5 Steps to a 5TM AP European History

The Interwar Years and World War II (^) ‹ 189
• A successful invasion of England required air superiority over the English Channel; a
combination of daring fighting by the Royal Air Force and a coordinated effort of civil-
ian defense operations all along the coast foiled German attempts to gain it.
A frustrated Hitler responded by ordering a nightly bombing of London in a two-
month attempt to disrupt industrial production and to break the will of the British people.
In the end, neither was achieved. In mid-October, Hitler decided to postpone the invasion;
the Battle of Britain had been won by the British.
The War in North Africa and the Balkans (1941–1942)
In 1941, the war became a global conflict as Italian forces invaded North Africa, attempt-
ing to push the British out of Egypt. However, British forces routed the Italians; Germany
responded by sending troops into North Africa and the Balkans. Germany had two objec-
tives:
• It coveted the Balkans for their rich supply of raw materials, especially Romanian oil.
• It also wanted control of the Suez Canal in Egypt, which was the vital link between
Britain and its resource-rich empire.
The Germans successfully occupied the Balkans, as British efforts to make a last-ditch
stand in mainland Greece and on the nearby island of Crete proved in vain. Italian regi-
ments in Libya were reinforced by German divisions under General Erwin Rommel, and
the ill-equipped British forces were driven back into Egypt.
German Invasion of the Soviet Union (June to December 1941)
The Nazi–Soviet Non-Aggression Pact had always been a matter of convenience. Both sides
knew that war would eventually come; the question was when. Hitler answered the ques-
tion late in the spring of 1941, launching Operation Barbarossa and sending three million
troops into the Soviet Union. Hitler’s decision was influenced by several factors:
• His desire to create an empire that dominated all of Europe
• His racialist view of the world, which told him that the “Slavic” peoples of the Soviet
Union were an easier target than his “Teutonic cousins,” the British
• His need to feed and fuel his war machine with the wheat of Ukraine and the oil of the
Caucasus
• His hope that once Germany dominated the continent from the English Channel to the
Ural Mountains, the British would have to come to terms with defeat and no invasion
of Britain would be necessary
Germany’s eastern army succeeded in conquering those parts of the Soviet Union that
produced 60 percent of its coal and steel and almost half its grain, and by December, it
was within striking distance of Moscow. But as winter set in, the Russian army launched a
counterattack against German forces, who were ill-supplied for a winter war. The Russian
army suffered millions of casualties but turned back the German invasion.
Hitler’s decision to attack the Soviet Union had one other great consequence: it forged
the first link in what would become the Grand Alliance between Great Britain, the Soviet
Union, and the United States, as Churchill (despite being a staunch anti-communist)
pledged his support to the USSR. Publicly, he announced, “Any man or state that fights
against Nazidom will have our aid.” Privately, he remarked that if Hitler invaded Hell,
it would be desirable to find something friendly to say about the devil. The final link in
the Grand Alliance would come through a combination of Churchill’s persuasion and a
Japanese attack.
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