The History of the Twentieth Century

The Battle of Stalingrad was a throwback to the kinds of battles fought in the last war. Like Verdun, the Germans were paying a heavy price. Would the gain be worth it?

As Bernard Montgomery plotted an offensive against Axis forces in North Africa from the east, Dwight Eisenhower was plotting one from the west.

When German soldiers began their assault on the city of Stalingrad, they expected a quick victory, but the Soviet defense was far tougher than they had imagined.

German forces advance on Stalingrad in August 1942, while Adolf Hitler becomes increasingly hostile and mistrustful of his military commanders.

The Nazis applied the experience they had gained from murdering disabled people and Soviet POWs to their project to exterminate Jewish people in Europe.

It started with the concentration camps.

In the first American offensive action of the war, US marines land on Guadalcanal.

The German 1942 offensive in the USSR began well, so well that Hitler split the offensive into two parts. The German Army was advancing on Stalingrad and threatening to cut Russia off from its oil fields in the Caucasus.

The US military went into the war just itching to invade France and take on the Germans ASAP. It was up to the British to talk them down, though the Allies did attempt a raid on the French coast at the port of Dieppe. Meanwhile, German intelligence infiltrated saboteurs into the United States.

The war against Japan brought the Nationalists and the Communists back into a new alliance, but it didn't last. Mao Zedong polished up his political writings and asserted his authority over the Party.