World War II 1939-1945
Winston Churchill
A noted British statesman who led Britain throughout most of World War II and along with Roosevelt planned many allied campaigns. He predicted an iron curtain that would separate Communist Europe from the rest of the West.
Chamberlain and Appeasement
As the League of Nations crumbled, politicians turned to a new way to keep the peace - appeasement. This was the policy of giving Hitler what he wanted to stop him from going to war. It was based on the idea that what Hitler wanted was reasonable and, when his reasonable demands had been satisfied, he would stop. Neville Chamberlain was the British prime minister who believed in appeasement. In 1938, Germans living in the border areas of Czechoslovakia (the Sudetenland) started to demand a union with Hitler's Germany. The Czechs refused and Hitler threatened war. On 30 September during the Munich Agreement - without asking Czechoslovakia - Britain and France gave the Sudetenland to Germany. There were many reasons why Chamberlain appeased Hitler, but here are the main ones: The British people wanted peace - they would not have supported a war in 1938. Many of Hitler's complaints appeared reasonable at the time - especially about the Treaty of Versailles. Chamberlain wanted a strong Germany to serve as a barrier against expansion by communist Russia. Britain's armed forces were not ready for a war, and they could not have helped Czechoslovakia anyway. Many people admired Hitler - in 1938, the American magazine 'Time' declared him 'Man of the Year'. Chamberlain remembered the slaughter of World War One - he thought another war would destroy civilisation. The main results to come out of appeasement were: Czechoslovakia was weakened. Poland and Hungary took other land. Britain gained a year to build up its armed forces, but so did Hitler. Hitler decided that Britain and France were afraid of him and would not step in to stop him, no matter what he did. Russia decided that Britain and France would never stand up to Hitler, and that war with Germany was inevitable. The people of Britain realised that they had been duped, and decided that war was inevitable. It improved the war morale of the British people, who knew they had done everything possible to avoid war.
War of Attrition
Attrition warfare is the term used to describe the sustained process of wearing down an opponent so as to force their physical collapse through continuous losses in personnel, equipment and supplies or to wear them down to such an extent that their will to fight collapses.
Battle of Britain
An aerial battle fought in World War II in 1940 between the German Luftwaffe (air force), which carried out extensive bombing in Britain, and the British Royal Air Force, which offered successful resistance.
Munich Agreement (1938)
An agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland; it is widely regarded as a failed act of appeasement toward Nazi Germany.
Blitzkrieg
"Lighting war", typed of fast-moving warfare used by German forces against Poland in 1939
London Blitz/Battle of Britain
Nazi Germany bombs London for 10 months.
Vichy France
Southern Pro-Nazi French; govern themselves as loyal to nazis; traitors to the Free French in N. France
WW1 versus WW2
1.WWI was fought between 1914 and 1918 while WWII was fought between 1939 and 1945. 2.The two warring groups of WWI were the Allied Powers and the Central Powers while the two warring groups of WWII were The Allies and The Axis powers. 3.WWI was triggered by the assassination of the archduke of Austria-Hungary while WWII was triggered by the bitterness over the outcome of WWI which was used by Adolf Hitler to lead Germany to war. 4.While WWI was fought in the lines of trenches, WWII was fought in a broader scale using modern weapons and methods including the atomic bomb.
Annexation of Sudetenland
1938; place of contention between Germany and Czechoslovakia; participants at the Munich Conference, yielding to Adolf Hitler, transferred Sudetenland to Germany.
Yalta Conference
FDR, Churchill and Stalin met at Yalta. Russia agreed to declare war on Japan after the surrender of Germany and in return FDR and Churchill promised the USSR concession in Manchuria and the territories that it had lost in the Russo-Japanese War
Lebensraum
Hitler's expansionist theory based on a drive to acquire "living space" for the German people
Eastern Front
The Eastern Front is best known for the multi-year Siege of Leningrad and the bloody Battle of Stalingrad, but it was also the site of the largest armored confrontation of all time. During July 1943's Battle of Kursk, some 6,000 tanks, 2 million men and 5,000 aircraft clashed in one of the most strategically important engagements of World War II. The campaign began when the Germans set their sights on a 70-mile-long salient, or bulge, in the Soviet lines in western Russia. Hitler delayed the attack by several weeks to allow the Nazis' new Tiger tanks to reach the front, which gave the Soviets time to fortify the entire region. When the German offensive finally commenced, they were met by a storm of mines and artillery fire that eventually destroyed hundreds of tanks and left a total of some 350,000 men dead on both sides. Unable to match the Soviets in a contest of attrition, the Germans reluctantly withdrew from the region on July 13. The retreat marked the last gasp of Nazi offensive operations in the East.
Anschluss
The union of Austria with Germany, resulting from the occupation of Austria by the German army in 1938.
Total War
Total war is warfare that includes any and all civilian-associated resources and infrastructure as legitimate military targets, mobilizes all of the resources of society to fight the war, and gives priority to warfare over non-combatant needs. The Oxford Living Dictionaries defines "total war" as "A war that is unrestricted in terms of the weapons used, the territory or combatants involved, or the objectives pursued, especially one in which the laws of war are disregarded."[1] In the mid-19th century, scholars identified total war as a separate class of warfare. In a total war, to an extent inapplicable in less total conflicts, the differentiation between combatants and non-combatants diminishes, sometimes even vanishing entirely, due to the capacity of opposing sides to consider nearly every human resource, even that of non-combatants, to be a part of the war effort.[2] Actions that may characterize the post-19th century concept of total war include: Strategic bombing, as during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War (Operations Rolling Thunder and Linebacker II) Blockade and sieging of population centers, as with the Allied blockade of Germany and the Siege of Leningrad during the First and Second World Wars Scorched earth policy, as with the March to the Sea during the American Civil War and the Japanese "Three Alls Policy" during the Second Sino-Japanese War Commerce raiding, tonnage war, and unrestricted submarine warfare, as with privateering, the German U-Boat campaigns of the First and Second World Wars, and the United States submarine campaign against Japan during World War II Collective punishment, pacification operations, and reprisals against populations deemed hostile, as with the execution and deportation of suspected Communards following the fall of the 1871 Paris Commune or the German reprisal policy targeting resistance movements, insurgents, and Untermenschen such as in France (e.g. Maillé massacre) and Poland during World War II The use of civilians and prisoners of war as forced labor for military operations, as with Japan and Germany's massive use of forced laborers of other nations during World War II (see Slavery in Japan and Forced labor under German rule during World War II)[3] Giving no quarter (i.e. take no prisoners), as with Hitler's Commando Order during World War II.
Allies versus Axis powers
Who Were the Allies: The main Allied powers were Great Britain, The United States, China, and the Soviet Union. The leaders of the Allies were Franklin Roosevelt (the United States), Winston Churchill (Great Britain), and Joseph Stalin (the Soviet Union). The common purpose of the Allies was to defeat the Axis powers and create a peaceful post-war world. Its creation was a response to the aggression and unprovoked war the Axis had unleashed upon the world. Each country had different ideas about what this post war world would look like. Churchill and Britain wanted to create a post-war Europe that would prevent Germany from rising again. Roosevelt and the United States wanted a permanent end to the fascist regimes of Germany, Italy and Japan and to foster democracy throughout the world. Stalin and the Soviet Union wanted to both crush Germany and gain influence over Europe. The United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union coordinated their foreign and military policies and created institutions in common to support these policies and win the war. Who Were the Axis Powers: The main Axis powers were Germany, Japan and Italy. The Axis leaders were Adolf Hitler (Germany), Benito Mussolini (Italy), and Emperor Hirohito (Japan). The Axis alliance began with Germany partnering with Japan and Italy and was cemented in September 1940 with the Tripartite Pact, also known as the Three-Power Pact, which had the "prime purpose to establish and maintain a new order of things... to promote the mutual prosperity and welfare of the peoples concerned." They supported each other's goal for territorial expansion, wanted the destruction of the Soviet Union and acknowledged each other's supremacy in their respective geographic areas.
June 6, 1944 (D-Day)
date thousands of American, British, Canadian, and Free French troops hit the beaches of Normandy in Northwest France, launching the largest amphibious assault in history. Allied forces under U.S. general Dwight D. Eisenhower landed on the Normandy beaches in history's greatest naval invasion. fought past hidden underwater mines, barbed wire, machine gun fire. believing the battle was a diversion and the real invasion would occur elsewhere, Germans responded slowly. gave allied forces time to set up a beachhead.
