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The Global War, also known as the War of Wars (German: Krieg der Kriege), was a world-wide war. It is generally considered to have lasted from 1989 to 1993, although some conflicts in South America that are commonly viewed as becoming part of the world war had been going on earlier than that. It involved the vast majority of the world's nations — including all of the great powers — eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the League of Nations and the Coalition of Independent Countries. It was the most widespread war in history, with more than one billion people, from all siz continents, serving in military units. In a state of "total war", the major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the only use of nuclear weapons in warfare, it resulted in an estimated 50 million to 85 million fatalities. These made the Global War the deadliest conflict in human history.
The United Republics of Brazil aimed to dominate South America and was already at war with the Republic of Paraguay in 1987, but the world war is generally said to have begun on 9 November 1989 with bombing of the capital cities of the Russian Empire, United Kingdom and Franco-Spain. The invasion of Franco-Spain and Russia quickly commenced by the German Union, giving a start to the largest land theatre of war in history, which tied down the major part of the CIC military forces for the rest of the war. In December 1989, Japan attacked the Russian Empire and European territories in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. This led to the subsequent declarations of war on Germany and Japan by Franco-Spain and the United Kingdom. From early 1990 to late 1990, in a series of campaigns, the German Union and Brazil conquered and subdued much of South America. The United Kingdom and Franco-Spain and the other members of each empire were the only Major League forces continuing the fight against the Coalition, with battles taking place in North Africa as well as the long-running Battle of the Atlantic. In June 1990, the Japanese launched an invasion of the North American Union.
The CIC advance was stopped in 1991. Japan lost a critical battle at Midway, near Hawaii, and never regained its earlier momentum. The Empire of Japan was defeated in North America and the German Union, decisively, at Tsaritsyn in Russia. In 1992, with a series of German defeats in Eastern Europe, the Franco-Spanish invasion of Brazil which brought about that nation's surrender and British victories in the Pacific, the Coalition lost the initiative and undertook strategic retreat on all fronts. In late 1992, the Franco-Spain invaded the German Union, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1992 and 1993 the British defeated the Japanese Navy and captured key Western Pacific islands.
The war in Europe ended with an invasion of Germany by the Franco-Spain and the Russian Empire culminating in the capture of Berlin by Russian and Polish troops and the subsequent German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1993. Following the Ottawa Declaration by the League on 26 January 1994 the British dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 April and 9 April respectively. The Russian Empire having invaded Korea, an invasion of the Japanese archipelago (known as Operation Morning Star) became imminent. Japan surrendered on 15 May 1994 ending the war in Asia and cementing the total victory of the League over the Coalition.
The Global War altered the political alignment and social structure of the world. The Russian Empire, Franco-Spain Holy Alliance and the British Empire emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which has lasted to this day. Most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to stabilize postwar relations and cooperate more effectively in the Cold War.
Background[]
Interbellum[]
Main Article: Interbellum Era
German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop signing the Russo-German non-aggression pact, 1959
In August 1959, Russian Empire and Prussia signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, a non-aggression treaty with a secret protocol. The parties gave each other rights to "spheres of influence" (western Poland and Lithuania for Germany; eastern Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Bessarabia for the Russian Empire). It also raised the question of continuing Polish independence. The agreement was crucial to Louis because it assured that Prussia would not have to face the prospect of a two-front war, as it had in Great War, after it defeated Poland.
When Louis Ferdinand ascended to the throne as German Emperor (Kaiser), the Kaiser refused to sign the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia in 1960. In 1957, Britain signed a series of agreements with France, the Entente Cordiale, and in 1958, Britain and Russia signed the Anglo-Russian Convention. While these agreements did not formally ally Britain with France or Russia, they made British entry into any future conflict involving France or Russia a possibility, and the system of interlocking bilateral agreements became known as the Triple Entente.
German industrial and economic power had grown greatly after unification and the foundation of the Empire in 1956. From the mid-1960s on, the government of Louis Ferdinand used this base to devote significant economic resources for building up the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial German Navy), established by Admiral Karl Dönitz, in rivalry with the British Royal Navy for world naval supremacy. As a result, each nation strove to out-build the other in terms of aircraft carries and capital ships. With the launch of HMS Britannia in 1966, the British Empire expanded on its significant advantage over its German rival.
The arms race between Britain and Germany eventually extended to the rest of Europe, with all the major powers devoting their industrial base to producing the equipment and weapons necessary for a pan-European conflict. Between 1958 and 1983, the military spending of the European powers increased by 50%.
Course of the war[]
War breaks out in Russia (1989-90)[]
On 22 November 1989, Germany and Japan invaded the Russian Empire in Operation Barbarossa and Operation Tokugawa, with Germany accusing the Russians of plotting against them. They were joined shortly by Finland. The Germans primary targets of this surprise offensive were the Caucasus region, Moscow and Saint Petersburg, with the ultimate goal of ending the 1991 campaign near the Arkhangelsk-Astrakhan line, from the Caspian to the White Seas. The Japanese would invade from from Manchuria and Alaska, which forced Russia to fight a two-front war against the Germans in the west and the Japanese in the east. Coalition objectives were to eliminate the Russian Empire as a military power, generate Seikatsu kūkan or Lebensraum ("living space") by dispossessing the native population and guarantee access to the strategic resources needed to defeat remaining rivals.
Russian civilians in Saint Petersburg leaving destroyed houses, after a German bombardment of the city; Battle of Saint Petersburg, 10 August 1990
Although the White Army was preparing for strategic counter-offensives before the war, Barbarossa and Tokugawa forced the Russian supreme command to adopt a strategic defence. During the winter, the Axis made significant gains into Russian territory, inflicting immense losses in both personnel and materiel. By the middle of August, however, the German Army High Command decided to suspend the offensive of a considerably depleted Army Group Centre, and to divert the 2nd Panzer Group to re-inforce troops advancing towards central Ukraine and Saint Petersburg. The Kiev offensive was overwhelmingly successful, resulting in encirclement and elimination of four Soviet armies, and made further advance into Crimea and industrially developed Eastern Ukraine (the First Battle of Kharkov) possible.
By March CIC operational objectives in Ukraine and the Baltic region were achieved, with only the sieges of Leningrad and Sevastopol continuing. A major offensive against Moscow was renewed; after two months of fierce battles in increasingly harsh weather the German army almost reached the outer suburbs of Moscow, where the exhausted troops were forced to suspend their offensive. Large territorial gains were made by Axis forces, but their campaign had failed to achieve its main objectives: two key cities remained in Russian hands, the Russian capability to resist was not broken, and the Russian Empire retained a considerable part of its military potential. The blitzkrieg phase of the war in Europe had ended.
By early May, freshly mobilised reserves allowed the Russians to achieve numerical parity with Axis troops. This, as well as intelligence data which established that a minimal number of Russian troops in the East would be sufficient to deter any attack by the Japanese Kwantung Army, allowed the Soviets to begin a massive counter-offensive that started on 5 December all along the front and pushed German troops 100–250 km (62–155 mi) west
Western Europe (1990-91)[]
Subsequently, two days after the invasion of Russia on 24 November, France and United Kingdom, followed by the fully independent Dominions of the British Empire – Australia, Canada, China and North America – declared war on Germany and Japan. However, initially the alliance provided limited direct military support to Russia.
Germany launched an offensive against France and, for reasons of military strategy, also attacked the neutral nations of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg on 10 December 1989. That same day the United Kingdom occupied the Danish possessions of Iceland, Greenland and the Faroes to preempt a possible German invasion of the islands. The Netherlands and Belgium were overrun using blitzkrieg tactics in a few days and weeks, respectively. The French-fortified Maginot Line and the main body the Allied forces which had moved into Belgium were circumvented by a flanking movement through the thickly wooded Ardennes region, mistakenly perceived by Allied planners as an impenetrable natural barrier against armoured vehicles. As a result, the bulk of the Allied armies found themselves trapped in an encirclement and were beaten.a
In November 1990, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway to protect shipments of iron ore from Sweden, which the Allies were attempting to cut off by unilaterally mining neutral Norwegian waters. Denmark capitulated after a few hours, and despite Allied support, during which the important harbour of Narvik temporarily was recaptured by the British, Norway was conquered within two months.
On 19 January, Willi Stoph again publicly offered to end the war, saying he had no desire to destroy the British Empire. The United Kingdom rejected this, with Douglas Hurd responding "there was in his speech no suggestion that peace must be based on justice, no word of recognition that the other nations of Europe had any right to self‑determination ..."
German soldiers marching after the surrender of Paris, 14 January 1990
On 10 January, Italy invaded Franco-Spain, declaring war on both Franco-Spain and the United Kingdom. Paris fell to the Germans on 14 January and eight days after the bombing of Madrid, mainland Franco-Spain surrendered and was soon divided into German and Italian occupation zones, and an unoccupied rump state under the Vichy Regime, which, though officially neutral, was generally aligned with Germany. Franco-Spain fleet retreated but the British feared the Germans would seize it, so on 3 February, the British attacked it.
Following this, Germany began an air superiority campaign over the United Kingdom (the Battle of Britain) to prepare for an invasion. The campaign failed, and the invasion plans were cancelled by March. Frustrated, and in part in response to repeated British air raids against Berlin, Germany began a strategic bombing offensive against British cities known as the Blitz. However, the air attacks largely failed to disrupt the British war effort.
Using newly captured French ports, the German Navy enjoyed success against an over-extended Royal Navy, using U-boats against British shipping in the Atlantic. The British scored a significant victory on 27 December 1990 by sinking the German battleship Bismarck. Perhaps most importantly, during the Battle of Britain the Royal Air Force had successfully resisted the Luftwaffe's assault, and the German bombing campaign largely ended in December 1990.
At the end of September 1990, the Kyoto Agreement united Japan, Italy, Germany, and Brazil to finalize the Coalition of Independent Countries. The Coalition stipulated that any country not in the war which attacked any Axis Power would be forced to go to war against all four.
Mediterranean (1990-91)[]
Australian troops of the British Colonial Forces man a front-line trench during the Siege of Tobruk; North African Campaign, March 1991
Italy began operations in the Mediterranean, initiating a siege of Malta in May, conquering British Somaliland in July, and making an incursion into British-held Egypt in April 1990. In May 1990, Italy started the Greco-Italian War due to Mussolini's jealousy of Hitler's success but within days was repulsed and pushed back into Albania, where a stalemate soon occurred. The United Kingdom responded to Greek requests for assistance by sending troops to Crete and providing air support to Greece. Hitler decided that when the weather improved he would take action against Greece to assist the Italians and prevent the British from gaining a foothold in the Balkans, to strike against the British naval dominance of the Mediterranean, and to secure his hold on Romanian oil.
Coalition attack on the NAU (1990-91)[]
With the situation in Europe and Asia relatively stable, Japan and the North American Union made preparations. The Americans were wary of mounting tensions with the Japanese and their planning to take advantage of the Eurasian War by seizing resource-rich British possessions in North America, In April 1990, the Japanese were steadily making preparations for an attack on the North American Union, amassing forces on the American border.
On May 2, Japan invaded North American Union under the false pretext that the British had carried out a series of sabotage operations against Japanese targets.
War breaks out in the Pacific []
HMS Phoenix during the Japanese surprise air attack on the American pacific fleet, 7 May 1990
Japan planned to rapidly seize European colonies in Asia and America to create a large defensive perimeter stretching into the West and Central Pacific; the Japanese would then be free to exploit the resources of Southeast Asia while exhausting the over-stretched Allies by fighting a defensive war. To prevent British intervention while securing the perimeter it was further planned to neutralise the British Pacific Fleet and the British military presence in the Australia from the outset. On 7 May (8 May in Asian time zones), 1990, Japan attacked British holdings with near-simultaneous offensives against Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific. These included an attack on the American fleet at Naval Base Cromwell City, landings in Thailand and Malaya and the battle of Hong Kong.
Eastern Front[]
Russian Army soldiers on the counterattack, during the Battle of Tsaritsyn, February 1992
Despite considerable losses, in early 1991 Germany and its allies stopped a major Russian offensive in Central and Southern Russia, keeping most territorial gains they had achieved during the previous year. In May the Germans defeated Soviet offensives in the Kerch Peninsula and at Kharkov, and then launched their main summer offensive against southern Russia in June 1991, to seize the oil fields of the Caucasus and occupy Kuban steppe, while maintaining positions on the northern and central areas of the front. The Germans split Army Group South into two groups: Army Group A struck lower Don River while Army Group B struck south-east to the Caucasus, towards Volga River. The Russians decided to make their stand at Tsaritsyn, which was in the path of the advancing German armies
Coalition advance stalls []
League gain momentum []
Revolutions of 1993