The war in brief

History and major & minor players on each side

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The beginning of World War II may actually be traced to the end of World War I, in 1919, when Germany felt forced as the defeated nation to comply with an unfair and humiliating treaty.

By the mid-1930s, Adolf Hitler had risen to power in Germany and was pushing his country's rearmament and belligerent attitudes toward its neighbors.

Britain's response to the threat of war was to appease rather than confront Hitler and his generals.

By late 1938, Hitler was making speeches that furiously proclaimed Germany's right to annex the Sudetenland, a Czechoslovak territory with a significant German population.

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew to Germany to calm the situation, eventually signing the Munich Agreement with Hitler, giving control of the Sudetenland to Nazi Germany.

With the invasion of the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Britain was no longer acquiescent and Chamberlain warned that any further attacks would meet resistance.

Then, on Sept. 1, 1939, German forces --without warning or a declaration of war -- invaded Poland. Just before dawn, German tanks, infantry and cavalry penetrated Polish territory on several fronts with five armies, a total of 1.5 million troops.

Soon afterwards, German planes bombarded the cities. The meager Polish defenses were heavily outnumbered in artillery, infantry and air power.

On Sept. 3, Britain and France declared war on Hitler and the Nazis, mobilizing their forces to wage war on Germany for the second time in less than 25 years.

By late 1940, Italy, Hungary and Japan had formally joined Germany to form the Axis Powers.

Britain and France were rapidly recruiting nations to join them as the Allies.

Japan had almost a decade of belligerence to its credit already, beginning with the invasion of Manchuria in 1931, its withdrawal from the League of Nations (a precursor to the United Nations) in 1933 and its invasion of China in 1937.

As German forces spread across Europe -- invading Denmark, Norway, France, Belgium and the Netherlands -- Japanese forces invaded French Indochina, Thailand, Malaya, Hong Kong, Bali, Burma, Borneo, Wake Island, the Philippines, Singapore, Solomon Islands, the Dutch East Indies and other islands.

In England in May 1940, Winston Churchill succeeded Chamberlain as prime minister, and within three months nightly raids on London by German bombers begin.

The Soviet Union, which had joined the Nazis in invading Poland in 1939 and continued to invade its neighbors as an Axis power, switched sides in June 1941 after Germany sent an invasion force into Russian territory.

Also in 1941, German scientists began experiments with the use of gas chambers at Auschwitz concentration camp. By war's end, the Nazis would kill more than 6 million Jews in one of history's largest mass exterminations.

Italian forces, meanwhile, invaded Egypt and other African nations that had been English colonies.

With America's entry into the war on Dec. 8, 1941, the balance of power in Europe began to shift. And in February 1943, Germans surrendered at Stalingrad in the first big defeat of Hitler's armies.

But the war was far from over: 1943 would see U.S. planes firebombing German cities, German U-boats sinking Allied ships all across the Atlantic and the fall of dictator Benito Mussolini in Italy.

One of the major events of the war was the D-Day landings on June 6, 1944, when the largest flotilla ever amassed landed Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy, France.

This began the push that would end the European war less than a year later, with the unconditional surrender of all German forces on May 7, 1945 -- just one week after Hitler committed suicide in Berlin.

In the Pacific Theater, early June 1942 is considered the turning point, with a decisive victory for the U.S. and Allied forces at the Battle of Midway. But the war there would continue for another three years, until nuclear bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early August 1945. Those who supported the use of the first -- and only -- nuclear weapons of war believed that an invasion of the Japanese homeland would have cost the lives of 1 million Allied military men.

Japan formally surrendered aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on Sept. 2, 1945.

President Franklin Roosevelt did not live to see the end of the war; he had died in April and Vice President Harry Truman succeeded him.

 

 

World War II pitted the German-led Axis powers against the British-led Allies in battles throughout what became known as the European Theater and throughout the Pacific Ocean, what was called the Pacific Theater.

Below is a breakdown, which may not include every country that participated, of the alignment of the Axis powers and the Allies:

 

Major Axis powers

* Nazi Germany, under Führer Adolf Hitler

* Japan, under Emperor Hirohito and Prime Minister Hideki Tojo

* Italy (until Sept. 8, 1943), under Prime Minister Benito Mussolini & King Victor Emmanuel III.

 

Lesser Axis powers

* Bulgaria (until August 1944)

* Hungary (until April 4, 1945)

* Romania (until August 1944)

* Italian Social Republic (Republic of Salò), under Benito Mussolini

 

Countries officially in active coalition with the Axis

* USSR (until June 22, 1941, Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact)

* Denmark (joined the Anti-Comintern Pact in 1941)

* Finland (June 26, 1944-July 31, 1944, Ryti-Ribbentrop Agreement)

* Independent State of Croatia (until May 1945)

* Thailand, under Field Marshal Luang Phibunsongkhram.

* Provisonal Government of Free India

 

Countries under direct internal Axis control

* Manchukuo (Manchuria; until August 1945)

* Mengjiang (until August 1945)

* Reformed Government of the Republic of China (until August 1945)

* Vichy France (until August 1944)

* Slovakia (until 1944-45)

* Lokot Republic (until 1943)

* Belarusian Central Rada (until 1944)

* Reichskommissariat der Ostland (until 1944)

* Reichskommissariat der Ukraine (until 1943-44)

 

Neutral countries with good relations with the Axis

* Spain (until 1945)

* Argentina (until March 27, 1945, when it declared war against Germany and Japan under American pressure.)

 

Major Allies

(These countries would later become the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council)

* China

* France (Sept. 3, 1939), then (after 1940) Free France

* United Kingdom (Sept. 3, 1939)

* Soviet Union (from June 22, 1941)

* United States (from Dec. 7, 1941)

 

Minor Allies

* Albania

* Australia

* Belgium (invaded by Germany May 10, 1940)

* Belgian Congo

* Borneo (invaded by Japan)

* Brazil

* Bulgaria

* Burma (invaded by Japan)

* Canada (Sept. 19, 1939)

* Czechoslovakia

* Denmark

* Ethiopia

* Finland

* French Indochina (invaded by Japan)

* Greece (invaded by Germany Oct. 28, 1940)

* Greenland

* Holland (invaded by Germany May 10, 1940)

* Hong Kong (invaded by Japan)

* Hungary (after Jan. 20, 1945)

* Iceland

* India

* Iraq

* Italy (after Oct. 13, 1943)

* Liberia

* Luxembourg

* Malaya (invaded by Japan)

* Mongolia

* New Zealand

* Nepal

* Newfoundland

* Norway (invaded by Germany April 9, 1940)

* Persia

* Philippines (invaded by Japan)

* Poland (invaded by Germany Sept. 1, 1939)

* Rhodesia

* Romania

* Singapore (invaded by Japan)

* Solomon Islands (invaded by Japan)

* South Africa

* Thailand (invaded by Japan)

* Tonga

* Turkey

* Wake Island (invaded by Japan)

* Yugoslavia

 

Nonfighting ("moral support") Allies

* Argentina

* Bolivia

* Brazil

* Chile

* Colombia

* Costa Rica

* Cuba

* Dominican Republic

* Ecudor

* El Salvador

* Haiti

* Honduras

* Mexico

* Nicaragua

* Panama

* Paraguay

* Peru

* Uruguay

* Venezuela

 

 

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