Chapter 31 Section 2

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Chapter 31 Section 2
The Global Conflict Axis Advances
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• Setting the Scene
• "Hitler will collapse the day we declare war on
  Germany," predicted a confident French general on
  the eve of World War II. He could not have been
  more wrong. World War II, the costliest war in
  history, lasted six yearsfrom 1939 to 1945. It
  pitted the Axis powers, chiefly Germany, Italy,
  and Japan, against the Allied powers, which
  eventually included Britain, France, the Soviet
  Union, China, the United States, and 45 other
  nations.

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I. Early Axis Gains

• September 1,1939 - Nazi forces launched a
  blitzkrieg into Poland

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I. Early Axis Gains

• Soviet forces invaded Poland from the east
  within a month, Poland ceased to exist

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I. Early Axis Gains

• Winter of 1939-40, French and British troops
  waited behind the Maginot Line for Germanys
  attack - the "phony war

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I. Early Axis Gains

• April 1940 - Hitler launched a blitzkrieg against
  Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium

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I. Early Axis Gains

• Allied forces were trapped Britain sent naval
  vessels to rescue the troops - the Miracle of
  Dunkirk

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I. Early Axis Gains

• German forces moved on Paris Italy declared war
  on France - France surrendered on June 22,1940

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I. Early Axis Gains

• Germany occupied northern France and set up a
  "puppet state" in the south with its capital at
  Vichy

French Vichy leader Philippe Petain and Nazi
leader Adolf Hitler meet on October 24 1940.
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I. Early Axis Gains

• September 1940 Italy invaded Egypt October 1940
  - Italy invaded Greece
• Germany had to send reinforcements

Italian troops in north Africa
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I. Early Axis Gains

• 1941 and 1942 - German General Erwin Rommel
  pushed the British back across the desert toward
  Cairo, Egypt

Rommel, the "Desert Fox"
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II. The Battle of Britain and the Blitz

• Operation Sea Lion Hitlers plan to invade
  Britain August 1940, the London Blitz began

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II. The Battle of Britain and the Blitz

• Much of London was damaged and 15,000 people were
  killed, but Operation Sea Lion failed

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III. Operation Barbarossa

• June 1941 - Hitler began Operation Barbarossa,
  the conquest of the Soviet Union, and caught
  Stalin unprepared

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III. Operation Barbarossa

• The Nazis reached Moscow and Leningrad before
  Russia's "General Winter" stopped the advance

Soviet troop on the offensive
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III. Operation Barbarossa

• More than a million died during the siege of
  Leningrad Stalin urged the Allies to open a
  second front

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IV. American Involvement Grows

• The US was neutral but FDR found ways around the
  Neutrality Acts to aid to Britain and the USSR

President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressing the
nation
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IV. American Involvement Grows

• 1941 - Congress to passed the Lend-Lease Act, and
  Roosevelt and Churchill issued the Atlantic
  Charter

FDR and British PM Winston Churchill
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V. Japan Attacks

• 1940 - Japan seized Indochina and the Dutch East
  Indies - the US banned the sale of war
  materials

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V. Japan Attacks

• Japan wanted to create a Greater East Asia
  Co-prosperity Sphere and felt the US was
  interfering with their plans

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V. Japan Attacks

• December 7, 1941 - Diplomacy failed and General
  Tojo Hideki ordered an attack on the US fleet at
  Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

US Battleship Arizona, sunk with the loss of 1177
crew members
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• In the long run, the Japanese attack on Pearl
  Harbor would be as serious a mistake as Hitler's
  invasion of Russia. But the months after Pearl
  Harbor gave no such hint. Instead, European and
  American possessions in the Pacific fell one by
  one to the Japanese. They captured the
  Philippines and seized other American islands
  across the Pacific. They overran the British
  colonies of Hong Kong, Burma, and Malaya, pushed
  deeper into the Dutch East Indies, and completed
  the takeover of French Indochina. By the
  beginning of 1942, the Japanese empire stretched
  from Southeast Asia to the western Pacific Ocean.
  The Axis powers had reached the high point of
  their successes.