World History Discussion: WWII/Pacific War

• World War I Aftermath
• The Germans initially refused to sign the treaty, but were forced to.
• No one had seen a modern war like WWI before WWI, and this changed the world
• Spanish Flu Pandemic
• Spanish Flu hit during WWI
• No one knows the origin of the Spanish Flu
• State of Europe and the World by 1920s
• A Relativistic World
• Albert Einstein
• Offered the theory of relativity
• Proposed that gravity, as well as motion, can affect the intervals of time and of space.
• He became a celebrity thanks to a solar eclipse
• Eddington
• He tested Einstein's theory of Relativity
• He was a kind man, and a pacifist who was treated badly because he avoided war.
• He helped to lend credence to Einstein's theory of relativity through his observations of a Solar Eclipse from Principe and Sobral
• Understanding Human Behavior
• Sigmund Freud
• Austrian Psychoanlysis
• Gnostic
• Atheist
• Scientifically studied behavior based on people's dreams and childhood
• However Freudianism is not scientific
• He disliked the concept of guilt
• Art Reflected the World's Sorrow and Chaos
• Dadaism appeared
• Cubism appeared
• Philosophical Underpinnings of Secular World
• Nihilism Became a Thing
• People believed that there was nothing to the world but the world itself
• Will to Power
• People strive not just to be happy or survive, but to impose their will on the world.
• Inter War Period - Weimar Republic
• Economic Turmoil
• Weimar emerges from the socialist revolution in Germany
• It started as weak and unstable as first, due to having no gold, printing money which causes hyperinflation, and the economy was in trouble.
• Germany could not pay the reparations due to their terrible economy.
• Their reparations are owed to France and Britain
• France and Britain then are paying that money to America
• America is then loaning that money back to other countries
• French Occupation of Ruhr
• France occupied an area of Germany to force them to pay their reparations with coal.
• Treaty of Rapallo
• Germany and Russia secretly work with one another to build the German military in Russia.
• Political Ideology Spectrum
• Far Left
• Communism and Socialism
• Atheistic
• Propaganda
• No Private Property
• Classes aren't supposed to exist
• Middle
• Republicanism, Liberalism, Constitutionalism, Free Market, Capitalism, Democracy
• Classes exist
• Far Right
• Fascism and Nazism
• Nazism
• National Socialism 
• Private Property allowed
• Ultra Nationalistic
• People Worship the State
• Secret Police
• Racial and Xenophobic
• Classes Exist
• Corporate State
• Propaganda
• Roaring Twenties
• The Economy goes up, and up
• Everyone is buying all these new products
• These new products were one per household products, people only needed so much of these products.
• People start buying shares of corporations like crazy 
• America's Great Depression
• Stock Market Crash
• People started borrowing money to buy stock.
• The Stock market crashed and everybody sold their shares at once as they freaked out.
• Treaty of Versailles
• Caused money to go through a rotation from Germany to Britain to France to the US and back to the rest of the nation
• So when the great depression hit, it effected this money rotation and the rest of these nations involved in the rotation
• Banks Failed
• The Banks Closed
• People lost everything they had
• Because Banks Failed, Businesses Failed, Because Businesses failed many people lost their jobs.
• Political Reaction
• Capitalism, Liberalism, and Republicanism is questioned.
• Many nations believed that these capitalism, liberalism, and republicanism were the cause of the Great Depression.
• Nations became Socialist, and guaranteed everyone government jobs. 
• Rise of Fascism
• Mussolini
• The Republic of Italy was called inept, and weak by Mussolini. 
• Italian inflation caused huge debt and unemployment in the 1920s.
• What did Mussolini do as Prime Minister:
• Complete Censorship
• Eliminated his Opponents
• Made the state Centralized and Corporate
• He is a De facto Dictator
• Hitler
• He served in WWI, and was bitter that Germany lost.
• He joined the National Socialist Party.
• He was at the head of the Beer Hall Putsch to take over the government in Germany.
• This failed and he went to prison, where he wrote the Mein Kampf.
• Part of his prison sentence prevented him from many years to speak publicly.
• He Began politically to try  and change the government of Germany.
• Nazism
• Hitler lost an election to become President of Germany.
• The Nazis were the most powerful party in Germany, so Hitler was made Chancellor or Vice President.
• The Emergency Powers are written, and the Enabling Act was made in order to prevent a communist revolution that was staged to cause panic.
• Enabling Act
• Outlawed..
• Freedom of Press
• Freedom to Gather
• Other Political Parties are abolished
• Nazis are placed everywhere
• Hitler's Plans
• Removed foreign music
• Removed foreign literature
• Promoted German art
• Undesirable people are sterilized and known as Asocials
• Hated Communism
• Built up army, navy, air force, and highways
• Hitler's Foreign Policies
• Rejected Treaty of Versailles
• Wanted to Unify all Germans
• Occupied the Rhineland
• Signed a Pact with Japan and Italy
• Annexed Austria
• Seized part of Czechoslovakia, and then the rest of it.
• Signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union
• Neville Chamberlain
• He made an agreement with Hitler
• He believed he had made peace in his time
• He didn't compromise with Hitler, he simply appeased him.  
• Beginning of WWII
• Germany Invasion of Poland
• Germany lied to its people and told them that Poland had attacked, Germany in reality simply invaded Poland.
• Working with Russia, they take all of Poland.
• Phony War
• For a year, people believed that WWII wasn't actually going to be a war, as no one was really fighting.
• Invasion of France
• Germany trapped the British and French armies, forcing France to surrender.
• Britain came into assist by sea, but in the end Paris fell.
• Battle of Britain
• Britain had two things to resist the German Invasion
• The Radar
• And Spitfire Agile Planes with Really Good Guns
• Germany repeatedly bombed Britain, but the British Spitfires were too much for them.
• Germany retreats from the battle of Britain.
• German Invasion of Russia
• Hitler hated communists and did not trust Stalin.
• Why did he Want the Ukraine
• For its bread
• For its oil
• So that he can isolate Britain
• The German invasion did well, until winter hit in Russia and the invasion ground to a halt.
• Japan After the Russo-Japanese War
• Japan won the war, but realized they relied heavily on other nations.
• Japan lacked resources.
• Prime Minister and War Minister: Hideki Tojo wanted Japan to be a World Power. 
• Manchria
• Japan attacked China multiple times, but this was looked down upon by the league of nations. 
• Expansion of Japan
• Japan wanted to expand and not depend on the US and Britain.
• The US didn't want Japan to expand.
• Pearl Harbor
• The US was given a message to announce the Pearl Harbor attack but the message wasn't delivered so the attack seemed like a surprise.
• We lost warships, air crafts, and battle ships.
• US Fighting on Two Fronts
• US and Britain invaded Algeria
• US won North Africa
• Invaded and Secured Sicily
• Patton and Montgomery were allies who did not get along very well, in their mission to invade Sicily
• Operation Avalanche
• Invaded Italy
• Captured Rome
• Soviets vs Germany
• Siege of Stalingrad
• Stalin moved all of his military and industry behind the mountains and started moving their artillery to Stalingrad and Leningrad just annihilating the Germans.
• Prisoner Policy
• Neither the Soviets or Germany took prisoners
• Operation Overlord
• US Invades Normandy
• Operation Fortitude 
• The US tricked Germany into believing they were invading one area, when they were really invaded another. 
• Operation Overlord
• The US invades Normandy
• Operation Cobra
• US Army raced across France to Paris
• There were giant hedges in the way
• A soldier put a shovel on the front of a tank, and used it to dig out the hedges
• Patton lead the Third Army to Paris
• Operation Market Garden
• Montgomery made a plan to punch a hole through the German line by attacking bridges with artillery and sending paratroopers to hold bridges.
• Once they had the bridges, they would just drive through, however the Germans blow up some of the bridges we needed.
• We had to retreat.
• The Battle of the Bulge
• Germans attacked straight through the American lines, right in the middle of the winter.
• There was very little food, it was in the winter, and very cold.
• It was Hitler's last Gamble.
• Patton came in and saved the day. 
• Strategic Bombing Campaign
• We started bombing places
• Soviets took Berlin
• England Victory in Europe
• Pacific War 
• The Japanese did not accept surrender, and treated prisoners harshly.
• The US lost the Philippines to Japan
• Prisoners were forced to walk across the Philippines
• Doolittle Raid
• We shocked Japan with a military response to Pearl Harbor, not much happened.
• Battle of Midway
• Japan wanted to take Midway, so that they could then take Hawaii from the US.
• US Code breakers learned that Japan was going to try and take midway.
• Admiral Nimitz had the Yorktown carrier refitted in 72 hours and then placed the feet northwest of Hawaii to ambush the Japanese.
• We put Japan on the defensive and saved Midway.
• War in the Pacific 
• Battle of Iwo Jima
• US pushed toward the Japanese Home Islands
• Japan didn't want to surrender
• Japanese Soldiers were in caves on the island
• Battle of Okinawa
• This was the first battle of the US against Japan itself, on land a part of Japan.
• There were thousands of civilians, some of which committed suicide, others committed suicide using bomb vests to battle the US.
• There were many kamikaze missions.
• Operation Downfall
• Cancled invasion of Japan
• Would have weakened Japan and the US
• World War II Diplomacy and Strategy
• The Allies accepted nothing but unconditional surrender of the Axis.
• Benefits Back Home
• Women worked
• Many minorities helped with the war effort
• American Paranoia
• Japanese Concentration Camps in New Mexico and Arizona
• Manhattan Project
• Army Corps of Engineers initiated it
• The best scientists were assembled in the dessert
• Billions of dollars were spent on the nuclear bomb
• Ending the Pacific War
• We bombed Japan
• Hiroshima
• Nagasaki
• Results of WWII
• Innovations
• Technology
• Code Breaking
• Radar
• Nukes
• USA was dominant
• The USSR Emerges
• Isolationism becomes impossible as the US becomes bound to Europe