The Second World War

In the 1930s some politicians believed that the reasons for German expansion could be found in the harsh peace term s forced on Germany by the Allies in 1919, and the failure to involve it in the post-war political settlement. In 1938, the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, accepted and co-operated in the takeover of German-speaking parts of Czechoslovakia by Germany. Chamberlain returned from meeting Hitler in Munich and reassured Britain that he had Hitler's written promise that Germany had no more territorial ambitions, in the memorable words, " peace for our time". Six months later Germany occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia.

Britain, realising that war was inevitable, gave a guarantee of support to Poland if Germany invaded.

In 1939 Germany attacked Poland, and the war broke out in Europe. In May 1940 the German army defeated the French in a few days, driving the British army into the sea. At Dunkirk, a small French port, the British army was saved by thousands of private boat s which crossed the English channel. Dunkirk was a miraculous rescue from military disaster, and Britain's new Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, persuaded the nation that it was a victory of courage and determination at Britain's darkest hour. Although the army had lost almost all its weapons in France, Churchill told the nation there could be no thought of surrender or peace negotiation.

Everyone in Britain expected Germany to invade, but the British air force won an important battle against German planes in the air over Britain. This, however, did not prevent the German air force from bombing the town s of Britain. Almost one and a half million people in London were made homeless by German bombing during the next few months.

The war quickly became worldwide. Both sides wanted to control the oil in the Middle East, and the Suez Canal, Britain's route to India. In 1941 Japan, Germany's ally, attacked British colonial possessions, including Malaya (Malaysia), Burma and India. As a result, Britain used soldiers from all parts of its empire to help fight against Germany, Italy and Japan. But the weakness of Britain was obvious to the whole world when its army surrendered Singapore to Japan, described by Churchill as the worst surrender in British history.

In 1941 Germany and Japan had made two mistakes which undoubtedly cost them the war. Germany attacked the Soviet Union, and Japan attacked the United States, both quite unexpectedly. Whatever the advantages of surprise attack, the Axis of Germany, Italy and Japan had now forced onto the battlefield two of the most powerful nations in the world.

Allied war planners agreed to concentrate on defeating Germany first. In 1942 the Soviet Union

was under heavy attack by the Germans. To help the Russians, American generals recommended an early invasion of German-occupied France. But Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, persuaded Roosevelt to attack the Germans first in the Mediterranean region. Combined American and British forces landed in North Africa in November 1942, and joined other British forces already fighting there. Together, the Allied armies defeated the German gen. Rommel's Afrika Korps and drove German and Italian troops out of North Africa. By 1943 the Soviet army was pushing the Germans out of the USSR, and the Allies invaded Sicily and the mainland of Italy. After months of bitter fighting, on June 4, 1944, they freed Rome from German control. Two days later, on June 6, Allied troops headed by American general Eisenhower invaded Normandy in German-occupied France (code-named Operation Overlord. The day the Allied landing craft emptied their loads of men and weapons onto the flat Normandy beaches was referred to as D-Day - D for Deliverance. Paris was liberated on August 24 and by September Allied forces had crossed Germany's western border. The Allies also started to bomb German towns, causing greater destruction than any war had ever caused before. Such bombing had very doubtful military results. Dresden, a particularly beautiful eighteenth-century city, and most of its 130, 000 inhabitants, were destroyed in one night early in 1945.

In May 1945, Germany finally surrendered. In order to save further casualties among their own troops, Britain and the United States then used their bombing power to defeat Japan. This time they used the new atomic bombs to destroy most of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, two large Japanese cities. Over 110, 000 people died immediately and many thousands more died later from the after-effects.

It was a terrible end to the war, which lasted longer than the First World War, and although less than half as many British troops had died this time, the figures of over 303, 000 soldiers and 60, 000 civilians in air raids was a very heavy price to pay for the mistakes of the inter-war years. The Soviet Union, Germany and Japan paid a fair more terrible price.

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