World War II
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FIELD MARSHAL ERICH VON MANSTEIN (1887–1973)
As a German staff officer in the winter of 1939–40, Manstein suggested a new strategy for the invasion of France, in which the main thrust would pass through the Ardennes instead of through northern Belgium. He won backing for this idea from Hitler. The brilliant success of Manstein’s strategy was matched by his skill in the command of troops in the field, both in the defeat of France and subsequently in the invasion of the Soviet Union. In March 1944, Hitler fired him for retreating in the face of overwhelming Soviet forces. After the war, Manstein was charged with war crimes and spent four years in prison.
GENERAL OF THE ARMY GEORGE C. MARSHALL (1880–1959)
Marshall was U.S. Army chief of staff from 1939 to 1945. He took up the post on the day the war in Europe began. He energetically pursued the expansion and modernization of the U.S. Army before the United States entered World War II in December 1941. Once the United States was at war, he consistently supported the view that the defeat of Germany had to be given priority over the war in the Pacific. He retired from the army in 1945 and became U.S. secretary of state from 1947 to 1949. During that time, he helped promote the recovery of Europe through the Marshall Plan. For this, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953.
FIELD MARSHAL SIR BERNARD MONTGOMERY (1887–1976)
After performing creditably during the disastrous campaign in France and Belgium in 1940, Montgomery was appointed to command the Eighth Army in North Africa in August 1942. The victory at El Alamein the following October made him a national hero. He fought in Sicily and Italy before becoming Allied Land Commander for the Normandy invasion in June 1944 and eventually leading Allied forces into northern Germany in 1945. A great believer in methodical planning and in crushing the enemy through superior forces, Montgomery was often criticized by U.S. generals for being slow and excessively cautious.
BENITO MUSSOLINI (1883–1945)
As Italian dictator (“Il Duce”) from the 1920s, Mussolini claimed to be recreating the glory of the ancient Roman Empire—but he was privately well aware of the weakness of his army and his country’s economy. In June 1940, he declared war on Britain and France, hoping to sneak advantage from a war won by Germany. A string of military disasters led to his fall from power in July 1943. Rescued from prison by German paratroops the following September, Mussolini was set up as head of a puppet Italian government in northern Italy. In April 1945, he was captured by Italian partisans and executed.
GENERAL GEORGE PATTON (1885–1945)
America’s most inspired commander of armored formations, Patton played a leading role in the fighting in Tunisia and Sicily in 1942–43. In 1944, he commanded the 3rd U.S. Army in Normandy and in the subsequent breakout across France. His swift response in December 1944 was crucial to the defeat of the German Ardennes offensive. A controversial figure, Patton nearly lost his command because of his aggressive attitude toward soldiers suffering from combat fatigue.
FIELD MARSHAL ERWIN ROMMEL (1891–1944)
Rommel performed impressively as a tank commander in the fighting in France in May–June 1940 and was promoted to head the newly formed Afrika Korps in February 1941. He generally out-thought and out fought the British in the Desert War—earning the nickname the “Desert Fox”—until the balance of forces turned overwhelmingly against him. Rommel had left North Africa by the time of the Axis surrender there in 1943. In command of the defense of northern France during the Normandy landings, he was badly wounded in an air attack on his car. Rommel was then implicated in the plot to assassinate Hitler and killed himself rather than be arrested.
PRESIDENT FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT (1882–1945)
President of the United States from 1933, Roosevelt was publicly committed to keeping America out of World War II until his reelection to the presidency in November 1940. After that, he became increasingly open in his support for Britain. When the United States entered the war in December 1941, Roosevelt helped ensure that its major effort was directed against Germany, not Japan. Wartime summit meetings in which he took part included ones with Churchill and Stalin at Teheran in 1943 and Yalta in February 1945. At these meetings the leaders agreed, among other things, that a defeated Germany would be divided into zones, each occupied by one of the victorious powers; and that Poland’s borders would change, with the Soviet Union taking areas in the east and Poland being compensated with German territory in the west. Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945. After World War II ended, he was sometimes accused posthumously of having “delivered eastern Europe to communist domination,” but there was probably little he could have done to prevent it.
JOSEPH STALIN (1879–1953)
Dictator of the Soviet Union, in the 1930s, Stalin was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of Soviet citizens, including most of the Red Army officer corps, who were executed in a “purge” in 1937–38. His cynical non-aggression pact with Hitler in 1939, and his failure to prepare adequately for the German invasion of 1941, brought his country to the brink of ruin. Yet between 1941 and 1945, he was able to motivate his people to heroic efforts through a mixture of patriotic enthusiasm and terror. Suspicious and cunning, Stalin mostly got the better of Churchill and Roosevelt in wartime meetings and he ended the war in control of eastern and central Europe.
JOSIP BROZ TITO (1892–1980)
Born Josip Broz, Tito was a Croatian communist who organized a band of partisan resistance fighters soon after the German occupation of Yugoslavia in 1941. He won the backing of Britain and the United States, who supplied his forces with arms and material, at the expense of rival partisans led by Draza Mihailovich. The Germans devoted some thirty divisions to the effort to suppress the partisans, but failed. After 1945, Tito and his Communist party ruled the Yugoslav Federal Republic.
MARSHAL GEORGI ZHUKOV (1896–1974)
An outstanding Soviet military commander, Zhukov won Stalin’s confidence by leading first the successful defense of Leningrad against the Germans in September 1941 and then the defense of Moscow the following winter. He took much credit for surrounding the Germans at Stalingrad and for the Soviet victories of 1943 and 1944, and led the forces that captured Berlin in May 1945.
TIME LINE
MARCH 16, 1935
Germany announces that it rejects the disarmament clause of the Treaty of Versailles.
OCTOBER 3, 1935
Italy invades the independent African state of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia).
MARCH 7, 1936
German troops march into the demilitarized Rhineland.
JULY 17, 1936
The Spanish Civil War begins.
MARCH 12, 1938
German troops march into Austria; Austria becomes part of Germany (the Anschluss).
SEPTEMBER 29–30, 1938
The Munich agreement between France, Britain, Germany, and Italy forces Czechoslovakia to cede the Sudetenland to Germany.
MARCH 15, 1939
German troops occupy the Czech capital, Prague.
MARCH 29, 1939
General Franco, backed by Italy and Germany, wins the Spanish Civil War.
MARCH 31, 1939
Britain and France promise to come to the defense of Poland if it is attacked.
APRIL 7, 1939
Italy invades Albania.
AUGUST 23, 1939
The Nazi-Soviet Pact is signed, secretly providing that Poland will be divided between Germany and the Soviet Union.
SEPTEMBER 1, 1939
Germany invades Poland.
SEPTEMBER 3, 1939
Britain and France declare war on Germany.
SEPTEMBER 28, 1939
Invaded by the Soviet Union as well as Germany, Poland surrenders.
NOVEMBER 30, 1939
The Soviet Union invades Finland, starting the Winter War.
MARCH 12, 1940
The Winter War ends; Finland cedes some territory to the USSR.
APRIL 9, 1940
Germany invades Denmark and Norwa
y.
MAY 10, 1940
Winston Churchill replaces Neville Chamberlain as British prime minister.
MAY 10, 1940
Germany invades the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg.
MAY 13, 1940
German tanks enter France through the Ardennes.
MAY 26–JUNE 3, 1940
Over 300,000 Allied troops are evacuated by sea from Dunkirk.
JUNE 10, 1940
Italy declares war on France and Britain.
JUNE 14, 1940
German troops enter Paris.
JUNE 22, 1940
France and Germany sign an armistice.
JULY–SEPTEMBER 1940
The Battle of Britain: the RAF defeats the Luftwaffe’s efforts to establish air supremacy.
SEPTEMBER 1940
Beginning of the Blitz—the nighttime bombing of British cities (continues until May 1941).
NOVEMBER 11, 1940
British carrier-borne aircraft cripple the Italian fleet at Taranto.
FEBRUARY 11, 1941
General Erwin Rommel arrives in North Africa to command Axis forces in the Desert War.
MARCH 11, 1941
U.S. Congress approves the Lend-Lease Act to provide armaments to Britain.
APRIL 6, 1941
German forces invade Yugoslavia and Greece.
MAY 20, 1941
Germany launches an airborne invasion of the island of Crete.
JUNE 22, 1941
Germany invades the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa.
SEPTEMBER 8, 1941
Leningrad is cut off from the rest of the Soviet Union; it remains under siege until February 1944.
DECEMBER 5, 1941
Soviet forces launch a counterattack against the Germans in front of Moscow.
DECEMBER 7, 1941
Japan attacks the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, forcing the U.S. into World War II.
DECEMBER 11, 1941
Hitler and Mussolini declare war on the United States.
MAY 30, 1942
The first 1,000-bomber raid against Germany is flown by British RAF Bomber Command.
AUGUST 19, 1942
Canadian troops raid Dieppe on the coast of occupied France and suffer heavy losses.
SEPTEMBER 13, 1942
The battle for Stalingrad begins.
OCTOBER 23–NOVEMBER 4, 1942
The (Second) Battle of El Alamein: British-led forces defeat Rommel’s Axis forces and drive them into retreat.
NOVEMBER 8, 1942
In Operation Torch, U.S. and other Allied troops invade French North Africa.
JANUARY 31, 1943
Germans surrender at Stalingrad.
MARCH 13, 1943
German and Italian forces surrender in Tunisia.
JULY 5–14, 1943
The Soviet Union inflicts another defeat on Germany at the battle of Kursk.
JULY 10, 1943
Allied troops invade Sicily.
JULY 25, 1943
Mussolini is deposed as Italian head of government.
JULY 27–28, 1943
An RAF bombing raid on Hamburg kills about 40,000 people.
AUGUST 17, 1943
Sixty U.S. bombers are shot down during raids on German factories.
SEPTEMBER 8, 1943
The Italian surrender is announced; Allied troops land at Salerno the following day.
NOVEMBER 6, 1943
The Soviet army recaptures the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.
JANUARY 22, 1944
Allied forces land at Anzio, south of Rome.
MAY 18, 1944
Allied troops in Italy finally break through the Gustav Line at Monte Cassino.
JUNE 4, 1944
Allied forces enter Rome.
JUNE 6, 1944
D-Day: Allied forces land on the beaches at Normandy, beginning the invasion of France.
JUNE 21, 1944
The Soviets launch Operation Bagration, a major offensive that drives the Germans back into Poland.
JULY 20, 1944
An attempt by German officers to assassinate Hitler fails.
AUGUST 1, 1944
The Polish Home Army launches an uprising against the Germans in Warsaw.
AUGUST 1, 1944
U.S. forces in Normandy break through at Avranches.
AUGUST 24, 1944
Paris is liberated.
SEPTEMBER 3, 1944
Brussels, Belgium, is liberated.
SEPTEMBER 17, 1944
Allied airborne troops are dropped into the Netherlands in Operation Market-Garden.
DECEMBER 16, 1944
The Germans launch a surprise counterattack in the Ardennes, beginning the Battle of the Bulge.
JANUARY 12–31, 1945
The Soviets resume their offensive from the Vistula and push into eastern Germany.
FEBRUARY 4–11, 1945
Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill meet at Yalta.
FEBRUARY 13, 1945
Soviet troops capture Budapest, Hungary, after a lengthy siege.
FEBRUARY 13–14, 1945
Allied bombers destroy the city of Dresden, Germany.
MARCH 7, 1945
U.S. troops cross the Rhine River at Remagen, Germany.
APRIL 12, 1945
Roosevelt dies; Harry S. Truman becomes president.
APRIL 28, 1945
Mussolini is killed by Italian partisans.
APRIL 25, 1945
Soviet and U.S. troops meet at Torgau, Germany, on the Elbe River.
APRIL 30, 1945
Hitler commits suicide in his Berlin bunker.
MAY 2, 1945
Berlin falls to the Soviet army.
MAY 7, 1945
German commanders sign a general surrender.
MAY 8, 1945
VE (Victory in Europe) Day.
GLOSSARY
airborne troops Soldiers carried into battle by air, usually parachuting to the ground.
annex To add territory to a country by occupying or conquering it.
appeasers Term used for British and French political leaders of the 1930s who believed that making concessions to Hitler would ensure peace.
armistice An agreement to stop fighting.
armor In modern warfare, a term for fighting vehicles such as tanks that are protected by metal plates.
armored columns Large formations of tanks and other armored fighting vehicles.
Aryan race According to racist theories embraced by the Nazis, a superior race of human beings, of which Germans were part, that excluded Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, and other groups.
beachhead An area on an enemy beach or shoreline captured by an invasion force, where more troops and supplies can be landed.
blitzkrieg In German, literally “lightning war”—a fast-moving offensive, especially using tanks and aircraft, designed to deliver a knockout blow to the enemy as rapidly as possible.
coalition Term for a government made up of representatives of more than one political party.
collaborate In Nazi-occupied Europe, to cooperate with the Nazis and help implement their policies.
colonial authorities People running a foreign country as a colony or some other territory as part of their own country’s empire.
Commonwealth troops Soldiers from one of the independent states once ruled by Britain, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and South Africa.
communism Political and economic system of the Soviet Union, which spread to other countries after 1945. It favors a classless society and common ownership of property and means of production.
demilitarized Indicating a place where no military forces are allowed to be stationed.
democratic Having a government that is elected by the people and that allows a diversity of political movements and opinions.
disarmament Giving up some or all of one’s weapons, usually by agreement between countries.
expeditionary force A term used
in both World War I and World War II for the British troops sent to France at the start of the war.
front A place where hostile armies confront one another in a theater of war.
guerrilla war War waged by irregular troops of a patriotic or revolutionary movement that employ tactics of surprise attack and harassment against an occupying or advancing enemy.
Lend-lease program System by which the United States provided weapons and other supplies to its Allies in World War II without requiring immediate payment for them.
minorities Groups that differ in some way from the majority of the population in the society or country of which they are part.
mobilize To set in motion preparations for going to war.
Nazism A system of government in Germany from 1933 to 1945 based on a belief in racial superiority and the rule of a strong and ruthless leader.
neutral countries Countries that do not take part in a war or give support to one of the warring sides.
OSS The acronym for the Office of Strategic Services, set up by the United States in 1942 to gather intelligence and carry out secret operations.
panzers German tanks and other armored vehicles.
partisans Irregular troops fighting a guerrilla war.
partition The division of a country or area into different parts.
patriotic Referring to someone who is loyal to and supports his or her own country.
propaganda Information, often false or exaggerated, that is deliberately intended to promote a particular cause or to damage an enemy.
puppet government A government controlled by another power.
regime System of government; also a particular government or administration.
resistance movements Groups organized to oppose the government or foreign occupation forces in their country.
rout a disorderly retreat from a victorious enemy.
sabotage The deliberate destruction of material, such as fuel, roads or bridges, to thwart the plans of an enemy.
salient Part of the front line that pokes forward into enemy-held territory and so is surrounded by the enemy on three sides.
Slavs Inhabitants of countries in Eastern Europe, including Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia, who speak languages from the Slavic language group.