WORLD WAR – II

 

Introduction

• World War II, also called Second World War, was a conflict that involved virtually every part of the world during the years 1939–45
• The principal belligerents were the Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—and the Allies—France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and, to a lesser extent, China
• The war was in many respects a continuation, after an uneasy 20-year hiatus, of the disputes left unsettled by World War I

 

WW2: Timeline

 

WW2: Causes

• The Treaty of Versailles
  • In 1919, representatives from more than two dozen countries gathered in France to draft peace treaties that would set the terms for the end of World War I
  • Negotiations dragged on for months, but in the end, the Treaty of Versailles forced Germany to accept blame for the conflict, give up its overseas colonies and 13 percent of its European territory, limit the size of its army and navy, and pay reparations (financial damages) to the war’s winners.
  • Germans were incensed and staged protests over what they saw as harsh and humiliating terms
    • Further, one of the central tenets of the Nazi party was to undo the deal, and campaign promises like those helped the group gain followers.
• The League of Nations and Diplomatic Idealism
  • The League of Nations emerged from the Treaty of Versailles with thirty-two member countries, including most of the victors of World War I, and eventually expanded to include Germany and the other defeated nations
    • Under the organization’s founding agreement, these countries promised not to resort to war again
  • Traumatized and weakened from the First World War, the League’s great powers proved not only unable to respond to these security threats but uninterested in addressing them
  • By the onset of World War II, the League had been effectively side-lined from international politics
    • The League’s powers were limited to persuasion and various levels of moral and economic sanctions that the members were free to carry out as they saw fit
• The Rise of Hitler
  • Back-to-back crises hit the German economy
    • In the early 1920s, the country experienced hyperinflation, a situation in which prices skyrocketed so quickly that German currency lost much of its value
    • After a period of economic recovery—and a moment in which it seemed democracy could take hold in Germany—the Great Depression kicked off a new era of financial and political turmoil.
    • Between 1929 and 1932, German unemployment skyrocketed nearly fivefold, eventually affecting a quarter of the labour force.
  • At this moment, the Nazi party capitalised the situation, and promised to undo the Treaty of Versailles
    • They also sought to create a much larger, racially pure Germany. Under Nazi ideology, Germans were racially superior and entitled to greater territory or lebensraum (living space) in the east
  • The appointment of Hitler as Chancellor further, poised the situation for racism and extremism in politics eventually setting up for War
• Japanese Imperialism
  • Japan had long sought to accumulate imperial power.
    • Taiwan became Japan’s first colony in 1895, and more territory followed.
    • In 1931, Japan invaded China’s Manchuria region
  • But Japan’s ascendancy and the conflict in Europe concerned USA
  • So, the United States declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941, one day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour

 

WW2: A Glimpse

• German Aggression
  • The war in Europe began in September 1939, when Germany, under Chancellor Adolf Hitler, invaded Poland. Britain and France responded by declaring war on Germany
  • Consequently, Germany launched attacked on Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Italy, Greece
• The USSR
  • Later in 1941, Germany began its most ambitious action yet, by invading the Soviet Union.
  • Although the Germans initially made swift progress and advanced deep into the Russian heartland, the invasion of the USSR would prove to be the downfall of Germany’s war effort.
  • In 1943, after the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk, Germany was forced into a full-scale retreat
• The Normandy Invasion
  • In June 1944, British and American forces launched the D-Day Invasion, landing in German-occupied France via the coast of Normandy.
  • Soon the German army was forced into retreat from that side as well.
• The Pacific Theatre
  • The war in the Pacific began on December 7, 1941, when warplanes from Japan launched a surprise attack on the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbour
  • In late spring of 1942, the United States and Japan engaged in a series of naval battles, climaxing in the Battle of Midway on June 3–6, 1942, in which Japan suffered a catastrophic defeat.
  • This process continued through the summer of 1945 until finally, in early August, the United States dropped two Atomic Bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Stunned by the unexpected devastation, Japan surrendered a few days later.
• The surrender
  • The German Instrument of Surrender ended World War II in Europe in 1945
  • Also, the surrender of Japan was announced by Imperial Japan on August 15 and formally signed on September 2, 1945, bringing the hostilities of World War II to a close.
  • Further, The Treaty of Peace with Italy (one of the Paris Peace Treaties) was signed on February 10, 1947 between Italy and the victorious powers of World War II, formally ending hostilities. It came into general effect on September 15, 1947

 

WW2: Aftermath

• Around 75 million people died in World War II, including about 20 million military personnel and 40 million civilians, many of whom died because of deliberate genocide, massacres, mass-bombings, disease, and starvation
• A denazification programme in Germany led to the prosecution of Nazi war criminals in the Nuremberg trials
  • Germany lost a quarter of its pre-war (1937) territory
• Post-war division of the world was formalised by two international military alliances, the United States-led NATO and the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact
• In Asia, the United States led the occupation of Japan and administered Japan’s former islands in the Western Pacific, while the Soviets annexed South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands
• In China, nationalist and communist forces resumed the civil war in June 1946. Communist forces were victorious and established the People’s Republic of China on the mainland, while nationalist forces retreated to Taiwan in 1949
• The global economy suffered heavily from the war, although participating nations were affected differently.
  • The United States emerged much richer than any other nation and it dominated the world economy
• Recovery began with the mid-1948 currency reform in Western Germany, and was sped up by the liberalisation of European economic policy that the Marshall Plan (1948–1951) both directly and indirectly caused
• The Soviet Union, despite enormous human and material losses, also experienced rapid increase in production in the immediate post-war era

 

WW2: Outcomes

• The Atlantic Charter
  • The Atlantic Charter set goals for the post-war world and inspired many of the international agreements that shaped the world thereafter, most notably the United Nations.
  • The Charter stated the ideal goals of the war with eight principal points:
    • No territorial gains were to be sought by the United States or the United Kingdom;
    • Territorial adjustments must be in accord with the wishes of the peoples concerned;
    • All people had a right to self-determination;
    • Trade barriers were to be lowered;
    • There was to be global economic cooperation and advancement of social welfare;
    • The participants would work for a world free of want and fear;
    • The participants would work for freedom of the seas;
    • There was to be disarmament of aggressor nations, and a post-war common disarmament.
  • The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the post-war independence of European colonies, and many other key policies are derived from the Atlantic Charter
• The United Nations
  • As a replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the United Nations organization was established after World War II to prevent another such conflict
  • The United Nations Charter was drafted at a conference in April–June 1945; this charter took effect October 24, 1945, and the UN began operation
  • The great powers that were the victors of the war—France, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States—became the permanent members of the UN’s Security Council
• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
  • The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a non-binding declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, partly in response to the barbarism of World War II.
    • The UDHR urged member nations to promote a number of human, civil, economic, and social rights, asserting these rights are part of the “foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.”
• Advances in technology and warfare
  • During the War, Aircraft were used for reconnaissance, as fighters, bombers, and ground-support, and each role was advanced considerably
    • Innovation included airlift (the capability to quickly move limited high-priority supplies, equipment, and personnel); and of strategic bombing
    • Anti-aircraft weaponry also advanced, including defences such as radar and surface-to-air artillery
    • Advances were made in nearly every aspect of naval warfare, most notably with aircraft carriers and submarines
  • Land warfare changed from the static front lines of trench warfare of World War I, which had relied on improved artillery that outmatched the speed of both infantry and cavalry, to increased mobility and combined arms
    • The tank, which had been used predominantly for infantry support in the First World War, had evolved into the primary weapon
  • Most major belligerents attempted to solve the problems of complexity and security involved in using large codebooks for cryptography by designing ciphering machines, the most well-known being the German Enigma machine
  • Other technological and engineering feats achieved during, or as a result of, the war include the world’s first programmable computers (Z3, Colossus, and ENIAC), guided missiles and modern rockets, the Manhattan Project’s development of nuclear weapons, operations research and the development of artificial harbours and oil pipelines under the English Channel

World War 2 and India

• During the Second World War (1939–1945), India was a part of the British Empire, with the British holding territories in India that included over six hundred autonomous Princely States
  • So, the British Raj, as part of the Allied Nations, sent over two and a half million soldiers to fight under British command against the Axis powers
• Indians fought with distinction throughout the world, including in the European theatre against Germany, in North Africa against Germany and Italy, in the South Asian region defending India against the Japanese and fighting the Japanese in Burma
• At the height of the second World War, more than 5 million Indian troops were fighting Axis forces around the globe
  • Further, About 15 percent of all the Victoria Crosses — Britain’s highest decoration for valour — awarded during the Second World War went to Indian and Nepalese troops.
• Also, India’s strategic location at the tip of the Indian Ocean, its large production of armaments, and its huge armed forces played a decisive role in halting the progress of Imperial Japan in the South-East Asian theatre

• Reaction from Indians
  • Viceroy Linlithgow declared that India was at war with Germany without consultations with Indian politicians
  • Political parties such as the Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha supported the British war effort
  • While the Indian National Congress, demanded independence before it would help Britain
• Impact on India
  • Marks of Progress
    • In India, there were massive training, airfield-construction and port-development efforts, which completely transformed the dockyards of Bombay, Calcutta, Cochin and Trincomalee
    • The number of airfields in the country increased from less than a dozen at the start of the war to over 200. Most airports in India today are legacies of that effort

• • Ruination of Rural economies
    • Period of WW2 was a period of utter ruination of rural economies in India, partly because of the diversion of food to the war effort
    • A great example could be of the Bengal Famine in 1943, which was devastating for the Indian people but with the British refusing to stop supplies from India in favour of those suffering in the country, only strengthened the resolve of the nationalists in their call for freedom.
    • Some of the key reasons for this famine are:
      • British export of food and material for the war in Europe;
      • Japanese invasion of Burma which cut off food and other essential supplies to the region;
      • British denial orders destroying essential food transportation throughout the Eastern region;
      • British banned transfer of grain from other provinces, turning down offers of grain from Australia;
      • mismanagement by British Indian regional governments;
      • constructing 900 airfields (2000 acres each) taking that huge amount of land out of agriculture in a time of dire need;
      • price inflation caused by war production
      • Increase in demand partially as a result of refugees from Burma and Bengal.
  • Congress Resignation from Provincial Government
    • Indian National Congress(INC) expected that the British would consult them in any decision regarding the role of Indian troops in the war
    • But the British did not bother to take Congress into confidence and declared Indian troops at war with Germany
    • Congress members got offended and resigned from its ministries at the provincial level in protest
  • Grant of Independence to India
    • The British had crushed the agitation and kept tight grip on India till end of the war
    • But, they could not hold on to their colonies after war
      • They had to focus on rebuilding their Economy from scratch again
    • Also, the British failed in its Cripps Mission, failed to reconciliate in Cabinet Mission as well
    • This compelled the British to finally announce the partition of India into Pakistan in 1947