle of Midway in 1942 was a turning point in the Pacific front, since the Japanese naval and air forces (carriers and planes) were seriously diminished. It was followed by the victories of Iwo Jima and Okinawa in 1945. In spite of the fact that the Japanese home islands were subjected to constant bombings, the Japanese were determined to resist. This forced the USA to use atomic bombs against Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945. As a result, Japan surrendered on 15 August.
That year, on August 6, I was in the third year of girls' high school, fifteen years old. I was an operator at the telephone exchange. We had been mobilized from school for various work assignments for more than a year. My assigned place of duty was civilian, but we, too, were expected to protect the nation. We were tied by strong bonds to the country. We'd heard the news about the Tokyo and Osaka bombings, but nothing had dropped on Hiroshima. Japan was winning. So we still believed. We only had to endure. I wasn't particularly afraid when B-29s flew overhead.
There was no sound. I felt something strong. It was terribly intense. I felt colors. It wasn't heat. You can't really say it was yellow, and it wasn't blue. At that moment I thought I would be the only one who would die. I said to myself, "Goodbye, Mom."
They say temperatures of seven thousand degrees centigrade hit me. You can't really say it washed over me. It's hard to describe. I simply fainted. I remember my body floating in the air. That was probably the blast but I don't know how far I was blown. When I came to my senses, my surroundings were silent. There was no wind. I saw a slight threadlike light, so I felt I must be alive. I was under stones. I couldn't move my body. I heard voices crying, "Help! Water!" It was then I realized I wasn't the only one. I couldn't really see around me. I tried to say something, but my voice wouldn't come out.
"Fire! Run away! Help! Hurry up!" They weren't voices but moans of agony and despair. "I have to get help and shout," I thought. The person who rescued me was Mom, although she herself had been buried under our collapsed house. Mom knew the route I'd been taking. She came, calling out to me. Nobody there looked like human beings. Until that moment I thought incendiary bombs had fallen. Everyone was stupefied. Humans had lost the ability to speak. People couldn't scream, "It hurts!" even when they were on fire. People didn't say, "It's hot!" They just sat catching fire.
My clothes were burnt and so was my skin. I was in rags. I had braided my hair, but now it was like a lion's mane. There were people, barely breathing, trying to push their intestines back in. People with their legs wrenched off. Without heads. Or with faces burned and swollen out of shape. The scene I saw was a living hell. Mom didn't say anything when she saw my face and I didn't feel any pain. She just squeezed my hand and told me to run. She was going to go rescue my aunt. Large numbers of people were moving away from the flames. My eyes were still able to see, so I made my way towards the mountain, where there was no fire, toward Hijiyama. On this flight I saw a friend of mine from the phone exchange. She'd been inside her house and wasn't burned. I called her name, but she didn't respond. My face was so swollen she couldn't tell who I was. Finally, she recognized my voice. She said, "Miss Yamaoka, you look like a monster!" That's the first time I heard that word. I looked at my hands and saw my own skin hanging down and the red flesh exposed.
Yamaoka Michiko: Eight Hundred Meters from the Hypocenter
