WWII: Allied Victory & Post-War World Order 1942-1945
Phase Two of WWII (1942-1945)
In most countries occupied by the Germans and the Japanese, resistance movements originated. They fought against the invaders illegally, using sabotage and street battles. In 1942, the Japanese expansion in Southeast Asia was arrested by the U.S. The Allies, led by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, and Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, coordinated offensives in the Tehran Conference (1943) and Yalta Conference (1945). These conferences allowed the final defeat of the Axis powers.
- Germans and Italians were defeated in Africa.
- In Europe, the Allies occupied Italy, and fascism fell.
- The German defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad allowed Russia’s liberation.
- In June 1944, the Allied landing in Normandy facilitated the liberation of Western Europe.
- On the eastern front, Russian armies advanced into Germany and, in April 1945, took Berlin.
After Hitler’s death, the Third Reich surrendered in May 1945. The Japanese empire continued to resist in the Pacific, and the United States acted by dropping two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan surrendered in September 1945.
The New International Order
Since the end of the war, it was urgent to create a new order in Europe. The Allies met in three conferences that formed the framework of a policy of cooperation and agreements among the victors and between victors and vanquished, with the aim of achieving lasting peace.
- Yalta Conference (USSR, 1945): The strategy of war, whose end was near, was discussed. They decided to create a global organization to end the war.
- Conference of San Francisco (USA, 1945): The United Nations Organization (UN) was created.
- Potsdam Conference (Germany, 1945): Total disarmament and denazification of Germany were agreed upon, as was the division of its territory into four zones, occupied by the victors. Each power would charge for the repairs owed due to the war.
However, the cooperation policy of the Allies failed, and some other limited partnerships were established, which replaced the plan of universal harmony. The world was divided into two blocs, and a new balance of power was set. The result was the failure of the attempt to agree on the conditions for lasting peace, despite having lived through a bloody war.
The new world situation is summarized in the following features:
- New territorial distribution, as a result of peace treaties, causing the displacement of millions of people.
- Replacing the power of decision of the European powers (Britain, France, Germany) with a Europe divided into two zones of influence: a Western one and a communist one.
- Emergence of two superpowers (USA and USSR) that divided Europe and its spheres of influence.
- Rivalry between the two superpowers, both ideologically and politically and economically, which manifested itself in the Cold War.
The UN
At the end of the war came the need to replace the failed League of Nations with a new international organization to avoid armed conflicts in the future. The United Nations Organization (UN) was born in the San Francisco Conference in 1945. Its main objective was the maintenance of peace and security through peaceful resolution of international conflicts. Since its inception, the UN has mediated in conflicts on all continents, with very limited results. It has even sent peacekeeping troops (peacekeepers). In 1948, the UN promulgated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in order to prevent the recurrence of past atrocities committed against individuals and peoples.