Axis Strategy in World War II

1
Axis Strategy in World War II

• Strategic Level of War
• 8802 Lesson 10

2
Last Week The International Environment

• Points to remember
• Collective defense
• Shift of NATOs role in PCW era
• Difference between US obligation in NATO and the
  UN
• PFP

3
Avis Strategy in World War II

• Educational Objectives
• Axis grand strategy
• Key components in decision-making
• Goals , objectives and ambitions
• German and Japanese strategies

4
Axis Strategy

• Study of policies and strategies
• Focus on
• pre-war national strategy,
• its military component and
• its wartime implementation

5
Themes

• Force requirements and availability
• Events and the evolution of strategy
• Coalition politics
• Conflict termination

6
World War I

• First modern war
• First global war
• First near-total

7
World War I

• Destroyed the Old European Order
• Decline of the European States
• US enters then departs the world arena
• Rise of the Soviet Union
• Creation of the League of Nations
• Idea of Community of Nations

8
Legacy of World War I

• The Victors
• France exhausted, paranoid
• Britain retrenched, conciliatory
• Tsarist Russia overthrown
• Italy, Japan dissatisfied with outcome
• U.S. disenchanted/isolationist
• Eastern Europe struggling
• Asian colonies less secure

9
Legacy of World War I

• Germany Treaty of Versailles
• Armed forces reduced
• Lost land to Belgium, France, Denmark and Poland
  
• Lost all colonies
• Reparations to the Allies 33 billion
• Demilitarized Rhine
• "War Guilt Clause"

10
Territory Lost
11
Nazi Ideology

• Justification for War
• Totalitarian Regime illiberal and
  antidemocratic
• Nationalism Volksgemeinshaft
• Racial policy anti-Semitism, social-Darwinism
• Lebensraum space and resources
• Anticommunist Savior of the West

12
German Totalitarianism

• Single National
• Will,
• Party,
• Government

13
German Nationalism

• Volksgemeinshaft
• Insult of Versailles
• Reparation, Occupation,
• Second-Class Military Status
• Subordination of individual to the State

14
Lebensraum Drang nach Osten

• "Living space in the East for the people  In
  the course of the centuries streams of Teutonic
  and German blood seeped away and were lost,
  because in the past, policy relating to
  nationality lacked clear insight and purposeful
  striving. East Germany needs the best German men.
   It is vital living space for Germans -- today
  more than ever!"

15
Lebensraum Economic Independence

• Hegemony within continental
• Europe
• Self-Contained Economically
• Gain Land, Strategic Resources,
• Slave Labor
• Oil from the Caucasus
• Blockade-Proof
• Avoid vulnerability of WWI

16
German Anticommunism

• Nazi Ideology was
• Antithetical and
• Violently Opposed to Bolshevism

17
Nazi Ideology and War

• Cause Nazi ideology justified a
• war of aggression
• Affect
• Alienated conquered peoples, loss of many of best
  scientists,
• Made a negotiated peace impossible

18
German War Aims

• to reverse the verdict of the first and to
  destroy the settlement that followed it.
• Regain lost territory
• Counter bolshevism
• Conquer Europe to consolidate his power beyond
  the German border and
• Become the undisputed leader of Europe
  
  A.J.P. Taylor

19
German Strategic Timeline

• Consolidate Power 1933-34
• Refute Versailles 1935
• Expansion Short of War 1938-39
• Nonaggression Pact/Invade Poland 1939
• France and the Low Countries 1940
• Great Britain Invasion/
• U-boots 1940-41
• Soviet Union/United States 1941

20
German Strategic Assumptions

• Western Democracies reluctant to fight
• Avoiding a two-front war was possible
• Soviet Union was a rotten edifice
• US unwilling to fight/unable to produce war
  materials/fighting men
• Fight a short decisive war, resulting in Germany
  as the continental hegemonic power
• Full economic mobilization unnecessary

21
Realities of War

• Britain continued to fight
• Soviet Union survived
• United States as arsenal of democracy
• Axis powers of very limited assistance
• Prolonged war of attrition
• Germany overwhelmed by the Allies by 1943

22
German Status 1943

• Barbarossa had failed
• North Africa, Sicily, Southern Italy lost
• U-boots on the defensive
• Italy surrendered
• US decisively in the war
• Lufwaffe disappearing from the skies
• The war was effectively lost

23
Legacy of World War I

• Italy
• 460,000 KIA
• Orlando believed he was ignored at Versailles
• Italy had not received the land that had promised
  in the secret Treaty of London
• Heavily in debt, mostly to the US
• Still more of a geographic expression than a state

24
WWI Aftermath

• For Italy
• Before 1922, Parliamentary monarchy
• Unemployment and unrest
• Fascist Party led by Benito Mussolini
• Friendship with Hitler 1936
• Pact of Steel with the Nazis 1939

25
Fascism Defined

• Totalitarian regime
• Mussolinis National Fascist Party
• Counter to Bolshevik insurrections
• Ultranationalist
• Illiberal collective self
• Focus on leader and party

26
Fascisms Appeal

• Fear of revolution
• Frustrated with liberal democracies
• Appealed primarily to the middleclass
• Laid blame elsewhere
• Sought Place in the Sun
• Co-opted other groups

27
Italian War Aims

• Regain status as a Great Power
• National unification
• Rebuild Italy
• Recreate the Roman Empire

28
Italian Strategy

• War should be actively sought
• Help unify Italy and enhance Fascism
• Help Germany defeat France
• Gain all of French North Africa and dominate the
  Mediterranean
• Make alliance with Germany

29
Italys Strategic Timeline

• 1922 Mussolini assumed power
• 1935 Italy invaded Ethiopia
• Supported Fascists in Spanish Civil War
• Aligned with Hitler
• Declared war in support of German success

30
Realities of Italys War

• War came too soon
• Little popular support
• Less advanced technology
• Primitive economy
• Less ideological intensity
• Naval ambitions contained
• Italys war ended sooner

31
Japans Emergence

• 1853 Commodore Perry opens Japan
• Not colonized
• Gained foothold in China
• 1902 Alliance with Great Britain
• 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War
• 1910 Annexation of Korea
• 1914 Declared war on Germany

32
Legacy of World War I Japan

• Gained Germanys Pacific colonies
• 1920 Recession
• 1927 Banking Crisis
• Agricultural Collapse
• Concern about overpopulation
• Fear of dependency on imports
• American Immigration Restrictions
• Washington Naval Conference
• Economic Depression 1930-32

33
Japanese Ideology

• NOT derived from European Marxist/Socialist
  Tradition
• Not dictatorial
• Mixture of feudalism and Industrial Age
• Bushido
• Civilian government subordinate to the armed
  forces

34
Japanese War Aims

• Defeat China
• Seize colonies
• Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
• Maintain Soviet neutrality
• Recognized as a world power
• National cohesion
• Wage limited war against US GB

35
Economic Determinism

• Oil drove Japanese Policy
• No indigenous source
• Rapidly growing industrial economy
• War in China
• Imperial Navy
• US oil embargo

36
Japanese Plan for Conquest
37
Japanese Strategic Assumptions

• US Actions made inevitable
• USSR neutral
• US lacked will to fight
• Germany would continue to win
• Short and decisive Pacific War
• Superior martial spirit overcome superior
  resources
• Japan would be invulnerable

38
Early Success

• Gains in China
• Pearl Harbor
• Hong Kong/Singapore
• Prince of Wales and Repulse
• Guam/Wake/Philippines
• New Guinea
• Superior weapons technology

39
Japanese Status 1943

• IJN defeated at Midway
• Successful US offensives
• Attrition of naval and aviation assets
• Weight of US industrial might
• US submarines tightening blockade
• Germany on the defense
• Ultimate defeat not in question

40
Axis Strategy
41
Axis Diplomacy

• November 25, 1936 Anti-Comintern Pact
• German Japan vs. Communism
• November 6, 1937 Anti-Comintern Pact
• Italy, Germany, Japan
• May 22, 1939 Pact of Steel
• Germany Italy collective defense
• September 27, 1940 Tripartite Pact
• Italy, Germany, Japan

42
Axis Cooperation

• Similar ideologies and world views
• Noncompetitive spheres of influence
• Mostly mutual enemies
• Revolutionary charge through war

43
Examples of Cooperation

• North Africa and the Balkans
• German coal to Italy
• Declaration of war against the US
• Japanese Tin and Rubber to Germany
• Some intel technological transfers

44
Examples of Non-Cooperation

• German Invasion of Romania
• Italian Invasion of Balkans
• German Invasion of the Soviet Union
• Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
• Italian surrender in 1943
• Japanese never declared war on Soviet Union
• No detailed planning

45
Axis Strategy Overview

• Forced into War
• War
• Was a positive
• Help domestic conditions
• Would be short and decisive
• Enemies lacked the will or means to fight
• Little connection between
• political objectives and military means
• Expanding Ambitions

46
Allied Strategy Overview

• Markedly different
• Based on liberal/democratic ideals
• Four Freedoms
• Maintain the status quo
• Common strategy
• Close cooperation

47
Issues Under Consideration

• Hitler's War Aims
• German Miscalculations and Mistakes
• Operation Barbarossa
• Japanese War Aims
• Pearl Harbor
• Meaning of Victory

48
Hitler's War Aims

• What were Hitlers war aims?
• Were they attainable, given better strategic and
  operational decision making?

49
German Miscalculations and Mistakes

• What were the principal strategic political and
  military mistakes and miscalculations made by
  Hitler and other German leaders during the period
  1939-1942?

50
Operation Barbarossa

• Analyze the origins and execution of operation
  Barbarossa.
• What were the ramifications of this operation?
• What was learned from it?

51
Japanese War Aims

• What were Japans war aims in WWII
• How did it attempt to achieve these ends?
• Were these ends attainable, given better
  strategic and operational decision making?

52
Pearl Harbor

• What was the strategic rationale for the Japanese
  decision to attack Pearl Harbor?
• Was the attack a good or bad decision?

53
Meaning of Victory

• What are the benefits of seeking unconditional
  surrender?
• What are the effects on material and human
  resources?
• What effect does the threat of war crimes trials
  have on the determination to continue the fight?

54
Points to remember

• Quick victory over Poland and avoid a two-front
  war?
• Hitlers national strategy
• Achievement of Japans war aims
• Similarities between Japanese and German
  strategies

55
Questions?
56
Next week

• Allied Strategy in WWII

N.B. Exam March 17th