World War II: Chronology--Second Phase (1939-41)


Figure 1.--Here we see the German Panzers in Poland again, and this tome with the much more powerful tanks, in this case the Mark V Panthers (1944). The problem was that by this stage of the War the German tankers no longer had air cover and faced a Red Army that had a much larger tank and infantry force to support it. The men are from the 5th SS-Panzer-Division Wiking, composed of foreign voluteers (Scandanavia and the Lowlands). Because of this it wasonly deployed in the East. The exact date is unknow, but we would guess it was at the outset pf Operation Bagration, probably July 1944.

After a series of almost uniterupted victories, the War turned against the Axis when the Wehrmacht was stopped before Moscow (December 1941). Although not fully understood at the time, this like the defeat of the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britin the previous year was far more important than undestood at the time. The Germans launched the War with the Soviets as an ally. This ment they had access to needed resources from the Soviet Union. Defeating the Soviet Union would have given them permanent access to those vital resources, but the failire of Barbarossa meant that the inherent weakenesses of the German war effort would be magnified by having to fight the Soviets and Allies at the same time. Germany simply did not have the population, resources, or industry to fight both the Soviets and the Allies. And the failure before Moscow locked them into a long brutal war of attrition--the same situation that resulted in the World War I defeat. In addition the Red Army badly mauled the Wehrmacht (Winter 1941-42). And to make matters even worse, the Soviets and Western Allies now had time to lern the same Blitzkrieg tactics that had won the Germans their early victorie. The Germans and Japanese managed to gain some major victories (Spring 1942). The Germans renewd their offensive in the Soviet Union during the spring and the Japanese launched a stunning series of offensive operations in the Pacific. It again looked like the Axis could not been defeated. This all began to change when the Japanese Navy were defeated at Midway (June 1942) and Guadalcanal was invaded (August 1942). The German juggernaut was stopped at El Alemasine (October 1942) Stalingrad (November 1942). The Western Allies began the around the clock bombing of Germany (January 1943). The final pieece of the Allied war plan fell into place with the defeaft of the U-boats (July 1943). Churchill writes in his memoirs that with the Soviet Union surviving the initial NAZI assault and United States finally in the War, victory was inexorable. He was right, inexorable--but costly. It was a matter of applying the vast, sperior resources to smashing the Axis. The Germans and Japanese had no way of changing that dynamic. It may seem strange that the first phase of the war was almost entirely a series of Axis victories and the second stage of the war was an almost uninterupted string of Allied victories. The reasons of course are simple. First, the Germans and Japanese poured vast resources into the military while the Allies limited defense spending. Second, in the space of 6 months, the Axis without any real attempt at coordination forced the Soviet Union into the Allied camp and then brought America into the War. A more disaterous strategic undertaking is hard to imgine. Given the humnan, industrial, and material resources of the Soviet Union and the United States, this incredible strategic move almost preordained the defeat of the Axis. The Red Army bled the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Font while the Western Allies pounded German cities. Finally the German losses in the East combined with growing Allied air power enabled the Western Allies to reenter the Continent with the D-Day landings (June 1944). What followed was a string of Allied victories in the East and West. The most impprtant was the Red Army's powerful Bagration Offensive which smashed Army Group Ceter (July 1944). With the failure of the July Bomb plot to kill Hitler (July 1944), the German people were condemned to the massive destruction they had inflicted on other countries as the Soviet and Allied armies converged on the Reich. The Soviet and Allied victories were only paused in the West by the Bulge (December 1944). The Soviet and Allied victories were impressive, although achieved at great cost. The Soviets routinly lost more men than the Germns even in their great victories. Finally after Hitler's suiside and the fall of Berlin the NAZIs surrendered (May 1945).

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Created: 3:44 AM 10/29/2017
Last updated: 3:44 AM 10/29/2017