THE SECOND WORLD WAR An Outline

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 307, 11 May 1945, Page 4

THE SECOND WORLD WAR An Outline

For 10 months the Germans carry all before them. (September, 1939 — June, 1940) HE second World War began on the first of September, 1939, when the Germans invaded Poland. The first campaign was a walk-over. Poland’s allies, Britain and France, were far away and were unable to lift a finger in her defence; the Polish air force could do little against the might of the Luftwaffe; the summer was unusually hot and dry and long and suited to mechanised warfare, and the German columns swept forward from the north and the west and the south with all the ease @ the usual summer manoeuvres. The Poles fought well, but in little more than a month all effective resistance had ceased. The first campaign of the second World War was over. There followed a strange interval of e@bout six months that was neither peace mor war, while the Germans prepared for bigger things in the West. This was the period of "the phoney war," when the democratic world waited and wondered and wrangled and the whole thing seemed a bit unreal. There were still people who hoped that pamphlets would do the trick; and the R.A.F. was busy dropping paper over Germany instead of high explosive. The munition factories were busy, and in December in a real old-fashioned fight the Exeter end the Ajax and the Achilles sent the Graf Spee to the bottom, but somehow it still didn’t seem like a real war. But at last in April, 1940, the Gergans struck, and Denmark and Norway

-- and Holland and Belgium went down with a rush. There was nothing phoney about it now; it was total war. In the Low Country whole populations of towns and villages were set going in panic along the roads to the south; a diligent army of fifth columnists ‘spread confusion by means of false reports; the German bombers destroyed communication centres far in advance of the armies; the mechanised forces poured through the gaps in the Allied lines made by the concentrated fire-power of the tanks and fanned out behind the Maginot Line and towards the Channel ports; it seemed as if nothing could stop them. At any rate nothing did. In less than three weeks after the invasion of Holland, the Belgian army laid down its arms and the British divisions, cut off by the rapid German advance, escaped by sea from Dunkirk, leaving their magnificent equipment scattered along the canals and the beaches of Flanders. There was talk in the English and American papers of a desperate stand in Brittany; but the French Government had lost its stomach for a fight and went instead to Bordeaux. Thither flew the British Prime’ Minister in an endeavour to persuade the French Cabinet to continue the fight from North Africa, offering to weld France and England into a single political unit: but all in vainthe French were beaten and on June 17 Marshal Petain asked for an armistice. This was the darkest hour of the war. Routed out of Norway, escaped by the skin of their teeth from Flanders, abandoned by the French, and threatened with annihilation by the German Air Force, the British people had every reason to be afraid. In America it looked as if the war was over. But the British people did not despair. They listened to the rousing eloquence of Mr. Churchill and settled down to the job in hand. They were now alone, but at any rate things could hardly get any worse.

In 12 months the Battle of Britain ig won, the Navy keeps the Atlantic open, we drive the Italians out of Egypt and East Africa and are driven back by the Germans into Egypt. (June, 1940 — July, 1941) HY the Germans didn’t invade England at once, on the heels of the disorganised fugitives from Dunkirk, nobody knows. Perhaps they wanted to make sure of the French or perhaps they had a time-table and in the stolid old German way felt bound to stick to something at which they had looked so hard. Perhaps their plans were upset by the very speed of their advance. At any rate they waited, and it was not until the middle of August that the full weight of their bombs was felt in England. By that time the R.A.F. was ready; it was a pretty close thing but they pulled it off. In one of the great decisive battles of history the young men. of Britain went up in their Hurricanes and Spitfires to meet the new barbarians in the clouds. By the end of September it seemed clear that, however fearful were the wounds, London was not going to share the fate of Warsaw and Rotterdam. Many disastrous raids were still to come, but Englishmen now knew that they had better planes and better men; the Battle of Britain had been fought and won, and Hitler had received his first check. (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) All through these anxious days another battle was being fought, the Battle of the Atlantic, in which the Royal Navy and the Merchant Service were fighting to keep going the flow of food and munitions from U.S.A. and the British Dominions. The United States _ was neutral, but it was well understood by her leaders whose battle the British were fighting. When,, early in 1941, British funds began to run out, a new device called Lend-Lease was invented to take the place of cash. The flow of planes and munitions went on. At sea the British sailor was fighting with all his old courage and something more than his old resources. For a short time magnetic mines gave us a nasty turn, but the scientists came to our aid and the work went on. The losses were colossal; in the single month of March, 1941, they were just under half-a-million tons and still rising, but the British seaman showed he could take it: in many a merchant ship, like Rawalpindi and Jervis Bay, the spirit of Captain Fryatt and the sea-dogs of 1914-18 was still awake, and in the monotonous day-to-day work of the convoys or in spectacular jobs like the boarding of the Altmark and the evacuation of Dunkirk, the Royal Navy showed it still could do its stuff, On the sea, as well as in the air, we were holding our own.

On land also we were now not doing badly, Early in June, 1940, a new enemy loomed up in Mussolini and a new danger had to be met in the Italian armies on the borders of Egypt. In the thick of the blitz the British Government decided to send supplies and men around by the Cape to the Middle East-little as they could then be spared; and, when in September the Italian army moved towards Suez, we had an army ready to meet them. It was not very big but it was enough, A swift and vigorous assault, in which South African and Indian troops were prominent, began the clearance of Abyssinia; and Wavell launched a brilliantly successful attack on the invaders of Egypt. By the end of the year 1940 the Italians were in full retreat towards Benghazi. But the triumphant advance. of our army in North Africa was suddenly checked by two events, the diversion of part of Wavell’s small army to Greece and the arrival in Africa of the redoubtable Rommel and a powerful force of Germans, The Greek campaign was brief. The Greeks were more than holding their own against the army that Mussolini had launched against them through: Albania in October of 1940, when they were suddenly threatened in April of the following year by a German army coming down through Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. This was too much. In response to their appeal for help, a force of some 60,000 men, including the New Zealand and Australian divisions, were hurried across from North Africa. They too were unequal to the weight of men and armour that the Germans were able to put in the field. In a

succession of short and sharp engagemems they were driven out, but continued to fight in Crete; then Crete also was lost and the 15,000 survivors returned to Egypt. Greece, like Flanders, was a hard school, but we were learning. Meanwhile at the beginning of April, 1941, Rommel had attacked in Cyrenaica. He failed to take\Tobruk or to pass the borders of Egypt, but he drove us back. For several months the position was critical, but supplies were now pouring into Suez and, when the hot weather atrived, the danger was over, The Germans were left to sizzle for a month or two in the sand. A little to the north in Syria, during the same period, another German stunt had miscarried; in order to crush the attempt to open Irak to the Germans, we had been obliged in April to force the hand of the French: in Syria, and in a skort and sharp campaign we disarmed the French and crushed the rising in Irak in the month of June. The northern approaches to Suez were now secure, The year that ended in July, 1941, had been critical. But we had held our own. The invasion of Britain had been prevented, the Luftwaffe had received a nasty knock, the Atlantic had been kept open, we had failed in Greece and Crete, ° but the Navy was still in the Mediterranean and Malta was holding out, we had won a great victory in Abyssinia and Italian East Africa, we had kept the Germans out of Syria, and held them off in Egypt. We no longer feared the Italians either on land or sea or air, and we had taken the measure of the enemy and wefe ready for more. Britain and

Egypt were still besieged fortresses, but behind the walls the preparation for better things could still be carried on. The outlook in June of 1941 was still pretty black, but in the following month there was an important chafge; in July Hitler launched his armies on his long-prepared crusade to destroy the Soviet Union. However this crusade might go, it was going to use up a lot of German resources, and Britain was no longer alone.

During six months the Germans advance into Russia and are driven out of Egypt. (July — December, 1941) "Te invasiorr of Russia may have been madness, but it was at first a great success. The Russians appear to have been concentrated too far forward, and in the first few weeks they suffered terrific losses of men and supplies. The Germans advanced in four great drivespthrough Finland ‘in the north and Rumania in the south, and a double thrust from East Prussia and occupied Poland in the.west. It seemed as if nothing could stop them, They were soon at the gates of Leningrad. A great armoured drive along the edge of the Pripet Marshes overran Smolensk and opened the way towards Moscow, and another drive to the south-east under the walls of Kiev opened the way to the rich cornlands of the Ukraine. When the first snows were falling in the north in September, Kiev was taken; a month later -eeeeeaeauauauauauouououuu-T-T-T----- ES

Odessa fell, the approaches to the Crimea were threatened and Moscow itself was in serious danger. The Ruse sians, however, were not routed; they ree treated in good order, scorching the countryside as they went and leaving. hardy guerilla forces to harry the Gere man lines in the rear. They took a heavy toll of the invading troops and the fight~ _ ing became extremely bitter. By the end of November, when the Russians’ never failing ally, General Winter, arrived on the scene, the invaders were knocking at the doors of Leningrad and Mosc , and had entered Rostov-on-the-Don, The great Dnieper Dam had been put out of action and the whole of the rich grain lands of the Ukraine and much of the raw materials of Soviet industry were now in German hands, There were many in Allied countries who reckoned that all would soon be over. During these critical six months, while the Russians were steadily retreating and peace in the Far East hung in the balance, events were moving fast in North Africa. Under a new commander, Auchinleck, the 8th Army attacked and drove the Axis forces back. At the end of Nove ember the siege of Tobruk was raised, and by the end of the year we had reached Benghazi and were pushing towards the west. In this area things looked hopeful, but at the beginning of December something happened in the Pacific that was to alter the whole course of the war, : (continued on next page)

An Outline of the War

(Continued from previous page)

For seven months things look very bad: the Japs carry all before them in the Philippines and Malaya and the Dutch East Indies and reach New Guinea and the Solomons, Hitler still advances in Russia and Rommel drives the 8th Army back to El Alamein. (December 7, 1941 — July, 1942) S early as July of 1941 the Japanese had made a deal with Vichy and had moved into Indo-China. This, together with other Japanese moves in the Far East, had produced American protests and demands for reassurances; a special Japanese envoy had been despatched to the United States and all eyes were fixed on Washington, when suddenly, early on the morning of December 7, Japanese bombers descendéd on the naval base at Pearl Harbour in Honolulu, caught the Americans off their guard, and sank four battleships and a good many other craft and put the whole base out of action. This terrible defeat completely altered the balance of power in the Far East. In order to make sure of the defence of Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean, the British Government had gravely weakened our Far Eastern establishments both on land and sea and in the air; with the American fleet and base disabled as well, and the French offering no resistance in Indo-China, the Japanese had it all their own way. On the day of the attack on Pearl Harbour they landed in Northern Malaya and in a few weeks captured the great naval base of Singapore and a British army of something like 60,000 men-one of the worst military disasters in the history of the

British people. Hongkong had already fallen. By the end of February, 1942, most of the Dutch East Indies had been overrun; New Guinea and the Solomons soon followed, and early in May the Philippines and the whole of Burma were also in the hands of the Japanese. The whole campaign, from the attack on Pearl Harbour.to the surrender of Corregidor and the evacuation of Mandalay, had so far taken barely five months. The Japanese, however, had suffered serious losses, especially at sea: at the end of January in the Straits of Macassar, off Bali in the middle of February, in the Coral Sea battle early in May, and away in the north at Midway early in June. Air attacks on our Ceylon bases had been beaten off with very heavy losses. But the Allies had suffered what were for the present even more serious losses, beginning with the two battleships, Prince of Wales and Repulse, off the coast, of Malaya in December. Fresh Japanese landings were still taking place in the South Pacific. By the middle of 1942, it looked as if the way to Australia and New Zealand was still open. To the people in the blacked-out towns of New Zealand and especially to the indifferently-equipped home guardsmen, watching anxiously behind the wire along the beaches, the outlook was ex-. ceedingly grave. Meanwhile, with the Germans still carrying all before them in Russia, Rommel had mounted a fierce offensive in North Africa. After steadily pushing us back between January and May, 1942, he suddenly put in alk that he had: on June 13 we suffered a disastrous tank defeat, lost Tobruk and retreated into

Egypt, with alarming losses of men and ynaterial. Auchinleck reorganised _ his battered forces and prepared to make a last stand at El Alamein, almost within sight of the great naval base of Alexandria in the delta of the Nile. In the thick of it now was the New Zealand Division, dramatically returned from Syria to help to hold the fort. It was touch and go, but Rommel was held. His long communications, the interference of the Navy with his convoys, the terrible heat of July and August, ahd the grim determination of the defenders made a further advance for the present impossible. This was a black period-the worst days of the war. With the Germans triumphant in Russia and North Africa, and the Japanese carrying all before them in the South Pacific, with ‘the Burma Road cut and our Chinese ally tottering after five years ef war on the edge of a precipice, with shipping losses in the Atlantic amounting to 600,000 tons a month, the outlook for the Allies seemed almost hopeless. But things were not in fact as bad as they seemed. Britain and the U.S.A., were now on a proper war footing, the gigantic industrial resources of both countries and of the Dominions had been mobilised, women by the hundred thousand were releasing men from the factories, immense air-training schools were in full swing in Canada and the U.S.A., and Australia and New Zealand, a great shipbuilding programme was under way, and improved aircraft were coming out of the factories in ever-increasing numbers. While our own industrial machine was thus expanding, we were now in a position to hamper the German effort: we

were now able to send 1000 bombers at a time to raid the German industrial centres. "The skies of Germany were black with chickens coming home ‘to roost." This was nevertheless the critical year: the balance was still a long way down on the wrong side, but, if we could stave them off in Russia and North Africa and in China and the Pacific and keep the sea-route to America open for a few more months, all would yet be well.

In the course of 12 months the 8th Army, with the help of a new army landed in Algiers'and Morocco; drives the Germans out of Africa; Stalingrad is relieved and the German retreat begins in Russia; the Americans land on Guadalcanal and the Japanese begin to retreat in the South Pacific. (July, 1942 — June, 1943) N the second half of 1942 there was a great transformation in North Africa. Under an inspiring new commander, who speedily infected all ranks with something of his own energy and confidence, and reinforced by new weapons and fresh troops, the 8th Army prepared to deal with Rommel. The splendid halo that had gathered round the German’s head was about to be destroyed: in the Irish puritan, Montgomery, the dashing Nazi had met his match. On October 25 all was ready. Preceded by intense and far-ranging air attack, a terrific artillery barrage softened the enemy up, the engineers cleared the minefields, the new tanks went through, and the big battle was on. Nothing like such a concentration of firepower had yet been seen; and it was effectual. In ten days the herrenvolk were in full retreat and whole divisions ° of their Italian allies were laying down their arms. This time it was a rout: inside of a month the 8th Army was rolling into Benghazi, and by the end of December, aided by sea-borne supplies, they were approaching the port of Tripoli. But by this time they were not the only Allied army in Northern Africa; away to the west the Germans had now to face a new enemy. A great AngloAmerican army, borne by the greatest assembly of ships that the world had ever seen, had already landed (early in November, 1942) at a number of points on the Atlantic and Mediterranean coast, and was moving east. The landings were made with little loss either of men or ships, but the Germans got into Bizerta and Tunis first, and heavy fighting followed along mountainous approaches to these ports. There were hopes that Rommel’s army might be cut off before it reached the shelter of Tunis, but these were disappointed. Instead Rommel dealt the Americans a nasty blow at the Kasserine Pass and things looked bad for a bit, but soon improved; the Allied forces from the east broke through the Mareth Line at the end of March, 1943, and joined up at last with the army of the west, to finish one of the most complete and spectacular victories of the war. The German’ attempt to evacuate was frustrated by the Navy and the Air Force, and more than 200,000 (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) prisoners, intluding a handful of generals and Rommel’s successor to the supreme command, were soon safe in the bag. In the great drive across the continent the New Zealand Division had played its part with great distinction and had taken its revenge for the defeats of Greece and Crete. By the end of May, the campaign was over. In the last stage the attitude of the French had been still rather uncertain, but at the end of November the French Navy scuttled most of the fleet, lying in Toulon, and a dangerous obstacle in the way of the invasion of the Continent was removed. A little after the landings in Algiers and Morocco the situation in Russia began to improve, By the end of November, 1942, after a long and terrible siege, Stalingrad was relieved; and soon the whole of the German armies, except in the north, began their long retreat. By February Rostov had been retaken and in the following spring one by one in steady succession the key centres returned to Russian hands, beginning with Kharkov, Rjev, Viazma, and Orel. There was still a long way to go, but the Russians were now moving in, the right direction: after two years of all-in warfare over a vast area, for the first time it began to look as if the Germans might be beaten. In the Pacific also things had taken a turn for the better. There had been an uneasy pause after the Coral Sea battle of May, 1942-both sides had taken heavy punishment and were not in a position immediately to resume the fight. But Allied bases were being rapidly built up in Australia and New Zealand; in April, the Americans occupied New }

Caledonia and in June the first wave of Marines had arrived in New Zealand; by August, 1942, they were ready to advance, a great fleet moved out from New Zealand waters, and the Marines were launched on their attack on Guadacanal. It was tough going. A surprise attack at night destroyed a large part of their naval support and for a time they were in great danger, but they held on. The attack was taken very seriously by the Japanese high command and six full-scale attempts were made, between August and November, to bring reinforcements to the threatened Japanese forces. In the final naval encounter in mid-November, the Japanese suffered heavy losses and were forced to retire. In these engagements, according to American communiques, the Japs had lost 77 ships and the Americans no more than 15. By February, 1943, Guadacandl was completely cleared of enemy troops; and in the following month the annihilation by Allied aircraft of a Japanese convoy of 12 transports and 10 warships off the coast of New Guinea prepared the way for a general offensive that opened in the following June. Australia and New Zealand were now able to regard themselves as fairly safe, and the Japanese hold on New Guinea (where the Australians had played a very important part) and the Solomons was about to be loosed. It was going to take time and trouble, but it was going to be well and truly done. So ended another year, with North Africa cleared of the enemy, the Medi- | terranean once more wide open to Allied shipping, the great German retreat -in

Russia begun, Japanese naval supremacy in the South Pacific vigorously chailenged, if not ended, and American land forces firmly established in the Solomons. There was still in June, 1943, much to be done in the Pacific, but American strength was rapidly growing and big things could now be hoped for. In Europe, there was now a possibility of establishing the sécond front for which the Russians had long been asking. During these 14 months the air attack on Germany reaches its height, Italy is invaded, the Japanese retreat all over the South Pacific, the Germans are turned out of Russia and France. (July, 1943 — September, 1944) for Germany had very distinctly worsened. The submarine menace to Allied shipping was well under control-in the next three months no fewer than 90 U-boats were sunk — and the Allies were reported to be building up substantial reserves of shipping. An uninterrupted stream of supplies and men was pouring into the British Isles and North Africa and Russia. A vast force of far-ranging bombers and welltrained crews had been assembled and was ever increasing, and the systematic destruction of centres of German warproduction had been begun. Nothing like it had ever been seen. For over a year now Germany had been familiar with 1000-plane raids, but now the scale B: the middle of 1943 the outlook

and number of raids had been increased; Cologne and Hamburg and the Ruhr were receiving special attention. In the third quarter of the year our planes were dropping 100 tons of bombs for every ton dropped by German planes on Britain. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were reported to be dead or missing. Berlin was now receiving special atten-tion-5000 tons in a single week. In the second half of the year the weight of bombs dropped on Germany was more than 100,000 tons. Al) this was generally regarded as a preliminary to an invasion, and in fact the invasion of the Continéht from the south had already begun. The Italian Navy made no attempt to prevent the landings in Sicily that began on July 10, 1943, and the shore resistance at first was surprisingly light; hard fighting followed, but in a little over a month the island was in our hands, At the beginning of September the victorious 8th Army, followed by’ the 5th Army, crossed into Italy proper. Although the Italian Government at once capitulated, the Germans rushed reinforcements into the country and disarmed the Italian troops and put up a stiff fight just south of Rome. There was long and stiff resistance at Monte Cassino and an anxious moment after the landing at Anzio, but at last, 10 months after the landing in Sicily, the German line was broken and the Sth Army entered Rome. There was hard fighting ahead, but the situation in the whole Mediterranean area was now transformed. Good Italian airfields were now available for the bombing of Southern Germany and Austria and the Balkan countries, the guerilla forces of Greece and Yugoslavia could be easily supplied with arms, the Italian fleet had been handed over, and the Mediterranean was now an Allied sea.

During those same months the Russians had been going from victory to victory: in August they retook Taganrog, by the beginning of September the whole Donetz Basin had been cleared, at the end of the month they took Smolensk (which had been in German hands for two years), by the end of October they were rapidly advancing everywhere in the south, early in November Kiev was once again in their hands. All through the winter they harried the retreating Germans, inflicting terrible losses; at the beginning of January, 1944, they crossed the Polish border, two months later they entered Bessarabia and a few weeks later they were in Rumania, By the end of June it was clear that the Russians had the Nazis where they wanted them. It had taken three years, it had cost gigantic sacrifices, but it had been done. se All this time the herrenvolk of the Far East were meeting a heap of trouble, Beginning in June, 1943, the Allied offensive in New Guinea and the Solomons has been pushed on with determination. Great reserves of men and supplies had been built up, the Americans were superior on the sea and in the air, and now the advance began, By August they were clearing the Solomon Islands one by one and were (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) threatening the large forces in New Guinea with extinction. In the second half of November the Japs were blasted out of the Gilberts and early in the New Year an attack was made on the Marshalls, shortly followed by a naval assault on the Carolines and the naval base of Truk. By the end of May, 1944, the New Guinea campaign was virtually over and the days of Japanese domination in the Pacific could be safely said to be numbered. Meanwhile in the west preparations were nearing completion for the invasion of France. Great American air forces were now co-operating with the R.A.F. During the first six months of 1944 the bombing of German industrial centres reached a staggering height: on Berlin, Brunswick, Magdeburg, Frankfurt, Leipzig, and other cities, 2000 tons of bombs at a time were being dropped. Already in January it was announced that half of Berlin had been destroyed; in’ March, daylight raids and 12,000Ib, . block‘busters were completing the havoc. In May 132,000 tons were dropped on Germany and occupied countries. By June the softening process was over and on the 6th the invasion began: _ preceded by an attack of 10,000 aircraft, the great Anglo-American group of armies moved towards the beaches of Normandy. Opposition at the landings was unexpectedly light. British troops held the main German force off on the eastern flank, while the landing was consolidated, and the Americans prepared for a great encircling movement towards Paris. Some weeks of hard slogging at Caen, where Rommel threw in the full weight of his tanks and was held, and then the rout began. Early in September the capital was liberated and the invading armies swept on towards Belgium and were in a few days drawing near to the borders of the Reich,

During these nine months. the AngloAmerican armies cross the Rhine, the Russians invade the Balkans and cross Poland, the Americans land in the Philippines, and the war in Europe rushes to its end. (September, 1944 May, 1945) if the war in Europe would end before Christmas, but the hope soon faded. A spectacular landing of airborne troops in Holland on a large scale was held up at Arnhem and Nijemegin in’ September, and more orthodox methods of making the Rhine crossings had to be employed. While the Allies were building up for a big offensive, Rundstedt assembled his armour and made a daring and very alarming thrust towards Liege and Antwerp; but this was held, and the Allied advance was resumed. By the end of March, Cologne and the West bank was in our hands. The first crossing was made by the Americans at Remagen; not long afterwards the British crossed south of Cologne; preceded by bombing on an unheard-of scale, armoured columns were pushed across the river in great strength, pinched off the Ruhr, and swept over the great northern plain towards Bremen, Hamburg, and Berlin. During this last period there was little advance on the Italian front, but in the East the Russians were making great progress; one group of armies swept down into the Balkans through Rumania; in September they had occupied Bulgaria, and in the following month they entered Yugoslavia and were battering at. the gates of Belgrade. There was hard fighting in Hungary and on the borders of Austria; but nothing stopped the Russian armies and by April of the following year Vienna was in their hands. Another group of armies to the north pushed up through Finland, and by the end of the year a short time it looked as

had entered Norway; another pushed _ back large German forces"in the States to the edge of the sea; another drove towards Czechoslovakia; another penned down the Germans in Danzig and Konigsberg; and another thrust straight ahead towards Berlin. In a great offensive at the beginning of the New Year Warsaw, Cracow, Lodz, and a steady succession of other cities fell into their hands, until the Red armies poured across the Oder into the Reich. In the Pacific area the same sensational progress was being made. While Anglo-Indian forces were moving down towards Mandalay and the main strength of the British Fleet was moving towards the East, the Americans were moving from island to island towards the Philippines and Japan. Large forces landed at the .end of October on the island of Leyte and the invasion of the Philippines had begun. One Japanese relief convoy after another was destroyed, Mindoro and Luzon were occupied, and then the Americans turned their forces northwards towards Japan itself, In May the end came in Italy and Germany. There still remained much to do in the East, but the main battle was over. The German assault on civilisation had failed.