WORLD WAR II: TIMELINE

Japan invades Manchuria.

Fascist Italy invades, conquers, and annexes Ethiopia.

Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy sign a treaty of cooperation on October 25; on November 1, the Rome-Berlin Axis is announced.

Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan sign the Anti-Comintern Pact, directed against the Soviet Union and the international Communist movement.

Japan invades China, initiating World War II in the Pacific.

Germany incorporates Austria in the Anschluss.

Germany, Italy, Great Britain, and France sign the Munich agreement which forces the Czechoslovak Republic to cede the Sudetenland, including the key Czechoslovak military defense positions, to Nazi Germany.

Under German pressure, the Slovaks declare their independence and form a Slovak Republic. The Germans occupy the rump Czech lands in violation of the Munich agreement, forming a Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

France and Great Britain guarantee the integrity of the borders of the Polish state.

Fascist Italy invades and annexes Albania.

Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union sign a nonaggression agreement and a secret codicil dividing eastern Europe into spheres of influence.

Germany invades Poland, initiating World War II in Europe.

Honoring their guarantee of Poland’s borders, Great Britain and France declare war on Germany.

The Soviet Union invades Poland from the east.

Warsaw surrenders on September 27. The Polish government flees into exile via Romania. Germany and the Soviet Union divide Poland between them.

The Soviet Union invades Finland, initiating the so-called Winter War. The Finns sue for an armistice and have to cede the northern shores of Lake Lagoda and the small Finnish coastline on the Arctic Sea to the Soviet Union.

Germany invades Denmark and Norway. Denmark surrenders on the day of the attack; Norway holds out until June 9.

Germany attacks western Europe—France and the neutral Low Countries. Luxembourg is occupied on May 10; the Netherlands surrenders on May 14; and Belgium surrenders on May 28. On June 22, France signs an armistice agreement by which the Germans occupy the northern half of the country and the entire Atlantic coastline. In southern France, a collaborationist regime with its capital in Vichy is established.

Italy enters the war. Italy invades southern France on June 21.

The Soviet Union forces Romania to cede the eastern province of Bessarabia and the northern half of Bukovina to the Soviet Ukraine.

The Soviet Union occupies the Baltic States on June 14–18, engineering Communist coup d’états in each of them on July 14–15, and then annexing them as Soviet Republics on August 3–6.

The air war known as the Battle of Britain ends in defeat for Nazi Germany.

Second Vienna Award: Germany and Italy arbitrate a decision on the division of the disputed province of Transylvania between Romania and Hungary. The loss of northern Transylvania forces Romanian King Carol to abdicate in favor of his son, Michael, and brings to power a dictatorship under General Ion Antonescu.

The Italians invade British-controlled Egypt from Italian-controlled Libya.

Germany, Italy, and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact.