WWII (jan 1, 1939 – jan 1, 1945)

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The stakes of World War II were no less than global domination. Had the Axis powers triumphed, Germany would have controlled, either directly or indirectly, all of Europe and much of Africa and the Middle East; Japan would have controlled most of East and Southeast Asia. Such an outcome would have crippled democracy in Europe and restricted American power to the Western Hemisphere. Although Pearl Harbor was the immediate cause of American entry into the war, the larger challenge to democracy and international order would have inevitably brought the United States into the conflict. The combination of the profound sacrifice of the Soviet Union and the Russian people, American industrial might, and British perseverance eventually defeated the Axis powers at great cost. The relationships among the Allies would also shape the character of the postwar world.

Wartime Aims and Tensions
Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union were the key actors in the Allied coalition. China, France, and other nations played crucial but smaller roles. The leaders who became known as the Big Three — Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain, and Premier Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union — forged a grand strategy. But there were fissures in the alliance from the start. Stalin was not a party to the Atlantic Charter, which Churchill and Roosevelt had signed in August 1941, and disagreed fundamentally with some of its precepts, such as a capitalist international trading system. The Allies also disagreed about specific military plans and timing. The Big Three saw defeating Germany, rather than Japan, as the top military priority, but differed over how to stop the Nazi war machine. In 1941, the German Wehrmacht (army) had invaded the Soviet Union and raced as far as the outskirts of Moscow. The hard-pressed Red Army pushed the advance back in early 1942, but Nazi troops still besieged the major city of Leningrad and threatened to overwhelm vital areas to the south. To relieve pressure on the Soviet army, Stalin wanted the British and Americans to open a second European front by invading Nazi-controlled France.

EXAM TIP
Recognize the role of Allied cooperation in the military victory of the United States in World War II.

Roosevelt informally assured Stalin that the Allies hoped to launch this counteroffensive in 1942, but Churchill opposed a hasty invasion, and American war production had yet to hit full stride. For eighteen months, Stalin’s pleas went unanswered, and the Soviet Union bore the brunt of the war against Hitler. In the 1943 Battle of Kursk alone, the Soviet army suffered 860,000 casualties, several times what the Allies would suffer for the first two months of the European campaign after D-Day. In a November 1943 summit in Tehran, Roosevelt and Churchill committed to opening a second front in France within six months in return for Stalin’s promise to join the fight against Japan. Both sides adhered to this agreement, but the long delay angered Stalin, who became increasingly suspicious of American and British intentions.

SKILLS & PROCESSES
COMPARISON

How did the Allies disagree over military strategy?

The War in Europe
The first half of 1942 marked the low tide of the war for the Allies. Though stopped at Moscow, German armies rolled through the wheat farms of the Ukraine and into the rich oil region of the Caucasus near the Black Sea. Simultaneously, Hitler’s forces began an offensive in North Africa aimed at seizing the critical Suez Canal. In the Atlantic, U-boats devastated American convoys carrying fuel and other vital supplies to Britain and the Soviet Union.

As 1943 approached, the tide began to turn. The Allies launched a counteroffensive in North Africa that became a temporary substitute for a European second front. In “Operation Torch,” joint British-American forces invaded Algeria and Morocco in November 1942. By May 1943, combined Allied efforts led by General Dwight D. Eisenhower and General George S. Patton defeated Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps. In the epic Battle of Stalingrad, Soviet forces halted the German advance, and the drained invaders began to lose ground. By early 1944, Stalin’s troops had driven the German army out of the Soviet Union (Map 23.2).

A map of Europe and parts of North Africa marks Axis powers, Axis occupied, Allied powers and possessions, Neutral nations, Allied advances, Allied air operations, and major battle sites.
MAPPING THE PAST

MAP 23.2 World War II in Europe and North Africa, 1941–1943

Hitler’s Germany reached its greatest extent in 1942, by which time Nazi forces had occupied Norway, France, North Africa, central Europe, and much of western Russia. The tide of battle turned in late 1942 when the German advance stalled at Leningrad and Stalingrad. By early 1943, the Soviet army had launched a massive counterattack at Stalingrad, and Allied forces had driven the Germans from North Africa and launched an invasion of Sicily and the Italian mainland.

ANALYZING THE MAP: Identify the combined footprint of the Axis powers and the countries they occupied. Identify both Allied and neutral nations.

MAKING CONNECTIONS: How would you characterize the relative strength of the Axis and Allied military positions from 1941 to 1943? How does the map inform your understanding of Joseph Stalin’s call for a second European front?


The countries with Axis powers are Finland, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Italy, and East Prussia. Axis occupied areas include Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, France, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, Luxembourg, Corsica, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia. The countries with Allied powers and possessions are the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Trans-Jordan, Lebanon, Cyprus, Palestine, and Egypt. The neutral nations are Portugal, Spain, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Switzerland, Spanish Morocco, and Ireland. Allied advances in 1942 and 1943, focused on Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Italy in the South, and in 1943, Allied advances in the North focused on Poland. Allied air operations in 1942 and 1943, originated from the UK, attacking Germany. The map shows major battles in the south at El Alamein (October 23 to November 5, 1942); Kassarine Pass (February 14 to 22, 1943); Mareth (March 20 to 26, 1943); and Salerno (September 10, 1943). The major battles in the north occurred in Kursk (July 5 to 23, 1943) and Stalingrad (August 21, 1942, to January 31, 1943).

After victory in Africa, the Allied command followed Churchill’s strategy of invading Nazi-controlled Europe via the “soft underbelly” of Italy. Allied forces landed on the island of Sicily in early July 1943, and soon after the Italian king Victor Emmanuel III ousted Mussolini’s fascist regime. Italy would be officially out of the war by the time Allied forces invaded the Italian mainland in September. But German troops seized control of their former Axis partner and proved more than a match for the Allies. American and British divisions took Rome only in June 1944 and were still fighting German forces in northern Italy when the European war ended in May 1945 (Map 23.3). Churchill’s southern strategy proved an immense, costly mistake, leading to hundreds of thousands of casualties but producing no strategic advantage.

EXAM TIP
Explain how the impact of D-Day was a turning point event in World War II.

A map of Europe and parts of North Africa marks Axis powers, Axis occupied, Allied powers and possessions, Neutral nations, Allied advances, Allied air operations, and major battle sites.
MAP 23.3 World War II in Europe, 1944–1945

By the end of 1943, the Russian army had nearly pushed the Germans out of the Soviet Union, and by June 1944, when the British and Americans finally invaded France, the Russians had liberated eastern Poland and most of southeastern Europe. By the end of 1944, British and American forces were ready to invade Germany from the west, and the Russians were poised to do the same from the east. Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945.

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