The Second World War: Causes, Course, and Consequences

Posted on Aug 15, 2024 in History

1. The World at War (1939-1945)

The League of Nations was established to guarantee peace in Europe and around the world. Political and economic factors created a series of problems which led to the Second World War in 1939.

The peace treaties, including the payment of reparations.
The Great Depression of the 1930s resulted in high unemployment and growing poverty. The situation was especially severe in Germany.
Authoritarian regimes had come to power in Italy and Germany. These governments pursued expansionist foreign policies, annexing and invading other countries.
The world’s economy was once again dominated by military needs.

2. The Origins of the Second World War

2.1. The Long-Term Causes of the War

Protectionism: The Great Depression led many countries to implement protectionist policies to reduce competition from imports. These measures forced countries to find new markets.
Expansionism: Authoritarian regimes in Germany, Italy, and Japan felt that they needed to expand their territory to acquire more raw materials and establish new markets for their exports.
The Treaty of Versailles: Hitler had promised to destroy it. He broke its conditions, firstly by rebuilding Germany’s armed forces.
Appeasement policies: Democracies such as Great Britain supported a policy of appeasement. As a result, they did not use military force to prevent expansionism in the 1930s.

2.2. Increasing Tensions

During the 1930s, Japan, Italy, and Germany took advantage of appeasement.

In 1931, the Japanese army invaded Manchuria.
In 1935, Mussolini invaded Abyssinia.
In 1938, Germany annexed Austria and occupied Czechoslovakia.

The Outbreak of War

On 23 August 1939, Hitler and Stalin signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact; they agreed not to attack each other. They also decided to invade Poland and divide the country between them. In response, Great Britain joined France and Poland in an alliance of mutual protection. Germany invaded Poland, and on 3 September 1939, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany.

3. The Second World War

3.1. The War’s Participants and Phases

The war was fought by two opposing sides:

The Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, and after 1940, Japan.
The Allied Powers: Initially Great Britain, France, and Poland, later Canada and Australia, the USSR, and the United States.

First Phase: Axis Offensive (1939-1941)

Europe: Germany had a number of early victories in Europe. These victories were due to the German’s blitzkrieg strategy. In April 1941, Italy and Germany invaded Greece, and more countries joined the Axis powers.
Africa: In September 1940, Italy attacked British military positions in Egypt but then needed German support to continue with their invasion.
Asia and Oceania: Japan invaded colonies in Asia and Oceania. Then on 7 December 1941, Japanese forces carried out a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor – the United States declared war on Japan and entered the conflict.

Second Phase: Allied Victories (1942-1943)

Europe: The Red Army attacked and surrounded the German forces during a very cold winter. The Germans finally surrendered.
Africa: In Egypt, Great Britain defeated German forces in the 1942 Battle of El Alamein. The important British victory was made possible by Allied reinforcements from India and Australia.
Asia and Oceania: The United States defeated Japanese forces in the 1942 Battle of Midway, one of the most important naval conflicts of the war.

Third Phase: Final Allied Advances (1943-1945)

Africa: German and Italian forces were defeated in Libya.
Europe: Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy and began liberating France from German control. In May 1945, the Allies entered Berlin, and Germany surrendered.
Asia and Oceania: Japan refused to surrender. The United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan finally surrendered on 2 September 1945.

3.2. Spain During the War

The Spanish Civil War had already ended. The Nationalists had won the war, and General Franco had established a dictatorship. Franco asked Hitler to give Spain Gibraltar and France’s North African colonies. Hitler did not accept these conditions. Spain remained neutral throughout the Second World War.

Several factors contributed to Spain’s neutrality:

An economic crisis: The civil war had destroyed agricultural lands, factories, and infrastructure. The Spanish economy was severely weakened as a result of this destruction.
A demographic crisis: Spain’s birth-rate had also fallen dramatically.
Political opposition: Society was divided into two groups: those who supported Franco’s regime and those who had fought against the Nationalists in the war.

Franco supported Nazi Germany by sending volunteer troops, called the Blue Division, to fight against the Soviet Union. The Blue Division withdrew from the conflict, and Spain remained neutral for the rest of the war.

4. The Wartime Economy

Manufacturing industries concentrated on producing military vehicles. Some vehicles were improved, such as tanks and fighter planes, aircraft carriers, and helicopters.
Mines and foundries increased their extraction and processing of resources (carbon, nickel, iron).
Extraction and refining of oil were also increased to provide fuel.

Scientific research led to the development of the atomic bomb. The war effort also had a negative effect on many countries’ economies. Civilians often suffered from shortages, and rationing systems were introduced to distribute basic products (bread, flour, and cooking oil). There was also a profitable black market for certain consumer goods.

5. The Human Impact of the War

5.1. Social Disruption

Evacuation: Many people moved to rural areas because towns and cities often became battlegrounds or the targets of air raids.
Blackouts and shelters: To avoid being bombed at night, people turned off their lights and covered their windows. Street lights were also blacked out in towns and cities. During air raids, people went to underground shelters.
Emigration: Many people fled Nazi persecution, afraid of being arrested or killed.

5.2. Resistance and Collaboration

Resistance fighters: Some people organized themselves into secret resistance movements to attack the Nazis and help the Allies.
Collaborators: Other people in occupied territories collaborated with the Germans and helped them to carry out their military plans.

The Holocaust

The Nazi regime was anti-Semitic. Jewish people were marginalized, persecuted, and forced to live in ghettos. Jewish people were sent to concentration camps, where they were killed. By the end of the war, approximately 6 million Jews had died in the Holocaust. The Nazis also systematically killed other groups of people, including Roma, Slavs, homosexuals, political and religious opponents, people with physical disabilities, and prisoners of war.

Genocide is the systematic extermination of people who share a particular nationality, ethnic background, culture, or religion.

6. Peace and its Consequences

6.1. The Peace Agreements

The Yalta Conference: Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met in February 1945. They agreed that the Allies would occupy Germany and Japan and that the Soviet Union would receive part of eastern Poland. They also agreed on the creation of a new international organization to guarantee peace: the United Nations.
The Potsdam Conference: Truman replaced Roosevelt; Churchill was succeeded by Attlee, the new British prime minister. The leaders agreed to divide Germany into four zones, each one occupied by one of the major Allied powers.

6.2. The Consequences of the Second World War

Demographic consequences: The war resulted in the greatest loss of human life in any war in history, with more than 50% being civilians. The population of working age fell dramatically, as did the birth-rate.
Economic consequences: Air raids, bombardments, and fighting destroyed large areas of farmland, as well as cities, towns, factories, and basic infrastructure. The cost of reconstruction was extremely high.
Political consequences: Germany was occupied by the Allies, and new democratic governments were established in both Italy and Japan. Great Britain and France were weakened. The United States and the USSR became the world’s new superpowers.
Territorial consequences: The defeated powers lost land (mainly to either Poland or the Soviet Union), and Germany was divided into four zones of occupation.

A new world order was established, with the globe divided into two main spheres of influence: the Western Bloc, led by the United States, and the Eastern Bloc, led by the USSR.