Diplomatic history of World War II

American diplomacy stepped up after it entered the war in December 1941 and was bolstered by large quantities of financial and economic assistance, especially after the Lend-Lease programme began to attain full strength during 1943.

The First Inter-Allied Conference took place in London in early June 1941 between the United Kingdom, the four co-belligerent British Dominions (Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa), the eight governments in exile (Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Yugoslavia) and Free France.

[6] At the December 1941 Arcadia Conference US President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met in Washington, shortly after the United States entered the war.

Churchill, who had long warned against Germany, and demanded rearmament, became prime minister after Chamberlain's policy of appeasement had collapsed and Britain was unable to reverse the German invasion of Norway in April 1940.

The main decisions made were to invade Sicily and Italy before Europe, launch strategic bombing against Germany, and approve a U.S. Navy plan to advance on Japan through the Pacific Islands.

Starting in December 1941, Japan overran British possessions in Asia, including Hong Kong, Malaya, and especially the key base at Singapore, and marched into Burma, headed toward India.

[29] The actual Allied goal was not to help Finland but to engage in economic warfare against Germany by cutting off shipments of Swedish iron ore, which they calculated would seriously weaken the German war industry.

The British Ministry of Economic Warfare stated that the project against Norway would be likely to cause "An extremely serious repercussion on German industrial output ... and would in any case have a profound effect on the duration of the war.

However, in 1942 when the Congress Party launched a Quit India movement, the British authorities immediately arrested tens of thousands of activists, including Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi, and imprisoned them until 1945.

[42] The parliamentary vote on the declaration was delayed by Mackenzie King, partly as a symbolic statement of the dominion having an autonomous foreign policy,[43] but also to give Canada time to purchase arms from the U.S.

Australian Prime Minister John Curtin stated, "I make it clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom.

[44] The need to develop necessary facilities in northern Canada saw 33,000 American soldiers and civilians working in that region during the war, to build the Alaska Highway, the Canol pipeline, and military airstrips for aircraft flying to/from the Soviet Union.

[44] The Canadian government was involved in a brief diplomatic incident between the Free French, and the United States after Charles de Gaulle captured Saint Pierre and Miquelon from the local Vichy regime.

Roosevelt and his military advisers implemented a war strategy with the objectives of halting the German advances in the Soviet Union and in North Africa; launching an invasion of Western Europe with the aim of crushing Nazi Germany between two fronts; and saving China and defeating Japan.

[79] The armistice included numerous provisions that weakened France, all largely guaranteed by the German policy of keeping 2 million French prisoners of war and workers in Germany as hostages.

Although Japan was officially a powerful ally, the relationship was distant and there was little coordination or cooperation, such as Germany's refusal to share the secret formula for making synthetic oil from coal until late in the war.

[93] DiNardo argues that in Europe Germany's foreign-policy was dysfunctional during the war, as Hitler treated each ally separately, and refused to create any sort of combined staff that would synchronize policies, armaments, and strategies.

In terms of helping Poland militarily in an actual war, everyone realized very little could be done because the British and French military thought that if Germany invaded "Polish resistance would collapse in the early stages of fighting."

Hitler believed that Britain and France were bluffing, but he handled the Soviet problem in late August, by an alliance agreement with Stalin, which included secret provisions to partition Poland—and indeed divide up much of eastern Europe.

Historians argue that after Pearl Harbor: Roosevelt and his military and diplomatic advisers sought to unite the nation and blunt Nazi propaganda by avoiding the appearance of fighting a war for the Jews.

[136] Yugoslavia signed on as a German ally in March 1941, but within days an anti-Nazi coup, led by Serbians with British help, overthrew the prince regent, repudiated the Nazis, and installed the 17-year-old heir as King Peter II.

[155][156] The attack on Pearl Harbor initially appeared to be a major success that knocked out the American battle fleet—but it missed the aircraft carriers that were at sea and ignored vital shore facilities whose destruction could have crippled US Pacific operations.

A series of massive raids burned out much of Tokyo and 64 major industrial cities beginning in March 1945 while Operation Starvation seriously disrupted the nation's vital internal shipping lanes.

It ceded some Finnish territory to the Soviet Union, including the Karelian Isthmus, containing Finland's second-largest city, Viipuri, and the critical defensive structure of the Mannerheim Line.

This caused the popularity of Romania's government to plummet, further reinforcing the fascist and military factions, who eventually staged a coup that turned the country into a dictatorship under Mareșal Ion Antonescu.

By July 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt authorized the creation of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (OCIAA) in response to perceived propaganda efforts in Latin America by Germany and Italy.

Through the use of news, film and radio broadcast media in the United States, Roosevelt sought to enhance his Good Neighbor policy, promote Pan-Americanism and forestall military hostility in Latin America through the use of cultural diplomacy.

[183] The Argentine government remained neutral until the last days of the war but quietly tolerated entry of Nazi leaders fleeing Germany, Belgium and Vichy France in 1945.

Franco displayed pragmatism and his determination to act principally in Spanish interests, in the face of Allied economic pressure, Axis military demands, and Spain's geographic isolation.

Chetniks were Serbians opposed to the Nazis but sometimes did collaborate with the Germans and Ustaša in their fierce guerrilla battles with the National Liberation Army, a communist-controlled resistance headed by Josip Broz Tito.