The Second World War
However, the Second World War had one advantage in realizing sustainable peace, respect for treaty agreements and respect for individual nations sovereignty by other nations (Parker, 1989). This is because it led to the October 24, 1945 creation of the United Nations organization which functions to oversee the implementation of the international law. In particular, the newly founded organization was to ensure that all member nations achieve the provisions of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Parker, 1989). Still cited as a benefit of the Second World War is the implication it had on the use of nuclear weapons whose impact in Japan remain to date (Martel, 1999).
This paper is written as a discussion about the Second World War. The author in particular talks about the underlying reasons behind the war, it time frame of activities and its social and economic impact in the world. A discussion on the aftermath of the war particularly the establishment of the United Nations organization and its importance in ensuring peace and the rule of law is also given.
Causes of the Second World War
There are a number of causes associated with the Second World War. The first is the severity of the Treaty of Versailles (Martel, 1999). The Treaty of Versailles, which was signed after the First World War, evidently treated Germany harshly. This is because it compromised the nations ability to realize continental power dominance (Martel, 1999). According to some political analysts, the treaty failed by punishing Germany rather than finding sustainable long term peace. In opposition to the provisions of this treaty, Hitler decided to rearm Germany thus giving it warfare power dominance to initiate the Second World War.
Another cause was failure by the League of Nations to prevent future wars after the First World War (Martel, 1989). The underlying resolutions by the league of nations was to engage in collective disarmament as a way of preventing war as well as employing diplomacy in resolving disputes among nations. This was however not evident in the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. It has nevertheless been established that the failure by the League of Nations was the fact that it lacked its own armed force thus solely relying on its member nations to conform to its resolutions, something that was received with much reluctance by members.
The great depression of 1929 and the impact it had on the Germany economy greatly factor in the Second World War (Martel, 1999). Indeed the move by the Germany government to defy the requirements of the Treaty of Versailles was driven by economic and employment crisis brought by the great depression (Martel, 1999). From, available information this economic crisis prompted the Germany citizens to support dictatorship governance, a move which witnessed an increase number of Nazi party members. This has been closely associated with the rise of Hitler and his ideologies thus leading to the Second World War.
Expansionism by nations resulted into increased conflicts thus leading to the Second World War (Parker, 1989). The Second World War is believed to have been triggered by Hitlers desires to conquer new territories and enslaving people like is evident in the case of Germany attack in Poland. Others implicated in the expansionist behavior are Italy and Japan. Japan is indeed the reason behind the US entry into the war after it attacked its submarine ship in the Pearl Harbor and its series of military attacks against Chinese territories.
Still, appeasement and isolationism practices by the great powers of the time like Britain, US and the French nations played a bog role in failing to avoid the war (Parker, 1989). Following the move by the Germany nation to break the Treaty of Versailles, neither of the members of the League of Nations showed concerns. This is believed to have increased Hitlers desire to engage in more expansionism as he thought no one could dare stop him. The US nation was until its entry into the law in 1941, kept to its isolation policy and was thus non-influential in resolving conflicts outside its boundaries.
The last cause of the war was the existence of alliances among nations (parker, 1989). The intervention of the Britain and France nations over Hitlers Poland attacks was mainly triggered by a military binding alliance treaty that existed between the three nations. On the other hand, Germany and Japan had engaged in an alliance which led to their combined military against Russia. This was also evident in Germanys declaration of war against the America after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor.
Course of the Second World War
The second world started after the invasion of Poland by the Germany government in September 1st 1939 (Martel, 1999). This action triggered the Britain and France government to declare war on Germany through provision of military support to the Poland government. However, the Poland- Germany war was complicated by Russias invasion of Poland on September 17th 1939 (Martel, 1999). Such a move has been closely attributed to the signing of an alliance between Russia and the Japanese nations. This split the Poland nation between Germany and the Soviet Union. Following the dominance of the Soviet Union in Poland, the nation requested the Baltic countries for stationing its troops in their land, a request which was rejected by Finland. The soviet union reacted by invading Finland in November 1939 resulting into a conflict which ended in march 1940 after Finland conceded defeat.
The invasion of Finland by the USSR led to its expulsion from the League of Nations as they were seen to be supporting the Germany led war by France and Britain (parker, 1989). This move led to more military and raw material exchange between Germany and Soviet Union after the two nations entered a trade pact in February 1940. Seeking secure shipments of iron ore from Sweden, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway on April 1940, conquering Norway in two months.
The Axis advanced in their expansionism with Germany invading France, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg. By mid 1940, Italy declared war on both France and Britain, a move which forced France to surrender and was divided between Germany and Italy (Martel, 1999). In a move to prevent the dominance of Germany, Britain attacked the French fleet in Algeria. This was a strategy by Britain to compromise chance of the Germany army to seizure the fleet.
In June 1940, Italy started the Mediterranean operation and by August it had conquered British Somaliland thus gaining access into Egypt, a strong British held territory (Martel, 1999). Though all this time the American nation was silent, it gave substantial military aid in support of China and western Allies. This was after its neutrality laws were modified in 1939 to allow western Allies to purchase military supplies.
Towards the end of September Japan, Italy and Germany united to form the Tripartite Pact thus gaining much dominance power against the United Kingdom (Parker, 1989). This move forced the American nation to increase its military assistance to Britain by creating security zones in the Atlantic Ocean for protecting British convoy. By the November, the Axis power had gained substantial influence after Hungary, Slovakia and Romania joined them, a factor which led to the invasion of USSR.
The June 22nd 1941 invasion of Soviet Union by Germany led to the spreading of the war across the globe. During the soviet invasion (Operation Barbarossa), Germany was successful in capturing Ukraine, Moscow and Baltic region thus depriving the Soviet Union of strategic resource to pose substantial military threats (Parker, 1989). However, in a strategic response to the attack, the Britain and Soviet Union signed a military alliance which served to invade Iran. This gave the two alliance control over Irans oilfields to the disadvantage of the Germany nation.
In the meantime all through to early 1942, the Japanese nation continued with its operations to free southern Asia of Europeans. The Japanese government signed an agreement with the Dutch government for oil supply and possession of the French Indochina (Martel, 1999). This nevertheless forced the western Allies to freeze Japanese assets. In December 7th, 1941 Japan simultaneously attack Britain and American strongholds in Southeast Asia including the Pearl Harbor attack of American fleet, a factor which made western Allies led by America to declare war on Japan. In a counteraction, the Axis Allies declared war on the US.
In the early 1942, the Axis Allies received much opposition from the western Allies. This was due to the stalling of Japan government to capture Port Moresby (Martel, 1999). The successful blocking of the invasion by the western Allies followed the fact that the America government had earlier gained access to the Japanese navy code. This enabled them to keep a close monitoring of their military activities. By august, 1942, the western Allies managed to prevent a attack by the Axis against El Alamein, a moved which enabled their supply of humanitarian aids to Malta.
In 1943, the western Allies made a number of successful moves towards mitigating Japanese powers. They managed to eliminate Japanese forces from Aleutians by May and further went on to capture islands surrounding Rabaul thus neutralizing Japanese control over the region (Martel, 1999). By July Germany attacked soviet forces at Kursk Bulge but was forced to cancel the operation after running out of weapon supplies. Many other operations like the invasion of Italy by the western Allies were contacted the same year. Japanese nation on the other side shifted back its fight against China by attacking Changsha and Henan. This invasion aimed to destroy Chinese forces thus gaining access to railways transport to Japanese territories as well as invade and destroy allied airfields.
By 1943, the Allies invaded France defeating Germany and Italy occupation in France. By June 22, the Germany army received another drawback after the soviet launched two offensives in Belarus and western Ukraine and eastern Poland which almost destroyed the entire Germany army centers. Another soviet offensive in eastern Romania destroyed Germany forces in the region, forcing Romania and Bulgaria to join the western Allies (Parker, 1989). This successful of the soviet against the Germany encouraged them to invade other Germany controlled territories in Yugoslavia, Greece and Albania and forced the Germany troops to withdraw.
1944 was marked by one of the largest battles in history, the Battle of Leyte Gulf (Parker, 1989). The success of the Allies against Japan in this battle gave them a strong base to launch bombs into Japanese home islands. The Allies intensified their attacks against Italy and Germany forcing these nations to loose most of their forces.
The year 1945 was marked with various changes in management. U.S. President Roosevelt, Benito Mussolini and Hitler died. In July the Allies met in Potsdam, Germany and agreed that Japan must surrender its forces failure to which the Japan will be destroyed (Parker, 1989). However, the Japan nation did not conform to the resolutions, prompting the American government to drop two atomic bombs in two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. During this time, the soviet invaded Manchuria defeating an important Japanese army force. This forced the Japanese nation to surrender on august 15th 1945 leading to the end of the Second World War in September 2, 1945.
Social and economic impact of the Second World War
The Second World War has been identified as the bloodiest humanitarian conflict never in the history of humanity. The war saw the death of an estimated over 50 million people. According to the statistics, an approximated 20 million of these warfare deaths occurred to Soviet Union military troops and civilians (Parker, 1989). This has been closely attributed to the intensity of the war in the USSR by the Germany nation.
The war is also believed to have resulted in the displacement of over 60 million people in the European continent. Although, the war affected other continents, its major destructions occurred in Europe and parts of the Asia continent such as China and Japan. Indeed, the invasions in Japan by American nuclear bombs have remained a controversy even in the modern society.
On the economic front, the Second World War no doubt compromised the economies of many nations. An example is the economic impact it had in the then strong economies of Germany, Japan and Russia. However, according to some political analysts, the war seemed to have increased global economy control by the western Allies particularly the American nation as it resulted into passing of many economic charters along the pacific and Atlantic oceans.
The aftermath of the Second World War
The ending of the Second World War saw the official formation of the United Nations on October 24, 1945. Following the implementation of the UN, member nations signed The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 (Parker, 1989). The sole purpose of the UN was to ensure that nations respected the sovereignty of others. This meant that nations were to be bound by treaty agreement thus putting an end to imperialism. Still, another objective to be met by the UN body was to ensure peaceful resolution of conflict among nations as a way of mitigating occurrence of a similar or worse humanitarian crisis in the world.
Another aftermath of the Second World War was the engagement into the cold war particularly between US and Russia (Martel, 1999). As can be evident from the trends during the Second World War, the alliance between Russia and other western Allies had significantly deteriorated towards the end of the war. Russian government gained control over most of the countries it had occupied while the American government on the other side enjoyed a great deal of control of Japan and pacific region resources. This resulted into conflict of interest leading to the cold war era.
Still, the end of the war saw the emergence of conflicts. This includes the Chinese internal conflicts between the nationalists and the communists, which literary left the nation bankruptcy by the end of the civil war (Parker, 1989). Another was the war between northern and southern Korean nations, an invasion which marked the establishment of a brutal dictatorship leadership in North Korea under leader Kim II Sung.
On a positive note, the end of the war saw the decolonization of many colonies. This has been explained to have resulted from the change of ideological on economic development by nations (Parker, 1989). On the side of the United Kingdom, the war had greatly compromised its economy and thus could not manage the territorial pool it previously had established (Parker, 1989). Such a move could also be attributed to the fact that nations had to rebuild strong self-determination with their citizens for economic recovery. On economic recovery most nations like France, Germany, Italy and Japan evidently witnessed rapid economic growth. However, others like Britain and the Chinese republic continued experiencing decline in their economies for decades.
Conclusion
It has been established that the Second World War was evidently the most titanic human conflict in the history of the modern world. The war resulted into deaths of millions of militants and civilians, destruction of property and landscapes.
Although the war involved many nations across the globe, the nations who significantly engaged in the war were the main Allies and Axis. These are Germany Italy and Japan for the Axis and North America, United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union (Parker, 1989). The impact Poland citizens had in fight Germany forces could also not be ignored.
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