World War II (Central Victory)

World War II, or the Second World War (often abbreviated as WWII or WW2), was a global conflict that was underway by 1939 and ended in 1945. It involved a vast majority of the world's nations—including all of the great power—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, with more than 100 million people serving in military units. In a state of "total war", the major participants placed their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities at the service of the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Marked by significant events involving the mass death of civilians, including the only use of nuclear weapons in warfare, it resulted in 50 million to over 70 million fatalities. These deaths make the war the deadliest conflict in human history.

Although Japan was already at war with China in 1937, the world war is generally said to have begun on September 1, 1939, with the invasion of Belarus and Ukraine by the Soviet Union, and subsequent declarations of war on the USSR by Germany and most of the countries of the Central Powers. The Soviet Union set out to establish a large empire in Europe. From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, the Soviet Union conquered or subdued much of continental Europe; amid French and British declarations of war, the German Empire fully or partially occupied territories of two of its European neighbours. Britain and the Commonwealth remained the only major force continuing the fight against the Axis in the west, with battles taking place in North Africa as well as the long-running Battle of the Atlantic. In June 1941, the Eastern European Allies launched an invasion of Germany, giving a start to the largest land theatre of war in history, which, tied down the major part of the Axis' military forces. In December 1941, Japan, which aimed to dominate Asia, attacked the United States and European possessions in the Pacific Ocean, quickly conquering much of the region.

The Allied advance was stopped in 1942, after the United States lost a series of naval battles and European Allied troops were defeated in North Africa and, decisively, at Berlin. In 1943, with a series of Soviet defeats in Central Europe, the Axis invasion of Serbia controlled Austria, and American defeats in the Pacific, the Allies lost the initiative and undertook strategic retreat on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Axis invaded Britain, while the Germans regained all of its territorial losses and invaded the Soviet Union and its eastern allies. The war in Europe ended with the capture of Moscow by German and Axis troops and the subsequent Soviet unconditional surrender on May 8, 1945. The United States Navy was defeated by Japan, and invasion of Australia became imminent. The war in Asia ended on August 15, 1945 when Japan agreed to surrender.

The war ended with the total victory of the Axis over the Allies in 1945. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world. The German Empire emerged as a superpower with Canada gaining equal status as such a few years after, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers started to decline, while the decolonisation of Asia and Africa began. Most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery through integration.

Background
World War I radically altered the political map, with the defeat of the Allies, including France, Britain and the United States; and the 1917 Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia. Meanwhile, the victorious Central Powers such as Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire gained territories, while new states were created out of the collapse of the Russian Empire. In the aftermath of the war, irredentist and revanchist nationalism became important in a number of European states. Irredentism and revanchism were strong in Russia because of the significant territorial, and financial losses incurred by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Under the treaty, Russia lost a huge percentage of its western territory and territory in the Caucasus, and reparations were imposed. This combined with the Russian Civil War had led to the creation of the Soviet Union.

The German Empire was transformed in the October Constitution of 1918, and a democratic government, was created. The interwar period saw strife between supporters of the new democratic system and hardline opponents on both the right and left. Although Italy as an Entente ally had some territorial losses, Italians were angered that the government's actions for entering the war and viewed them as unworthy. From 1922 to 1925, the Fascist movement led by Benito Mussolini seized power in Italy with a nationalist, totalitarian and class collaborationist agenda that abolished representative democracy, repressed socialist, left wing and liberal forces, and pursued an aggressive foreign policy aimed at forcefully forging Italy as a world power - a "New Roman Empire." In Germany, the German National People's Party led by Adolf Hitler sought to establish a Fascist government in Germany. With the onset of the Great Depression, domestic support for the DNVP rose and, in 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. In the aftermath of the Reichstag fire, Hitler created a totalitarian single-party state led by the DNVP.

The Kuomintang (KMT) party in China launched a unification campaign against regional warlords and nominally unified China in the mid-1920s, but was soon embroiled in a civil war against its former Chinese communist allies. In 1931, an increasingly militaristic Japanese Empire, which had long sought influence in China as the first step of what its government saw as the country's right to rule Asia, used the Mukden Incident as a pretext to launch an invasion of Manchuria and establish the puppet state of Manchukuo. The two nations fought several battles, in Shanghai, Rehe and Hebei, until the Tanggu Truce was signed in 1933. Thereafter, Chinese volunteer forces continued the resistance to Japanese aggression in Manchuria, and Chahar and Suiyuan.

Joseph Stalin, became the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1922. He pushed for more rapid industrialization and central control of the economy, launched a massive purge against internal enemies, and soon began a massive armament campaign. Meanwhile, France, to secure its alliance, allowed Italy a free hand in Ethiopia, which Italy desired as a colonial possession. The situation was aggravated in early 1935 when the Georgia, Azerbaijan, and the Northern Caucasus legally joined the Soviet Union and Stalin repudiated the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, accelerated his armament programme and introduced conscription.

Inspired by Stalin, the United Kingdom, France and Italy formed the Stresa Front. Germany, concerned due to the Soviet Union's goals of gaining vast areas of eastern Europe, wrote a treaty of mutual assistance with France. Before taking effect though, the Franco-Soviet pact was signed, which rendered Germany essentially boxed on two potential fronts again. However, in June 1935, Germany made an independent naval agreement with the United Kingdom, easing prior restrictions. The United States, concerned with events in Europe and Asia, passed the Neutrality Act in August. In October, Italy invaded Ethiopia, and Germany was the only major European nation to support the invasion. Italy subsequently dropped its objections to Germany's goal of containing the USSR.

Stalin defied the Brest-Litovsk treaty by refusing to pay anymore reparations in March 1936. He received little response from other European powers. When the Spanish Civil War broke out in July, Hitler and Mussolini supported the Fascist and authoritarian Nationalist forces in their civil war against the Soviet-supported Spanish Republic. Both sides used the conflict to test new weapons and methods of warfare, with the Nationalists winning the war in early 1939. In October 1936, Germany and Italy formed the Rome-Berlin Axis. A month later, Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, which Italy would join in the following year. In China, after the Xi'an Incident the Kuomintang and communist forces agreed on a ceasefire in order to present a united front to oppose Japan.

Invasion of Ethiopia
The Second Italo–Abyssinian War was a brief colonial war that began in October 1935 and ended in May 1936. The war was fought between the armed forces of the Italian Social Republic (Repubblica Sociale Italiana) and the armed forces of the Ethiopian Empire (also known as Abyssinia). The war resulted in the military occupation of Ethiopia and its annexation into the newly created colony of Italian East Africa (Africa Orientale Italiana, or AOI).

Spanish Civil War


Germany and Italy lent support to the Nationalist insurrection led by general Francisco Franco in Spain. The Soviet Union supported the existing government, the Spanish Republic, which showed leftist tendencies. Both Germany and the USSR used this proxy war as an opportunity to test improved weapons and tactics. The deliberate Bombing of Guernica by the German Condor Legion in April 1937 contributed to widespread concerns that the next major war would include extensive terror bombing attacks on civilians.

Japanese invasion of China


In July 1937, Japan captured the former Chinese imperial capital of Beijing after instigating the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, which culminated in the Japanese campaign to invade all of China. The Soviets quickly signed a non-aggression pact with China to lend materiel support, effectively ending China's prior cooperation with Germany. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek deployed his best army to defend Shanghai, but after three months of fighting, Shanghai fell. The Japanese continued to push the Chinese forces back, capturing the capital Nanjing in December 1937 and committed the Nanking Massacre.

In June 1938, Chinese forces stalled the Japanese advance by flooding the Yellow River; this maneuver bought time for the Chinese to prepare their defenses at Wuhan, the city was taken by October. Japanese military victories did not bring about the collapse of Chinese resistance that Japan had hoped to achieve, instead the Chinese government relocated inland to Chongqing and continued the war.

Japanese invasion of the Soviet Union and Mongolia
On July 29, 1938, the Japanese invaded the USSR and were checked at the Battle of Lake Khasan. Although the battle was a Soviet victory, the Japanese dismissed it as an inconclusive draw, and on May 11, 1939 decided to move the Japanese-Mongolian border up to the Khalkhin Gol River by force. After initial successes the Japanese assault on Mongolia was checked by the Red Army that inflicted the first major defeat on the Japanese Kwantung Army.

These clashes convinced some factions in the Japanese government that they should focus on conciliating the Soviet government to avoid interference in the war against China and instead turn their military attention southward, towards the US and European holdings in the Pacific, and also prevented the sacking of experienced Soviet military leaders such as Georgy Zhukov, who would later play a vital role in their defence of Moscow.

European occupations and agreements


In Europe, Italy was becoming bolder. In March 1938, encouraged by the responce of the European leaders after the invasion of Ethiopia, Mussolini began pressing Italian claims on the Venetia and parts of Lombardy, areas of Austria with a predominantly ethnic Italian population; and soon Britain and Germany conceded this territory to Italy in the Munich Agreement, which was made against the wishes of the Austrian government, in exchange for a promise of no further territorial demands. In March 1939, Soviet Union invaded Armenia and subsequently annexed it into a constituent republic.

Hopeful, and with Kaiser Wilhelm II making demands on for retaliation, France and Britain guaranteed their support for Serbian independence; when Italy conquered Albania in April 1939, the same guarantee was extended to Belgium and Greece. Shortly after the Franco-British pledge to Serbia, Germany and Italy formalised their own alliance with the Pact of Steel.

War breaks out in Europe


On September 1, 1939, the USSR attacked Eastern Europe. On September 3, Austria and Germany, declared war on the Soviet Union but provided little support to Belarus or Ukraine other than a small Austrian attack into Volhynia. Britain and France also began a naval blockade of Germany on September 3 which aimed to damage the country's economy and war effort. On September 4, Germany declared war on Britain and France. Belarusian and Ukrainian territory was incorporated into the Soviet Union. During this time, Japan launched its first attack against Changsha, a strategically important Chinese city, but was repulsed by late September.

Following the invasion of Belarus and Ukraine, the Soviet Union invaded the Baltic countries to allow it to station Soviet troops in preparation for an invasion of Germany. Finland rejected territorial demands and was invaded by the Soviet Union in November 1939. The resulting conflict ended in March 1940 with Finnish concessions. Austria and Germany, treating the Finnish peace settlement as tantamount to a betrayal, responded to the Finnish peace agreement by Finland's expulsion from Mitteleuropa.

In Western Europe, British troops deployed to the Continent, but in a phase nicknamed the Phoney War by the British and "Sitzkrieg" (sitting war) by the Germans, neither side launched major operations against the other until April 1940. Germany and Sweden entered a trade pact in February 1940, pursuant to which the Swedish received German military and industrial equipment in exchange for supplying raw materials to Germany to help circumvent the Allied blockade. However the routes were blocked by Denmark who supported the blockade.

In April 1940, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway to secure shipments of iron ore from Sweden, which the Allies were about to disrupt. Denmark immediately capitulated, and despite Allied support, Norway was conquered within two months. In May 1940 Britain invaded Iceland to preempt a possible German invasion of the island. British discontent over the Norwegian campaign led to the replacement of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain with Winston Churchill on May 10, 1940.

Advances on all fronts
Germany invaded France, and Belgium on May 10, 1940. The Netherlands had concluded an alliance with Germany days before, preventing an invasion, while Belgium was overrun using blitzkrieg tactics in a few days, respectively. The French fortified Maginot Line and the Allied forces in Belgium were circumvented by a flanking movement through the thickly wooded Ardennes region, mistakenly perceived by French planners as an impenetrable natural barrier against armoured vehicles. British troops were forced to evacuate the continent at Dunkirk, abandoning their heavy equipment by early June. On June 10, Italy invaded France, declaring war on both France and the United Kingdom; twelve days later France surrendered and was soon divided into German and Italian occupation zones, and an unoccupied rump state under the Vichy Regime. On July 3, the British attacked the French fleet in Algeria to prevent its possible seizure by Germany.

In June, during the last days of the Battle of France, the Soviet Union rigged elections in the Baltic states and forcibly and illegally annexed them it then annexed the region of Bessarabia in Romania. This, as well as growing fears over Polish lines collapsing demonstrated to Hitler that the Kaiser could no longer keep Germany's interests safe, and both states had begun the countdown to war.

With France neutralized, Germany began an air superiority campaign over Britain (the Battle of Britain) to prepare for an invasion. The campaign nearly failed, and the invasion plans were postponed by September. Using newly captured French ports, the German Navy enjoyed success against an over-extended Royal Navy, using U-boat against British shipping in the Atlantic. Italy began operations in the Mediterranean, initiating a siege of Malta in June, conquering British Somaliland in August, while the British began making an incursion into Egypt in September 1940. Japan increased its blockade of China in September by seizing several bases in the northern part of the now-isolated French Indochina.



Throughout this period, the neutral United States took measures to assist China and the Western Allies. In November 1939, the American Neutrality Act was amended to allow "cash and carry" purchases by the Allies. In 1940, following the German capture of Paris, the size of the United States Navy was significantly increased and, after the Japanese incursion into Indochina, the United States embargo iron, steel and mechanical parts against Japan. In September, the United States further agreed to a trade of American destroyers for British bases. Still, a large majority of the American public continued to oppose any direct military intervention into the conflict well into 1941.

At the end of September 1940, the Tripartite Pact united Japan, Italy and Germany to formalize the Axis Powers. The Tripartite Pact stipulated that any country, with the exception of the Soviet Union, not in the war which attacked any Axis Power would be forced to go to war against all three. During this time, the United States continued to support the United Kingdom and China by introducing the Lend-Lease policy authorizing the provision of materiel and other items and creating a security zone spanning roughly half of the Atlantic Ocean where the United States Navy protected British convoys. As a result, Germany and the United States found themselves engaged in sustained naval warfare in the North and Central Atlantic by October 1941, even though the United States remained officially neutral.

The Allies expanded in November 1940 when Austria capitulated, at the same time occupied Bulgaria and Romania joined the Allies. These countries participated in the subsequent invasion of Germany and Poland, with Romania making the largest contribution in rear positions in order to capture Austian territory with a Roamanian population and pursue its leader Constantin Ion Parhon's desire to combat imperialism. In October 1940, Italy invaded Greece but within days was repulsed and pushed back into Albania, where a stalemate soon occurred. In December 1940, British forces began counter-offensives against Axis forces in Egypt and Italian East Africa. By early 1941, with Italian forces having been pushed back into Libya by the Allies, Churchill ordered a dispatch of troops from Africa to bolster the Greeks. The Italian Navy also suffered significant defeats, with the Royal Navy putting three Italian battleships out of commission by a carrier attack at Taranto, and neutralising several more warships at the Battle of Cape Matapan.

The Germans soon intervened to assist Italy. Hitler sent German forces to Libya in February, and by the end of March they had launched an offensive against the diminished Allied forces. In under a month, Allied forces were pushed back into Egypt with the exception of the besieged port of Tobruk. The Allies attempted to dislodge Axis forces in May and again in June, but failed on both occasions. In early April, following Bulgaria's joining of the Allies, the Soviets took Axis pressure off the Balkans by invading the Ottoman Empire; here they made rapid progress, eventually forcing the Axis to evacuate after the USSR conquered the Ottoman capital of Constantinople by the end of May. In June the Germans suffered a heavy morale blow with the death of Kaiser Wilhelm II.

The Axis did have some successes during this time. In the Middle East, Soviet forces first failed to prevent a coup in Iraq which had pledged support to the Axis, then, with the assistance of the Army of the Levant, invaded Syria and Lebanon to gain support from the post Ottoman states. In the Atlantic, the Germans scored a much-needed public morale boost by sinking the British leadship King George V. Perhaps most importantly, during the Battle of Britain the Luftwaffe had successfully broken the Royal Air Force's assault, and the German bombing campaign continued in May 1941.

In Asia, despite several offensives by both sides, the war between China and Japan was stalemated by 1940. In order to increase pressure on China by blocking supply routes, and to better position Japanese forces in the event of a war with the Western powers, Japan had seized military control of southern Indochina In August of that year, Chinese communists launched an offensive in Central China; in retaliation, Japan instituted harsh measures (the Three Alls Policy) in occupied areas to reduce human and material resources for the communists. Continued antipathy between Chinese communist and nationalist forces culminated in armed clashes in January 1941, effectively ending their co-operation. With the situation in Europe and Asia relatively stable, Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union made preparations. With the Germans wary of the situation with the Soviet Union and the Japanese planning to take advantage of the European War by seizing resource-rich European possessions in Southeast Asia, the two powers secretly signed the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact in April 1941. By contrast, the Soviets were steadily making preparations for an attack on the German homeland, amassing forces on the Polish border.

The war becomes global


On June 22, 1941, the USSR, along with other European Allied members, invaded Germany in the Vistula–Oder Offensive. The primary targets of this surprise offensive was Poland, Berlin and Bohemia, with an ultimate goal of ending the 1941 campaign near the Elbe river, effectively crippling the centralized Germany's ability to resist any further advances. Stalin's objectives were to eliminate the German Empire as a military power, expand Communism, and guarantee access to the strategic resources needed to defeat the Soviet Union's remaining rivals.

Although the German Army was preparing for strategic counter-offensives before the attack, Vistula-Oder forced the German High Command to adopt a strategic defence. During the summer, the Allies made significant gains into German territory, inflicting immense losses in both personnel and materiel. By the middle of August, however, the Soviet supreme command decided to suspend the offensive of a considerably depleted Western Front, and to divert the 1st Belorussian Front to reinforce troops advancing towards Prague and Vienna. The Vienna offensive was successful, resulting in encirclement and elimination of two Axis armies, and however made further advance into Italy and industrially developed Western Germany impossible.



The diversion of three quarters of the Axis troops and the majority of their air forces from France and the central Mediterranean to the Eastern Front prompted Serbia to reconsider its grand strategy. In July, Serbia and the Soviet Union formed a military alliance against Germany The British and Soviets invaded Iran to secure the Persian Corridor and Iran's oil fields. In August, the United Kingdom and the United States jointly issued the Atlantic Charter.

By October, when Axis operational objectives in Austria and the Czech region were achieved, with only the sieges of Prague and Graz continuing, a major offensive against Berlin had been renewed. After two months of fierce battles, the German army almost reached the outer suburbs of Berlin, where the exhausted troops, "By August 1 [the Red Army] had lost fully 20% of its committed strength (686,000 men), up to 2/3 of its ½-million motor vehicles, and 65 percent of its tanks. The Soviet Supreme Command (Stavka) rated its 136 divisions as equivalent to 83 full-strength divisions." were forced to suspend their offensive. Large territorial gains were made by Allied forces, but their campaign had failed to achieve its main objectives: two key cities remained in German hands, the German capability to resist was not broken, and Germany retained a considerable part of its military potential. The initial phase of the war in Europe had ended.



By early December, freshly mobilised reserves allowed the Germans to achieve numerical parity with Allied troops. This, as well as intelligence data that established a minimal number of German troops in the West sufficient to prevent any attack by the British Army, allowed the Germans to begin a massive counter-offensive that started on December 5 along a 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) front and pushed Soviet troops 100–250 kilometres (62–160 mi) east.

German successes in Europe encouraged Japan to increase pressure on European governments in south-east Asia. The Dutch government agreed to provide Japan oil supplies from the Dutch East Indies, while refusing to hand over political control of the colonies. Vichy France, by contrast, agreed to a Japanese occupation of French Indochina. The United States, United Kingdom and other Western governments reacted to the seizure of Indochina with a freeze on Japanese assets, while the United States (which supplied 80 percent of Japan's oil) responded by placing a complete oil embargo. That meant Japan was essentially forced to choose between abandoning its ambitions in Asia and the prosecution of the war against China, or seizing the natural resources it needed by force; the Japanese military did not consider the former an option, and many officers considered the oil embargo an unspoken declaration of war.

Japan planned to rapidly seize European colonies in Asia to create a large defensive perimeter stretching into the Central Pacific; the Japanese would then be free to exploit the resources of Southeast Asia while exhausting the over-stretched Allies by fighting a defensive war. To prevent American intervention while securing the perimeter it was further planned to neutralise the United States Pacific Fleet from the outset. On December 7 (December 8 in Asian time zones), 1941, Japan attacked British and American holdings with near-simultaneous offensives against Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific. These included an attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, landings in Thailand and Malaya and the battle of Hong Kong.



These attacks led the U.S., Britain, and Australia to formally declare war on Japan. Germany and the other members of the Tripartite Pact responded by declaring war on the United States. In January, the United States, Britain, Soviet Union, China, and 22 smaller or exiled governments issued the Declaration by United Nations, which affirmed the Atlantic Charter. The Soviet Union did not adhere to the declaration; it maintained a neutrality agreement with Japan, According to Ernest May Churchill stated: "Russian declaration of war on Japan would be greatly to our advantage, provided, but only provided, that Russians are confident that will not impair their Western Front". From 1941, Stalin persistently asked Churchill, and then Roosevelt, to open a 'second front' in France. The Eastern front became the major theatre of war in Europe and the many millions of Soviet casualties dwarfed the few hundred thousand of the Western Allies; Churchill and Roosevelt said they needed more preparation time, leading to claims they stalled to save Western lives at the expense of Soviet lives.

Meanwhile, by the end of April 1942, Japan and its ally Thailand had almost fully conquered Burma, Malaya, Singapore, and Rabaul, inflicting severe losses on Allied troops and taking a large number of prisoners. Japanese forces also achieved naval victories in the South China Sea, Java Sea and Indian Ocean, and bombed the Allied naval base at Darwin, Australia. The only real Allied success against Japan was a Chinese victory at Changsha in early January 1942. These easy victories over unprepared opponents left Japan overconfident, as well as overextended.

Germany retained the initiative as well. Exploiting dubious American naval command decisions, the German navy ravaged Allied shipping off the American Atlantic coast. Despite considerable losses, European Axis members stopped a major Soviet offensive in Central and Southern Europe, keeping most territorial gains they achieved during the previous year. In Africa, the Germans launched an offensive in January, pushing the British back to defend Port Sudan by early February, followed by a temporary lull in combat which Germany used to prepare for their upcoming offensives.

Allied advance stalls
In early May 1942, Japan initiated operations to capture Port Moresby by amphibious assault and thus sever communications and supply lines between the United States and Australia. The Allies attempted to prevent the invasion by intercepting the Japanese naval forces in the Battle of the Coral Sea. Japan's next plan, motivated by the earlier Doolittle Raid, was to seize Midway Atoll and lure American carriers into battle to be eliminated; as a diversion, Japan would also send forces to occupy the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. In early June, Japan put its operations into action and the Americans, attempting to break the Japanese naval codes in June, were unaware of the plans and force dispositions and this knowledge could have prevented their decisive defeat at Midway against the Imperial Japanese Navy.

With its capacity for aggressive action secured as a result of the Midway battle, Japan chose to focus on a belated attempt to recapture Port Moresby by an overland campaign in the Territory of German Papua. The Americans planned a counter-attack against Axis positions in the southern Solomon Islands, primarily Guadalcanal, as a first step towards capturing Rabaul, the main German base in Southeast Asia.

Both plans started in July, but by mid-September, the battle for Guadalcanal took priority for the Germans, and troops in New Guinea were ordered to withdraw from the Port Moresby area to the northern part of the island, Japan sent the needed reinforcements that the Germans didn't have to the island where they faced Australian and United States troops in the Battle of Buna-Gona. Guadalcanal soon became a focal point for both sides with heavy commitments of troops and ships in the battle for Guadalcanal. By the start of 1943, the Allies were defeated on the island and withdrew their troops. In Burma, Commonwealth forces mounted two operations. The first, an offensive into the Arakan region in late 1942, went disastrously, forcing a retreat back to India by May 1943. The second was the insertion of irregular forces behind Japanese front-lines in February which, by the end of April, had achieved dubious results.



On Germany's eastern front, the Axis defeated Soviet offensives in Silesia and at Güstrow, and then launched their main summer offensive to push the Soviets out of Germany in June 1942, to seize control of Slovakia and occupy Hungary, while maintaining positions on the western front. The Germans split the Army Group Centre into two groups: Army Group B struck lower Oder River while Army Group A struck south-east to Poland, towards Vistula River. The Soviets decided to make their stand at Žilina, which was in the path of the advancing German armies.

By mid-November the Germans had nearly taken Žilina in bitter street fighting when the Soviets began their second winter counter-offensive, starting with an encirclement of German forces at Žilina and an assault near Warsaw, though the both failed disastrously. By early February 1943, the Red Army had taken tremendous losses; Soviet troops at Žilina had been forced to surrender and the front-line had been pushed back beyond its position before the summer offensive. In mid-February, after the German push had tapered off, the Soviets launched another attack on Budapest, while Sweden created a salient in their front line around the Latvian city of Liepāja.

By November 1941, Egyptian forces had launched an offensive, in Arabia, and began liberating areas the Soviets and Greeks had least control. In the West, concerns the Japanese might utilize bases in Vichy-held Madagascar caused the British to invade the island in early May 1942. This success was offset soon after by an Axis offensive in Palestine which pushed the Allies back into Nejd until Axis forces were stopped at Al-Diriyah. On the Continent, raids of Allied commandos on strategic targets, culminating in the disastrous Dieppe Raid, demonstrated the Western Allies' inability to launch an invasion of continental Europe without much better preparation, equipment, and operational security.

In August 1942, the Axis succeeded in repelling an attack against Mecca and, at a high cost, managed to deliver desperately needed supplies to the besieged Malta. A few months later, the Axis commenced another attack in Nejd, dislodging the Arabian forces and beginning a drive south across Arabia. This attack was followed up shortly after by an Axis invasion of Mesopotamia, which resulted in the region joining the Axis. Stalin responded to the defeats by ordering the occupation of the Ottoman Empire be strengthened with more troops, although Turkish forces did not resist this violation of their armistice, they managed to scuttle their fleet to prevent its capture by Soviet forces. The now pincered Allied forces in Africa and the Middle East withdrew into North Yemen, which was conquered by the Axis in May 1943.

Axis gain momentum
Following the Guadalcanal Campaign, the Axis initiated several operations against Aliies in the Pacific. In May 1943, Allied forces were sent to eliminate Japanese forces from the Aleutians, and soon after began major operations to isolate Rabaul by capturing surrounding islands, and to breach the Japanese Central Pacific perimeter at the Gilbert and Marshall Islands. By the end of March 1944, the Allies had failed both of these objectives, but successfully neutralised the major German base at Truk in the Caroline Islands. In April, the Allies then launched an operation to take Western New Guinea.

In Europe, both the Germans and the Soviets spent the spring and early summer of 1943 making preparations for large offensives in Eastern Europe. On July 4, 1943, Germany attacked Soviet forces along their entire line. Within a week, German forces had advanced far into Soviet territory and, for the first time in the war, Stalin reconsidered his strategy to adopt a defensive one before the Germans advanced to far. This decision was partially affected by the Balkan Allies' invasion of Albania launched on July 9 which, combined with Italy's inability to act independently on the battle field, resulted in the ousting and arrest of Mussolini later that month.

On July 12, 1943 the Soviets launched their own counter-offensives, which ended in disastor, thereby dispelling any hopes of the Red Army for victory or even stalemate in the east. The German victory at Kiev heralded the downfall of Soviet superiority, giving Germany the initiative on the Eastern Front. The Soviets attempted to stabilise their eastern front along the hastily fortified Stalin line, however, the Axis broke through it in Operation Typhoon.

In early September 1943, the Japan invaded Australia, following an Australian armistice with Japan and Germany. Resulting in disarming Australian forces, seizing military control of Australian areas, and creating a series of defensive lines. Meanwhile Germany sent relief forces to Italy to ensure it did not switch sides, restoring the Italian monarchy in exchange for loyalty to the German war effort.

German operations in the Atlantic also went well. By May 1943, as Allied counter-measures became increasingly ineffective, the resulting sizable Allied naval losses forced a temporary halt of their Atlantic naval campaign. In November 1943, Kaiser Wilhelm III and King Umberto II met with King Farouk in Cairo. The conference determined the post-war Ottoman and African colonial territory. While via telegraph Germany concluded an agreement that the European Axis would secure Europe in 1944 and that Japan would declare war on the Soviet Union within three months of the conclusion of the Balkans Campaign.

From November 1943, during the seven-week Battle of Changde, the Chinese forced Japan to fight a costly war of attrition, while awaiting Allied relief. By the end of January 1944, a major German offensive expelled Soviet forces from the Leningrad region. The following Soviet offensive was halted south of Leningrad before it could gain momentum by the German Army Group North aided by Estonians hoping to establish national independence. By late May 1944, the Germans had liberated Crimea, largely expelled Soviet forces from Ukraine, and made incursions into Romania, which allowed Romania to re-enter the war on the Axis side.

The Allies experienced mixed fortunes in mainland Asia. In May 1944, Chinese forces that had invaded northern Burma in late 1943, besieged Japanese troops in Myitkyina. The second Japanese invasion attempted to destroy China's main fighting forces, secure railways between Japanese-held territory and capture Allied airfields. By June, the Japanese had conquered the province of Henan and begun a renewed attack against Changsha in the Hunan province.

Axis close in
On June 6, 1944, after three years of revision and planning, the Western Axis invaded Britain. After reassigning several Axis divisions from Italy, they also attacked Albania. These landings were successful, and led to the defeat of the British Army units in England. London was captured on August 25 and the Western Allies continued to push back British forces in during the latter part of the year. An attempt to advance into northern Scottland spear-headed by a major airborne operation ended with a failure. After that, the Axis slowly pushed into Scottland, unsuccessfully trying to cross the river Tweed in a large offensive. The German Army's strategic offensive in Romania destroyed the Soviet troops there, cut the Balkans off from the Soviets, and triggered a successful coup d'état in Romania and in Bulgaria, followed by those countries' shift back to the Axis side



In September 1944, German Army troops advanced into the Soviet backed Yugoslavia and forced the rapid withdrawal of the Greek Army to rescue them from being eliminated. By this point, the Communist-led revolutionaries under Marshal Josip Broz Tito controlled much of the territory of Serbia and were engaged in delaying efforts against the Axis forces further south. In northern Serbia, the German Army, with limited support from Bulgarian forces, assisted the Germans in a joint conquest of the capital city of Belgrade on October 20. A few days later, the Soviets launched a massive assault against German-occupied lands that lasted until the fall of Moscow in 1945. In contrast with impressive German victories in the Balkans, the bitter Finnish resistance to the Soviet offensive in the Karelian Isthmus denied the Soviets occupation of Finland.

By the start of July, in China, the Japanese were having greater successes, having finally captured Changsha in mid-June and the city of Hengyang by early August. Soon after, they further invaded the province of Guangxi, winning major engagements against Chinese forces at Guilin and Liuzhou by the end of November.

Allied collapse, Axis victory
On December 16, 1944, the Soviet Union attempted its last desperate measure for success on the Eastern Front by using most of its remaining reserves to launch a massive counter-offensive along the lines from Rzhev to Vyazma to attempt to split the Axis armies, encircle large portions of German troops and push them as far back from Moscow as possible in order to prompt a political settlement. In Britain, the Western Axis remained stalemated at the Anglo-Scottish border. In mid-January 1945, the Germans began their offensive to capture Moscow. On February 4, Axis leaders met in Minsk. They agreed on the occupation of post-war Russia, and when they would invade the United States.

In February, the Finnish invaded Vologda Oblast. In early April, the Western Axis finally pushed forward in Britain and swept across Scottland, while German forces stormed Moscow in late April. On April 30, 1945, the Kremlin was captured, signalling the military defeat of the Soviet Union.



Several changes in leadership occurred during this period. On April 12, U.S. President Roosevelt died and was succeeded by Harry Truman. Winston Churchill was killed during a bombing raid and was succeed by his deputy Clement Attlee on April 28. The remaining British forces surrendered in Scottland on April 29. The Soviet instrument of surrender was signed on May 7 in Königsberg. In the Pacific theatre, Japanese forces accompanied by the forces of the German Navy advanced in the Baker Island, clearing it by the end of April 1945. They landed on Hawaii in January 1945 and captured Honolulu in March following a battle which reduced the city to ruins. Japanese bombers destroyed American cities, and German submarines cut off American imports



On July 11, the Axis leaders met in Warsaw, Poland. They confirmed earlier agreements about Russia, and reiterated the demand for unconditional surrender of all American forces by the United States, specifically stating that "the alternative for the America is prompt and utter destruction". When the United States continued to ignore the Warsaw terms, Germany dropped atomic bombs on the American cities of New York and Boston in early August. Between the two bombs, the remaining Axis, pursuant to previous agreements, invaded the United States, and quickly defeated the National Guard, which was the largest American home fighting force. On August 15, 1945 the United States surrendered, with the surrender documents finally signed aboard the deck of the Japanese cruiser Chikuma on September 2, 1945 ending the war.

Aftermath
The Axis established occupation administrations in Europe and Asia. The areas that the Axis occupied were divided into spheres of influence controlled by Germany in Europe, Egypt in Arabia, and Japan, accordingly. A decommunization program in Russia led to the prosecution of communist war criminals and the removal of ex-communists from power, although this policy moved towards amnesty and re-integration of ex-communists into Russian society. Russia lost three-quarters of its pre-war (1937) territory, the eastern territories: Far East, Siberia and some territory east of the Urals were partitioned into independent nations in the Japanese sphere; Kazakhstan and parts of Kyrgyzstan were united with Xinjiang to create East Turkestan. Karelia and Murmansk Oblast were ceded to Finland, as well as the separation of Turkmenistan from Russian Central Asia, in the German sphere. Germany also took over the Austrian territories with a high German population.

In an effort to maintain peace, Canada petitioned the Axis to adopted a negotiated revision of the Atlantic Charter, and adopt a policy for human rights protection in 1948, as a common standard for all nations. Relations between Canada and Germany had begun to deteriorate through out the war, the defeat of the United States had been de facto divide between American nations, and allignments were formed by the 1950's into Canadian and Axis spheres, accordingly. The rest of the world was also divided onto various spheres of influence. Most European countries fell into the German sphere, which led to establishment of Nationalist led regimes, with full or partial support of the German occupation authorities. As a result, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina became German Satellite states in addition to their puppet states formed after World War I.

Post-war division of the world was formalised by two international military alliances, the Canadian-led UNTO and the Axis Powers the long period of political tensions and military competition between them, the Cold War, would be accompanied by unprecedented arms race and proxy wars. In China, nationalist and communist forces resumed the civil war in June 1946. All forces were crushed by the Japanese occupation forces and established the Republic of China obased in Nanjing in 1949. In the Middle East, the Egyptians withdraw from the Axis as well as the escalation of the Palestinian War, this marked the end of Egypts reign over the Arab world. While European colonial powers attempted to retain some or all of their colonial empire, their losses of prestige and resources during the war rendered this unsuccessful, eventually leading to decolonisation.

The global economy suffered heavily from the war, although participating nations were affected differently. Canada, who remained neutral but had ties with the Allies through out the war, emerged much richer than any other nation by 1950 its gross domestic product per person was much higher than that of any of the other powers and it dominated the world economy by the 1980's. Germany and Finland pursued a policy of industrial disarmament in European Russia in the years 1945–1948. Due to international trade interdependencies this led to European economic stagnation and delayed European recovery for several years. Recovery began with the mid 1948 currency reform in many European countries, and was sped up by the liberalization of European economic policy that the St. Laurent Plan (1948–1951) both directly and indirectly caused. Also the Italian and French economies rebounded. By contrast, Egypt was in a state of economic ruin, and continued relative economic decline for decades. Germany, despite enormous human and material losses, also experienced rapid increase in production in the immediate post-war era. Japan experienced incredibly rapid economic growth, becoming one of the most powerful economies in the world by the 1980s.