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World War II invasions

  • Operation OverlordIn May 1943, Allied leaders gathered at the Trident Conference in Washington to make a decision that would alter the course of history.
  • Italian invasion of EgyptIn June 1940, Italy declared war on France and Britain from the coast of Libya. The Italian 10th Army stood ready to cross into neutral Egypt.
  • Italian invasion of British SomalilandOn the 9th of May 1936, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini proclaimed the foundation of Italian East Africa. This new colony combined Italian Eritrea, Italian…
  • Battle of OkinawaThe island of Okinawa became the stage for Operation Iceberg, a massive military campaign that began on the 1st of April 1945.
  • Fall of SingaporeIn the interwar years, Britain established a naval base in Singapore after the Anglo-Japanese alliance lapsed in 1923. This base formed a key part of British…
  • Allied invasion of ItalyBritish Prime Minister Winston Churchill called Italy the soft underbelly of the axis in November 1942. He argued that invading would remove Italy from the…
  • Philippines campaign (1941–1942)On the 6th of November 1941, General Hisaichi Terauchi created the Southern Expeditionary Army Group to seize raw materials in Malaya and the Netherlands…
  • Anglo-Soviet invasion of IranIn 1940, Britain faced a war with Germany in North Africa and grew deeply concerned about German access to the Persian Gulf.
  • Operation TorchThe United States entered the Second World War in December 1941. British and American leaders met at the Arcadia Conference in Washington D.C.
  • Battle of Iwo JimaIn March 1944, the Japanese military reevaluated their position after American forces captured the Marshall Islands and attacked Truk Atoll.
  • German invasion of the NetherlandsOn the 10th of April 1940, Britain and France repeated their request that the Dutch enter the war on their side. The government of the Netherlands refused…
  • Japanese invasion of ThailandTanaka Chigaku, a Japanese Buddhist leader in the mid-1800s, introduced the principle of Hakkō Ichiu. He interpreted this concept to mean that imperial rule…
  • Operation DragoonGeneral George Marshall proposed the invasion of Southern France in 1942. Joseph Stalin supported this plan at the Tehran Conference in late 1943.
  • Saar OffensiveFrance and Poland signed a defensive alliance in 1921 through a military convention. This agreement set the stage for future cooperation against Germany.
  • Invasion of PolandAt 4:45 a.m. on the 1st of September 1939, the pre-dreadnought battleship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on the Polish military transit depot at Westerplatte…
  • Soviet invasion of ManchuriaAt 5 p.m. Moscow time on the 8th of August 1945, Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov informed Japanese ambassador Naotake Satō that the Soviet Union…
  • Western Allied invasion of GermanyBy early 1945, events favored the Allied forces in Europe. On the Western Front, the Allies had been fighting in Germany with campaigns against the Siegfried…
  • Battle of ImphalIn March 1943, Lieutenant-General Renya Mutaguchi took command of the Fifteenth Army in Burma. He immediately began pushing for an invasion of India with a…
  • German invasion of Denmark (1940)On the 4th of April, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, chief of the Abwehr and a man involved in the German resistance to Nazism, warned the Danes of an imminent…
  • Japanese invasion of French IndochinaJapan moved troops into southern Guangxi and Longzhou County in early 1940. Their goal was to seize the eastern branch of the Kunming, Hai Phong Railway at…
  • German invasion of LuxembourgOn the 1st of September 1939 Germany invaded Poland, initiating World War II. This put Luxembourg's Grand Ducal government in a delicate situation.
  • Invasion of YugoslaviaOn the morning of the 27th of March 1941, a group of Yugoslav military officers executed a coup d'état in Belgrade. They forced Regent Prince Paul to resign…
  • Italian invasion of FranceBenito Mussolini stood before the Fascist Grand Council on the 30th of November 1938 and declared that Italy needed to reclaim territories like Corsica…
  • Operation WeserübungBy the spring of 1939, the British Admiralty began to view Scandinavia as a potential theatre of war in a future conflict with Nazi Germany.