and Africa. In an effort to control the oil reserves of Southeast Asia, Japan seized Indochina from
France and attacked Malaysia and Burma. When the United States imposed an embargo against Japan
as a result of these actions, Japan retaliated by attacking the U.S. fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor,
Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. The Japanese attack brought the United States and its greater industrial
power into the war on the side of the Allied powers.
The early years of the war showcased Axis strength. In 1941, the tide began to turn in favor of the
Allies when Hitler undertook an unsuccessful winter invasion of Russia and the United States entered
the war. When Hitler was forced to withdraw his forces from Russia in 1942, Soviet armies began
their advance through Eastern Europe and into Germany. After deposing Mussolini, Allied forces
pushed into France and met in Germany in April 1945. Hitler’s subsequent suicide was followed by
Allied victory in Europe in May 1945.
After victory in Europe, the Soviet Union assisted in the Allied effort against Japan. After the U.S.
use of atomic bombs against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese surrendered
in August 1945, ending World War II.
Cost of the War
World War II took a devastating toll in human life, killing about 35 million people, including about
20 million in the Soviet Union. The Holocaust , Hitler’s elimination of European Jews in gas
chambers, took the lives of six million. Other groups such as Gypsies, Slavs, political prisoners, and
Jehovah’s Witnesses were also sent to extermination camps during the Holocaust. More than 300,000
were killed by the Japanese offensive in China, most of them in the city of Nanking. The fire
bombings of Japanese cities and of the German city of Dresden added tens of thousands to the death
toll. Nearly 80,000 were killed in Hiroshima, and tens of thousands were killed in Nagasaki.
Designing the Peace
World War II peace settlements began before the war had ended:
• In 1943, at the Tehran Conference , the Allied powers decided to focus on the liberation of France,
allowing the Soviet Union to move through the nations of Eastern Europe as it advanced toward
France. The Soviet Union, therefore, gained ground and influence in Eastern Europe.
• In 1945, at the Yalta Conference , the Soviet Union agreed to join the war against Japan in
exchange for territory in Manchuria and the northern island of Japan. The Yalta Conference also
provided for the division of Germany into four zones of occupation after the war.
• In 1945, the Potsdam Conference gave the Soviets control of eastern Poland, with Poland
receiving part of eastern Germany. It made the final arrangements for the division of Germany and
also divided Austria.
After the war had ended:
• The United States occupied Japan.
• Korea was divided into U.S. and Soviet occupation zones.
• China regained most of its territory, but fighting between Nationalist and Communist forces
resumed.
• Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia became Soviet provinces.
• Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania were occupied by the Soviet Union.