Why Did The Axis Powers Declare War On Russia And The USA? | Titans Of The 20th Century | Timeline

hi everybody welcome to this timeline documentary my name is dan snow and here i am in a lancaster bomber cockpit one of the few remaining lancasters from the second world war to tell you about my new history channel it's called history hit it's like netflix for history hundreds of history documentaries on there and interviews with many of the world's best historians follow the information below this film or just search online for history hit and make sure you use the code timeline to get a special introductory offer now enjoy this show some of the turning points of history just happen volcanoes erupt earthquakes floods and fires destroy cities but most of the turning points of history do not just happen this was their final talent they are the result of actions taken by people the only thing we have to fear is fear itself they are the work of those who use power ambition belief to shape events people are the authors of history it's the curious thing about history that we all understand the great currents matter the institutions mattered geography matters economics matters what natural resources you have matters but i do think there are moments in history when it really matters who's in power this is the story of the people who holding or reaching for power shaped our world the titans of the 20th century this fast-moving war would not be the static war of the first world war they'd use motorcycles they'd use tracks to use armoured vehicles they'd use aircraft in support of troops like a flying sort of artillery and so i think from the german point of view what they were really concentrating on was a continental war and what they hoped really right up until 1940 was that the british would come to their senses whether making peace with a rampant adolf hitler would have been sensible is not a question that the british public was ever asked their government their prime minister said that at last they had come to their senses and they would never surrender at the start of 1941 britain stood alone [Music] by the end of the year she would be part of a grand alliance fighting a world war on january 6 1941 president franklin delano roosevelt delivered his state of the union message unveiling his scheme for getting around the restrictions of the american neutrality acts though he did not explain it in those terms ships planes tanks guns that is our purpose and our pledge [Applause] he recommended a scheme called landlace in what history remembers as his for freedom speech and then when he references len lee's and asks for this appropriation he sort of rhetorically asks at the end why should we do this and that's when he famously said you know in future days which we seek to make secure and we look forward to a world founded on four fundamental human freedoms freedom of speech and expression freedom of worship freedom from want and freedom from fear freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them with that high concept there can be no end save victory the united states would become the arsenal of democracy providing the grand coalition with 75 of its war material it was said that by 1943 the usa was producing a tank every five minutes an airplane every half hour and an aircraft carrier every week [Music] churchill called it the most unsorted act in history and in a sense it was the united states during the war used len lease to impose a lot of policies on the united kingdom that were very hurtful [Music] [Applause] len lease as far as i'm concerned was for the united states a weapon a real weapon to try to replace the pound with the dollar and replace britain as the major financial power in the world and of course it worked on february 9th winston churchill broadcast a speech that has also found a place in the history books when he addressed the president of the united states churchill asked his radio audience what should he say in your name to this great man the thrice chosen head of a nation of 130 millions [Music] churchill was sometimes compared to a big gun who had an awful lot of firepower but wasn't very maneuverable he was very good at the prepared set oration but he wasn't particularly good at being spontaneous and this is what he told his listeners he would say we shall not fail we shall not weaken or tire give us the tools and we will squeeze the job on june 22nd hitler unleashed his true purpose when the largest military operation in history invaded the soviet union [Music] stalin eliminated millions of russians for no rational reason but his paranoia that he should trust hitler is one of the born bizarre acts in all of human history stalin refuses to believe that this is being orchestrated by hitler he even says hitler cannot know about this which just goes to show the extent of the delusion under which stalin is operating stalin had disregarded over 80 warnings about operation barbarossa including one from the anti-nazi german ambassador to moscow what stalin did first in 1941 he brought together a combination of ideology and patriotism and compulsory and the three together proved impossible for hitler to defeat stalin begins to assume the position of war leader and commander of their response to the invasion he is the supreme commander of the soviet armed forces he is people's commissar for defence and he is head of the state defense council all roads lead to stalin between june and december 1941 for every dead german there was twenty sovereigns the invasion sent hundreds of thousands into captivity where most would die as prisoners of war [Music] the holocaust will begin in the summer of 1941 although that is not part of the barbarossa plan but it will rapidly become a component there will be slave labor there will also be mass atrocities starvation this is part and parcel of german planning for the invasion city after city fell but one daunting fact remained 97 of the soviet union was still unoccupied and stalin steadied so as the war went on stalin gave more space to his leaders and became better hitler did the opposite as early as july 16 1941 hitler told a meeting that we shall never withdraw from these areas and so total victory or total surrender was the only possible end game the german forces necessary to facilitate the victory at kiev are already very hard-pressed they're encircling the soviet southwestern front with a handful of panzer divisions in guderian's case and he's doing most of the work are down to 50 of their strength this is a victory the germans should never have won the eastern continent lies like a limp virgin in the mighty arms of the german mars said joseph goebbels hitler saw it differently by august 11th he was writing the whole situation makes it increasingly plain that we have underestimated the russian colossus on june 28 still neutral but not insensitive to what was happening in the world president roosevelt established the office of scientific research and development the scientific work it would coordinate included development of the atom bomb a month later on july 26th two days after japan had occupied french indochina roosevelt embargoed oil gas and metal shipments to japan the united states at that point along with the allies was really focused on the economic isolation of japan the oil embargo meant that the imperial japanese navy would run out of fuel within a year roosevelt wasn't naive his secretary of state carter o'hall warned against his policies and sort of put the americans and the japanese on a collision course for three days in august winston churchill met with president roosevelt aboard warships in placentia bay newfoundland the atlantic charter is the outcome the atlantic charter is a document that kind of spells out in more detail what the four freedoms we're talking about and it's a document that realzol particularly is going to refer to again and again and again it's the first mention that we have about the need to set up an international security organization after the war this is really the birth of what would become the united nations the charter was issued as a press release not as a signed document though churchill would probably have signed anything to enlist american support he said no man ever sought to please his mistress as much as i sought to please franklin roosevelt [Music] on october the 18th in a move to which few paid attention but which foreshadowed a major development in the war japan appointed a new prime minister um conaway the outgoing prime minister explained his sacking i felt the emperor was telling me my prime minister does not understand military matters i know much more in short the emperor had absorbed the view of the army and the navy high command he had in other words allied himself to tojo tenor americas on november 17th ambassador joseph grew warned washington of the possibility of a sudden attack by japan both churchill and roosevelt understood that something was up they could see troop movements towards the melee peninsula they really expected malaya be attacked [Music] on november 26 secretary of state cordell hull proposed a non-aggression pact on december 1st japan rejected the proposal on the 6th fdr appealed directly to the emperor the following day japan attacked pearl harbor [Music] [Music] data [Music] in the immediate aftermath of pearl harbor american recruiting officers had to remain open throughout the night on december 8th congress voted 470 to 1 in favor of war [Applause] churchill went to bed and he said he slept the sleep of the saved he must have had great difficulty suppressing his joy at the fact that pearl harbor had been bombed the united states was now in the war churchill had no doubt about the effect of american power weighing in hitler's fate was sealed he wrote mussolini's fate was sealed as for the japanese they would be ground to powder in 1941 the usa had the largest navy in the world but her army was ranked 18th and numbered 100 000 by 1945 100 000 had become 14.9 million americans in uniform when hitler declared war on the united states eleanor roosevelt wrote in her my day column now we know where we are no one in this country will doubt the ultimate outcome birthday greeting to churchill on january 30th 1942 said it is fun to be in the same decade with you but it was not fun for churchill on february 15th in one of the great catastrophes in the history of imperial britain singapore surrendered to the japanese the sound of the causeway being taken by the japanese was said by a future prime minister of singapore who heard it then as a schoolboy to be the sound of the collapse of the british empire and in a sense that's right admiral yamamoto commander-in-chief of the combined fleet said in the first six to twelve months of a war with the united states and britain i will run wild and win victory after victory after that i have no expectation of success that colonialism empire only seemed tolerable to its subjects if they couldn't see any alternative if they assumed it was the natural order well for the british this went out of the window when malaya fell to the japanese and burma fell to the japanese in 1941 42 [Music] burma had been part of the british empire since churchill's father lord randolph as secretary of state for india had annexed it in 1886 when winston was 12 years old eric blair served as a colonial officer in burma before returning to england where he wrote under the name george orwell and as all well he wrote that without the empire britain would be a cold and unimportant little island where we should all have to work very hard and live mainly on herring and potatoes churchill possibly felt the same he's almost heartbroken after the collapse of singapore he said we had so many men he said they should have done better and he saw it as a sort of terrible failure of morale of military strength courage endurance it was a symbol really of the fact that the british empire in the far east was rotten and it could be taken by a people that churchill had been apt to despise he called the japanese the whops of the far east after singapore surrender with the japanese in burma and threatening india shoring up indian support became a priority [Music] the allies particularly fdr comes up with a plan to send shanghai shek and madam chang to india on a mission to reach out to indian independence leaders on february 18th chiang kai-shek and madam chang met gandhi outside kolkata they developed a very warm relationship very quickly with people while they were in india the warm relationship did not translate into unconditional support when in march churchill sent sir stafford crips to india to offer dominion status after the war he was rebuffed the original quit india resolution suggested that the indians would only offer non-violent resistance to the axis nehru did not think that went anywhere near far enough so he offered his own version as soon as the resolution passed because it also called for the independence of india all of them were put in prison dwight eisenhower had been sent to europe at the end of april to command u.s troops he arrived in london in may he was 51. he wrote to his wife manny what a boom piece will be to this poor old world in the pacific war the decisive battle of midway took place in early june and on july 2nd churchill faced a no-confidence motion in the house of commons following the fall of the crucial port of to brook in north africa the motion was defeated by a margin that reflects the level of church of support as war leader 475 to 25 in mid-august churchill flew to meet stalin in moscow an experience that cannot be compared to flying today arduous oxygen masked desperately uncomfortable and dangerous churchill went to moscow first in 1942 to meet stalin and to tell him that there would be no second front that year he said it was like taking a block of ice to the north pole whatever our suffering whatever our toiled we will continue hand in hand like comrades and brothers until every vestige of the nazi regime has been beaten into the ground there was churchill with his passion with his rhetoric with his talk he believed that he could convince stalin by the force of his own personality darling was absolutely vile to him churchill got in a terrible temperance and he was going to leave stalin of course was bugging his dacha and knew exactly what he was saying then made overtures to him and their final night they both drank huge buckets of champagne and they had a sort of rapport churchill promised stalin that they would have a second front in 1943. stalin was going to be disappointed on august 23rd barely a week after churchill flew back to london the german sixth army the largest single formation in the vermont reached the river vulgar north of stalingrad on september the 2nd hitler ordered that when the city fell the entire male population was to be eliminated [Music] once the us entered the war eleanor roosevelt went to bases all over the world she always said courage can be as contagious as fear in september fdr sent mrs roosevelt to visit american troops in britain in august 1943 she would accomplish a similar mission in the pacific [Music] she went to one base where german prisoners of war were allowed to watch the movies sitting down in the auditorium but black troops were standing up and she protested so that eisenhower changed some of those policies [Music] in north africa the second battle of el alamein opened on the night of 22nd 23rd of october 1942 with the first significant british bombardment since the end of the first world war at last we had scored a victory it was as nothing of course compared to what was going on on the eastern front but nevertheless churchill ordered the bells to be rung in the churches to signal a british victory at last on november the 8th operation torch the allied invasion of french north africa began under the command of dwight d eisenhower the predominance of the us was quite slow to arrive in north africa for example montgomery was more successful than eisenhower was eisenhower got a bloody nose then it was roosevelt who ultimately made the final decision that they should go into north africa in general marshall was totally against it he said if you go in in 1942 to north africa you're not going to get to france in 1943. and he actually turned out to be right on november the 10th admiral francois darling vichy high commissioner in algiers ordered an end to resistance to the invasion that day churchill crafted some more of his enduring phrases for the lord mayor's luncheon in london no doubt as painstakingly shaped as all the others one of his private secretaries found him in the cabinet room late at night and he said the prime minister sort of what are you doing still still working and he said i'm just working on some of my spontaneous witticisms this is not the end uh it is not even the beginning of the end but it is perhaps the end of the beginning [Music] [Applause] [Music] 1943 was a year regularly punctuated by conferences because in the 20th century titans did not lead their armies into battle they sent them the first of the year codenamed symbol was held in casablanca in january churchill very much resented being the junior partner in the alliance but was realistic enough to recognize that the country that provided the most resources would inevitably start to dictate strategy casablanca conference became really important because it it promised that there would be a cross-channel attack but not yet and it meant that eisenhower would sort sicily and then climb up the italian leg at casablanca president roosevelt said possibly without consulting his allies the elimination of german japanese and italian war power means the unconditional surrender of germany japan and italy it could not be unsaid there would be no armistice no truce no compromise only unconditional surrender [Applause] [Music] hitler was utterly unfazed by his army taking heavy casualties that didn't worry him at all he was once given a casualty report which showed very heavy losses on the eastern front and his military advisors expected him to be upset but he just shrugged and said that's what the young men are there for general feldmarshall friedrich von paulus saw it differently and a day after his promotion surrendered his command i have no intention von paulus said of shooting myself for this bavarian corporal hitler called paulus capture an about face on the threshold of immortality he was absolutely incandescent with rage hitler had fully expected him to commit suicide and thereby retain his honor in hitler's eyes he was furious that paulus had surrendered alive by may the 6th allied forces advancing from the east linked with the torch invasion and general alexander commanding 18th army group was able to signal churchill we are masters of the north african shore on may 14th hitler confessed that in italy we can rely only on the douche [Music] when from their positions on the north african shore the allies launched the invasion of sicily on july the 10th he was proved right there's nothing like war for turning a populace against its leader and the highest officials in the land decided to hold a meeting with the king present at which they would remove mussolini they voted 19 to 7 to remove him from duty such was his level of psychological protection he created a bubble around him that he went home went to sleep and he came back to the office the next morning as though nothing had happened on the 26th benito mussolini was arrested by the fascist grand council [Applause] on the 12th of july 75 of the red army's armor and 40 of its manpower was committed to the battle of kursk panzer general heinz guderian said that for germany kursk was a decisive defeat he described the events of 1943 as the revenge of reality sure sign felt that the soviets were doing most of the fighting most of the dying and that the allies were trying to minimise their losses [Music] all of the major battles had taken place in the soviet union moscow stalingrad kursk before d-day the war was more or less over by then in mid-august the quebec conference quadrant further developed allied planning and was followed by sextant the cairo conference in november attended by roosevelt churchill and chiang kai-shek accompanied by his wife sung mei li stalin did not attend stalin didn't go to the cairo conference the soviet union was not formally at war with japan at this point it would have been invidious for stalin to be there talking with chang about military moves against the japanese sumailing's role in the cairo conference was instrumental in ensuring that china got a place at that table churchill found madame chang most remarkable and charming summa link had an important role acting as the translator and reinterpreter of jiang kai shek's statements during this meeting roosevelt told the chinese leader that churchill was his biggest headache britain he said simply does not want to see china become a power and zhang wanted the world he wanted clear air superiority and undisputed naval superiority and amphibious assault capacity which of course was totally and completely unacceptable to churchill churchill's physician lord [ __ ] may have better understood what was going on to the president china means 400 million people who are going to count in the world of tomorrow but winston thinks only of the color of their skin [ __ ] wrote it is only when he talks of india or china that you remember he is a victoria on the last day of the cairo conference the chinese produced a draft document would in effect ask for the return of chinese territories that were occupied by the japanese that document would be the basis for the chinese government is to claim the sovereignty of taiwan and for korea to secure independence two days after cairo stalin met roosevelt and churchill for the tehran conference the first meeting between the big three typically stalin organized that the two democratic leaders would have to travel halfway around the world to appear stalin is concerned with the second front where will it take place and when will it take place he's been asking for this since 1941. stalin and the russians were effectively fed up with promises from churchill of of jam tomorrow and it was at this conference that overlord the invasion of europe across the channel was decided on asked by molotov which of the two leaders he preferred stalin replied they're both imperialists anthony eden on the other hand admitted that if i had to pick a negotiating team stalin would be my first choice roosevelt i think had an elevated sense that he could manipulate stalin but actually stalin was the shrewdest of the three of them when it came to hard-nosed diplomacy tehran is interesting because it really shows the extent to which roosevelt was willing to push churchill aside 1943 was certainly the year that churchill lost control of strategy [Music] by tehran churchill's british bulldog had lost both its bark and its bite the sheer weight of the other two members of the grand coalition had become an inescapable truth roosevelt recognized that the two emerging superpowers if you will that were going to come out of the second world war we're going to be the united states and the soviet union [Music] to mirror what was happening in tehran prime minister tojo convened the greater east asia conference attended by shangjin we prime minister of manchukuo wang jing wei head of the reorganized national government of china ba moore from burma subas chandra bose from india jose laurel from the philippines and prince one weight icon from thailand not quite a puppet show but almost [Music] [Music] designed to be a strong statement against colonialism the proceedings were in english the common language of the participants [Music] an armistice signed on the 3rd of september meant that italy although still a battlefield was no longer at war mussolini the first titan to fall was meanwhile being moved from one hiding place to another eventually the germans had a commando rescue operation from a mountaintop and they took mussolini into german custody and from there he was put in charge of the puppet state the republic of cello an american fact-finding mission was meanwhile assessing a controversial leader in waiting mao zedong the young u.s diplomats they believed that maul was a nationalist was a agorarian revolutionary reformers he impressed them and he hoped that this will continue with american aid and american support while mao was promoting himself as a titan hitler withdrew from the public eye his last major broadcast speech was in november 1943 his last public speech at a meeting of industrial leaders on july 4th 1944 hardly any applause noted albert speer gobles was increasingly frustrated that hitler wouldn't speak to the people would not make an effort to reassure them would not for instance visit cities that had been bombed to try to comfort the survivors which might have been an effective thing to do for propaganda reasons there's a remarkable line in google's diary later in the war where he writes we don't just have a leadership problem we have a leader problem in january 1944 and despite losses of four and a half million german armed forces were at their greatest strength with nine and a half million underarms except that strength and a head count are not the same thing for these were not the best of the crop they were not battle-hardened or experienced soldiers in june they faced the second front on june 5th churchill asked his wife do you realize that by the time you wake up in the morning twenty thousand may have been killed churchill certainly suffered from depression during the war years especially after the defeats and reverses of of the first two years his depression and drinking led to arguments believing with his own chiefs of staff on the fifth after a weather delay and acting on the assurance of his meteorologists eisenhower gave the go-ahead and i hope to god i know what i'm doing he said overlord offered hitler his last just credible opportunity of the war to turn the tide against the allies he had a scenario not a very convincing one but just possible whereby if he could throw the allies back into the sea then he could shift all his important voices above all the panzer divisions back to the eastern front smash the russians and then come and deal with the americans the british at leisure [Music] some of those landing in normandy were returning home their leader broadcast from london for the sons of france charles de gaulle said the simple and sacred duty is to fight the enemy by all means available [Music] which is not what they'd been doing but they would conspire with the goal to create an acceptable history there's a complicity between the goal and the french people the french people choose to behave as if they believed the gaulis myth and de gaulle chooses to behave as if he believed the resistance myth de gaulle's demeanor created friction and antagonism which was to color his post-war conduct roosevelt on a sort of visceral level dislikes de gaulle and finds him a disagreeable person so he's provokes all these famous bhutard from winston churchill churchill says he has all the stiffness of a poker without its occasional moments of warmth he knows he's playing a game of bluff in which he has no real strength [Applause] less than three weeks after the normandy landing the red army launched its summer offensive operation migration involved on the soviet side one million six hundred and 000 men 6 000 tanks and self-propelled guns 30 000 artillery pieces and 7 500 aircraft on a north-south front of more than 1 200 kilometers during the 10 months from july to unconditional surrender in may 1945 more germans would be killed than had been in the years 1939-44 inclusive [Music] a month after bagration was launched hitler survived the notorious bomb plot and broadcast on the radio in order that you should hear my voice he said and so that you should know of a crime unparalleled in german history i think it's actually very little known how absent hitler was from the public sphere in germany during the second world war from 1941 through to december 1944 he was almost entirely in this huge set of concrete bunkers in east prussia when there was the devops chancellor or the wolf slayer then goebbels stirring his audience with a call to total war finds a way of offering hope the miracle weapons campaign was really quite extraordinary suddenly governors brought this rabbit out of the head that we have the scientific and technological superiority which will win the war these are going to send the allies deranged and of course they were remarkable they were the v1 the v2 but the germans knew they could not wait for wonder weapons and launched a desperate offensive operation autumn mist they called it the allies know it as the battle of the bulge eisenhower reacted swiftly drawing armored formations to the flank of the attack where they blocked and frustrated the german advance after the battle of the bulge failed the german part the end is nigh it's evident in his broadcast that he's in effect given up and germans said that's not mine fury speaking [Applause] as the infantry drew closer to german soil hitler withdrew completely hitler's health was terrible he was slowly being poisoned by his quack doctor doctor varel who'd created a huge enterprise on the back of hitler so you could buy all these morel pills but he was a quack he didn't want to be associated with defeat with decline with failure and so he was extremely unwilling to to make speeches [Music] on september 11th u.s patrols crossed the german border near arkhan the second quebec conference opened the following day and on september 23rd fdr launched his campaign for an unprecedented fourth term it's no question in my mind that rose understood that he had serious health issues in 1944 roosevelt's exhausted he's just trying to hang on i think his goal at that point was to get reelected so he could see the war through to its conclusion during october roosevelt campaigned in wet and chilly weather in an open car to squash rumors that he was in poor health on november 7th with harry truman as his running mate he was elected for the fourth time [Music] in the asia pacific theatre the fatal turning point had been reached in july with the fall of an island of only 115 square kilometers [Applause] [Music] foreign [Applause] foreign foreign tojo was forced to resign nothing else changed the emperor was probably the only man who might have been able to impose a piece and who did not really make any plausible attempt to do so the war moved towards its climax a new world was about to be made those titans who would play a part were not all center stage but they were on the move

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

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Keywords: History, Full Documentary, Documentaries, Full length Documentaries, Documentary, TV Shows - Topic, Documentary Movies - Topic, 2017 documentary, BBC documentary, Channel 4 documentary, history documentary, documentary history, titans of the 20th century, pearl harbour, invasion of soviet russia, usa ww2, war on eastern front, japan attacks america, world war ii, united states

Id: IFr0s6-K3Xg

Length: 50min 3sec (3003 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 28 2021