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Allies

The Allies of World War II were the countries officially opposed to the Axis powers during the Second World War. Within the ranks of the Allied powers, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United States of America, and the United Kingdom were known as "The Big Three." U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt referred to the Big Three and China as the "Four Policemen". France, before its defeat in 1940 and after its liberation in 1944, was also considered a major Ally.

During December 1941, Roosevelt devised the name "United Nations" for the Allies, and the Declaration by United Nations, on 1 January 1942, was the basis of the modern UN. At the Potsdam Conference of July-August 1945, Roosevelt's successor, Harry S. Truman, proposed that the foreign ministers of China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States "should draft the peace treaties and boundary settlements of Europe," which led to the creation of the Council of Foreign Ministers.

History

China

When World War II began, China had been fighting the Empire of Japan since 1937. During the 1920s, the Kuomintang (KMT) government was aided by the Soviet Union, which helped to reorganize the party, superficially at least, along Leninist lines: a unification of party, state, and army. However, following the unification of China, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek purged leftists from his party and reluctantly allied with the Communist Party of China to fight against the Japanese, while keeping his best troops in reserve in preparation for confrontation with the communists. This remained the case even after the Mukden Incident and the state of Manchukuo set by Japanese troops in 1931. Chiang's anti-communist campaigns continued while he fought small, incessant conflicts against Japan throughout the 1930s. This period saw China lose territories piece by piece to Japan.

In the early 1930s, Germany and China became close partners in military and industrial matters. Nazi Germany provided the largest proportion of Chinese arms imports and technical expertise. Following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of July 7, 1937, China and Japan became embroiled in a full-scale war which continued until 1945. Initially, Germany denounced Japanese war crimes in China, such as the Nanking Massacre of 1937. However Germany also recognized that Japan would be a more capable ally against the Soviet Union, and broke off the cooperation with China in May 1938. The Soviet Union, wishing to keep China in the fight against Japan, supplied China with some military assistance until 1941, until it made peace with Japan to prepare for the war against Germany.

Even though China had been fighting the longest among all the Allied powers, it only officially joined the Allies after the attack on Pearl Harbor, on 7 December 1941. Chiang Kai-shek felt Allied victory was assured with the entrance of the United States into the war and he declared war on Germany and the other Axis nations. However, Allied aid remained low as the Burma Road was closed and the Allies suffered a series of military defeats against Japan early on in the campaign. The bulk of military aid would not arrive until the spring of 1945. More than 1.5 million Japanese troops were trapped in the China Theater; troops that otherwise could have been deployed elsewhere had China collapsed and made a separate peace with Japan.

Key Alliances are Formed

On September 1 1939, the German invasion of Poland began World War II. The United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany on September 3. The British declaration also covered the Indian Empire and other states which were British Crown Colonies at the time.

Following the Statute of Westminster (1931), the Dominions of the British Commonwealth had independence in foreign policy. Australia and New Zealand accepted and reiterated the British declaration. Nepal, another independent member of the Commonwealth, declared war on Germany on September 4. The South African Prime Minister, Barry Hertzog, refused to declare war, leading to the collapse of his coalition government on September 6; the new Prime Minister, Jan Smuts, declared war that same day. Canada declared war on Germany on September 10; this was necessary as Canada had ratified the Statute of Westminster.

On September 17, USSR invaded Poland from the East and on November 30 the Soviet Union attacked Finland. The following year the USSR annexed the Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — together with parts of Romania. The German-Soviet agreement was brought to an end by The German invasion of the USSR on June 22, 1941.

The United States of America joined the Allies following the attack on Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941. The Declaration by United Nations, on January 1, 1942, officially united 26 nations as Allies. (The Declaration also formed the basis for the United Nations.) The informal Big 3 alliance of the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States emerged in the latter half of the war, and their decisions determined Allied strategy around the world.

Formal Alliances During the War

Original Allies

The original Allies were those states that declared war on Nazi Germany following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939.


These countries were allied to each other by a net of common defence pacts and military alliance pacts signed before the war. The Franco-British Alliance dated back to the Entente Cordiale of 1904 and the Triple Entente of 1907, active during the World War I. The Franco-Polish Alliance was signed in 1921 and then amended in 1927 and 1939. The Polish-British Common Defence Pact, signed on August 25, 1939, contained promises of mutual military assistance between the nations in the event either was attacked by Nazi Germany.

The Oslo Group

The Oslo Group was an organisation of officially neutral countries. Four members later joined the Allies, as governments in exile: the Kingdom of Norway, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Kingdom of Belgium and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

The Republic of Finland was invaded by the USSR on November 30 1939. Later Finland and the Kingdom of Denmark officially joined the Axis Anti-Comintern Pact. The Kingdom of Sweden remained officially neutral. Following the Moscow armistice of September 1944, Finland effectively joined the Allies and expelled German forces. This led to a series of armed clashes called the Lapland War.

Denmark was invaded by Germany on April 9, 1940. The Danish government did not declare war and it surrendered the same day, on the understanding that it retain control of domestic affairs. No government-in-exile was formed. Danes fought with both Allied and Axis forces. Iceland and Greenland, which were respectively in union with Denmark and a Danish colony, were occupied by the Allies for most of the war. British forces took control in Iceland in 1940, and it was used to facilitate the movement of Lend Lease equipment. Forces from the United States, although they were officially neutral at the time, occupied Greenland on April 9, 1941. The US also took over in Iceland on July 7, 1941. Iceland declared full independence from Denmark in 1944, but never declared war on any of the Axis powers.

Pan American Union

The members of the Pan American Union, who were all neutral in 1939-41, formed a mutual defence pact at a conference of foreign ministers at Havana, on July 21-July 30, 1940. The "Declaration on Reciprocal Assistance and Cooperation for the Defense of the Nations of the Americas" was part of the Final Act of the Second Meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the American Republics at Havana, Cuba, July 30, 1940. There were 21 signatories:

  • Bolivia
  • Brazil (25 August 1942)
  • Colombia
  • Costa Rica
  • Cuba
  • Dominican Republic
  • El Salvador
  • Guatemala
  • Haiti
  • Honduras
  • Mexico (1 June 1942)
  • Nicaragua
  • Panama
  • United States of America
    •

From July 1944, a Brazilian Expeditionary Force of 25,000 personnel joined the Allies in the Italian campaign. In 1945, the Mexican Air Force's Escuadrón 201 was attached to the U.S. Far East Air Force, during the Philippines campaign. The other countries in this group contributed support units, small combat forces, or to lesser degrees.

Comintern

The following socialist and pro-Soviet forces also fought against the Axis powers before or during the Second World War:


Atlantic Charter

The Atlantic Charter was negotiated at the Atlantic Conference by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, aboard warships in a secure anchorage at Argentia, Newfoundland (located on Placentia Bay) and was issued as a joint declaration on August 14, 1941.

The Atlantic Charter established a vision for a post-World War II world, despite the fact the United States had yet to enter the war. In brief, the nine points were:

  • no territorial gains sought by the United States or the United Kingdom;
  • territorial adjustments must be in accord with wishes of the people;
  • the right to self-determination of peoples;
  • trade barriers lowered;
  • global economic cooperation and advancement of social welfare;
  • freedom from want and fear;
  • freedom of the seas;
  • disarmament of aggressor nations, postwar common disarmament
  • defeat of Germany and other Axis powers

The Atlantic Charter proved to be one of the first steps towards the formation of the United Nations.

The United Nations

The Declaration by United Nations was a World War II document agreed to on January 1 1942 by 26 governments, several of them governments-in-exile. The original signatories were:


The parties pledged to uphold the Atlantic Charter, to employ all their resources in the war against the Axis powers, and that none of the signatory nations would seek to negotiate a separate peace with Nazi Germany, Italy or Japan in the same manner that the nations of the Triple Entente had agreed not to negotiate a separate peace with any or all of the Central Powers in World War I under the Unity Pact.

The term United Nations became synonymous during the war with the Allies and was considered to be the formal name that they were fighting under. Other countries subsequently signed the declaration. These were Mexico, the Philippine Commonwealth, and Ethiopia in 1942, Iraq, Brazil, Bolivia, Iran and Colombia in 1943, Liberia and France in 1944 and Peru, Chile, Paraguay, Venezuela, Uruguay, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria and Ecuador in 1945.