HIST103: World History (1600–Present)

World War II, also WWII, or the Second World War, was a global military conflict that took place between 1939 and 1945. It was the largest and deadliest war in history. The date commonly given for the start of the war is September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Within two days, the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany, although the only European battles remained in Poland. Pursuant to a then-secret provision of its non-aggression Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union joined with Germany on September 17, 1939, to conquer Poland and to divide Eastern Europe.

Soldiers of the 55th Armored Infantry Battalion and tank of the 22nd Tank Battalion move through a smoke-filled street. Wernberg, Germany.

The Allies were initially made up of Poland, the British Empire, France, and others. In May 1940, Germany invaded Western Europe. Six weeks later, France surrendered to Germany. Three months after that, Germany, Italy, and Japan signed a mutual defense agreement, the Tripartite Pact, and were known as the Axis Powers. Then, nine months later, in June 1941, Germany betrayed and invaded the Soviet Union, forcing the Soviets into the Allied camp (although they continued their non-aggression treaty with Japan).

In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States, bringing it into the war on the Allied side. China also joined the Allies, as eventually did most of the rest of the world. From the beginning of 1942 through August 1945, battles raged across all of Europe, in the North Atlantic Ocean, across North Africa, throughout Southeast Asia and China, across the Pacific Ocean, and in the air over Germany and Japan.

After World War II, Europe was split into Western and Soviet spheres of influence. Western Europe later aligned with NATO and Eastern Europe as the Warsaw Pact. There was a shift in power from Western Europe and the British Empire to the two post-war superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. These two rivals would later face off in the Cold War.

In Asia, Japan's defeat led to its democratization. China's civil war continued into the 1950s, resulting eventually in the establishment of the People's Republic of China. European colonies began their road to independence. Disgusted at the human cost of war, as people had been after World War I, a commitment to diplomacy to resolve differences was written into the charter of the new international body that replaced the failed League of Nations, the United Nations, which this time attracted U.S. support.

The real effectiveness of this body has been subsequently compromised because member states act when it suits them and sometimes bypass it altogether. The victory, though, of the Allies over the Axis powers is usually regarded as having safeguarded democracy and freedom. The Holocaust represented one of the the most evil incidents in human history. Even still, the Allies cannot be said to have conducted the war according to the highest standards of combat, using mass bombings that provoked one leading British Bishop, George Bell (1883-1958), to withdraw his support for the just cause of the war.

Source: New World Encyclopedia, https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/World_War_II
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