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For other uses, see WWII (disambiguation). For Winston Ch urchill's history, see The Second World War (book series). Page semi-protected World War II Infobox collage for WWII.PNG Clockwise from top left: Chinese forces in the Battle of Wanjialing, Australian 25-pounder guns during the First Battle of El Alamein, German Stuka dive bombers on the Eastern Front winter 1943 1944, US naval force in the Lingayen Gulf, Wilhe lm Keitel signing the German Instrument of Surrender, Soviet troops in the Battl e of Stalingrad Date 1 September 1939 2 September 1945 (6 years, 1 day) Location Europe, Pacific, Atlantic, South-East Asia, China, Middle East, Mediterranean and Africa, briefly North and South America Result Allied victory Collapse of the Third Reich Fall of Japanese and Italian Empire Creation of the United Nations Emergence of the United States and the Soviet Union as superpowers Beginning of the Cold War (more...). Belligerents Allies Soviet Union (1941 45) United States (1941 45) United Kingdom China (1937 45) France France[a] Poland Poland Canada Australia New Zealand South Africa India Yugoslavia (1941 45) Greece (1940 45) Norway (1940 45) Netherlands (1940 45) Belgium (1940 45) Czech Republic Czechoslovakia (1942 45) Denmark (1940) Brazil Brazil (1942 45) Ethiopian Empire (1940 45) Mexico (1942 45) Client and puppet states Philippines Philippines (1941 45) Mongolia Mongolia (1945) Axis Germany Japan (1937 45) Italy (1940 43) Hungary (1940 45)

Romania (1941 44) Bulgaria (1941 44) Co-belligerents Finland (1941 44) Thailand (1942 45) Iraq (1941) Client and puppet states Manchukuo Italian Social Republic Italy (1943 45) Croatia (1941 45) Philippines (1944 45) Serbia (1941 44) Slovakia Commanders and leaders Allied leaders Soviet Union Joseph Stalin United States Franklin D. Roosevelt United Kingdom Winston Churchill Republic of China (1912 1949) Chiang Kai-shek Axis leaders Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler Empire of Japan Hirohito Kingdom of Italy Benito Mussolini Casualties and losses Military dead: Over 16,000,000 Civilian dead: Over 45,000,000 Total dead: Over 61,000,000 (1937 45) ...further details Military dead: Over 8,000,000 Civilian dead: Over 4,000,000 Total dead: Over 12,000,000 (1937 45) ...further details v t e Campaigns of World War II Europe Poland Phoney War Winter War Denmark & Norway France & Benelux Britain Balkans Yugoslav Front Eastern Front Finland

Western Front (1944 45) Asia & The Pacific China Pacific Ocean South-East Asia South West Pacific Japan Manchuria (1945) Mediterranean and Middle East Theatre North Africa East Africa Mediterranean Sea Adriatic Malta Iraq Syria-Lebanon Iran Italy Dodecanese Southern France Other campaigns Atlantic Arctic Strategic Bombing America French West Africa Madagascar Contemporaneous wars Chinese Civil Soviet Japanese Border French Thai Ili Rebellion World War II Alphabetical indices 0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Navigation Campaigns Countries Equipment Lists Outline Timeline Portal Category v t e World War II (WWII or WW2), also known as the Second World War, was a global war

that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's nat ions including all of the great powers eventually forming two opposing military alli ances: the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, with more than 100 million people serving in military units from over 30 different co untries. In a state of "total war", the major participants placed their entire e conomic, industrial, and scientific capabilities at the service of the war effor t, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Marked by ma ss deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the only use of nuclear weap ons in warfare, it resulted in an estimated 50 million to 85 million fatalities. These deaths make it likely that World War II is the deadliest conflict in huma n history.[1] The Empire of Japan aimed to dominate East Asia and was already at war with the Republic of China in 1937,[2] but the world war is generally said to have begun on 1 September 1939 with the invasion of Poland by Germany and subsequent declar ations of war on Germany by France and the United Kingdom. From late 1939 to ear ly 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany formed the Axis alliance with Italy, conquering or subduing much of continental Europe. Following the Mo lotov Ribbentrop Pact, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territ ories between themselves of their European neighbours, including Poland and the Baltic states. The United Kingdom and the other members of the British Commonwea lth were the only major Allied forces continuing the fight against the Axis, wit h battles taking place in North Africa as well as the long-running Battle of the Atlantic. In June 1941, the European Axis launched an invasion of the Soviet Un ion, giving a start to the largest land theatre of war in history, which tied do wn the major part of the Axis' military forces for the rest of the war. In Decem ber 1941, Japan joined the Axis, attacked the United States and European territo ries in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance was stopped in 1942, after Japan lost a series of naval battles and European Axis troops were defeated in North Africa and, decisively, at Stal ingrad. In 1943, with a series of German defeats in Eastern Europe, the Allied i nvasion of Italy which brought about that nation's surrender, and American victo ries in the Pacific, the Axis lost the initiative and undertook strategic retrea t on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded France, while the Soviet Un ion regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. D uring 1944 and 1945 the United States defeated the Japanese Navy and captured ke y Western Pacific islands. The war in Europe ended with an invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and th e Soviet Union culminating in the capture of Berlin by Soviet and Polish troops and the subsequent German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945. Following the P otsdam Declaration by the Allies on 26 July 1945, the United States dropped atom ic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 August and 9 Augu st respectively. With an invasion of the Japanese archipelago imminent, and the Soviet Union having declared war on Japan by invading Manchuria, Japan surrender ed on 15 August 1945, ending the war in Asia and cementing the total victory of the Allies over the Axis. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world. The United Nations (UN) was established to foster international cooperation and prevent future conflicts. The great powers that were the victors of the war the Un ited States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, and France became the pe rmanent members of the United Nations Security Council.[3] The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold W ar, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European gre at powers started to decline, while the decolonisation of Asia and Africa began. Most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recover y. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to stabilis e postwar relations and fight more effectively in the Cold War.

Contents 1 Chronology 2 Background 3 Pre-war events 3.1 Italian invasion of Ethiopia (1935) 3.2 Spanish Civil War (1936 39) 3.3 Japanese invasion of China (1937) 3.4 Japanese invasion of the Soviet Union and Mongolia (1938) 3.5 European occupations and agreements 4 Course of the war 4.1 War breaks out in Europe (1939 40) 4.2 Western Europe (1940 41) 4.3 Mediterranean (1940 41) 4.4 Axis attack on the USSR (1941) 4.5 War breaks out in the Pacific (1941) 4.6 Axis advance stalls (1942 43) 4.7 Allies gain momentum (1943 44) 4.8 Allies close in (1944) 4.9 Axis collapse, Allied victory (1944 45) 5 Aftermath 6 Impact 6.1 Casualties and war crimes 6.2 Concentration camps and slave work 6.3 Home fronts and production 6.4 Occupation 6.5 Advances in technology and warfare 7 See also 8 Notes 9 Citations 10 References 11 External links Chronology See also: Timeline of World War II The start of the war is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with th e German invasion of Poland; Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. Other dates for the beginning of war include the start of the Second Sin o-Japanese War on 7 July 1937.[4] Others follow British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and the two wars merged in 1941. This article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935.[5] British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of the Seco nd World War as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939.[6] The exact date of the war's end is also not universally agreed upon. It has been suggested that the war ended at the armistice of 14 August 1945 (V-J Day), rath er than the formal surrender of Japan (2 September 1945); in some European histo ries, it ended on V-E Day (8 May 1945). However, the Treaty of Peace with Japan was not signed until 1951,[7] and that with Germany not until 1990.[8] Background Main article: Causes of World War II World War I radically altered the political map, with the defeat of the Central Powers including Austria-Hungary, Germany and the Ottoman Empire and the 1917 Bolshe vik seizure of power in Russia. Meanwhile, existing victorious Allies such as Fr

ance, Belgium, Italy, Greece and Romania gained territories, while new states we re created out of the collapse of Austria-Hungary and the Russian and Ottoman Em pires. Despite the pacific movement in the aftermath of the war,[9] the losses still ca used irredentist and revanchist nationalism to become important in a number of E uropean states. Irredentism and revanchism were strong in Germany because of the significant territorial, colonial, and financial losses incurred by the Treaty of Versailles. Under the treaty, Germany lost around 13 percent of its home terr itory and all of its overseas colonies, while German annexation of other states was prohibited, reparations were imposed, and limits were placed on the size and capability of the country's armed forces.[10] Meanwhile, the Russian Civil War had led to the creation of the Soviet Union.[11] The German Empire was dissolved in the German Revolution of 1918 1919, and a democ ratic government, later known as the Weimar Republic, was created. The interwar period saw strife between supporters of the new republic and hardline opponents on both the right and left. Although Italy as an Entente ally made some territor ial gains, Italian nationalists were angered that the promises made by Britain a nd France to secure Italian entrance into the war were not fulfilled with the pe ace settlement. From 1922 to 1925, the Fascist movement led by Benito Mussolini seized power in Italy with a nationalist, totalitarian, and class collaborationi st agenda that abolished representative democracy, repressed socialist, left win g and liberal forces, and pursued an aggressive foreign policy aimed at forceful ly forging Italy as a world power a "New Roman Empire".[12] In Germany, the Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler sought to establish a in Germany. With the onset of the Great Depression, domestic support is rose and, in 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. In th of the Reichstag fire, Hitler created a totalitarian single-party y the Nazis.[13] Nazi state for the Naz the afterma state led b

The Kuomintang (KMT) party in China launched a unification campaign against regi onal warlords and nominally unified China in the mid-1920s, but was soon embroil ed in a civil war against its former Chinese communist allies.[14] In 1931, an i ncreasingly militaristic Japanese Empire, which had long sought influence in Chi na[15] as the first step of what its government saw as the country's right to ru le Asia, used the Mukden Incident as a pretext to launch an invasion of Manchuri a and establish the puppet state of Manchukuo.[16] Too weak to resist Japan, China appealed to the League of Nations for help. Japa n withdrew from the League of Nations after being condemned for its incursion in to Manchuria. The two nations then fought several battles, in Shanghai, Rehe and Hebei, until the Tanggu Truce was signed in 1933. Thereafter, Chinese volunteer forces continued the resistance to Japanese aggression in Manchuria, and Chahar and Suiyuan.[17] Benito Mussolini (left) and Adolf Hitler (right) Adolf Hitler, after an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government i n 1923, became the Chancellor of Germany in 1933. He abolished democracy, espous ing a radical, racially motivated revision of the world order, and soon began a massive rearmament campaign.[18] It was at this time that multiple political sci entists began to predict that a second Great War might take place.[19] Meanwhile , France, to secure its alliance, allowed Italy a free hand in Ethiopia, which I taly desired as a colonial possession. The situation was aggravated in early 193 5 when the Territory of the Saar Basin was legally reunited with Germany and Hit ler repudiated the Treaty of Versailles, accelerated his rearmament programme an d introduced conscription.[20] Hoping to contain Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy formed the Stres

a Front. The Soviet Union, concerned due to Germany's goals of capturing vast ar eas of eastern Europe, wrote a treaty of mutual assistance with France. Before t aking effect though, the Franco-Soviet pact was required to go through the burea ucracy of the League of Nations, which rendered it essentially toothless.[21][22 ] However, in June 1935, the United Kingdom made an independent naval agreement with Germany, easing prior restrictions. The United States, concerned with event s in Europe and Asia, passed the Neutrality Act in August.[23] In October, Italy invaded Ethiopia, and Germany was the only major European nation to support the invasion. Italy subsequently dropped its objections to Germany's goal of absorb ing Austria.[24] Hitler defied the Versailles and Locarno treaties by remilitarizing the Rhinelan d in March 1936. He received little response from other European powers.[25] Whe n the Spanish Civil War broke out in July, Hitler and Mussolini supported the fa scist and authoritarian Nationalist forces in their civil war against the Soviet -supported Spanish Republic. Both sides used the conflict to test new weapons an d methods of warfare,[26] with the Nationalists winning the war in early 1939. I n October 1936, Germany and Italy formed the Rome-Berlin Axis. A month later, Ge rmany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, which Italy would join in the fo llowing year. In China, after the Xi'an Incident the Kuomintang and communist fo rces agreed on a ceasefire in order to present a united front to oppose Japan.[2 7] Pre-war events Italian invasion of Ethiopia (1935) Main article: Second Italo-Abyssinian War The Second Italo Abyssinian War was a brief colonial war that began in October 193 5 and ended in May 1936. The war was fought between the armed forces of the King dom of Italy (Regno d'Italia) and the armed forces of the Ethiopian Empire (also known as Abyssinia). The war resulted in the military occupation of Ethiopia an d its annexation into the newly created colony of Italian East Africa (Africa Or ientale Italiana, or AOI); in addition, it exposed the weakness of the League of Nations as a force to preserve peace. Both Italy and Ethiopia were member natio ns, but the League did nothing when the former clearly violated the League's own Article X.[28] Spanish Civil War (1936 39) The bombing of Guernica in 1937 sparked Europe-wide fears that the next war woul d be based on bombing of cities with very high civilian casualties. Main article: Spanish Civil War During the Spanish Civil War, Hitler and Mussolini lent military support to the Nationalist rebels, led by General Francisco Franco. The Soviet Union supported the existing government, the Spanish Republic. Over 30,000 foreign volunteers, k nown as the International Brigades, also fought against the Nationalists. Both G ermany and the USSR used this proxy war as an opportunity to test in combat thei r most advanced weapons and tactics. The bombing of Guernica by the German Condo r Legion in April 1937 heightened widespread concerns that the next major war wo uld include extensive terror bombing attacks on civilians.[29][30] The Nationali sts won the civil war in April 1939; Franco, now dictator, bargained with both s ides during the Second World War, but never concluded any major agreements. He d id send volunteers to fight under German command but Spain remained neutral and did not allow either side to use its territory.[31] Japanese invasion of China (1937) Main article: Second Sino-Japanese War A Chinese machine gun nest in the Battle of Shanghai, 1937. In July 1937, Japan captured the former Chinese imperial capital of Beijing afte r instigating the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, which culminated in the Japanese c ampaign to invade all of China.[32] The Soviets quickly signed a non-aggression pact with China to lend materiel support, effectively ending China's prior co-op

eration with Germany. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek deployed his best army to de fend Shanghai, but, after three months of fighting, Shanghai fell. The Japanese continued to push the Chinese forces back, capturing the capital Nanking in Dece mber 1937 and committed the Nanking Massacre. In June 1938, Chinese forces stalled the Japanese advance by flooding the Yellow River; this manoeuvre bought time for the Chinese to prepare their defences at Wuhan, but the city was taken by October.[33] Japanese military victories did no t bring about the collapse of Chinese resistance that Japan had hoped to achieve , instead the Chinese government relocated inland to Chongqing and continued the war.[34][35] Japanese invasion of the Soviet Union and Mongolia (1938) See also: Nanshin-ron and Soviet Japanese border conflicts Soviet and Mongolian troops fought the Japanese during the Battle of Khalkhin Go l in Mongolia, 1939. On 29 July 1938, the Japanese invaded the USSR and were checked at the Battle of Lake Khasan. Although the battle was a Soviet victory, the Japanese dismissed i t as an inconclusive draw, and on 11 May 1939 decided to move the Japanese-Mongo lian border up to the Khalkhin Gol River by force. After initial successes the J apanese assault on Mongolia was checked by the Red Army that inflicted the first major defeat on the Japanese Kwantung Army.[36] These clashes convinced some factions in the Japanese government that they shoul d focus on conciliating the Soviet government to avoid interference in the war a gainst China and instead turn their military attention southward, towards the US and European holdings in the Pacific, and also prevented the sacking of experie nced Soviet military leaders such as Georgy Zhukov, who would later play a vital role in the defence of Moscow.[37] European occupations and agreements Further information: Anschluss, Appeasement, Munich Agreement, German occupation of Czechoslovakia, and Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact From left to right (front): Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini, and Ciano pictured before signing the Munich Agreement. In Europe, Germany and Italy were becoming bolder. In March 1938, Germany annexe d Austria, again provoking little response from other European powers.[38] Encou raged, Hitler began pressing German claims on the Sudetenland, an area of Czecho slovakia with a predominantly ethnic German population; and soon France and Brit ain conceded this territory to Germany in the Munich Agreement, which was made a gainst the wishes of the Czechoslovak government, in exchange for a promise of n o further territorial demands.[39] Soon afterwards, Germany and Italy forced Cze choslovakia to cede additional territory to Hungary and Poland.[40] Although all of Germany's stated demands had been satisfied by the agreement, pr ivately Hitler was furious that British interference had prevented him from seiz ing all of Czechoslovakia in one operation. In subsequent speeches Hitler attack ed British and Jewish "war-mongers" and in January 1939 secretly ordered a major build-up of the German navy to challenge British naval supremacy. In March 1939 , Germany invaded the remainder of Czechoslovakia and subsequently split it into the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and the pro-German client state, the Slovak Republic.[41] Alarmed, and with Hitler making further demands on Danzig, France and Britain gu aranteed their support for Polish independence; when Italy conquered Albania in April 1939, the same guarantee was extended to Romania and Greece.[42] Shortly a fter the Franco-British pledge to Poland, Germany and Italy formalised their own alliance with the Pact of Steel.[43] Hitler accused Britain and Poland of tryin g to "encircle" Germany and renounced the Anglo-German naval agreement and the G erman-Polish non-aggression pact. He offered Poland a new non-aggression pact an

d recognition of its current frontiers if it agreed to permit the German-inhabit ed city of Danzig to return to Germany, but the Poles declined the proposal and emphasised that Danzig was necessary for Poland's security.[44] In August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact,[4 5] a non-aggression treaty with a secret protocol. The parties gave each other r ights to "spheres of influence" (western Poland and Lithuania for Germany; easte rn Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Bessarabia for the USSR). It also raised the question of continuing Polish independence.[46] The agreement was crucial t o Hitler because it assured that Germany would not have to face the prospect of a two front war, as it had in World War I, after it defeated Poland. The situation reached a general crisis in late August as German troops continued to mobilise against the Polish border. In a private meeting with Italian foreig n minister Count Ciano Hitler asserted that Poland was a "doubtful neutral" that needed to either yield to his demands or be "liquidated" to prevent it from dra wing off German troops in the future "unavoidable" war with the Western democrac ies. He did not believe Britain or France would intervene in the conflict.[47] O n 23 August Hitler ordered the attack to proceed on 26 August, but upon hearing that Britain had concluded a formal mutual assistance pact with Poland and that Italy would maintain neutrality, he decided to delay it.[48] In response to Brit ish pleas for direct negotiations, Germany demanded on 29 August that a Polish p lenipotentiary immediately travel to Berlin to negotiate the handover of Danzig and the Polish Corridor to Germany as well as to agree to safeguard the German m inority in Poland. The Poles refused to comply with this request and on the even ing of 31 August Germany declared that it considered its proposals rejected.[44] Course of the war Further information: Diplomatic history of World War II? War breaks out in Europe (1939 40) Common parade of German Wehrmacht and Soviet Red Army on 23 September 1939 in Br est, Eastern Poland at the end of the Invasion of Poland. In the centre is Major General Heinz Guderian and on the right is Brigadier Semyon Krivoshein. On 1 September 1939, Germany and Slovakia (which was a German client state at th e time) invaded Poland on the false pretext that Poland had launched attacks on German territory.[49] On 3 September France and Britain, followed by the fully i ndependent Dominions[50] of the British Commonwealth,[51] Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa declared war on Germany, but provided little support t o Poland other than a small French attack into the Saarland.[52] Britain and Fra nce also began a naval blockade of Germany on 3 September which aimed to damage the country's economy and war effort.[53][54] Germany responded by ordering U-bo at warfare against Allied merchant and war ships (Battle of the Atlantic). On 17 September 1939, after signing a cease-fire with Japan, the Soviets also in vaded Poland.[55] The Polish army was defeated and Warsaw surrendered to the Ger mans on 27 September, with final pockets of resistance surrendering on 6 October . Poland's territory was divided between Germany and the Soviet Union, with Lith uania and Slovakia also receiving small shares. The Poles did not surrender; the y established a Polish Underground State and an underground Home Army, and conti nued to fight with the Allies on all fronts outside Poland.[56] About 100,000 Polish military personnel were evacuated to Romania and the Baltic countries; many of these soldiers later fought against the Germans in other the atres of the war.[57] Poland's Enigma codebreakers were also evacuated to France .[58] During this time, Japan launched its first attack against Changsha, a stra tegically important Chinese city, but was repulsed by late September.[59] On 6 October Hitler made a public peace overture to Britain and France, but said that the future of Poland was to be determined exclusively by Germany and the S oviet Union. Chamberlain rejected this on 12 October, saying "Past experience ha

s shown that no reliance can be placed upon the promises of the present German G overnment."[44] After this rejection Hitler ordered an immediate offensive again st France, but his generals persuaded him to wait until May of next year. In December 1939 Britain won a naval victory over Germany in the south Atlantic during the Battle of the River Plate. Following the invasion of Poland and a German-Soviet treaty governing Lithuania, the Soviet Union forced the Baltic countries to allow it to station Soviet troo ps in their countries under pacts of "mutual assistance."[60][61][62] Finland re jected territorial demands and was invaded by the Soviet Union in November 1939. [63] The resulting conflict ended in March 1940 with Finnish concessions.[64] Fr ance and the United Kingdom, treating the Soviet attack on Finland as tantamount to entering the war on the side of the Germans, responded to the Soviet invasio n by supporting the USSR's expulsion from the League of Nations.[62] German troops by the Arc de Triomphe, Paris, after the 1940 fall of France. In Western Europe, British troops deployed to the Continent, but in a phase nick named the Phoney War by the British and "Sitzkrieg" (sitting war) by the Germans , neither side launched major operations against the other until April 1940.[65] The Soviet Union and Germany entered a trade pact in February 1940, pursuant to which the Soviets received German military and industrial equipment in exchange for supplying raw materials to Germany to help circumvent the Allied blockade.[ 66] Western Europe (1940 41) In April 1940, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway to protect shipments of iron o re from Sweden, which the Allies were attempting to cut off by unilaterally mini ng neutral Norwegian waters.[67] Denmark immediately capitulated, and despite Al lied support, Norway was conquered within two months.[68] British discontent ove r the Norwegian campaign led to the replacement of Prime Minister Neville Chambe rlain with Winston Churchill on 10 May 1940.[69] Germany launched an offensive against France and, for reasons of military strate gy, also invaded the neutral nations of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg on 10 May 1940.[70] That same day Britain invaded Iceland to preempt a possible German invasion of the island.[71] The Netherlands and Belgium were overrun usi ng blitzkrieg tactics in a few days and weeks, respectively.[72] The French-fort ified Maginot Line and the Allied forces in Belgium were circumvented by a flank ing movement through the thickly wooded Ardennes region,[73] mistakenly perceive d by French planners as an impenetrable natural barrier against armoured vehicle s.[74] As a result, the bulk of the Allied armies found themselves trapped in an encirclement and were annihilated. British troops were forced to evacuate the continent at Dunkirk, abandoning thei r heavy equipment by early June.[75] On 10 June, Italy invaded France, declaring war on both France and the United Kingdom;[76] Paris fell on 14 June and eight days later France surrendered and was soon divided into German and Italian occup ation zones,[77] and an unoccupied rump state under the Vichy Regime. On 3 July, the British attacked the French fleet in Algeria to prevent its possible seizur e by Germany.[78] In June, during the last annexed Estonia, Latvia an region of Bessarabia. omic cooperation[79][80] ations for war.[83] days of the Battle of France, the Soviet Union forcibly and Lithuania,[61] and then annexed the disputed Romani Meanwhile, Nazi-Soviet political rapprochement and econ gradually stalled,[81][82] and both states began prepar

On 19 July Hitler again publicly offered to end the war, saying he had no desire to destroy the British Empire. Britain rejected this, with Lord Halifax respond

ing "there was in his speech no suggestion that peace must be based on justice, no word of recognition that the other nations of Europe had any right to self-de termination..."[84] Following this, Germany began an air superiority campaign over Britain (the Batt le of Britain) to prepare for an invasion.[85] The campaign failed, and the inva sion plans were cancelled by September.[85] Frustrated, and in part in response to repeated British air raids against Berlin, Germany began a strategic bombing offensive against British cities known as the Blitz.[86] However, the air attack s largely failed to either disrupt the British war effort or convince them to su e for peace. Using newly captured French ports, the German Navy enjoyed success against an ov er-extended Royal Navy, using U-boats against British shipping in the Atlantic.[ 87] The British scored a significant victory on 27 May 1941 by sinking the Germa n flagship Bismarck.[88] Perhaps most importantly, during the Battle of Britain the Royal Air Force had successfully resisted the Luftwaffe's assault, and the G erman bombing campaign largely ended in May 1941.[89] The Battle of Britain ended the German advance in Western Europe. Throughout this period, the neutral United States took measures to assist China and the Western Allies. In November 1939, the American Neutrality Act was amende d to allow "cash and carry" purchases by the Allies.[90] In 1940, following the German capture of Paris, the size of the United States Navy was significantly in creased. In September, the United States further agreed to a trade of American d estroyers for British bases.[91] Still, a large majority of the American public continued to oppose any direct military intervention into the conflict well into 1941.[92] Although Roosevelt had promised to keep America out of the war, he nevertheless took concrete steps to prepare for that eventuality. In December 1940 he accused Hitler of planning world conquest and ruled out negotiations as useless, callin g for the U.S. to become an "arsenal for democracy" and promoted the passage of Lend-Lease aid to support the British war effort.[84] In January 1941 secret hig h level staff talks with the British began for the purposes of determining how t o defeat Germany should the U.S. enter the war. They decided on a number of offe nsive policies, including an air offensive, the "early elimination" of Italy, ra ids, support of resistance groups, and the capture of positions to launch an off ensive against Germany.[93] At the end of September 1940, the Tripartite Pact united Japan, Italy and German y to formalise the Axis Powers. The Tripartite Pact stipulated that any country, with the exception of the Soviet Union, not in the war which attacked any Axis Power would be forced to go to war against all three.[94] The Axis expanded in N ovember 1940 when Hungary, Slovakia and Romania joined the Tripartite Pact.[95] Romania would make a major contribution to the Axis war against the USSR, partia lly to recapture territory ceded to the USSR, partially to pursue its leader Ion Antonescu's desire to combat communism.[96] Mediterranean (1940 41) Italy began operations in the Mediterranean, initiating a siege of Malta in June , conquering British Somaliland in August, and making an incursion into Britishheld Egypt in September 1940. In October 1940, Italy invaded Greece due to Musso lini's jealousy of Hitler's success but within days was repulsed and pushed back into Albania, where a stalemate soon occurred.[97] Britain responded to Greek r equests for assistance by sending troops to Crete and providing air support to G reece. Hitler decided to take action against Greece when the weather improved to prevent the British from gaining a foothold in the Balkans.[98] In December 1940, British Commonwealth forces began counter-offensives against I

talian forces in Egypt and Italian East Africa.[99] The offensive in North Afric a was highly successful and by early February 1941 Italy had lost control of eas tern Libya and large numbers of Italian troops had been taken prisoner. The Ital ian Navy also suffered significant defeats, with the Royal Navy putting three It alian battleships out of commission by a carrier attack at Taranto, and neutrali sing several more warships at the Battle of Cape Matapan.[100] German paratroopers invading the Greek island of Crete, May 1941. The Germans soon intervened to assist Italy. Hitler sent German forces to Libya in February, and by the end of March they had launched an offensive which drove back the Commonwealth forces who had been weakened to support Greece.[101] In un der a month, Commonwealth forces were pushed back into Egypt with the exception of the besieged port of Tobruk.[102] The Commonwealth attempted to dislodge Axis forces in May and again in June, but failed on both occasions.[103] By late March 1941, following Bulgaria's signing of the Tripartite Pact, the Ger mans were in position to intervene in Greece. Plans were changed, however, due t o developments in neighbouring Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav government had signed th e Tripartite Pact on 25 March, only to be overthrown two days later by a British -encouraged coup. Hitler viewed the new regime as hostile and immediately decide d to eliminate it. On 6 April Germany simultaneously invaded both Yugoslavia and Greece, making rapid progress and forcing both nations to surrender within the month. The British were driven from the Balkans after Germany conquered the Gree k island of Crete by the end of May.[104] Although the Axis victory was swift, b itter partisan warfare subsequently broke out against the Axis occupation of Yug oslavia, which continued until the end of the war. The Allies did have some successes during this time. In the Middle East, Commonw ealth forces first quashed a coup in Iraq which had been supported by German air craft from bases within Vichy-controlled Syria,[105] then, with the assistance o f the Free French, invaded Syria and Lebanon to prevent further such occurrences .[106] Axis attack on the USSR (1941) German infantry and armoured vehicles battle the Soviet defenders on the streets of Kharkiv, October 1941. With the situation in Europe and Asia relatively stable, Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union made preparations. With the Soviets wary of mounting tensions with Germany and the Japanese planning to take advantage of the European War by seiz ing resource-rich European possessions in Southeast Asia, the two powers signed the Soviet Japanese Neutrality Pact in April 1941.[107] By contrast, the Germans w ere steadily making preparations for an attack on the Soviet Union, amassing for ces on the Soviet border.[108] 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 soon er or later.[109] He accordingly decided to try to strengthen Germany's relation s with the Soviets, or failing that, to attack and eliminate them as a factor. I n November 1940 negotiations took place to determine if the Soviet Union would j oin the Tripartite Pact. The Soviets showed some interest, but asked for concess ions from Finland, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Japan that Germany considered unaccepta ble. On 18 December 1940 Hitler issued the directive to prepare for an invasion of the Soviet Union. On 22 June 1941, Germany and Romania invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barba rossa, with Germany accusing the Soviets of plotting against them. They were joi ned shortly by Finland and Hungary after Soviet aircraft bombed their territory. [110] The primary targets of this surprise offensive[111] were the Baltic region , Moscow and Ukraine, with the ultimate goal of ending the 1941 campaign near th e Arkhangelsk-Astrakhan line, connecting the Caspian and White Seas. Hitler's ob

jectives were to eliminate the Soviet Union as a military power, exterminate Com munism, generate Lebensraum ("living space")[112] by dispossessing the native po pulation[113] and guarantee access to the strategic resources needed to defeat G ermany's remaining rivals. .[114] Although the Red Army was preparing for strategic counter-offensives before the war,[115] Barbarossa forced the Soviet supreme command to adopt a strategic defe nce. During the summer, the Axis made significant gains into Soviet territory, i nflicting immense losses in both personnel and materiel. By the middle of August , however, the German Army High Command decided to suspend the offensive of a co nsiderably depleted Army Group Centre, and to divert the 2nd Panzer Group to rei nforce troops advancing towards central Ukraine and Leningrad.[116] The Kiev off ensive was overwhelmingly successful, resulting in encirclement and elimination of four Soviet armies, and made further advance into Crimea and industrially dev eloped Eastern Ukraine (the First Battle of Kharkov) possible.[117] Soviet counter-attack during the battle of Moscow, December 1941. The diversion of three quarters of the Axis troops and the majority of their air forces from France and the central Mediterranean to the Eastern Front[118] prom pted Britain to reconsider its grand strategy.[119] In July, the UK and the Sovi et Union formed a military alliance against Germany[120] The British and Soviets invaded Iran to secure the Persian Corridor and Iran's oil fields.[121] In Augu st, the United Kingdom and the United States jointly issued the Atlantic Charter .[122] By October, when Axis operational objectives in Ukraine and the Baltic region we re achieved, with only the sieges of Leningrad[123] and Sevastopol continuing,[1 24] a major offensive against Moscow had been renewed. After two months of fierc e battles, the German army almost reached the outer suburbs of Moscow, where the exhausted troops[125] were forced to suspend their offensive.[126] Large territ orial gains were made by Axis forces, but their campaign had failed to achieve i ts main objectives: two key cities remained in Soviet hands, the Soviet capabili ty to resist was not broken, and the Soviet Union retained a considerable part o f its military potential. The blitzkrieg phase of the war in Europe had ended.[1 27] Animation of the WWII European Theatre. By early December, freshly mobilised reserves[128] allowed the Soviets to achiev e numerical parity with Axis troops.[129] This, as well as intelligence data tha t established a minimal number of Soviet troops in the East sufficient to preven t any attack by the Japanese Kwantung Army,[130] allowed the Soviets to begin a massive counter-offensive that started on 5 December all along the front and pus hed German troops 100 250 kilometres (62 160 mi) west.[131] War breaks out in the Pacific (1941) In 1939 the U.S. had renounced its trade treaty with Japan and beginning with an aviation gasoline ban in July 1940 Japan had become subject to increasing econo mic pressure.[84] Despite several offensives by both sides, the war between Chin a and Japan was stalemated by 1940. In order to increase pressure on China by bl ocking supply routes, and to better position Japanese forces in the event of a w ar with the Western powers, Japan had sent troops to northern Indochina[132] Aft erwards, the United States embargoed iron, steel and mechanical parts against Ja pan.[133] Other sanctions soon followed. In August of that year, Chinese communists launched an offensive in Central Chin a; in retaliation, Japan instituted harsh measures (the Three Alls Policy) in oc cupied areas to reduce human and material resources for the communists.[134] Con tinued antipathy between Chinese communist and nationalist forces culminated in armed clashes in January 1941, effectively ending their co-operation.[135]

German successes in Europe encouraged Japan to increase pressure on European gov ernments in south-east Asia. The Dutch government agreed to provide Japan some o il supplies from the Dutch East Indies, but negotiations for additional access t o their resources ended in failure in June 1941.[136] In July 1941 Japan occupie d southern Indochina, thus threatening British and Dutch possessions in the Far East. The United States, United Kingdom and other Western governments reacted to this move with a freeze on Japanese assets and a total oil embargo.[137][138] Since early 1941 the U.S. and Japan had been engaged in negotiations in an attem pt to improve their strained relations and end the war in China. During these ne gotiations Japan advanced a number of proposals which were dismissed by the Amer icans as inadequate.[139] At the same time the U.S., Britain, and the Netherland s engaged in secret discussions for the joint defence of their territories in th e event of a Japanese attack against any of them.[140] Roosevelt reinforced the Philippines (an American possession since 1898) and warned Japan that the U.S. w ould react to Japanese attacks against any "neighboring countries".[140] Frustrated at the lack of progress and feeling the pinch of the American-British -Dutch sanctions, Japan prepared for war. On 20 November it presented an interim proposal as its final offer. It called for the end of American aid to China and the supply of oil and other resources to Japan. In exchange they promised not t o launch any attacks in Southeast Asia and to withdraw their forces from their t hreatening positions in southern Indochina.[139] The American counter-proposal o f 26 November required that Japan evacuate all of China without conditions and c onclude non-aggression pacts with all Pacific powers.[141] That meant Japan was essentially forced to choose between abandoning its ambitions in China, or seizi ng the natural resources it needed in the Dutch East Indies by force;[142] the J apanese military did not consider the former an option, and many officers consid ered the oil embargo an unspoken declaration of war.[143] Japan planned to rapidly seize European colonies in Asia to create a large defen sive perimeter stretching into the Central Pacific; the Japanese would then be f ree to exploit the resources of Southeast Asia while exhausting the over-stretch ed Allies by fighting a defensive war.[144] To prevent American intervention whi le securing the perimeter it was further planned to neutralise the United States Pacific Fleet and the American military presence in the Philippines from the ou tset.[145] On 7 December (8 December in Asian time zones), 1941, Japan attacked British and American holdings with near-simultaneous offensives against Southeas t Asia and the Central Pacific.[146] These included an attack on the American fl eet at Pearl Harbor, landings in Thailand and Malaya[146] and the battle of Hong Kong. The February 1942 Fall of Singapore saw 80,000 Allied soldiers captured and ensl aved by the Japanese. These attacks led the U.S., Britain, China, Australia and several other states t o formally declare war on Japan, whereas the Soviet Union, being heavily involve d in large-scale hostilities with European Axis countries, preferred to maintain a neutrality agreement with Japan.[147] Germany, followed by the other Axis states, declared war on the United States in solidarity with Japan, citing as justification the American attacks on German s ubmarines and merchant ships that had been ordered by Roosevelt.[110] Axis advance stalls (1942 43) In January, the United States, Britain, Soviet Union, China, and 22 smaller or e xiled governments issued the Declaration by United Nations, thereby affirming th e Atlantic Charter,[148] and taking an obligation not to sign separate peace wit h the Axis powers. During 1942 Allied officials debated on the appropriate grand strategy to pursue

. All agreed that defeating Germany was the primary objective. The Americans fav ored a straightforward, large-scale attack on Germany through France. The Soviet s were also demanding a second front. The British, on the other hand, argued tha t military operations should target peripheral areas in order to throw a "ring" around Germany which would wear out German strength, lead to increasing demorali zation, and bolster resistance forces. Germany itself would be subject to a heav y bombing campaign. An offensive against Germany would then be launched primaril y by Allied armor without using large-scale armies.[149] Eventually, the British persuaded the Americans that a landing in France was infeasible in 1942 and the y should instead focus on driving the Axis out of North Africa.[150] At the Casablanca Conference in early 1943 the Allies issued a declaration decla ring that they would not negotiate with their enemies and demanded their uncondi tional surrender. The British and Americans agreed to continue to press the init iative in the Mediterranean by invading Sicily to fully secure the Mediterranean supply routes.[151] Although the British argued for further operations in the B alkans to bring Turkey into the war, in May 1943 the Americans extracted a Briti sh commitment to limit Allied operations in the Mediterranean to an invasion of the Italian mainland and to invade France in 1944.[152] Pacific (1942 43) 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.[153] Despite stu bborn resistance in Corregidor, the Philippines was eventually captured in May 1 942, forcing the government of the Philippine Commonwealth into exile.[154] Japa nese forces also achieved naval victories in the South China Sea, Java Sea and I ndian Ocean,[155] and bombed the Allied naval base at Darwin, Australia. The onl y real Allied success against Japan was a Chinese victory at Changsha in early J anuary 1942.[156] These easy victories over unprepared opponents left Japan over confident, as well as overextended.[157] In early May 1942, Japan initiated operations to capture Port Moresby by amphibi ous assault and thus sever communications and supply lines between the United St ates and Australia. The Allies, however, prevented the invasion by intercepting and defeating the Japanese naval forces in the Battle of the Coral Sea.[158] Jap an's next plan, motivated by the earlier Doolittle Raid, was to seize Midway Ato ll and lure American carriers into battle to be eliminated; as a diversion, Japa n would also send forces to occupy the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.[159] In early June, Japan put its operations into action but the Americans, having broken Jap anese naval codes in late May, were fully aware of the plans and force dispositi ons and used this knowledge to achieve a decisive victory at Midway over the Imp erial Japanese Navy.[160] American dive bombers engage the Mikuma at the Battle of Midway, June 1942. With its capacity for aggressive action greatly diminished as a result of the Mi dway battle, Japan chose to focus on a belated attempt to capture Port Moresby b y an overland campaign in the Territory of Papua.[161] The Americans planned a c ounter-attack against Japanese positions in the southern Solomon Islands, primar ily Guadalcanal, as a first step towards capturing Rabaul, the main Japanese bas e in Southeast Asia.[162] Both plans started in July, but by mid-September, the Battle for Guadalcanal too k priority for the Japanese, and troops in New Guinea were ordered to withdraw f rom the Port Moresby area to the northern part of the island, where they faced A ustralian and United States troops in the Battle of Buna-Gona.[163] Guadalcanal soon became a focal point for both sides with heavy commitments of troops and sh ips in the battle for Guadalcanal. By the start of 1943, the Japanese were defea ted on the island and withdrew their troops.[164] In Burma, Commonwealth forces mounted two operations. The first, an offensive into the Arakan region in late 1

942, went disastrously, forcing a retreat back to India by May 1943.[165] The se cond was the insertion of irregular forces behind Japanese front-lines in Februa ry which, by the end of April, had achieved dubious results.[166] Eastern Front (1942 43) Despite considerable losses, in early 1942 European Axis members stopped a major Soviet offensive in Central and Southern Russia, keeping most territorial gains they had achieved during the previous year.[167] In May the Axis defeated Sovie t offensives in the Kerch Peninsula and at Kharkiv,[168] and then launched their main summer offensive against southern Russia in June 1942, to seize the oil fi elds of the Caucasus and occupy Kuban steppe, while maintaining positions on the northern and central areas of the front. The Germans split the Army Group South into two groups: Army Group A struck lower Don River while Army Group B struck south-east to the Caucasus, towards Volga River.[169] The Soviets decided to mak e their stand at Stalingrad, which was in the path of the advancing German armie s. Soviet soldiers attack a house during the Battle of Stalingrad, 1943. By mid-November, the Germans had nearly taken Stalingrad in bitter street fighti ng when the Soviets began their second winter counter-offensive, starting with a n encirclement of German forces at Stalingrad[170] and an assault on the Rzhev s alient near Moscow, though the latter failed disastrously.[171] By early Februar y 1943, the German Army had taken tremendous losses; German troops at Stalingrad had been forced to surrender,[172] and the front-line had been pushed back beyo nd its position before the summer offensive. In mid-February, after the Soviet p ush had tapered off, the Germans launched another attack on Kharkiv, creating a salient in their front line around the Russian city of Kursk.[173] British Crusader tanks moving to forward positions during the North African Camp aign. Western Europe/Atlantic & Mediterranean (1942 43) Exploiting dubious American naval command decisions, the German navy ravaged All ied shipping off the American Atlantic coast.[174] By November 1941, Commonwealth forces had launched a counter-offensive, Operatio n Crusader, in North Africa, and reclaimed all the gains the Germans and Italian s had made.[175] In North Africa, the Germans launched an offensive in January, pushing the British back to positions at the Gazala Line by early February,[176] followed by a temporary lull in combat which Germany used to prepare for their upcoming offensives.[177] Concerns the Japanese might use bases in Vichy-held Ma dagascar caused the British to invade the island in early May 1942.[178] An Axis offensive in Libya forced an Allied retreat deep inside Egypt until Axis forces were stopped at El Alamein.[179] On the Continent, raids of Allied commandos on strategic targets, culminating in the disastrous Dieppe Raid,[180] demonstrated the Western Allies' inability to launch an invasion of continental Europe witho ut much better preparation, equipment, and operational security.[181] In August 1942, the Allies succeeded in repelling a second attack against El Ala mein[182] and, at a high cost, managed to deliver desperately needed supplies to the besieged Malta.[183] A few months later, the Allies commenced an attack of their own in Egypt, dislodging the Axis forces and beginning a drive west across Libya.[184] This attack was followed up shortly after by an Anglo-American inva sion of French North Africa, which resulted in the region joining the Allies.[18 5] Hitler responded to the French colony's defection by ordering the occupation of Vichy France;[185] although Vichy forces did not resist this violation of the armistice, they managed to scuttle their fleet to prevent its capture by German forces.[186] The now pincered Axis forces in Africa withdrew into Tunisia, whic h was conquered by the Allies in May 1943.[187] In early 1943 the British and Americans began the "Combined Bomber Offensive", a

strategic bombing campaign against Germany. The goals were to disrupt the Germa n war economy, reduce German morale, and "de-house" the German civilian populati on. By the end of the war most German cities would be reduced to rubble and 7,50 0,000 Germans made homeless.[188] Allies gain momentum (1943 44) File:Bombing of Hamburg.ogg A contemporary video showing bombing of Hamburg by the Allies. Soviet Il-2 planes attacking a Wehrmacht column during the Battle of Kursk, 1 Ju ly 1943. Following the Guadalcanal Campaign, the Allies initiated several operations agai nst Japan in the Pacific. In May 1943, Allied forces were sent to eliminate Japa nese forces from the Aleutians,[189] and soon after began major operations to is olate Rabaul by capturing surrounding islands, and to breach the Japanese Centra l Pacific perimeter at the Gilbert and Marshall Islands.[190] By the end of Marc h 1944, the Allies had completed both of these objectives, and additionally neut ralised the major Japanese base at Truk in the Caroline Islands. In April, the A llies then launched an operation to retake Western New Guinea.[191] In the Soviet Union, both the Germans and the Soviets spent the spring and early summer of 1943 making preparations for large offensives in Central Russia. On 4 July 1943, Germany attacked Soviet forces around the Kursk Bulge. Within a week , German forces had exhausted themselves against the Soviets' deeply echeloned a nd well-constructed defences[192][193] and, for the first time in the war, Hitle r cancelled the operation before it had achieved tactical or operational success .[194] This decision was partially affected by the Western Allies' invasion of S icily launched on 9 July which, combined with previous Italian failures, resulte d in the ousting and arrest of Mussolini later that month.[195] Also in July 194 3 the British firebombed Hamburg killing over 40,000 people. On 12 July 1943, the Soviets launched their own counter-offensives, thereby disp elling any hopes of the German Army for victory or even stalemate in the east. T he Soviet victory at Kursk heralded the downfall of German superiority,[196] giv ing the Soviet Union the initiative on the Eastern Front.[197][198] The Germans attempted to stabilise their eastern front along the hastily fortified Panther-W otan line, however, the Soviets broke through it at Smolensk and by the Lower Dn ieper Offensives.[199] On 3 September 1943, the Western Allies invaded the Italian mainland, following an Italian armistice with the Allies.[200] Germany responded by disarming Italia n forces, seizing military control of Italian areas,[201] and creating a series of defensive lines.[202] German special forces then rescued Mussolini, who then soon established a new client state in German occupied Italy named the Italian S ocial Republic.[203] The Western Allies fought through several lines until reach ing the main German defensive line in mid-November.[204] German operations in the Atlantic also suffered. By May 1943, as Allied countermeasures became increasingly effective, the resulting sizable German submarine l osses forced a temporary halt of the German Atlantic naval campaign.[205] In Nov ember 1943, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met with Chiang Kai-shek in Cairo and then with Joseph Stalin in Tehran.[206] The former conference dete rmined the post-war return of Japanese territory,[207] while the latter included agreement that the Western Allies would invade Europe in 1944 and that the Sovi et Union would declare war on Japan within three months of Germany's defeat.[208 ] British troops firing a mortar during the Battle of Imphal, North East India, 19 44. From November 1943, during the seven-week Battle of Changde, the Chinese forced Japan to fight a costly war of attrition, while awaiting Allied relief.[209][210

][211] In January 1944, the Allies launched a series of attacks in Italy against the line at Monte Cassino and attempted to outflank it with landings at Anzio.[ 212] By the end of January, a major Soviet offensive expelled German forces from the Leningrad region,[213] ending the longest and most lethal siege in history. The following Soviet offensive was halted on the pre-war Estonian border by the German Army Group North aided by Estonians hoping to re-establish national indep endence. This delay slowed subsequent Soviet operations in the Baltic Sea region .[214] By late May 1944, the Soviets had liberated Crimea, largely expelled Axis forces from Ukraine, and made incursions into Romania, which were repulsed by t he Axis troops.[215] The Allied offensives in Italy had succeeded and, at the ex pense of allowing several German divisions to retreat, on 4 June, Rome was captu red.[216] The Allies experienced mixed fortunes in mainland Asia. In March 1944, the Japan ese launched the first of two invasions, an operation against British positions in Assam, India,[217] and soon besieged Commonwealth positions at Imphal and Koh ima.[218] In May 1944, British forces mounted a counter-offensive that drove Jap anese troops back to Burma,[218] and Chinese forces that had invaded northern Bu rma in late 1943 besieged Japanese troops in Myitkyina.[219] The second Japanese invasion attempted to destroy China's main fighting forces, secure railways bet ween Japanese-held territory and capture Allied airfields.[220] By June, the Jap anese had conquered the province of Henan and begun a renewed attack against Cha ngsha in the Hunan province.[221] Allies close in (1944) Allied Invasion of Normandy, 6 June 1944 Red Army personnel and equipment crossing a river, 1944 On 6 June 1944 (known as D-Day), after three years of Soviet pressure,[222] the Western Allies invaded northern France. After reassigning several Allied divisio ns from Italy, they also attacked southern France.[223] These landings were succ essful, and led to the defeat of the German Army units in France. Paris was libe rated by the local resistance assisted by the Free French Forces on 25 August[22 4] and the Western Allies continued to push back German forces in Western Europe during the latter part of the year. An attempt to advance into northern Germany spearheaded by a major airborne operation in the Netherlands ended with a failu re.[225] After that, the Western Allies slowly pushed into Germany, unsuccessful ly trying to cross the Rur river in a large offensive. In Italy the Allied advan ce also slowed down, when they ran into the last major German defensive line. On 22 June, the Soviets launched a strategic offensive in Belarus (known as "Ope ration Bagration") that resulted in the almost complete destruction of the Germa n Army Group Centre.[226] Soon after that, another Soviet strategic offensive fo rced German troops from Western Ukraine and Eastern Poland. The successful advan ce of Soviet troops prompted resistance forces in Poland to initiate several upr isings, though the largest of these, in Warsaw, as well as a Slovak Uprising in the south, were not assisted by the Soviets and were put down by German forces.[ 227] The Red Army's strategic offensive in eastern Romania cut off and destroyed the considerable German troops there and triggered a successful coup d'tat in Ro mania and in Bulgaria, followed by those countries' shift to the Allied side.[22 8] Polish insurgents during the Warsaw Uprising, in which around 200,000 civilians perished. In September 1944, Soviet Red Army troops advanced into Yugoslavia and forced th e rapid withdrawal of the German Army Groups E and F in Greece, Albania and Yugo slavia to rescue them from being cut off.[229] By this point, the Communist-led Partisans under Marshal Josip Broz Tito, who had led an increasingly successful guerrilla campaign against the occupation since 1941, controlled much of the ter ritory of Yugoslavia and were engaged in delaying efforts against the German for

ces further south. In northern Serbia, the Red Army, with limited support from B ulgarian forces, assisted the Partisans in a joint liberation of the capital cit y of Belgrade on 20 October. A few days later, the Soviets launched a massive as sault against German-occupied Hungary that lasted until the fall of Budapest in February 1945.[230] In contrast with impressive Soviet victories in the Balkans, the bitter Finnish resistance to the Soviet offensive in the Karelian Isthmus d enied the Soviets occupation of Finland and led to the signing of Soviet-Finnish armistice on relatively mild conditions,[231][232] with a subsequent shift to t he Allied side by Finland. By the start of July, Commonwealth forces in Southeast Asia had repelled the Jap anese sieges in Assam, pushing the Japanese back to the Chindwin River[233] whil e the Chinese captured Myitkyina. In China, the Japanese were having greater suc cesses, having finally captured Changsha in mid-June and the city of Hengyang by early August.[234] Soon after, they further invaded the province of Guangxi, wi nning major engagements against Chinese forces at Guilin and Liuzhou by the end of November[235] and successfully linking up their forces in China and Indochina by the middle of December.[236] In the Pacific, American forces continued to press back the Japanese perimeter. In mid-June 1944 they began their offensive against the Mariana and Palau island s, and decisively defeated Japanese forces in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. These defeats led to the resignation of Japanese Prime Minister Tojo and provide d the United States with air bases to launch intensive heavy bomber attacks on t he Japanese home islands. In late October, American forces invaded the Filipino island of Leyte; soon after, Allied naval forces scored another large victory du ring the Battle of Leyte Gulf, one of the largest naval battles in history.[237] Axis collapse, Allied victory (1944 45) On 16 December 1944, Germany attempted its last desperate measure for success on the Western Front by using most of its remaining reserves to launch a massive c ounter-offensive in the Ardennes to attempt to split the Western Allies, encircl e large portions of Western Allied troops and capture their primary supply port at Antwerp in order to prompt a political settlement.[238] By January, the offen sive had been repulsed with no strategic objectives fulfilled.[238] In Italy, th e Western Allies remained stalemated at the German defensive line. In mid-Januar y 1945, the Soviets and Poles attacked in Poland, pushing from the Vistula to th e Oder river in Germany, and overran East Prussia.[239] On 4 February, U.S., Bri tish, and Soviet leaders met for the Yalta Conference. They agreed on the occupa tion of post-war Germany, and on when the Soviet Union would join the war agains t Japan.[240] In February, the Soviets invaded Silesia and Pomerania, while Western Allies ent ered Western Germany and closed to the Rhine river. By March, the Western Allies crossed the Rhine north and south of the Ruhr, encircling the German Army Group B,[241] while the Soviets advanced to Vienna. In early April, the Western Allie s 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 capture d, signalling the military defeat of the Third Reich. .[242] Several changes in leadership occurred during this period. On 12 April, U.S. Pre sident Roosevelt died and was succeeded by Harry Truman. Benito Mussolini was ki lled by Italian partisans on 28 April.[243] Two days later, Hitler committed sui cide, and was succeeded by Grand Admiral Karl Dnitz.[244] German forces surrendered in Italy on 29 April. Total and unconditional surrende r was signed on 7 May, to be effective by the end of 8 May.[245] German Army Gro up Centre resisted in Prague until 11 May.[246]

In the Pacific theatre, American forces accompanied by the forces of the Philipp ine Commonwealth advanced in the Philippines, clearing Leyte by the end of April 1945. They landed on Luzon in January 1945 and captured Manila in March followi ng a battle which reduced the city to ruins. Fighting continued on Luzon, Mindan ao and other islands of the Philippines until the end of the war.[247] In March the Americans firebombed Tokyo which killed 80,000 people. In May 1945, Australian troops landed in Borneo, overrunning the oilfields there . British, American and Chinese forces defeated the Japanese in northern Burma i n March, and the British pushed on to reach Rangoon by 3 May.[248] Chinese force s started to counterattack in Battle of West Hunan that occurred between 6 April and 7 June 1945. American forces also moved towards Japan, taking Iwo Jima by M arch, and Okinawa by the end of June.[249] American bombers destroyed Japanese c ities, and American submarines cut off Japanese imports.[250] On 11 July, the Allied leaders met in Potsdam, Germany. They confirmed earlier a greements about Germany,[251] and reiterated the demand for unconditional surren der of all Japanese forces by Japan, specifically stating that "the alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction".[252] During this conference the Unit ed Kingdom held its general election, and Clement Attlee replaced Churchill as P rime Minister.[253] As Japan continued to ignore the Potsdam terms, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early August. Between the two bombings, the Soviets, pursuant to the Yalta agreement, invaded Japanes e-held Manchuria, and quickly defeated the Kwantung Army, which was the largest Japanese fighting force.[254][255] The Red Army also captured Sakhalin Island an d the Kuril Islands. On 15 August 1945 Japan surrendered, with the surrender doc uments finally signed aboard the deck of the American battleship USS Missouri on 2 September 1945, ending the war.[256] American and Soviet troops meet in April 1945, east of the Elbe River. A devastated Berlin street in the city centre post Battle of Berlin, taken 3 July 1945. Atomic explosion at Nagasaki, 9 August 1945. Aftermath Main article: Aftermath of World War II The Allies established occupation administrations in Austria and Germany. The fo rmer became a neutral state, non-aligned with any political bloc. The latter was divided into western and eastern occupation zones controlled by the Western All ies and the USSR, accordingly. A denazification program in Germany led to the pr osecution of Nazi war criminals and the removal of ex-Nazis from power, although this policy moved towards amnesty and re-integration of ex-Nazis into West Germ an society.[257] Germany lost a quarter of its pre-war (1937) territory, the eastern territories: Silesia, Neumark and most of Pomerania were taken over by Poland; East Prussia was divided between Poland and the USSR, followed by the expulsion of the 9 mill ion Germans from these provinces, as well as of 3 million Germans from the Sudet enland in Czechoslovakia, to Germany. By the 1950s, every fifth West German was a refugee from the east. The USSR also took over the Polish provinces east of th e Curzon line (from which 2 million Poles were expelled),[258] Eastern Romania,[ 259][260] and part of eastern Finland[261] and three Baltic states.[262][263] Prime Minister Winston Churchill gives the "Victory" sign to crowds in London on Victory in Europe Day. World map of colonisation in 1945. With the end of the war, the wars of national

liberation ensued, leading to the creation of Israel, together with the decolon isation of Asia and Africa. The Supreme Commanders on 5 June 1945 in Berlin: Bernard Montgomery, Dwight D. E isenhower, Georgy Zhukov and Jean de Lattre de Tassigny In an effort to maintain peace,[264] the Allies formed the United Nations, which officially came into existence on 24 October 1945,[265] and adopted the Univers al Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, as a common standard for all member nati ons.[266] The great powers that were the victors of the war the United States, Sov iet Union, China, Britain, and France formed the permanent members of the UN's Sec urity Council.[3] The five permanent members remain so to the present, although there have been two seat changes, between the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China in 1971, and between the Soviet Union and its successor state , the Russian Federation, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The all iance between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union had begun to deteriorate e ven before the war was over.[267] Germany had been de facto divided, and two independent states, Federal Republic of Germany and German Democratic Republic[268] were created within the borders o f Allied and Soviet occupation zones, accordingly. The rest of Europe was also d ivided onto Western and Soviet spheres of influence.[269] Most eastern and centr al European countries fell into the Soviet sphere, which led to establishment of Communist led regimes, with full or partial support of the Soviet occupation au thorities. As a result, Poland, Hungary, East Germany,[270] Czechoslovakia, Roma nia, and Albania[271] became Soviet Satellite states. Communist Yugoslavia condu cted a fully independent policy causing tension with the USSR.[272] Post-war division of the world was formalised by two international military alli ances, the United States-led NATO and the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact;[273] the long period of political tensions and military competition between them, the Cold War , would be accompanied by an unprecedented arms race and proxy wars.[274] In Asia, the United States led the occupation of Japan and administrated Japan's former islands in the Western Pacific, while the Soviets annexed Sakhalin and t he Kuril Islands.[275] Korea, formerly under Japanese rule, was divided and occu pied by the US in the South and the Soviet Union in the North between 1945 and 1 948. Separate republics emerged on both sides of the 38th parallel in 1948, each claiming to be the legitimate government for all of Korea, which led ultimately to the Korean War.[276] In China, nationalist and communist forces resumed the civil war in June 1946. C ommunist forces were victorious and established the People's Republic of China o n the mainland, while nationalist forces retreated to Taiwan in 1949.[277] In th e Middle East, the Arab rejection of the United Nations Partition Plan for Pales tine and the creation of Israel marked the escalation of the Arab-Israeli confli ct. While European colonial powers attempted to retain some or all of their colo nial empires, their losses of prestige and resources during the war rendered thi s unsuccessful, leading to decolonisation.[278][279] The global economy suffered heavily from the war, although participating nations were affected differently. The US emerged much richer than any other nation; it had a baby boom and by 1950 its gross domestic product per person was much high er than that of any of the other powers and it dominated the world economy.[280] [281] The UK and US pursued a policy of industrial disarmament in Western German y in the years 1945 1948.[282] Due to international trade interdependencies this l ed to European economic stagnation and delayed European recovery for several yea rs.[283][284] Recovery began with the mid-1948 currency reform in Western Germany, and was spe d up by the liberalization of European economic policy that the Marshall plan (1

948 1951) both directly and indirectly caused.[285][286] The post 1948 West German recovery has been called the German economic miracle.[287] Also the Italian[288 ] and French economies rebounded.[289] By contrast, the United Kingdom was in a state of economic ruin,[290] and although it received a quarter of the total Mar shall Plan assistance, more than any other European country,[291] continued rela tive economic decline for decades.[292] The Soviet Union, despite enormous human and material losses, also experienced r apid increase in production in the immediate post-war era.[293] Japan experience d incredibly rapid economic growth, becoming one of the most powerful economies in the world by the 1980s.[294] China returned to its pre-war industrial product ion by 1952.[295] Impact Casualties and war crimes Main articles: World War II casualties and War crimes during World War II World War II deaths Estimates for the total casualties of the war vary, because many deaths went unr ecorded. Most suggest that some 75 million people died in the war, including abo ut 20 million soldiers and 40 million civilians.[296][297][298] Many civilians d ied because of disease, starvation, massacres, bombing and deliberate genocide. The Soviet Union lost around 27 million people during the war,[299] including 8. 7 million military and 19 million civilian deaths. The largest portion of milita ry dead were ethnic Russians (5,756,000), followed by ethnic Ukrainians (1,377,4 00).[300] One of every four Soviet citizens was killed or wounded in that war.[3 01] Germany sustained 5.3 million military losses, mostly on the Eastern Front a nd during the final battles in Germany.[302] Of the total deaths in World War II, approximately 85 percent mostly Soviet and Ch inese were on the Allied side and 15 percent on the Axis side. Many of these death s were caused by war crimes committed by German and Japanese forces in occupied territories. An estimated 11[303] to 17 million[304] civilians died as a direct or indirect result of Nazi ideological policies, including the systematic genoci de of around six million Jews during the Holocaust along with a further five mil lion Roma, homosexuals as well as Slavs and other ethnic and minority groups.[30 4] Roughly 7.5 million civilians died in China under Japanese occupation.[305] Hund reds of thousands (varying estimates) of ethnic Serbs, along with gypsies and Je ws, were murdered by the Axis-aligned Croatian Usta e in Yugoslavia,[306] with ret ribution-related killings of Croatian civilians just after the war ended. Chinese civilians to be buried alive by Japanese soldiers. The best-known Japanese atrocity was the Nanking Massacre, in which several hund red thousand Chinese civilians were raped and murdered.[307] Between 3 million t o more than 10 million civilians, mostly Chinese, were killed by the Japanese oc cupation forces.[308] Mitsuyoshi Himeta reported 2.7 million casualties occurred during the Sanko Sakusen. General Yasuji Okamura implemented the policy in Heip ei and Shantung.[309] The Axis forces employed limited biological and chemical weapons. The Italians u sed mustard gas during their conquest of Abyssinia,[310] while the Imperial Japa nese Army used a variety of such weapons during their invasion and occupation of China (see Unit 731)[311][312] and in early conflicts against the Soviets.[313] Both the Germans and Japanese tested such weapons against civilians[314] and, i n some cases, on prisoners of war.[315] While many of the Axis's acts were brought to trial in the world's first interna tional tribunals,[316] incidents caused by the Allies were not. Examples of such Allied actions include population transfers in the Soviet Union and Japanese Am

erican internment in the United States; the Operation Keelhaul,[317] expulsion o f Germans after World War II,[318] rape during the occupation of Germany;[319] t he Soviet Union's Katyn massacre, for which Germans faced counter-accusations of responsibility. Large numbers of famine deaths can also be partially attributed to the war, such as the Bengal famine of 1943 and the Vietnamese famine of 1944 4 5.[320] Brutalised by war and fuelled by racist propaganda, many American soldie rs in the Pacific mutilated corpses and kept grizzly war trophies.[321] It has been suggested by some historians, e.g. Jrg Friedrich, that the mass-bombi ng of civilian areas in enemy territory, including Tokyo and most notably the Ge rman cities of Dresden, Hamburg and Cologne by Western Allies, which resulted in the destruction of more than 160 cities and the deaths of more than 600,000 Ger man civilians be considered as war crimes.[322] Concentration camps and slave work Further information: The Holocaust, Consequences of Nazism, Japanese war crimes, and Allied war crimes during World War II Dead bodies in the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp after liberation, possibl y political prisoners or Soviet POWs The Nazis were responsible for The Holocaust, the killing of approximately six m illion Jews (overwhelmingly Ashkenazim), as well as two million ethnic Poles and four million others who were deemed "unworthy of life" (including the disabled and mentally ill, Soviet prisoners of war, homosexuals, Freemasons, Jehovah's Wi tnesses, and Romani) as part of a programme of deliberate extermination. About 1 2 million, most of whom were Eastern Europeans, were employed in the German war economy as forced labourers.[323] In addition to Nazi concentration camps, the Soviet gulags (labour camps) led to the death of citizens of occupied countries such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, as well as German prisoners of war (POWs) and even Soviet citizens who had been or were thought to be supporters of the Nazis.[324] Sixty percent o f Soviet POWs of the Germans died during the war.[325] Richard Overy gives the n umber of 5.7 million Soviet POWs. Of those, 57 percent died or were killed, a to tal of 3.6 million.[326] Soviet ex-POWs and repatriated civilians were treated w ith great suspicion as potential Nazi collaborators, and some of them were sent to the Gulag upon being checked by the NKVD.[327] Japanese prisoner-of-war camps, many of which were used as labour camps, also ha d high death rates. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East found t he death rate of Western prisoners was 27.1 percent (for American POWs, 37 perce nt),[328] seven times that of POWs under the Germans and Italians.[329] While 37 ,583 prisoners from the UK, 28,500 from the Netherlands, and 14,473 from United States were released after the surrender of Japan, the number for the Chinese wa s only 56.[330] According to historian Zhifen Ju, at least five million Chinese civilians from n orthern China and Manchukuo were enslaved between 1935 and 1941 by the East Asia Development Board, or Koain, for work in mines and war industries. After 1942, the number reached 10 million.[331] The U.S. Library of Congress estimates that in Java, between 4 and 10 million romusha (Japanese: "manual laborers"), were fo rced to work by the Japanese military. About 270,000 of these Javanese laborers were sent to other Japanese-held areas in South East Asia, and only 52,000 were repatriated to Java.[332] On 19 February 1942, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, interning thousands of Japanese, Italians, German Americans, and some emigrants from Hawaii who fled after the bombing of Pearl Harbor for the duration of the war. The U.S. and Can adian governments interned 150,000 Japanese-Americans,[333][334] In addition, 14 ,000 German and Italian residents of the U.S. who had been assessed as being sec urity risks were also interned.[335]

In accordance with the Allied agreement made at the Yalta Conference millions of POWs and civilians were used as forced labor by the Soviet Union.[336] In Hunga ry's case, Hungarians were forced to work for the Soviet Union until 1955.[337] Home fronts and production Main articles: Military production during World War II and Home front during Wor ld War II Allied to Axis GDP ratio In Europe, before the outbreak of the war, the Allies had significant advantages in both population and economics. In 1938, the Western Allies (United Kingdom, France, Poland and British Dominions) had a 30 percent larger population and a 3 0 percent higher gross domestic product than the European Axis (Germany and Ital y); if colonies are included, it then gives the Allies more than a 5:1 advantage in population and nearly 2:1 advantage in GDP.[338] In Asia at the same time, C hina had roughly six times the population of Japan, but only an 89 percent highe r GDP; this is reduced to three times the population and only a 38 percent highe r GDP if Japanese colonies are included.[338] Though the Allies' economic and population advantages were largely mitigated dur ing the initial rapid blitzkrieg attacks of Germany and Japan, they became the d ecisive factor by 1942, after the United States and Soviet Union joined the Alli es, as the war largely settled into one of attrition.[339] While the Allies' abi lity to out-produce the Axis is often attributed to the Allies having more acces s to natural resources, other factors, such as Germany and Japan's reluctance to employ women in the labour force,[340] Allied strategic bombing,[341] and Germa ny's late shift to a war economy[342] contributed significantly. Additionally, n either Germany nor Japan planned to fight a protracted war, and were not equippe d to do so.[343][344] To improve their production, Germany and Japan used millio ns of slave labourers;[345] Germany used about 12 million people, mostly from Ea stern Europe,[323] while Japan pressed more than 18 million people in Far East A sia.[331][332] Occupation Main articles: Collaboration with the Axis Powers during World War II, Resistanc e during World War II, and German-occupied Europe Soviet partisans hanged by German forces in January 1943 In Europe, occupation came under two very different forms. In Western, Northern and Central Europe (France, Norway, Denmark, the Low Countries, and the annexed portions of Czechoslovakia) Germany established economic policies through which it collected roughly 69.5 billion reichmarks (27.8 billion US Dollars) by the en d of the war; this figure does not include the sizable plunder of industrial pro ducts, military equipment, raw materials and other goods.[346] Thus, the income from occupied nations was over 40 percent of the income Germany collected from t axation, a figure which increased to nearly 40 percent of total German income as the war went on.[347] In the East, the much hoped for bounties of Lebensraum were never attained as fl uctuating front-lines and Soviet scorched earth policies denied resources to the German invaders.[348] Unlike in the West, the Nazi racial policy encouraged exc essive brutality against what it considered to be the "inferior people" of Slavi c descent; most German advances were thus followed by mass executions.[349] Alth ough resistance groups did form in most occupied territories, they did not signi ficantly hamper German operations in either the East[350] or the West[351] until late 1943. In Asia, Japan termed nations under its occupation as being part of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, essentially a Japanese hegemony which it claimed was for purposes of liberating colonised peoples.[352] Although Japanese forces were originally welcomed as liberators from European domination in many territo

ries, their excessive brutality turned local public opinions against them within weeks.[353] During Japan's initial conquest it captured 4,000,000 barrels (640, 000 m3) of oil (~5.5105 tonnes) left behind by retreating Allied forces, and by 1 943 was able to get production in the Dutch East Indies up to 50 million barrels (~6.8106 t), 76 percent of its 1940 output rate.[353] Advances in technology and warfare Main article: Technology during World War II Aircraft were used for reconnaissance, as fighters, bombers and ground-support, and each role was advanced considerably. Innovation included airlift (the capabi lity to quickly move limited high-priority supplies, equipment and personnel);[3 54] and of strategic bombing (the bombing of civilian areas to destroy industry and morale).[355] Anti-aircraft weaponry also advanced, including defences such as radar and surface-to-air artillery, such as the German 88 mm gun. The use of the jet aircraft was pioneered and, though late introduction meant it had little impact, it led to jets becoming standard in worldwide air forces.[356] Advances were made in nearly every aspect of naval warfare, most notably with ai rcraft carriers and submarines. Although at the start of the war aeronautical wa rfare had relatively little success, actions at Taranto, Pearl Harbor, the South China Sea and the Coral Sea established the carrier as the dominant capital shi p in place of the battleship.[357][358][359] In the Atlantic, escort carriers proved to be a vital part of Allied convoys, in creasing the effective protection radius and helping to close the Mid-Atlantic g ap.[360] Carriers were also more economical than battleships due to the relative ly low cost of aircraft[361] and their not requiring to be as heavily armoured.[ 362] Submarines, which had proved to be an effective weapon during the First Wor ld War[363] were anticipated by all sides to be important in the second. The Bri tish focused development on anti-submarine weaponry and tactics, such as sonar a nd convoys, while Germany focused on improving its offensive capability, with de signs such as the Type VII submarine and wolfpack tactics.[364] Gradually, impro ving Allied technologies such as the Leigh light, hedgehog, squid, and homing to rpedoes proved victorious. Land warfare changed from the static front lines of World War I to increased mob ility and combined arms. The tank, which had been used predominantly for infantr y support in the First World War, had evolved into the primary weapon.[365] In t he late 1930s, tank design was considerably more advanced than it had been durin g World War I,[366] and advances continued throughout the war in increasing spee d, armour and firepower. At the start of the war, most commanders thought enemy tanks should be met by ta nks with superior specifications.[367] This idea was challenged by the poor perf ormance of the relatively light early tank guns against armour, and German doctr ine of avoiding tank-versus-tank combat. This, along with Germany's use of combi ned arms, were among the key elements of their highly successful blitzkrieg tact ics across Poland and France.[365] Many means of destroying tanks, including ind irect artillery, anti-tank guns (both towed and self-propelled), mines, short-ra nged infantry antitank weapons, and other tanks were utilised.[367] Even with la rge-scale mechanisation, infantry remained the backbone of all forces,[368] and throughout the war, most infantry were equipped similarly to World War I.[369] The portable machine gun spread, a notable example being the German MG42, and va rious submachine guns which were suited to close combat in urban and jungle sett ings.[369] The assault rifle, a late war development incorporating many features of the rifle and submachine gun, became the standard postwar infantry weapon fo r most armed forces.[370][371] Most major belligerents attempted to solve the problems of complexity and securi

ty presented by using large codebooks for cryptography with the use of ciphering machines, the most well known being the German Enigma machine.[372] SIGINT (sig nals intelligence) was the countering process of decryption, with the notable ex amples being the Allied breaking of Japanese naval codes[373] and British Ultra, which was derived from methodology given to Britain by the Polish Cipher Bureau , which had been decoding Enigma for seven years before the war.[374] Another as pect of military intelligence was the use of deception, which the Allies used to great effect, such as in operations Mincemeat and Bodyguard.[373][375] Other te chnological and engineering feats achieved during, or as a result of, the war in clude the world's first programmable computers (Z3, Colossus, and ENIAC), guided missiles and modern rockets, the Manhattan Project's development of nuclear wea pons, operations research and the development of artificial harbours and oil pip elines under the English Channel.[376] American Boeing B-17E. The Allies lost 160,000 airmen and 33,700 planes duri ng the air war over Europe.[377] German U-995 Type VIIC. Between 1939 and 1945, 3,500 Allied merchant ships w ere sunk at a cost of 783 German U-boats. Soviet T-34, the most-produced tank of the war. Over 57,000 were built by 19 45. See also Portal icon Book icon World War II portal

Book: World War II List of World War II battles List of World War II military operations World War II in popular culture Death rates in the 20th century Documentaries Apocalypse: The Second World War (2009), a six-part French documentary by Da niel Costelle and Isabelle Clarke about World War II Battlefield (TV series) documentary series initially issued in 1994 5 that exp lores many important World War II battles BBC History of World War II, a television series, initially issued from 1989 to 2005. The World at War (1974), a 26-part Thames Television series that covers most aspects of World War II from many points of view. It includes interviews with m any key figures including Karl Dnitz, Albert Speer, and Anthony Eden. Notes ^ After the fall of the Third Republic in 1940, the de facto government was the Vichy Regime. It conducted pro-Axis policies until November 1942 while remai ning formally neutral. The Free French Forces, based out of London, were recogni zed by all Allies as the official government in September 1944. Citations ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ Sommerville 2008, p. 5. Barrett & Shyu 2001, p. 6. a b The UN Security Council, retrieved 15 May 2012 Frster & Gessler 2005, p. 64. Ben-Horin 1943, p. 169; Taylor 1979, p. 124; Yisreelit, Hevrah Mizrahit (1

965). Asian and African Studies, p. 191. For 1941 see Taylor 1961, p. vii; Kello gg, William O (2003). American History the Easy Way. Barron's Educational Series . p. 236 ISBN 0-7641-1973-7. There also exists the viewpoint that both World War I and World War II are part of the same "European Civil War" or "Second Thirty Years War": Canfora 2006, p. 155; Prins 2002, p. 11. ^ Beevor 2012, p. 10. ^ Masaya 1990, p. 4. ^ "History of German-American Relations 1989 1994 Reunification "Two-plus-Four -Treaty": Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, September 12, 1990". usa.usembassy.de. Retrieved 6 May 2012. ^ Ingram 2006, pp. 76 8 ^ Kantowicz 1999, p. 149. ^ Davies 2008, pp. 134 140. ^ Shaw 2000, p. 35. ^ Bullock 1990, p. 265. ^ Preston 1998, p. 104. ^ Myers & Peattie 1987, p. 458. ^ Smith & Steadman 2004, p. 28. ^ Coogan 1993: "Although some Chinese troops in the Northeast managed to ret reat south, others were trapped by the advancing Japanese Army and were faced wi th the choice of resistance in defiance of orders, or surrender. A few commander s submitted, receiving high office in the puppet government, but others took up arms against the invader. The forces they commanded were the first of the volunt eer armies." ^ Brody 1999, p. 4. ^ Dawood, M; Mitra A (December 2012). "Hidden agendas and hidden illness". D iversity and Equality in Health and Care 9 (4): 297 8. ^ Zalampas 1989, p. 62. ^ Record 2005, p. 50. ^ Mandelbaum 1988, p. 96. ^ Schmitz 2000, p. 124. ^ Kitson 2001, p. 231. ^ Adamthwaite 1992, p. 52. ^ Graham 2005, p. 110. ^ Busky 2002, p. 10. ^ Barker 1971, pp. 131 2. ^ Beevor 2006, pp. 258 60. Tony Judt said that the "communist strategy in Spain turns out to have been a dry run for the seizure of power in Eastern Europe after 1945." See Judt & Sny der 2012, p. 190. ^ Budiansky 2004, pp. 209 11. ^ Stanley G. Payne, Franco and Hitler: Spain, Germany, and World War II (200 9) ^ Eastman 1986, pp. 547 51. ^ Eastman 1986, p. 566. ^ Taylor 2009, pp. 150 2. ^ Sella 1983, pp. 651 87. ^ Coox 1990, p. 189. ^ Chaney 1996, p. 76. ^ Collier & Pedley 2000, p. 144. ^ Kershaw 2001, pp. 121 2. ^ Kershaw 2001, p. 157. ^ Davies 2008, pp. 143 4. ^ Lowe & Marzari 2002, p. 330. ^ Dear, I. C. B.; Foot, M. R. D, eds. (2002). "Pact of Steel". Oxford Compan ion to World War II. Oxford University Press. p. 674. ISBN 0-19-860446-7. ^ a b c "Major international events of 1939, with explanation". ibiblio.org. Retrieved 15 May 2013. ^ Shore 2003, p. 108. ^ Dear, I. C. B.; Foot, M. R. D, eds. (2002). "Nazi-Soviet Pact". Oxford Uni

versity Press. p. 608. ISBN 0-19-860446-7. ^ Minutes of the conference between the Fuehrer and the Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Count Ciano, in the presence of the Reich Foreign Minister of Obersalzberg on 12 August 1939 in Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression Volume IV Docum ent No. 1871-PS ^ TheGerman Campaign In Poland (1939) ^ Evans 2008, pp. 1 2. ^ Jackson 2006, p. 58. ^ Weinberg 2005, pp. 64 5. ^ Keegan 1997, p. 35. Cienciala 2010, p. 128, observes that, while it is true that Poland was far away, making it difficult for the French and British to provide support, "[f]ew Western historians of World War II [. . .] know that the British had committed t o bomb Germany if it attacked Poland, but did not do so except for one raid on t he base of Wilhelmshafen. The French, who committed to attack Germany in the wes t, had no intention of doing so." ^ Roskill, S.W. (1954). The War at Sea 1939 1945 Volume 1 : The Defensive. His tory of the Second World War. United Kingdom Military Series. London: HMSO. p. 6 4. ^ Fritz, Martin (2005). "Economic Warfare". In Dear, I.C.B; Foot, M.R.D. The Oxford Companion to World War II. Oxford University Press. p. 248. ISBN 978-0-1 9-280670-3. ^ Zaloga 2002, pp. 80, 83. ^ Hempel 2005, p. 24. ^ Zaloga 2002, pp. 88 9. ^ Budiansky 2001, pp. 120 1. ^ Jowett & Andrew 2002, p. 14. ^ Smith et al. 2002, p. 24 ^ a b Bilinsky 1999, p. 9. ^ a b Murray & Millett 2001, pp. 55 6. ^ Spring 1986. ^ Hanhimki 1997, p. 12. ^ Weinberg 2005, pp. 95, 121. ^ Shirer 1990, pp. 668 9. ^ Murray & Millett 2001, pp. 57 63. ^ Commager 2004, p. 9. ^ Reynolds 2006, p. 76. ^ Evans 2008, pp. 122 3. ^ Dear, I. C. B.; Foot, M. R. D, eds. (2002). "Iceland". Oxford Companion to World War II. Oxford University Press. p. 436. ISBN 0-19-860446-7. ^ Shirer 1990, pp. 721 3. ^ Keegan 1997, pp. 59 60. ^ Regan 2004, p. 152. ^ Keegan 1997, pp. 66 7. ^ Overy & Wheatcroft 1999, p. 207. ^ Umbreit 1991, p. 311. ^ Brown 2004, p. xxx. ^ Ferguson, Niall (2006). The War of the WorldPenguin, pp. 367, 376, 379, 41 7 ^ Snyder 2010, p. 118ff. ^ Koch 1983. ^ Roberts 2006, p. 56. ^ Roberts 2006, p. 59. ^ a b c "Major international events of 1940, with explanation". ibiblio.org. Retrieved 15 May 2013. ^ a b Kelly, Rees & Shuter 1998, p. 38. ^ The Battle of Britain: The Last Phase THE DEFENSE OF THE UNITED KINGDOM 19 57 ^ Goldstein 2004, p. 35. ^ Steury 1987, p. 209: "The Bismarck's destruction [. . .] determin[ed] the

outcome of [. . .] the German Atlantic campaign"; Zetterling & Tamelander 2009, p. 282: "Before the eyes of the German seaman who had abandoned the ship, the Bi smarck sank stern first. [. . .] She took with her [. . .] perhaps as many as 1, 400 seamen and officers as well as all plans and dreams of successful cruiser wa rfare." ^ Dear, I.C.B and Foot, M.R.D. (editors), ed. (2005). "Blitz". The Oxford Co mpanion to World War II. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 108 109. ISBN 978-019-280670-3. ^ Overy & Wheatcroft 1999, pp. 328 30. ^ Maingot 1994, p. 52. ^ Cantril 1940, p. 390. ^ Coordination With Britain Chief of Staff: Prewar Plans and Operations ^ Bilhartz & Elliot 2007, p. 179. ^ Dear, I. C. B.; Foot, M. R. D, eds. (2002). "Tripartite Pact". Oxford Comp anion to World War II. Oxford University Press. p. 877. ISBN 0-19-860446-7. ^ Deletant, Dennis (2002). "Romania". In Dear, I. C. B.; Foot, M. R. D. Oxfo rd Companion to World War II. pp. 745 46. ISBN 0-19-860446-7. ^ Clogg 2002, p. 118. ^ THE MILITARY-POLITICAL SITUATION IN THE BALKANS The German campaign in the Balkans (1953) ^ Jowett 2001, pp. 9 10. ^ Jackson 2006, p. 106. ^ Laurier 2001, pp. 7 8. ^ Murray & Millett 2001, pp. 263 7. ^ Macksey 1997, pp. 61 3. ^ Weinberg 2005, p. 229. ^ Watson 2003, p. 80. ^ Jackson 2006, p. 154. ^ Garver 1988, p. 114. ^ Weinberg 2005, p. 195 ^ Murray, Williamson (1983). "Chapter III, The turn to Russia". Strategy for defeat: The Luftwaffe, 1933 1945. Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala: Air University Pre ss. p. 69. ISBN 978-1-4294-9235-5. ^ a b Klooz, Marle; Wiley, Evelyn (1944), "1941", Events leading up to World War II: Chronological history of certain major international events leading up to and during World War II with the ostensible reasons advanced for their occurr ence 1931 1944, 78th Congress, 2d Session, Humphrey, Richard A, Washington: United States Government Printing Office, House Document No. 541 ^ Sella 1978. ^ Kershaw 2007, pp. 66 9. ^ Steinberg 1995. ^ Hauner 1978. ^ Roberts 1995. ^ Wilt 1981. ^ Erickson 2003, pp. 114 37. ^ Glantz 2001, p. 9. ^ Farrell 1993. ^ Keeble 1990, p. 29. ^ Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003, p. 425 ^ Beevor 2012, p. 220. ^ Kleinfeld 1983. ^ Jukes & 2001 113. ^ Glantz 2001, p. 26: "By 1 November [the Wehrmacht] had lost fully 20% of i ts committed strength (686,000 men), up to 2/3 of its -million motor vehicles, an d 65 percent of its tanks. The German Army High Command (OKH) rated its 136 divi sions as equivalent to 83 full-strength divisions." ^ Reinhardt 1992, p. 227. ^ Milward 1964. ^ Rotundo 1986. ^ Glantz 2001, p. 26.

^ Garthoff 1969. ^ Beevor 1998, pp. 41 2. Evans 2008, pp. 213 4, notes that "Zhukov had pushed the Germans back to the p oint from which they had launched Operation Typhoon two months before. [. . .] O nly Stalin's decision to attack all along the front instead of pushing home the advantage by concentrating his forces in an all-out assault against the retreati ng Germany Army Group Centre prevented the disaster from being even worse." ^ Overy & Wheatcroft 1999, p. 289. ^ Morison 2002, p. 60. ^ Joes 2004, p. 224. ^ Fairbank & Goldman 1994, p. 320. ^ Japanese Policy and Strategy, 1931 July 1941 Strategy and Command: The Fir st Two Years ^ Anderson 1975, p. 201. ^ Evans & Peattie 2012, p. 456. ^ a b The Decision for War Strategy and Command: The First Two Years ^ a b The Showdown With Japan August December 1941 Strategic Planning for Coal ition Warfare, 1941 1942 ^ THE UNITED STATES REPLIES Investigation of the Pearl Harbor attack ^ Painter 2012, p. 26: "The United States cut off oil exports to Japan in th e summer of 1941, forcing Japanese leaders to choose between going to war to sei ze the oil fields of the Netherlands East Indies or giving in to U.S. pressure." Wood 2007, p. 9, listing various military and diplomatic developments, obser ves that "the threat to Japan was not purely economic." ^ Lightbody 2004, p. 125. ^ Weinberg 2005, p. 310. Dower 1986, p. 5, calls attention to the fact that "the Allied struggle agai nst Japan exposed the racist underpinnings of the European and American colonial structure. Japan did not invade independent countries in southern Asia. It inva ded colonial outposts which the Westerners had dominated for generations, taking absolutely for granted their racial and cultural superiority over their Asian s ubjects." Dower goes on to note that, before the horrors of Japanese occupation made themselves felt, many Asians responded favourably to the victories of the I mperial Japanese forces. ^ Wood 2007, pp. 11 2. ^ a b Wohlstetter 1962, pp. 341 3. ^ Dunn 1998, p. 157. According to May 1955, p. 155, Churchill stated: "Russian declaration of war on Japan would be greatly to our advantage, provided, but only provided, that R ussians are confident that will not impair their Western Front". ^ Mingst & Karns 2007, p. 22. ^ The First Full Dress Debate over Strategic Deployment December 1941 Januar y 1942 Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1941 1942 ^ The Elimination of the Alternatives July August 1942 Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1941 1942 ^ Casablanca Beginning of an Era: January 1943 Strategic Planning for Coalitio n Warfare, 1943 1944 ^ The TRIDENT Conference New Patterns: May 1943 Strategic Planning for Coaliti on Warfare, 1943 1944 ^ Beevor 2012, pp. 247 267, 345. ^ Lewis, Morton. "XXIX. Japanese Plans and American Defenses". In Greenfield , Kent Roberts. The Fall of the Philippines. U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 529. Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 53-63678. (Table 11). ^ Grove 1995, p. 362. ^ Ch'i 1992, p. 158. ^ Perez 1998, p. 145. ^ Maddox 1992, pp. 111 2. ^ Salecker 2001, p. 186. ^ Ropp, Theodore (1962). War in the Modern World. Macmillan Publishing Compa ny. p. 368. ISBN 0-8018-6445-3.

^ Weinberg 2005, p. 339. ^ Gilbert, Adrian (2003). The Encyclopedia of Warfare: From Earliest Times t o the Present Day. Globe Pequot. p. 259. ISBN 1-59228-027-7. ^ Swain, Bruce (2001). A Chronology of Australian Armed Forces at War 1939 45. Allen & Unwin. p. 197. ISBN 1-86508-352-6. ^ Hane 2001, p. 340. ^ Marston 2005, p. 111. ^ Brayley 2002, p. 9. ^ Glantz 2001, p. 31. ^ Read 2004, p. 764. ^ Davies 2008, p. 100. ^ Badsey, Stephen (2000). The Hutchinson Atlas of World War II Battle Plans: Before and After. Taylor & Francis. pp. 235 36. ISBN 1-57958-265-6. ^ Black, Jeremy (2003). World War Two: A Military History. Routledge. p. 119 . ISBN 0-415-30534-9. ^ Beevor 1998, pp. 383 91. ^ Erickson 2001, p. 142. ^ Milner 1990, p. 52. ^ Beevor 2012, pp. 224 8. ^ Molinari 2007, p. 91. ^ Mitcham, Samuel W.; Mitcham, Samuel W. Jr (1982). Rommel's Desert War: The Life and Death of the Afrika Korps. Stein & Day. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-8117-3413-4. ^ Beevor 2012, pp. 380 1. ^ Rich, Norman (1992). Hitler's War Aims: Ideology, the Nazi State, and the Course of Expansion. Norton. p. 178. ISBN 0-393-00802-9. ^ Gordon 2004, p. 129. ^ Neillands, Robin (2005). The Dieppe Raid: The Story of the Disastrous 1942 Expedition. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-34781-5. ^ Keegan 1997, p. 277. ^ Thomas, David Arthur (1988). A Companion to the Royal Navy. Harrap. p. 265 . ISBN 0-245-54572-7. ^ Thomas, Nigel; Andrew, Stephen (1998). German Army 1939 1945 (2): North Afri ca & Balkans. Osprey Publishing. p. 8. ISBN 1-85532-640-X. ^ a b Ross, Steven T (1997). American War Plans, 1941 1945: The Test of Battle . Frank Cass & Co. p. 38. ISBN 0-7146-4634-2. ^ Bonner, Kit; Bonner, Carolyn (2001). Warship Boneyards. MBI Publishing Com pany. p. 24. ISBN 0-7603-0870-5. ^ Collier, Paul (2003). The Second World War (4): The Mediterranean 1940 1945. Osprey Publishing. p. 11. ISBN 1-84176-539-2. ^ " The Civilians United States Strategic Bombing Survey Summary Report (Eur opean War) ^ Thompson, John Herd; Randall, Stephen J (1994). Canada and the United Stat es: Ambivalent Allies. University of Georgia Press. p. 164. ISBN 0-8203-2403-5. ^ Kennedy 2001, p. 610. ^ Rottman 2002, p. 228. ^ Glantz, David M. (September 1986). "Soviet Defensive Tactics at Kursk, Jul y 1943". CSI Report No. 11. (Combined Arms Research Library). OCLC 278029256. Ar chived from the original on 6 March 2008. Retrieved 17 February 2010. ^ Glantz, David M (1989). Soviet military deception in the Second World War. Routledge. pp. 149 59. ISBN 978-0-7146-3347-3. ^ Kershaw 2001, p. 592. ^ O'Reilly 2001, p. 32. ^ Bellamy 2007, p. 595. ^ O'Reilly 2001, p. 35. ^ Healy 1992, p. 90. ^ Glantz 2001, pp. 50 55. ^ Kolko 1990, p. 45: "On September 3, as Allied forces landed in Italy, Bado glio agreed to a secret armistice in the hope the Allies would land a major forc e north of Rome and save his government and the king. When he learned such a res cue would not occur he desperately attempted to call off his bargain with Eisenh

ower, who cut short the matter on September 8 by announcing news of its existenc e. The next day the hero of Abyssinia, his king, and a small retinue deserted Ro me for the southeast tip of Italy, leaving most of Italy to the Nazis." ^ Mazower 2008, p. 362. ^ Hart, Stephen; Hart, Russell; Hughes, Matthew (2000). The German Soldier i n World War II. MBI Publishing Company. p. 151. ISBN 0-7603-0846-2. ^ Blinkhorn, Martin (1984). Mussolini and Fascist Italy. Methuen & Co. p. 52 . ISBN 0-415-10231-6. ^ Read & Fisher 2002, p. 129. ^ Padfield, Peter (1998). War Beneath the Sea : Submarine Conflict During Wo rld War II (paperback. ed.). New York: John Wiley. pp. 335 336. ISBN 0-471-24945-9 . ^ Kolko 1990, pp. 211, 235, 267 8. ^ Iriye 1981, p. 154. ^ Polley, Martin (2000). A-Z of modern Europe since 1789. Taylor & Francis. p. 148. ISBN 0-415-18598-X. ^ Beevor 2012, pp. 268 74. ^ Ch'i 1992, p. 161. ^ Hsu Long-hsuen and Chang Ming-kai (1971) History of The Sino-Japanese War (1937 1945) 2nd Ed. Translated by Wen Ha-hsiung. Chung Wu Publishing. pp. 412 416, M ap 38 ^ Weinberg 2005, pp. 660 1. ^ Glantz 2002, pp. 327 66. ^ Glantz 2002, pp. 367 414. ^ Chubarov 2001, p. 122. ^ Holland 2008, pp. 169 84; Beevor 2012, pp. 568 73. The weeks after the fall of Rome saw a dramatic upswing in German atrocities in Italy (Mazower 2008, pp. 500 2). The period featured massacres with victims in the hundreds at Civitella (de Grazia & Paggi 1991; Belco 2010), Fosse Ardeatine (Portelli 2003), and Sant'Anna di Stazzema (Gordon 2012, pp. 10 1), and is capped with the Marzabotto massacre. ^ Lightbody 2004, p. 224. ^ a b Zeiler 2004, p. 60. ^ Beevor 2012, pp. 555 60. ^ Ch'i 1992, p. 163. ^ Coble 2003, p. 85. ^ Rees 2008, pp. 406 7: "Stalin always believed that Britain and America were delaying the second front so that the Soviet Union would bear the brunt of the w ar". ^ Weinberg 2005, p. 695. ^ Badsey 1990, p. 91. ^ Dear, I. C. B.; Foot, M. R. D, eds. (2002). "Market-Garden". Oxford Compan ion to World War II. Oxford University Press. p. 877. ISBN 0-19-860446-7. ^ Zaloga 1996, p. 7: "It was the most calamitous defeat of all the German ar med forces in World War II". ^ Berend 1996, p. 8. ^ "Armistice Negotiations and Soviet Occupation". US Library of Congress. Re trieved 14 November 2009. "The coup speeded the Red Army's advance, and the Sovi et Union later awarded Michael the Order of Victory for his personal courage in overthrowing Antonescu and putting an end to Romania's war against the Allies. W estern historians uniformly point out that the Communists played only a supporti ng role in the coup; postwar Romanian historians, however, ascribe to the Commun ists the decisive role in Antonescu's overthrow" ^ Evans 2008, p. 653. ^ Wiest & Barbier 2002, pp. 65 6. ^ Wiktor, Christian L (1998). Multilateral Treaty Calendar 1648 1995. Kluwer L aw International. p. 426. ISBN 90-411-0584-0. ^ Newton 2004. ^ Marston 2005, p. 120. ^ Jowett & Andrew 2002, p. 8.

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