Britain in the Second World War, written for Children
World War II took place from 1939 to 1945, and had an enormous effect on the United Kingdom. Britain declared war on Germany in 1939 after Germany invaded Poland. For a number of years, the British Prime Minister at the time, Neville Chamberlain, attempted to avoid war with Germany through a program of Appeasement, in which he tried to settle issues with Germany diplomatically, through compromise. But this plan did not work in the long term, as the dictator of Germany, Adolph Hitler, had plans for the domination and restructuring of Europe. He didn't care about trying to work peacefully with anyone as long as he got what he wanted, whether he had to go to war or not.
Britain had already gone through a very costly war, World War I. Britain was still recovering from that war, and wasn't prepared to fight another war so soon. Things were still very hard in Britain at that time. The people of Britain wanted peace. However, Hitler soon proved that he was too dangerous to leave to do whatever he wanted. Even though he had tried his hardest to avoid going to war again, Chamberlain had to declare war on Germany, along with Edouard Daladier, the Prime Minister of France at the time. They had both promised to protect Poland from any attempts to invade or threaten their independence, and they upheld that promise.
Poland was defeated by Germany very quickly. It was too quickly for Britain and France to be able to adequately help. Shortly after that, Germany was then able to defeat and take over most of France. France was also still weak from World War I, and Germany managed to attack them from an angle that the French didn't see coming. After the fall of Poland and France, Britain retreated back to their home soil, to defend themselves.
Neville Chamberlain was replaced as Prime Minister by Winston Churchill in 1940 after a vote of no confidence when the war was going badly for Britain. Churchill took a more aggressive approach to the war.
Britain had a great advantage over Germany compared to the rest of Europe. This was the fact that it's an island and had an excellent navy. Germany knew that trying to fight a naval battle with the UK would probably go poorly for them. For this reason, Germany resorted to air attacks instead. The German air force, called the "Luftwaffe," attacked southern England during the last half of 1940. The night time air raids over London, known as "the Blitz," continued through 1941. Britain had another advantage over Germany even in air combat though. This was their invention of radar.
Churchill managed to secure aid from the United States of America despite the US having taken a stance of neutrality after the first World War. By the time the United States entered the war in 1941, the UK and the US already had a sturdy alliance.
In 1941, Germany launched a massive attack against Russia, which was at that time the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, also known as the Soviet Union or the USSR. Prior to this point, Britain had avoided forming any alliance with the USSR. This was because the USSR was communist, and communism was considered a threat to democracy. However, once Germany turned most of its war effort on the USSR, both the USSR and the UK realized that they needed each other's help. Thus, the "Allies" were born, with the British Empire, the US, and the USSR as its main body. Many other nations worked on the side of the Allies throughout the war, as well. The "Axis" powers included Germany, Italy, and Japan.
One of the major victories of the war is called "D-Day," which was the invasion of Normandy by British, American, and Canadian troops. With the help of French resistance fighters, the Allied troops defeated the German armies.
The Allies won the war in 1945 with the surrender of Germany. Italy had already surrendered in 1943. Japan surrendered shortly after Germany, following the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States.
The United Kingdom lost almost 500,000 people in the Second World War. They had already lost over 700,000 people in the First World War. The bombing during World War 2 also caused a horrible amount of physical damage to Britain's cities.
This is an original news article © The Kids Window
One in a series of articles about history written for children, see our range of kids historical dressing up clothes.
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