Allied Political Leaders

Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin

Axis Political Leaders

HirohitoMussolini and Hitler

Germany’s Increasingly Militaristic Approach

• In Nov 1937, Italy joined Germany in an alliance against the Soviet Union

• In Mar 1938, Hitler forced Anschluss (union) with Austria

• On Sept 29-30, the British and French foreign ministers attempted to appease Hitler by acquiescing to his demand for the Sudentenland under the understanding Hitler would make no more territorial demands– In March 1939 Hitler seized the

western part of Czechoslovakia Neville Chamberlain

French and German Plans forthe Battle of France 1940

• French anticipated the Germans attacking through the north as they did in World War I so they developed the Dye Plan to counter such an attack

• Built the Maginot Line in the south to protect the border

Maginot Line• A line of concrete

fortifications, tank obstacles, machine gun posts and other defenses which France constructed along her borders with Germany and Italy

• The fortifications did not extend through the Ardennes Forest which was considered “impassable”

Surprise in the Ardennes• On May 12, 1940

Germany attacked through the weakly held Ardennes region

• Penetrated Allied defenses at Sedan and Dinant and then began to envelop them

Dunkirk was the last evacuation port available to the Allies.

Dunkirk

Italy Joins the Axis

• On June 10, 1940, Mussolini declared war on Britain and France and four months later invaded Greece

• In many ways Mussolini will hinder rather than help Hitler

Greatest Extent of Axis Control

North Africa

Italian Presence in North Africa• Since before World War II, Italy had been occupying Libya

and had over a million soldiers based there• In neighboring Egypt, the British Army had only 36,000

men guarding the Suez Canal and the Arabian oilfields

• On Sept 13, 1940, the Italians advanced into Egypt but halted in front of the main British defenses at Mersa Matruh

• On Dec 9, the British counterattacked and pushed the Italians back more than 500 miles, inflicting heavy casualties

• British troops then moved along the coast and on Jan 22, 1941, they captured the port of Tobruk in Libya

Germany to the Rescue• In the meantime,

Germany sent forces across the Mediterranean to Tripoli– The Afrika Corps

commanded by Erwin Rommel

• Italy’s disasters in North Africa and elsewhere (i.e., Greece) threatened to undermine the Axis position in the Balkans and the Mediterranean

Operation Torch

• The Anglo-American forces landed at Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers and then advanced by land and sea to Tunisia

Germans Defeated• Rommel then turned

south against the British who were arriving from Egypt

• British General Bernard Montgomery dealt Rommel a stunning defeat and Rommel personally left Africa

• The Axis position in North Africa steadily deteriorated and in early May the Allies controlled Tunisia

American soldiers enter Kasserine Pass

Results of North Africa

• The Germans had wasted valuable resources in an indecisive theater

• Mussolini was severely weakened domestically

• The Americans learned from their poor performance and made the necessary changes

• The British and American coalition weathered a potentially threatening storm

The Eastern Front• On June 22, 1941, Hitler invaded Russia in Operation

Barbarossa• The operation encompassed a total troop strength of

about 4 million men, making it the biggest single land operation ever

• Benefiting from initial surprise, by the end of July Hitler had occupied a portion of Russia twice the size of France

• However, by the time the Germans reached the outskirts of Moscow in December, the Russian winter had set in– Remember what we talked about in Lesson 10 about Napoleon’s

invasion of Russia

Operation Barbarossa

The Eastern Front

• In the total four years of fighting on the Eastern Front, an estimated 4 million Axis and 9 million Russians were killed in battle

• 20 million Soviet civilians were killed as a result of extermination campaigns against Jews, communists and partisans, casual massacres, reprisal killings, diseases, and (sometimes planned) starvation.

Stalingrad

Casablanca Conference

• After the Axis surrender in Tunisia, the Allies began planning the next phase of the war

• Roosevelt and Churchill met in Casablanca, Morocco in January 1943– Stalin had been

invited, but declined to attend because of Stalingrad

Strategic Differences

• US argued for a cross channel invasion to directly attack Germany

• Churchill preferred an indirect approach, attacking through the “soft underbelly of Europe”– Reflected the preference

for peripheral operations he had shown in World War I

British Approach

American Approach

Legacy of Anzio• It wasn’t until June 4 that the

Allies finally reached Rome in “a hollow triumph”– By then the decisive Allied

effort had shifted to France• Most of the German Tenth Army

escaped Clark at Rome and the Germans established a strong defense along the Gothic Line– Kept the Allies away from the

Italian industrial area and the Alpine approaches to Germany

Rome

Gothic Line

Summary of the Italian Campaign

• Through the summer of 1943 it was an excellent training ground for Anglo-American forces

• Casualties the Allies inflicted on German ground and air forces in Tunisia and Sicily were a significant return on the investment

• “After that point, however, Italy cost more than it gained.”– Robert Doughty, American Military History and the

Evolution of Western Warfare

Operation Overlord: The Invasion of Normandy

German Defenses• Debate between

Rundstedt and Rommel over whether to deny the initial landing on the beaches or to destroy them with strong, mobile counter attack forces

RommelRundstedt

German Defenses: Compromise• Rundstedt and Rommel

couldn’t settle their disagreement over which defensive strategy was best so they compromised and combined the two plans

• This resulted is the worst of both– Beach defenses not

strong enough to stop landing; reserves not strong enough to destroy the beachhead

The Plan• Airborne forces would

secure exits from the beaches to allow the amphibious forces to move inland and block German counterattack routes to protect amphibious forces

• Amphibious forces would secure the beachhead to allow for the logistical buildup and breakout

The Plan• Airborne forces would

secure exits from the beaches to allow the amphibious forces to move inland and block German counterattack routes to protect amphibious forces

• Amphibious forces would secure the beachhead to allow for the logistical buildup and breakout

Breakout and Pursuit

How it Ends• July 25: Beginning of Operation

Cobra• Aug 15: Operation Anvil landings

in southern France• Sept 17: Operation Market Garden• Dec 16: Beginning of the Battle of

the Bulge• Apr 20, 1945: Russians take Berlin• Apr 25: Americans and Russians

meet at the Elbe River• Apr 30: Hitler commits suicide

Imperial Japan(Where we left off on Lesson 17)

• Japan continued to see the US and others as a threat to its influence in Asia and in 1940 the Japanese began developing plans to destroy the US Navy in Hawaii

• On Dec 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor– We’ll discuss this in

Lesson 21In May 1940, the main part of the US fleet was transferred to Pearl

Harbor from the west coast

Pearl Harbor• Dec 7, 1941

– “a date which will live in infamy”

• Americans taken completely by surprise

• The first attack wave targeted airfields and battleships

• The second wave targeted other ships and shipyard facilities

Tactical Damage• Eight battleships were

damaged, with five sunk • Three light cruisers, three

destroyers, three smaller vessels, and 188 aircraft were destroyed

• 2,335 servicemen and 68 civilians killed

• 1,178 wounded – 1,104 men aboard the

battleship USS Arizona were killed after a 1,760-pound air bomb penetrated into the forward magazine causing catastrophic explosions.

Broader Results• In spite of the tactical

success, the attack on Pearl Harbor was an operational and strategic failure for the Japanese– The attack failed to destroy

the American aircraft carriers, fleet repair facilities, or fuel reserves

– The “sneak attack” galvanized American support for entry into the war

Greatest Extent of Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere

“I shall return”

Final Campaigns• From Feb 19 to Mar 11, 1945

the Marines captured Iwo Jima• From Apr to June Americans

captured Okinawa– Total American battle

casualties were 49,151, of which 12,520 were killed or missing and 36,631 wounded

– Approximately 110,000 Japanese were killed and 7,400 more were taken prisoners

– Okinawa showed how costly an invasion of the Japanese home islands would be

Raising the flag on Mt. Suribachi,

Iwo Jima

Plan to Invade Japan• US planned to invade

Japan with eleven Army and Marine divisions (650,000 troops)

• Casualty estimates for the operation were as high as 1,400,000

• Truman decided to use the atomic bomb to avoid such losses

Operation Cornet, the plan to take Tokyo

The Atomic Bomb

• In the early 1940s, America had started an atomic weapons development program code named the “Manhattan Project”

• A successful test was conducted at Alamogordo in New Mexico in July 1945 J. Robert Oppenheimer and

General Leslie Groves at the Trinity Site soon after the test

Hiroshima and Nagasaki• Hiroshima Aug 6, 1945

– 90,000 killed

• On Aug 8, the USSR declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria the next day

• Nagasaki Aug 9, 1945– 35,000 killed

• Okinawa had been much more costly than Hiroshima and Nagasaki Captain Paul Tibbets piloted the

plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima

Hiroshima, vicinity of ground zero

Surrender

Japan surrenders Sept 2, 1945 aboard the USS Missouri

Beyond World War II

• Growth of Total War• Holocaust• Post-war impact of the atomic bomb• Expanded roles of women• Cold War (Lesson 23)

Growth of Total War

• Total war describes a war in which nations use all of their resources to destroy another nation’s ability to engage in war. – Conscription– Military-industrial complex to include women workers– Unconditional surrender– Civilian targets to include the Holocaust– Rationing, price controls, and other impacts on the

homefront– More destructive weapons to include the atomic bomb

Holocaust• Jews were the primary targets of Hitler’s racially

motivated genocidal policies, but Slavs, Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, communists, and others suffered as well

• Sometime during 1941, the Nazi leadership committed to “the final solution” of “the Jewish problem”– At the Wansee Conference on Jan 20, 1942, experts

gathered to discuss and coordinate the implementation of the plan to kill all the Jews living in Europe

Holocaust

• Jews were rounded up and sent to concentration camps– The largest was Auschwitz where at least a

million Jews died• The process was organized and

technologically sophisticated– Gassing was the preferred method of killing,

but electrocution, phenol injections, flamethrowers, hand grenades, and machine guns were also used

Roll Call at Auschwitz

Holocaust• Victims were subjected

to industrial work, starvation, medical experimentation, and extermination

• Large crematories were used to hide the evidence

• Approximately 5.7 million Jews perished in the Holocaust Auschwitz crematory

Mass Grave at Bergen-Belsen

Children Subjected to Medical Experiments in Auschwitz

Survivors ofAmpfing Subcamp of Dachau

Prisoners liberated at Auschwitz

Post-war Impact of Atomic Bomb

• Changed the very nature of war– Presented the possibility of

annihilation of humankind

• US came to place great strategic reliance on atomic bomb– War plans emphasized

sudden atomic attack against USSR to allow time for conventional mobilization 15 megaton thermonuclear

device test on Bikini Atoll in 1954

Post-war Impact of Atomic Bomb

• US held atomic monopoly until 1949– Huge US-USSR arms

race followed– Eventually led to

Mutually Assured Destruction (1967)

• Massive retaliation strategy (1954) meant US was prepared to respond to Soviet aggression with a massive nuclear strike

Post-war Impact of Atomic Bomb

• Nuclear weapons proved to not be a reasonable option in limited wars

• We’ll see this in Lesson 24 (Korea) and Lesson 25 (Vietnam) The US considered, but did not use, atomic

bombs in support of the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954

Expanded Roles for Women• The emergencies of war

greatly expanded the roles of women

• Some served in the military

• Others replaced men on factory assembly lines

• Women whose husbands went overseas acted as heads of households

Expanded Roles for Women• From 1940 to 1944

over 6 million women joined the workforce filling jobs that had been exclusively male

• After the war, women were expected to return home and resume their traditional roles as wives and mothers Woman's Day, Oct 1950.

The picture asks, "What more needs to be said about a woman's

day?"