ULUSLARARASI İLİŞKİLER TARİHİ

• For Roberts, three aspects explain the successful defense of Moscow:
  First, the Soviet Union had human and material power to block the advance of
  Operation Typhoon.
• Second, General Georgy K. Zhukov was appointed as Commander-in-Chief for the defense of the city. To become one of the major Soviet commanders of World War II, he was able to mobilize and maintain a successful defense of Moscow, and eventually launch a counter-offensive.
• Third, when the German troops advanced towards Moscow, there was a general panic in the city due to the rumors circulating about the Soviet evacuation. To prevent this, Stalin stayed in the city.

was called ‘Blitzkrieg’—a lightning war. For

starters, German air attacks destroyed much of

the Polish air force. Second, German bombers

attacked at road and rail communications,

munitions dumps, and civilian centers. These wellcoordinated

German tanks and armored vehicles

with devastating air power destroyed Polish forces

within a short time.

before turning his forces against the Soviet Union

(Gilbert, 2004:56). However, he received certain

reports that “the Allies were preparing to occupy

Norway and Sweden under the cover of coming

to the aid of Finland” (Rich, 2003:217). He

further argued that such a preparation should be

prevented, for if the British forces had occupied

Norway and Sweden this would have been a

serious threat to German strategic and economic

interests. Germany had various naval bases in the

Baltic Sea and depended on Sweden’s iron ore

(Rich, 2003:217).

1941 was the greatest military operation in history.

The 3.5 million-strong invasion force consisted

of three main army groups: Army Group North

attacked from East Prussia and fought along the

Baltic coastal lands towards Leningrad; Army

Group Centre moved towards Minsk, Smolensk,

and Moscow; and Army Group South advanced

towards Ukraine. In their invasion of the Soviet

Union, German forces used the same Blitzkrieg

tactics they had employed in 1939–1940 against

Poland, France, and the Low Countries. The codename for the German invasion

was Operation Barbarossa in honor of Frederick

I, the Holy Roman Emperor who organized a

12th century crusade to liberate the holy places of

Christianity from the Muslim control. According

to Nazi propaganda, the German campaign in

Russia was of a similar character—a crusade against

a Bolshevik regime that threatened European

civilization (Roberts, 2002:18).

civilian war deaths. Of these, 11 million died under

the German occupation and another five million

were victims of Nazi deportation. It is difficult to

be precise about civilian death rates from 1941–

1945, but at least several million fell victim to the

Germans after Stalingrad. As for military casualties,

the Red Army lost over 16 million, including

four million dead, between 1941-1945 (Roberts,

2002:149-150).

D-Day, the Allied parachutists landed on five

beaches of Normandy in France. The invasion force

consisted of 175,000 soldiers and more than 7,000

vessels, including warships, minesweepers, cargo

ships, and landing craft (Perry, et.al. 2008:841).

Churchill met again to discuss the political

problems of post-war Europe in the Crimean town

of Yalta. The main points discussed at the Yalta

Conference (February 4-11, 1945) were as follows:

payments,

Soviet Union would enter the war against

Japan (Bell, 2011:202).