The Second World War was the largest multilateral armed conflict in world history. Its main participants were two large military-political coalitions of several countries. A total of sixty-two countries were involved in the war in one way or another.
The years of World War II are 1939-1945, but it actually began earlier, when the main instigators of the conflict – Germany, Italy and Japan – began to realize the imperial ambitions of their political elite. It is in the aggressive actions of these countries that the main causes of World War II lie.
Why World War II began
The preconditions for the largest military conflict was the predecessor of the Versailles peace treaty that was imposed after World War I by Britain and France on the defeated Germany. Its conditions that were economically unfeasible and legally unjust created international tensions and a desire for revenge among the German people.
On the wave of these sentiments, radicals came to power in Germany – the National Socialists, led by Adolf Hitler. They stopped abiding by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, began to increase the industrial and military power of the country.
Soon Germany began to have aggressive foreign policy plans. There was its rapprochement with Italy, where the Fascists, led by Benito Mussolini, who came to power, set out to expand the country to the size of the Ancient Roman Empire.
The main “warmongers” in Asia were the Japanese, who occupied Manchuria and North China in 1931 and then launched an attack on the rest of that country.
In 1938, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy entered into the “Munich Treaty,” which authorized the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in exchange for peace.
In 1939, the USSR proposed to Britain and France to join the trilateral alliance for mutual assistance in case of German aggression, but was refused. Then the Soviet Union agreed to a non-aggression agreement with Germany, which was accompanied by a secret protocol of division of Poland. According to it, Hitler took most of the western part of this country, and Stalin returned to the Soviet Union the Ukrainian and Belarusian lands, annexed by Poland during the collapse of the Russian empire.
September 1939, when this protocol was implemented, was the beginning of World War II.
When World War II began
The invasion of Poland by German troops is generally considered the beginning of World War 2, because it caused the main geopolitical players, England, France, and the USSR, to enter the conflict. Western countries, however, limited themselves to mere imitation of military action against Germany, dubbed the “strange war.”
Nevertheless, the question: World War II began in what year? – the usual answer is 1939.
Hitler launched a large-scale submarine and air war against Britain, but by 1941 he came to the conclusion that he would not be able to crush the British fleet and air force with the available technical means.
In the winter of 1939-1940. The Soviet Union decided to push back the border from Leningrad, for which purpose it offered Finland to exchange part of the Karelian Isthmus for twice as much territory in Karelia. Having been refused, the USSR attacked Finland and seized the land on the Karelian Isthmus.
Germany continued its expansion in Europe in 1940, conquering Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland and then France.
Fascist Italy confronted the British in North Africa, seeking to seize the Suez Canal. In the spring of 1941 the Italians were joined by the Germans in the region. At the same time Italian-German and allied Hungarian and Bulgarian forces seized Greece and Yugoslavia. After that Hitler decided to proceed with its plans of aggression against the USSR.
In parallel with these events, Japan’s aggression in China and Indochina was expanding.
World War II – the years of decisive battles
With the German invasion of the USSR, in June 1941, the decisive phase of World War II began.
It began with the onslaught of German and its allies’ troops on the territory of the Soviet Union and the heavy defeats of the Red Army.
However, as early as December 1941 the Soviet troops seized the initiative and crushed the aggressors with a counterattack near Moscow.
The decisive was the victory of the Red Army in the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942-1943. It was the largest military defeat for Germany, Hungary, Italy and Romania in their history (troops of all these countries participated in the operation at Stalingrad).
Victory in the Battle of Kursk Bulge, in the summer of 1943, finally secured the strategic initiative for the Red Army. In 1944 it liberated all occupied regions of the USSR from the invaders and continued its offensive against Germany across Eastern Europe.
In parallel, World War II continued in other theaters of war. In the Pacific, the Americans and Japanese fought. The British defeated Italian-German forces in North Africa in 1943, after which they landed in Italy and defeated it in a few months.
In the summer of 1944 Anglo-American troops opened a “second front” against Germany in Europe with their massive landing in Normandy. The Soviet troops, having defeated the last large and combat-ready groups of Hitler’s troops in Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, took Berlin at the end of April 1945 and met with Allied troops.
When World War II ended
Many people mistakenly believe that the date of the end of World War II is May 9, 1945. In fact, the date of the end of World War II is September 2, 1945, when Germany’s last ally, militaristic Japan, surrendered.
It was also crushed by the Soviets with a series of decisive offensives in the Far East, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands in August.
On August 6 and 9, 1945 the United States carried out demonstration atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. In this inhumane way the U.S. showed the world the power of nuclear weapons, which no country had yet possessed.
Results of World War II
The total number of victims of World War II is estimated from 55 to 70 million people. It caused colossal destruction, incalculable suffering of the population of many countries. Especially large-scale damage was caused to the Soviet Union.
The end of World War II was marked by the monstrous war crime of the United States – the use of nuclear weapons against the civilian population of Japan.
In this regard, it should be noted that World War II ended under the sign of enormous development of science and technology. Scientists of different countries (first of all – Germany) in search of new effective weapons and in order to improve military technology made a number of important discoveries.
World War II took place with an unprecedented level of motorization, regular introduction of new technical and combat means.
The world community recognized Fascist and Nazi ideologies as criminal and banned their propaganda. To prevent such destructive wars, the United Nations was founded.
In many Western countries, Communist parties began to play a prominent role in politics, in the wake of the military successes of the USSR. However, local political elites did everything they could to keep the Communists out of power and gradually wiped out their influence on the masses.
Europe became divided into western capitalist and eastern socialist blocs, the relations between them deteriorated sharply. The leading role in world politics began to be played by the USSR and the USA. A bipolar international geopolitical system, which existed in the conditions of the Cold War, was formed.