The Causes and Consequences of World War II - Sleeping Giants

The Causes and Consequences of World War II HIST 1301 | History Sleeping Giants Hitler intended to use air and submarine facilities in both northern France and Norway, which had submitted in June 1940, to launch a cross-channel assault aimed at destroying Britain. The Battle of Britain, a combat between the German Luftwaffe and the Royal Air Force (RAF), raged in the skies over Britain throughout the late summer and early autumn of 1940. After concentrating their operations on English Channel ships, the Germans started bombing sites that produced weaponry. The British progressively expanded the RAF by hiring more nonBritish volunteers, some of them were American pilots. The RAF won, partly thanks to the development of radar, which provided some early notice of German attacks. Having lost around 40% of all its aircraft by October 1940, the Luftwaffe was unable to establish the air supremacy required to seize Britain. By turning its attention from military to civilian targets, especially the bombing of London, the Luftwaffe unintentionally allowed the British to repair its defence industries and airfields and produce additional aircraft. The US sought to distance itself from international wars throughout the 1930s. Congress approved the Neutrality Acts in 1935, 1936, and 1937, prohibiting the shipment of weapons and the granting of loans to warring countries, in response to intense hearings examining the reasons for the nation's participation into World War I. The administration was essentially handcuffed by these actions. Only two months after Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany in 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was unable to provide any support to Ethiopia against Italy, China against Japan, or Republican Spain against the fascist General Franco. Nonetheless, Roosevelt was given some wiggle room under the 1937 Neutrality Act. If a hostile country could pay cash for the commodities and get them home, the US might provide non-military aid to it, like as oil. In the midst of Hitler's invasion of Poland and annexation of Czechoslovakia, Roosevelt attempted to provide Britain and France with greater military support. In 1938, Roosevelt pushed Congress to authorise the creation of a two-ocean fleet in order to strengthen American defences, and he started providing help to China and Britain within legal bounds. Following much discussion, Congress finally overturned the prior Neutrality Acts' limitations in November 1939 and permitted cash-and-carry trading in military gear. The German submarine fleet assumed greater responsibility for occupying England in the summer of 1940 since the Luftwaffe was having difficulties. The idea behind this was that England may starve to death. In January 1939, Roosevelt established the Atlantic Squadron, which he later steadily expanded to provide U.S. Navy surveillance and escort services for ships sailing towards England. German submarines sunk eleven British ships in 10 days in July 1940, leading British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to request assistance from the United States. Roosevelt consented to trade fifty warships from World War I for leasing rights to British naval ports in the Caribbean and Newfoundland, interpreting the Neutrality Act of 1939 liberally. Roosevelt faced criticism and opposition from isolationists and critics such as pilot Charles Lindbergh, who led the America First Committee. However, the Lend-Lease Act, which gave the government the authority to "sell, transfer title to, exchange, lease, lend or otherwise dispose of, to any such government any defence article," was approved by Congress in March 1941 after the president convinced lawmakers to support it. These resources may now be supplied by the US to any nation that it judged necessary for its own defence. It was an indirect means of providing military support to those nations engaged in conflict. A line of defence between German-occupied and Soviet territory was eliminated with Poland's surrender. Stalin started preparing the USSR for possible future developments after Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. He began the "Winter War" against Finland at the close of 1939 in an effort to seize terrain close to Leningrad, also known as Petrograd or St. Petersburg, which would strengthen Soviet defences. Both Japan and the Soviet Union were relieved of the threat of a multi-front conflict when they signed the Neutrality Pact in April 1941. There was constant intelligence coming in alerting the Kremlin in Moscow of an approaching invasion. Following the receipt of a dossier detailing German combat plans, Stalin summoned fifty thousand reservists. But he used his soldiers cautiously, not wanting to rile up the Germans. Hitler was sure he could beat Stalin because he saw weaknesses in the Soviet Union's invasion of Poland and its battle against Finland during the Winter War. He assembled the largest land invasion force in history, consisting of over three million troops, betraying the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact. Contributions came from nations with grievances against the Soviet Union, including Finland, Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Italy, Slovakia, and Spain. On June 22, 1941, Operation Barbarossa got underway, which prompted the Soviet Union to formally join the Allies in their opposition to Germany. Two thousand Soviet planes were shot down on the ground in the first two days of the war. The German army, known as the Wehrmacht, or "defence power," overran Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Belorussia in a few of weeks due to their faster than expected invasion. By August, the industrial hub of Kyiv, which at the time housed most of the Soviet economy, had fallen into German hands. Hitler had penetrated farther into Russia by November than Napoleon had. The German army was stationed on the Don River, at the edge of Moscow, and at the entrance to Leningrad. Only seven hundred of the fifteen thousand tanks that the Soviets had started with remained, out of the 4.5 million men that they had started with. Panic overtook Moscow, and the Germans appeared certain to win. However, significant issues surfaced that ultimately haunted the Germans. The supply delivery had been stretched by the pace of the advance. By November, the force marching on Moscow was receiving just three of the almost thirty train shipments of gasoline it required each day to keep up its pace. The troops were infected with cholera and dysentery in August due to a lack of potable water. German soldiers discovered that when the late summer showers arrived, they were unable to keep themselves and their gear dry or travel quickly due to muck. Bread rations had to be divided into parts using axes since the temperature dropped so much once the Russian winter arrived. One of the bloodiest and longest sieges in global history, the siege of Leningrad lasted 872 days. About 100,000 people in the city starved to death per month in the beginning of 1942, and some of the surviving citizens turned to cannibalism in order to live. A million and a half people died in total. Stalin appears to have hesitated temporarily when faced with this. By late 1941, his chief of security had received orders to approach the Germans about a possible peace through the Bulgarian envoy in Moscow. Churchill wanted to meet Roosevelt face-to-face as the war was spreading into the Russian lands, so in August 1941 Roosevelt surreptitiously went to Newfoundland to fulfil the request. The summit gatherings of heads of state that have subsequently become customary in diplomacy began with this conference. The Atlantic Charter, which the two leaders created, reinterpreted the ideas presented in Woodrow Wilson's 1918 Fourteen themes into eight main themes that represented the postwar aspirations of the United States and Britain for a postwar world, but not those of the Soviet Union for Europe. It supported the right to selfdetermination, rejected any territorial expansion, and demanded the unconditional surrender of the Axis powers—Japan, Germany, and Italy. Sea freedom, less trade restrictions, and the advancement of social welfare via economic cooperation would all be achieved. The disarming of nations who are at war would advance peace.