User talk:Franck 1

INTRO

Between the wars wich broke out in the third decade of the twentieth century and the peace of 1945,most nations,most of the world's manufacturing capacity and most of the Earth's people,were directly or indirectly involved in the conflict which is known as the Second world war.This description of the period is,of course,mostly a convenient shorthand:neither Japan's invasion of Manchuria,Italy's attack on Abissinia nor the Spanish civil war are normally included under the umbrella of world war.The events so described are usually those which began with the German invansion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and ended with the Japanese surrender in August 1945. Ignorance and propaganda formed most ideas of the nature of the conflict.But as the number of belligerents increased from 1941 onwards,a broad view emerged among the nations fighting Nazi Germany or Japan that these two countries represented a unique political evil.Conversely,largely as a result of the eloquence of Churchill and Roosevelt,the Allied cause was increasingly seen as a democratic crusade,and a great tyranny like Stalin's Russia was able to assume a mantle to which it had no possible claim. This general view of WW2 barely survived the peace.Many nations soon found it inadequate on many counts;few historians had ever accepted it as anything but a propaganda device.Today,only if we look at the war as a number of separately motivated wars gradually engulfing most of the globe,can we make any sense at all of complex events of the time. The difficulty of any other approach is easily demonstrated.France,an early belligerent,sometimes chooses to see itself as involved in two separate wars,one in 1939-40 and another in 1942-45;two great powers,Italy and Soviet Union,changed sides during the course of hostilities,and the latter only joined the war against Japan in the very last days.Some nations were brought into war as a result of the invasion of their territory,the Netherlands and Belgium by the Germans,Norway by the British and French,Finland by the Soviets.

INTRO
between the wars wich broke out in the third decade of the twentieth century and the peace of 1945,most nations,most of the world's manufacturing capacity and most of the Earth's people,were directly or indirectly involved in the conflict which is known as the Second world war.This description of the period is,of course,mostly a convenient shorthand: neithr Japan's invasion of Manchuria,Italy's attack on Abyssinia nor the Spanish civil war are normally included under the umbrella of world war.The events so described are usually those which began with the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and ended with the Japanese surrender in August 1945. Ignorance and propaganda