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While Belgian army is annihilated in a matter of hours, the advancing British dig in around the city of Hannut, hoping to repel the German onslaught. Simultaneously in Belgium, the capture of Fort Eben-Emael has awarded German panzer forces complete control over the country's road and river networks. Part of the British defensive line northwest of the city of Hannut. On May 10th, German paratroopers attacked the city of Rotterdam to secure bridges over the Nieuwe Maas for their advancing ground forces, but meet staunch British resistance. Key landmarks such as the Witte Huis and Willemsbridge are visible.Īllied preparations for the defense of the Netherlands provided a convenient casus belli for the launching of Fall Gelb, the German invasion of France and the Low Countries.
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Although fighting took place in Norway, Greece and Italy, these are not usually included as part of the Western Front but as separate campaigns. During the war, the front moved much further, as far west as the English Channel and deep in to the Soviet Union to the east. The Western Front of World War II was generally restricted to the same geographic regions as during World War I. Two days later, the British and French governments declared war on the Germans. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland with a tactic that became known as the Blitzkrieg. In order to take half of the country, he persuaded Joseph Stalin, the Premier of the Soviet Union, to secure a treaty under which the Red Army would take the other half of Poland. With new weapons tested in the Spanish Civil War in 1936-1939, Hitler's next target was Poland. Ignoring a peace-time conference in Munich, Hitler gradually took all of Czechoslovakia a year after. By 1938, the Germans peacefully annexed the Sudetenland and Austria after Italian forces took Ethiopia in 1935. In 1931, Japan used its army to invade northern China and by 1937, the whole of the eastern Asian mainland. For Italy in the 1920s, Benito Mussolini rose to power. Within the early 1930s, Adolf Hitler became the Chancellor (later Führer) of the country. 3.1.3 Special Boat Section raid on LuftwaffeĪfter World War I and the failure of the Weimar Republic, Germany was left in ruins.Marked by significant events involving the mass death of civilians, including the Holocaust and the only use of nuclear weapons in warfare, it was the deadliest conflict in human history, resulting in 50 million to over 70 million fatalities. In a state of "total war," the major participants placed their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities at the service of the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. It was the most widespread war in history, with more than 100 million military personnel mobilized. World War II (often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, also known as the Second World War or, on the Eastern Front, the Great Patriotic War) was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations including all of the great powers, eventually forming two opposing military alliances, the Allies and the Axis. Pieter Sjoerds Gerbrandy (from 1940-1945).Nazi Germany Kingdom of Italy Empire of Japan Netherlands (from 1940) Belgium (from 1940) Norway (from 1940) Greece (from 1941) Occupied countries with governments-in-exile: French Republic (until 1940, 1944-1945) Emergence of the United States and the Soviet Union as superpowers.Allied divide both Germany and Korea into communist and capitalist state.Allied occupation in Germany, Japan, Austria.Dissolution of Nazi Germany, Kingdom of Italy, and the Empire of Japan.