Causes of World War II

• World War II objectives includes understanding:
  • The causes of the war
  • The major events during the war
  • The major turning points during the war
  • The events that led to the end of the war

Acts of Aggression: Japan Invades Manchuria (1931)

• The Japanese army ignored the Japanese government and launched a full-scale invasion of Manchuria
• The Japanese army proceeded to occupy the entire province of Manchuria
• The League of Nations opposed the attack, wanting to deal with the government of the aggressor nation
• This was futile with the government having no control over the army

League of Nations

• The League of Nations could not enforce its authority
• A major power could use force without consequence
• The issue in Manchuria was too far from Europe for major European powers to care
• Other powers saw this as a sign they could also use force without consequence
• The League lost its most powerful member in the Far East and Japan united with Germany and Italy

Acts of Aggression: Italy Invades Ethiopia (1935)

• Italy attacked Ethiopia from Eritrea and Italian Somaliland without a declaration of war on October 3, 1935
• The League of Nations unanimously declared Italy an aggressor on October 7, but took no effective action

Benito Mussolini

• Mussolini justified the attack of Ethiopia because he viewed it as a country without the slightest shadow of civilization.

Haile Selassie

• Haile Selassie gave a speech before the League of Nations in Geneva on June 30
• He explained the choice was support for collective security vs international lawlessness

Acts of Aggression Leading to WWII

Country Area Attacked

Reason Allies Reaction

Japan Manchuria China Need for natural resources

League of Nations did nothing Italy Ethiopia - Africa Distract from depression & build Roman Empire

League of Nations did nothing Germany Austria (1938)German people lived there None, treaty violation (1938)German people lived there Britain & France appeased and didn't fight Germany Poland (1939)Desire for land Britain and France declared war

Axis Power

• Adolf Hitler is considered one of the most brutal dictators in history.
• Hitler rearmed Germany into a modern war machine
• Adolf Hitler and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini became allies in 1936
• Hitler and Mussolini were both Fascists

German Aggression

• Adolf Hitler preached to the Nazi party faithful that they were a superior race
• The Nazi party thought they deserved more, needing additional Lebensraum, and a higher standard of living
• Hitler was an emotional speaker with a mesmerizing effect on those who listened
• By 1938 he amassed the best-equipped, best-trained army in the world

The Munich Conference

• After Germany invaded the Sudetenland, the British and French met with Hitler in Munich on September 30, 1938
• The British and French agreed to allow Hitler to seize the Sudeten districts of Czechoslovakia
• Hitler must provide assurance that he had no further territorial claims in Europe
• The British and French practiced a policy of appeasement

Policy Of Appeasement

• The Policy of Appeasement failed to stop Hitler's advancements in taking over Europe

Peace for Our Time

• "My good friends... I have returned form Germany bringing peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time... Go home and get a nice quiet sleep." - Chamberlain
• "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last." - Winston Churchill
• On March 15 1939, the German army occupied the remainder of Czechoslovakia

Nazi-Soviet Pact

• On August 23, 1939, the world was shocked when Russia and Germany signed a non-aggression pact
• Germany and Russia had a secret agreement to invade and divide Poland between them

Germany Invades Poland

• Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939
• Hitler introduced blitzkrieg (lightning war)
• German bombers targeted railroads which crippled Polish military mobilization
• Tanks smashed through Polish defenses
• The Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east on September 17
• Poland fell by the end of the month

Britain and France Declare War

• Britain and France declared war after Germany invaded Poland

Chamberlain Declares War

• British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain gave a speech declaring Britain's entry into World War 2

France Falls

• The Germans attacked France in May 1940
• The French army was caught off guard
• Both armies were equal in troop and tank strength
• The Germans had superior numbers of aircraft and an invasion plan
• The blitzkrieg sent French forces into a confused retreat
• As the Germans marched into Paris on June 14, the French government collapsed

The Bombing of Britain

• In the Summer of 1940, the German Luftwaffe hit London with the Blitz
• Bombing raids occurred on London and dog-fights occurred in the sky during the Battle of Britain

Turning Point: Stalingrad

• During the fall and early winter of 1941, German armored divisions advanced towards Moscow
• The divisions captured hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops
• By the first week of December, snow began falling, and temperatures plunged to -40° C (-40° F)
• German soldiers were not dressed for frigid weather and began freezing and losing their will to fight
• German's equipment froze, becoming useless
• The Russian winter halted the German offensive

Turning Point: Pearl Harbor

• On December 7, 1941, Japanese aircraft initiated a surprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleet at Hawaii's Pearl Harbor
• The Japanese hoped to cripple the American fleet, which they perceived as the principal threat to victory in a war against the United States
• The Japanese destroyed four battleships and damaged four more
• The USS Arizona was destroyed
• Other naval vessels and a large number of combat aircraft were destroyed or damaged
• Many American naval and military personnel were killed and wounded

United States Declares War

• President Franklin Roosevelt addressed a joint session of Congress and asked for a declaration of war against Japan on December 8, 1941
• Roosevelt called December 7th “a date which will live in infamy".

Island Hopping Strategy Successful

• Douglas McArthur led the United States in an island-hopping campaign to push the Japanese back to Japan

Turning Point: Midway

• The Battle of Midway was a victory for American forces and marked a turning point in the Pacific theater during World War II
• The battle was fought in the waters off the Midway Islands in June 1942 between United States land-and carrier-based planes and Japanese carrier-based planes
• The Japanese lost four aircraft carriers, two cruisers, and three destroyers
• The Americans lost the aircraft carrier Yorktown and one destroyer

Battle of Iwo Jima

• American marines gained control of Iwo Jima in March 1945
• Iwo Jima is 660 miles from Tokyo
• Victory came after losing more than 20,000 more soldiers than they had ever lost in a single battle

The Big Three

• Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill
• Military strategy and post-World War II policy for Europe were discussed at a meeting in Tehrān, Iran, in 1943
• Leaders decided to invade France in 1944, against Churchill's advice
• The meeting marked the apex of the East-West wartime alliance

D-Day: Operation Overlord

• A force of about 152,000 Allied soldiers from the United States, Britain, and Canada stormed the beaches of Normandy in northern France on June 6, 1944
• They were supported by about 23,000 paratroopers

D-Day

• D-Day was the largest seaborne invasion in history
• The invasion at Normandy took the Germans by surprise
• Germans expected an invasion from the narrowest part of the English Channel
• ALL 5 beaches were secured by the Allies by the end of the day

Battle of the Bulge

• The Battle of the Bulge lasted from December 16, 1944 to January 28, 1945
• It was the largest land battle of World War II in which the United States participated
• Over a million men fought in this battle including 600,000 Germans, 500,000 Americans, and 55,000 British
• The casualties were:
  • 81,000 U.S. with 19,000 killed
  • 1400 British with 200 killed, and
  • 100,000 Germans killed, wounded or captured

The Yalta Conference

• The leaders of the Allied powers, known as the Big Three, met at Yalta in February 1945
• The leaders met on the Crimean Peninsula to discuss Allied military strategy in the final months of World War II

VE-DAY, May 8, 1945

• VE(Victory in Europe) Day marks the day of the Allies' victory in Europe during World War II
• Nazi Germany surrendered unconditionally in 1945 after 3½ years of war

Pacific War Battles On!

• Kamikaze pilots are from suicide squadrons organized by the Japanese air force in the last months of World War II
• Kamikaze means "divine wind" in Japanese
• Pilots flew their aircraft, loaded with explosives, directly into U.S. naval vessels
• Kamikaze pilots sank about 40 U.S. ships

Harry Truman

• Harry Truman became president after Franklin Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945
• Truman had to concentrate on the war in the Pacific
• The main obstacle was the Japanese resistance and their samurai tradition
• Military advisors predicted an Allied victory over Japan would lead to high casualties
• An invasion of Japan would cost over one million American lives

Atomic Bomb

• The United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, a Japanese city and military center on August 6, 1945, during World War II
• The blast destroyed 68 percent of Hiroshima
• The blast damaged another 24 percent
• 60,000 to 70,000 people were killed or reported missing
• Thousands more were made homeless
• President Harry S. Truman reported the event to radio listeners sixteen hours after the attack

Nagasaki

• A second bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki three days later on August 9th
• Over 20,000 people died instantly
• Thousands more Japanese died from the radiation exposure of the blast in the successive weeks

VJ-Day: The War is Over!

• Japanese officials formally surrendered to the Allies on September 2, 1945
• The surrender was on board the United States battleship Missouri
• Japan's surrender brought an end to World War II (1939-1945)

The Atomic Age Begins!

• The first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945, during World War II
• The blast destroyed 68 percent of the city and damaged another 24 percent
• An estimated 60,000 to 70,000 people were killed or reported missing, according to United States estimates