Template talk:World War II

Some reformatting
Have tried some reformatting in effort to halt template's growing width. In order to preserve chronology, "principal co-belligerents" now shown by italics – but (1) am not sure that their positions are correct; and (2) not sure if Brazil/Czechoslovakia/Vietnam/Thailand qualify as "principal" co-belligerents (or "major" participants)...? Will add "• Others" to end of each list (duplicating links to Axis and Allies provided by these subheadings, but folk might not notice/respond to these instances). Hope nothing unacceptable has crept in. Regards, David Kernow (talk) 15:52, 1 June 2007 (UTC) Это пиздеж блять! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.88.4.54 (talk) 21:09, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Further amendments
Regards, David Kernow (talk) 04:50, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) If Japan to be listed under 1937, then China also.
 * 2) In light of the Czech resistance to Nazi occupation article, have removed Czechoslovakia from "Major participants"/"co-belligerents" list and included it in a "Resistance movements" section. This section probably needs some further (non-European) additions.


 * One question - what makes Brazil a co-belligerents and not a participant? 96T 11:26, 2 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Good question. I earlier wrote: "Brazil patrolled parts of the Atlantic and sent a division (Brazilian Expeditionary Force (FEB)) to Italy where they liberated parts of the Po valley." It sems to me that Brazil was an active ally. Folks at 137 12:40, 2 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for spotting; have amended accordingly. Regards, David (talk) 18:47, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Winter War
Can anybody point here how Winter War is related to WWII?--Dojarca 23:07, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Maybe you should read Winter War article more carefully? I guess that Winter War is far enough for including Winter War as a part of WWII? Piotr Mikołajski 10:14, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Free France / Vichy France issue
there's a problem with france since there was two france each one with its own flag and leader. looking at the current article its like vichy france never existed, but it did! vichy french fought the russians in the eastern front through the SS division charlemagne and LVF, they fought the thai then the japanese in french indochina, they fought the allies in africa and maghreb. this had to be mentioned like you have done with the smaller country that is finland! Paris By Night 01:21, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

British Crown Colonies
I see that British Crown Colonies like India are not even mentioned in the template. Either the entry of UK should be changed to the British Empire, or it should carry a note saying "includes British Crown Colonies", or a separate entry should be made for India.

Timeline 1941
Whilst the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran is included in the timeline in 1941 the other elements to the Middle East Campaign are not (ref the "invisible" Vichy French mentioned above). Perhaps it would be appropriate if the Iran line was substituted with a link to the Middle East campaign with text to indicate all the elementse.g. Iraq, Lebanon, Syria & Iran that is Iraq, Lebanon, Syria & Iran.

Also I think the East African Campaign should be included. This was a very serious and tough campaign with the equivalent of five plus divisions of infantry on each side - as big as the early campaigns in North Africa. Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 17:20, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Timeline 1942/43
The Guadalcanal campaign actually happened more in 1942 (August-December) than it did 1943 (January-February) so I moved it to 42 which could stand the addition. In it's original place I linked the rest of the Solomon Islands campaign which for the most part took place in 1943. Anynobody 08:28, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

RSI
The RSI was a member of the Axis as such from 1943 - 1945, with its own Government, Capital and Military units. The template is about the MEMBERS of the Axis and the RSI was a member of the Axis as such. The RSI emerged out of the Kingdom of Italy, which entered the war in 1940. The head of the RSI was the same as the head of the Fascist State within the Kingdom of Italy. But its entry can also be specified to 1943. Daufer


 * It has to be specified in 1943, in 1940 there was just Italy and the RSI didn't even exist yet. Frankly since the Free French aren't listed on the Allies side I don't see why the RSI should be listed on the Axis. Anynobody 22:24, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, than it will be specified to 1943. Mussolini never signed the armistice, and when he was liberated, he and several loyal generals reestablished the fascist regime, in the north of the Gustav line with the help of the Nazi regime. But the RSI had the Same heads, same racial laws, same currency, same ideology, same politics as the Fascist Kingdom of Italy before. As for your strange comparison. 1. The RSI was the RSI and Free France was Free France, whats the connection? 2. Unlike the Trieste province and South Tyrol which were annexed by Germany, and under German control, the RSI remained independent. And was, as a state, a member of the Axis from 43 - 45. The RSI had its own Government, Capital and Military Units. If this was the same case with Free France and the Allies, than Free France should be added to the members of the Allies from its entrance - the end of war.

Whether it was a puppet state or not, doesnt matter, because it was a state nonetheless. And it was a member of the Axis, as that state, the RSI. Its actually really simple. Daufer

Archiving
Hi guys, I have archived old discussions here: Archive 01. It was surely high time... My regards, --Dna-Dennistalk - contribs 01:00, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Compression, anyone?
While I admire the great work & effort that has been put into this template, I nevertheless have some concerns. I created this template once, and as the absent father, I weep a little for my child which seems to suffer from serious elephantiasis... :)



As I said before, the idea was not that this template should serve as an exhaustive or detailed list on various WW2 matters, but only as a jump-off point to WW2 main topics. I talked about this one year ago here : Compression needed!.

Therefore, I recommend that this template gets thoroughly scrutinized.

As a starter I'd say:


 * Nuke all the individual resistance movements. Link only to Resistance during World War II.


 * Nuke many of the events in the timeline. Keep only very, very important ones. For a starter, go for 3 or 4 for each year.


 * 1940: nuke British Somaliland, Occupation of Baltic states, Bessarabia and Bukovina, Invasion of Indochina, Invasion of Greece.


 * 1941: nuke Invasion of Yugoslavia, Middle East, Siege of Leningrad.


 * 1942: nuke Operation Torch.


 * 1943: nuke End in Africa, replace Invasion of Sicily, Invasion of Italy with Italian Campaign, label it as "Invasion of Italy".


 * 1944: nuke Cassino and Anzio, Battle of Romania, Liberation of Paris, Operation Market Garden.

Don't worry about "things being left out" - things will always be left out, no matter how hard we try. After all, it's a starting point, and there are links to the different theaters at the top of the template, and to List of military engagements of World War II.

Yes, I'm harsh. But sometimes a father has to be. :) My regards, --Dna-Dennistalk - contribs 14:16, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree that the list needs to be trimmed. I'm not an expert here, but I believe the invasions of Yugoslavia and Greece and the Siege of Leningrad were more important that the Phoney War and Operation Weserübung, which it seems you're going to keep. If the list of resistance movements is removed, Czechoslovakia and perhaps Ethiopia should be placed in the main combatant list. 96T 17:21, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with you regarding PhoneyWar/Leningrad, but my personal point was that I'd like to see 3-4 important events each year, without comparing their importance ouside the scope of a year. As for Weserübung/Greece: hmmm...not sure, Norwegian harbors, Swedish iron ore...tricky. Believe me, I hate to remove stuff. But my starters was just me being semi-bold...and it was a little quickie to get some discussions. Regards, --Dna-Dennistalk - contribs 17:32, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

The above suggestions are a good start. I have just added some more Asia/Pacific battles, as I found the list very Eurocentric. I think all of those added are significant, in particular Burma campaign (for duration and forces), Operation Cartwheel (Allied master plan for the South Pacific from 1943) and Battle of the Philippine Sea (the death of the Japanese aircraft carrier fleet) and a significant proportion of its air power. Grant |  Talk  20:11, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

RSI
Just a few words. I'm the anonymous user who engaged an edit war with user Daufer on the presence of the RSI in the list of the Axis states. You can find our discussion here. I'm going to do a last revert, and never more. The main reasons because I cancelled RSI from the list is that its military relevance is negligible and is already included in "others". If you want, continue the discussion. Bye, 87.14.234.106 14:47, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I realize it's far too late, but leaving a discussion never solves anything. Jmlk  1  7  02:41, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Kingdom of Italy
- 10th June 1940 : Kingdom of Italy enters WWII - 9th July 1943 : Allied Landing in Sicily - 25th July 1943 : General Badoglio and the King VE III overthrow Mussolini and Arrest him - 17th August 1943 : Allies conquer all of Sicily - 3rd September 1943 : Allies begin invasion of Italy, Axis retreat to Volturno Line - 8th September 1943 : The Kingdom of Italy sign the Armistice (Joining the Allies and declaring war on Germany) - 10th September 1943 : Germans take control of all Italy North of the Volturno Line; The King flees to the Allies - 12th September 1943 : Germans liberate Mussolini - 13th September 1943 : The Allies and the King create the Kingdom of the South with capital at Bari - 23rd September 1943 : The Italian Social Republic (RSI) is proclaimed and ruled by Mussolini - 23rd September 1943 : Badoglio (Kingdom of Italy) signs the formal documents of surrender with General Eisenhower aboard Nelson off Malta

The Kingdom of Italy was an Allied member for 2 days. The Kingdom of the South (a state put up by the allies in already allied territory) remained with the allies - end of war. Daufer —Preceding comment was added at 06:27, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Can you provide any source for this "Kingdom of the South"? Certainly the territory under the control of the allies was the southern part, but I can find no evidence that the Royal government did not claim to be the legitimate government of all Italy. In the meantime I am reverting what is, because of the template layout, a fairly messy edit. --Michael Johnson 08:39, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Literature about the Regno Del Sud (Kingdom of the South) is: Königreich des Südens : Italien 1943/44 / E. R. Rosen. Goltze, 1988-90 -  Regno del Sud / S. Bertoldi  -  The Italian Anti-Fascist Resistance in Retrospect: Three Decades of Historiography / Charles F. Delzell  -  Mussolini's Last Republic Propaganda and Politics in the Italian Social Republic / Luisa Quartermaine. I-Net source from A. Gasperi Foundation http://www.fondazionedegasperi.it/Inglese/page.asp?IDCategoria=782&IDSezione=4511&ID=91749 Daufer —Preceding comment was added at 08:51, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid I didn't read it like that. The internet source seems to me to use the term "Kingdom of the South" as a nickname to contrast it to RSI in the north, both of which I presume claimed to be the legitimate government of Italy, not governments of separate northern and southern states. In any case the point is technical, and hardly appropriate for a template. Perhaps you would be better off taking it to History of Italy as a monarchy and in the World Wars. --Michael Johnson 09:17, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Japan and China
I think we should remove "1937 invasion of China", because the war starts in 1939. 96.229.179.106 (talk) 04:17, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The war between Japan and China started in 1937, and is usually considered to be part of WW2. --Michael Johnson (talk) 04:24, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah! But in the timeline of World War II, it only has from 1939 onward. 96.229.179.106 (talk) 22:11, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That article does not mention the Japanese-Chinese conflict at all, apart from where American forces are involved. Overall the article tends to take an euro-centric view of the war. Problems with one article should not influence the attempts to improve another. --Michael Johnson (talk) 23:36, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * This is simply not true. There are 28 items on the timeline referencing the conflict in China. Eight of them are before US involvement in the War on December 8 1941. The entries referencing the US in China are relatively sparse amongst the remaining entries. You can drag in all sorts of conflicts into the grander heading WWII. Italy's campaign in Abyssinia, the Spanish Civil War, the Winter War. Some argue that WWII only ended with the fall of the Soviet Union. Others argue that 1914-1918 & 1919-1945 were the same conflict. Stephen Ambrose argues both. However - the generally accepted convention is that WWII began with the Invasion of Poland in 1939. The conflit in China merged into WWII when the Great Powers became involved. In much the same way as the War of Jenkins' Ear merged into the War of Austrian Succession Jooler (talk) 19:15, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Agree! WWII exactly started in 1939. 96.229.179.106 (talk) 23:10, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Spain?
Any thoughts of adding the Spain to the Axis power section with a link to Spain in World War II? While technically neutral, they did provide manpower and material to Axis war aims. Surv1v4l1st (Talk 17:29, 26 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Neutral is neutral, although for part of the war Spain described itself as a "Non-belligerent"; it also set a (deliberately?) very high bar for its active participation and backed off quickly. Most "neutrals" were partial: Ireland was largely pro-Allies & allowed its citizens to help the war effort and some violations of its territory, etc; Sweden's iron ore was critical to the German war effort; Portugal allowed allied bases on the Canary Islands. I think we have to go with the formal definition, while explaining the nuances. Folks at 137 (talk) 09:16, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Yugoslav resistance
In the resistance section, under countries, Yugoslavia is linked to Yugoslav Partisans, but they were not the sole important resistence movement. During the war, the resistence was divided among the Royalists (article Chetniks), that fought the Germans with the final goal of re-establishing the Monarchy, and the Tito Partisans, that eventually won, and did their best to show the first ones as collaborators. The USA and France condecorated the Monarchists, and it will be fair to have both groups included. Maybe under Yugoslavia:Partisans and Yugoslavia:Royalists. Much effort has been done by one Tito enthusist editor to demonstrate the collaboration of the Royalists, so the article is quite unbalanced, but anyway, they were an important resistence moviment in the country, and that is undoubtible. FkpCascais (talk) 02:42, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Civilian impact / war crimes
Per a comment at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history

The "Civilian impact" section was recently retitled "war crimes", which is reasonable enough - but it does mean that the Bengal Famine of 1943 is now described as a war crime, which is a bit at odds with the usual interpretation. Any idea on how best to restructure this? It's probably worth mentioning the Famine somewhere... Shimgray | talk | 10:57, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Вот это прикол!

Crimean_Offensive
Why in the box in 1944 Crimean Offensive didn't appear? Stephan from NN (talk) 23:02, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Adding War Memorials to Aftermath ???
Does anyone object if add War Memorials category to the Aftermath section? I will also populate it with links to several WWII memorials around the globe which have Wikipedia articles. Leidseplein (talk) 18:21, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Could you please be more specific? - which articles are you planning to link here? Thanks, Nick-D (talk) 08:08, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Here are some; there are probably more: National Monument (Amsterdam), Monument to the Women of World War II, National World War II Memorial, Poklonnaya Hill, Mamayev Kurgan, then there are the combination cemeteries/memorials such as:
 * Kranji War Cemetery, Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery, Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial, Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, and others. Then of course there are the many memorials/cemeteries to both WWI and WWII,   What do you think?Leidseplein (talk) 17:02, 4 April 2011 (UTC)  Also, I'm in the process of writing 3 more articles now on memorials, I hope they can fit in somewhere on the WWII template.   Leidseplein (talk) 17:06, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Here's a much larger list Category:World War II memorials and cemeteries, , ,Leidseplein (talk) 18:41, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It's been a week, does anyone have further concerns about adding a section on WW2 memorials/cemeteries to the WW2 template?
 * Leidseplein (talk) 04:04, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 July 2014 - Finland
We have the dates when Italy switched sides, okay. Then why not adding to the template: Finland, Axis (1940-44), Allies (1944-1945)? I demand it for consistency. --79.8.234.72 (talk) 01:46, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

79.8.234.72 (talk) 01:46, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Finland never joined the UN (until 1955) which was the definition of Ally. It was treated as an enemy country by the US and UK in 1945. Rjensen (talk) 02:37, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: per above. -- Mdann 52   talk to me!  08:22, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Ally
Countries like Guatemala, Ecuador or Liberia were Allies too. Look all the Allies countries; Allies of World War II. The Template:World War II forget many countries as Allies, why? --Nockayoub (talk) 14:53, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Add bombs and weaponry?
Where should we put a template that shows the following history, such as the time in Japanese side of WWII, the German side of WWII, etc.? Qwertyxp2000 (talk) 22:34, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Antonescu
Hello, I have a proposal: How about you also put Marshal Ion Antonescu in the Axis leaders category? I mean, if you put the top 4 Allied leaders, you got to put the Top 4 Axis leaders too, right? And as far as I know, Antonescu was the leader of the 4th most important Axis country, and the third most important in Europe. That empty space below Mussolini just begs to be filled, and Antonescu is the most plausible candidate for that.

Romanian-and-proud (talk) 16:43, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 August 2019
War Crimes list lacks Ukrainian war crimes: Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia 2A02:A318:813B:6100:C9B6:8941:F84F:144F (talk) 16:48, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
 * ❌, the truth of the matter is that there was a vast number of (possible) war crimes during WWII, take a look at List of war crimes for some. For Poland alone see Category:World War II crimes in Poland. To list them all would probably need a template of this size in itself. This template does list all WWII articles, just the ones that are probably most important. --Jules  (Mrjulesd) 21:38, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Invasion of Luxembourg is missing
hi i see at the timeline 1940, near the invasion of belgium and the netherlands, luxembourg is missing! Can somebody please insert Luxembourg in that space refering to the article "German invasion of Luxembourg" ? Thank you Letzebuergerr