World War 2 Summary

World War Two

World War Two was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, a total of 6 years. It included a great number of countries including the Allies and the Axis Powers. It was the biggest war in all of history. It directly involved over 100 million people from 30 different countries. Some countries threw their whole entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities into the war.

World War Two was the deadliest war to date. The total deaths in World War Two are about 50 million. Most were civilians from China and the Soviet Union. World War Two included massacres, bombings, genocide, starvation, disease, and the first use of nuclear weapons.

The war particularly involved the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan). It also

Poland had guarantees of help from France and Britain if Germany were to invade them. First, he wanted to make sure that the Soviets would not interfere. Germany and the Soviets made an agreement that when Germany took over Poland the Soviet Union would get two-thirds of the land and Germany would get one third. So on August 31, Adolf Hitler demanded the attack. The German won. They used a very clever military strategy called blitzkrieg. The Polish held out until October 5 and some guerilla warfare happened during the winter. The Soviets and Germans met on Polish soil. In the end, Poland suffered 70,000 men and 150,000 were wounded. Germany suffered 45,000 men. On September 3 France and Great Britain declared war on Germany. This is the official start of World War Two.

Soviets

The Soviets quickly profited from their deal with Germany. They went to constrain Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. They went to Finland but Finland resisted. Finland had about 200,000 men or about 10 divisions. The Soviets had about 1,000,000 men. They attacked Finland on November 30, 1939.

The Soviets succeeded in taking over only one little arctic port. They were repulsed on all other fronts they intended to attack. The Soviets had underestimated Finland’s will to win and their natural barriers protecting

Then the Allied troops came in. They had one victory before having to leave because of German advancements in France. The Germans took over Norway.

Invasion of France and southern countries France’s 800,000 man army was thought to be a very powerful army but like other countries, they didn’t make many advancements to their army during the break in between World War One and World War Two. Again the Germans clever strategy and the other countries’ failing to make any adjustments led to the Germans victory over all of these countries.

Most of the troops from these countries were cornered into Dunkirk. They knew they had to evacuate before the Germans came to occupy Dunkirk. The Germans bombed the harbor at Dunkirk. They had to evacuate the rest of the troops by sending them on ships. The miraculously escaped.

In three weeks Germany took more than 1,000,000 prisoners.60,000 German troops died and 220,000 allied troops escaped at Dunkirk. However, more troops escaped later on and were brought to safety, bringing the escaped allied troop total to 580,000.

Italy

Italy one of the Axis powers was unprepared for war when Hitler attacked Poland. Finally, on June 10, 1940, Italy declared war on France and Great