World_War_II

The largest armed conflict the world has ever seen, with a huge scope - for the first time spanning the world - and fought with powerful new weapons, culminating in the atomic bomb, turned against the civilian population (rather than the soldiers) to a larger extent then ever before. It had its beginning in expansion attempts by Germany - invading Austria, Czechoslovakia, and finally Poland (Sep 1 1939) in its quest for Lebensraum, resulting in a declaration of war from Britain and France.

France fell quickly to a new tactic, the Blitzkrieg, and Britain was left to fend for itself. Soon, though, the Soviet union was drawn into the conflict. At first it had acted as Hitler's ally, partitioning the east with him - they invaded Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, and east Poland in the busy year of 1939. However, on June 22, 1941, the Germans broke the treaty and invaded, advancing almost as far as Moscow before being defeated by the worst Russian winter since Napoleon.

That same year war spread to the Pacific. Japan had been active in attempts to expand its holdings, notably in the Sino-Japanese war. Now in an attempt to eliminate its main potential opposition, the American navy, it attacked Pearl Harbor and proceeded to invade much of southeast Asia and many Pacific islands. Unfortunately for its ally, Germany, this also drew America into the European theatre.

Eventually the allied powers, now including the states, were victorious. Germany's power was broken by his disastrous Russian campaign, and the succesful liberation of France reopened the western front on the continent. Hitler commited suicide, the Russians took Berlin, and the country was partitioned. By then Japan had begun to weaken as well, and surrendered after two of its civilian cities (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) were destroyed by nuclear weapons. The war ended in 1945.

The combatants after 1941 were:

*Allied powers

China

United Kingdom

*Axis powers