History of World War II

World War Two was the greatest conflict of all history, only a generation after the first 'War to end all Wars'. But when Hitler's Germany smashed into Poland in September 1939, it became clear that the new European war would be no repeat of the 1914-18 stalemate. The Germans were now the masters of a revolutionary 'lightning war'. In Poland, Scandanavia, the Low Countries and France, the panzers spearheaded the blitzkrieg until June 1940, when only Britain resisted Hitler's might. By then, World War Two had erupted on land, sea and air, and it was in the air that Germany was finally checked at the Battle of Britain. But this was an isolated setback. By June 1941, German forces had swept through the Balkans and into North Africa, as Hitler prepared for his greatest battle of all in Russia. The German invasion of Russia in June 1941 was intended as Hitler's ultimate triumph. Instead, it turned into his greatest disaster as World War Two became truly global. But in December 1941, Hitler's divisions stood poised at the gates of Moscow, as, faraway in the Pacific, his Japanese allies stunned America with her fateful attack on Pearl Harbor. America was now a full Allied combatant in the Pacific, in Africa, and, eventually, in Europe, as the war swung towards the Allied cause.