World War II: Facing sides

The Second World War It was the largest war in history developed between the years 1939 - 1945, in which most of the nations of the world were involved with a total of 110 countries. These were divided into two opposing sides, the Axis powers and the Allied powers. The Second World War was marked by a series of events with enormous historical repercussions, such as the use of nuclear weapons for the first time in a military conflict.

In this lesson from a TEACHER we are going to discover sides that fought in World War II so that you know what really happened in the world for this great war to break out.

We begin by talking about the opposing sides in World War II discovering you the Axis powers. The three main nations that made up the Axis were Germany, Italy and the Empire of Japan. These three powers were joined by other countries that played a supporting or helping role, either with troops or supplies but without decisively intervening.

The government systems of these three countries allowed their alliance because together with Spain these three nations formed the main dictatorships with strong nationalism and a foreign policy expansionist.

Germany

Germany is the main Axis power, the cause of the war and the nation with the largest and most prepared army on this side. In 1933 Adolf hitler ends the Weimar Republic and establishes what is known as the Third Reich. With his expansionist idea, he first invaded Austria, then Czechoslovakia and Poland, the latter triggering the start of World War II.

Italy

With the coming to power of Benito Mussolini in 1922 he established a nationalist policy that eventually influenced Adolf Hitler. In 1939 with the start of the Second World War he allied with Germany through the Pact of Steel.

Italy at first began fighting its first battles without Germany, that is, on different fronts, however the potential of the army Italian was scarce enough to defeat only the allied troops, hence after the first two years of the war it began to intervene jointly with Germany.

Empire of japan

Japan was already at war with the USSR and China since 1937, the confrontation with the latter lasted until the end of the war. Germany ended up signing the Tripartite Pact with him because Hitler saw the Japanese Empire as a powerful ally against the Soviet Union.

The Japanese Empire, unlike Italy, was able to overcome on its own the Pacific War. In 1941 it attacked the US fleet in the Pacific, bombarding Pearl Harbor Bay, a fact that marked the entry into the conflict of the United States.

Other countries in favor of the Axis Powers that intervened in the war, although in a secondary way, were Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Finland, Thailand ...

The second of the opposing sides in World War II was the one who, in the end, was the winner: the allies. The main allied powers are France and the United Kingdom who were the first to declare war on Germany after the invasion of Poland. Once the war started they joined these two, United States and the Soviet Union.

France

After invading Germany to Poland he declared war on her, but her armies were not sufficiently prepared to defeat the German troops who defeated the French resistance in righ now. Once invaded, France was divided into two governments, the official one, called Vichy France led by Adolf Hitler and the Free France by Charles de Gaulle, who from exile provided minority aid to the allies.

Soviet Union

Directed by Joseph Stalin, at first he declared himself neutral. He participated in the Sino-Japanese war in favor of China and fought with Japan before the start of World War II. In 1939 Stalin signed the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact nine days before the start of the war for non-aggression between Germany and the USSR, but Hitler in 1941 broke the pact by invading the Soviet Union causing the USSR to declare war on Germany.

USA

It remained neutral for the first two years of the war, although it supplied constant supplies to its ally the United Kingdom. The decision to enter the conflict was Japan's unannounced attack on Pearl Harbor Bay. Franklin D. RooseveltPresident of the US at that time declared war on Japan and with it his allies Germany and Italy.

Other allied countries were China, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Belgium, Holland, Greece, Yugoslavia ...