Operation Market Garden was a high risk Allied mission in Germany and the Netherlands that intended to end the war quickly and cleanly. It is considered on of the greatest Allied failures in world war two.
Operation Market Garden was unique in that it primarily used airborne troops to set in behind enemy lines. It’s primary objectives were to secure crossings at the Rhine river. The Rhine river was often considered the last seriously impeding natural barrier to entering Germany. On September 17th, 1944, the airborne troops were dropped along this final natural barrier.
Initially successful, the Americans captured the Waal bridge on September 20th. Unfortunately for the Allies, the British were not as lucky in capturing the Arnhem bridge, a vital crossing that would be needed for the planned rapid armored division advancement. Although the British had managed to hold out near the bridge awaiting backup, the British XXX failed to relieve them and the entire Market Garden plan had to be scrapped.
While widely considered a failure, Operation Market Garden had a lot to say about the war. It meant that the war wouldn’t be over by Christmas, as hoped by the soldiers. More heavy fighting was on the way and it proved difficult to enter Germany as they had expected. Had Operation Market Garden succeeded, many hundreds of thousands of soldiers could have been spared, along with millions of civilians.
While the second world war appeared to blossom from seemingly local events, albeit on a global stage, the first part of the war wasn’t quite a “World War”. The countries involved were the UK, France, Germany and Italy, among others. For a while they were all quite busy with the initial Axis advance. After the fall of France, the Axis powers invaded the Soviet Union, leading to the suspect and shaky alliance between the Allies and the Soviets. In the Pacific, the Japanese were growing bolder.
After demanding a steady supply of oil from the Indies, the Japanese militarily seized southern Indochina, believing it would give them leverage in the Pacific. The United States and United Kingdom responded by freezing all Japanese assets. The United States, who supplied 80% of Japan’s oil, also placed an embargo on the Japanese. It is quite obvious that these steps coerced Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1942.
Pearl Harbor thrust the United States directly into war. They immediately declared war on Japan, inspiring Germany and Italy to declare war on the United States. This, of course, invited the United States to declare war on Germany and Italy in turn. It was all rather gloomy. Soon after, the United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and China officially formed their alliance against the Axis Powers consisting of Germany, Italy and Japan. However, it is worth noting that the Soviet Union decided to keep their neutrality with Japan, which helped them focus on a single front.
And so the war became a world war.
World War Two arguably started as a result of initial land procurement by the Axis powers. In early 1938, not only were Japanese and Soviet forces skirmishing at their borders, Germany had annexed Austria which provoked nearly no military response from the Allies. Hitler soon followed up his success with Austria with claims of Sudetenland, again with no Allied backlash besides a stern warning to not try it again. Emboldened, Hitler then occupied Czechoslovakia. When Germany made claims on Danzig, the British and French proclaimed their support of a fully independent Polish, daring Hitler to step across the border into all out war. Hitler was not about to disappoint.
In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland with the famous Blitzkrieg, a invasion technique designed with mechanical warfare in mind. The plan was to quickly occupy Poland. The British and French dutifully declared war on Germany. Remarkable, the Soviets also invaded Poland and for some time, Poland was split neatly between the two factions. Immediately afterward, the Soviets invaded Finland, leading the Allies to believe they had allied with the Axis powers. For a while, at least, nothing much happened between the Allied and Axis powers.
In early 1940, the silence was broken with the German invasion of France. Using the Blitzkrieg tactics perfected in Poland, within a month the Germans had forced the British to evacuate France, leaving behind all their heavy machinery. Not wanting to miss out on the party, Italy soon declared war on France and promptly invaded. Within 2 weeks, the French were forced to surrender. France was duly split into two seperate occupation zones, one for the Germans and one for the Italians.