EUROPEAN WAR 2 SERIES

The United States had stayed neutral during the war. Now the Soviet Union was on the side of the Allies. However, on JGermany invaded the Soviet Union. Up until this point in the war, the Soviet Union had been allied with Germany. On JGermany signed an agreement that gave them control of the Northern half of France. Soon after that, they invaded the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. It was in April of 1940 when Germany went on the attack again. Even though France and Great Britain declared war on Germany in 1939, there wasn't a lot of fighting at first. After Poland was defeated, the country was divided up between Germany and the Soviet Union. Prior to invading Poland, Germany had made a deal with the Soviet Union. France and Great Britain declared war on Germany and World War II had begun. Finally, when Germany invaded Poland in 1939, the other countries knew he would not stop. The other European countries didn't want war, so they didn't do anything. First Hitler took over the country of Austria. Hitler said the country needed more land or 'living space'. Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany in 1933. Hitler promised he would bring Germany back to power. It was during this time that Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came into power. The citizens of Germany were not only humiliated that they had lost World War I, but they were also poor and struggling. As a result, the German economy did very poorly. This treaty not only took land from Germany, but required that they pay huge amounts of money in reparations to countries they had fought. When Germany lost World War I they were forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles. The battle is important because it opened the way for another front in Europe and began the process of liberating France and the eventual defeat of Nazi Germany.Source: U.S. However, the Allied attack had worked and the United States, Britain and Canada were all able to open their beaches to further Allied reinforcements and heavy weaponry. All three countries landed on the morning of June 6th, 1944 and faced difficult resistance from Nazi soldiers. The United StatesвЂ™ beaches were Utah and Omaha, BritainвЂ™s beaches were Gold and Sword, and CanadaвЂ™s beach was Juno. Each country landed on their own codenamed beaches with the goal of pushing back the Nazi defences and opening the beach for Allied heavy weapons. The United States, Britain and Canada were the three main participating countries in the amphibious landings of the Normandy Invasion. Operation Overlord involved a large attack on northern France, including: amphibious landings, naval bombardment and an assault by airborne forces the night before. The Normandy Invasion began on June 6th, 1944 and was codenamed Operation Overlord. In fact, Operation Barbarossa was the last time that Nazi Germany would be the aggressor in World War II in Europe and would spend the rest of the war being pushed back to Germany and its capital of Berlin. Germany lost its entire 6th Army at the Battle of Stalingrad and was never able to recover from the loss. The Battle of Stalingrad would be one of the bloodiest battles of World War II and a major turning point for the overall war.

Next, Hitler diverted his troops to the southern Soviet city of Stalingrad, where German blitzkrieg tactics failed to capture the city. German forces pushed quickly through the Soviet Union before they stalled at the edge of Moscow. The German attack on the Soviet Union began in June of 1941 and saw Germany make massive territorial gains against the country, which was led by Joseph Stalin. Hitler's forces broke the terms of the non-aggression pact when Germany attacked the Soviet Union as part of its Operation Barbarossa. It was believed that German troops would have to invade France across the border and go up against the Maginot Line.Д«eing unable to defeat Britain, Nazi Germany turned its attention towards the Soviet Union. For their part, Britain and France were mostly worried about reinforcing the Maginot Line, the defensive line built by France along the France-German border. This period of inaction was referred to as the Phoney War and saw the armies of Britain and France preparing for a war with Germany, but without any actual fighting on the western half of Europe. While Britain and France condemned the German aggression against Poland, and declared war against Germany, little action was taken in the first 8 months of World War II. Germany used its 'lighting war' strategy to quickly overwhelm and confuse enemy armies. The first weeks of the war in Europe consisted mostly of Germany, led by Adolf Hitler, unleashing its blitzkrieg tactics against Poland.

EUROPEAN WAR 2 SERIES

The war in Europe began at this point and unfolded as a series of major events and battles. World War II began on September 1st, 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland.

European war 2