Chapter 5 Chapter 1 The Age of Total War 2

2 Far fewer books have been devoted to the causes of World War II than World War I.The reason for this phenomenon is very simple. With very few exceptions, no serious historian would question the fact that Germany, Japan and Italy launched aggression (although they are not so sure about the role played by Italy).As for other countries, regardless of capitalism or socialism, they are all involuntarily dragged into the vortex of war.None of them want to fight, and most try to avoid it.The most succinct answer to the question of who and what caused the catastrophe is just three words: Hitler. Historical questions, of course, are not so simple to answer.As we have seen before, the First World War created a world of great instability, especially in Europe, but also in the Far East.Under such circumstances, naturally no one thinks that peace can last.Countries that are dissatisfied with the status quo are not limited to the defeated countries.Of course the defeated nations, especially Germany, had every reason to resent the state of affairs, and that was the case.Regardless of party affiliation in Germany, from the far left Communist Party to the far right Hitler's National Socialists (National Socialists), they all accused the Versailles Peace Treaty of being too unfair and unacceptable.Paradoxically, if there were to be a revolution in Germany, the international impact might be less.Look at the two truly revolutionary defeated countries, Russia and Turkey, who were preoccupied with household chores, including defending their borders.There is no extra effort to make troubles with the international situation. Instead, they are the forces that demanded to maintain world stability in the 1930s.In fact, during World War II, Turkey also remained neutral.On the other hand, although Italy and Japan are the victors, they are also very unhappy.However, Japan is more practical. Unlike Italy, imperialism has too much appetite, which is far beyond what its own national strength can bear.In any case, Italy fought the First World War, after all, it also gained a lot.Although the actual gains cannot be compared with the benefits promised by the wartime allies when they bribed it to join.But Italy has acquired many new territories in the foothills of the Alps, the Adriatic, and the Aegean Sea.However, the fact that Fascists, who advocated ultra-nationalist imperial ambitions, won power in Italy after the war reflects the discontent of the country's people (see Chapter 5).As for Japan, it has become the dominant power in the Far East. Since Russia withdrew from the stage, the strength of the Japanese army and navy cannot be ignored.In fact, Japan's military status was more or less internationally recognized by the 1922 Washington Naval Agreement.This agreement stipulates that the ratio of naval forces of the United States, Britain and Japan should be 5:5:3 respectively.Since then, the British dominance of the sea for many years has finally ended.Having said that, Japan is still not satisfied.The speed of Japan's industrialization, which was advancing by leaps and bounds at the time, naturally made it feel that its share in the Far East was greater than that given to it by the White Empire - although in absolute terms, Japan's economy was still small at the time Very much, in the late 1920s, it only accounted for 2.5% of the world's total industrial output.Besides, Japan is also deeply aware of its own weaknesses. It can be said that it does not have any of the various natural resources needed by a modern industrial economy.These resources rely on imports, and imports will inevitably be interrupted by threats from foreign navies.If Japanese products are to be exported, the export has to rely on the care of the American market.The theory of the Japanese military is that going to China to build a huge land empire can reduce Japan's transportation lines, and Japan's strength will be guaranteed and it will no longer be so fragile.

All in all, the world situation after 1918 was turbulent, and peace could not be maintained after all. Of course, there were various causes and effects.However, the reason why the Second World War finally broke out was that Germany, Japan and Italy launched aggression due to their grievances. Since the mid-1930s, they have signed a series of covenants with each other to communicate with each other. In 1931, Japan sent troops to Manchuria; in 1935, Italy occupied Ethiopia; from 1936 to 1939, Germany and Italy jointly intervened in the Spanish Civil War; in early 1938, Germany invaded Austria; Germany fully occupies Czechoslovakia (already Italy has sent troops to occupy Albania).These were important events leading up to the world war.In the end, Germany made unreasonable territorial claims to Poland, which finally caused a full-scale war.Corresponding to the above-mentioned aggression incidents, we can also detail the embarrassment of the international inability to deal with the aggressors: the League of Nations failed to prevent Japan from sending troops to Manchuria; Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, and no one stopped it; " was invalidated and re-occupied the Rhineland in 1936, Britain and France could only watch it happen; Britain and France refused to intervene in the Spanish Civil War ("principle of non-intervention"); In 1938, on the eve of Germany proposing the "Munich Agreement" (Munich Agreement) to blackmail Czechoslovakia, Britain and France betrayed Czechoslovakia; Violation of the Pact (Hitler-Stalin pact), one less country against Hitler.

But then again, even if one side really doesn't want to start a war and tries to avoid it; at the same time, the other party desperately sings the great mission of war-like Hitler's wholehearted pursuit of war-but in the end, when the big war really breaks out, the war The actual method, time, and opponents were not necessarily what these aggressors expected at the beginning.No matter how powerful militarism is in Japan, I am afraid that it does not want to achieve its goals through a full-scale war (its main goal is to stay in the Far East and dominate, which is the so-called "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere").The reason why Japan fell into the quagmire of the World War was entirely because the United States also had a share. As for Germany's original plan, how it wanted to fight, when it wanted to fight, and with whom, Hitler did not have the habit of recording his own decisions. Opinions are always different.However, two things are obvious: First, Germany launched a war against Poland in 1939 (with the help of Britain and France behind Poland), which was obviously not within Hitler's original plan.As for fighting with the United States and the Soviet Union at the same time in the future, it may also be the biggest nightmare for German generals and diplomats.

Germany's fight in this battle is no different from that in 1914. It must be successful in one effort; the situation in Japan is the same.Once it lasts for a long time, after the opponent starts to join forces, two fists will be hard to beat with four hands, and it is far beyond the power of Germany and Japan to deal with it.They have no intention of fighting a protracted war at all; as for weapons that require long-term production, they are not considered. (On the contrary, although Britain suffered setbacks in the land war, it had already made up its mind to carry out a protracted war of attrition from the very beginning, concentrating its financial resources on sophisticated and expensive weapons. Over time, the arms production of Britain and its allies naturally surpassed that of Germany.) As for Japan, it was not involved in Germany's war against Britain and France in 1939-1940, and it did not participate in Germany's march against the Soviet Union after 1941, so it was relatively free from the pain of dealing with a joint enemy.However, as early as 1939, Japan had informally fought against the Soviet Red Army at the junction of China and Siberia. At that time, the Japanese side suffered heavy casualties. When the Pacific War began in December 1941, Japan was only at war with Britain and the United States, not the Soviet Union.Unfortunately, the opponent of the great powers that Japan encountered was the United States, a superpower that was bound to win the war with resources that were many times richer than Japan.

For a while, Germany seemed to be having good luck. As war drew closer in the 1930s, Britain and France failed to make peace with the Soviet Union, and the latter negotiated peace with Hitler.And US President Franklin O. Roosevelt could only support the party he passionately favored in writing due to domestic political constraints.So at the beginning, the war that broke out in 1939 could only be regarded as the European War.In fact, after Germany invaded Poland and carved up the country with the neutral Soviet Union within three weeks, the so-called European War has become a purely Western European war between Germany and Britain and France. In the spring of 1940, Germany captured Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, and France without much effort, which was ridiculously easy.The four countries of Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands are all occupied by Germany, while France is divided into two halves: one part is directly occupied and governed by Germany, and the other half becomes a vassal "government". The capital is located in Vichy, a spa resort in the French countryside. The main members of the government, most of whom come from various conservative forces in France, these people do not want to call France a "republic", so they refer to it as the "government").Now only the UK and Germany are left in Europe to fight against Germany. Under the leadership of Churchill, the whole country is in solidarity and vows to deal with Hitler to the end without compromise.At this juncture, the originally neutral fascist Italy made a wrong move, gave up its self-defense and non-interference position, and fell to the side of Germany.

In a practical sense, the European War has now come to an end.It is true that Britain has two barriers, the Channel of England and the Royal Air Force, which prevent Germany from overstepping the barrier, but Britain also has no ability to attack the European continent, let alone defeat Germany. For a few months in 1940-1941, Britain alone supported it.This period, at least for those who survived the war, can be regarded as a remarkable moment in British history.However, Britain's chances of surviving were slim. In June 1940, the United States redeployed its "Hemispheric Defense" program, basically deciding that any further support to Britain was unnecessary.Moreover, even if Britain had a chance to escape, the United States only regarded it as a peripheral defensive base.At the same time, the map of Europe was also redrawn.According to the German-Russian agreement, in addition to the part of Poland occupied by Germany, the Soviet Union occupied the European territories lost by imperial Russia in 1918 and Finland. In 1939-1940, Stalin fought a bad war with Finland, pushing the Soviet border a little beyond Leningrad.As for the countries divided from the original Habsburg rule by the "Versailles Peace Treaty", they were short-lived, and now they are re-planned and fell into Hitler's rule.However, Britain originally wanted to extend the war to the Balkans, but it failed as expected. Instead, the entire peninsula, including the Greek islands, fell into the hands of the German army.The military performance of Germany's ally Italy was worse than that of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in World War I.The Italian army retreated steadily in Africa, and was almost driven out of the sphere of influence it had established in Africa by Britain, whose main base was in Egypt.Under the command of the military genius General Erwin Rommel, Germany's African powerhouse marched across the Mediterranean into Africa, threatening the entire position of Britain in the Middle East.

On June 22, 1941, Hitler changed his mind and invaded the Soviet Union, and the war resumed.It was a fateful day in World War II, when Germany made no sense of what it was doing—it put itself in a two-front war—and Stalin could never have dreamed of Hitler doing it.But Hitler had his own reasons for this move: it was a reasonable strategy to win the land power of the East, which was not only rich in resources, but also had an endless supply of labor.However, like other military experts (except Japan), he underestimated the ability of Soviet Russia to resist.However, Hitler's estimate was not completely out of line, because the Soviet Union was in a mess at that time: the great purges in the 1930s left the Red Army in pieces (see Chapter 13), the country was depressed, the atmosphere of terror was full, and Stalin himself knew nothing about military affairs. , but likes to interfere.At the beginning, the German army was in full swing in Russia, just like its performance in the western theater, the progress was extremely rapid.Before the beginning of October, the German army had already reached the outskirts of Moscow. For a while, even Stalin was flustered and had no fighting spirit, and planned to seek peace from the German enemy.But the German army's good opportunity was fleeting. The Russian hinterland was too large and had a large number of personnel. The Russians were particularly tough and patriotic, and they fought fiercely and ruthlessly.However, the fact that the USSR was able to take a break to rally and defeat the Germans was not an insignificant factor because its good generals were finally able to let go (some of them fresh from gulags).During Stalin's reign, the reign of terror was only stopped in 1942-1945.

Hitler originally planned to solve Russia within three months, but now that the plan fails, Germany has already failed.Neither its equipment nor its supplies could support a protracted war.The number of aircraft and tanks owned and manufactured by Germany is even far lower than that of Britain and Russia, and this does not include the figure of the United States.After the bitterly cold winter, Germany launched another offensive in 1942. This time, of course, it fought very beautifully, just like the previous battles.The Germans even penetrated deep into the Caucasus mountains, approaching the lower valley of the Volga, but this had no decisive influence on the situation of the battle. Between the summer of 1942 and February 1943, the German offensive was finally stopped by the Russian army. Since then, it was unable to move, and finally fell into a siege and was forced to surrender at Stalingrad.From this moment on, the Russian army took the offensive, but until the end of the war, Russia only fought on the front line of Berlin, Prague and Vienna.However, after the battle of Stalingrad, everyone knew that the overall situation was settled, and that Germany's defeat was only a matter of time.

At the same time, although the war was still dominated by Europe, the flames of war had spread to all parts of the world, mainly due to the rise of anti-imperialism in the British colonies.The British Empire is still considered a world-class overlord at this time, and it still has spare power to suppress rebellious subjects.Boers in South Africa (Boer, white people of Dutch descent in South Africa) are in danger of being detained by the British colonial authorities if they are pro-Hitler. The quarantine policy is in the hands of these people. In the spring of 1941, Rashid Ali (Rashid Ali) seized power in Iraq and was immediately put out by the British.In addition, Hitler's military victories in Europe also created a partial vacuum of imperial power in Southeast Asia, which is especially significant.Japan stepped in to fill the vacuum, posing as the protector of the helpless French left in Indochina.The Axis forces represented by Japan have begun to stretch out their claws in Southeast Asia, which is regarded as intolerable by the United States, so they impose severe economic pressure on Japan, and Japan's foreign trade and resource supply all rely on sea transportation.It was this conflict that led to the war between the two countries. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese raided Pearl Harbor (Pearl Harbor), and the world war finally broke out.Within a few months, Japan swept across the entire mainland and islands of Southeast Asia, brazenly preparing to invade India from western Burma, and threatened to invade the empty northern regions of Australia from New Guinea to the south.

Perhaps, a direct war between Japan and the United States is inevitable, unless the former abandons its ambition to build an economic empire.This economic empire, euphemistically called the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere", is the central policy of Japan.However, the United States under Roosevelt, seeing the consequences of European countries appeasing Hitler and Mussolini, naturally could not allow itself to repeat the mistakes of Britain and France, and tolerated Japan's expansion actions for a while.In any case, the general public opinion in the United States always regards the Pacific region (unlike Europe) as the legitimate scope of activities of the United States, which tastes similar to the prohibition of Latin America on the United States.The traditional "isolationism" of the United States is limited to not caring about European affairs.In fact, it is precisely because of the Western embargo policy against Japan (in fact, the US embargo) and the freezing of Japanese assets that the latter is forced to act rashly.Because of this bad strategy, the Japanese economy, which is completely dependent on seaborne imports, is bound to die in a few days.Japan made this bet rashly, the risk was very high, and the result was tantamount to suicide.However, Japan's attempt to establish a southern empire has only such an opportunity, and it is fleeting, so it has to be seized.It believes that to succeed in this move, it must first lock the US Navy, because this is the only force that can interfere with Japan's actions.However, this also means that the United States is immediately involved in the war.Thinking about the super national power and resources of the United States, Japan is doomed to lose this battle.

What is puzzling is Hitler's actions.He has devoted all his energy to the Russian war zone and has no other skills, but why does he declare war on the United States inexplicably?As a result, domestic political resistance in the United States was greatly reduced, and the Roosevelt administration was able to enter the European battlefield to fight side by side with Britain.In the eyes of the Washington authorities, Nazi Germany's global status to the United States—and the threat to the world is definitely much greater than that of Japan.Therefore, the energy and resources of the United States will naturally focus on the European battlefield.The results proved that the US strategy is very correct.After the United States entered the war, it took the Allies another three and a half years to defeat Germany, but Japan was dealt with within three months after that.Hitler's stupid act of declaring war on the United States is puzzling, but he has always underestimated the power of the United States, especially the economic and technological potential of the United States.He always thought that democracies were inefficient and that decisions were delayed.The only democracy Hitler looked up to was Britain, which he considered not a fully democratic regime—and he was right. The German army attacked the Soviet Union and Japan went to war with the United States. Two events determined the outcome of the Second World War.However, the clues could not be seen immediately at that time, because the power of the German army just reached its peak in the middle of 1942, and until 1943, Germany did not completely lose its military initiative.Moreover, the Western Allies did not effectively return to the Continent until 1944.Although the Allied forces were victorious in their operations on the North African battlefield, they finally drove out the Axis forces and thus invaded Italy, but their offensives were blocked by the Germans, and they could no longer overstep the barrier.At the same time, the main weapon of the Western Allied Forces against Germany was the air force, and after-the-fact research showed that the effect of this tactic was actually very poor. The most useful thing was to kill civilians and destroy cities.At that time, the only troops that the Allies could advance were the Soviet Army; in addition, in the Balkans—mainly in Yugoslavia—Albania and Greece—there were also some underground armed resistance forces influenced by the Communist Party that caused headaches for Germany and Italy, but the counterattack forces of the Allies, And that's all.But Churchill was right. As soon as the Pearl Harbor incident happened, he declared with confidence that victory was now within his grasp: “It all depends on how we use our overwhelming strength to win.” (Kennedy, p. 347) By the end of 1942, The fact that the Allied forces will win is no longer in doubt.The Allies began to plan for a victorious future. Having said that, we don't have to follow the subsequent battles to discuss them one by one.us Just note that on the western front German resistance remained strong, even in June 1944, when the Allies returned to the Continent.The internal situation in Germany at that time was also different from that of Kaiser Wilhelm in 1918. There was no anti-Hitler revolution. Only the core elements of Prussia’s traditional excellent military power—German military generals—conspired to eradicate Hitler in July 1944. hitler.These good soldiers are rational patriots, unwilling to pursue the violent ending of Wagner's opera "Cotterdammerung" (Cotterdammerung) insanely.Because they know that such Germany will undoubtedly perish.However, the actions of these officers lacked general support, and unfortunately failed in the end, and all died in the hands of Hitler's diehards.As for Japan in the east, it insisted on fighting fiercely to the end, without any sign of wavering.Therefore, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, forcing Japan to surrender quickly. The Allied victory in 1945 was total and the Axis surrender was unconditional.The defeated country was completely occupied by the victorious country, and there was no formal peace negotiation process.Outside of the occupying forces, the Allies did not recognize the official presence of any defeated powers, at least in Germany and Japan absolutely.If we talk about the actions closest to peaceful negotiations at that time, I am afraid that there were several negotiations between 1943 and 1945, including the three major allies of the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union.In the meeting, the three powers pre-divided the fruits of victory in the war and tried to determine their relative relationship with each other after the war (with little success).There were four of these meetings: one in Teheran in 1943; one in Moscow in 1944; another in Yalta, Crimea in early 1945; and one in Potsdam in occupied Germany in August 1945. ) See you again.However, the most effective meetings were the series of consultations held between the Allies between 1943 and 1945.The meeting set the overall framework for international political and economic relations, including the establishment of the United Nations (United Nations), which will be discussed further in Chapter 9. Therefore, compared with World War I, World War II was fought more thoroughly. Except for Italy's defection and regime change in 1943, neither side seriously considered compromise from beginning to end.After the war, Italy did not fall into the fate of being occupied. The Allies only regarded it as a defeated country and recognized the existence of the Italian government. (This is thanks to the fact that the Germans, and the Mussolini regime supported by it - the fascist "social republic" - will defend half of Italy for two years, and the Allies have always been helpless.) The reason why the two sides did not compromise, The reason is also very simple.This is a battle of beliefs, to change the modern term, it is a battle of ideology.For the vast majority of countries, it is clearly a battle of life and death.From the horrors of Poland and Russia after the German occupation, as well as the news of the mass murder of Jews (which gradually reached the ears of the outside world in disbelief), everyone learned a lesson: Once in the hands of the German Nazi regime, the price paid The price is death and slavery.Therefore, this battle is a war with no limit and no limit.The Second World War escalated from a large-scale collective war to a full-scale war. After this battle, the losses are simply incalculable, because in addition to soldiers, civilians suffered countless casualties during the war (different from the previous war).Many of the most tragic killings often occurred at times and places when no one could spare, or even care about, the calculation of casualties.The number of deaths directly caused by the war is estimated to be about 3-5 times that of the previous World War (actually an estimate) (Milward, p. 270; Petersen, 1986).Looking at it another way, the Soviet Union, Poland, and Yugoslavia each lost 10% to 20% of their total population.Germany, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Japan and China lost 4% to 6% of their populations respectively.As for the death toll in Britain and France, it is far lower than in the last war - only 1%, and the figure in the United States is slightly higher.But these are just speculations.Regarding the death toll in the Soviet Union, there have been different estimates. Even including official statistics, they were 7 million, 11 million, or even close to 20 million and 50 million.However, the overall scale of death is so huge, what is the point of being statistically accurate?If historians calculate that the Jews actually died only 5 million, or even 4 million instead of 6 million, would it be possible to alleviate the horror of the German massacre of Jews? (However, the figure of 6 million is a rough calculation at the beginning, and it is definitely an overestimate.) In the 900 days when Germany besieged Leningrad (1941-1944), were there 1 million people, or 500,000 or 600,000 people? How much difference does it make to starve or die from exhaustion?In fact, apart from intuitive imagination, how much real meaning can we grasp in these numbers?Among the 5.7 million Russian prisoners of war trapped in Germany, 3.3 million died (Hirschfeld, 1986). What does this figure mean for ordinary readers?The only thing we can be sure about in this war is that more men died than women.In the postwar Soviet Union until 1959, there were only 4 men for every 7 women in the 35-50 age group (Milward 1979, p. 212).Houses that collapsed in the flames of war can be rebuilt; dead people can never be brought back to life.How difficult it is for those who survived by chance to rebuild a normal life!