A Short Timeline of

World War II

Japanese and Italian Aggressions

1931: the Japanese army occupied Manchuria (northern China) without knowledge of the Japanese government. The Chinese government under Tschiang Kai Shek did not put up any resistance. When the Chinese protested with the League of Nations, the Japanese left the League of Nations. The great powers did not intervene.
1935: Italy conquered Ethiopia. This time the League of Nations imposed economic sanctions, on which Italy left the League of Nations.
1937: After a provoked incident Japan began to conquer all of China. Resistance came from Mao Tse Tung's communists.

German Annexations

1936: German troops entered the demilitarized German territory on the shores of river Rhine. German generals and diplomats had warned decidedly of this step, because a military counter action of France would have meant a disaster for Germany with its low level of armament at that time. But Hitler won his risky play: France and Great Britain did only protest on diplomatic level; the conservative British government thought that Hitler was less dangerous than communist Russia.
1938: Hitler demanded for the unification of Germany and Austria under the slogan "Heim ins Reich" [home into the empire]. Austrian Federal Chancellor Schuschnigg planned a referendum, but Hitler let his troops invade before it could be held. His supporters in Austria made sure that the German troops were welcomed with flowers instead of rifles.
1938: encouraged by the passivity of the western powers Hitler's propaganda Minister Goebbels spread embittered complaints against the alleged suppression of Germans in Czechoslovakia. This time England and France reacted, a conference was held in Munich. Prime ministers Chamberlain (UK), Daladier (F), Mussolini (I) and Hitler (D). decided on September, 29th, 1938 to separate several peripheral areas with a German population majority from Czechoslovakia and integrate them into Germany. Hitler promised, this would be his last territorial demand - Chamberlain and Daladier were naive enough to believe him. Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union (Russia) were not even asked to take part at the conference! Poland (though threatened by German demands themselves) and Hungary used the opportunity and annexed some areas of Czechoslovakia.
1939: On March, 14 a declaration of independence of Slovakia was set up and made public in Berlin. The same night Czechoslovakian president Hacha signed a capitulation and German troops occupied Prague combatless. Lithuania retreated from the Memel area under threat of war. Italy occupied Albania on April, 7.
1939: Hitler demanded on March, 21 that the city of Danzig (Gdansk) would be integrated into the German empire and an exterritorial connection to East Prussia established through Polish territory. Great Britain and France made a declaration of guarantee for Poland. In France, however, the question "Mourir pour Dantzig?" marked a little engaged public opinion.
1939: The Soviet dictator Stalin realized that the western powers would not (yet) be ready for a common position against Hitler and tried therefore to negotiate with Hitler - which should prove to be fatal for the USSR as it had been for other countries. On August, 23 the ministers of foreign affairs Ribbentrop (D) and Molotow (USSR) signed the nonaggression treaty named after them and a secret supplementary protocol, which regulated the division and annexation of Poland between the two powers.

Outbreak of World War II in Europe

1939: While the western powers were still shocked that Hitler had made an agreement with the USSR (despite his anti-communist rhetoric), Germman troops entered Poland on September, 1. The Russian invasion began on September, 17. By the end of September, Poland was occupied completely.
1939: Great Britain and France declared war to Germany on September, 3, but French troops remained behind the Maginot Line, a defense wall along the Rhine border that was as ineffective as enormous. The first phase of the Second World War has been named drôle de guerre [strange war] because nothing happend. The western powers only relied on their sea-blockade.
Meanwhile, the Soviet Union incorporated the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and waged war against Finland in winter 1939/40. After embittered resistance Finland lost some peripheral areas. Neither the western powers nor the neutral Scandinavian states intervened.
1940: Both war parties planned an invasion on neutral Norway, in order to control the iron ore port of Narvik - Hitler was there a little earlier on April, 9. Germany occupied neutral Denmark as well.

Lightning War in the West

1940: German airborne troops and tanks circumvented the French Maginot Line through neutral Netherlands and Belgium and conquered half of France within 1½ months (May, 10 - June, 22). The remainders of the French army and the British expedition corps were evacuated in a last minute operation from Dunkirk to England. Paris was occupied combatless. Some 50,000 Polish soldiers were driven towards the French - Swiss border and could escape into Switzerland. After a seize fire, a government willing to collaborate with Germany under Marshall Pétain was established at Vichy. This government was, among others, responsible for the deportation of thousands of Jews to German concentration camps in eastern Europe during World War II.
1940: In the United Kingdowm, Winston Churchill replaced Chamberlain as prime minister on May, 5th. He could promise his people nothing better than "blood, sweat and tears".
1940-1941: In the air battle on England new technologies (RADAR) prevented a German victory.
1939-1945: In naval warfare both sides tried to obstruct strategic supply of the opponent with heavy warships and submarines. More transport capacity was destroyed during World War II than had existed before the war.
1940-1942: The battle of North Africa (Lybian oil fields!) was won by British troops.

World War II: The Turning Point

1941: When Hitler thought he was safe in continental Europe, he returned to his old goals in eastern Europe and began war with Russia on June, 22. The Germans almost reached Moscow. In the winter they were pushed back a little.
1942: In summer German troops conquered the oil fields in the Caucasus region.
1942/43: The winter offensive of the Red Army encircled German armies near Stalingrad. Hitler blocked a timely retreat into safer positions. By end of January 200,000 German troops at Stalingrad had been eliminated, the remaining 90,000 capitualated.
1941: The USA had supplied weapons to the United Kingdom from the beginnings of World War II, but they did not take actively part in the fighting until Japan attacked the U.S. fleet base Pearl Harbor on December, 7.
1942-1945: British and American air raids destroyed most German cities. Allied aircraft often violated Switzerland's airspace on their way to southern Germany.
1943: Allied troops landed in Italy on July, 10. Italy changed sides. Fascist dictator Mussolini was removed from office and arrested, but a German command liberated him. When Mussolini tried to reach Switzerland he was shot by Italian partisans [resistance fighters] in 1945.
1944: Allied landing in northern France on June, 6 and in southern France on August, 15. Paris was liberated on August, 25 and by the end of August, allied troops had reached Switzerlands border.

Final Phase of World War II

1943: In January U.S. president Roosevelt and U.K. prime minister Churchill agreed in Casablanca that the war would last until Germany would surrender unconditionally.
In November, Roosevelt and Churchill accepted Stalin's plan to annex eastern Prussia and parts of Poland and give Poland some German territory (new border marked by rivers Oder and Neisse). Germany should be divided.
1945: Hitler commanded total resistance to his armies, but when the Red Army had reached Berlin, he cowardly committed suicide (April, 30).
1945: On May, 8 Germany capitulated and the second World War II came to an end in Europe; in Asia the fighting went on, however.
1945: Japan, though in a desperate position, was not willing to end the war. U.S. atomic bomb releases on Hiroshima (August, 8) and Nagasaki (August, 9) changed this: on August, 15 World War II was over.

See also Timeline of the Second World War (www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk)