"African Great Lakes Region" redirects here. For the North American region, see Great Lakes region.
The African Great Lakes (Swahili: Maziwa Makuu; Kinyarwanda: Ibiyaga bigari) are a series of lakes constituting the part of the Rift Valley lakes in and around the East African Rift. The series includes Lake Victoria, the second-largestfreshwater lake in the world by area; Lake Tanganyika, the world's second-largest freshwater lake by volume and depth; Lake Malawi, the world's eighth-largest freshwater lake by area; and Lake Turkana, the world's largest permanent desert lake and the world's largest alkaline lake.[1] Collectively, they contain 31,000 km3 (7,400 cu mi) of water, which is more than either Lake Baikal or the North American Great Lakes.
This total constitutes about 25% of the planet's unfrozen surface fresh
water. The large rift lakes of Africa are the ancient home of great
biodiversity, and 10% of the world's fish species live in this region.
The following are included on most lists of the African Great Lakes, grouped by drainage basin.
The exact number of lakes considered part of the African Great Lakes
varies by list, and may include smaller lakes in the rift valleys,
especially if they are part of the same drainage basin as the larger
lakes, such as Lake Kyoga.
The Swahili language is the most commonly spoken language in the African Great Lakes region.[5]
It also serves as a national or official language of five nations in
the region: Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic
of the Congo.
Because of its high population—estimated to be 107 million people[when?]—and
the agricultural surplus in the region, the area became organized into a
number of small states. The most powerful of these monarchies were Buganda, Bunyoro, Karagwe, Rwanda, and Burundi.
Being the long-sought source of the Nile
and the watershed triple point between the rivers Nile, Congo and
Zambezi, the region had long been of interest to Europeans. The first
Europeans to arrive in the region in any numbers were Christianmissionaries
who had limited success in converting the locals, but did open the
region to later colonization. Increased contact with the rest of the
world led to a series of devastating epidemics affecting both humans and livestock.
While seen as a region with great potential after independence, the Great Lakes region has suffered from civil war and conflict in the four decades around the turn of the 21st century (c. 1980–2020). In 2022 the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees commended Tanzania for consistently welcoming and aiding refugees from other countries in the region.[6]
The highlands are relatively cool, with average temperatures ranging
between 17 °C (63 °F) and 19 °C (66 °F) and abundant rainfall. Major
drainage basins include those of the Congo-Zaire, Nile, and Zambezi
rivers, which drain into the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and Indian Ocean, respectively.
Forests are dominant in the lowlands of the Congo-Zaire Basin,
while grasslands and savannas (dry grasslands) are most common in the
southern and eastern highlands. Temperatures in the lowlands average
about 35 °C (95 °F). Around Lake Turkana, the climate is hot and very dry. A short rainy season in October is followed by a longer one from April to May.
The Western Rift Valley lakes are freshwater and home to an extraordinary number of endemic species. More than 1,500 cichlid fish species live in the lakes,[7] as well as other fish families. The lakes are also important habitats for a number of amphibian species. Nile crocodiles are numerous. Mammals include elephants, gorillas and hippopotamus.
The Lake Turkana area is home to hundreds of species of birds endemic to Kenya. The flamingo
wades in its shallows. The East African rift system also serves as a
flyway for migrating birds, bringing in hundreds more. The birds are
essentially supported by plankton masses in the lake, which also feed the fish there.
Vegetation ranges from rainforest to savanna grasses. In some lakes, rapidly growing invasive plants, like the surface-choking water hyacinth and shore-clogging papyrus, are problems. Water hyacinth have thus far affected only Lake Victoria.
Until 12 million years ago, the bountiful waters of the equatorial plateau either flowed west into the Congo River system or east to the Indian Ocean. This was changed by the formation of the Great Rift Valley. A rift is a weak place in Earth's crust due to the separation of two tectonic plates, often accompanied by a graben, or trough, in which lake water can collect. This rift began when East Africa, impelled by currents in the mantle,
began separating from the rest of Africa, moving to the northeast. The
basins that resulted from the geological uplifts filled with water that
now flowed north.
Lake Victoria is not actually within the Rift Valley. It occupies
a depression between the Eastern and Western Rifts, formed by the
uplift of the rifts to either of its sides.
Around two to three million years ago, Lake Turkana was larger and the area more fertile, making it a center for early hominids. Richard Leakey led numerous anthropological excavations in the area, which yielded many important discoveries of hominin remains. The two-million-year-old Skull 1470 was found in 1972. It was originally thought to be Homo habilis, but some anthropologists have assigned it to a new species, Homo rudolfensis, named after the lake (previously known as Lake Rudolf). In 1984, the Turkana Boy, a nearly complete skeleton of a Homo erectus boy was discovered. In 1999, a 3,500,000-year-old skull was discovered there, named Kenyanthropus platyops, which means "flat-faced man of Kenya".
Fishing—primarily of tilapia species but also of Nile perch—provides
the main livelihood for people in the region. With four Great Lakes on
its borders, Uganda ranks as one of the world's largest producers of
freshwater fish. The climate and rich volcanic soils in the highlands
also sustain intensely cultivated croplands.
The economies of the Great Lakes region states have different
structures and are at various stages of development. The GDP real growth
rate ranges from 1.8 percent in Burundi[8] to 4.4 in the DRC.[9] GDP per capita fluctuates between $600 in DRC[10] and Burundi and $800 in Uganda.[11]
World War II transformed the political, economic, and social
structures of the world, and established the foundation of international
relations for the rest of the 20th century and into the 21st century.
The United Nations was created to foster international cooperation and prevent future conflicts, with the victorious great powers—China, France, the Soviet Union, the UK, and the US—becoming the permanent members of its security council. The Soviet Union and US emerged as rival global superpowers, setting the stage for the half-century Cold War. In the wake of Europe's devastation, the influence of its great powers waned, triggering the decolonisation of Africa and Asia. Many countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery and expansion.
To prevent a future world war, the League of Nations was established in 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference. The organisation's primary goals were to prevent armed conflict through collective security, military, and naval disarmament, as well as settling international disputes through peaceful negotiations and arbitration.[17]
Despite strong pacifist sentiment after World WarI,[18]irredentist and revanchistnationalism
had emerged in several European states. These sentiments were
especially marked in Germany because of the significant territorial,
colonial, and financial losses imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. Under the treaty, Germany lost around 13 percent of its home territory and all its overseas possessions, while German annexation of other states was prohibited, reparations were imposed, and limits were placed on the size and capability of the country's armed forces.[19]
Germany and Italy
The German Empire was dissolved in the German revolution of 1918–1919, and a democratic government, later known as the Weimar Republic,
was created. The interwar period saw strife between supporters of the
new republic and hardline opponents on both the political right and
left. Italy, as an Entente ally, had made some post-war territorial
gains; however, Italian nationalists were angered that the promises made
by the United Kingdom and France to secure Italian entrance into the
war were not fulfilled in the peace settlement. From 1922 to 1925, the Fascist movement led by Benito Mussolini seized power in Italy with a nationalist, totalitarian, and class collaborationist
agenda that abolished representative democracy, repressed socialist,
left-wing, and liberal forces, and pursued an aggressive expansionist
foreign policy aimed at making Italy a world power, promising the
creation of a "New Roman Empire".[20]
The United Kingdom, France and Italy formed the Stresa Front in April 1935 in order to contain Germany, a key step towards military globalisation; however, that June, the United Kingdom made an independent naval agreement with Germany, easing prior restrictions. The Soviet Union, concerned by Germany's goals of capturing vast areas of Eastern Europe, drafted a treaty of mutual assistance with France. Before taking effect, though, the Franco-Soviet pact was required to go through the bureaucracy of the League of Nations, which rendered it essentially toothless.[23] The United States, concerned with events in Europe and Asia, passed the Neutrality Act in August of the same year.[24]
China appealed to the League of Nations to stop the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Japan withdrew from the League of Nations after being condemned for its incursion into Manchuria. The two nations then fought several battles, in Shanghai, Rehe and Hebei, until the Tanggu Truce was signed in 1933. Thereafter, Chinese volunteer forces continued the resistance to Japanese aggression in Manchuria, and Chahar and Suiyuan.[30] After the 1936 Xi'an Incident, the Kuomintang and CCP forces agreed on a ceasefire to present a united front to oppose Japan.[31]
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War was a brief colonial war that began in October 1935 and ended in May 1936. The war began with the invasion of the Ethiopian Empire (also known as Abyssinia) by the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy (Regno d'Italia), which was launched from Italian Somaliland and Eritrea.[32] The war resulted in the military occupation of Ethiopia and its annexation into the newly created colony of Italian East Africa (Africa Orientale Italiana); in addition it exposed the weakness of the League of Nations as a force to preserve peace. Both Italy and Ethiopia were member nations, but the League did little when the former clearly violated Article X of the League's Covenant.[33]
The United Kingdom and France supported imposing sanctions on Italy for
the invasion, but the sanctions were not fully enforced and failed to
end the Italian invasion.[34] Italy subsequently dropped its objections to Germany's goal of absorbing Austria.[35]
When civil war broke out in Spain, Hitler and Mussolini lent military support to the Nationalist rebels, led by General Francisco Franco.
Italy supported the Nationalists to a greater extent than the Nazis:
Mussolini sent more than 70,000 ground troops, 6,000 aviation personnel,
and 720 aircraft to Spain.[36] The Soviet Union supported the existing government of the Spanish Republic. More than 30,000 foreign volunteers, known as the International Brigades, also fought against the Nationalists. Both Germany and the Soviet Union used this proxy war
as an opportunity to test in combat their most advanced weapons and
tactics. The Nationalists won the civil war in April 1939; Franco, now
dictator, remained officially neutral during World WarII but generally favoured the Axis.[37] His greatest collaboration with Germany was the sending of volunteers to fight on the Eastern Front.[38]
In March 1938, Nationalist Chinese forces won their first major victory at Taierzhuang, but then the city of Xuzhouwas taken by the Japanese in May.[45] In June 1938, Chinese forces stalled the Japanese advance by flooding the Yellow River; this manoeuvre bought time for the Chinese to prepare their defences at Wuhan, but the city was taken by October.[46]
Japanese military victories did not bring about the collapse of Chinese
resistance that Japan had hoped to achieve; instead, the Chinese
government relocated inland to Chongqing and continued the war.[47][48]
In the mid-to-late 1930s, Japanese forces in Manchukuo had sporadic border clashes with the Soviet Union and Mongolia. The Japanese doctrine of Hokushin-ron,
which emphasised Japan's expansion northward, was favoured by the
Imperial Army during this time. This policy would prove difficult to
maintain in light of the Japanese defeat at Khalkin Gol in 1939, the ongoing Second Sino-Japanese War[49] and ally Nazi Germany pursuing neutrality with the Soviets. Japan and the Soviet Union eventually signed a Neutrality Pact in April 1941, and Japan adopted the doctrine of Nanshin-ron, promoted by the Navy, which took its focus southward and eventually led to war with the United States and the Western Allies.[50][51]
In Europe, Germany and Italy were becoming more aggressive. In March 1938, Germany annexed Austria, again provoking little response from other European powers.[52] Encouraged, Hitler began pressing German claims on the Sudetenland, an area of Czechoslovakia with a predominantly ethnic German population. Soon the United Kingdom and France followed the appeasement policy of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and conceded this territory to Germany in the Munich Agreement, which was made against the wishes of the Czechoslovak government, in exchange for a promise of no further territorial demands.[53] Soon afterwards, Germany and Italy forced Czechoslovakia to cede additional territory to Hungary, and Poland annexed the Trans-Olza region of Czechoslovakia.[54]
The situation became a crisis in late August as German troops
continued to mobilise against the Polish border. On 23 August the Soviet
Union signed a non-aggression pact with Germany,[60] after tripartite negotiations for a military alliance between France, the United Kingdom, and Soviet Union had stalled.[61] This pact had a secret protocol that defined German and Soviet "spheres of influence" (western Poland and Lithuania for Germany; eastern Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Bessarabia for the Soviet Union), and raised the question of continuing Polish independence.[62]
The pact neutralised the possibility of Soviet opposition to a campaign
against Poland and assured that Germany would not have to face the
prospect of a two-front war, as it had in World WarI.
Immediately afterwards, Hitler ordered the attack to proceed on 26
August, but upon hearing that the United Kingdom had concluded a formal
mutual assistance pact with Poland and that Italy would maintain
neutrality, he decided to delay it.[63]
In response to British requests for direct negotiations to avoid
war, Germany made demands on Poland, which served as a pretext to worsen
relations.[64] On 29 August, Hitler demanded that a Polish plenipotentiary immediately travel to Berlin to negotiate the handover of Danzig, and to allow a plebiscite in the Polish Corridor in which the German minority would vote on secession.[64]
The Poles refused to comply with the German demands, and on the night
of 30–31 August in a confrontational meeting with the British ambassador
Nevile Henderson, Ribbentrop declared that Germany considered its claims rejected.[65]
Germany annexed western Poland and occupied central Poland; the Soviet Union annexed eastern Poland; small shares of Polish territory were transferred to Lithuania and Slovakia.
On 6 October, Hitler made a public peace overture to the United Kingdom
and France but said that the future of Poland was to be determined
exclusively by Germany and the Soviet Union. The proposal was rejected[65] and Hitler ordered an immediate offensive against France,[76] which was postponed until the spring of 1940 due to bad weather.[77][78][79]
After the outbreak of war in Poland, Stalin threatened Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania with military invasion, forcing the three Baltic countries to sign pacts
allowing the creation of Soviet military bases in these countries; in
October 1939, significant Soviet military contingents were moved there.[80][81][82]Finland refused to sign a similar pact and rejected ceding part of its territory to the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union invaded Finland in November 1939,[83] and was subsequently expelled from the League of Nations for this crime of aggression.[84] Despite overwhelming numerical superiority, Soviet military success during the Winter War was modest, and the Finno-Soviet war ended in March 1940 with some Finnish concessions of territory.[85]
In June 1940, the Soviet Union occupied the entire territories of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania,[81] as well as the Romanian regions of Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and the Hertsa region. In August 1940, Hitler imposed the Second Vienna Award on Romania which led to the transfer of Northern Transylvania to Hungary.[86] In September 1940, Bulgaria demanded Southern Dobruja from Romania with German and Italian support, leading to the Treaty of Craiova.[87]
The loss of one-third of Romania's 1939 territory caused a coup against
King Carol II, turning Romania into a fascist dictatorship under
Marshal Ion Antonescu, with a course set towards the Axis in the hopes of a German guarantee.[88] Meanwhile, German-Soviet political relations and economic co-operation[89][90] gradually stalled,[91][92] and both states began preparations for war.[93]
On the same day, Germany launched an offensive against France. To circumvent the strong Maginot Line fortifications on the Franco-German border, Germany directed its attack at the neutral nations of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.[97] The Germans carried out a flanking manoeuvre through the Ardennes region,[98] which was mistakenly perceived by the Allies as an impenetrable natural barrier against armoured vehicles.[99][100] By successfully implementing new Blitzkrieg tactics, the Wehrmacht
rapidly advanced to the Channel and cut off the Allied forces in
Belgium, trapping the bulk of the Allied armies in a cauldron on the
Franco-Belgian border near Lille. The United Kingdom was able to evacuate a significant number of Allied troops from the continent by early June, although they had to abandon almost all their equipment.[101]
In November 1939, the United States was assisting China and the Western Allies, and had amended the Neutrality Act to allow "cash and carry" purchases by the Allies.[110] In 1940, following the German capture of Paris, the size of the United States Navy was significantly increased. In September the United States further agreed to a trade of American destroyers for British bases.[111]
Still, a large majority of the American public continued to oppose any
direct military intervention in the conflict well into 1941.[112]
In December 1940, Roosevelt accused Hitler of planning world conquest
and ruled out any negotiations as useless, calling for the United States
to become an "arsenal of democracy" and promoting Lend-Lease
programmes of military and humanitarian aid to support the British war
effort; Lend-Lease was later extended to the other Allies, including the
Soviet Union after it was invaded by Germany.[113] The United States started strategic planning to prepare for a full-scale offensive against Germany.[114]
At the end of September 1940, the Tripartite Pact formally united Japan, Italy, and Germany as the Axis powers.
The Tripartite Pact stipulated that any country—with the exception of
the Soviet Union—that attacked any Axis Power would be forced to go to
war against all three.[115] The Axis expanded in November 1940 when Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania joined.[116]Romania and Hungary later made major contributions to the Axis war against the Soviet Union, in Romania's case partially to recapture territory ceded to the Soviet Union.[117]
In early June 1940, the Italian Regia Aeronauticaattacked and besieged Malta, a British possession. From late summer to early autumn, Italy conquered British Somaliland and made an incursion into British-held Egypt. In October, Italy attacked Greece, but the attack was repulsed with heavy Italian casualties; the campaign ended within months with minor territorial changes.[118]
To assist Italy and prevent Britain from gaining a foothold, Germany
prepared to invade the Balkans, which would threaten Romanian oil fields
and strike against British dominance of the Mediterranean.[119]
German Panzer III of the Afrika Korps advancing across the North African desert, April 1941
In December 1940, British Empire forces began counter-offensives against Italian forces in Egypt and Italian East Africa.[120]
The offensives were successful; by early February 1941, Italy had lost
control of eastern Libya, and large numbers of Italian troops had been
taken prisoner. The Italian Navy also suffered significant defeats, with the Royal Navy putting three Italian battleships out of commission after a carrier attack at Taranto, and neutralising several more warships at the Battle of Cape Matapan.[121]
With the situation in Europe and Asia relatively stable, Germany,
Japan, and the Soviet Union made preparations for war. With the Soviets
wary of mounting tensions with Germany, and the Japanese planning to
take advantage of the European War by seizing resource-rich European
possessions in Southeast Asia, the two powers signed the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact in April 1941.[129]
By contrast, the Germans were steadily making preparations for an
attack on the Soviet Union, massing forces on the Soviet border.[130]
Hitler believed that the United Kingdom's refusal to end the war
was based on the hope that the United States and the Soviet Union would
enter the war against Germany sooner or later.[131] On 31 July 1940, Hitler decided that the Soviet Union should be eliminated and aimed for the conquest of Ukraine, the Baltic states and Byelorussia.[132]
However, other senior German officials like Ribbentrop saw an
opportunity to create a Euro-Asian bloc against the British Empire by
inviting the Soviet Union into the Tripartite Pact.[133] In November 1940, negotiations took place
to determine if the Soviet Union would join the pact. The Soviets
showed some interest but asked for concessions from Finland, Bulgaria,
Turkey, and Japan that Germany considered unacceptable. On 18 December
1940, Hitler issued the directive to prepare for an invasion of the
Soviet Union.[134]
Russian civilians leaving destroyed houses after a German bombardment during the siege of Leningrad (Saint Petersburg), 10 December 1942
The diversion of three-quarters of the Axis troops and the majority
of their air forces from France and the central Mediterranean to the Eastern Front[143] prompted the United Kingdom to reconsider its grand strategy.[144] In July, the UK and the Soviet Union formed a military alliance against Germany[145] and in August, the United Kingdom and the United States jointly issued the Atlantic Charter, which outlined British and American goals for the post-war world.[146] In late August the British and Soviets invaded neutral Iran to secure the Persian Corridor, Iran's oil fields, and preempt any Axis advances through Iran toward the Baku oil fields or India.[147]
By October, Axis powers had achieved operational objectives in Ukraine and the Baltic region, with only the sieges of Leningrad[148] and Sevastopol continuing.[149] A major offensive against Moscow
was renewed; after two months of fierce battles in increasingly harsh
weather, the German army almost reached the outer suburbs of Moscow,
where the exhausted troops[150] were forced to suspend the offensive.[151]
Large territorial gains were made by Axis forces, but their campaign
had failed to achieve its main objectives: two key cities remained in
Soviet hands, the Soviet capability to resist was not broken, and the Soviet Union retained a considerable part of its military potential. The blitzkriegphase of the war in Europe had ended.[152]
By early December, freshly mobilised reserves[153] allowed the Soviets to achieve numerical parity with Axis troops.[154] This, as well as intelligence data which established that a minimal number of Soviet troops in the East would be sufficient to deter any attack by the Japanese Kwantung Army,[155] allowed the Soviets to begin a massive counter-offensive that started on 5 December all along the front and pushed German troops 100–250 kilometres (62–155 mi) west.[156]
Following the Japanese false flagMukden incident in 1931, the Japanese shelling of the American gunboat USS Panay in 1937, and the 1937–1938 Nanjing Massacre, Japanese-American relations deteriorated.
In 1939, the United States notified Japan that it would not be
extending its trade treaty and American public opinion opposing Japanese
expansionism led to a series of economic sanctions—the Export Control Acts—which
banned US exports of chemicals, minerals and military parts to Japan,
and increased economic pressure on the Japanese regime.[113][157][158] During 1939 Japan launched its first attack against Changsha, but was repulsed by late September.[159] Despite several offensives
by both sides, by 1940 the war between China and Japan was at a
stalemate. To increase pressure on China by blocking supply routes, and
to better position Japanese forces in the event of a war with the
Western powers, Japan invaded and occupied northern Indochina in September 1940.[160]
German successes in Europe prompted Japan to increase pressure on European governments in Southeast Asia. The Dutch government agreed to provide Japan with oil supplies from the Dutch East Indies, but negotiations for additional access to their resources ended in failure in June 1941.[165]
In July 1941 Japan sent troops to southern Indochina, thus threatening
British and Dutch possessions in the Far East. The United States, the
United Kingdom, and other Western governments reacted to this move with a
freeze on Japanese assets and a total oil embargo.[166][167] At the same time, Japan was planning an invasion of the Soviet Far East, intending to take advantage of the German invasion in the west, but abandoned the operation after the sanctions.[168]
Since early 1941, the United States and Japan had been engaged in
negotiations in an attempt to improve their strained relations and end
the war in China. During these negotiations, Japan advanced a number of
proposals which were dismissed by the Americans as inadequate.[169]
At the same time the United States, the United Kingdom, and the
Netherlands engaged in secret discussions for the joint defence of their
territories, in the event of a Japanese attack against any of them.[170] Roosevelt reinforced the Philippines
(an American protectorate scheduled for independence in 1946) and
warned Japan that the United States would react to Japanese attacks
against any "neighboring countries".[170]
Frustrated at the lack of progress and feeling the pinch of the
American–British–Dutch sanctions, Japan prepared for war. Emperor Hirohito, after initial hesitation about Japan's chances of victory,[171] began to favour Japan's entry into the war.[172] As a result, Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe resigned.[173][174] Hirohito refused the recommendation to appoint Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni in his place, choosing War Minister Hideki Tojo instead.[175] On 3 November, Nagano explained in detail the plan of the attack on Pearl Harbor to the Emperor.[176] On 5 November, Hirohito approved in imperial conference the operations plan for the war.[177]
On 20 November, the new government presented an interim proposal as its
final offer. It called for the end of American aid to China and for
lifting the embargo on the supply of oil and other resources to Japan.
In exchange, Japan promised not to launch any attacks in Southeast Asia
and to withdraw its forces from southern Indochina.[169]
The American counter-proposal of 26 November required that Japan
evacuate all of China without conditions and conclude non-aggression
pacts with all Pacific powers.[178]
That meant Japan was essentially forced to choose between abandoning
its ambitions in China, or seizing the natural resources it needed in
the Dutch East Indies by force;[179][180]
the Japanese military did not consider the former an option, and many
officers considered the oil embargo an unspoken declaration of war.[181]
These attacks led the United States, United Kingdom,
China, Australia, and several other states to formally declare war on
Japan, whereas the Soviet Union, being heavily involved in large-scale
hostilities with European Axis countries, maintained its neutrality
agreement with Japan.[187] Germany, followed by the other Axis states, declared war on the United States[188]
in solidarity with Japan, citing as justification the American attacks
on German war vessels that had been ordered by Roosevelt.[135][189]
During 1942, Allied officials debated on the appropriate grand strategy to pursue. All agreed that defeating Germany was the primary objective. The Americans favoured a straightforward, large-scale attack
on Germany through France. The Soviets demanded a second front. The
British argued that military operations should target peripheral areas
to wear out German strength, leading to increasing demoralisation, and
bolstering resistance forces; Germany itself would be subject to a heavy
bombing campaign. An offensive against Germany would then be launched
primarily by Allied armour, without using large-scale armies.[193]
Eventually, the British persuaded the Americans that a landing in
France was infeasible in 1942 and they should instead focus on driving
the Axis out of North Africa.[194]
At the Casablanca Conference in early 1943, the Allies reiterated the statements issued in the 1942 Declaration and demanded the unconditional surrender
of their enemies. The British and Americans agreed to continue to press
the initiative in the Mediterranean by invading Sicily to fully secure
the Mediterranean supply routes.[195]
Although the British argued for further operations in the Balkans to
bring Turkey into the war, in May 1943, the Americans extracted a
British commitment to limit Allied operations in the Mediterranean to an
invasion of the Italian mainland, and to invade France in 1944.[196]
Pacific (1942–1943)
Map of Japanese military advances through mid-1942
In early May 1942, Japan initiated operations to capture Port Moresby by amphibious assault
and thus sever communications and supply lines between the United
States and Australia. The planned invasion was thwarted when an Allied
task force, centred on two American fleet carriers, fought Japanese
naval forces to a draw in the Battle of the Coral Sea.[203] Japan's next plan, motivated by the earlier Doolittle Raid, was to seize Midway Atoll and lure American carriers into battle to be eliminated; as a diversion, Japan would also send forces to occupy the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.[204] In mid-May, Japan started the Zhejiang-Jiangxi campaign
in China, with the goal of inflicting retribution on the Chinese who
aided the surviving American airmen in the Doolittle Raid by destroying
Chinese air bases and fighting against the Chinese 23rd and 32nd Army
Groups.[205][206] In early June, Japan put its operations into action, but the Americans had broken Japanese naval codes in late May and were fully aware of the plans and order of battle, and used this knowledge to achieve a decisive victory at Midway over the Imperial Japanese Navy.[207]
With its capacity for aggressive action greatly diminished as a result of the Midway battle, Japan attempted to capture Port Moresby by an overland campaign in the Territory of Papua.[208] The Americans planned a counterattack against Japanese positions in the southern Solomon Islands, primarily Guadalcanal, as a first step towards capturing Rabaul, the main Japanese base in Southeast Asia.[209]
Both plans started in July, but by mid-September, the Battle for Guadalcanal took priority for the Japanese, and troops in New Guinea were ordered to withdraw from the Port Moresby area to the northern part of the island, where they faced Australian and United States troops in the Battle of Buna–Gona.[210]
Guadalcanal soon became a focal point for both sides with heavy
commitments of troops and ships in the battle for Guadalcanal. By the
start of 1943, the Japanese were defeated on the island and withdrew their troops.[211] In Burma, Commonwealth forces mounted two operations. The first was a disastrous offensive into the Arakan region in late 1942 that forced a retreat back to India by May 1943.[212] The second was the insertion of irregular forces behind Japanese frontlines in February which, by the end of April, had achieved mixed results.[213]
Despite considerable losses, in early 1942 Germany and its allies stopped a major Soviet offensive in central and southern Russia, keeping most territorial gains they had achieved during the previous year.[214] In May, the Germans defeated Soviet offensives in the Kerch Peninsula and at Kharkov,[215] and then in June 1942 launched their main summer offensive against southern Russia, to seize the oil fields of the Caucasus and occupy the Kubansteppe, while maintaining positions on the northern and central areas of the front. The Germans split Army Group South into two groups: Army Group A advanced to the lower Don River and struck south-east to the Caucasus, while Army Group B headed towards the Volga River. The Soviets decided to make their stand at Stalingrad on the Volga.[216]
By mid-November, the Germans had nearly taken Stalingrad in bitter street fighting. The Soviets began their second winter counter-offensive, starting with an encirclement of German forces at Stalingrad,[217] and an assault on the Rzhev salient near Moscow, though the latter failed disastrously.[218] By early February 1943, the German Army had taken tremendous losses; German troops at Stalingrad had been defeated,[219]
and the front-line had been pushed back beyond its position before the
summer offensive. In mid-February, after the Soviet push had tapered
off, the Germans launched another attack on Kharkov, creating a salient in their front line around the Soviet city of Kursk.[220]
Western Europe/Atlantic and Mediterranean (1942–1943)
Exploiting poor American naval command decisions, the German navy ravaged Allied shipping off the American Atlantic coast.[221] By November 1941, Commonwealth forces had launched a counter-offensive in North Africa, Operation Crusader, and reclaimed all the gains the Germans and Italians had made.[222] The Germans also launched a North African offensive in January, pushing the British back to positions at the Gazala line by early February,[223] followed by a temporary lull in combat which Germany used to prepare for their upcoming offensives.[224] Concerns that the Japanese might use bases in Vichy-held Madagascar caused the British to invade the island in early May 1942.[225] An Axis offensive in Libya forced an Allied retreat deep inside Egypt until Axis forces were stopped at El Alamein.[226] On the Continent, raids of Allied commandos on strategic targets, culminating in the failed Dieppe Raid,[227]
demonstrated the Western Allies' inability to launch an invasion of
continental Europe without much better preparation, equipment, and
operational security.[228]
In June 1943, the British and Americans began a strategic bombing campaign against Germany with a goal to disrupt the war economy, reduce morale, and "de-house" the civilian population.[235] The firebombing of Hamburg
was among the first attacks in this campaign, inflicting significant
casualties and considerable losses on infrastructure of this important
industrial centre.[236]
In the Soviet Union, both the Germans and the Soviets spent the
spring and early summer of 1943 preparing for large offensives in central Russia. On 5 July 1943, Germany attacked Soviet forces around the Kursk Bulge. Within a week, German forces had exhausted themselves against the Soviets' well-constructed defences,[240] and for the first time in the war, Hitler cancelled an operation before it had achieved tactical or operational success.[241] This decision was partially affected by the Western Allies' invasion of Sicily launched on 9 July, which, combined with previous Italian failures, resulted in the ousting and arrest of Mussolini later that month.[242]
On 12 July 1943, the Soviets launched their own counter-offensives,
thereby dispelling any chance of German victory or even stalemate in
the east. The Soviet victory at Kursk marked the end of German
superiority,[243] giving the Soviet Union the initiative on the Eastern Front.[244][245] The Germans tried to stabilise their eastern front along the hastily fortified Panther–Wotan line, but the Soviets broke through it at Smolensk and the Lower Dnieper Offensive.[246]
Red Army troops in a counter-offensive on German positions at the Battle of Kursk, July 1943
German operations in the Atlantic also suffered. By May 1943, as Allied counter-measures became increasingly effective, the resulting sizeable German submarine losses forced a temporary halt of the German Atlantic naval campaign.[252] In November 1943, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met with Chiang Kai-shekin Cairo and then with Joseph Stalin in Tehran.[253] The former conference determined the post-war return of Japanese territory[254] and the military planning for the Burma campaign,[255]
while the latter included agreement that the Western Allies would
invade Europe in 1944 and that the Soviet Union would declare war on
Japan within three months of Germany's defeat.[256]
By the start of July 1944, Commonwealth forces in Southeast Asia had repelled the Japanese sieges in Assam, pushing the Japanese back to the Chindwin River[283] while the Chinese captured Myitkyina. In September 1944, Chinese forces captured Mount Song and reopened the Burma Road.[284] In China, the Japanese had more successes, having finally captured Changsha in mid-June and the city of Hengyang by early August.[285] Soon after, they invaded the province of Guangxi, winning major engagements against Chinese forces at Guilin and Liuzhou by the end of November[286] and successfully linking up their forces in China and Indochina by mid-December.[287]
In the Pacific, US forces continued to push back the Japanese perimeter. In mid-June 1944, they began their offensive against the Mariana and Palau islands and decisively defeated Japanese forces in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. These defeats led to the resignation of the Japanese Prime Minister, Hideki Tojo,
and provided the United States with air bases to launch intensive heavy
bomber attacks on the Japanese home islands. In late October, American
forces invaded the Filipino island of Leyte; soon after, Allied naval forces scored another large victory in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, one of the largest naval battles in history.[288]
On 16 December 1944, Germany made a last attempt to split the Allies
on the Western Front by using most of its remaining reserves to launch a massive counter-offensive in the Ardennes and along the French-German border,
hoping to encircle large portions of Western Allied troops and prompt a
political settlement after capturing their primary supply port at Antwerp. By 16 January 1945, this offensive had been repulsed with no strategic objectives fulfilled.[289]
In Italy, the Western Allies remained stalemated at the German
defensive line. In mid-January 1945, the Red Army attacked in Poland, pushing from the Vistula to the Oder river in Germany, and overran East Prussia.[290] On 4 February Soviet, British, and US leaders met for the Yalta Conference. They agreed on the occupation of post-war Germany, and on when the Soviet Union would join the war against Japan.[291]
In May 1945, Australian troops landed in Borneo, overrunning the oilfields there. British, American, and Chinese forces defeated the Japanese in northern Burma in March, and the British pushed on to reach Rangoon by 3 May.[302] Chinese forces started a counterattack in the Battle of West Hunan that occurred between 6 April and 7 June 1945. American naval and amphibious forces also moved towards Japan, taking Iwo Jima by March, and Okinawa by the end of June.[303] At the same time, a naval blockade by submarines was strangling Japan's economy and drastically reducing its ability to supply overseas forces.[304][305]
The call for unconditional surrender was rejected by the Japanese
government, which believed it would be capable of negotiating for more
favourable surrender terms.[309] In early August, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Between the two bombings, the Soviets, pursuant to the Yalta agreement, declared war on Japan, invaded Japanese-held Manchuria and quickly defeated the Kwantung Army, which was the largest Japanese fighting force.[310] These two events persuaded previously adamant Imperial Army leaders to accept surrender terms.[311] The Red Army also captured the southern part of Sakhalin Island and the Kuril Islands. On the night of 9–10 August 1945, Emperor Hirohito announced his decision to accept the terms demanded by the Allies in the Potsdam Declaration.[312] On 15 August, the Emperor communicated this decision to the Japanese people through a speech broadcast on the radio (Gyokuon-hōsō, literally "broadcast in the Emperor's voice").[313] On 15 August 1945, Japan surrendered, with the surrender documents finally signed at Tokyo Bay on the deck of the American battleship USS Missouri on 2 September 1945, ending the war.[314]
The Allies established occupation administrations in Austria and Germany,
both initially divided between western and eastern occupation zones
controlled by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, respectively.
However, their paths soon diverged. In Germany, the western and eastern occupation zones
controlled by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union officially ended
in 1949, with the respective zones becoming separate countries, West Germany and East Germany.[315]
In Austria, however, occupation continued until 1955, when a joint
settlement between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union permitted the
reunification of Austria as a democratic state officially non-aligned
with any political bloc (although in practice having better relations
with the Western Allies). A denazification program in Germany led to the prosecution of Nazi war criminals in the Nuremberg trials
and the removal of ex-Nazis from power, although this policy moved
towards amnesty and re-integration of ex-Nazis into West German society.[316]
Post-war division of the world was formalised by two international military alliances, the United States-led NATO and the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact.[339] The long period of political tensions and military competition between them—the Cold War—would be accompanied by an unprecedented arms race and number of proxy wars throughout the world.[340]
In China, nationalist and communist forces resumed the civil war
in June 1946. Communist forces were victorious and established the
People's Republic of China on the mainland, while nationalist forces
retreated to Taiwan in 1949.[343] In the Middle East, the Arab rejection of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine and the creation of Israel marked the escalation of the Arab–Israeli conflict. While European powers attempted to retain some or all of their colonial empires, their losses of prestige and resources during the war rendered this unsuccessful, leading to decolonisation.[344][345]
The global economy suffered heavily from the war, although
participating nations were affected differently. The United States
emerged much richer than any other nation, leading to a baby boom,
and by 1950 its gross domestic product per person was much higher than
that of any of the other powers, and it dominated the world economy.[346] The Allied occupational authorities pursued a policy of industrial disarmament in Western Germany from 1945 to 1948.[347]
Due to international trade interdependencies, this policy led to an
economic stagnation in Europe and delayed European recovery from the war
for several years.[348][349]
At the Bretton Woods Conference in July 1944, the Allied nations drew up an economic framework for the post-war world. The agreement created the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), which later became part of the World Bank Group. The Bretton Woods system lasted until 1973.[350] Recovery began with the mid-1948 currency reform in Western Germany, and was sped up by the liberalisation of European economic policy that the US Marshall Plan economic aid (1948–1951) both directly and indirectly caused.[351][352] The post-1948 West German recovery has been called the German economic miracle.[353] Italy also experienced an economic boom[354] and the French economy rebounded.[355] By contrast, the United Kingdom was in a state of economic ruin,[356] and although receiving a quarter of the total Marshall Plan assistance, more than any other European country,[357] it continued in relative economic decline for decades.[358]
The Soviet Union, despite enormous human and material losses, also
experienced rapid increase in production in the immediate post-war era,[359] having seized and transferred most of Germany's industrial plants and exacted war reparations from its satellite states.[d][360] Japan recovered much later.[361] China returned to its pre-war industrial production by 1952.[362]
Estimates for the total number of casualties in the war vary, because many deaths went unrecorded.[363] Most suggest that some 60 million people died in the war, including about 20 million military personnel and 40 million civilians.[364][365][366]
The Soviet Union alone lost around 27 million people during the war,[367] including 8.7 million military and 19 million civilian deaths.[368] A quarter of the total people in the Soviet Union were wounded or killed.[369] Germany sustained 5.3 million military losses, mostly on the Eastern Front and during the final battles in Germany.[370]
In Asia and the Pacific, the number of people killed by Japanese
troops remains contested. According to R.J. Rummel, the Japanese killed
between 3million and more than 10 million people, with the most probable case of almost 6,000,000 people.[381] According to the British historian M. R. D. Foot,
civilian deaths are between 10 million and 20 million, whereas Chinese
military casualties (killed and wounded) are estimated to be over five
million.[382] Other estimates say that up to 30 million people, most of them civilians, were killed.[383][384] The most infamous Japanese atrocity was the Nanjing Massacre, in which fifty to three hundred thousand Chinese civilians were raped and murdered.[385] Mitsuyoshi Himeta reported that 2.7 million casualties occurred during the Three Alls policy. General Yasuji Okamura implemented the policy in Hebei and Shandong.[386]
The Soviet Union was responsible for the Katyn massacre of 22,000 Polish officers,[392] and the imprisonment or execution of hundreds of thousands of political prisoners by the NKVD secret police, along with mass civilian deportations to Siberia, in the Baltic states and eastern Poland annexed by the Red Army.[393] Soviet soldiers committed mass rapes in occupied territories, especially in Germany.[394][395]
The exact number of German women and girls raped by Soviet troops
during the war and occupation is uncertain, but historians estimate
their numbers are likely in the hundreds of thousands, and possibly as
many as two million,[396] while figures for women raped by German soldiers in the Soviet Union go as far as ten million.[397][398]
The Soviet Gulag became a de facto system of deadly camps during 1942–1943, when wartime privation and hunger caused numerous deaths of inmates,[406] including foreign citizens of Poland and other countries occupied in 1939–1940 by the Soviet Union, as well as Axis POWs.[407]
By the end of the war, most Soviet POWs liberated from Nazi camps and
many repatriated civilians were detained in special filtration camps
where they were subjected to NKVD evaluation, and 226,127 were sent to the Gulag as real or perceived Nazi collaborators.[408]
Japanese prisoner-of-war camps, many of which were used as labour camps, also had high death rates. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East found the death rate of Western prisoners was 27 percent (for American POWs, 37 percent),[409] seven times that of POWs under the Germans and Italians.[410] While 37,583 prisoners from the UK, 28,500 from the Netherlands, and 14,473 from the United States were released after the surrender of Japan, the number of Chinese released was only 56.[411]
At least five million Chinese civilians from northern China and Manchukuo were enslaved between 1935 and 1941 by the East Asia Development Board, or Kōain, for work in mines and war industries. After 1942, the number reached 10 million.[412] In Java, between 4and 10 million rōmusha
(Japanese: "manual labourers"), were forced to work by the Japanese
military. About 270,000 of these Javanese labourers were sent to other
Japanese-held areas in Southeast Asia, and only 52,000 were repatriated
to Java.[413]
Polish civilians wearing blindfolds photographed just before being massacred by German soldiers in Palmiry forest, 1940
In Europe, occupation came under two forms. In Western, Northern, and
Central Europe (France, Norway, Denmark, the Low Countries, and the annexed portions of Czechoslovakia)
Germany established economic policies through which it collected
roughly 69.5 billion reichsmarks (27.8 billion US dollars) by the end of
the war; this figure does not include the plunder of industrial products, military equipment, raw materials and other goods.[414]
Thus, the income from occupied nations was over 40 percent of the
income Germany collected from taxation, a figure which increased to
nearly 40 percent of total German income as the war went on.[415]
In Asia, Japan termed nations under its occupation as being part of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, essentially a Japanese hegemony which it claimed was for purposes of liberating colonised peoples.[421] Although Japanese forces were sometimes welcomed as liberators from European domination, Japanese war crimes frequently turned local public opinion against them.[422] During Japan's initial conquest, it captured 4,000,000 barrels (640,000 m3)
of oil (~550,000 tonnes) left behind by retreating Allied forces; and
by 1943, was able to get production in the Dutch East Indies up to
50 million barrels (7,900,000 m3) of oil (~6.8 million tonnes), 76 percent of its 1940 output rate.[422]
In the 1930s Britain and the United States together controlled almost
75% of world mineral output—essential for projecting military power.[423]
In Europe, before the outbreak of the war, the Allies had
significant advantages in both population and economics. In 1938, the
Western Allies (United Kingdom, France, Poland and the British
Dominions) had a 30 percent larger population and a 30 percent higher
gross domestic product than the European Axis powers (Germany and
Italy); including colonies, the Allies had more than a 5:1 advantage in
population and a nearly 2:1 advantage in GDP.[424]
In Asia at the same time, China had roughly six times the population of
Japan but only an 89 percent higher GDP; this reduces to three times
the population and only a 38 percent higher GDP if Japanese colonies are
included.[424]
The United States produced about two-thirds of all munitions used
by the Allies in World War II, including warships, transports,
warplanes, artillery, tanks, trucks, and ammunition.[425]
Although the Allies' economic and population advantages were largely
mitigated during the initial rapid blitzkrieg attacks of Germany and
Japan, they became the decisive factor by 1942, after the United States
and Soviet Union joined the Allies and the war evolved into one of attrition.[426]
While the Allies' ability to out-produce the Axis was partly due to
more access to natural resources, other factors, such as Germany and
Japan's reluctance to employ women in the labour force,[427] Allied strategic bombing,[428] and Germany's late shift to a war economy[429]
contributed significantly. Additionally, neither Germany nor Japan
planned to fight a protracted war, and had not equipped themselves to do
so.[430] To improve their production, Germany and Japan used millions of slave labourers;[431]Germany enslaved about 12 million people, mostly from Eastern Europe,[404] while Japan used more than 18 million people in Far East Asia.[412][413]
Aircraft were used for reconnaissance, as fighters, bombers, and ground-support, and each role developed considerably. Innovations included airlift (the capability to quickly move limited high-priority supplies, equipment, and personnel);[432] and strategic bombing (the bombing of enemy industrial and population centres to destroy the enemy's ability to wage war).[433]Anti-aircraft weaponry also advanced, including defences such as radar and surface-to-air artillery, in particular the introduction of the proximity fuze. The use of the jet aircraft was pioneered and led to jets becoming standard in air forces worldwide.[434]
Advances were made in nearly every aspect of naval warfare, most notably with aircraft carriers and submarines. Although aeronautical warfare had relatively little success at the start of the war, actions at Taranto, Pearl Harbor, and the Coral Sea established the carrier as the dominant capital ship (in place of the battleship).[435][436][437] In the Atlantic, escort carriers became a vital part of Allied convoys, increasing the effective protection radius and helping to close the Mid-Atlantic gap.[438] Carriers were also more economical than battleships due to the relatively low cost of aircraft[439] and because they are not required to be as heavily armoured.[440] Submarines, which had proved to be an effective weapon during the First World War,[441] were expected by all combatants to be important in the second. The British focused development on anti-submarineweaponry and tactics, such as sonar and convoys, while Germany focused on improving its offensive capability, with designs such as the Type VII submarine and wolfpack tactics.[442][better source needed] Gradually, improving Allied technologies such as the Leigh Light, Hedgehog, Squid, and homing torpedoes proved effective against German submarines.[443]
Land warfare changed from the static frontlines of trench warfare of World War I, which had relied on improved artillery that outmatched the speed of both infantry and cavalry, to increased mobility and combined arms. The tank, which had been used predominantly for infantry support in the First World War, had evolved into the primary weapon.[444] In the late 1930s, tank design was considerably more advanced than it had been during World WarI,[445] and advances continued throughout the war with increases in speed, armour and firepower.[446][447] At the start of the war, most commanders thought enemy tanks should be met by tanks with superior specifications.[448]
This idea was challenged by the poor performance of the relatively
light early tank guns against armour, and German doctrine of avoiding
tank-versus-tank combat. This, along with Germany's use of combined
arms, were among the key elements of their highly successful blitzkrieg
tactics across Poland and France.[444] Many means of destroying tanks, including indirect artillery, anti-tank guns (both towed and self-propelled), mines, short-ranged infantry antitank weapons, and other tanks were used.[448] Even with large-scale mechanisation, infantry remained the backbone of all forces,[449] and throughout the war, most infantry were equipped similarly to World War I.[450] The portable machine gun spread, a notable example being the German MG 34, and various submachine guns which were suited to close combat in urban and jungle settings.[450] The assault rifle,
a late war development incorporating many features of the rifle and
submachine gun, became the standard post-war infantry weapon for most
armed forces.[451]
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