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Divided Europe
WOH2040 REVIEW: FROM
SECOND WORLD WAR TO
COLD WAR, 1939-1948
First Stage
• Outbreak of war: what were Hitler’s war
aims in 1939?
• Impact of Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939 (division
of Eastern Europe, etc.)
• Allied response to invasion of Poland.
• Russo-Finnish war/Scandinavian interlude
Stage 2
• Western Offensive, May 1940
• Battle for Britain: A turning point?
• Italy’s parallel war: Mussolini an asset or
liability? African theater of war.
• Britain stands alone? US/British relations
up to 1941.
• Operation Barbarossa: How does it
change the course of the war?
The “Inner War”
• Internal developments: Creating
(colonizing) a “New Europe”;
resistance movements; German
hegemony in Europe; Life behind the
lines; Women at War; role of
intelligence and industrial
productivity; the Holocaust and crimes
against humanity.
Turning points
• U.S. enters the war, 1941
• Battle of Stalingrad, 1942-43 (Kursk, etc.)
• North African campaign/Italy defeated,
1941-1943
• Opening a second front, 1944: Operation
Overlord and Bagration.
War in the Pacific, 1937-1945
• July, 1937 – Japan invades China, initiating the war in Asia.
• 1939-1942 -- Extent of Japanese expansion (occupation of
China, Philippines, Southeast Asia)
• Kuomintang and Communists against Japan
• Limits of Japanese military/naval power: Battle of Midway
(June, 1942), (Coral Sea, Guadalcanal)
• Significance of India/Southeast Asia
Politics of War
• War-time conferences:-Atlantic Charter, Casablanca, Tehran,
Moscow, Yalta.
• Events: Warsaw uprising of 1944.
Manhattan project
• Role of personalities: Roosevelt,
Churchill, Stalin, etc.
End of War
• Defeating Germany, 1944-1945: Significance
of final battles (Arnhem, Bulge, Berlin)
• Europe transformed: origins of Cold War
• Greek Civil War, 1946-1949; Truman
Doctrine, Marshall Plan
• Berlin Airlift, 1948-49
Asia and De-colonization, 1945-• Civil War in China, 1946-1949
• Triumph of Mao and communism: KMT
begins long period of exile in Taiwan.
• Japan in the Post-war era. (Role of U.S. in
shaping post-war political structures of
Japan.)
Asia and De-colonization, 1945-• Indochina – Nationalist movement led by
Ho Chi Minh.
• Battle of Điện Biên Phủ, 1954. Vietnam
divided.
• From Malaya to Malaysia, 1945-1957.
• The birth of Indonesia, 1945-1949.