World War 2, Summary, Consequences

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,
labour, 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

There were two main groups in World War 2 i.e, Allied Powers and Axis Powers.

Allied Powers Axis Powers

 United Kingdom

 France,

 USA,
 Nazi Germany (3rd Reich)
 USSR,
 Italy
 China,
 Japan
 Poland,

 Yugoslavia,

 Greece

Events Leading to Second World War

There the subsequent major events occurred that led to the 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 Anschluss. 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. To strengthen the pact Germany signed a common pact with Italy and Japan.
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, 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 Hongkong, Burma, Philippines, Indochina (Vietnam, Laos,
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 Harbour attack.

Pearl Harbour 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 Harbour (Hawaii), Malaysia, the Philippines, and Hongkong. The Pearl Harbour 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 was attacked by Allied armies. Half of the areas of Italy were conquered by the
Allied forces. The northern part remained with the Italy Govt, 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 30 th 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 lakhs 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 lakh 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. 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.

Consequences of WWII

There were many important consequences of the Second World War, including:

 The Soviet Union and the United States became superpowers after it ended, in 1945. They were no longer Allies but
opponents in the Cold War (1945-1991), which split the world into two competing blocs.

 The United Nations replaced the League of Nations with four Allies (Soviet Union, United States, Britain, and China),
and France, as the permanent members of the Security Council.

 The United States used the atomic bomb for the first time in history against Japan's Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From
then on, a nuclear arms race began.

 The decolonization process continued in Asia and Africa. Many countries became independent. However, in some
cases, this process was accompanied by military conflicts, such as the Vietnam War.