Chapter 31 Section 2
The Global Conflict: Axis Advances
Setting the Scene
"Hitler will collapse the day we declare war
on Germany," predicted a confident French
general on the eve of World War II. He
could not have been more wrong. World
War II, the costliest war in history, lasted
six years—from 1939 to 1945. It pitted the
Axis powers, chiefly Germany, Italy, and
Japan, against the Allied powers, which
eventually included Britain, France, the
Soviet Union, China, the United States, and
45 other nations.
I. Early Axis Gains
September 1,1939 - Nazi forces launched a
blitzkrieg into Poland
I. Early Axis Gains
Soviet forces invaded Poland from the east;
within a month, Poland ceased to exist
I. Early Axis Gains
Winter of 1939-40, French and British troops
waited behind the Maginot Line for Germany’s
attack - the "phony war”
I. Early Axis Gains
April 1940 - Hitler launched a blitzkrieg
against Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands
and Belgium
I. Early Axis Gains
Allied forces were trapped; Britain sent naval
vessels to rescue the troops - the “Miracle of
Dunkirk”
I. Early Axis Gains
German forces moved on Paris; Italy declared
war on France - France surrendered on June
22,1940
I. Early Axis Gains
Germany occupied northern France and set
up a "puppet state" in the south with its capital
at Vichy
French Vichy leader Philippe Petain and Nazi
leader Adolf Hitler meet on October 24 1940.
I. Early Axis Gains
September 1940 – Italy invaded Egypt
October 1940 - Italy invaded Greece
Germany had to send reinforcements
Italian troops in north Africa
I. Early Axis Gains
1941 and 1942 - German General Erwin
Rommel pushed the British back across the
desert toward Cairo, Egypt
Rommel, the "Desert Fox"
II. The Battle of Britain and the Blitz
Operation Sea Lion – Hitler’s plan to invade
Britain; August 1940, the London Blitz began
II. The Battle of Britain and the Blitz
Much of London was damaged and 15,000
people were killed, but Operation Sea Lion
failed
III. Operation Barbarossa
June 1941 - Hitler began Operation Barbarossa,
the conquest of the Soviet Union, and caught
Stalin unprepared
III. Operation Barbarossa
The Nazis reached Moscow and Leningrad
before Russia's "General Winter" stopped the
advance
Soviet troop on the offensive
III. Operation Barbarossa
More than a million died during the siege of
Leningrad; Stalin urged the Allies to open a
second front
IV. American Involvement Grows
The US was neutral but FDR found ways
around the Neutrality Acts to aid to Britain and
the USSR
President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressing the nation
IV. American Involvement Grows
1941 - Congress to passed the Lend-Lease
Act, and Roosevelt and Churchill issued the
Atlantic Charter
FDR and British PM Winston Churchill
V. Japan Attacks
1940 - Japan seized Indochina and the Dutch
East Indies - the US banned the sale of war
materials
V. Japan Attacks
Japan wanted to create a “Greater East Asia
Co-prosperity Sphere” and felt the US was
interfering with their plans
V. Japan Attacks
December 7, 1941 - Diplomacy failed and
General Tojo Hideki ordered an attack on the
US fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
US Battleship Arizona, sunk with the loss of 1177
crew members
In the long run, the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor would be as serious a mistake as Hitler's
invasion of Russia. But the months after Pearl
Harbor gave no such hint. Instead, European and
American possessions in the Pacific fell one by
one to the Japanese. They captured the
Philippines and seized other American islands
across the Pacific. They overran the British
colonies of Hong Kong, Burma, and Malaya,
pushed deeper into the Dutch East Indies, and
completed the takeover of French Indochina.
By the beginning of 1942, the Japanese
empire stretched from Southeast Asia to the
western Pacific Ocean. The Axis powers had
reached the high point of their successes.