Narrator:
Q: “There was no turning point in the Second World War. The Allies were always going to win.” Is this convincing? Why or why not?
Introduction
The Oxford English Dictionary defines turning point as a point at which a decisive change of any kind takes place; a critical point, crisis. However, confronted with the extent of the difficulties by early 1942 in Europe and the Pacific, it would be a mistake, and so contrary to what the question stated, to assume “the Allies were always going to win” the Second World War. By the end of 1939, the situation in Europe was dire as Britain and France were confronted by a greatly strengthened Germany which drew from the resources of conquered European states such as Austria and Czechoslovakia. In China, Japanese acts of aggression throughout the early 1930’s expanded her influence in Manchuria, and by July 1937, these acts ultimately cumulated in the Marco Polo Bridge Incident which marked the formal beginnings of the Japanese invasion along the Chinese Mainland. The results of this invasion allowed Japan to expand her control along the coast, with major port cities like Shanghai falling into her hands. The Second World War thus began earlier in Asia than Europe, and though both Japan and Germany would not be officially aligned together until December 1941, their actions elevated them to respective dominating positions of military and economic strength against any potential opposition.
As the Germans and Japanese progressed, the Allies in contrast, comprising Britain and France were in no position to confront these individual and yet “strong” threats. In 1939, the USA, China and the USSR were not included for various reasons. The USA alone would not enter into any form of concrete alliance until the devastating events of Pearl Harbor in December 1941 propelled it into a formal arrangement with the UK. But until the Japanese attack, and as suspicion lingered between the USSR and the Allies, the USA was keeping herself out of the conflict, at least militarily, due to its policy of isolation. China was also not involved as the Allies were focusing more on the European scene, relegating Asia to secondary importance. To compound this problem of a lack of allies, Britain and France also lacked any strand of motivation to resist aggression, and the economic strength of the Germany or the level of preparedness of the Japanese military. With difficulties such as these in place, the odds on the Allies losing the war were clearly higher, They were confronted with opposing powers who were ahead of them economically and militarily. How were the Allies going to overcome these odds? It would have been reasonable for anyone to postulate instead, “There was no turning point in the Second World War. The Axis powers were always going to win”.
Placing these overall difficulties faced by the Allies within the context of the question, how the Allies responded to overcome these issues determined whether they would win the War. So what made an Allied victory possible? To explain this, it is necessary to explore in greater detail through the lenses of the individuals involved, how these difficulties, including the fall of France and the losses suffered in the European theater in 1940 and the early stages in the other theaters like the Atlantic and Pacific, were created, resulting in the elevation of the Axis powers of Germany and Japan into seemingly dominant positions. A section in the blog is devoted to explaining these difficulties the Allies were facing in these areas of military, industry, technology, politics and moral. By establishing the extent of these difficulties, one could then answer the key question postulated: what were the turning points for the Allies where a decisive change in the flow of the war took place? To answer this question one could simply classify as turning points one or several of the battles fought in the European, Asian and Atlantic theaters which the blog deals with, such as the Battle of Stalingrad, where the USSR’s victory was decisive in turning the tide of the battle in the Red Army’s favor against the advance of the Wehrmacht. However, the reasons for the ultimate Allied victory were far more comprehensive than just winning battles. While winning were undoubtedly important, ultimate Allied victory owed much to the US, UK and the USSR being able to gain back the advantage in these political, industrial, technological and moral areas, and in conjunction capitalize on the mistakes and failures committed in these areas by the Axis powers. Being able to gain the edge over the Axis powers in these areas was certainly crucial for the Allies, and effectively constituted the turning points over the course of the war as the Allies evidently relied on many or all of these advantages gained in the different areas to win the crucial battles of each theater, producing the following effects: the blunting of any further Axis advances at key battlefields such as the Coral Sea in the Pacific and Stalingrad in Europe, and then launching major counteroffensives to roll back the Axis forces. Only once the counteroffensives in these theaters were made could the Allies win the War, and they would achieve a victory that was undeniably total and absolute.
