Why the Allied Powers Would Not Win WWII without the US - Essay Example

May 5, Why the Allied Powers Would Not Have Won World War 2 without the United s History of the Second World War TheSecond World War (World War 2) occurred between the periods 1939 to 1945 and involved the major powers in the world who were divided into two alliances namely the Allied Powers and the Axis. The war began on 1 September 1939 when Germany made an offensive into Poland after which France and the United Kingdom came together and declared war on Germany. Following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Germany and the Soviet Union divided and took over certain territories in Europe amongst themselves including the nations of Poland, Finland and the Baltic States to spread over their influence (Neimanis 53). In June 1941, the axis that comprised Germany and Italy began an invasion of the Soviet Union and were joined by Japan, which played a key role in attacking the United States as well as Europe. The Axis forces comprising Germany and Italy made forays into the whole of Europe while the Japanese who were out to conquer the Pacific region were defeated at Midway in Hawaii United States and the Germans at Stalingrad in the Soviet Union. Later, the Germans were defeated in the Eastern Front in the European Theatre, while the Italians were invaded and defeated by the allied powers forcing their surrender. In 1944, the Western Allies made a foray in France thus conquering it while the Soviet Union regained the territories it had lost during the war when it invaded Germany. The Japanese also lost mainly to the United States as their navy was heavily destroyed leading to the loss of their influence over Burma, South Central China and major parts of mainland Asia. The war that was taking place in Europe came to an end when Germany was invaded by the allied powers and the Soviet Union, and the capture of the German city of Berlin by Polish and Soviet troops. This forced Germany to surrender unconditionally on 8 May 1945 as it was subdued by the combined effort of the allied powers and the Soviets to defeat it. On 26 July 1945, the Potsdam Declaration was made allowing the United States to drop atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that occurred on 6 August and 9 August respectively (Gordin 9). During the Operation Downfall, the United States invaded the Japanese islands while at the same time the Soviet Union declared war on Japan by invading Manchuria, which they eventually conquered. This forced Japan to surrender on 15 August 1945, which marked the end of the Second World War and confirming the victory of the allied powers helped by the United States. The Role of Germany and Soviet Union in the European Theatre In Europe, Germany continued with its expansionist acts by annexing such territories such as Austria and later through collaborating with Italy forced Czechoslovakia to cede territory to Hungary and Poland. Al these were through forced demands made by Germany’s leader at the time Adolf Hitler who felt that Britain was trying to insert its influence in Poland. At this moment, Hitler formed an alliance known as the Axis comprising Germany and Italy through an agreement known as the Pact of Steel (Weinberg 35). The Allies now comprised France and Britain that were opposed to the invasion of territories as was being carried out by Germany through the help of Italy. The fight over Poland that marked the beginning of the Second World War continued up to the period 17 September 1939 when the Soviet Union also invaded Poland from the east. On 6 October 1939, Hitler insisted that the future of Poland was to be determined only by the Germans and the Soviets, but the allied forces rejected this with the British Prime Minister Chamberlain showing his distrust for Hitler. In April 1940, Germany invaded and conquered Denmark and Norway, which led to the replacement of the British Prime Minister with Sir Winston Churchill. It also attacked France, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg while the British occupied Iceland and Faroe Island on 10 May 1940. On 10 June, Italy troops made an offensive into France and declared war on it prompting the British who were part of the allied powers to intervene and help crush the offensive on its French allies. Within the same month, the Soviets annexed Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as well as some parts of Romania, which did not go down well with the Nazi-led Germany. Germany also continued with its bombardment of British cities, but this did not interfere with the war plans that were being put in place by Britain. On 27 may 1941, the United Kingdom sank the German battleship known as Bismarck while its Royal Air Force resisted the bombing of British cities. Eastern Front This occurred between the periods 1942 to 1943 starting in May 1942 when the Germans defeated the Soviets at the Kerch Peninsula and Kharkiv and the offensive in the southern parts of Russia which formed part of the Soviet Union (Weinberg 296). In street fighting that occurred in Stalingrad, the Germans conquered and occupied it but were repelled by the Soviet counter-offensive who encircled them. Around the year February 1943, the Germans had been forced by the Soviets to surrender at Stalingrad but they later carried out another attack at Kharkiv and Kursk. Western Front The Germans attacked and destroyed Allied power shipping at the Atlantic coast forcing them to launch a counter-offensive, which helped in regaining the lost territories and gains claimed by the Axis (Weinberg 763). The Germans also launched offensive against the British pushing them out of positions but due to poor strategy by the allied powers, they managed to obtain significant gains. In August 1942, the allied powers were successful in the repulsion of attacks on El Alamein while at the same time scoring significant victories in Egypt and Libya. At the same time, the British and the Americans landed in territories held by the French in North Africa, which made Hitler’s Germany to send troops to Vichy France. In early 1943, the British in collaboration with the Americans began bombing Germany with the aim of disrupting its economy and reducing their troops’ morale in an offensive known as the “Combined Bomber Offensive” (Ross 232). Role of the United States in helping the Allied Powers win the Second World War Although the President of the United States Franklin D Roosevelt had promised to keep the United States out of the war, he prepared for any eventuality should their territory and interest be attacked or threatened. In 1940, the United States decided to support the British in the war through the passage of the Lend-Lease program that would help it fight off Germany’s expansionist ideas (Folly and Niall 227). In January 1941, the United States agreed with the British to conduct air offensive on the Axis targets, elimination of the role played by Italy in World War 2, attaining support across board and capture of positions from which to attack Germany. Despite all these, the American public was strongly opposed to the United States intervening in the war militarily as the United States economy was doing poorly. Initially in 1939, the United States had renounced its treaty on trading with Japan, which put pressure on Japan and its crumbling trade and economic interests during the hard times of the war. In subsequent negotiations with the United States on ways of resuming trade relations and how to end the war in China, Japan had made demands that were out rightly rejected by the United States. President Roosevelt of the United States warned Japan of attacking the Philippines or any neighbouring countries, which made Japan prepare for war. When Japan called for cessation of American aid to China, America responded by requiring that it vacates China and sign treaties with other pacific powers that required that it does not commit any acts of aggression. Japan therefore planned to neutralize the effect of the Americans and the British in the pacific, which led it to destroy the United States Pacific Fleet through the bombing of the Pearl Harbour (Folly and Niall 276). The United States thereafter declared war on Japan while the Soviet Union at first played neutral. Germany on the other hand through the support of other Axis states namely Italy declared war on the United States in solidarity with Japan. The Allies thereafter agreed that defeating Germany was of utmost importance at the moment with the United States preferring an attack carried out from France, the British for the strategy of encircling Germany while the Soviets wanted a different front. Later, the allied powers through the help of United States invaded North Africa, the Mediterranean, Italy and France in 1944. The allied powers also put in place counter-offensives mainly to destroy the German naval and submarine fleets in the Atlantic, which greatly weakened their war campaign. In November 1943, President Roosevelt of the United States, United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union and Chiang Kai-shek of China which agreed on a number of issues. There was agreement that Japan was to return the territories that it had seized and the allied powers would invade Europe in 1944 while the Soviet Union would attack Japan within three months after the triumph over Germany. In 1944, the allied powers attacked Italy while the Soviet launched an offensive against the German forces and expelled them from Leningrad. Additionally, in May, the Soviet had liberated Crimea and Ukraine while the allied powers had capture Rome in Italy. On 6 June 1944, the allied powers invaded France leading to the defeat of the German troops who were also pushed out of Western Europe in territories such as Netherlands (Folly and Niall 29). The Soviets also joined in and helped in the destruction of German troops in Belarus, Eastern Ukraine and Poland as well as destroying the troops in Romania and Bulgaria. The American and the Commonwealth forces also helped in the besieging and destruction of Japanese territories and military installations with the Americans defeating the Japanese in the Battle of the Philippine Sea and Battle of Leyte Gulf amongst other battles. After the capture of Germany, the allied powers and their leaders mainly Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met at the Yalta conference whereby they agreed on how Germany would be occupied after the war and when the Soviets would join the war against Japan (Folly and Niall 396). Later, Roosevelt died and was succeeded as US President by Harry Truman while both Mussolini of Italy and Hitler of Germany died. Meanwhile, the United States the Manhattan Project whose main aim was the development of atomic bombs, which could be used as weapons in times of wars including the Second World War (Gordin 41). This project also gathered evidence and intelligence on the nuclear projects by the Germans during the war and it became helpful in the manufacture of the atomic bombs developed during the time. It is the atomic bombs manufactured through the Manhattan Project that were dropped in the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that marked the end of the Second World War (Gordin 9). Lend-Lease Agreement The United States played a key role in helping the allied powers win the Second World War mainly through the Lend-Lease agreement, which provided military aid to the allied powers. The American economy was also sceptical of involvement in another war, which would be costly to the taxpayers during the difficult times, and this agreement was more convenient for the United States. Through the lending of money to buy warfare materials to United Kingdom and other countries that were fighting on the side of the allied powers, the United States played a key role in the defeat of the Axis that included Germany, Italy and Japan (Piehler and Sidney 10). The opening up of a second front for the war where the opponent namely the United States was a technologically superior power helped the allied forces end the Second World War. The United States used its superior weapons to attack Japan, which had failed to capitalize on its attack on Pearl Harbour leading to quick defeats and surrender. More importantly, the United States had developed atomic bombs through the Manhattan Project that were highly destructive for any enemy during the war. The atomic bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan by the American air troops confirmed the important role the United States finally played to end the Second World War and hand the allied powers victory (Ross 119-120). It confirmed their superiority in the manufacture of military hardware that was enough to finish enemies in the war especially during the hard economic times of the Second World War. Works Cited Folly, Martin H, and Niall A. Palmer. Historical Dictionary of U.s. Diplomacy from World War I Through World War Ii. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press, 2010. Print. Gordin, Michael D. Five Days in August: How World War Ii Became a Nuclear War. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2007. Print. Neimanis, George J. The Collapse of the Soviet Empire: A View from Riga. Westport, Conn. [u.a.: Praeger, 1997. Print. Piehler, G K, and Sidney Pash. The United States and the Second World War: New Perspectives on Diplomacy, War, and the Home Front. New York: Fordham University Press, 2010. Print. Ross, Stewart H. Strategic Bombing by the United States in World War Ii: The Myths and the Facts. Jefferson (N. C.: McFarland, 2003. Print. Weinberg, Gerhard L. A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II. Cambridge [England: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Print. Read More