WW2

1941

By this year two superpowers join the war because of decisions that would cost the war for both Hitler and Hirohito the Japanese emperor. After many long months of no fighting, Mussolini decides to attack British Somaliland which went successful but then they began their attack on Egypt which went rather okay for Mussolini. But did suffer setbacks while doing it like a shortage of oil and gas. Then he decided that attacking Greece was a good idea as he heavily underestimated the Greek forces and was forced to retreat so far that Greece was basically invading Italian occupied Albania. Hitler was not pleased with Mussolini's actions and decided that reinforcements would do the trick which went rather well as Britain was pushed back into Egypt after their recent counterattack against Italy. And locked Greece in a stalemate for the time being in the Balkans. Soon fascist activists in Romania had taken over and Hitler seeing the advantages decided to let the Fascist Romanian government to join the tripartite pact. Then later came Bulgaria as they thought that Germany was way better after the first world war in 1918.

Now the only country in the way was the Kingdom of Yugoslavia who was neutral like Belgium and Switzerland. When Hitler asked the Yugoslav government for joining they refused and then they asked the Yugoslav president and he also refused Hitler disappointed decided that he didnt care and just launched a ground invasion of Yugoslavia which the Yugoslavs tried to resist but they only lasted 18 days and Belgrade had fallen. After the invasion Hitler carved up Yugoslavia into a Croatian state an occupied Serbian territory or basically dismantling the entire Yugoslavian territory. Now finally Germany had reached Greece and sent all his reinforcements to Greece as Britain was helping Greece with supplies and troops but after Hitler arrived they fell back far and after 12 days of fighting the Greek mainland had fallen along with Athens but the Island of Crete was still in Allied hands but was quickly taken by Germany and lost in April 1941.

Now Hitler finally couldn't prepare for this moment anymore he could Finally after invading every corner of Europe except Iberia and Sweden he accumulated millions of troops from every country he occupied and with many new strong tanks on the Eastern border with the USSR. Hitler had now accumulated 3,500,000 men again to fend off the Soviet union. By early summer Hitler was ready but Stalin wasnt and by 4:00am the Germans began their invasion of the Soviet union and the 1,000,000 Soviet troops who were the border guard were alarmed and in disarray scrambling to correctly position theirselves whilst they fell back and Hitler best invasion tactic Blitzkrieg had came to full affect as Minsk was encircled with 600,000 lost then at Smolensk another 300,000 captured and 750,000 at Briansk as Stalin tried to mobilise many millions as possible as 2,500,000 men were brought up as the Germans hastily cutoff Leningrad with the USSR and Finland who had lost the Winter war in early 1940 revenge by doing what was known as the Continuation war and they cutoff Leningrad to the North assisting Hitler in the invasion. Soon the desperate Soviet troops were falling back far and had gone to the far reaches of Moscow and Leningrad continued to be seiged as thousands of people starved to death after the Germanc Luftwaffe bombed the Leningrad food reserve warehouses.
Soon the Germans were close as 19km from Moscow and they were halted as the cold Winter fell upon them. And the Stalin called for the troops on the Siberian front who were very well trained and equipped for cold weather as Hitler didn't give his men winter equipment and many froze to death as they struggled to survive in the -20°C temperatures and they were no match the Germans were pushed back and Moscow was safe for now...

In the Pacific, Hirohito the emperor of Japan had decided that he didnt need to only conquer China but also needed to conquer all of south east Asia and Oceania as they still didnt have enough oil as the USA said that if they didnt pull out all their troops then they would embargo them on oil supply and Hirohito couldn't afford that as he would lose all the progress to invading China and they would be prepared next time round. So he continued the invasion and as he knew it America embargoed Japanese oil trade and supplies. So as they needed oil from south east Asia they knew that he was colonised by both America and Britain and decided that the American navy had a larger presence than Britain so he decided to bomb a large naval base in Hawaii known as Pearl harbour where they done mass amounts of damage but instead they didnt damage any of the fuel tanks or repair yards meaning the Americans would recover quite quickly from the sudden attack. And the president Woodrow Wilson declared war on Japan and then they attacked British colonies like India and British Malayia meaning Churchill also had no choice but to declare war aswell but then Hitler in Japanese defence declared war on America even though there was no reason to do it otherwise.

Meanwhile the USSR is holding the German invasion in a stalemate for now as winter falls upon them and the thick mud and heavy snow/ice caused Germany to do no further counter attacks until any later dates. Hitler however despite the original plan to capture Moscow and destroy the entire USSR and topple Stalin's regime he decided to interfere in his high ranking Generals plans by instead going for Moscow he decided that the Caucasian region was a good spot to invade as being partially right it was full if all of the Soviets natural resources like oil, gas and metal but by taking this region it would deplete the Soviets capabilities of producing new equipment and allow Hitler to support the war effort even more which would eventually starve the Soviets as all their food as their wheat fields had been cut off as Germany had invaded Ukraine and Belarus meaning all the arable land for Wheat production was lost and any remaining ones were bombed and set on fire ruining the harvests. Seeing the idea Hitler believed a slow and agonising defeat for the Soviet union. But Hitler made one mistake as their were tons of major cities in the way like Stalingrad where a mass destruction was going to occur in 1942 in which you will learn about in the next chapter. And the USSR especially Stalin was not going to give up the city that was named after him and would come to the deadliest battle in History so far...