The Second World War was a war between the axis forces of Germany, Italy, and Japan on one side, and the allies of Britain, the Commonwealth, France, the USA, the USSR, and China on the other. It was fought between 1939 and 1945 killing an estimated 55 million people. The war was fought in the Atlantic and Pacific theatres. Germany surrendered in May 1945 but Japan fought on until the USA dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
The war was comprised of three main theatres: Europe, involving a long-standing continuation of a territorial dispute between Germany and France which had existed for over 100 years; Africa where Italy and Britain both sought to increase their territory; and the Pacific where the USA sought to expand an Empire and which threatened Japanese interests, and which Japan and China both also sought to increase their territory and interests.
The war in Europe started through rising tensions throughout the 1930s as NaziGermany first broke virtually all of its treaty obligations and then embarked on a programme of aggressive expansionism seeking to reclaim and expand territory she had lost after the Great War, including invading Poland in 1939. Britain only became involved after German threatened France and Italy threatened British interests in Africa.
The Soviet Union at first allied itself to Germany, content with expanding its own territory in the Baltic region and eastern Poland, but later the two allies became competitors for territory in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union allied itself with the Western allies.
At no time was the persecution and massacre of millions of Jews, Slavs, Gypsies and homosexuals a consideration of any of the countries involved, although they would after the war claim these atrocities by the Germans as justifications for the war. Research Second World War
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Warfare
Research Second World War
