Participants in World War II: Encyclopedia II - Participants in World War II - Alliances

Participants in World War II - Alliances

World War II was primarily fought between two large alliances. The Axis Powers were a group of countries led by Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan, and are considered the aggressors of the conflict. The Allies, led by the United Kingdom and, until its defeat, France, were joined in the European theatre by the Soviet Union in June 1941 and by the United States in December 1941. In the Asia-Pacific theatre, the Allies were led by China from the invasion of China by Japan in 1937 and then joined by the United States in 1941 after the Pearl Harbor attack.

Participants in World War II - The Axis

Originally founded on the concept of the Rome-Berlin-axis (the Pact of Steel), later the Tripartite Pact, the Axis was not primarily a formal alliance. Each of the major countries went to war on their own initiative (Nazi Germany in 1939, Italy in 1940, and Japan in 1937 against China and 1941 against USA), and not necessarily to assist each other. There was little sharing of technology or resources, and also little in the way of cooperative strategic planning between the major Axis powers.

With the demise of Italy, Germany and Japan each functioned as wholly separate powers, each conducting the war in their theatre (Germany in Europe and Japan in the Pacific). There were a number of smaller powers on the side of the Axis, although for the most part the war effort was directed and powered by Germany and Japan.

Participants in World War II - The Allies

Like the Axis, the Allies were not a fully cohesive alliance. The original Allied countries, bound by their commitment to the security of Poland, were led by the United Kingdom and France. As other countries were invaded by Nazi Germany, they were added to the Allied ranks. The fall of France left the United Kingdom as the sole remaining major country of the Allies. Most of the remainder consisted of the British Commonwealth and forces commanded by various governments-in-exile.

While the European war did not officially start until the 1939 invasion of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union, the war began much earlier in Asia. Japan started its invasion against China in 1937 as a pre-text of its goal of dominance in the Pacific Rim. Subsequently, with the war spreading to Europe and the Pacific Ocean, China, with one-third of the country under occupation, dispatched its forces to help the British defend India against Japan and recapture Burma (now Myanmar) in 1944.

In 1941, with Nazi Germany's attack on the Soviet Union, the British accepted the Communist Soviet Union into their alliance. Previous to the attack, the United Kingdom was unsure of how to deal with the Soviet leadership, as it had been viewed as an aggressor against Britain's ally Poland, though Winston Churchill in 1939 said that the new Soviet-German border is a new anti-Nazi front, which Hitler never will not break. This passage many consider as an attempt to provoke Hitler against the USSR. However, once the Soviet Union joined the Allies, it mounted the major effort to eliminate the main forces of German Wehrmacht.

Following the Japanese Pearl Harbor attack in 1941 the United States formally entered the war, committing itself to assisting the Allies in both theatres of war. The United States would become a major contributor of resources and production for the war effort, shipping material to most of the Allies to assist their forces, as well as contributing their own forces to combat.

A much larger number of countries joined the Allies during the war than joined the Axis. Not only did the countries attacked by the Axis join, but later in the war, many smaller countries not directly involved in the war joined the Allies to ensure their own security as well as to gain the support of the Allies economically and militarily during and after the war.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Alliances", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki