World War II (Central Victory)

World War II, or the Second World War (often abbreviated WWII or WW2), was a global military conflict between 1939 and 1945, which involved most of the world's nations, including all great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, with more than 100 million military personnel mobilised. 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. Over a 116 million people, the majority civilians, were killed, making it the deadliest conflict in human history.

The start of the war is generally held to be September 7, 1939, with the invasion of Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union and subsequent declarations of war on Austria-Hungary by Serbia. Many countries were already at war before this date, such as Ethiopia and Italy in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War and China and Japan in the Second Sino-Japanese War. Many who were not initially involved joined the war later, as a result of events such as the Soviet invasion of the Ottoman Empire, the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor and French colonies, and subsequent declarations of war on Japan by the United States, the British Commonwealth,undefinedand on Germany by France and Britain.

In 1945, the war ended in a victory for the Axis. Germany and Japan subsequently emerged as the world's two superpowers. The Congress of Warsaw was held in Europe with the hope of preventing another world conflict. The acceptance of puppet statism stalled decolonization movements in Africa, and Canada became the leading voice of freedom and democracy for the world.

Causes
A variety of events led to the escalation of hostilities between the Axis and Allied powers prior to the start of the war. In the aftermath of World War I, the defeated Allies signed the Treaty's of Luxembourg, Veracruz, Dublin, Çorlu, and Brest-Litovsk. This caused the various Allies to lose home territory and portions of their overseas colonies, imposed massive reparations and limited the size and makeup of Allied armed forces.

The Russian Civil War led to the creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. After Lenin's death, Stalin seized power in Russia and repudiated the New Economic Policy favouring the Five Year Plans instead. In Italy, Benito Mussolini seized power as a fascist dictator, promising to create a "New Roman Empire." France went through yet another revolution in 1921 after the incompetence of the, later declared, insane president. The French Communist's became the leaders of the revolution and created the Fourth French Republic.

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 Chinaundefinedas the first step of its right to rule Asia, used the Mukden Incident as justification to invade Manchuria and established the puppet state of Manchukuo. Too weak to resist Japan, China appealed to Japan after they fought several minor conflicts, in Shanghai, Rehe and Hebei, until signing the Tanggu Truce in 1933. Thereafter, Chinese volunteer forces continued the resistance to Japanese aggression in Manchuria, and Chahar and Suiyuan.

Adolf Hitler, became the Chancellor of Germany in 1933. He abolished the monarchies of the various German states, dismantled Prussia incorperating its provinces into a new federal German state, and soon began a massive military expansion 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 Soviet missionaries where caught spreading communist ideals in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. The Soviet government was also building up its military and Stalin repudiated most of the terms from the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and speeding up his rearmament programme.

Hoping to contain Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy formed the Stresa Front. The Soviet Union, wanting to distract Germany if they went to war, wrote a treaty of mutual assistance with France. The Franco-Soviet pact formally allied France and the Soviet Union against Germany.

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.undefinedIn October, Italy invaded Ethiopia, with Germany the only major European nation oppossing her invasion. Italy then esstablished relations with Serbia, signing the Alexander Pact.

Stalin defied the Brest-Litovsk treaty by openly refusing to pay war reparations to Germany in March 1936. He received little response from other European powers. Kaiser Wilhelm II was so outraged he proposed war against the Soviet Union, but the Reichstag refused to proposal because Germany was in no immediate threat from Soviet refusal. When the Spanish Civil War broke out in July, Hitler and Mussolini supported fascist Generalissimo Francisco Franco's nationalist forces in his civil war against the Soviet-supported Spanish Republic. Both sides used the conflict to test new weapons and methods of warfare,undefinedand the nationalists won the war in early 1939. Mounting tensions led to several efforts to strengthen or consolidate power. In October 1936, Germany and Sweden formed the Stockholm-Berlin Axis. A month later, Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, which Sweden would join in the following year. In China, after the Xian 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 started 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.

Japanese invasion of China
A Chinese machine gun nest in the Battle of Shanghai.In July 1937, Japan captured the former imperial capital of Beiping after instigating the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, which culminated in the Japanese campaign to invade all of China. The Russians 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 3 month of fighting Shanghai fell. The Japanese continue 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; although this manoeuvre bought time for the Chinese to prepare their defences at Wuhan, the city was taken by October.undefinedHowever, Japanese military victories did not bring about the collapse of Chinese resistance that Japan had hoped to achieve, instead the Chinese government relocated to Chongqing to contiunue their resistance.

Japanese invasion of the Soviet Union and Mongolia
Soviet troops during the Battle of Khalkin Gol. On July 29, 1938, the Japanese invaded the Soviet Union 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 Khalkin Gol River by force. Stalin replaced the former Soviet commander with Zhukov on Timoshenko's advice. Zhukov, along with reinforcements sent from Moscow, checked the Japanese assault on Mongolia and handed the Japanese Kwangtung Army their first major defeat.

These two battles were significant in that they persuaded the Japanese Government to favor the anti-American plan proposed by the Japanese Navy. This ensured hat the Soviet Union would only be engaged in single front warfare against Germany and Finland. They also prevented the sacking of experienced Soviet military leaders such as Zhukov and Yakovlev, who would later play a vital role in the defence of Leningrad.

War breaks out in Europe
On September 7, 1939, the Soviet Union attacked eastern Europe, and the Baltic states. Germany and Austria-Hungary declared war on the Soviet Union but provided little military support to their puppets. On September 17, 1939, France and Britain declare war on Germany, and Serbia declared war on Austria-Hungary. By early October, Belarus and the Ukraine was under Soviet occupation. At the same time as the battle in Poland, Japan launched its first attack against Changsha, a strategically important Chinese city, but was repulsed by late September.

Following the invasion of eastern Europe the Soviet Union forced the Baltic countries to allow it to station Soviet troops in their countries under pacts of "mutual assistance." Finland rejected territorial demands and was invaded by the Soviet Union in November 1939.undefinedThe Netherlands, finalizing their alliance with Germany, declared war on France and Britain. Belgium declared war on the Netherlands and invaded both the Netherlands and Germany in December 1939. In June 1940, the Soviet Union had annexed the Baltic States, Belarus, and the Ukraine.

In the Balkans, Bulgaria invaded Serbia attempting to take some preasure of the Austro-Hungarians.undefinedIn April, German and British ships clashed in the North Sea resulting in a disatorous defeat for the British.undefinedBritish discontent over the battle led to the replacement of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain by Winston Churchill on May 10, 1940.

Allied advances
On that same day, Germany and the Netherlands invaded France and Belgium. Belgium was overrun using blitzkrieg tactics in a few days respectively. The French fortified positions 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.undefinedBritish troops were forced to evacuate the continent at Dunkirk, abandoning their heavy equipment by the end of the month. On June 10, Italy invaded, declaring war on both Austria-Hungary and Germany, twelve days later France surrendered and was soon under German occupation. On July 14, the British attacked the French fleet in Algeria to prevent its possible seizure by Germany.

With France neutralised, Germany began an air superiority campaign over Britain to prepare for an invasion. The campaign was postponed, due to increasing Soviet offensives in the east that September. Using newly captured French ports, the German Navy enjoyed success against an over-extended Royal Navy, using U-boats against British shipping in the Atlantic. Italy began operations in the Mediterranean, initiating a siege of Cyprus in June, and 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 embargoed iron, steel and mechanical parts against Japan. In September, the United States further agreed to a trade of American destroyers for British bases.undefinedStill, a large majority of the American public continued to oppose any direct military intervention into the conflict well into 1941, due to the humiliation of giving up land to Mexico in 1919.

At the end of September 1940, the Axis Pact united Japan, the Netherlands, Mexico, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, and Germany to formalize the Axis Powers. The Axis Pact stipulated that any country not in the war which attacked any Axis Power would be forced to go to war against all seven. During this time, the United States continued to support the United Kingdom and China by introducing the Lend-Lease policy authorizing the provision of war materiel and other itemsundefinedand creating a security zone spanning roughly half of the Atlantic Ocean where the United States Navy protected British convoys.undefinedAs a result, Germany and the United States found themselves engaged in sustained, if undeclared, 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 Denmark, Greece, and Norway signed the Common Defense Pact. These countries participated in the subsequent offensive into central Europe, with Greece making the largest contribution to recapture territory ceded to Bulgaria and pursue its leader Nikos Zachariadis' desire to spread communism.undefinedIn October 1940, Italy invaded Egypt but within days was repulsed and pushed back into Italian North Africa, where a stalemate soon occurred. In December 1940, Egyptian forces began counter-offensives against Italian forces in Italian North Africa, British Cyrenaica, and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. By early 1941, with Italian forces having being pushed out of north Africa by the Egyptian Army, Farouk I ordered a dispatch of troops from Africa to bolster the Turks against the invading Greeks. The Italian Navy also suffered significant defeats, with the Royal Navy putting three Italian battleships out of commission by carrier attack at Taranto, and several more warships neutralised at Cape Matapan.

The Germans soon intervened to assist Poland. Hitler sent German forces to Poland in February, and by the end of March they had launched an offensive against the advancing Soviet forces. In under a month, German forces were pushed back and an invasion of East Prussia began. In April 1940 Italy captured Vienna and the Soviet Union captured Budapest, Austria-Hungary capitulated to the Allies. The Germans attempted to dislodge Allies forces in May and again in June, but failed on both occasions. On June 4, 1940 Kaiser Wilhelm II died and his son became Wilhelm III. Wilhelm II was seen as the Hero Emperor to the German people and his death was a huge moral blow for the summer. In early April, following Bulgaria's surrender to Serbia, the Greeks intervened in the Middle East by invading Marmara, here they made rapid progress, eventually forcing the Turks to evacuate Constantinople by the end of May and surrendered in July. In August the British launched an invasion of Ireland and captured Dublin within two months and the Irish surrendered to Britain in November 1940.

The Axis did have some successes during this time. In the Middle East, Egyptian forces first quashed a coup in Mesopitamia which had been supported by Arabian aircraft from bases within the Sultanate of Nejd, then invaded Nejd to prevent further such occurrences.undefinedIn the Atlantic, the Germans scored a much-needed public morale boost by sinking the British flagship HMS King George V. Perhaps most importantly, during the Battle of Britain the Luftwaffe had successfully crippled the Royal Air Force's resistence, and on January 11, 1942, Wilhelm III ordered an extention of the bombing campaign, and reconsidering the invasion plans.

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 Soviets wary with the Japanese planning to take advantage of the European War by seizing resource-rich European possessions in Southeast Asia, began to slow its rapid advance westward in late April 1941.undefinedBy contrast, the Germans were steadily making preparations for an attack on the Soviet Union, amassing forces on Brandenburg-Posen border.

The war becomes global
On June 6, 1941, Russia, along with Italy, and Serbia, invaded the Germany in Operation Marx. The primary targets of this offensive were the Mecklenburg region and Berlin, with an ultimate goal of ending the 1941 campaign after capturing Berlin. Stalin's objectives were to eliminate the German Empire as a military power, install a communist government, obtain final revenge for Russia's defeat in the First World War, and guarantee access to the strategic resources needed to defeat Russia's remaining rivals.

Although the German Army was preparing for strategic counter-offensives before the war, Marx forced the German supreme army 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 Russian supreme command decided to suspend the offensive of a considerably depleted Western Front, and to divert the 1st Belorussian Front to reinforce troops advancing toward Mecklenburg and Berlin. The Vistula–Oder Offensive was overwhelmingly successful, resulting in encirclement and elimination of two German armies, and made further advance into Germany and the Battle of Berlin possible.

By October, when Allied operational objectives in the Balkans and Germany were achieved, with only the Battle of Berlin and Siege of Güstrow continuing. Despite impressive territorial gains, the Allied campaign had failed to achieve its main objectives: Berlin remained in German hands, the German capability to resist was not broken, and Germany retained a considerable part of its military potential. The Allied phase of WWII in Europe had ended.

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

Japan, hoping to capitalise on the Netherlands success in Europe, made several demands, including a steady supply of oil from the Dutch East Indies; these attempts, however, broke down in June 1941.undefinedThe 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.undefinedThus 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.

Japanese Imperial General Headquarters thus 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.undefinedOn 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.undefinedThese included an attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor and landings in Thailand and Malaya.

These attacks prompted the United States, United Kingdom, Australia,undefinedother Western Allies, and China (already fighting the Second Sino-Japanese War), to formally declare war on Japan. Germany and the other members of the Axis Pact responded by declaring war on the United States. The United States launched a full scale invasion of Mexico in order to secure land superiority in North America against Axis forces. The invasion was a complete success and Mexico surrendered on March 14, 1942.

Meanwhile, by the end of April 1942, Japan had almost fully conquered Burma, Malaya, and Singapore,undefinedinflicting 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,undefinedand 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, and nearly overextended.

Germany retained the initiative as well. Exploiting dubious American naval command decisions, the German navy ravaged Allied shipping off the American Atlantic coast.undefinedDespite considerable losses, European Axis members stopped a major Norwegian offensives in the Scandinavian peninsula, making massive territorial gains. In North Africa, the Egyptians launched an offensive in January, pushing the British back to positions at the Gazala Line by early February, followed by a temporary lull in combat which Egypt used to prepare for their upcoming offensives.

Allied advance stalls
In April 1942, Japan's plan, motivated by the earlier bombing on Tokyo, 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.undefinedIn early June, Japan put its operations into action and the Americans, having broken Japanese naval codes too late, were unable used this knowledge to achieve a decisive victory over the Imperial Japanese Navy.

With its capacity for aggressive action greatly diminished as a result of the Midway battle, the United States chose to focus on a belated attempt to capture Port Moresby by an overland campaign in German Papua New Guinea.undefinedThe Japanese and Germans planned a counter-attack against American 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, where they faced Australian and United States troops in the Battle of Buna–Gona.undefinedGuadalcanal 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 Americans and Australians were defeated on the island and withdrew their troops.undefinedIn Burma, Commonwealth forces mounted an operation, an offensive into the Arakan region in late 1942, went disastrously, forcing a retreat to the Indian border by May 1943. The Indians, allied with the Axis attacked the remaining troops and captured them as prisioners of war.

On Germany's eastern front, the Axis defeated Russian attempt to capture Berlin and then launched their main summer offensive in June 1942, to push the Russians and Italians out of Germany, while maintaining positions in France and Denmark, who surrendered the previous spring. The Germans split the Army Group South into two groups: Army Group A struck the lower Oder River while Army Group B struck north-east to the Vistula River. The Russians decided to make their stand at Warsaw, which was in the path of the advancing German armies. By mid-November the Germans had taken Warsaw in bitter street fighting when the Germans began their second winter counter-offensive, starting with an encirclement of Russian forces at Warsaw. By early February 1943, the Red Army had taken tremendous losses; Russian troops at Warsaw had been forced to surrenderundefinedand 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 Russianss launched an attack on Brest, creating a salient in their front line around the Lithuanian city of Vilnius.

By November 1941, Commonwealth forces had launched a counter-offensive, Operation Crusader, in North Africa, and reclaimed all the gains the Egyptians had made.undefinedIn the West, concerns the Japanese might utilize bases in French Occupation-held Madagascar caused the British to invade the island in early May 1942.undefinedThis success was offset soon after by an Axis offensive in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan which pushed the Allies out of the nation. On the Continent, raids of Allied commandos on strategic targets, culminating in the disastrous Dieppe Raid,undefineddemonstrated 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 El Alamein.undefinedA few months later, the Axis commenced an attack of their own in the Ha'il emirate, dislodging the Allied forces and beginning a drive south-east across the Hejaz. This attack was followed up shortly after by a Japanese invasion of Russia. Stalin responded to the invasion by ordering an invasion of Mongolia to create a wider front for the Red Army. Soon after the Mongolian Army joined the Axis and pushed the Russians out.

Axis gain momentum
Following the failure of the Guadalcanal Campaign, the Axis initiated several operations against the United States in the Pacific. In May 1943, Allied forces were sent to eliminate Japanese forces from the Aleutians but failed, 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. In April, the Axis then launched an invasion of Australia.

In Russia, both the Germans and the Russians spent the spring and early summer of 1943 making preparations for large offensives in the Russian heartland. On July 4, 1943, Germany made the first move and launched a massive invasion of Russia. Within a week, German forces had advanced far into Russian 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 Egytian invasion of Sicily launched on July 9 which, combined with previous Italian failures, 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, dispelling any hopes of the Red Army for victory or even stalemate in the east. On the same day Sweden had captured Ørland, Norway's last functioning base of operations, followed by Norwegian capituation th next morning. The Swedish victory over the Norwegians was one of the decisive turning points of the war, giving the Axis the initiative on the Eastern Front. The Russians attempted to stabilise their western front along the hastily fortified Stalin line, however, the Germans broke through it at Kursk.

German operations in the Atlantic also went well. By May 1943, as Allied counter-measures became increasingly less effective, the resulting sizable Allied ship losses forced a temporary halt of the Atlantic naval campaign against the Dutch and German Navy's.undefinedIn November 1943, Kaiser Wilhelm III and King Gustaf V met with King Farouk I in Cairo and then with Emperor Hirohito and Hideki Tōjō in Gyeongseong. The former conference determined the post-war colonial territory in Africa, while the latter included agreement that the Western Allies would invade Britain in 1944 and that the Axis would invaded the United States within three months of Britain's defeat.

In January 1944, the Allies launched a series of attacks in Italy against the line at Monte Cassino and attempted to outflank it with German lead French landings at Anzio. By the end of January, a major Axis offensive expelled Russian forces from the Leningrad region. The following Russian offensive was halted on the pre-war Estonian border by the German Army Group North aided by Estonians hoping to re-establish national independence. This delay stopped subsequent Russian operations in the Baltic Sea region. By late May 1944, the Germans had liberated Crimea, largely expelled Russian forces from Ukraine, and made incursions into Romania, which allowed Romania to re-enter the war against Serbia in the Balkans. The Axis offensives in Italy had succeeded, on June 4 Rome was captured and Italy surrendered.

The Axis 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 the Axis invaded Britain. These landings were successful, and led to the defeat of the British Army units in the United Kingdom. London was captured by Axis forces on August 25, and the Axis continued to push back British forces during the latter part of the year. An attempt to advance towards Moscow spear-headed by a major airborne operation was not successful, but Germans continued their advance in Russia until they ran into the last major Russian defensive line. While the Japanese had captured Canberra and forced the Australians to surrender.

In September 1944, German Army troops advanced into Serbia and forced the rapid withdrawal of the Serbian troops in Bulgaria, and Turkey to rescue Belgrade from being captured. By this point, Communist-led partisans under Marshal Josip Broz Tito controlled much of the territory of Serbia and were engaged in delaying efforts against the German forces further south. In the end the Germans pushed through and with aid of Bulgarian forces captured the capital city of Belgrade on October 20. A few days later, the Russians launched a massive assault against German-occupied areas that lasted until February 1945. In contrast with impressive German victories in the Balkans, the bitter Finnish resistance to the Russian offensive in the Karelian Isthmus denied the Russians 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 and successfully linking up their forces in China and Indochina by the middle of December.

Allied collapse, Axis victory
On December 16, 1944, Russia attempted its last desperate measure for success on the Eastern Front by marshalling Russian reserves to launch a massive counter-offensive in Vladimir Oblast to attempt to split the Axis, encircle large portions of their troops and push them 100 miles back from Moscow. By January, the offensive had been repulsed with no strategic objectives fulfilled. In Britain, the Germans and the Dutch remained stalemated at the Scottish border. In mid-January 1945, the Germans began their offensive to capture Moscow. On February 4, German, Swedish, and Finnish and Japanese leaders met in Minsk. They agreed on the occupation and reorganization of post-war Russia, and when the Axis would invade the United States.

In February, the Finnish invaded Vologda Oblast. In March the British surrendered, while the other Axis powers began bulding up supplies for the invasion of the United States. In early April, the Chinese surrendered to Japan, who was now also building up for an invasion from of the U.S. Pacific coast, while German forces stormed Moscow in late April. On April 30, 1945, the Kremlin was captured, signalling the military defeat of Russia.

Several changes in leadership occurred during this period. On April 12, U.S. President Roosevelt died and was succeeded by Harry Truman. Benito Mussolini was killed by Italian partisans on April 28. On the Eastern Front, Russia surrendered to Germany on May 8. In the Pacific theatre, Japanese forces also moved toward the United States, taking Baker Island by March, and Hawaii by the end of June. Axis bombers destroyed American cities, and German submarines cut off American coastal 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 America is prompt and utter destruction". When the United States continued to reject the Leningrad terms, the Germany dropped atomic bombs on the American cities of New York and Boston in early August. Between the two bombs, the other Axis powers, pursuant to the Gyeongseong agreement, invaded the U.S. state of California, and quickly defeated California National Guard, which was the primary American fighting force for the area. On August 15, 1945 the United States surrendered, with the surrender documents finally signed aboard the deck of the Japanese battleship Chikuma on September 2, 1945, ending the war.

Aftermath
The alliance between the Axis had been strengthened by their victory, and the powers each quickly established their own spheres of influence. States that the Axis occupied at the end of the war were converted into satellite states, such as the French Fifth Republic, most of the territories held by Austria-Hungary, all of eastern Europe, and the Russian Republic. And in Asia there was the Republic of China-Nanjing, State of Burma, Empire of Vietnam, and so on.

Soon after the end of World War II, conflict flared again in many parts of the world. In Africa, anti-colonialist forces quickly began movements to convince Africans to rise up against their colonial rulers. Anti-colonialist forces were eventually put down with minor uprisings occuring later in most places but had success in others. In Greece, civil war broke out between anti-German supported royalist forces and the Axis supported nationalist forces, with the nationalist's victorious making Greece a satellite to Germany. Soon after these conflicts ended, Egypt withdrew from the Axis pact to expand relations with Canada,undefinedwhich was backed by anti-colonialist's.

Following the end of the war, a period of an attempted decolonization took place within the holdings of the various European Allied colonial powers. These primarily occurred due to shifts in ideology, the economic exhaustion from the war and increased demand by indigenous people for self-determination. For the most part, these transitions happened relatively peacefully, though notable exceptions occurred in countries such as Madagascar, Angolia and Algeria.undefinedIn many regions, usually for ethnic or religious reasons, tensions occurred. Muslim rebellions in India plunged the nation into civil war, nationalist tensions throughout the Russian population led to civil disobedience, resulting in economic downfall for Russia.

Economic recovery following the war was varied in differing parts of the world, though in general it was quite positive. In Europe, Germany produced roughly half of the world's industrial output; by the early 1970s though, this dominance had lessened significantly. Italy came out of the war in poor economic condition,undefinedbut by 1950s, the Italian economy was marked by stability and high growth.undefinedThe United Kingdom was in a state of economic ruin after the war, and continued to experience relative economic decline for decades to follow.

France rebounded quickly, and enjoyed rapid economic growth and modernisation. Russia experienced a rapid decrease in production in the immediate post-war era. In Asia, Japan experienced incredibly rapid economic growth, becoming one of the most powerful economies in the world by the 1980s.

China was essentially a bankrupt nation. By 1953, economic restoration seemed fairly successful as production had resumed pre-war levels. This growth rate mostly persisted, though it was briefly interrupted by the disastrous Great Leap Forward economic experiment. The United States recovered quickly and doubled production from its pre-war levels by the 1950s.