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CHAPTER 30
A Second Global Conflict and the End of the European
World Order
Chapter Outline Summary
I. Old and New Causes of a Second World War
Guomindang
Chinese reunification
Japanese invaded
Manchuria, Manchuko, 1931
Germany
response to Soviet Union, World War I losses
Italy
Ethiopia
II. Unchecked Aggression and the Coming of War in Europe and the Pacific
Japanese invaded China, 1937
Guomindang retreated
Germany
invaded Poland, 1939
III. The Conduct of a Second Global War
West reacted slowly
A. Nazi Blitzkrieg, Stalemate, and the Long Retreat
Germany
conquered France, Low Countries
northern Africa
Britain
Winston Churchill
Russia
Germany invaded, 1941
1943, driven back
B. From Persecution to Genocide: Hitler’s War Against the Jews
Holocaust began in 1942
up to 12 million killed
6 million Jews
C. Anglo-American Offensives, Encirclement, and the End of the 12-Year Reich
Pearl Harbor, 1941
United States joined the Allies
Americans and British
North Africa, 1942
success against Germans, Italians
France, 1944
Germany surrendered, 1945
D. The Rise and Fall of the Japanese Empire in the Pacific War
Japan
attacked U.S., 1941
Indonesia, Malaya, Burma, Philippines
U.S.
some success by late 1942
air attacks on Japan, 1944
atomic bombs
Hiroshima, Nagasaki
IV. War’s End and the Emergence of the Superpower Standoff
United Nations
Security Council
U.S., Soviet Union, Britain, France, China
World Court
A. From Hot War to Cold War
Teheran Conference, 1944
U.S., Britain, France
Yalta, 1945
Germany
four occupation zones
Potsdam, 1945
Germany, Austria divided, occupied
Japan
lost territories
Korea freed
divided into two zones
China
regained territory
communists v. nationalists
Baltic States
became Soviet provinces
except Yugoslavia, Greece
V. Nationalism and Decolonization in South and Southeast Asia and Africa
Atlantic Charter, 1941
self-determination
A. The Winning of Independence in South and Southeast Asia
Indian National Congress
Quit India movement, 1942
Gandhi
Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Muslim League
British Labour government, 1945
Hindu/Muslim conflict
India, Pakistan, 1947
Gandhi assassinated, 1948
Sri Lanka (Ceylon), Myanmar (Burma)
peaceful independence
Philippines
U.S. grants independence
Dutch
lost Indonesia to nationalists, 1949
French
Indochina
B. The Liberation of Nonsettler Africa
Two models
Radical
e.g. British Gold Coast (Ghana)
Kwame Nkrumah
Convention Peoples Party
strikes, rallies, boycotts
independence, 1957
French, Belgian territories
negotiation
e.g. Senegal, Ivory Coast
Léopold Sédar Senghor, Felix Houphouât-Boigny
economic ties retained
All French West African colonies freed by 1960
Portuguese retain colonies
C. Repression and Guerrilla War: The Struggle for the Settler Colonies
More conflict
Kenya
Jomo Kenyatta
peaceful efforts failed
Land Freedom Army
guerilla tactics
defeated, Kenyatta imprisoned
negotiation with Britain
independence, 1963
Kenyatta president
Algeria
Violent struggle for independence
National Liberation Front
warfare, 1950s
negotiations
independence, 1962
D. The Persistence of White Supremacy in South Africa
Angola, Mozambique
revolution
independence, 1975
Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe)
independence by 1980
South Africa
Afrikaners
white supremacy ideology
in control after Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902)
apartheid
E. Conflicting Nationalisms: Arabs, Israelis, and the Palestinian Question
Arab nations
most independent by 1960s
Palestine
Zionist movement
Holocaust
Muslim revolt, 1936-1939
1948, Palestine divided
warfare
Chapter Summary
The Japanese Take Over Indonesia. The Dutch were replaced by the Japanese as rulers of Indonesia in 1941–
1942. Sukarno, the country’s future ruler, witnessed the end of the era of European dominance in Padang. The
Japanese purposely humiliated the Westerners they captured, to further the idea that they came as liberators. In fact,
they were even more oppressive than the regimes they replaced. Even before the arrival of the Japanese, Sukarno
had engaged in a decade of nationalist protest. He worked with the new rulers, but spoke Indonesian or Javanese in
his orations, giving him the opportunity to criticize the Japanese. Like other leaders in the decolonization wave after
1945, Sukarno used the resulting power vacuum to organize resistance to the colonial regime. Like them too, he
became engaged in the cold war alignments that spread over the globe. He was victim to a military coup like other
areas in the process of decolonization.
Chapter Summary. The aggressive policies of Germany, Italy, and Japan, and the failure
of the impotent League of Nations and the West to check them, ended in global war in 1939.
Old and New Causes of a Second World War. When the Guomindang appeared to be successfully
reunifying China, the Japanese military moved to secure its gains. Manchuria was proclaimed the
independent state of Manchuko in 1931. Germany under Hitler pushed its aggressive response to the loss
of World War I and the rise of the Soviet Union. Italy conquered Ethiopia, and both Germany and Italy
aided the defeat of the Spanish republic.
Unchecked Aggression and the Coming of War in Europe and the Pacific. In 1937, the Japanese
began a massive invasion of China. The Guomindang retreated inland and continued resistance. The
Germans invaded Poland in 1939 to begin the war in Europe.
Thinking Historically: Total War, Global Devastation. During the 20th-century total war, the
marshaling of vast resources, and emotional commitments emerged. It was the result of the impact of
industrialization on military effort. The change had been underway since mass conscription was
introduced during the wars of the French Revolution era. Industrial technology was first applied on a
large scale during the American Civil War. A new style of warfare appeared. World War I fully
demonstrated the nature of total war. Governments took control of many aspects of their societies. The
distinction between military and civilians blurred as bombing raids hit densely populated regions. The
consequences of the new warfare were important. Workers, including women, secured concessions.
Technological research produced useful peaceful benefits. Total warfare produced embittered veterans,
made postwar diplomacy difficult, and resulted in societal tensions.
The Conduct of a Second Global War. The reluctant Western democratic and Russian reaction to the
aggressions of the Axis gave them initial success. Once the Nazis were checked in the Soviet Union, and
the United States entered the war, the balance turned.
Nazi Blitzkrieg, Stalemate, and the Long Retreat. The Germans quickly conquered France and the
Low Countries and then pushed deeply into eastern Europe. Advances occurred in northern Africa.
German tactics gave no mercy to civilian populations. Only Britain, led by Churchill, remained
undefeated and won the battle for control of its air space. The Germans drove into Russia in 1941, but
their progress stalled in the face of Russian resistance and under winter conditions. Russian offensives
began in 1943 and drove the invaders back into Germany.
From Persecution to Genocide: Hitler’s War Against the Jews. While the Germans fought in Russia,
they increased their vendetta against Jews and many others. In 1942 a premeditated, systematic genocide
began. Up to 12 million people were murdered during the Holocaust; 6 million were Jews. The Western
allies did little to check the slaughter or to aid individuals. One result was the determination of Jews to
build their own state in Palestine.
Anglo-American Offensives, Encirclement, and the End of the 12-Year Reich. In late 1941, the
United States joined the alliance against Germany. The Americans and British in 1942 pushed the
Germans and Italians back in north Africa while Russia broke the German advance at Stalingrad, and
began its own successful offensive. Italy was invaded by the British and Americans, and Germany
suffered heavy bombing. In 1944 the Allies invaded France and gradually moved into western Germany
as the Russians moved into eastern regions. Hitler committed suicide and Germany surrendered in 1945.
The Rise and Fall of the Japanese Empire in the Pacific War. Despite their lack of success in China,
Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor in late 1941 and then moved into Indochina, Malaya,
Burma, and the Philippines. It imposed colonial regimes on the conquered peoples and soon encountered
resistance. By the end of 1942, the United States reacted to gain the upper hand on the sea and in the air.
The conflict centered on the Pacific islands occupied by Japan around the time of World War I. In 1944 it
began massive air attacks on Japan. By the early summer of 1945, the Japanese were considering
capitulation. The dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 led to Japanese
surrender.
War’s End and the Emergence of the Superpower Standoff. The victors in the war attempted to make
a peace, avoiding the mistakes made after World War I. The United Nations was established to allow for
peaceful settlement of disputes. The great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France,
and China—controlled decisions in the Security Council. The defeated powers and newly independent
colonial nations later gained membership. The United Nations took over the more specialized
international agencies, such as the World Court of Justice, and played a key role in humanitarian
endeavors.
From Hot War to Cold War. The cold war shaped much of world history over the next four decades.
The Allies argued over the postwar settlement. The United States, Britain, and Russia met at the Teheran
Conference in 1944. The decision for an invasion of France left Russia free to move into eastern Europe.
The three met again at Yalta in 1945. The Soviet Union agreed to join against Japan in return for
territorial gains in China and Japan. The United Nations was confirmed. Agreement over Europe’s future
was difficult. A disarmed Germany, purged of Nazi influence, was divided into four occupied zones.
Eastern Europe, although promises were made for a democratic future, was left under Soviet domination.
The final postwar conference was at Potsdam in 1945. By then, the Soviets occupied eastern Europe and
eastern Germany. They annexed eastern Poland while the Poles gained compensation by receiving part of
eastern Germany. Germany and Austria were divided and occupied. Japan was occupied by the United
States and stripped of its wartime gains. Korea was freed, but was divided into United States and Soviet
occupation zones. Asian colonies returned to their former rulers. China regained most of its territory, but
civil strife continued between communists and nationalists. In other regions, colonial holdings were
confirmed. In Europe, Russia’s frontiers were pushed westward to regain World War I losses. Most
nations existing in 1918 were restored, although the Baltic states once again became Russian provinces.
All, except Greece and Yugoslavia, fell under Soviet domination. Western nations were free, but under
American influence.
Nationalism and Decolonization in South and Southeast Asia and Africa.
World War II was fatal to the European colonial empires. European states’ populations were too
devastated to consider fighting to keep Asia and Africa subjugated. Both the United States and the Soviet
Union were hostile to continuation of European colonies. A reluctant Britain, in return for American
support, in 1941 agreed to the Atlantic Charter, a pact recognizing the right of people to choose their own
government.
The Winning of Independence in South and Southeast Asia. The Indian National Congress agreed to
support the British war effort in return for a significant share of power in India and a postwar
commitment to independence. The British rejected the offer. Negotiations failed to lessen increasing
tensions. Mass civil disobedience campaigns, such as the Quit India movement, began during 1942.
Gandhi and other leaders were imprisoned. The Muslim League, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, gained
favor by supporting the British. The war caused hardship in India through inflation and famine. When a
Labour government came to power in Britain in 1945, independence in the near future was conceded.
The divided Indians were unable to work out a compromise between Hindu desires for one nation under
majority rule and Muslim wishes for a separate state. When communal rioting spread, the British agreed
to the creation of two independent nations, India and Pakistan, in 1947. Hundreds of thousands of people
then perished as Hindus, Muslims, and other groups attacked each other. Millions fled from one region
to another. Gandhi’s assassination in 1948 by a Hindu fanatic added to the malaise. Other parts of the
Indian empire, Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and Myanmar (Burma), peacefully received independence shortly
after. Other empires were already then decolonizing. After the war, the United States quickly granted
independence to the Philippines. The Dutch fought against nationalists in Indonesia until losing in 1949.
The French did the same in Indochina.
The Liberation of Nonsettler Africa. World War II had a more disruptive effect in Africa than World
War I. The British and French were forced to reverse policies to allow some industrial development,
which spurred rural migration to the cities. Many did not find employment. They joined disappointed
veterans in nationalist movements. Two paths to independence were followed in colonies without a
European settler population. In the British Gold Coast (later Ghana), Kwame Nkrumah represented the
more radical approach. He established the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) and gained support from
urban and rural peoples. He introduced a new style of politics, using mass rallies, boycotts, and strikes.
Nkrumah gained concessions from the British through winning elections and secured independence for
Ghana in 1957. Most other British nonsettler colonies gained independence through peaceful means by
the mid-1960s. The latter approach occurred in French and Belgian territories. The French negotiated
with Westernized, moderate African leaders—Léopold Sédar Senghor of Senegal, Felix HouphouâtBoigny of Ivory Coast—who were willing to retain cultural and economic ties to France. By 1960 all
French West African colonies were free. The Belgians experienced more difficulties in the Congo as
they precipitously withdrew before a newly organized nationalist movement. The Portuguese still clung
to their colonies.
Repression and Guerrilla War: The Struggle for the Settler Colonies. Territories with large
European settler populations had a more difficult decolonization experience. Racist settlers blocked the
rise of African nationalist movements as they fought to defend their numerous privileges. In Kenya,
when peaceful efforts led by Jomo Kenyatta failed, more radical Africans formed the Land Freedom
Army and commenced a guerrilla campaign against the British and other Africans. The British defeated
the rebel movement, called by them the Mau Mau, and imprisoned Kenyatta and other nonviolent
leaders. The British government then turned to negotiation with Africans; Kenya gained independence in
1963 and Kenyatta was the first president. The struggle in Algeria, with more than a million settlers, was
much more violent. War began in the 1950s under the direction of the National Liberation Front. The
French defeated rebel forces in battle but never fully contained them. Independence came through
negotiations in 1962. Most of the settlers then left Algeria.
The Persistence of White Supremacy in South Africa. Portugal’s colonies, Angola and Mozambique,
secured independence after revolutionary struggle in 1975. Africans in Southern Rhodesia (now
Zimbabwe) won independence by 1980. In South Africa, the large and long-established minority
European population held onto control. The Afrikaners lacked a European homeland to retreat to, and
over the centuries built up a racist white supremacy ideology. The British had abandoned Africans to
Afrikaner racist rule after the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902). Afrikaners won internal political control in
1948 and built the racial segregation system known as apartheid, which reserved political, social, and
economic rights for whites. The brutal Afrikaner police state hampered the growth of African parties.
Conflicting Nationalisms: Arabs, Israelis, and the Palestinian Question. Even though most Arabs
won independence from foreign rule by the 1960s, the Palestine problem presented special problems.
The Zionist movement was strengthened by German persecution, and immigration to Palestine
increased. The British reacted to Arab resistance to the foreigners by attempting to limit Jewish arrivals.
A major Muslim revolt between 1936 and 1939 further strengthened British resolve to halt the inflow.
The Zionists in return resisted the British measures. By the end of World War II both Arabs and Jews
claimed Palestine, but in 1948 the sympathies roused by the Holocaust caused the United Nations to
divide Palestine into Arab and Jewish states. The neighboring Arab states then attacked. The
outnumbered Jews drove them back and expanded into Arab territory. Thousands of Arabs fled
Palestine. An enduring hostility between the two sides marked the future.
GLOBAL CONNECTIONS: Persisting Trends in a World Transformed by War. The fragile
foundations of the European colonial order explain its quick demise. The break with the colonial past
was modified by power passing to Western-educated elites. Social gains for the majority of populations
were minimal. Western cultural influences remained strong in reformed educational systems.
Independence did not disrupt Western dominance in the global economic order. Lingering traces of
colonial rule persisted after independence.
KEY TERMS
National Soviet (Nazi) Party: founded by Adolf Hitler in the period of the Great Depression in
Germany.
Blitzkrieg: German term meaning lightning warfare; involved rapid movement of troops and tanks.
Vichy: collaborationist French government established at Vichy in 1940 following defeat by Germany.
Winston Churchill: British prime minister during World War II; exemplified British determination to
resist Germany.
Battle of Britain: British defeat of the Nazi air offensive.
Siege of Stalingrad: 1942–1943 turning point during Germany’s invasion of Russia; Russians
successfully defended the city and then went on the offensive.
Holocaust: Germany’s attempted extermination of European Jews and others; 12 million, including 6
million Jews, died.
Battle of the Bulge: failed Nazi effort in 1943–1945 to repel invading allied armies.
Pearl Harbor: American naval base in Hawaii attacked by Japan in December 1941; caused American
entry into World War II.
Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway Island: United States air and naval victories over the
Japanese; opened the way for attack on Japanese homeland.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki: two Japanese cities on which the United States dropped atomic bombs in
1945; caused Japanese surrender.
United Nations: global organization, founded by the Allies following World War II.
Teheran Conference (1944): meeting between the leaders of the United States, Britain, and the Soviet
Union; decided to open a new front against Germany in France; gave the Russians a free hand in eastern
Europe.
Yalta Conference (1945): agreed upon Soviet entry into the war against Japan, organization of the
United Nations; left eastern Europe to the Soviet Union.
Potsdam Conference (1945): meeting between the leaders of the United States, Britain, and the Soviet
Union in 1945; the allies accepted Soviet control of eastern Europe; Germany and Austria were divided
among the victors.
Atlantic Charter: 1941 pact between the United States and Britain; gave Britain a strong ally; in return the
document contained a clause recognizing the right of all people to select their own government.
Quit India movement: mass civil disobedience campaign against the British rulers of India in
1942.
Muslim League: Indian organization that emerged at the end of World War II; backed Britain in the
war.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah: Muslim Indian nationalist; leader of the Muslim League; worked for a
separate Muslim state; first president of Pakistan.
Kwame Nkrumah: African nationalist responsible for forming the Convention Peoples Party in Ghana;
leader of the first black African state to independence (1957).
Land Freedom Army: African revolutionary movement for reform of Kenyan colonial system; began a
conflict in 1952; called the Mau Mau by the British.
Jomo Kenyatta: leader of Kenyan African Union, a nonviolent nationalist party; became first president
of independent Kenya in 1962.
Land Freedom Army: Kenyan underground group, led by radicals from the Kenyan African Union;
engage in terrorist acts against British and other opponents.
National Liberation Front (FLN): Algerian nationalist movement that launched a guerrilla war during
the 1950s; gained independence for Algeria in 1962.
Secrete Army Organization (OAS): Algerian settler group opposed to independence from France;
gained strength in France.
Afrikaner National Party: became the majority in the all-white South African legislature in 1948;
worked to form the rigid system of racial segregation called apartheid.
Haganah: Zionist military army; the military arm of the Jewish Zionists in creating Israel.