WORLD WAR 2

World War 2 was a Global war, fought throughout the

world, involving almost all the countries, directly or
indirectly, happened on land, water, and air. It is also
called a Total war, because it involved all the resources of
a country, like factories, industry, labor, and soldiers. It
started on 1st Sep 1939 and ended in Aug 1945, costing
60-80 million deaths, which included 50 million civilians
and 25 million soldiers. It was one of the deadliest
conflicts, in human history ever witnessed. Some
historians mark 2nd Sino-China war as the starting date
for World War 2.
WORLD WAR 2 COUNTRIES
ALLIED POWERS Axis Powers
United Kingdom Nazi Germany (3rd Reich)
France, Italy
USA, Japan
USSR,
China,
Poland,
Yugoslavia,
Greece
WORLD WAR 2 CAUSES
THE UNJUST TREATY OF VERSAILLES (1919)
Allied powers after the end of World War I forced
Germany to sign the Treaty of Versailles Taking
advantage of the treaty, France took vengeance on
Germany. She humiliated Germany for the next 20 years.
Under this treaty lost its territories and was also
prohibited to maintain a large army. The humiliation that
Germany faced after the First World War led to the
spread of Ultra-Nationalism in Germany.
DEMANDS OF IMPERIALISM
New Imperialists, like Japan and Germany, wanted to
compete with old Imperialist nations such as the UK,
France, etc., for resources and various territories in Africa
and Asia.
FAILURE OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
It was formed in 1919 after the end of World War I with
the intention to check military aggression; it also
intended that all its member and disputes between
different nations could be settled through negotiations
instead of aggression. League of Nations failed to
maintain to settle disputes between nations as Italy
invaded Ethiopia, Japan invasion of Manchuria in China
and not all countries joined the league.
GREAT DEPRESSION OF 1929
It was the worst economic disaster in the history of the
industrialized world it took its way differently in Europe
and Asia. In European nations such as Germany, Italy,
and Spain, the political power shifted from totalitarian to
imperialist government, whereas in Asia recourse less
Japan opted for an aggressive expansionist policy by
invading China and trying to control the Pacific.
RISE OF IMPERIALISM IN JAPAN
Japan was becoming very aggressive. Taiwan became the
first colony of Japan in 1895. In 1931, Japan invaded the
territories of Manchuria of China and all islands all
around the Pacific Ocean. War in Asia started mainly due
to the 2nd Sino-Japanese war of 1937. These concerned
USA, so the US declared war on Japan on December 8,
1941, one day after Japan attacked Perl Harbor.
RISE OF HITLER AND NSDAP
The National Socialist German Workers Party, commonly
known as the Nazi Party, was anti-semitic (anti-Jews),
anti-Marxist, believed in the Superiority of the Aryan
Race, and that all other races should be excluded. Hitler
became Chancellor (PM) of Germany in January 1933,
though he was elected, it was not a complete majority,
rather hung Parliament still he was called to make
government, and slowly, he transformed into a Dictator.
After the Treaty of Versailles, Germany would not
allowed keeping an army. But Hitler started building a
huge army and air force. He allotted special symbols for
Jews people to distinguish them from the mass. He also
declared to restore the glory of Fatherland.

EVENTS LEADING TO SECOND WORLD WAR

EVENTS AROUND 1936: Hitler re-militarized the
Rhineland in. Although as per the Treaty of Versailles, it
was decided not to militarize the area, because it was a
threat to France. There was a treaty between Italy and
Germany, called Rome-Berlin Axis, from this event the
name Axis Power came into the picture. Later, Germany
signed a pact with Japan too.
1938 GERMAN ANNEXATION: Hitler annexed the entire
area of Austria, and the process was called Aeschylus.
Hitler claimed that Austria had historically been a part of
Germany. It was never supposed to be a different
country. It was artificially created after WWI. So, he
demanded Austria become part of Germany again.
Initially, it was a bloodless coup. The people of Austria
welcomed Hitler. Sudetenland was annexed by Germans;
it lay on the border of Czechoslovakia and Germany and
Hitler claimed that area too. The allied countries thought
that it was just a matter of 1-2 countries, and then Hitler
would stay silent. They didn’t want war for a small
country like Austria, So, they didn’t stop Hitler from
doing so. This let Hitler think that UK & France were
weak and didn’t want war.
EVENTS AROUND 1938: Hitler after annexing
Sudetenland attacked and conquered the entire
Czechoslovakia in March 1939. Still, no country said
against Hitler. The next target was Poland- but it was
promised protection by UK & France. There was a pact
between Germany and USSR, called Molotov Ribbentrop
Pact, by which USSR was bound to help Germany in war.
Because he knew that sooner or later, he would have to
go to war against UK & France.

WORLD WAR 2 STARTED IN 1939

On 1st September Germany attacks Poland from the west
and USSR also attacked Poland from the east. As a result,
UK & France declared war on Germany but couldn’t save
Poland. Then, Germany took control of western Poland
and the USSR took control of eastern Poland. Soon, in
1940, it also annexed the Baltic nation of Estonia, Latvia
and Lithuania. In the early 1940s, after invading Poland,
Hitler invaded Denmark &Norway. He attacked Norway
because from there he wanted to attack Finland. Then he
went on to attack Belgium & Netherlands. They fell to the
Blitzkrieg campaign of Germany. Blitzkrieg is a war tactic,
which is a fast, sudden military offensive, usually
combining ground forces with air support. It took a few
days to conquer Belgium, and Denmark and a couple of
weeks to conquer the Netherlands and a month for
Norway. USSR occupied Baltic States and Finland, using
the Molotov pact. Then, Italy also joined and invades
France in June. Germany invades France on 10th June
and on 14 June, Paris fell. Germany attacked many cities
in Britain, like London, Birmingham, etc. through aerial
bombing, continuously for many months. This was called
the Blitz.
The objective behind this attack was to get Britain to sign
a peace treaty which didn’t happen. After a few months,
Britain successfully repealed the attack. This was a huge
setback for the UK. Earlier, the UK thought that no one
could attack their homeland directly, but Germany under
Hitler did. The Tripartite Pact of Germany, Italy, and
Japan were signed. These countries came to be known as
Axis Powers. Later, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania also
joined the Axis power. In 1941, British forces from Egypt
pushed back Italians in Libya, but later German
reinforcement arrived and sent the British back to Egypt.
Then, Germany invaded Yugoslavia and Greece. So,
Germany overruns the entire Central and Southern
Europe.
OPERATION BARBAROSSA 1941
Axis power attacked USSR in June 1941 although, there
was a peace treaty with USSR, and still Hitler attacked it.
Because, he wanted to have Lebensraum – living space
since Germany was expanding, it required more land to
grow crops. So, he started Operation Barbarossa. It is
considered to be the largest land-army operation ever
carried out. They started the attack in June, but couldn’t
win everything by Oct-Nov, and when the harsh Russian
winter came, the German army got bogged down, and
there was a stalemate by the end of 1941.
THE PACIFIC WAR
Japan had conquered large parts of Coastal China by
1940. After joining the Axis power, Japan started
attacking the western colonies in China. France and
Britain had colonies in Asia like Hong Kong, Burma,
Philippines, Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia),
Guam, Indonesia (Dutch East Indies), and Singapore (UK
colony). At that time, the USA had stopped supplying Oil
to Japan. It had put Embargo. Due to this Embargo, Japan
was facing difficulties. Also, Japan was under threat that,
if the USA entered the war, then it would directly attack
them in the Pacific. So, to prevent this, Japan did Pearl
Harbor attack.
PEARL HARBOR ATTACK
With aim of crippling the navies of the USA and the UK,
Japan attacked them at multiple locations on Dec 7-8,
1941. It attacked places like Pearl Harbor (Hawaii),
Malaysia, the Philippines, and Hong Kong. The Pearl
Harbor attack was the largest attack ever on US soil.
Around 2500 soldiers died. Japan also did bombings over
Australia and Papua New Guinea, colonies of the UK.
After this, the USA entered the war on the side of the
Allied forces.
ENTRY OF USA IN 1942
Multiple battles took place between USA and Japan,
throughout the islands of Pacific and South East Asia
from 1942-44 Japan lost at the crucial battle of Midway
and later at Guadalcanal. This turned the tide against
Japan.

THE TIDE TURNS 1942

Till 1942, Axis power was in total control of Europe. But
then, the tide turned. Russians started to push back the
Germans. There was a huge loss of life and a lot of war
crimes on the eastern front. The USSR army pushed back
Germans from Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and Stalingrad
(Volgograd), and from there on victory of the USSR
started. They even conquered some of the areas of
Eastern Europe. Allies also pushed back Germans and
Italians from Libya. The US army attacked Morocco.
Britain attacked Egypt. Tunisia won finally in 1943.
ALLIED POWERS IN WORLD WAR 2
The islands of Sicily and later Italy’s mainland were
attacked by Allied armies. Half of the areas of Italy were
conquered by the Allied forces. The northern part
remained with the Italy Government, as the area was
mountainous, and it took time for Allied forces to reach
there. At the same time, the dictator of Italy, Benito
Mussolini was deposed and arrested by the Italian govt.
By 1944, the USSR army liberated most of Eastern Europe
from Germany. Allied armies were pushing through
Northern Italy and were getting closer to the Japanese
mainland and capturing one island after another.

On June 6th, 1944, Allied forces landed in Northern

France, near Normandy it was also called as Normandy
landing, the largest amphibious (from water to land)
landing ever. For the past 6 years, France was under the
control of Germany. Finally, France was liberated, and
the Germans were pushed back. By 29th April Within 10
months of the Normandy landing, the German army
surrendered and on 30th April 1945, Hitler committed
suicide in his bunker. By mid-1945, Burma, Indonesia,
Philippines were liberated by Allied forces. After
defeating Germany and Italy in Europe, only Japan was
remaining.
HIROSHIMA & NAGASAKI ATOMIC BOMBS
To avoid a full-scale invasion of Japan’s mainland, which
would have resulted in 4-5 laces of US soldiers dying, the
USA decided to drop newly invented Atomic Bombs on
Japan’s two cities. Hiroshima on 6 Aug 1945, its name
was Little Boy (nickname of bombs), and Nagasaki on 9
Aug 1945 whose name was Fat man. For the first and
only time in history, a nuclear bomb was dropped on
someone, and instantly 1.5 laces people died in Nagasaki,
and 80,000 people died in Hiroshima. Japan finally
surrendered on 15 Aug 1945. Thus, with this end WW2.
POST WORLD WAR 2 EVENTS
Beginning of Cold War (1947 – 1991) between USA and
USSR in which two superpowers emerged – USA and
USSR. The Cold war went on for 45 years until USSR
disintegrated in 1991. USSR, USA, UK, and France divided
Germany into two blocks – East and West. Berlin Wall
was erected in the middle of Germany so that people
couldn’t go from East Germany to West Germany. Also,
there was a huge forced transfer of populations in Easter
and Central Europe. United Nation was formed as it
replaced the League of Nations as a new World
Peacekeeping authority. Its main purpose was to prevent
WW3.