The Second World War, 1939–45

Abstract

The ‘twenty years peace’ that separated the two world wars allowed soldiers and statesmen time to draw lessons from the Great War experience as well as to forecast ways in which technological and other changes would alter the nature of any future conflict fought on a similar scale. The opening campaigns of the Second World War would demonstrate the degree to which the great powers had correctly or incorrectly anticipated the shape of things to come, as later campaigns would show their capacity to learn from mistakes and adapt in the face of new realities. The earlier struggle had already demonstrated the extent to which European warfare had become ‘total’ in terms of the harnessing of all the human and material resources of the modern industrial state to the war effort. If anything, the course of this new round of continental conflict would involve even more comprehensively integrated national exertions. For the purposes of study, however, warfare in the Second World War in Europe can be divided — albeit somewhat artificially — into eight forms or types.