Chapter 34 Chapter 25 World War II: Global Impact (Part 2)

In 1942, Germany, Italy and Japan were victorious almost everywhere.The mighty offensive ravaged much of the Soviet Union, North Africa, and the Pacific, grabbing the Eurasian hemisphere like a gigantic three-clawed claw.At the same time, German submarines and surface ships were threatening the shipping lanes of the Allies, whose losses to Allied ships averaged around 400,000 tons per month in 1942. The most astonishing victory was achieved by the Japanese, who quickly conquered vast swaths of the Pacific, expanding from the Aleutians to Australia, and from Guam to India.The Japanese were successful in part because they attacked each time when resistance was practically impossible.France and Holland were occupied, Britain was fighting desperately for its own existence, and the United States was just beginning to transition from a peacetime to a wartime economy.Thus the Japanese entered a vacuum, which they filled quickly and easily.The Western powers' tradition of using their colonies as suppliers of raw materials and consumers of manufactured goods also contributed to Japan's success.While this arrangement may have benefited the mother country, it hindered economic development in the colonies.Even a country as resource-rich and populous as India cannot produce a jeep, a plane or a landing craft.This meant that all essential military supplies had to be shipped thousands of miles away from Europe or the United States.The traditional political policies of the colonial powers also fed them in this last contest: the average Indian, Burmese, or Indonesian did not understand why they should fight to defend what they perceived as a tyrannical alien regime.While not actively welcoming and helping the Japanese invaders, they adopted an attitude that both of you should be damned.The Japanese cunningly exploited this sentiment with slogans such as "Asia for Asians".Significantly, the Japanese encountered serious resistance only in the Philippine Islands, which later became an autonomous republic in 1946 with its own national army of 100,000 men.

Just three days after Pearl Harbor, the Japanese scored another victory: their ground-based aircraft sank the British battleship "Prince of Wales" and the battlecruiser "Prince of Wales" in the Gulf of Siam. No".Because these were two new warships with select crews, their loss hit the British as hard as Pearl Harbor hit the Americans. "In all the war," Churchill later wrote, "I have never received a more direct blow . . . how many efforts, hopes, and plans were sunk with these two ships. . . . In the Indian and Pacific oceans, except Except for the American warships that survived Pearl Harbor and are hurrying back to California, there are no British and American capital ships. Japan is supreme in all these vast waters, and we are weaker everywhere. , defenseless."

By Christmas, two stars after Pearl Harbor, the Japanese had taken Guam, Wake Island, and Hong Kong.They invaded the jungles of the Malay Peninsula, which had previously been considered impenetrable.With years of experience fighting Chinese guerrillas, the Japanese had trained their officers and soldiers to bypass enemy positions and attack from the flanks and rear.Carrying light mortars and supplies, and using light tanks, bicycles, and local transport, they moved rapidly through areas with poor ground transportation.These tactics proved so successful that by February 15, 1942, the great fortress of Singapore fell as 80,000 demoralized British, Australian and Indian troops surrendered to 50,000 Japanese troops.Churchill described the defeat as "the worst catastrophe and greatest capitulation in British history." More than that, Singapore had long been a shining symbol of Western imperialism in Asia.Its fall had as much impact on the second half of the twentieth century as the Soviet defeat at Tsushima had on the first half of the twentieth century.

In essence, this same pattern is repeated in Myanmar and Indonesia. On December 10, 1941, Japanese troops crossed the Burmese border.By April they had captured Rangoon and Mandalay, and the British, Indian and Chinese forces fled to India along hidden jungle paths.In Indonesia, the commander-in-chief of the Dutch army surrendered in Bandung on March 8. The Japanese also encountered no greater trouble when they landed in the Philippines on January 2 and occupied Manila.However, the U.S.-Philippine coalition forces, under the successive leadership of General MacArthur and then General Wain Wright, persisted until May 6 on the mountainous Bataan Peninsula.The Japanese went one step further and occupied the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean and Attu and Kiska Islands in the Aleutian Islands.In this way, within 5 months, the Japanese won an empire with a population of more than 100 million, which could provide 95% of the world's rubber raw materials, 90% of hemp, and two-thirds of tin with only 15,000 casualties.As Churchill confided to the House of Commons: "...the brutality, ferocity, technology, and capabilities of Japan far exceed anything we had originally anticipated."

At that time, on the Soviet battlefield, Hitler launched another large-scale offensive in June 1942.Since Moscow and Leningrad had proved impregnable the previous year, he now ordered his troops south.His goal was to reach the Volga and the Caspian Sea, thereby splitting the Soviet Union in half and cutting off the Red Army's oil supply from the Caucasus.As in 1941, the armored division first swept the flat steppe area quickly. At the beginning of July they captured the great fortress of Sevastopol in the Crimea, and at the end of July they recaptured Rostov.They then crossed the Don River and fanned out southeast toward the Caucasus oil fields and northeast toward Stalingrad on the Volga.By August 22, Nazi tanks had captured the oil center of Maykop, but they failed to capture the large oil fields of Grozny.Hitler sent a large number of armored troops to participate in the offensive in the Caucasus direction, but General Eduard von Kleist later said: "I don't need the assistance of armored troops. They block the road I am going to use." According to K Lester said they could have taken Stalingrad "without a fight" by the end of July.However, it was not until a month later that belatedly arriving armored divisions from the Caucasus advanced to the Volga north of Stalingrad.By this time, the Soviets had brought massive reinforcements into the city, and it was no longer a conquerable city.However, the total size of the territory occupied by the Germans in 1942 is very impressive.In Berlin, Hitler announced that his forces had reached the banks of the Volga in the heart of the Soviet Union and would never be repulsed.

In North Africa, 1942 was also a year of German victory.This was partly due to the fact that the British had weakened themselves on the North African front by unfortunately trying to prevent the Germans from entering Greece.At the same time, more than half of the British Mediterranean Fleet was destroyed by mines and submarines, and the Luftwaffe bombed Malta so violently that the island could not be used as an air and naval base for a while.Moreover, Hitler had decided early in 1941 to send his ablest commander, General Erwin Rommel, to North Africa to support the wavering Italians.Although not a member of the Prussian military hierarchy, Rommel rose quickly through the ranks due to his outstanding service in the French campaign.A shrewd strategist and aggressive leader, he quickly trained his famous African Legion. In March 1941, he launched an offensive that forced the British to retreat across Libya towards the Egyptian border. In May 1942, he continued his offensive, crossing the border into Egypt and reaching Alamein, only 50 miles from Alexandria.Convinced of complete victory, Rommel picked a white steed for his victorious entry into Cairo, and the grateful Führer promoted him to field marshal.

Even at sea, in 1942, the Germans were surprisingly successful.Both the British and Americans fought at the end of thousands of miles of supply lines, and the Soviets also relied heavily on supplies coming in via the North Cape or the Persian Gulf.It was a pre-planned situation in favor of the Japanese and German navies, respectively (after the American and British navies) the third and fourth largest naval forces in the world.The Germans inflicted far greater losses on Allied shipping than the Japanese, largely because the German submarine fleet was larger, more powerful, and closer to the main Allied shipping lanes.Over the course of the war, the Allies and neutrals lost 23,506,000 gross tons of ships, 1.5 times as many ships as were lost in World War I.Among them, three-quarters of the ships were lost in the Atlantic Ocean, 70% of the ships were sunk by submarines, and only 30% of the ships were sunk by mines, watercraft and aircraft.The tonnage of ships sunk rose from 3,992,000 tons in 1940 to 4,329,000 tons in 1941 and peaked at 8,330,000 tons in 1942.This loss fell to 4,065,000 tons and 1,495,000 tons in the following two years. There was a shipping crisis in 1942, and it was not until the autumn of that year that Allied shipyards produced more ships than lost ships.

In 1942, the Axis powers were at their luckiest on every front.In North Africa, Rommel was preparing to attack Cairo, in the Soviet Union, German troops had reached the Volga, and in the Pacific, the Japanese appeared to be preparing to pounce on Australia and India. Only ship battles on the high seas remained inextricably fought until the end of the year. For the first three years of World War II, the Axis Powers suffered nothing. At the end of 1942, with the great Soviet victory at Stalingrad, the British breakthrough in Egypt, the Allied landings in French North Africa, the fall of Mussolini, the continuous Allied bombing of Germany and the The defeat of the Japanese fleet in the Pacific marked the beginning of a turning point in the war.

Stalingrad was a difficult city to defend, sprawling for 30 miles irregularly along the banks of the mile-wide Volga River, by which Soviet troops and supplies had to be transported by boat.However, Stalin ordered that the city be held at all costs.It is an important industrial center, producing tractors in peacetime and tanks in wartime.It is located at the westernmost bend of the Volga River, and its strategic location is also very important.Had it fallen to the Germans, the country would have effectively been cut in half, and Caucasian oil could no longer be transported up the Volga to the northern battlefields.The fall of Stalingrad would be like the loss of Detroit or Chicago, whose loss would have cut off traffic along the Great Lakes and the Mississippi.

The battle for the city began on 22 August.By mid-September, the Germans had reached the center of the city, where they were cornered.Their planes have blown the city into rubble.Seemingly counterintuitive, this prevented the Germans from taking advantage of their tanks, which had proven to be quite effective in the open steppe.The Battle of Stalingrad was no longer a mobile battle, but a "rat battle", with people fighting hand to hand in basements, on rooftops, in alleys, yards and sewers.For days, a cloud of dust rising from the blasted bricks and tiles nearly blotted out the sun.“Stalingrad has become a vast cemetery of bombed-out buildings, crumbling walls and rotting corpses,” wrote one observer.

At that time, Stalin had been preparing for the winter counter-offensive. On November 19, 1942, Soviet troops under the command of General Georgy Zhukov began the counteroffensive.Two new armies crossed the Volga from the east, one attacking from the north of the city, the other from the south of the city.The German besieging forces were gradually in danger of being surrounded.The German commander, General Friedrich Paulus, wanted to break out of this dangerous trap, but Hitler ordered him to stand firm, and Goering promised to send the air force to support him.At that time, the Soviet army had advanced and surrounded the German army with a huge pincer movement.A German relief force coming from the southeast was blocked and suffered heavy losses, while the Soviet army continued to advance and occupied more and more airfields, making it impossible for Goering to carry out airlifts.The German army was now hopelessly cornered.Because of Hitler's obstinacy, they will suffer from starvation, cold and disease. On February 2, 1943, the end came at last, when Paulus surrendered with 120,000 men, the poor survivors of the original force of 334,000 men.Hitler had hoped that Paulus, whom he had recently promoted to field marshal, would commit suicide and thus ascend to the realm of "immortality and national immortality"; but it was not the case, and the "Führer" commented bitterly, "he would rather go to Moscow." While the Soviets wiped out the Germans at Stalingrad, they launched a series of offensives elsewhere on the front.By the end of March, they had recovered all the territories lost in 1942.In a desperate attempt to stop the relentless advance of the Soviet Red Army, the Germans launched a full-scale attack on a protruding corner of the Soviet position at Kursk.Although they concentrated 160 tanks per mile, they advanced only 20 miles and lost 40,000 men, 1,400 aircraft, and 3,000 tanks. On July 12, the Soviets counterattacked, quickly recaptured their lost positions, and then kept pushing until logistical difficulties forced them to stop. The Battle of Kursk became a turning point in the Soviet-German war.It was the last major Nazi offensive on the Eastern Front.From here on, the Soviets took the initiative, while the Germans fought back to prevent their retreat from turning into a rout.This shift in the balance of power was partly due to the massive Western aid to the Red Army that began around the time of the Battle of Stalingrad.But the 400,000 jeeps and trucks, 22,000 aircraft (mainly fighter jets) and 12,000 tanks that the West gave to the Soviet Union accounted for only about 10% of all military supplies used by the Soviet Red Army.Soviet victory would have been impossible had the Soviet Union not been able to produce the other 90 percent of its military materiel, and had the Soviet High Command not been able to build and train a new army in the face of staggering military and economic losses in the first two years. Hitler himself contributed to the Soviet victory by pursuing a racist policy of eliminating or weakening the "inferior" Slavic peoples of the East in order to make room for German immigration.Hitler made it clear that he was ready for a "conventional, gentlemanly" war against Britain and France, but in the East, Germany should annihilate the Soviet Union, remove its ancient capital, and kill its officials and intellectuals , should massacre its peasant masses and make them the servants of the superior race.This policy left millions of Soviets in the occupied territories with no choice but to resist for their own survival.This could not have been the case at all, as the mass flight and surrender early in the war showed that a considerable number of Soviets were at least indifferent to the Bolshevik regime.If Hitler had offered these men more than Stalin had given them, they would have responded in sufficient numbers to decisively influence the course of the war.However, Hitler's policy of "living space" for the superior race forced Slavs throughout Eastern Europe to join underground organizations and partisans. At the same time that the Germans were forced to retreat in the Soviet Union, they and their Italian allies were being driven out of North Africa completely. At the end of August 1942, Rommel attempted to continue his offensive against Egypt, but was completely repulsed.Now, on this front, the English had a new commander, Sir Bernard Montgomery, a man of character, at the same time a man of discipline, a cautious strategist.Aided by new heavy tanks from the United States, Montgomery launched his own offensive on October 8. A pre-bombardment of 1,000 cannons cleared the way for the advancing tanks.After 12 days of bitter fighting, the Germans and Italians were routed.As they retreated along the coastal road, they were again bombed by air and navy.By January 24, 1943, Montgomery had captured Tripoli, and the road to Tunisia was clear. At that time, the British and American coalition forces landed in Morocco and Algeria on the other side of North Africa from November 7 to 8, 1942.Their operational policy was to place the Axis forces in a huge pincer offensive from the east and west, thereby completely eliminating them from the field. On the night of the 7th of the Giant Moon in 1942, about 850 ships arrived in Casablanca, Oran and Algiers escorted by three huge convoys, one from the United States and the other two from the United Kingdom.Within three weeks, 185,000 men landed on land, overcoming the symbolic resistance of Vichy French troops.Anglo-American forces are advancing on Tunisia with the intention of conquering it by Christmas.However, this plan was disrupted as Hitler rushed to send reinforcements across the Mediterranean.The fighting in Tunisia was hard, with Anglo-American forces attacking from the west supported by Montgomery's advancing east and "fighting French" forces from the south.Finally, by mid-May 1943, the Allies conquered Tunisia. These military developments were accompanied by fierce political struggles behind the scenes.The Allies had recognized an admiral named Jean-François Darlan as head of occupied French Africa.He was a major supporter of the Vichy regime, headed by Marshal Pétain, which ruled southern France not occupied by Hitler.To put it bluntly, the choice of Darlan was a military expedient that angered both the Liberal parties in the West and General de Gaulle, the leader of "Free France". Darlan was shot dead by an assassin on Christmas Eve 1942, but de Gaulle was again ignored, largely because Roosevelt himself disliked him.The newly elected leader is General Henry Giraud, a courageous but politically ineffective man.It soon became apparent that he lacked the popular support de Gaulle had enjoyed, and Roosevelt was finally persuaded to allow the leader of Free France to share power in Algiers.Giraud was initially overshadowed by a powerful rival, and by the autumn of 1943 Giraud had stepped down and de Gaulle was the de facto, if not nominal, head of the Provisional Government of the French Empire.Since the Allies had just invaded Morocco and Algiers, and Hitler's envoy had taken Vichy France, de Gaulle was now clearly the undisputed leader of all French who had not defected to the Germans. After conquering North Africa, the Anglo-American forces advanced to Sicily and invaded the island on July 10.Although the German army fought hard, the Italians, frustrated by their successive defeats and disgruntled by the domineering of their partners, put up only token resistance. Palermo, the capital of Sicily, fell on July 22, and by mid-August the Allies were pressing the retreating enemy across the Strait of Messina and into mainland Italy. Mussolini paid for these disasters with his position and ultimately with his life.King Victor Emmanuel III, persuaded by monarchists and fascist dissidents, sacked Mussolini and put him in prison.This happened on July 25, the third day after the fall of Palermo.At this time, supreme power rested with the king and Marshal Pietro Badoglio, conqueror of Ethiopia.Badoglio attempted to withdraw Italy from the war with as little bloodshed and destruction as possible.For this purpose he undoubtedly had the support of the overwhelming majority of Italians, who loathed the war and the alliance with the loathsome Germans.Peace, however, was not so easy to come by; the Italians still had to face a second phase of war which would prove far more brutal than the first. On September 3, Badoglio signed an armistice with the Allies with the approval of the king.At the same time, British troops landed in Calabria, the southernmost tip of the Italian peninsula, and American troops launched an offensive at Salerno, south of Naples.The Germans responded immediately, taking Rome and occupying the central and northern parts of the country.A daring attack by Nazi paratroopers rescued Mussolini from prison.The weather-beaten "leader" established a "fascist republic" in northern Italy and expressed his determination to fight to the end.Naturally, his new regime was entirely dependent on the Germans.General Albert Kesselring was in charge of the military operations, and he was able to confine the Allies to strongholds along the southern coast.Although Churchill repeatedly referred to southern Europe as the "vulnerable area" of the continent, the fact is that its mountainous terrain made it by no means a vulnerable military target.For the next year and a half, Italy was a divided, war-torn country; the Germans and their puppet Mussolini in the north, the Allies and Badoglio's provisional government in the south. At the time, the homeland of the Third Reich was being bombed by increasing numbers of aircraft.Such bombing first began after June 1941, when most of the Luftwaffe's aircraft had turned toward the Soviet front, giving the RAF an advantage in the west. In 1942, British air raids expanded to include all major cities in the Ruhr valley and northern Germany.By 1943, the Americans had joined in the raids, making possible round-the-clock bombing, with the British attacking at night and the Americans attacking during the day.German cities were subjected to so-called "concentrated" attacks of 800 bombers per hour and "super-concentrated" or "saturated" attacks of 1,800 bombers per hour.At this time, more bombs were dropped on German cities every hour than were dropped in the entire Battle of Britain.The estimated civilian death toll from air raids in Germany was 305,000 throughout the war.The Western powers used this unprecedented air strike as part of their answer to the Soviet Union's constant demands for a second front in France.The effectiveness of all this bombing remains a matter of debate, though.Factories and railways are usually fully operational within days of a major air raid.According to the figures provided by the Germans, the production of military supplies in Germany reached its peak in 1944, and this year was also the year with the most severe bombing. At the time, the Japanese were suffering defeats similar to those suffered by their Axis counterparts in Europe.After an astonishing first six months of success, the Japanese were finally checked and then forced back at an ever-accelerating pace.The root cause of this shift in the course of the war was the absolute superiority of American resources and productivity.When the war began, Japan's economy was roughly comparable to that of France in terms of productivity.But as Table 1 shows, it pales in comparison to the U.S. economy: Table 1 Percentage of world production The reason why the American economy was able to completely overwhelm the Japanese economy in spite of the Japanese fanaticism once it was turned into a state of war is obvious.For example, the early disasters of the war left the United States with only three front-line aircraft carriers, but within two years after Pearl Harbor, the number of aircraft carriers ballooned to 50.Likewise, the number of naval aircraft rose from 3,638 in 1941 to 3,007 in 1944, and the number of submarines increased from 11 in 1941 to 77 in 1944.Most impressive was the production of landing craft, which ranged from small pontoons to 300-foot transports capable of landing tanks and infantry regiments.The total number of these ships jumped from 123 in 1911 to 54,206 in 1945. The Japanese could not even stand against this wave of American factories.Although the empires they conquered were rich in raw materials, they were unable to convert these raw materials into military supplies.One reason was that American planes and submarines blew up most of their merchant shipping.At the start of the war, Japan possessed approximately 7 million tons of merchant shipping; by the summer of 1945, only 1 million tons remained.As a result, the Japanese found it increasingly difficult to get supplies both to their armies abroad and to get a steady stream of raw materials to factories at home.Equally serious was the weakness of Japanese heavy industry.Even if Japan could get enough raw materials, it lacked the industrial means to utilize them.There was also a shortage of manpower, despite the population of 73 million crowding the country's islands at the time.Because at least 40% of this population is engaged in intensive rice production, there is no remaining manpower to engage in large-scale industrial development.Had Japan then had had a decade or two of peace to develop her newly won territories, she might have become the most powerful empire in the world.However, instead of peace, it suffered a disastrous defeat. On August 7, 1942, U.S. Marines landed on Guadalcanal, taking the first step on the long road to Tokyo.After paying a heavy price, the coalition forces of the United States and Australia gradually captured important bases in New Britain and New Guinea.There are very few Japanese captured, because the Japanese think it is shameful to be a prisoner, and few people are willing to be a prisoner.The suicidal, desperate charge of Japanese officers and soldiers who refused to surrender had become almost the general climax of the emergence of Allied forces taking Japanese positions.Despite this resistance, the American counteroffensive swept Munda in New Georgia, Rabaul in New Britain, Saramoa and Lae in New Guinea, Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands, Marshall-like Island Kwajalein, Attu and Kiska in the Aleutian Islands.By mid-1944, the Americans had occupied Saipan and Guam in the Marianas, putting the Japanese home islands within range of the new B-29 bombers.It was the beginning of the end of Japan's brief heyday. From 1944 to 1945, Europe was basically liberated by the Soviet Red Army advancing from the east and the Anglo-American invasion from the Normandy landing beaches in the west.During this period the fighting in Italy continued, but it was only peripheral compared with the northern campaign.The Allies, trying to end the war in Italy as quickly as possible, landed at Anzio, just 30 miles from Rome, in January 1944 and attacked the German stronghold in the monastery of Monte Cassino.Both operations failed, and the Italian campaign entered a frustrating stalemate.Cassino was not captured until mid-May, mainly due to the entry of "Free French" mountain forces from North Africa.At this time, the road to Rome was unimpeded, the American and French allied forces advanced along the west side of the peninsula, and the Anglo-Polish allied forces advanced along the east side. On June 5, General Mark Clark led the Fifth Army of the US Army into Rome and was warmly welcomed by the local residents.Rome was the first capital on the European continent to be liberated from Nazi rule, but that victory was overshadowed by the Allied landings in Normandy the next day. As early as February 1944, the Allies had begun preparations for Operation Overlord by bombing enemy factories, rail and sea transport, and coastal fortifications.In the last few days before the scheduled offensive, the Allies had absolute air supremacy over the English Channel, and they dispatched batches of 1,000 bombers, each carrying 5,000 tons of bombs.In Britain, offensive planners could draw lessons from earlier amphibious operations in the Mediterranean and Pacific, but Operation Overlord was on an entirely different scale.1.5 million men had to be transported across the English Channel with all their equipment, including heavy artillery, trucks and tanks, and they had to be kept supplied as combat operations unfolded.As a result, the Allies built two huge prefabricated piers for beachheads.Each one is as big as the port of Dover.At that time, on the other side of the English Channel, the German army was busy strengthening the "Atlantic Wall" composed of independent small bunkers, machine gun nets, cannons, mines and underwater obstacles. As time passed, when moonlight and tides allowed the Allies to cross the English Channel to the Continent, a storm came, which seemed to delay the expedition indefinitely.Supreme Allied Commander General Eisenhower postponed the expedition for a day before deciding to risk an offensive on June 6.Fortunately, the storm had subsided a little at this time, but the sea was still rough, and many soldiers reached the opposite shore with severe seasickness.The huge fleet consisted of 4,000 merchant ships and 700 warships.The landing started at 6.30am and by the end of the first day 326,000 people and 20,000 ships had reached the opposite shore.Vigorous fighting broke out at Omaha and Utah Beach, and for hours the fate of the entire expedition was at stake.Fortunately for the Allies, the German High Command suspected that D-Day was a feint and that the main attack would be at Calais, where the English Channel was at its narrowest.So the Germans kept their armored units in reserve until the very end, but by then it was too late to repel the invaders.By the fifth day after the scheduled offensive launch date, a beachhead had emerged on a 60-mile front.It should be noted that from the very beginning, the Allies received invaluable assistance from French underground guerrillas who blew up bridges, cut communication lines and overturned German trains. The Allied battle plan, generally thought to have been drawn up by Montgomery, called for British and Canadian forces on the left to repel the main German attack, while well-trained and mobile American forces on the right rushed out of their positions and attacked the Germans from behind. On July 25, 1,500 heavy bombers blasted a gap in the German defenses. Under the cover of these bombers, the U.S. army attacked the open area of ​​Saint-Lo.They captured 100,000 German troops on the Cherbourg peninsula as they advanced.By early August, the brave tank commander, General George S. Patton, was racing through northern France to press on to Niles. On August 15, a new U.S. army under the leadership of General Alexander M. Patch landed on the Riviera Beach with powerful French reinforcements and quickly advanced towards the Rhone Valley.At that time, the French guerrillas who attacked the enemy's garrisons and lines of communication had descended and were liberating central France.The Germans, being attacked from all sides, retreated towards their own frontiers. On August 19, the resistance rose openly in Paris, and six days later a French armored division and an American infantry division liberated the capital.At this time, General de Gaulle, the recognized leader of the French people, drove triumphantly to Notre Dame Cathedral to hear the Thanksgiving hymn. These huge victories raised hopes of an end to the war by Christmas.The Germans had retreated behind the Siegfried Line, making their last desperate resistance before the Rhine.At this time, Eisenhower dropped some 3,000 American and British paratroopers near Arnhem in the eastern Netherlands.It was a daring venture aimed at capturing the bridges over the Rhine and clearing the way for a breakthrough across the Rhine into the heart of Germany.The operation was initially successful, but the reinforcements failed to push through, and as a result, the Germans surrounded and wiped out the paratrooper stronghold.Only a quarter of the paratroopers withdrew to the Allied lines.At that time, General Patton's tank troops were short of fuel, and the Franco-American coalition forces advancing from the south were also encountering stubborn resistance in Alsace.By October, it was clear that winning the year was out of the question. While the western powers were liberating France, the Soviet Red Army was advancing rapidly from the east.By the spring of 1944, having driven German troops out of Crimea and Ukraine, the Red Army then began a general offensive against nearly 2 million German troops (compared to the 1 million the Allies faced in France and Italy).In the north, by September, the Soviets had defeated Finland and pulled them out of the war; in the center, they had crossed the new and old Polish borders and advanced under the gates of Warsaw; in the south, they had reached the Danube in the center of Romania estuary. In September, Romania's young King Mihai took the opportunity to pull his country out of the war, thereby opening the Balkans to the Soviet Red Army.Bulgaria also followed Romania's lead by suing for peace and re-entering the war on the Soviet side.The German army on the Balkan Peninsula was in danger of being surrounded and wiped out at this time, and began to retreat as quickly as possible.As they retreated, Yugoslav and Hellenic communist-led resistance forces descended from the mountains and took control of their respective countries—a development that soon contributed to the impending "Cold War" between the Soviet Union and the Western powers.With the assistance of guerrillas led by the local Communist Party, the Soviet Red Army advanced to the upper reaches of the Danube River Basin until it encountered stubborn German resistance in Hungary. At this time, the Germans launched a sudden offensive in the Belgian Ardennes on December 16, 1944, which caught the Allies by surprise.Due to the use of a large number of heavy armored forces, the foggy weather hindered the counterattack of the Allied air force, so the Germans created a prominent land 50 miles in length and width.Disturbingly, they came close to capturing the main supply base at Antwerp, which, if it had happened, would have disrupted the entire Allied battle plan. 12月24日，天气终于放晴，盟军5000架飞机猛轰了德军的补给线，巴顿和蒙哥马利分别从南面和北面发起反攻。到1945年1月底时，德国人已被迫退回到原先的位置，此后，他们在盟军的无情压力下不得不节节败退。 在西部的“突出地战役”猛烈进行的同时，苏联人正向波兰和匈牙利不断椎进。到1945 年2月时，他们占领了华沙和布达佩斯，不过在这之前进行了激烈的战斗，使这两座都城成为一片废墟。由于那年冬天格外温和，苏联红军能开进奥地利和德国。4 月13日，苏联人占领了维也纳，并侵占了北部的东普鲁斯和西里西亚。到3月末时，他们正在奋力渡过距柏林只有40哩的奥得河。 其时，美国、英国、加拿大和法国军队正在西线取得相应的进展。从在阿登遭受的打击中恢复过来之后，他们攻破了“齐格菲防线”，推进到莱茵河。在那里，他们惊讶地发现，退却的德军竟忘了炸掉位于波恩以南雷马根的鲁登道夫铁路大桥。盟军成群地拥过大桥，不到一个月，就占领了莱茵兰，并俘获了25万名俘虏。这时，盟军的7个军迅速地向东穿过正在土崩瓦解的德意志帝国。4月25日，美国一支侦察队同苏军先头部队在将德国一分为二的易北河河边的托尔高村会师。 当时，马克·克拉克将军正率领他的混合部队将德国人赶出意大利；他的混合部队中除了有美国的白人、混血人和日裔美人外，还有英国人、澳大利亚人、新西兰人、南非人、印度人、巴勒斯坦人、波兰人、法国人、巴西人和自由意大利人。意大利游击队同法国游击队一样使敌人不得安宁，盟军在他们的大力援助下，于4 月10日发起了最后的攻势。两个星期内，德军防线就已崩溃，盟军源源不断地涌入波河流域，并越过波河到达阿尔卑斯山脉。在米兰和其他工业城市，抵抗阵线的战士成功地组织了起义，在盟军到达前就控制了这些地区。5月2日，德军驻意大利指挥官签署了无条件投降的协定。早5天，墨索里尼在企图逃往瑞士时已被游击队逮住，并立即被处决。在米兰，他的尸体和他情妇的尸体一起被吊起来示众。 此时，希特勒仍坚持不屈，尽管他的东部战线和西部战线全已垮掉。他始终抱着只要挑起苏联与西方列强之间的矛盾就能避免彻底失败这样的希望。宣传部长戈培尔不断提到那些可以击败敌人的“新武器”，并安慰他的同胞说：“我确信元首将找到一条出路。”这种给自己壮胆的做法是无效的。4 月16日，朱可夫元帅向德国首都发起了最后的进攻。9天后，他已包围这座城市，炮弹不断地落在希特勒设在总理官邸花园里的混凝土掩体的周围。4月的最后一天，希特勒和几天前刚同他结婚的伴侣爱娃·布劳恩一起自杀。他们的尸体在总理官邸的院子里被浇上汽油焚烧了，人们始终没有找到痕迹。5月8日，柏林向苏联人投降，在以后的一个星期中，纳粹密使在兰斯向西方列强、在柏林向苏联无条件投降。 德国的投降使日本人在太平洋上的前景更加惨淡。到1944年年中时，他们的本士诸岛已遭到以马里亚纳群岛为基地的B—29轰炸机的轰炸。这年年底，美军在菲律宾登陆，到1945年2月底时，他们已迫使日本驻军投降。对敌人来说更为严重的是，美国海军陆战队的3个师于3月攻占了硫黄岛。这场战斗的野蛮程度反映在以下伤亡数字中：美国海军陆战队的30，000人中有20000人死伤，日本人死亡20000人，被俘200人。硫黄岛离日本本土只有750哩，而冲绳岛离日本本土只有350哩，6月，经过另一次残酷的战斗之后，冲绳岛也被占领。这时，美国空军将这两座岛屿用作基地，使日本人口拥挤的城市象德国那样遭到暴风雨般的轰炸。日本人更易受伤害，因为他们的薄木板和纸板结构的房屋在烈火中就象许多引火物一样被烧毁。在1944年11月至1945年9月日本人投降的9个月里，B-29轰炸机对日本进行了32000架次的轰炸，平均每天100多架次。日本人中死亡的或无家可归的人数猛增到800多万。 更糟糕的是，日本人还得准备对付来自东方的进攻，因为苏联政府已于1945年4且终止了苏日互不侵犯条约。不过，应对日本参战负责的军国主义者不愿承认他们的错误，不愿开始认真的和平谈判。就在他们迟疑不决、试图维护自己的尊严时，一连串前所未有的大灾难突然来临，结束了他们的优柔寡断。 1945 年8月6日，美国的一架B-29轰炸机将一颗原子弹扔在广岛上，炸毁了五分之三的城市，炸死了78，150个居民。第二天，杜鲁门总统在电台讲话中直布： “16小时前，一架美国飞机向日军重要基地广岛投了一颗原子弹，这颗原子弹的威力比20000吨梯思梯炸药的威力还大。它的爆炸力相当于英国'大满贯'爆炸力的2000多倍，是战争史上迄今为止所使用过的最大的炸弹。”在杜鲁门发表讲话的第二天，即8月8日，苏联对日宣战，苏联红军迅速地越过边境进入满洲。苏联在德国投降3个月后入侵，其目的是为了履行斯大林1945年2月在雅尔塔会见罗斯福和丘吉尔期间所同意承担的义务。除苏联从陆路入侵外，英国太平洋舰队在6天航行25000哩之后也加入了海军对日本的日益猛烈的进攻。最后的打击是8月9日在长崎市上空投下了第二颗原子弹，结果使这座城市遭到了同广岛一样的破坏。极端的日本军国主义者这时仍反对全面投降，一时间，战争似乎将恶化成由顽固的军官领导的游击战。但是，天皇在内阁和政界元老的劝说下决定投降，干8月14日接受了同盟国的最后通牒。9月2日，在停泊在东京湾的美国“密苏里”号战舰的甲板上，举行了正式的投降签字仪式，麦克阿瑟将军、尼米兹海军上将和盟军高级军官出席了这一仪式。 第二次世界大战完成了对欧洲的全球霸权的破坏，这一破坏始于第一次世界大战。因此，总的说来，这两次大战对世界历史具有相似的意义。不过，它们在细节上存在着种种差别，这些差别对当今的国际舞台有着重要意义。比起先前的霍亨索伦王室和哈布斯堡王室，纳粹和日本军国主义者对欧洲和亚洲旧秩序的破坏要大得多。德国人侵占了整个欧洲大陆，日本人则侵占了整个东亚和东南亚。但是，这两大帝国都是短命的。它们到1945年已不复存在，留下了两大包括具有重要的经济和战略意义的地区在内的权力真空。同任何意识形态方面的原因差不多，这两大权力真空的存在导致了冷战的爆发，使各交战国不能在1945年之后立即达成全面的和平解决办法。 两次大战战后时期的另一差别是1945 年以后殖民地臣民进行了卓有成效的革命，这与1918年以后帝国权力的加强形成鲜明对照。20年内，欧洲诸幅员广大的帝国几乎全已消失。从这一意义上说，这20年是欧洲在政治和军事上衰落的20年。但与此同时，由于全球日益统一，西方的思想、制度和技术正以不断加快的速度传遍全球。因此，第二次世界大战的战后时期既是欧洲衰落的时期，又是欧洲胜利的时期——这一点似乎是有悖常理的。