At the end of World War I the
victorious nations formed the League of Nations for the
purpose of airing international disputes, and of mobilizing
its members for a collective effort to keep the peace
in the event of aggression by any nation against another
or of a breach of the peace treaties. The United States,
imbued with isolationism, did not become a member.
The League failed in its first test. In 1931 the Japanese,
using as an excuse the explosion of a small bomb under
a section of track of the South Manchuria Railroad (over
which they had virtual control), initiated military operations
designed to conquer all of Manchuria. After receiving
the report of its commission of inquiry, the League adopted
a resolution in 1933 calling on the Japanese to withdraw.
Thereupon, Japan resigned from the League. Meanwhile,
Manchuria had been overrun and transformed into a Japanese
puppet state under the name of Manchukuo. Beset by friction
and dissension among its members, the League took no further
action. In 1933 also, Adolf Hitler
came to power as dictator of Germany and began to rearm
the country in contravention of the provisions of the
Treaty of Versailles. He denounced the provisions of
that treaty that limited German armament and in 1935
reinstituted compulsory military service. That year
the Italian dictator Benito MUSSOLINI began his long-contemplated
invasion of Ethiopia, which he desired as an economic
colony. The League voted minor sanctions against Italy,
but these had slight practical effect. British and French
efforts to effect a compromise settlement failed, and
Ethiopia was completely occupied by the Italians in
1936.
Alarmed by German rearmament, France sought
an alliance with the USSR. Under the pretext that this
endangered Germany, Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland
in 1936. It was a dangerous venture, for Britain and
France could have overwhelmed Germany, but, resolved
to keep the peace, they took no action. Emboldened by
this success, Hitler intensified his campaign for Lebensraum
(space for living) for the German people. He forcibly
annexed Austria in March 1938, and then, charging abuse
of German minorities, threatened Czechoslovakia.
In September, as Hitler increased his demands on the
Czechs and war seemed imminent, the British and French
arranged a conference with Hitler and Mussolini. At
the Munich Conference they agreed to German occupation
of the Sudetenland, Hitler's asserted last claim, in
the hope of maintaining peace. This hope was short lived,
for in March 1939, Hitler took over the rest of Czechoslovakia
and seized the former German port of Memel from Lithuania.
There followed demands on Poland with regard to Danzig
(Gdansk) and the Polish Corridor.
The Poles remained adamant, and it became clear to Hitler
that he could attain his objectives only by force. After
surprising the world with the announcement of a nonaggression
pact with his sworn foe, the Soviet Union, he sent his
armies across the Polish border on Sept. 1, 1939. Britain
and France, pledged to support Poland in the event of
aggression, declared war on Germany two days later.
As the Germans ravaged Poland, the Russians
moved into the eastern part of the country and began
the process that was to lead to the absorption in 1940
of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. They also made demands
on Finland. The recalcitrant Finns were subdued in the
Winter War of 1939-1940, but only after dealing the
Russians several humiliating military reverses.
Meanwhile, Japan had undertaken military operations
for the subjugation of China proper, and was making
preparations for the expansion of its empire into Southeast
Asia and the rich island groups of the Southwest Pacific.
Mussolini watched the progress of his fellow dictator,
Hitler, while preparing to join in the war at a propitious
moment.
Military Course of the War
The bitter struggles and the enormous casualties
suffered by Great Britain and France in World War I
had engendered in their military leaders a defensive
attitude with a reliance on such permanent fortifications
as the Maginot Line and on blockade as means of subduing
a resurgent Germany. Placing their faith in the impotent
League of Nations, both countries neglected the development
of armaments and allowed those they possessed and their
armed forces to deteriorate.
The Germans, on the other hand, smarting under their
failure in World War I to capitalize on initial breakthroughs
of the Allied lines because of lack of sustained power,
developed fast, hard-hitting tank-airplane forces and
the strategy of the blitzkrieg (lightning war). Since
they had been disarmed by the Allies, they were unencumbered
by obsolescent armaments and could equip their forces
with the most modern weapons. As a result, initial German
operations met with surprisingly rapid success.
In less than a month, Poland had been conquered.
There followed an inactive period (dubbed the Phony
War) that lasted until April 1940. Then, despite Allied
intervention, the Germans quickly seized Denmark and
Norway. In May the blitzkrieg struck the western front
in all its fury. Within six weeks the British had been
driven from the Continent, and the French had been forced
to surrender. The speed of the advance also surprised
Hitler, who was not ready to follow his success with
an invasion of the British Isles.
The Luftwaffe, called upon to soften the islands and
gain air superiority while preparations were made for
invasion, received a stunning defeat at the hands of
the small but highly competent and brave Royal Air Force.
Frustrated in the west, Hitler turned against the USSR
in June 1941. In a series of brilliant military maneuvers
in which several million Russians were captured, he
reached the gates of Moscow in December, only to be
stopped by bad weather and Russian reinforcements rushed
to defend the city.
Meanwhile, Mussolini sought to realize his
dream of an Italian Mediterranean empire. In the late
summer and fall of 1940 he launched an offensive from
Libya against the British in Egypt and an invasion of
Greece from Albania (which he had occupied in 1939).
Both enterprises eventually proved disastrous for the
Italians, and German forces were sent to their rescue.
Greece fell to the Germans, but they met stiff British
opposition in Africa.
In December 1941, Japan thought the time ripe to extend
her empire into a Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere
which it did very rapidly against meager opposition.
It was the Japanese plan to fortify this area so strongly
as to withstand American counterattacks and eventually
gain a negotiated peace based on the status quo. The
attacks on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines brought
the United States into the war and greatly altered the
balance of power in favor of the Allies.
The year 1942 saw the turn of the tide for
the Allies. In June, Japanese naval airpower was decimated
by the United States Navy in the Battle of Midway. Having
been repulsed at Moscow, Hitler turned to the Caucasus,
but the Germans were severely defeated and turned back
at Stalingrad (now Volgograd) by the Russians in the
closing months of the year. At the same time the British
dealt the Germans and Italians a defeat at El Alamein
that sent them reeling in retreat westward along the
African Mediterranean coast. In Tunisia they encountered
newly landed British and American forces and were expelled
from Africa in May 1943.
The Allies now had the initiative and, with
the vast production facilities of the United States
in full operation, took the offensive on all fronts.
Resistance was bitter, and progress slow though inexorable.
From bases in Africa the Allies invaded and captured
Sicily in July-August 1943. In September, Italy was
forced out of the war. British (The term "British,
as applied to military forces, includes where appropriate
other Commonwealth forces--Canadian, Australian, New
Zealand, South African, and Indian--which performed
outstandingly during the war.), American, and French
forces began a methodical and relentless advance up
the Italian Peninsula against the Germans, who had been
rushed in to defend it. After Stalingrad the Russians,
in a series of alternating offensives, gradually forced
the Germans back with heavy losses, until by late April
1945 they were approaching Berlin.
Following a massive buildup of troops, air
and naval power, and equipment in the British Isles,
American, British, and French troops landed on the Normandy
coast of France in June 1944 and pressed the Germans
back to the West Wall. There, in December, the Germans
launched a final counterattack, which failed. Aided
by troops landed in southern France from Italy, the
Allies forced the Germans back across the Rhine River
and deep into Germany. Assailed on all sides, and their
major cities devastated by aerial bombardment, the Germans
surrendered on May 7, 1945.
Because of a lack of resources, Allied strategy
had envisioned the prior defeat of Germany while remaining
on the defensive against the Japanese. Only after victory
in Europe would the full Allied power be applied to
Japan. American industrial production increased so rapidly,
however, that limited offensives could be initiated
against the Japanese as early as August 1942. Thereafter,
a persistent two-pronged offensive across the Central
Pacific and along the Solomon Islands-New Guinea axis
steadily pushed the Japanese back.
By the fall of 1944, American forces were landing in
the Philippines, and they regained the islands the next
spring. Then the island of Okinawa, at the threshold
of Japan proper, was captured, and preparations were
begun for the invasion of the home islands. Meanwhile,
the Japanese position in Asia progressively deteriorated.
By the summer of 1945, with its navy and air force virtually
destroyed, its cities at the mercy of American aircraft,
and cut off from sources of supply of much-needed raw
materials, the Japanese foresaw doom. The dropping of
two ATOMIC BOMBS on Japanese cities and the Soviet invasion
of Manchuria hastened their decision to capitulate,
which they did on August 14.
Diplomatic History
of the
War and Postwar Period
The League of Nations having failed through
inertia and internal discord to prevent war, the major
powers aligned themselves in rival groups. In September
1940, Germany, Italy, and Japan signed the Tripartite
Pact in Berlin, formalizing the Axis coalition. Hitler's
invasion forced the Russians into the Franco-British
camp. As the war progressed, the United States departed
from its policy of strict neutrality and rendered greater
and greater aid short of war to the beleaguered Allies.
Blocked in negotiations with the United States from
furthering its aims of expansion, Japan attacked the
American base at Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and forced
the United States into the war.
Meanwhile, in August 1941, Franklin D. ROOSEVELT
and Winston CHURCHILL met on shipboard off Newfoundland
and subsequently issued the Atlantic Charter, in which
they subscribed to certain general principles for achieving
peace. The charter forbade territorial changes contrary
to the wishes of the inhabitants; recognized the right
of people to choose their own forms of government; promised
greater freedom of trade and of the seas; and supported
international cooperation to improve conditions of labor
and social security. Armaments were to be reduced, and
a permanent system of general security was to be created.
The aggressor nations were to be disarmed. On Jan. 1,
1942, the United States, Great Britain, France, the
USSR, China, and 21 other countries signed in Washington
the Declaration by United Nations, pledging mutual assistance
and promising not to enter into separate armistice or
peace negotiations with the Axis powers. The member
nations also subscribed to the Atlantic Charter's purposes
and principles.
At the Casablanca Conference in January 1943,
Roosevelt and Churchill--most probably to allay Joseph
STALIN's suspicions of the loyalty of his allies--proclaimed
a policy of unconditional surrender for Germany, Italy,
and Japan as the only means of maintaining the peace.
This policy may have prolonged the war, but it solidified
the Allied nations and may have forestalled Soviet efforts
toward a separate peace with Germany in 1943.
At the Teheran Conference in late 1943, Roosevelt,
Churchill, and Stalin agreed on broad principles of
operation for an international organization to mediate
differences between nations and maintain peace. At Dumbarton
Oaks in Washington in the fall of 1944 details were
worked out, and it was decided to call the new organization
the United Nations. The San Francisco Conference convened
on April 25, 1945, to organize the United Nations; its
charter was adopted unanimously on June 26.
War's end found the United States and the USSR
the two greatest powers in the world. By the time of
the signing of the Axis satellite treaties early in
1947, the two countries were drawing apart. Friction
over the treaties with Austria, Germany, and Japan and
Soviet aggressive designs in eastern Europe brought
increasing tension, and by the end of 1948 their relationship
could be considered one of cold war. In 1950 armed conflict
arose in Korea between Soviet-backed Communist forces
and United Nations forces led by the United States.
The cold war between the East and West continued thereafter,
with the Communists striving for world domination through
subversion and infiltration, and the West seeking to
frustrate their designs.
Source:
Vincent J. Esposito
Colonel, United States Army
Head, Department of Military Art, United States Military
Academy
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