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World War II, also, The Second World War, or WWII, was the global military conflict that took place between 1939 and 1945. World War II was the largest and deadliest war in history.

The war began between Nazi Germany and the Allies. Germany was later joined by Italy, Japan, and others, jointly known as the Axis. The Allies at first were made up of Poland, the British Commonwealth, France, and others. In June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and in December, Japan attacked the United States. China, which had been at war with Japan since the mid-1930s, also joined the Allies, as eventually did a number of other countries.

Italy surrendered in September, 1943, Germany in May 1945. The surrender of Japan marked the end of the war, on 2 September, 1945.

It is possible that up to 62 million people died in the war; with estimates varying greatly. Most were civilians, as a result of disease, starvation, genocide, and the aerial bombing of cities. Estimates place deaths in the Soviet Union at around 23 million, while China suffered about 10 million. Poland suffered the most deaths in proportion to its population of any country, losing approximately 5.6 million out of a pre-war population of 34.8 million (16%).

The war was responsible for the re-drawing of national boundaries and the creation of new nations, the end of western colonialism, and the beginning of the Cold War.

After World War II, Europe was informally split into Western and Soviet spheres of influence. Western Europe largely aligned as NATO, and Eastern Europe largely as the Warsaw pact. There was a fundamental shift in power from Western Europe and the British Empire to the new superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union.

In Asia, the United States' military occupation of Japan led to Japan's democratization. China's civil war continued through and after the war, resulting eventually in the establishment of the People's Republic of China. The former colonies of the European powers began their road to independence.

The war also saw a number of newly developed weapons, including Atomic weapons, long range missiles, jet aircraft, and radar which changed the nature of future conflicts.

Causes

Commonly held general causes for WWII are the rise of nationalism, the rise of militarism, and the presence of unresolved territorial issues. Specific causes include the following:

Japan in the 1930s was ruled by a militarist clique devoted to Japan's becoming a world power. Japan invaded China to secure additional natural resources to compensate for Japan's lack of natural resources. This angered the United States, which reacted by making loans to China, giving China covert military assistance (see Flying Tigers), and instituting progressively more inclusive embargos of raw materials against Japan. The embargo of oil and other raw materials by the U.S. would have eventually wrecked Japan's economy; Japan was faced with the choice of withdrawing from China or going to war in order to conquer the oil resources of the Dutch East Indies. They chose to go ahead with plans for the Greater East Asia War in the Pacific

In Germany, resentment of the harsh Treaty of Versailles, the belief in the Dolchstosslegende, combined with the onset of the Great Depression fueled the rise to power of Adolf Hitler's militarist National Socialist German Workers Party (the Nazi Party); meanwhile the treaty's provisions were laxly enforced, mainly due to the fear of another war. It failed in its purpose of preventing the creation of a heavily-armed and aggressive Germany. The League of Nations also failed in its mission of preventing war, for similar reasons. Closely related is the failure of the British and French policy of appeasement, which gave Hitler time to re-arm.

Chronology

Main articles: European Theatre of World War II, Middle East Theatre of World War II, Pacific War, Mediterranean Theatre of World War II, End of World War II in Europe

1939: War breaks out in Europe

Pre-war alliances

On 19 May the Kasprzycki-Gamelin Convention was signed in Paris, obliging Poland and France to provide each other with military assistence in the event either is attacked.

On 23 August Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The pact included a secret protocol, dividing eastern Europe into German and Soviet areas of interest. Each country agreed to allow the other a free hand in its area of influence, to include military occupation.

On August 25 the Polish-British Common Defence Pact was signed.

The invasion of Poland

On 1 September Germany invaded Poland. Two days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany. The French mobilized slowly, then mounted only a token offensive in the Saar, which they soon abandoned, while the British took no direct action in support of the Poles (see Western betrayal). Meanwhile, on 9 September the Germans reached Warsaw, having slashed through the Polish defenses.

On 17 September Soviet troops occupied the eastern part of Poland, taking control of territory that Germany had agreed was in the Soviet sphere of influence. A day later the Polish president and commander-in-chief both fled to Romania. The last Polish units surrendered on 6 October. Some Polish troops evacuated to neighbouring Romania and Hungary. Polish forces continued to fight in exile.

The Phony War

After Poland fell, Germany paused to regroup during the winter of 1939-1940 until April 1940, while the British and French stayed on the defensive. The period would be jokingly termed "the Phony War", or the "Sitzkrieg", because so little ground combat took place.

The Battle of the Atlantic

Meanwhile, in the North Atlantic German U-boats operated against Allied shipping. The German U-boats made up in skill, luck, and daring what they lacked in numbers. One U-boat sank the British aircraft carrier HMS Courageous while another U-boat managed to sink the battleship HMS Royal Oak in its home anchorage of Scapa Flow. Altogether the U-boats sank more than 110 vessels in the first four months of the war.

In the South Atlantic, the Admiral Graf Spee raided Allied shipping, then was scuttled after the battle of the River Plate.

The invasion of Finland

The Soviet Union attacked Finland on 30 November 1939, beginning the Winter War, which lasted until March 1940 with Finland ceding territory to the Soviet Union.

1940: The war spreads

Europe

The invasion of Denmark and Norway

Germany invaded Denmark and Norway on 9 April 1940 in Operation Weserübung, in part to counter the threat of an impending Allied invasion of Norway. Denmark did not resist, but Norway fought back, and was joined by British, French, and Polish (exile) forces landing in support of the Norwegians at Namsos, Åndalsnes, and Narvik. By late June the Allies were defeated, German forces were in control of most of Norway, and what remained of the Norwegian Army had surrendered.

The invasion of France, Belgium, and Holland

On 10 May 1940 the Germans invaded Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France, ending the Phony War and beginning the Battle of France. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and the French Army advanced into northern Belgium, planning on fighting a mobile war in the north while maintaining a static continuous front along the Maginot Line further south. The Allied plans were immediately smashed by the most classic example in history of Blitzkrieg.

In the first phase of the invasion, Fall Gelb (Case Yellow), the Wehrmacht's Panzergruppe von Kleist raced through the Ardennes, broke the French line at Sedan, then slashed across northern France to the English Channel, splitting the Allies in two. Meanwhile Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands fell quickly against the attack of German Army Group B. The BEF, encircled in the north, was evacuated from Dunkirk in Operation Dynamo. German forces then continued the conquest of France with Case Red, advancing behind the Maginot Line and near the coast. France signed an armistice with Germany on 22 June 1940, leading to the establishment of the Vichy France puppet government in the unoccupied part of France.

In June 1940 the Soviet Union occupied Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, and annexed Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina from Romania.

The Battle of Britain

Following the defeat of France, Britain chose to fight on, so Germany began preparations in summer of 1940 to invade Britain (Operation Sea Lion). The first step necessary was for the Luftwaffe to secure control of the air over Britain by defeating the Royal Air Force. The war between the two air forces became known as the Battle of Britain. The Luftwaffe initially targeted RAF Fighter Command but thinking the results poor the Luftwaffe later turned to terror bombing London. The Germans failed to defeat the Royal Air Force, and Operation Sea Lion was postponed and eventually cancelled.

The Battle of The Atlantic

At sea during 1940 German U-Boats continued their attempt to deprive the British Isles of necessary trade.

The Mediterranean

The North African Campaign

The Italian declaration of war in June 1940 challenged the British supremacy of the Mediterranean, hinged on Gibraltar, Malta, and Alexandria. While Gibraltar was never under direct attack, Alexandria and Malta were hit repeatedly by Axis attacks; the thrusts towards the Suez Canal for the former, and the 1940/42 Blitz for the latter, which made the island of Malta the most heavily bombed place on earth.

Italian troops invaded and captured British Somaliland in August 1940.

In September 1940 the North African Campaign began when Italian forces in Libya attacked British forces in Egypt. The aim was to make Egypt an Italian possession, especially the vital Suez Canal east of Egypt. British, Indian and Australian forces counter-attacked in Operation Compass, but this offensive stopped in 1941 when much of the Commonwealth forces were