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	World War II has been listed as one of the good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones Date Process Result September 20, 2005 Peer review Reviewed January 26, 2006 Featured article candidate Not promoted April 13, 2006 Peer review Reviewed May 18, 2006 Featured article candidate Not promoted September 25, 2006 Good article nominee Listed February 17, 2007 Featured article candidate Not promoted Current status: Good article

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Archives
#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7
#8 (8/05 - 2/06)
#9 (3/06)
#10 (6/06)
#15 (8/06)
#16 (8/06 - 10/06)
#17 (12/06)
Topical Archives
Britain (#11, 7/06 - 8/06)
Intro (#12, 7/06 - 8/06)
Start Date (#13, 7/06)
Other Topics (#14, 6/06 - 8/06)
Combatants (8/06 - 12/06)
Article Length
Photos
Causus Belli

This article was chosen as Article Improvement Drive article of the week on Sunday, 18th December 2005. The archive of the selection process can be found at Talk:World War II/AID vote archive

An event mentioned in this article is a September 1 selected anniversary.

Proposal to Include Small Mention of the Creation of Free France in Early Europe War (and other things)

I noticed that no mention of Charles de Gaulle's creation of Free France is made during the portion describing the fall of France and the Vichy French Armistice of June 22, 1940. I think it suitable that a small mention be made for two reasons: 1. The Free French government would be considered the de jure government of France (or the continuation of the Third Republic as opposed to the de facto French State). 2. The Free French are mentioned later in the article (under the North African Campaign) with no background explanation as to who they actually are. I think a small blurb in the same manner as that detailing what happened to Poland following the fall of Poland should be made in the appropriate portion (detailing the fall of France). Also, there should be some slight clarification as to the part mentioning Operation Torch; General Giraud is referred to as a Free French general, which he was not. Although modern simplification tends to describe everything French that is Allied between post-armistice 1940 and 1944 as "Free French", Giraud was in fact not in league with General de Gaulle until 1943.

Vandalism By 'Flying Tiger' and 'NEMT'

'Flying Tiger': Holocaust civilians who died were not allies. Most of the jews killed in the holocaust were native Germans, or living in axis controlled countries which makes them axis civilians.

'NEMT' vandalism--- the infobox gives a useful brief summary of the major players and their respective leaders. One disadvantage of the 'axis powers' and 'allies powers' articles is that they don't list the leaders. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pkpat2011 (talk • contribs)

Neither of these edits are vandalism, and have been discussed to death on this very talk page. Additionally, please sign your comments and leave new comments on the bottom of talk pages in the future. --NEMT 23:40, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

small changes

Couldn't find a section with changes, so just do it here: a. Changed Biowarfare (in the technology section) to chemical warfare. Correct me if i'm wrong, but biowarfare was not used in WW2, no? b. in the same section, only some technologies and/or weapons were crucial. The effect of the V2 missile was for example not relevant anymore to the outcome of the war...Sikkema 11:55, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The after the war map for Germany has some mistakes: 1. the two German Sttes were both founded in 1949 2. GErman Reunification was in 1990 not 1991 So: internal GErman borders 1945-1991 is definetly not correct. 3. the terretorry east of the Oder was officially under Polish or Soviet Control, I wouldn't use the term "annexed by" 4. there is also no mentioning of what happened to Danzig

Article Size

I've noticed that many of the articles on major wars are far too long; So, I've decided to section them all off into smaller articles. This is a really big project, so it will take awhile, but sometime in the next month or two I will probably redo this article as well. Please tell me if you have any concerns about this, or have any material you want me to leave intact on this page. Thanks! Ahudson 18:34, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

While articles shouldn't grow to extreme proportions, there is often a relationship on Misplaced Pages between subject matter importance and article length. World War II is obviously one of the central pages on WP and shouldn't in my opinion be arbitrarily shortened to satisfy some perceived guideline that it's too long. I would hesitate to allow such changes unless many editors were in agreement with the above. MarkThomas 19:34, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Ahudson, your work would probably be welcome. Make sure to at least review the discussion of this article's length at Talk:World War II/Archive Length. It is FAR too long. --Habap 22:22, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it's too short - there are a lot of key facts missing. Breaking it up won't help with that. MarkThomas 22:24, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

It's supposed to be an overview of the war with links to articles which contain all of the key facts. Otherwise, we need several hundred pages in the main article. See Misplaced Pages:Article size for an explanation of why 32kb is better than 128kb. To quote on readability "Readers may tire of reading a page much longer than about 6,000 to 10,000 words, which roughly corresponds to 30 to 50 KB of readable prose." --Habap 22:29, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

that may be true, habap, but you can't just say "hitler started the war in europe. france surrendered. the americans and british landed at normandy, and the russians came in from the east. germany surrendered. the end." those guidlines make sense for normal articles, on say, belly button lint; but on an article like World War Two, you have to have a lot of information. i agree with MarkThomas, it's too short. the point of the article is to provide information, not to link to 9000 sub articles. does it make sense to say "the japanese bombed pearl harbor in 1941. now here's a link to the main article" and say nothing more? it generally IS formatted like you want it, habap. most of the entire article concerning the war are a few sentences or a couple short paragraphs, with links to the main articles. there's not too much you can take from this article, without it becoming a hollow shell. Parsecboy 12:26, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

You are correct, Parsecboy. A five-sentence article would be inappropriate. The difficulty with your reducto ab absurdum argument is that our choice is not between 5 sentences and more than 40 pages (printing from IE6 to a Brother HL-1240 shows 38 pages in print preview and you're asking for more to be added). Right now, the main article contains so much detail that we have to break it into dozens of sections. I mean, there's a section 3.6.1.6 in this article.

The trouble is, most readers will stop long before they read the whole article. If the article were a quarter of it's current size, it would actually get read in it's entirety by most readers (according to WP:Size, not my own guesses). If you put a lot of information in there and no one reads it, it's the same as leaving it out, except you don't get to decide what's important, the location in the article does.

If this article gets broken into parts dealing with the campaigns or years or topics or whatever, then the reader can get a 10-page overview of the war here and follow links to the parts that interest him or her.

Imagine your high school teacher asked you to summarize World War II in five pages. Would you say that it can't be done or would you try to determine which points are the most important and stick to those? --Habap 14:23, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

The size article also says that decisions need to be made case-by-case, and that there are exceptions.

I disagree that readers "don't get to decide what's important". I'm sure lots will skip over what doesn't interest them; there is also an outline to see at the outset what is there right away. It is also not necessary to read the article in one visit; readers can just bookmark the page, look it up again, or print it out.

As for the question "...would you try to determine which points are the most important and stick to those?". A big difference here is that a number of people edit this article, and they will not agree what should be left out. Saros136 20:05, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

One of the most important things about an article is it's readability. It seems to be general consensus that the article should be a first-stop reference for basic information about WWII. Going from there, an article for a topic as important as a World War should serve as a reintroduction to those who have forgotten some of their history, as that is what the average user will be using this article for. There for, contrary to what Saros has just said, the article does need to be readable in one visit, because a user does not want to have to spend a lot of time on reading an overview. The idea of an article is not to provide the only reference a reader will need on the topic, it is to equip the reader with the basic tools they need to understand the rest of the field. I haven't actually sat down and figured out what needs to be in the article and what doesn't, but I would think that less than ten pages would be needed to explain the war and it's era enough for readers to understand it and most of its implications. That may be a bad estimate, but if I was trying to get an overview of World War II, and I ran across this article, I would have to find a different source of information, because there is too much here. Heavy Metal Cellist_contribs 04:36, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

World War II cannot be sufficiently summarised in 5 pages. or even 10. it's far too broad a subject. i recall in my high school junior english class, for the final paper at the end of the year (the paper was supposed to be about history), the teachers strongly recommended that we did not pick a topic like World War II because it's just too broad, and the project was for a 12-15 page paper. not 5. saros has a very good point. the World War II article is edited by many people, so finding a consensus on what "should" be left out is nigh impossible. what are the "less important" areas that should be left out? the fighting in southeast asia? china? surely the war wasn't won or lost in those areas. but then you get a euro/america-centric article, and that's unacceptable. Parsecboy 21:28, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Parsecboy, nothing will be left out. All the points willl wtill be there, but the details, such as the precise ratio of Finnish to Soviet troops and the precise course of battles in the eastern theatre, would be in a seperate article, divided by time period, or perhaps by a trend in the war. In other words, what is taken out is only what is not needed for basic understanding of the subject; the main points of every front and every major trend in war policy and reality are still there. Ahudson 22:06, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I am shocked that you feel it is impossible to match the article to the needs of the reader. I feel that you should be able to write an article of any length on World War II. If someone has 30 seconds, you can't tell them much, but if they have 10 days, you can tell them a lot. So, we match what they can read in one sitting with our article length - that means 6,000 to 10,000 words. That's all they are going to read if it's in one article anyway. In Ahudson's plan, we move everything on 1939 into an article on that and summarize the year in a paragraph. Details will still exist in the sub-article, so nothing will be lost. --Habap 16:36, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I think many of you are missing my point. Please read my reasons for doing this before you keep arguing:

1) As it is now, the article is too long for almost anybody to read. Most people have a limited attention span, and will only get halfway through this article; this means that the purpose of having a single article is defeated anyway.

2) Splitting up an article will leave it readable for most people, but leave the information still there for those that wish to look for it.

3) Sectioning off an article would leave a summary of the key points still in the main article. Being a complex war, mostly trends would be summarized, however with major events still in place.

4) Other than deleting content, the only way to make an article this size accessible is to section it off. The information is still there, most of it still in it's original form; however, just in manageable pieces. Thanks for your input, everybody. It helps. Ahudson 21:46, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Ahudson, if you check through the article you'll see that there are already 96 pointers to well over 100 separate "main articles". Virtually every seciton of this article is alrady a summary of another article. Can you indicate which specific sections are left to split off? -Will Beback · † · 22:50, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Probably the Chronology section; however, now that I take a closer look at this article, what it needs is more removal of duplicate material instead of sectioning off, and moving as much as is reasonable into the existing articles. I just realized a general trend in all the big War articles, and posted the same message on a few of them (see Vietnam War, World War I, American Civil War, Korean War, etc.) Ahudson 01:23, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

The chronology section is the heart of the article. It'd be better to remove the rest and leave that section. It's distressing that you don't appear to have actually read the article all the way through. -Will Beback · † · 01:39, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Of course I didn't read the article, it's too long; I did skim it though. I will read as much as I can handle before making any changes, though; but I probably won't get to this article for awhile, I was going to start with Vietnam War. Although, if I run into a lot of objections that I need to deal with first, I might start somewhere else. And in terms of sectioning off for this article, I think it would be best to do it in terms of year, and leave a much more concise summary here. I think one article for each year would work, titled like "World War II (January-December 1939)" or "World War II (1939)" or something along those lines. Also I would want to narrow down sections like "Causes", "Casualties..." and "Aftermath". Does that sound like an acceptable plan? Ahudson 01:51, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Also you don't seem to be understanding what I've been talking about all along-- I'm not removing anything, just moving and summarizing. The content will still be here, just summarized. Ahudson 01:57, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I strongly urge you to A) read the entire articles before editing them, and B) get more experience with Wikiepdia before taking on major edits to articles that have extensive community involvement. Your desire to improve articles is great, but these are not the articles most in need of help. -Will Beback · † · 02:07, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Whoa! Back off. First of all, WP:BOLD encourages people to be BOLD in their editing. Ahudson has done you a favor in even mentioning that he is planning on reducing the size of the article. Both of you probably need to cool down a little, especially Will. Calling his experience into question doesn't help. It also looks like you haven't realized that he hasn't actually edited the WWII article yet. Before you start telling him what he should have done before editing, you may want to wait until he edits the article first. Heavy Metal Cellist_contribs

Many have talked about reducing the size of this article. No one has been able to see it through. This article has a life of its own that is beyond all of us. Haber 05:54, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Ahudson has done you a favor in even mentioning that he is planning on reducing the size of the article. Favour to us? No. He did favour to himself because it can be very depressing to make major rewriting of so big article and then get it reverted immediately(which would had certainly happened). As haber said this has been discussed before and so far there haven't been achieved any consensus to shorten it. Of course it theoretically could be shortened, for example there is also short version of WW II at the beginning of this article(overview section). But until there isn't general agreement that new version would be better than old one no permanent changes can be made.--Staberinde 10:16, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Which comes nicely back to my point: it will be better almost no matter what I do, because right now there is so much text and information that any sense of progression or contiguity is lost. With the changes I am proposing, the article will become accessible. Plus, with this article having "a life of its own", anything that I do that people don't like they can modify or add to instead of blatant reversion. Misplaced Pages articles are never finished-- they are always works in progress, imperfect even now. And sometimes, to fix stuff, you have to go backwards. Ahudson 16:15, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

The only change you've proposed so far is splitting the article into pieces by year. I don't see how that would in any way help its sense of progression or contiguity, just the opposite. As mentioned before, this article is mostly a set of summaries of other articles. It may be possible to shorten some of those summaries, but that is small-time wordsmithing. Perhaps we could take a leaf from the Encyclopedia Britannica's Macropedia/Micropedia concept and write a short "WWII overview" article for folks who aren't interested in reading 30 pages, but retain this comprehensive article for those who are interested in a fuller picture. -Will Beback · † · 21:40, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't only section stuff off, that's already been done to a ceratin extent. What I was thinking is that I would turn at least some of these "main article" refrences into inline links, and merge their accompanying paragraphs. I'm sorry, I completely forgot to say that. But as to your idea for an article that went into more detail-- that is precisely what the sectioned-off articles should be. That is the idea behind this whole thing. Ahudson 22:48, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

May I suggest, then, leaving this article as it is and starting fresh with a new summary/overview article? I don't think anyone would have a problem with that approach. -Will Beback · † · 23:36, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. I do not feel that we need to worry about whether this article is too long for any one reader to read. What we do need to worry about is whether it is clear, coherent, and provides good and useful information. thanks. --Sm8900 23:55, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, do you feel there are any problems in those departments with the present article? -Will Beback · † · 00:22, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Not really. I agree with your comment, above,to start a new article, for anyone who feels we need a shorter article providine an overview of World War 2. By the way, i just realized it sounded like i was disagreeing with you in my earlier message. i really meant to disagree with the general issues in that thread. Thanks. --Sm8900 15:26, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with another of the comments above. no one here can state that "any changes will be better" just because they will make the article more readable; I do not agree that such changes would do that. There are many goals and ideas which many of the people who contributed here are trying to put forth. So any changes should occur individually and reflect the ideas and viewpoints of the many people and viewpoints who have contributed here. --Sm8900 15:30, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Sidenote, Habap please do not put your comments in the middle of older comments. I strongly dislike it because it makes harder to follow the text, especially then its as long as here and not all users put date and time to their comments. About shortening the article I think that Will's proposal to make new article "Summary/Overview/What_ever_you_want_to_name_it of World war II" is best solution.--Staberinde 12:25, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

So, judging by your comments in the past few posts, both Will Beback and Sm8900 feel that the prose in the article is perfectly clear, and there are "not really" any problems in terms of whether it is clear and coherent. Am I right? Heavy Metal Cellist_contribs

that's basically correct, in regards to your summation of my position. I realize that not everyone here agrees with me. Thanks. --Sm8900 00:27, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Debate over article size

People seem to be getting really bent out of shape over changing the article size. At this point, I think the article probably will be re-written to some degree, and it will probably end up a little shorter, although not necessarily with less material. I have browsed parts of this article, and some of it can definitely be re-written to condense the article without taking out any information.

At this point, it would be more productive to briefly state your concerns about re-writing to Ahudson, as he has volunteered to make the time committment needed to improve the article, instead of arguing over who said what etc. Heavy Metal Cellist_contribs

Let me just say that I completely disagree with any thought of shortening this article just for the sake of shortening it. If other Misplaced Pages editors have added information because they thought it was appropriate, then that is fine. If we find that specific points or items here or there are outside the article's scope, then we can discuss those individually. However, we should never just shorten an article just because we say it needs shortening, particularly when the contents of the article are the result of many different contributors' hard work.

Again, one discussion which we can have is over the true scope of the article, and which facts might fit most usefully in there. However, there is no benefit to discussing how long or short an article should hypothetically be. The value of Misplaced Pages is its ability to combine the knowledge and insights of many different people at once. When we start talking about inordinate length as an isolated topic, and not in relation to anything else, then we are simply glossing over the real details of what goes into the making of this or any other article.

In closing, I would just like to say that i do not consider this article to be excessively long at all. plenty of encylopedias have long articles. just take a look at Encyclopedia Britannica to see some examples of this, and similar works. thanks. --Sm8900 23:45, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I support not just leaving the article alone, but to add more information to this article. Sm8900 has completely proved his point. Deleting information will only destroy this still inadequete information. Like his previous argument, this article and the WWI article are results of editors time and effort. WWI had the same issue, and I am pretty sure the same editor brought it up there. ChockStock 13:38, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I did propose this there as well. But for the last time, I'm not deleting anything. Just summarizing. For an example of how this might work, compare User:Ahudson/Sandbox with Vietnam War#Americanization. I might even add stuff; there's hardly anything but military history here, very little on the social implications of the war (which I think are the most important part) Ahudson 16:21, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. However, sorry, but summarizing is deleting, if you are broadly changing material which was written by someone else. Anyone's work should be changed on an individual basis, not on a wholesale basis. By the way, your additions, of course, are welcome. I think I'd be very interested to see what further material you'd like to add. perhaps we could focus on that for now. Thanks. --Sm8900 16:50, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I respectively disagree that nothing should be removed from this article, which should summarize World War II. It currently prints out at 38 pages. Almost no one will read that much. If no one reads, does it really matter whether it is well-written? According to WP:Size, the average reader will read 6,000 to 10,000 words, which corresponds to 30-50kb. With the article at 128kb of text, they are likely to read far less than half of the article. That's the same as stopping writing the article in 1942, since they won't read past that.

I do, however,agree with Sm8900 that summarizing is deleting. The thing is, while we may delete it from this article, we are not deleting it from Misplaced Pages. For example, if you summarized the action on the Eastern Front in Europe during 1944 into one section (instead of 4), the information on each of the Soviet and German offensives could still be easily found using links -- or, as Ahudson proposed at the beginning of this discussion, we could take those 4 sections and put them in a sub-article called World War II/1944 Eastern Front (I am working on a sample) and the entire text placed in the subarticle. --Habap 18:13, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Here is the sample: User:Habap/World War II. It is only the 1944 Europe part of the main article, not an entire article, designed to demonstrate what I think ought to be done. I may have erred in summarizing because I was just reducing what was there - in order to summarize, someone would have to be more conversant than I with the Eastern Front. Note that all of the original text landed at User:Habap/World War II/1944 Eastern Front, which would be a sub-article, named World War II/1944 Eastern Front. Hope this clarifies what is being proposed. --Habap 18:35, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

you said:

If no one reads, does it really matter whether it is well-written? 

My friend, I think we are misunderstading the meaning of the word "encyclopedia". It really does not matter whether the article is readable by a single person. What matters is completeness of information. There are many Britannica articles which are extremely dense. Their value is the completeness of information. this is the mark of any encyclopedia which is meant as a scholarly work, not as a quick reference. And Misplaced Pages is the equal or superior of many scholarly works. Through collaboration, we have created a work which presents more information, more coherently, than many privately-written works. I am happy to read this article, and see a work which reflects the true complexity of its topic. Every single section leads the reader easily to further information, yet each section also accuraely reflects the complete view of its subject matter. So I do not see a need to go through the whole article and to try to shorten the whole thing. --Sm8900 20:45, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Wow. I guess we just have a completely different philosophical approach. For me, an encyclopedia is the first place to look for something on anything. It is a starting point and may point you to other sources that will have information in greater depth. Thus, no encyclopedia is a scholarly work, but all are simple references.

I thought we writing in order to be read, not simply to satisfy ourselves. Isn't the goal to spread knowledge and make it more accessible instead of less?

My impression from WP:Size and WP:Summary style was that short, readable articles that summarize topics are the goal. I thought this was the consensus of the community. --Habap 21:21, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

The Encyclopedia Britannica's article online WWII article is 49,359 words. On the other hand, Encarta's WWII piece is about the same as Misplaced Pages.

The print edition of Britannica has several levels. A one-volume Propædia gives a detailed outline, a 12-volume Micropædia with short articles (don't know how long WWII is), and the 17-volume Macropædia with articles sometimes running over three hundred pages.

The other popular encyclopedias I've seen do tend to be shorter, though in general.

So the examples of other encyclopedias could be used as examples to support either side, in some way.

Saros136 09:00, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you all for contributing to the discussion. From what I have read of all of your opinions, none of us completely agree on what the appropriate "article length" in terms of number pages/words. That is understandable, and I expect everyone to always disagree on the issue of an ideal numerical article length.

We have also made major progress in terms of understanding the other side. Everyone should now have it figured out that there is one side of the argument that is worried that a shorter article, and even the article we have now, would/does not give a comprehensive full story. There is another side of the argument that is worried that the article is too long in terms of actual numbers of words and/or length in pages to be useful to the average user.

What both sides can agree on is that we need to make the article less confusing and easier to read. The article does not flow well, and could be re-written to make it easier for a user to read it and get what they need from it. I'm not talking about summarizing things to make the article shorter, I'm talking about rewriting and reorganizing the material that is already there to make the article flow better. Maybe moving around sentences and paragraphs so that facts do not have to be restated, manipulating the progression of information to conserve space. I don't know exactly how we would do this, because I haven't taken an incredibly detailed look at the prose. I also think this could make the article both shorter and easier for a user to deal with, without compromising the article's integrity.

Better flow and organization could potentially both reduce the article size and make it easier to add more information to give a complete view of the subject. For example, in the Vietnam war article Ahudson has managed to remove half a page or so from the article, just by reorganizing the introduction, and without removing any significant amount of information from the article as a whole. Would this kind of rewrite, a reorganization of facts without taking any information out of the article, be a good compromise? Heavy Metal Cellist_contribs

Is anyone else going to reply to this? Is anyone else going to express at least some slight reservations about the current suggestion to completely rewrite this article? i would like to get a sense of people's opinions. I myself still have deep concerns about the proposed idea. I appreciate your willingness to discuss this more fully. however, it still sounds to me like there would be quite a bit of removal of material taking place...otherwise, by the terms of your own proposal, it seems like there would not be much point in doing this in the first place anyway. So I still have very deep concerns about any such effort or idea. that's basically my stance. thanks. --Sm8900 04:07, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

You may touch some sensitive issues leading to back and forth edits. Create a sandbox to rewrite it and allow other users to review the rewritten article before inserting it. Wandalstouring 09:55, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Using a sandbox is the only way you can edit an article this large without accidentally creating an edit war.

Oh, and Sm8900, did you read my proposal? At all? I did say, didn't I, on the last line even, that no information should be taken out of the article? Heavy Metal Cellist_contribs

Settle down. All this hot air is not helping the article. No one can pre-approve a drastic change without seeing what it is. You guys need to do some work and then come back to us when you have some concrete proposals. Or just edit the article. We don't own it. All this might be a big waste of your time, but that's the risk you take. Haber 19:15, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi heavy Metal Cellist. Actually, i will accept your point. Perhaps I did not read your proposal with the closeness which it deserves. Obviously, if your intent is only to improve the flow, obviously, I could not have much problem with that; my main question would be how this would be implemented.

I guess my main point here is that i distinguish broad structural changes like your suggestion from smaller incremental changes, where one user is adding some information which they consider useful. When it's just one person adding something, obviously that is not so earth-shaking. Whereas the kind of change you propose, obviously, applies to the whole article, and will change the work of many contributors at once. So I'm not saying that you're wrong; I'm just saying I'd like to make sure we've gotten at least some sense of how some others here think of this.

However, your proposal to simply improve the flow, without removing any information, sounds fairly helpful; I'm just not sure how much anyone could do that practically speaking, no matter how skillful they are; in fairness to you, you may be extremely skillful, and i have no reason to think you have anything other than good motives here. So it's not a reflection on you at all; these are just the sort of concerns I have when anyone proposes any changes of this type. So I welcome your ideas, and others' comments. Thanks for your helpful responses. --Sm8900 23:00, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Size versus organization

Since there have been requests to comment here (remember, folks: WP:MILHIST -- and, particularly, WP:WWII -- are here to help! ;-), I thought I might repeat a few comments I made on one of the previous FACs for this article:

The essential problem, as I see it, is not one of size per se (although the article certainly is rather longer than it ought to be), but of confusing and counterintuitive structure. The main reason for this is the bizarre choice to focus on years, rather than fronts, as the main structure of the article. This leads to an extremely choppy narrative, a proliferation of useless little sub-sub-sub-sections (now done without proper section headers, even!), and a bizarre imbalance of content (the Bismark having almost as much space devoted to it as to the entire Operation Barbarossa!).

Thus, I would suggest abandoning the entire premise of sectioning things off by year, and instead follow a (broadly) theater/campaign based structure (which would allow a much denser summary, with more play being given to in-context links to sub-articles), organized in roughly chronological order. An example structure (with section lengths essentially being pulled out of the air, just to give an indication of relative size -- obviously, this is not meant to be an exact proposal):

• Pre-war diplomacy in Europe (~3/4 paragraphs)
• Early Sino-Japanese War & Russo-Japanese War (~2/3 paragraphs)
• Invasion of Poland (~1/2 paragraphs)
• Phony War to French surrender (~3/4 paragraphs)
• Battle of Britain & Battle of the Atlantic (~2/3 paragraphs)
• Winter War (~1 paragraph)
• Balkans (~2 paragraphs)
• Early North Africa/Mediterranean (~2 paragraphs)
• Barbarossa (~3/4 paragraphs)
• Japanese offensives (~3/4 paragraphs)
• Eastern Front: Moscow to Stalingrad (~3/4 paragraphs)
• North Africa: Alamein, Torch, Tunisia (~3 paragraphs)
• Southern Pacific (~4 paragraphs)
• Eastern Front: Stalingrad to Bagration (~4/5 paragraphs)
• Italy (~3 paragraphs)
• Allied bombing (~2 paragraphs)
• Pacific Front: island hopping, China, Burma (~3/4 paragraphs)
• Western Front: Normandy to Ardennes (~4 paragraphs)
• Eastern Front: Germany, etc. (~4 paragraphs)
• Pacific Front: to V-J (~4 paragraphs)

This is, of course, an extremely rough idea; but I think the general point should be apparent. Kirill Lokshin 04:48, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. This kind of revision would be very beneficial to the article, and we would probably end up with a shorter, more manageable article with better-flowing prose. I would be willing to help work on this kind of revision. Heavy Metal Cellist_contribs

Let me just say, that once we do achieve some kind of consensus, I am quite willing to abide by it. So I appreciate your input and proposals, and the input of the others here. Obviously, once any sort of edit process is underway, i may still have some comments here and there, like anyone else. thanks for your help. --Sm8900 23:33, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Go for it. All the info to fill up these paragraphs is write here. So it shouldn't be that difficult. Mercenary2k 17:09, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree as well, and would be willing to do a large portion of the work, if there is finally a consensus. Ahudson 18:18, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

It will be a big job, but worth doing, I have also found the current structure to be rather unworkable. For example, at the moment, it is difficult to have short texts on "themes" such as "nuclear weapons", "secret warfare", "resistance and oppression", "genocide and political murder" or whatever. I hope to be able to help with work as the programme gets clearer - can I take it that Kirill Lokshin is kicking off the changes? MarkThomas 19:19, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Heh. I wouldn't really suggest having me take a leading role here; even if I had time to do major article work myself—and I rarely do these days, unfortunately—my knowledge of WWII is pretty rudimentary. I'd be happy to comment on broad structural questions, but the finer details should really be decided by someone who actually understands the material. :-) Kirill Lokshin 05:57, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Just thought I'd give my input: I fully support the condensation of the article. If is much too long and Frankenstein's monster-like, if you know what I mean. — SheeEttin {T/C} 22:00, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Just want to state, I'm fine with any of the volunteers beginning this effort. However, are we still using the idea of doing the initial changes in a sandbox? I'm not saying I'm requesting that as an absolute demand, but it does sound like a good idea. Does that sound good to everyone? I want to thank the people who agreed to take this on. thanks. --Sm8900 15:02, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I concur that whatever the new version is going to be, it first be completed on a sandbox page. I think that the re-organization is a step in the right direction as the current format is unreadable. --Habap 15:41, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I have finished part of the article (only part, there's still a lot left to go) at ]. I have not added in pictures yet because the article is not finished yet and picture placement will depend on the layout. Any comments on the prose as of yet will be welcome on my talk page. Heavy Metal Cellist_contribs

Hey There

I like this site. I think instead of just eliminating the unnecessary pictures, someone should try to get the very best, possibly most recognizable pictures from the war. There are many, many well-known ww2 photographs other than Iwo Jima. I could cite tons of interesting info about the Pacific War, Burma, Flying Tigers, all that...if anyone wants, they could pick the most important stuff. Maybe there should be more talk about WW2 TECHNOLOGIES AND INNOVATIONS I mean we're talking computers, jet engines, rockets, missiles, a-bomb, magnet fields, the first lasers and extreme high/low frequency waves. I think the results and consequencesof WW2 are actually greater than the war itself. Cold War, Military industrial complex, state of israel and mideast problems, high standard of living in u.s. and europe, GI bill, red china, red korea, even the 60s hippie movement was the result of results from results from WW2. What does any1 think? (ShitakiMan 11:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC))

I agree that the article does not show enough of the effects of the war, and that there are huge technological and social paradigm shifts that are just glossed over. However, the article is already incredibly confusing, so I am going to try reorganize it first before we start adding huge sections. If there is space, I will try to add in some more sections on the more broad-view parts of the war, like the ones you mentioned. Heavy Metal Cellist_contribs

Unclear statement

"The Japanese forces committed brutal atrocities against civilians and prisoners of war in the Rape of Nanking, slaughtering as many as 300,000 civilians within a month." This rather makes it sound as if they were killing as many as 300,000 people every month, instead of killing 300,000 in that particular month...Also, "slaughtering" makes it sound more like a carefully coordinated operation than it really was. Maybe it should be "Estimates as to the number killed range as high as 300,000 over the course of the month-long killings. " or something like that. "...As many as..." just sounds a little too unclear for me. 71.237.89.23 Max

You should edit it. Be Bold. 66.81.49.74

I totally agree with you on that!

Casualty info needed

A pie-chart would be best to compare casualties. Needed for my report. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by VulcanMak4017 (talk • contribs) 03:00, 17 January 2007 (UTC).

Vandalism

Can't revert - protected. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.12.145.206 (talk) 07:27, 12 January 2007 (UTC).

Yeah, someone has deleted the whole page...how would one go about contacting a admin? or was it an admin gone rogue that deleted it? it seems odd that it is locked. 12.218.145.112 20:16, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

don't know what you're talking about, the page hasn't been blanked. try refreshing your browser. Parsecboy 20:18, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Weak and vague opening article

I'd like to suggest that the opening article for this reference is a tad on the weak side in regards to susinctly defining what WW II was. I'd be more then happy to present a draft of something that is a little less vague and perhaps sums up the subject better. An example would be the OPs immediate jump from a general description of the events at the begining of the war to a reference to Adolph Hitler without any connection. Assuming one had never heard of WW II, you might not grasp who Hitler was by reading these first two paragraphs. There are other examples as well. Commnents? Finfyd 01:32, 13 January 2007 (UTC)Finyd

I just looked at the To-do list and what I suggest is already mentioned. Finfyd 01:34, 13 January 2007 (UTC)Finfyd

I think the assumption was made that the reader has a general idea of what happened; however, this is not necessarily the case, and I think nobody would object to any changes you made, as long as you don't do anything crazy. Ahudson 05:09, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

The "opening article" is an introduction or summary. The Overview covers the subject in more depth. The "opening article" could explain that the war was in three parts, namely Europe (Germany, France, North Africa, Italy, etc.) Eastern Europe (mainly Soviet Union and Germany) and Asia (Japan, China, India, and various Pacific Isand). However any attempts to expand it will probably involve the Overview creeping back in, and different people weighting it towards one viewpoint or another. Therefore it is best to leave it simple. By the way, doesn't anyone read beyond the intro these days? Wallie 15:07, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

...Not with an article this long.... Ahudson 16:20, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Very drole... Wallie 22:49, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

"Soviet Union" or "USSR" ?

I have always understood that the name "Soviet Union" was introduced after the war, at some point during the 1950s. This is borne out for example by the page Communist Party of the Soviet Union which explains that it only had that name from 1952. I believe it was officially known as the USSR up until about 1975 or something at which point it officially became the Soviet Union. When we use that term we are therefore being anachronistic in the context of this article? I ask for opinions because some time ago I changed the main ally name to USSR but this has just been reverted and stood for some time. Thanks for any help. MarkThomas 23:26, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

To my knowledge, "Soviet Union" is just shortened from "USSR" (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). It was not official name, but it was used to great extent. Like, for instance, official name of Yugoslavia was "Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia", but it was not used in common comunitation.--Brglez 17:06, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I read somewhere that both USSR and Soviet Union were official in the 1980s. Amlder20 12:43, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

i'm fairly certain USSR is the correct offical name for the time period in question, the term "Soviet Union" wasn't used until after the war. Parsecboy 18:10, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

The official name 1922-1991 always was "Union of the Socialist Soviet Republics". "Soviet Union" is a less wordy equivalent. It is also more accesible, especially nowadays since the USSR no longer exists and is no longer common knowledge. Therefore it is more accessible to use "Soviet Union" IMHO.

As for official, are we using the official names for the other nations involved?

• "United Kingdom" instead of "United Kingdom of Great Britian and Northern Ireland"
• "France" instead of "Republic of France"
• "United States" instead of "United States of America" or "USA"
• "Germany" instead of "German Reich" or "Greater German Reich"
• "Italy" instead of "Kingdom of Italy"
• "Japan" instead of "Empire of Japan"

So only the "Republic of China" is mentioned under its full, official name. So why must we put in USSR?

I am not saying that USSR is somehow incorrect, but Soviet Union is more accesible.

I am not willing to edit war over this, but I am also unwilling to yield to nonsense explanations like "anachronism". "Soviet Union" is a short form for "USSR", which was the official name. It is completely irrelevant when the short term appeared for the first time, at least when we are talking years and not centuries. Str1977 16:44, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately the recent discussion on this has already been archived without comning to a firm conclusion. There has to be some consistency and chronicity in the way we name the main combatants of WW2. The country often called "Russia", "Soviet Russia" or the "Soviet Union" was in WW2 almost always called "Russia" or the "USSR". The term "Soviet Union" was not used by the Soviets until the 1950s. This fits in with the use of "Republic of China" in the list of participants, not "China" or the postwar "Peoples Republic of China" since the Republic of China was the name given to the Kaomintang-controlled country, also sometimes known as "Nationalist China". Other issues like the precise full name of other countries are substantially irrelevant since "USSR", "UK" and so on are in any event shorthand. MarkThomas 15:32, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Mark, the archiving was unfortunate, premature and completely uncalled for, given that I had just commented. You might not have read my points. Therefore I am now retrieving the section from the archive.

Now, please do not make such irrelevant arguments: it doesn't matter when the American or the Soviets used the term "Soviet Union". Either we strictly stick to the official name (always USSR) - but this would have to be applied to other countries as well (you cannot simply brush this aside in a cavalier mannner - there were two French governments at the time, but only one Chinese) - or we are considering which name is more accesible. You can well argue that USSR is accesible enough but stop basing claims on colloquial names at the time. Russia in any case is impossible, since Russia was a different state, the largest component of the USSR.

And finally, try to gain consensus for your version instead of pushing it through. If consensus would prefer USSR, I would have no problem with this. But it was you who changed the previous version. Str1977 19:07, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

If we're going to use "Soviet Union" instead of "USSR", the latter being the correct name in WW2, then we should not be using "Republic of China" since that is also a wartime name - it should just be "China". Also, we need to weed through the article and take out any wartime names altogether, since Str1977 only wants to use postwar names for wartime entities. Thanks. MarkThomas 09:03, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Please do not start with this song about the "correct name in WW2", as USSR is the correct name any time between 1922 and 1991. The same goes for "Republic of China", which is the correct name.

I have absolutely no objection to using simply "China".

Consistency definitely should be ensured. I haven't searched this article but I have seen various occurences of "Soviet Union".

Finally, to restate my point: I have no objection to either "USSR" or the "Soviet Union" (the terms, not the entities), though I think Soviet Union a little bit more accessible. What I object to is dictating a change. Str1977 10:15, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

The Soviet Union is a good term, even though it might have been not used during World War 2. Note that the term World War 1 was not used in 1918 either, it was called the Great War. Nowadays most refer to that war as World War 1, and most now refer to "Russia", as it was called during World War 2, as the Soviet Union. Wallie 12:14, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not really trying to force it, just raising the issue, but if Soviet Union stays in then really we shouldn't bother calling it "Republic of China" and just put "China". MarkThomas 21:27, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

All right. I am open to see people discuss this. And I have posted my stance on China (hitherto the only strictly formal name used). Str1977 22:18, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

What no Ike?

Random reason I came across this, but not once in the artical is Eisenhower mentioned, (I used find tool) is it just me or is that a very stupid complete oversight. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Frenzy54 (talk • contribs) 03:23, 17 January 2007 (UTC).

I agree. Where do you think the best place to put him is? Haber 04:44, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Good spot. There is not much mention of personilities, mainly event focussed. Ike should defintely be mentioned one, two or maybe more times. Wallie 09:46, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

i don't know, just mentioning him for the mention's sake seems kind of redundant. i think we shouldn't just count how often people are mentioned, but rather if they fit in context. 84.184.221.132 21:39, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Don't forget, if we mention Ike, we also have to mention MacArthur, Zhukov, Montogomery, Chiang Kai-Shek, etc. things have a way of snowballing around here. :-) Just wanted to mention that. --Sm8900 16:22, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

On the other hand, some relatively more obscure generals are mentioned. Actually, the list you mention plus a few others isn't a bad idea. I don't think we should be influenced by the inevitable squabbles not to put information in at all, or to rationalise the article. MarkThomas 16:21, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Why is the german ww2 article much better?

Correct answer: Because of Political Correctness you guys try to evaluate all topics even. You have to set priorities. Example: Europe is more relevant than Asia, so write more about Europe. Battle of Britain is more relevant than Battle of Iraq, so write more about battle of Battle of Britain. Some years are more relevant than others, so write more about the relevant years. To link everything is not the best solution at all. Have a look at the this. Greetings from German Misplaced Pages....--Prisoner 911 22:27, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it's just me, but I smell arrogance ... Rex 22:39, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I would say this article is better than the German one. But who is to say that I am right, or you for that matter? As far as being important, Asia or Europe, depends on where you live. For France or Poland, Europe is more important. For Australia, Vietnam or the US for that matter, Asia is more important. For example, the US was directly threatened by Japan, whereas Germany posed little threat to the US. Wallie 22:47, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Sure every country's view is to be the most important one in this conflict. But I believe one can rate the importance in an objective way. For example by death tolls or by it's influence on the progress of ww2. Anyway, I was just trying to help, didn't want to seem arrogant.--Prisoner 911 23:06, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure the "arrogant" comment was meant as a silly joke. The whole aim of these discussions, as you rightly pointed out, is continuous iomprovement. The German article is also very good, and this article could be improved by adding ideas from it. (I have also referred to the German article myself, and carried ideas from it here. Wallie 09:53, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Canada

Certainly Canada did more than the Republic of China in World War 2. Canada was apart of the forces since D-Day, China only came on after Pearl Harbor. Anyone agree? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dyllholio (talk • contribs) 20:37, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

China was involved in a war with Japan since the mid-1930s. So no, I can't agree that they only came on after Pearl Harbour. - Eron 01:11, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

We have been though this over and over. Get used to the fact. Canada did not play a major part in the war. If it had remained neutral, there would have been little difference. Wallie 22:18, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree with Eron. China not only lost 11 milllions civilians in the war but was, with USA, the major opponent of Japan, and, as soon as 1937, not 1941............ The Nationalist forces won many important battles against the showa army such as those fought at Changsha battle of Changsha. Canadian soldiers fought bravely but the two coutries can not absolutely be compared. --Flying tiger 04:45, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

The guy is obviously trying to be funny, because I don't think anyone's that ignorant. BlueShirts 05:31, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Which one do you think was trying to be funny BlueShirts? Are you saying that China was not a major adversary of Japan during WW2? MarkThomas 14:19, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

you'd be surprised, Blueshirts. there are PLENTY of ignorant people out in the world Parsecboy 13:08, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Canada definately deserves more credit then what is being given...

While Canada was not as significant as China, such issues will keep coming up. The distinction between "major" and "minor" can appear arbitrary and is galling to some people. I thought it was better when we simply listed the combatants as "Allies" and "Axis powers", with links to the relevant articles. Grant65 | Talk 03:45, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I want to make the point that we are NOT talking about before World War 2, we are talking about World War 2 itself (hence the title World War 2). I also did not realize Misplaced Pages was a place where people make fun of other people. Ah yes. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dyllholio (talk • contribs) 00:44, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

It's not clear from your original comment what dates you are talking about. You wrote "Canada was apart of the forces since D-Day, China only came on after Pearl Harbor." D-Day was in 1944; Pearl Harbour in 1941.

The commonly accepted dates for WW II are 1939-1945, this being the period during which it was truly a global conflict. However, related conflicts on a smaller scale occurred both before and after this period. By the time the war 'officially' began in September 1939, the Second Sino-Japanese War had been underway for over two years. (Canada actually entered the war on September 10, 1939.) It is simply not correct to state that China did not begin fighting WW II until after Pearl Harbour. China did not declare war on Japan until that time, but that was a political decision; the facts on the ground were that China had been fighting a Japanese invasion since July 1937.

It's not polite to call any editor ignorant, and that shouldn't have happened. That said, if you want to propose a significant change to an article, you need to have your facts straight. - Eron 15:30, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

hi everyone I found a un cyberschool website, this might help

This whole argument is pointless and ignorant. Canada DID have a major part in World War II, and so did China. They are both major and significant. The war may have not turned out the same if either of the countries didn't participate. China was a major opponent against Japan, along with the USA, and Canada was a major player when it came to liberating Europe (Most notable the liberation of the Netherlands) from the Axis forces. They both deserve recognition as major players. Lose of life doesn't decide if a country was a major player in a war. The Netherlands lost tons of civilian lives, but they're not considered a major player. And calling anyone ignorant is childish and unnecessary. Try being more civilized next time.

There are similar arguments in the Discussion of World War I. Canada in the leaders list and Why is it so important for Americans to place USA on the "leaders" list?. Plasma Twa 2 06:35, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

The reason Americans want to place the USA on the WWI "leaders list" is the same reason Canadians keep trying to put Canada on the WWII "Major Allies list". Parsecboy 13:37, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Poland

22% of all Polish people died in the war. Poland gave so much and faught well so much in the resitance groops. It is a great nation and alied power to. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Claire Semiwoky 2 (talk • contribs) 17:13, 22 January 2007 (UTC).

But in the overall allied effort Polish contribution amounted to several percent at best, while the majority of the work was done by Soviet Union, United States, United Kingdom and China (in that order)... With respect, Ko Soi IX 15:26, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

What about India...? How did China help, other than in Asia? It was also pretty much knocked out of the war too. India actively helped resist the Japanese, and also the German and Italians. About Poland, many of the 22% were Jewish and died in the Holocaust. I do not believe it acted as a "great nation". Otherwise it would have resisted the Holocaust. Quite the opposite was the case. Wallie 11:59, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

WHAT? Poland, UK, France were THE original allies. Poland's contributions to the war effort (on both fronts I might add) were second only to Great Britain amongst European allied nations. Poland's resistance (the AK) was the biggest resistantce movement in WWII with over 300,000 members. The Poles were the ones who broke the Enigma code, the No. 303 Polish Fighter Squadron achieved the most kills of any Allied air squadron, and the Polish First Army was part of the 1st Belorussian Front that took Berlin. More people died in Poland (as a percentage of total population) than in any other country during World War II. I personally am offended by the suggestion that Poland was of minor importance. Revisionism has no place on Misplaced Pages or in history. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Katarzyna (talk • contribs) 15:39, 10 February 2007 (UTC).

Likewise, nationalism has no place in Misplaced Pages either. You exaggerate the achievements of the 303rd (only the most kills of Allied fighter squadrons in the Battle of Britain, not the entire war), and the Brits broke Enigma as well, Poland just did it first. As for it being one of the 3 original Allies, the two later ones essentially won the war- the USSR and USA. What exactly did the Polish resistance achieve that helped to win the war? About as much as the French resistance...not much. Look at it this way. Without Poland, could the Allies have won WWII? Unquestionably yes. Therefore, it's not a major ally. Parsecboy 16:09, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I think my comments were a little misinterpreted. I didn't mean that Poland was a major power, or even that the war wouldn't have been won without them. All I was saying was that their contributions in WWII should not be overlooked (or minimized to being 'insignificant' as some on here have claimed). Anyway the point is moot now, since the combatants section now has links to allies and axis (which i think is better and resolves much of the arguments). Katarzyna 14:33, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

small changes

Couldn't find a section with changes, so just do it here: a. Changed Biowarfare (in the technology section) to chemical warfare. Correct me if i'm wrong, but biowarfare was not used in WW2, no? b. in the same section, only some technologies and/or weapons were crucial. The effect of the V2 missile was for example not relevant anymore to the outcome of the war...Sikkema 11:55, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, biological warfare was used in World War II, by the Japanese against the Chinese. They used bubonic plague several times, including allegedly against the Russians and Mongolians in the 1939 Nomonhan incident. read about Unit 731. also, when you start a new topic on a talk page, please start it at the bottom. Parsecboy 13:09, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Probably used to kill Heydrich in Prague too. Wallie 12:00, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

China?

Does china really belong in the infobox? Much of the chinese involvement was due to the pre-existing conflict with Japan in the second sino-japanese war. I apologize if this issue has already been discussed, but perhaps a straw poll is in order. I would suggest limiting the major powers to three on each side (US, UK, USSR; Germany, Italy, Japan). --NEMT 05:53, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

It has been, and it appears I was mocked and my request to have it changed was denied. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dyllholio (talk • contribs) 00:46, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

i agree with you on this issue, they werent as much part of World War 2 as they were their war with Japan, which as stated before was going on before the War started, so one could make the arguement that Japan was fighting two seperate wars, while china was simply repeling an invasion.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 12.45.130.162 (talk • contribs) 11:50, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

You simply stick with the words. The WWII is called so because it is a combination of two wars : one in Asia and one in Europe. The war became "world war" when Germany invaded Poland because it was already going in Asia. The "second sino-japanese war" is a just a way to call a conflict that began in 1937 but after 1941, the invasion of China was still part of WWII in the same way as the invasion of France, Philippines or Russia. It was NOT an isolated conflict and all the actions of the Japan army in Pacific were taken according to the events that were going in the many battles of China. As such, China is a major actor in WWII... Flying tiger 17:47, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

China wasn't a minor ally. More than 1.5 million Japanese troops were deployed in the China , more than anywhere else in the entire pacific theater. China got a permanent seat on the UN security council. From the WW2 casualties article China suffered 24% of all allied military deaths, second only to the USSR. The war against japan wasn't solely restricted to china itself as china also conducted joint operations with the Americans and the British in inodchina, with some troops reaching as far as India. BlueShirts 19:00, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Please remember the following opinion survey is not a poll. We need consensus to be reached, and not just a list of votes. --Borgarde 08:58, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Given the fact there is an ongoing debate on my page with people for and against the position of China as a major ally, I propose a poll about it. Was China a major ally ?

I argue YES because, 1) according to Abe and Yamada, China had to fight against 65 of the 70 divisions of the shôwa army, in consequence almost 50% of the shôwa forces 2) The nationalists won many important battles suc as battle of Taierzhuang and battle of Changsha; 3) The fact Japan was never able to conquer China change the course of the Pacific war and prevented an adequate occupation of Solomon islands, Philppines and New Guinea and the invasion of Australia; 4) China lost 11 millions civilians and many more soldiers than other coutries such as Australia and India 5) China is a continent in itself not a "single theater". --Flying tiger 14:47, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes. I can't believe we are even discussing this. World War II casualties is a grim indication of China's significance. Population 1939 = 517,568,000, Military deaths = 3,000,000 (24% of the Allied total), Civilian deaths = 7,000,000 (22% of the Allied total), Total deaths = 10,000,000 Grant | Talk 15:54, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

No. Just because a country lost a large number of soldiers and civilians doesn't mean their contributions to the OVERALL WAR EFFORT were correspondingly large. China was only fighting in one theatre, and only in their area of operations, not the entire Pacific theatre. The reason Japan never invaded Australia is because the US and Australian Navies defeated them at Coral Sea, and at Guadalcanal. Japan NEVER had a chance to win the Pacific war after it attacked the US, it just didn't have the industrial capacity. The argument that China's tying down 65 Japanese divisions caused Japan to lose the war is patently false. The problem with the argument that it prevented adequate defence of these islands is that the islands in question, with the exception of the Philipines, are tiny. There's no way to fit more than a division or two, which is what they were garrisoned with incidentally. You can't stick 150,000 troops on an island only a few square miles large. The reason those island bases fell was because the US had overwhelming air and sea dominance, caused by the lack of industrial power of Japan. Despite the "important" victories you list, the Japanese still controlled a large portion of China when Japan surrendered, and had the US not entered the war, they might still be there. I don't see how a country that had such a small contribution to the war can be listed among the UK, USSR, and US. Parsecboy 20:10, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Nobody said "China caused Japan to lose the war" or that the U.S. wasnt't the most significant ally in the Pacific. The argument is about China being a major ally. Yes, they were only fighting only fighting in one theatre...against half of the Japanese army! It's also not true to say that most Japanese-occupied Pacific Islands were crammed full of garrison troops -- the Allies made unopposed landings at several places in the Pacific and they would also have been useful in the Philippines, Burma, Borneo or New Guinea, where fighting raged until the end of the war.Grant | Talk 09:19, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes. I don' see why a country that has the highest casualties and inflicted the highest Japanese casualties in the asian war shouldn't count as a major ally. If signifance as said above is factored in, then how come Italy counts as a "major" axis power when its army practically did nothing and changed sides in 1943? BlueShirts 20:39, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Da. Just because a country lost a large number of soldiers and civilians doesn't mean their contributions to the OVERALL WAR EFFORT were correspondingly large. USSR was only fighting in one theatre, and only in their area of operations, not the entire European theatre. The reason Germany never invaded America is because the RAF defeated them in the Battle of Britain. Germany NEVER had a chance to win the European theatre after it declared war on the US, it just didn't have the industrial capacity. The argument that USSR's tying down 4 million Germans caused Germany to lose the war is patently false. The problem with the argument that it prevented adequate reinforcement of northern France is that France, with the exception of Vichy France, was full of partisan activity which tied up German troops in the region. There's no way to assign more than a division or four to defend the coast, which is what they were garrisoned with incidentally. You can't stick 40,000 troops on a coastline a few hundred miles long and expect them to defend it. The reason Germany lost Normandy was because the US had overwhelming air and sea dominance, caused by the lack of naval and air power of Germany. Despite the "important" victories you list, the Germans already controlled a large portion of USSR when America was attacked, and had the US not entered the war, they might still be there. I don't see how a country that had such a small contribution to the war can be listed among China, UK, and US. -- 我♥中國 23:07, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

C'mon now, Miborovsky, you can't honestly compare China and USSR. To answer Blueshirts, Italy isn't really a major Axis power, but if we list 3 Allies and 3 Axis, Italy is probably the 3rd most important Axis member. I appreciate your rewording of my argument, Miborovsky, quite cunning, I must say. the USSR destroyed the German army, and conquered half of Germany, almost entirely on its own. China NEVER DROVE OUT THE JAPANESE. That in and of itself is reason enough to not count China as a major ally. All of your "arguments" are laughable, so I won't discuss them. The most important point here is that China only fought in one campaign, and didn't even emerge victorious from it. Parsecboy 00:54, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

C'mon now, Parsecboy, you can't honestly compare Germany and China. I appreciate your evasion of my argument, Parsecboy, quite cunning, I must say. the USSR destroyed the German army, and conquered half of Germany, almost entirely on its own. Germany NEVER DROVE OUT THE BRITISH. That in and of itself is reason enough to not count Germany as a major axis. All of my arguments are flawless, so I understand why you won't discuss them. The most important point here is that Germany only fought in 1 theatre, and didn't even emerge victorious it. -- 我♥中國 03:07, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Now you're simply being ludicrous. I didn't comment on your illogical comparisons of the Atlantic Wall and tiny Pacific islands because it's laughable to compare several hundred miles of coastline to a square mile or two. Comparing Germany to China is comparing apples to oranges. All you do is throw red herrings around like "Germany never drove out the British". Wwell, they lost the war. China was a "victor", even if they weren't victorious in their own campaign. I don't understand the comment about the USSR, perhaps you shouldn't just copy-paste what I say and switch a few words. I understand that you're a hyper-nationalist, but try to look objectively at the issue.Parsecboy 18:20, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Now you're still evading my arguments. And adding personal attacks, to boot. Explain to me how the USSR is a major Allied power when they fought a defensive war, and how Germany was a major Axis power when they failed to achieve victory against a single major Allied power. -- 我♥中國 20:24, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Where was there a personal attack? If you're going to make such assertions, I'd like them to be at least true. I didn't answer your "arguments" because you yourself know they're ridiculous. But to humor you, Germany is a major Axis power because it was the cause of the war in Europe. As for their not being victorious over the Allies is blatantly simple: not everyone can win a war. Someone has to lose. The USSR is a major Allied power because (now pay attention this time, because I've been saying this repeatedly, and you haven't listened before) they drove out the invading Germans, and were the primary reason Germany lost the war. China was not. End of story. Parsecboy 20:41, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes. I am afraid I can't quite see it as such a minor theatre of war. I can't quite believe that the Japanese only occupied ever so small an area of China, I must assume that the Japanese forces were really quite tied down with the parts of China they did occupy. Actual losses don't really come into it. The number of Japanese forces who had to be diverted from the theatre of war in the Pacific must have been quite considerable, surely? It must have played on the minds of the Japanese Supreme Commanders that they didn't have the numbers of forces available in the Pacific after all? Dieter Simon 01:10, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes. I fail to see how failure to drive out the Japanese is reason to exclude. If that were the case, only the victors would be significant enough to be entered into the infobox. Wars are not evaluated solely on the battles that were fought. And why limit to three on either side? --Jiang 02:55, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

No. China's involvement stemmed from previous military engagements, and had little effect on the axis powers at large, additionally, China's actions were almost exclusively limited to fighting an already ongoing conflict with Japan. Proportional and raw loss of civilian and military life should not be a factor in considering who is a major ally and who is not. The main contribution of the Chinese war effort in historic context is prompting the US oil and metal sanctions, which led to the Japanese declaration of war - not any post 1939 military action against Japanese forces. Additionally, not including RoC in the infobox does not imply RoC was not a "major allied power," please note the "and others" underneath the US, UK and USSR. As an encyclopedia, the intention of visitors seeking knowledge should be taken into account - were they here to read about Chinese involvement they would likely (and be better served to) go to the page on the Second Sino Japanese War instead. --NEMT 08:06, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

"Proportional and raw loss of civilian and military life should not be a factor in considering who is a major ally and who is not." Why not? Note that casualties among Chinese civilians were horrendous and yet the proportion of casualties in the Chinese military was slightly higher. That and the number of Japanese troops in China doesn't suggest that the Chinese Army was content to sit back and let the US Navy do the job for it. Far from it. Grant | Talk 09:19, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Why not? Because war has very little to do with how many people die - or have you not checked the casualty figures and the outcome on the very infobox this discussion invovled? Additionally, Second Sino-Japanese War. --NEMT 10:11, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean here. Personnel numbers and casualties are very good indicators of the depth of involvement. Not the only indicators, but very good ones. The illusion that wars can be won by planes, ships and tanks, without foot soldiers, has been shattered over and over again.Grant | Talk 14:39, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

No. China's over-all war involvement was minimal to only between Japan. They never were involved at a world-wide scale. If we include China, we must also include Australia and India. Australia and India both had a larger war effort than China. Casulaties does not mean they were major. --Borgarde 08:54, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I suggest we remove Italy from major axis by the same token. 09:47, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Italy and Italian occupied territories were major battlegrounds in the war and involved all major allied powers, in addition to Italian campaigns in British Somaliland, Greece and the eastern front. Regardless of the tactical effects, the involvement is of a different nature than China's - in addition to Italy's declaration of war on the allies (I am unaware of China declaring war on Italy or Germany - correct me if I'm wrong).--NEMT 10:11, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

China declared war on the rest of the axis on dec. 9, 1941. BlueShirts 10:31, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

"Casulaties does not mean they were major" Why not? I am Australian with a long-standing interest in WW2 and I can't agree that the Australian contribution was on the scale of China (except perhaps in proportional terms). The same goes for India, Canada, Poland and France. Grant | Talk 09:53, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Here's another thing to think about, in regards to the casualty numbers sustained by China: China has the largest population in the entire world, so casualties that would've crushed the military-industrial complexes of smaller countries were somewhat easily shrugged off. I don't know population numbers for the late '30s and '40s, but China currently has somewhere around 1.3 billion people, and it didn't shoot up overnight. My point is, you have to put into context the numbers you're throwing around. Sure, China sustained the second most casualties, but compared to USSR, which suffered the most, and had a population a fraction the size of China's, it's proportionally small. Parsecboy 17:54, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

No Opinion. It seems obvious to me that arguments over who were "major" and "minor" contributors to the Alliance will be interminable, as well as being somewhat revolting in the sense that we are arguing over how many millions of casualties is a "major" amount. By many reasonable metrics, the contribution of, for example, the UK and US was quite minor compared to that China and especially the Soviet Union. Ditch all the POV references to individual nations from the infobox and just include links to the relevent pages- e.g. Allies and Axis. Badgerpatrol 18:03, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree and have said as much before. But in the context of the present debate, if we have "major allies", I think China should be included. Grant | Talk 18:32, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

As I say, I find the whole debate distasteful, unecessary, and ridiculous. But if the petty squabble over who goes in and who comes out of the infobox continues, my position can be taken as "China in". If people feel there's an absolute necessity to keep it down to three only, remove the UK. Badgerpatrol 01:33, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely Yes. When the British and the American forces were getting their assess kicked by the imperial Japanese Army during the begining of the WWII Pacific theater (losing the Phillipines, Malaya, Singapore, Burma in a rapid pace), the Chinese army won the battle of Changsha for the third time against the Japapnese. At that time, according an editorial of The Times London: “Since 7 December, the only decisive victory of the Allies is the Chinese Army victory at Changsha… ” , and London Daily Telegraph also commented: “As dark clouds looms over the Far East, we can only see the sun shining bright over the sky of Changsha…" So I think the only Allie Allie army that is winning battles against the Axis in 1941 should be considered a major player.DCTT 06:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Many aspects of this discussion seem circular and fruitless, the issue at hand as it related to wikipedia is not if China was a "major allied power," but rather if China should be included in the infobox specifically, and not just implied as part of the "and others" line. Should the Republic of China be included in this articles infobox?
No. as per reasons stated in discussion above. --NEMT 10:17, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

You voted once already, that rings any bell? If it's a major power then it should belong in the infobox, why make such as fastidious distinction? Where's the rule that says there should be a limitation to three? WWI article has five for allies and four for central powers. What's your point? BlueShirts 20:09, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

This is a different question, please reread: "Should the Republic of China be included in this articles infobox?" vs. "Was China a major ally?" The infobox already lists "others" as major allies, so whether or not China was a major ally has little bearing on its inclusion with the US, UK and USSR in the infobox. China's involvement in WW2 was based on action in a single, defensive theater, against a single major axis power, stemming from a preexisting conflict; and as such, China does not belong listed with the US, UK and USSR. Additionally, this isn't a "vote," it's a discussion to establish consensus. --NEMT 20:47, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

If this be the case, provide a criteria for all the countries involved. What is necessary for inclusion? If we can't provide this, the discussion will be endless.--Jiang 00:17, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

that's a good idea. how about for starters, "active participation in more than one area of operations", "major contribution to the overall war effort, i.e., inflicting major defeats on an opponent". i would think both of those guidelines would be acceptable, if perhaps a little subjective, in the case of the second one. when I say major defeats, I mean things like the Coral Sea or El Alamein that had a sizeable impact on the course of the war. Parsecboy 02:53, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

How about some of these: Involvement in domestic and foreign (defensive and offensive) combat, involvement in multiple campaigns starting after 1939, unified declarations of war against enemy powers and/or formal union with allies, any of these sound good? --NEMT 00:47, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

This would include Canada, Australia, etc. and significantly expand the list.--Jiang 15:03, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but your last question and comment does not bring anything new. We did not vote "just for fun". In the question of China as a "major ally", the implicit question was evidently : "should China be kept in the infobox ?" as the debate started about this controversy...The score is still 6 to 3 in favor of China in the infobox. --Flying tiger 21:10, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Then you've found a very strange way to word and execute it. Removing RoC from the infobox does not imply RoC was not a major allied power - what part of "and others" is confounding you folks? The nature of China's involvement does not warrant inclusion, period. --NEMT 21:56, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

NEMT, China joined the United Nations (Allies) in 1942. that Chiang could have a summit with FDR and Winnie (see pic) in 1943 says that he was a major player.

Parsecboy:

• "active participation in more than one area of operations": Meaningless, considering the depth of China's involvement. If it wasn't for the Soviet invasion of Manchuria you could say the same thing about the USSR. I wouldn't, but you could.
• "major contribution to the overall war effort, i.e., inflicting major defeats on an opponent" Have you read Second Sino-Japanese War? "The Kuomintang fought in 22 major engagements, most of which involved more than 100,000 troops on both sides, 1,171 minor engagements most of which involved more than 50,000 troops on both sides..." As for inflicting major defeats, try Third Battle of Changsha, Battle of West Hubei, Battle of Changde, and Battle of West Hunan. Then there are all the Japanese victories in 1944-45, which show how seriously they took the Chinese theatre.

Grant | Talk 03:55, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I could point out the 1938 and 1939 border conflicts between the USSR and Japan. And I meant area of operations in the sense of a locality, i.e., USSR's Northern War against Finland was a different AO than the Eastern Front with Germany.

And when I said "major contribution to the war effort" I meant fighting battles that actually affected the outcome of the war. I'm not trying to denigrate the Chinese Army, but they never had much effect on the rest of the war as a whole. Sure, they fought large scale battles, but what did they result in? More deadlock in China. That's it. I don't see how that's a major contribution. How seriously the Japanese took China is irrelevant. They just wanted to conquer it and turn it into a puppet state. Parsecboy 12:57, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

This isn't an article about the second sino-japanese war. Why are so many people having trouble grasping this? The second sino-japanese war was a pre-extant conflict. Is Ethiopia a major allied power because they fought a costly war with pre-1939 Italy? Would they be if that war had continued into WW2? --NEMT 04:14, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Likewise, why do you have trouble grasping that the Second Sino-Japanese War merged into the World War in 1941? The China theatre is part of the standard definition of WW2. The battles named above occurred after China (and the USA) joined the Allies. Grant | Talk 05:32, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I have contradicted none of that, you have still failed to demonstrate why China should be included with the other three major allies, though. While the Chinese theater was part of the global war, Chinese involvement in WW2 was merely a rebranding of a two state conflict. You'd have an arguably better case for the Free French or the Polish. --NEMT 06:34, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

engaging more than half of the japanese army? BlueShirts 06:42, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

hi every one I found an un cyberschool website for you guys ] un cyberschoolbus intro to un ww2 related. January 2007 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.168.126.130 (talk • contribs)

Good link, 58.168; on that page the U.N. says of its own foundation: "Even as the Second World War raged, the leaders of Britain, China, the US and the USSR, under intense pressure from the press and public, discussed the details of a post-war organization. In 1944 representatives of China, the UK, the US and the USSR meeting at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC, prepared a blueprint for an international organization." And they were the only ones there. No Free France, no Poland, no Canada, and no Australia, all of which contributed greatly but were second-tier Allies in WW2.Grant | Talk 09:03, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

yes exactly, and it said that the UNSc consists of five victors of the war, btw NEMT, the difference between ROC and Ethiopia is that after WW2 ROC became one of the Big Five and Ethiopia did not.

Good find. Now we can turn to WP:V and insist that if someone wants to remove China from the list of major allies (or insert Ethiopia, Poland, Canada or such), they need to provide a reliable source that excludes China (or includes their favorite country). Since this is an encyclopedia, we need to rely on published sources, not impassioned arguments. China was, in fact, a major ally and no serious historian would leave them of that short list. --Habap 13:43, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I've only read the first page, so can someone point out for brevity where that doc states that China was a "major" member of the Allies? Badgerpatrol 13:52, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

NO. I consider the role that China played in the formation of the UN to be totally spurious to its status as an Ally in World War II. Presence or non-presence of countries like China or Canada at Dunbarton is a bad argument, since nations like Canada were represented by the United Kingdom in such activities as a norm. However years before Dunbarton there was the declartion of St. James Palace by the following nations: Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Union of South Africa and of the exiled governments of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Yugoslavia and of General de Gaulle of France. (See http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/history/) Note that CHINA is NOT one of them. Furthermore the Atlantic Charter (the precursor to the United Nations declartion) consisted of two nations only, one of them NOT EVEN AT WAR AT THE TIME (the UK and the USA). So the presence of China in the "big four" of the UN declartion can hardly be an argument as to their status. Of the original 26 signatories to the charter, 22 signed the next day, and they also included Canada. http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/history/declaration.shtml Why am I harping on about Canada? Because its the perfect contrast class. A major contributor to the European War Effort, a founding member of the League of Nations and the United Nations, and one of the original declarants on the Allied side. If you dont consider Canada to be a "major ally" then IMO that outright precludes China.

I think the solution to this question is what would the generals at the time have consider to be their allies. I think a contemporary person of the time would not have counted China. It had no troops serving under Allied Supreme Command, it had no military presence outside its own borders, it was not contributing troops or weapons to fight outside its borders etc. Simply because China and the Allies had a common enemy in Japan does not mean that they were Allies in the formal sense of the word. Calling them a "major ally" is a real stretch. I think it is quite clear that no contemporary person on the Allied side would have ever enumerated China amongst them. Certainly I have never seen a history book that does do so. Even when one looks at the material contributions of the United States under the lend-lease program, China received in support less material than Canada alone donated to the UK (1.9 billion to 4.9 billion), if China was such a major ally then surely the US would have contributed more to it? Until somebody can find a signfigant reference of the "allies" including the Chinese at the time then I think this matter should be brought to a close. Demerphq 14:55, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

"Nations like Canada were represented by the United Kingdom in such activities as a norm". Incorrect: Canada had an independent foreign policy by 1939, see Statute of Westminster. Its contribution, while significant was no more so than that of Polish or Australian forces. The Lend Lease point is ephemeral as such programs reflected political ties and strategic imperatives, rather than who was doing what. The U.S. had a lot of disagreements with Chiang, even though Stilwell was officially his chief of staff for a time.

China's role was not glamourous and full of "D-Days" but it continually engaged more than 10 Japanese field armies at a time. When and for how long did Canada engage that many enemy forces? Grant | Talk 16:52, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

When in doubt, we consult our good friend Britannica: "In World War II the chief Allied Powers were Great Britain, France (except during the German occupation, 1940–44), the Soviet Union (after its entry in June 1941), the United States (after its entry on Dec. 8–11, 1941), and China." (entry on Allied Powers). --Jiang 15:03, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Grant65, by your logic France should be included on the list, because it got a permanent seat on the UNSC too. As for proof that China was not a major power, that's impossible. You cannot prove a negative. The burden of proof is on those who insist China was a major power during the war. I've been saying this repeatedly, and no one has yet to seriously address it: did China participate in any campaigns that led to the eventual defeat of an Axis country? The only possible answer is "No". China may have made contributions to the war effort, made heroic sacrifices, and won some large battles, but overall, they weren't that effective, especially considering the fact that population-wise, China dwarfed Japan. If someone from the "Yes" camp would sufficiently discuss this issue without resorting to "read about the Battle of Chengde" (my point being, minor powers can win battles too; a victory does not automatically merit major status), I'd be appreciative. Parsecboy 15:10, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

So, I take it that we're ignoring our own Allies of World War II article? It starts with China. --Habap 15:40, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

You're ignoring my arguments. And since when is it fine to use other wikipedia articles as sources? Parsecboy 15:46, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

France, while it was a major pre-war and post-war power, did not play enough of a role between mid-1940 and mid-1944 to justify the title of major WW2 ally. That's why it wasn't at Dunbarton Oaks.

As I said above, China's role was not glamourous and full of D-Days but it continually engaged more than 10 Japanese field armies at a time. When and for how long did France engage that many German forces? Grant | Talk 16:52, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I was being sarcastic about including France based solely on it's permanent membership in the UNSC. So the Chinese fought 10 Japanese field armies. Did they ultimately defeat them and drive them out of China? No. I never said anything about fighting a "glamourous" war (is war EVER glamourous?). But to merit inclusion into the "Major Allies list", the countries in question should significantly contribute to the Allied victory. How is that so hard to understand or accept? Parsecboy 18:18, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

One thing we would be wise to ask ourselves is how the outcome of the global war could have been affected had China not been involved. As China was fighting a defensive war, this question becomes more dynamic and involves two possible scenarios, primarily, "What if China had capitulated or lost to Japan before WW2?" or "What if Japan had not engaged China before or during WW2?" The most significant contribution comes not from Chinese military action against the Japanese specifically, but rather the diplomatic effect the Second Sino-Japanese War had on the US, and the US involvement in the Pacific and European theaters. Without the US, UK or USSR individually it is not difficult to imagine an Axis victory, or at least a much less decisive Axis defeat. Without Chinese military involvement, however, barring a scenario where the US remains neutral because of it, casting the outcome of WW2 as radically different becomes much more difficult. It is because of this the Republic of China should not be included.

One more note, perhaps the infobox should be changed from "Major X Powers" to "X Powers," to avoid some of the duplicity this discussion has exposed. --153.104.64.131 18:36, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

That's been exactly my point during the whole discussion, and not a single person from the "Yes" camp has addressed it, save Miborovsky copy-pasting what I said, and changing China and Japan to Germany and Great Britain, which I notice he/she has apparently tired of. I'm asking those who believe China belongs on the list to humor me and discuss this question. Parsecboy 18:47, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed that, Parsecboy. I think much of the "Yes" side seems motivated by Chinese pride or nationalism, rather than actual facts surrounding Chinese involvement in WW2. No one is denying the Chinese war effort and its key victories, however, their scope comes nowhere close to the other three mentioned in the infobox, nor does it comes close to the impact of the three listed Axis powers. Additionally, one would be hard pressed to find many outside of China or Japan who would list "China" as a "major allied power" when asked to just name a few. --153.104.64.131 19:07, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

153.104.64.131, I do not think this remark about "nationalism" is justified. I am not chinese, neither many users who voted for China to be kept in the infobox. I would add, that as Grant65 wrote earlier, the fact that this controversy arose is simply mostly surprising. Is it because the China front is neglected and mostly unknown by some ? To add to your "What if" commentary, the WWII simply would not exist without the war in China as the Pearl Harbor attack was the consequence of the embargo and the ultimatum of july 1941 linked to the withdrawal of Japan from China. Without Chinese military involvement, Japan would have conquered China well before 1941 and as in the case of Manchukuo, would have imposed a foreign government with only formal recriminations of USA. Despite massive military involvement of 65 of its divisions, the internal war between the nationalists and communists, Japan was never able to conquer China and this had a big impact on the Pacific war, on political and military aspects. Hirohito knew from the beginning his empire could not win a war against USA. He just gambled to secure his position in China, find natural ressouces in east asia and eventually, negociate an armistice with USA, once the occupation would be completed. However, because of chinese resistance, this never happened and the war lasted until 1945. --Flying tiger 19:40, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I would agree that the Chinese front is largely unknown and ignored, but that fact alone doesn't merit inclusion in the list. Your "Without Chinese military involvement, Japan would have conquered..." comment doesn't make sense. Do you mean "If the Chinese Army laid down and surrendered after the Japanese surrender"? As for the internal war between the communists and nationalists, I don't agree. Read New Fourth Army or Eigth Route Army, they put aside their differences to fight the common enemy. I'm not so sure Hirohito knew Japan couldn't defeat America, but Yamamoto surely did. I disagree that the inability of Japan to conquer China had great effects on the war overall. The reason the war lasted until 1945 had nothing to do with China, it had everything to do with America not accepting an armistice. If America had decided to give up after the initial string of defeats, China wouldn't have had a chance, as Japan had at that point secured the necessary resources to defeat China. Parsecboy 20:41, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Well if China had been defeated , between 1937 and 1941, or in 3 months (!!) as predicted by Sugiyama, there would have been no invasion of Indochina, no Pearl Harbor and probably no USA in WWII.

I know the relations between Chiang and Mao. Even if Chiang was kidnapped by his officers and forced to make peace with Mao. They simply tolerated each others and never really cooperated as a united force. When Okamura launched the sanko sakusen in 1942, Chiang made no move to help the communists.

Hirohito knew everything in detail about the war against USA. On september 5th 1941, he had a meeting with Konoe, Nagano and Sugiyama and on the 6th, in imperial conference, a policy was presented which explained that USA could not be defeated and that the end of a war against Occident could not be predicted. The war was launched to capture natural ressources and give time for the showa forces to complete the occupation of China. However, the occupation of China could never be completed. Was it because of the actions of USA in Pacific ? Was it because of the actions of the chinese forces ? It was a combination of the two factors. The point is not : China fought alone. It is China had a big impact on the war against Japan and was as such a major ally.

--Flying tiger 21:27, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

The high point of KMT-CCP cooperation (along with political liberalization) was in Wuhan 1938. After that, the united front was pretty much in name only and the New Fourth Army Incident destroyed whatever cooperation they had. BlueShirts 21:00, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd argue that the USA would've eventually been pulled into WWII even if there were no Pacific theatre, but this is not the place for that discussion. Correct me if I'm wrong, but essentially your main argument for including China on the list is that they were the reason for the whole pacific war, and that they tied down the bulk of the Japanese Army for the duration of the war. The first argument is discounted by Poland's status as a minor Ally, as it was the casus belli for the European war. I've already made arguments that China's tying down of Japanese Army troops wasn't that significant in the overall course of the war. I'm not saying China had no impact on World War II, it was the core issue for the entire Pacific theatre starting, but much the same as Poland, that doesn't mean it's a major allied power. Parsecboy 21:57, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Poland is different from China and China was more than a casus belli. Poland's army waslargely destroyed and was not part of any big engagements fighting the enemy or even "tying" them down. The operations by the home army had neglible value, much like most underground resistance movements. China on the other hand had a standing army actively engaging the enemy. The polish government had fled to England while another was propped up by the Soviets. China should have lost but continued fighting in the war, and that's why it got a permanent seat in the UN security council with the most of unequal treaties (sans Hong Kong) abrogated. If China gave up and surrendered and wasn't a major power then the western powers most likely would have just returned to their spheres of influence in China, much like they did in Indochina. BlueShirts 22:16, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Parsecboy, I agree with BlueShirts, I simply do not understand your link between Poland and China. Apart from the fact that the two countries were invaded and that these are considered the beginning of the europeans and asian wars. We could discuss for days, but the main problem is you do not recognize the impact of the chineses troops and how much they paralysed half of Japan's forces, between 1937 and 1945.

Considering the fact that USA could have fought in Europe without fighting on the pacific front if China had been defeated before 1941, can you imagine how much faster Germany would have been crushed ? --Flying tiger 22:50, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

let's just stick to the official sources such as the one I have given and stop given passionate speeches shall we? this debate is going no where . — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.168.126.130 (talk • contribs)

The respective numbers and conditions in China and Burma meant the war was unlikely to be won by either side on those fronts, at least until the Soviet intercession. The same could be said of the Italian campaign until D-day. War is not just about brilliant masterplans and stunning breakthroughs, it is about creating time and space in which a country and its allies can plan and execute counterattacks. That is also the role that Britain played from mid-1940 until mid-1941. It may not have succumbed to a planned German invasion, but it could not have defeated Germany on its own.

The fact that the Japanese were able to successfully counterattack in China in 1944-45 meant that they had — for example — far fewer troops available in the Philippines. It is not possible to imagine an invasion of the Japanese home islands by the western Allies in 1945-46 without (among other things) a successful Philippines campaign (1944-45). Grant | Talk 01:06, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

You're both still avoiding my arguments, and only discussing red herrings like "China was more important than Poland". Both of you weren't listening to what I was saying. Flying Tiger argued that since without China's continued involvement in the sino-japanese war, there would have been no Pacific Theatre in World War II. I stated that being the casus belli (and just pointed out the fact that Poland, the casus belli for the European theatre wasn't a major power; I never said China's contributions were the same as those of Poland's) isn't by definition justification of being included as a major ally. As a side note, I would imagine members of the Polish II Corps, which led the break through in Italy at Monte Casino would appreciate you calling their accomplishments "negligible". Regardless, Poland isn't the issue here. Flying Tiger, you say that you don't "understand link between Poland and China...beginning of the europeans and asian wars". What more is there to get? That was my whole point. I doubt that not fighting in the Pacific would've had a drastic effect on Germany's eventual defeat, timeline-wise. The Americans would have still had to build up a woefully underfunded and ill-equiped military, and like I've said earlier, the Pacific War was mostly naval fighting, whereas Europe was primarily land based combat. Moreover, it is rather likely that war between Japan and America would have occured anyways. Had Japan crushed China, it may have been apt to attack the USSR to aid Germany, which would have caused America and the UK to declare war on Japan. But this is not the place for "What if?" scenarios. Look at the facts, at what actually happened. Could the USA have defeated Japan without China? Unquestionably. Could China have defeated Japan without the US? Very unlikely. Parsecboy 01:15, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Could the US, UK and others have defeated Germany without the USSR? Very, very debatable indeed. Should we remove the US and UK from the majors as well then? This debate catalyses the fact that trite arguments over who did or didn't do or wouldn't have or couldn't have done what without whom are entirely misleading and inappropriate. Once again- ditch the list in the infobox completely and link to the relevent articles where the required full analysis can be given. Badgerpatrol 01:34, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Grant65, how able were the Japanese to significantly reinforce the Philipines in 1944-45? Most of their shipping was being intercepted and destroyed by Allied submarines. Regardless, the Philipines was un-retainable for the Japanese; the Americans had overwhelming sea and air dominance, and the Japanese couldn't count on the Filipinos to support them, like they could in Japanese islands. One cannot fight a defensive battle without the support of the population. Also, I think "brilliant masterplans and stunning breakthroughs" are more important than you assert. China was fighting for its very survival, and couldn't rely on a potential American victory in the Pacific. Napolean once stated that war is never won on the defensive. Parsecboy 01:46, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Parsec, I'm really not sure what your argument is. "The Pacific War was mostly naval fighting" Yes...unless you were Chinese, British, Australian, Indian, Burmese, Korean, Filipino... "Could the USA have defeated Japan without China?" Maybe....US capabilities are irrelevant in determining China's contribution, because China carried the burden of land operations in the Pacific War.

It would have been a whole different ball game for the US if it had to deal with the Japanese land, air and sea units which were in China in 1941-45. Those units could have been in southern Asia and the southern Pacific from an early stage. Allied subs would have had less of an impact, if they had to deal with Japanese aircraft and shipping freed up from the China campaign. Grant | Talk 04:34, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I argued that the US would have defeated Japan without China's assistance because Blueshirts and Flying Tiger keep arguing that China had a drastic impact on the rest of the Pacific Theatre. What sea units were in China? Riverine patrol craft? Do you think the Japanese armies in China would have stopped if China had succumbed? No, they would have continued on into India, so these supposed forces that would be sent to reinforce Pacific islands would have never materialised. And even if that did not happen, like I've argued before, there are only so many soldiers you can stick on a few square miles of sand in the middle of the ocean. Also, having 150,000 troops on a tiny coral atoll does you no good if they cannot be resupplied. The Pacific war wouldn't have been all that much different without China's continued resistance. The only thing that would've had a drastic effect was the air units, but those were all land based planes, they would have been no help at Midway, which was where the tide of the war turned. Even still, those units would have supported the invasion of India. The Allied subs would have had the exact same impact, because the Japanese never took effective anti-submarine tactics. Parsecboy 13:23, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Putting so much emphasis on Midway only shows that you're looking at it back to front; if it had not been for China tieing down Japanese forces, then the Pacific War would not have been mostly a naval war (from the U.S. perspective). As you allude, the US would then likely have been fighting a larger land war in India/Australia/Siberia/godknowswhere. That would have been a different story. The U.S. tipped the balance in the Pacific, as it did in Europe, while engaging in several of the largest naval battles in history. It did fight on land in the Solomon Islands, New Guinea and the Philippines, but relatively speaking it did little of the on-land fighting against Japan, because that was being done in and by China. Grant | Talk 15:17, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how looking at Midway as a turning point is back to front. The Japanese Navy didn't really recover from the losses until 1944 (in terms of carrier numbers, the quality of pilots never recovered). Japan wouldn't have invaded Australia; they were stopped at Coral Sea and Guadalcanal. Sure, they may have been able to reinforce Guadalcanal, but the US Navy's eventual dominance around the island would've made that increasingly prohibitive, and the USMC would've eventually defeated the IJA. After 1942, Japan didn't have the naval power to force a landing in Australia. I would strongly disagree that the USA merely "tipped the balance" in the Pacific; it won the war in that theatre. It was primarily the USA that destroyed Japan's merchant fleet (which destroyed Japan's ability to wage war), the USA that destroyed Japanese naval and air power. I doubt American troops would've been deployed to India in large numbers; America's primary focus was getting close enough to Japan to start bombing cities and force the end of the war. I also doubt a Japanese attack on Siberia, although it was not impossible. Sure, most of the on land fighting was done by China, but we come back yet again to my point: what did all that fighting result in? All of the battles you and others listed earlier are defensive battles. A stalemate is not the same as a victory. Parsecboy 19:13, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

It's back-to-front because a battle like Midway would have been relatively insignificant and may not even have occurred, had the US had to fight a land war against the bulk of the Japanese Army, which it never did. (For the same reasons that Trafalgar, significant as it was, is regarded as less significant than Waterloo.) The USA only "won the war in the Pacific" if you conceive of the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II as being somehow magically distinct from what was occurring in the rest of the world, especially China. Which it was not. By the way, all of the battles in China I referred to were Chinese victories, not "stalemates". Grant | Talk 00:26, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I didn't say the battles themselves were stalemates, but the Chinese front as a whole remained a stalemate, despite Chinese defensive victories, and with that you cannot argue. I still disagree with your categorization of Midway. If anything, you're thinking about the battle not occuring if America had to fight a major land war against Japan is back to front. In the first half of 1942, there was virtually no possiblity of American troops being sent to China in large quantities, as the American army was still being stood up, and there wasn't sufficient naval power built up enough to both take the risky trip through the Indian ocean, which was still being ravaged by German commerce raiders and still engage the Japanese fleets. So if the US did not win the war in the Pacific, who did? Who forced Japan to surrender? What specifically led to the Japanese withdrawal from China? Parsecboy 01:37, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

If I am not mistaken, the Soviets launched Operation August Storm and considerably destroyed the Kwantung Army. I thought they were the ones who led to the Japanese withdrawl from China. And unless I am terribly mistaken again, I believe Hirohito worried about the Soviet declaration of war on Japan. Parsecboy, look at things from the international POV (yes that includes non-Western powers like USSR and China) instead of just from an American POV. 129.109.231.129 04:21, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I very well know August storm destroyed the Japanese army in Manchuria, but it occurred in the last days of the war. By that time, Japan was essentially broken. The USSR only (opportunistically, I might add) hastened the inevitable collapse. I do not look at things from an American POV, and I resent your insinuation that I do. Parsecboy 13:02, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Let me further extend that denying the value of China's role in defeating the Japanese is not an American POV. You will not find a respected American historian who would agree with Parsecboy. Whatever POV he has, it's not because he's an American. --Habap 13:14, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

"The Big 3" in World War II was Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. There's no Chinese leader in there.. --Borgarde 06:42, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

No-one is saying that China was as "big" as the Big Three, but it was damn sight bigger than any of the other Allies. Anyway, how about the "Four Policemen", Roosevelt's phrase? &. The fourth "policeman" wasn't France, Canada, Australia or Poland.

Look at this another way: the USSR fought "no less than 50 and sometimes 75%" (AJP Taylor's words) of the German army, and flattened one Japanese army group in 1945. The US fought the vast bulk of the Japanese navy, 10-30% of the Japanese army and about the same proportion of the German army. The UK (being generous and includng Commonwealth forces) fought most of the German and Italian navies, most of the Italian army, no more than 10% of the German army and about the same proportion of the Japanese. China fought the vast majority of the Japanese army for eight years. I rest my case. Grant | Talk 17:05, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

This is a ridiculous question, if someone is itching to eliminate a country from the combatant box of Allied Powers, it should be FRANCE! After all, the French and the British lost the battle of France in what...a month and ten days! China fought the Japanese for eight years, longer than any country in the Allie Powers. Not to mention that Vichy Franch is an Axis collaborator that fought the Allies and handed the French Jews to the Nazis.DCTT 06:51, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

List of allies - particulary the order of

As far as I understand the alies and axis listed (big three for each) are arranged in chronological order. In my humble opinion that creates a problem with Japan - it was at war with China from 1937, potentially making it the first one on the list of axis. I propose to re-arrange those nations in the order of their input into allied (and axis) war effort. In which case the order would be: Allies:USSR, USA, UK Axis:Germany, Japan, Italy. With respect, Ko Soi IX 15:31, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

The second sino-japanese war is not world war 2, even if fighting there continued into it. By your logic, should Italy also be included ahead of Germany because of the second italo-abyssinian war? --NEMT 15:40, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

See Axis powers of World War II. Just because Japan was engaged in hostilities did not merit membership into the "Axis". That came from a formal agreement AFTER Germany and italy signed an earlier agreement (note: Italy came up with term "Axis" anyway). In my opnion, no change warranted. HJ 15:48, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I think we should rate the allies and axis on their importance as opposed to the time they joined their respective alliances - utilizing similar logic to the one employed in restricting the list to important players only. With respect, Ko Soi IX 19:14, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Rating importance is bound to cause arguments because it is entirely subjective. Basing it on date-of-entry is at least objective. As HJ notes, if we use the date-of-agreement as the basis, they would not be listed first. --Habap 21:17, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Not only that, but by going by that yard stick both the USSR and the USA who joined the hostilities (on the side of the Allies) literally years after the United Kingdom, Australia, New-Zealand and Canada. Not only that but putting the USSR /first/ in the list of Allies is surely wrong since they were actually Axis treaty members until the German invasion of the USSR, fighting /against/ the allies. Demerphq 11:30, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Think the list is based on contribution rather than chronological order. Re: Soviets, see comment below from Parsecboy. This is pretty accurate. Wallie 23:26, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Go alphabetical. Problem solved. And the U.S. bashers will be happy. Haber 17:17, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, the USSR was never an Axis member, probably more of a co-belligerent at the time, the same as Finland or Thailand during the war. Alphabetical listing or by date of involvement are both fine options, in my opinion. Parsecboy 18:24, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

To Habap: You're right, it is a bad idea. To demerphq: however, 7 out of 8 Germans and their european allies killed were killed by USSR. With respect, Ko Soi IX 20:24, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Neutral Nations (especially the US)

One thing I found interesting was the lack of discussion of the nations that declared themselves neutral at the beginng of hostilities. I think this is a serious omission, the political mood of neutrality and non-interference world wide were certainly signifigant to the history of the time. In particular the declaration of neutrality by American President Franklin Roosevelt on USA on Sept 5 1939 was of particular importance. At the very least the American Neutrality Act prohibited the sending of supplies to countries at war, which given the scale of the US economy and its relation to the British Empire would have had a signifigant impact on such things as the British and German strategic decisions. The United States neutrality in the early stages of the war also gives perspective to the importance of the commonwealth nations such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Afrika joining the war.

Demerphq 11:21, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Tell that to the English. They always say how they stood alone against the Germans. Just heard Blair say this on TV. Obviously didn't need the Commonwealth... Wallie 23:32, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, Battle of Britain and all... --NEMT 01:39, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

If you look at the info box in that very article, you'll see other nations, including the Commonwealth, Poland, USA, etc. that contributed forces to the Battle of Britain. Parsecboy 01:46, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Sarcasm --NEMT 03:56, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

rmv major

If no one objects, I'm going to go ahead and change the infobox from "Major Axis/Allied Powers" to "Axis/Allied Powers." I think it works much better. --NEMT 01:48, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Go head, be bold. I think it would solve a lot of the problems in regards to the above China debate. Personally, I think it's a better idea to go with Badgerpatrol's removal of the individual countries, as I don't believe a consensus will be reached. Without doing that, every time a Polish/Canadian/Chinese/etc. nationalist comes along, they'll want to insert their country, and spark an edit war. Parsecboy 19:20, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I like it. There are a few Polish/Canadian/Chinese patriots around, aren't there. Perhaps these countries should form a club. Wallie 23:29, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and made the changes, hopefully soon we'll have China off there for good as well. --NEMT 01:04, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

If we're going to remove China, I think we shouldn't list any countries at all - simply refer to the Allied and Axis articles and leave any arguments for there. As previously noted, pro-Polish, pro-Canadian and anti-Chinese editors will cause trouble in the future if we list specific countries. I think it's sad, but better to avoid arguments over a minor point when there is so much actual work to get done. --Habap 13:24, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

To avoid arguments over a minor point, why don't we see what independent, reputable sources have to say? Per policy, it isn't our place as editors to decide who the "major" powers were and were not. What is the consensus view of WW II historians? That is what we should use.

(And, can we not assume motives here? There are cases to be made for and against the inclusion of various countries as major powers. Don't assume that the only reason an editor is suggesting that a country be included or excluded is because they are pro- or anti- that country.) - Eron 14:55, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Because they really aren't needed there. A link to the Allied powers of WWII and Axis of WWII pages is quite sufficient. Lets put this ridiculous argument to bed, eh? Parsecboy 15:08, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes it's ridiculous, but encyclopedias are around to help people learn. Deleting the Big Three just to avoid conflict is not helpful. Haber 15:41, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Right, but the information is still there, just the pretty little flags are gone. Parsecboy 15:44, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I again tried to boldly remove the POV- following Parsecboy- and it was reverted on the basis that "good content shouldn't be removed just to avoid conflict". It isn't good content, it's inherently POV, and I didn't remove it to avoid conflict, I removed it to bring the content into line with WP:NPOV. It does seem unfortunately that this debate is intractable. Badgerpatrol 15:46, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I think listing the most significant powers on each side adds to the article. The intractable part of this debate surrounds which countries beyond the Big 3 Allies could be considered "major". Is there really any dispute that the UK, US, and USSR were the three most significant allied powers? If not - and I can't see that there could be - then can we not limit the list to these three, and only these three, along with the three major Axis powers? Then there is no need to debate who is in fourth place. If a fourth country is added, it can be removed; not because it isn't major, but because we just don't list four countries. - Eron 15:54, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Some might conceivably argue that China was a more significant player than the UK. But the point is- terms like "major" and "significant" are not NPOV, and cannot ever be. Why should we limit the list to only three nations (whichever they are)? Why not 2, or 1, or 32? What makes a "major" power? Is it casualties suffered? Inflicted? Industrial output? Length of time in combat? Number of troops? It is simply not possible to say. Better to link to the substantive articles where the situation can be discussed with appropriate depth and nuance. Badgerpatrol 16:45, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

The average person does not know that the UK, US, and USSR fought on one side in WWII, and Germany, Italy, and Japan fought on the other. This is why things like encyclopedias are around. We have a teachable moment in the infobox, where we can introduce these countries, and leaders like Stalin, Hitler, Roosevelt, and Churchill. "Follow the link" is a waste of time and it won't get done very often. This whole business with China is a separate issue. Haber 16:20, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

With respect, that is total nonsense. The average person - barring idiots who are not going to find any value in an encyclopaedia anyway- is well aware that the UK, US and USSR fought on (mostly) the same side in WWII. The information has close to zero informative value. Badgerpatrol 16:46, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, well, that's just your opinion. I suggest you get out in the world and ask some people what they know about history. You might be surprised. Haber 17:26, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with Badgerpatrol; most people know that the USA, UK, and USSR fought Germany, Italy, and Japan in WWII. They might not know specific campaigns or battles, outside of the famous ones like Normandy, Pearl Harbor, or Stalingrad, but I think most people know the big combatants. Grant, we all know how you feel about China's inclusion, but this discussion is not about that. If you don't have anything useful to contribute in regards to whether the countries should be listed or just the links to the articles, please be quiet.Parsecboy 18:15, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Then the average person can click on the Axis powers or Allied powers links and read all about the members of each. --NEMT 22:08, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

The average person can also reach for another reference. Haber 23:50, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I seriously doubt someone would see the lack of pretty little flags and ignore the link to the Allies/Axis article, and go through the trouble of searching something else out. Badgerpatrol is right, terms like "major" or significant" are POV, and if those aren't in the title, then every country that was on either side deserves to be on the list, and that becomes overly large. Just having the link to the Allies/Axis articles is the best solution to the problem. Parsecboy 00:53, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The whole "3 Allies v 3 Axis" schema is very cute, but it won't wash wtih me and a lot of other people, and represents a bad case of both revisionism (e.g. how about Roosevelt's phrase "Four Policemen", which included China) and eurocentrism (e.g. China fought the vast majority of the Japanese army) Grant | Talk 17:34, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I hope you're not including me in the 3v3 only crowd. I'm ok with 3v3, 4v3 (w/China), even 5v3 (w/France). What I don't like is 0v0. Haber 19:30, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

No, Haber. My comment was directed mostly at NEMT's inflammatory "hopefully soon we'll have China off there for good as well".

Parsecboy, you don't have to the right to tell me or anyone else to "be quiet" about anything. You and NEMT have demonstrated behaviour not in keeping Misplaced Pages policy in these debates. Grant | Talk 03:04, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree, by using factual evidence and basic logic to support our claims Parsecboy and myself have demonstrated much behavior not common in wikipedia discussions, particularly those involving war and national pride. --NEMT 04:50, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, factual evidence and basic logic, that's what you'd think. And I wouldn't have such confidence if I had been repeatedly blocked for uncivil behavior, vandalism, with one as recent as January. BlueShirts 05:04, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Steady on, chaps. Badgerpatrol 05:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Really, Grant, how have I behaved poorly? By disagreeing with you? By telling you to stick with the discussion at hand and not return to a dead subject? Maybe I really AM just a "dumb, xenophobic, red neck 'the USA is the best in the world and every other country is crap' American", but I don't see how your assertion that I have behaved badly holds any water. Perhaps you should enlighten us all. Parsecboy 12:58, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with your background. I just don't take kindly to being told to "be quiet". Grant | Talk 01:59, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Part of learning history is learning to prioritize information. Click on the Allied Powers link and you still have to scroll down to find out that the UK fought in the war. Then you have to go back to Axis Powers to find out that Germany fought in the war. Readers will be missing out if they walk away from this article not knowing which side was which. Despite what you say, this is not common knowledge. Haber 22:24, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you realize this, but the article here actually explains all combatants on both sides in a very organized and effective manner. --NEMT 00:29, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Haber, that sounds like a problem with the "Allies of WWII" article, not this one. Perhaps you should be fixing that one such that it makes that information readily available. NEMT is right, the article does explain the Allied and Axis powers pretty well. The problem here, at least from my observations, is that Haber likes the pretty little flags in the infobox. They really serve no purpose, other than to make the article a little more colorful. If someone came to this article to find out about WWII, I don't think they'd just look at the flags to find out what countries fought, and move to another article. They'd read at least the overview, which does a great job explaining the major countries involved. Moreover, at what point do you stop listing countries? If you remove the word "Major", then I have no problem with China being on the list. But what about India? Or Australia or Poland? Where does one draw the line? And if we're going in include more than 3 Allied powers, why not put Hungary or Finland on the Axis side to even it out? Don't you see the problem this is?

And Grant, you were talking to be heard, and nothing more. I could care less what you "take kindly to"; contribute to the discussion or go elswhere. Parsecboy 12:59, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

LOL...you don't decide what is relevant to this discussion and what isn't. And no. I'm not going elsewhere. Grant | Talk 11:43, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Grant, lets not be childish now. We don't need to be putting "rude little" above other people's comments. You're what, 46? 47? How about we act like it? Parsecboy 13:16, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

41 — but I don't feel a day over 21. Thanks for deleting my incorrectly-located and unsigned post. I apologise to little people. Grant | Talk 15:31, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I'd be ok with the text without the "pretty" flags. That's actually the way the infobox template people would like it to be used. However most people do prefer the flags. Let me try to explain it another way: if a young person (or your average non-history buff) were to come to this article, and memorized nothing but the eight nations in the infobox, they would know under which flag >90% of the soldiers fought, and they would know where >90% of the industrial output during the war came from. They'd be able to identify eight huge personalities and associate them with their respective countries. This is an excellent start towards understanding the war, and to me it outweighs the importance of being all-inclusive. There is plenty of time for that later. Haber 13:44, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Here we go with the hope that I can bring a fresh perspective to the argument at hand. Call me childish, but I like the idea of the "pretty flags" as well, and they DO bring informational value, albeit minor and indirect. Not only do they illustrate what flags were adopted by some countries during WWII, but they also enhance the readability factor of the article, which is essential when the objective is to teach. They also provide a quick eye reference for readers who may come to the WWII article looking for the article on the allies as opposed to a simple text link.

As for which flag should or shouldn't be in the list, I think we are reading too far into the issue by trying to list the few countries that contributed the most. To measure who contributed the most is an inconceivable task for a war of this scale. Evidently there are too many factors involved and what constitutes any level of contribution for one, may not for another. The current (5v3) list is fine, and although to some it may not represent who the major contributors/leaders/etc. were during WWII, as a reader you wouldn't be incorrect to conclude that the countries did contribute... and that's all that really matters.

Again, the list is fine as it is and as an objective reader, I don't see the list telling me who the major contributors were. I will form that opinion upon reading the article coupled with articles from other sources. Also, as a Canadian, I don't see the list as an insult to the Canadian soldiers who fought and died during the war simply because the flag is excluded from the shortened list. — Dorvaq (talk) 17:56, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your perspective. I agree the 5v3 list should be looked at as merely a tool, with no deeper meaning. Haber 18:09, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Only 21 refs?

Shouldn't an article of this importance have more reliable sources?--Winterus 17:30, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Background poll

Did you know at least one member of both the Axis and Allied powers of WW2 before reading this article?

Yes. I knew just about all notable participants in WW2 and their roles, and did for quite some time before ever having stumbled upon Misplaced Pages. --NEMT 00:37, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

wikipedia editors tend to be more knowledgeable I assume, so what's the point of this poll? Have you seen "jaywalking" on Leno? BlueShirts 01:22, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I think we can both agree most (if not all) wikipedia editors also come to wikipedia for research and recreational learning reasons, though. Even if many are educated and already knowledgeable, they should still provide a somewhat accurate sample of wiki readers - and many are just "average people," since anyone can edit wikipedia. Also, since we all know the average person apparently doesn't know the UK was an allied power (see above) this should be a pretty one sided poll - right? --NEMT 01:35, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Battle of the Bulge in not in "Main Events" Directory?

The "Main Events" section of the World War II directory at the bottom of the article doesn't include the Battle of the Bulge. Why not, is it not considered significant enough? The article for the Battle has been featured, so it's certainly qualified in terms of quality. Mgold4me 02:05, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

While significant in many ways (Largest battle of WW2 with Western Allies - almost half the scale of Stalingrad; last German operative/strategic offensive), it's impact was apparently not significant enough - many other events are also not included, from the 14 month Battle of Rzhev to Chinese battles. With respect, Ko Soi IX 07:00, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Of course the Battle of the Bulge should be there. Wallie 22:26, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

The battle of the bulge was not one of the "main events" of WWII. It was not even a large offensive by German standards earlier in the war. More intense fighting happened around Berlin soon after the battle of the bulge, and the real massive German offensives were between 1940-42.

Re-Structuring of This Article

This is how I propose we re-structure this article

• The War Begins in Europe (September 1939-May 1940)
• The War Begins in Asia (July 1937-December 1941)
• The Western Front (May 1940-June 1944)
• The Pacific (December 1941-October 1944)
• Mediterranean (April 1940-May 1943)
• China and South East Asia (December 1941-March 1944)
• The Eastern Front (June 1941-February 1943)
• Mediterranean (May 1943-May 1945)
• The Pacific (October 1944-September 1945)
• The Eastern Front (February 1943-January 1945)
• China and South East Asia (March 1944-September 1945)
• The Western Front (June 1944-May 1945)
• The Eastern Front (January 1945-May 1945)
• The End of the War in Europe
• The End of the War in Asia

Lemme know what you guys think Mercenary2k 19:35, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

You're chopping up the time periods out of order. Why should Europe come first if it was 2 years after the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War? That doesn't make sense. Neither does doing the Pacific until 1944, and then jumping backwards to 1940 Mediterranean. Also, doing the Pacific to september 1945, and then having another whole section for the end of the war in Asia seems to be totally redundant, the same for Europe. This list needs some major re-working to be viable. Parsecboy 19:43, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmm Good points. Let me re-organize this list.

• The War Begins in Asia (July 1937-December 1941)
  • Covers from Japanese invasion of China to Pearl Harbor

• The War Begins in Europe (September 1939-May 1940)
  • Covers from German invasion of Poland up to the German invasion of France

• The Western Front (May 1940-June 1944)
  • Covers from the German invasion of France, battle of Britain, occupation of Europe, battle of Atlantic, allied bombing of Germany and leading up to the Allied invasion of Normandy.

• The Eastern Front (June 1941-February 1943)
  • Covers the German invasion of Russia up to the German defeat at Stalingrad

• Mediterranean (April 1940-May 1943)
  • Covers the campaign in Greece, Balkans, Crete and North Africa up to the Axis defeat in Tunisia

• The Pacific (December 1941-October 1944)
  • Covers from Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, Marshall Islands and up to Battle of Philippine Sea.

• China and South East Asia (December 1941-March 1944)
  • Covers from Pearl Harbor to Change De to Operation Ichigo and events leading up to the Japanese invasion of India.

• The Eastern Front (February 1943-January 1945)
  • Covers from the German defeat at Stalingrad to Kursk to Bagration to the eve of the Soviet invasion of Germany

• Mediterranean (May 1943-March 1945)
  • Covers the Campaign in Italy up to just before the Allies break through the Po Valley.

• China and South East Asia (March 1944-June 1945)
  • Covers the Japanese invasion of India and their defeat and the allied liberation of Burma and the opening of the burma road.

• The Pacific (October 1944-July 1945)
  • Covers from the liberation of the philippines, to iwo jima and up to Okinawa

• The Western Front (June 1944-January 1945)
  • Covers from Normandy and the conclusion of the Battle of the bulge

• The Eastern Front (January 1945-April 1945)
  • Covers the start of the Soviet invasion of Germany to the German defeat at Seelow heights just before the soviets begin the battle for berlin.

• The End of the War in Europe
  • Covers the Western Front from January 1945 to May 1945, the Eastern front from April 1945 to May 1945, Mediterranean from March 1945 to May 1945

• The End of the War in Asia
  • Covers the Pacific from July 1945 to September 1945 and China and South East Asia from June 1945 to September 1945

How about this? Mercenary2k 22:42, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Not bad, but what about the South West Pacific theatre: first Philippines campaign (very significant), Dutch East Indies (including the ill-fated ABDACOM), Malaya-Singapore, New Guinea ((very long and significant)? Grant | Talk 11:52, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Philippines Campaign and the rest will be covered in the China and South East Asia (December 1941-March 1944).Mercenary2k 17:08, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

That list looks pretty good, the only thing I would change is switch the first Eastern Front and Mediterranean sections, as the German invasions of Greece and the Balkans delayed Barbarrossa by a few critical weeks, and had great ramifications on the rest of the war, so it should come before the Eastern Front. That and just having a correct timeline. Grant, I would assume those things would be in the article, this is, after all, just a very bare bones outline. Parsecboy 13:12, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I will move the Mediterranean ahead for Barbarossa. Mercenary2k 17:07, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

OK DONE. I DID THE CHANGES. Now what we need to do is to get proper sentence flow because the whole article is very dis-jointed.Mercenary2k 18:22, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations on all the work Mercenary2k, that must have been quite a task and is obviously much, much better than it was! Now I'm looking at it though, I do wonder if we are still too locked into a sequential "timetable of WW2" rather than by themes? Is there any support for the concept that this page should look briefly at key themes like "Hitler and the Nazis", "Imperial Japan", "the war in Europe", "the war in the Pacific", "genocide and cruelty", "technology of war", "the Allies and the Big Three", etc, etc, etc and maybe spin off the core of the existing page as a bunch of "World War 2 in depth" pages or some such? MarkThomas 18:30, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Talking about the big three is dangerous, you could end up falling awry of the many chinese, polish, and french nationalists afoot. --NEMT 21:50, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

This has been a rather large restructuring. Also many of the subsection headings have been removed. This means that there are rather large tracts of text to go through for your average reader. However, I will try to get used to it, and no doubt it will keeping changing (for the better I hope) into the future. Wallie 21:30, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

There needs to be a proper narritive in each of the sub-section. So far I just slapped them all together. One of you guys needs to go through each section and write a strong narritive that links the different parts together. Mercenary2k 23:20, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Apart from the excessive length of the sections, a major problem now is the so-called "main" articles in each section. In a lot of cases we only have a link to particular battles, rather than the relevant campaign articles. I have just fixed the "Pacific 1941-43" section but a lot more need fixing. Grant | Talk 14:48, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if you were paying attention a month ago or so, but I have been working on re-writing the article so it has improved flow and organization, and so it reads like a narrative. I have not been able to work on it for a few weeks, but now I can get back to it. Would you like to help, or would you like me to stop working on it? Heavy Metal Cellist_contribs 22:42, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

The Japanese offensives of 1941-42 can be covered in one section. But it gets too complicated after that, and I think it makes more sense to split the Asia-Pacific 1942-45 stuff according to the four official Allied commands: Pacific Ocean (Nimitz), Southwest Pacific (MacArthur), South East Asia (Wavell/Mountbatten) and China (under Chiang). Grant | Talk 17:43, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Commanders?

Does anyone else here see how the "Commanders" box can be misleading? Away from the fact that both Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong are apparently commanders under the "Republic of China" flag, there is somewhat of a misunderstanding of that section. I think that if both of the "commanders" of the "Republic of China" are there, then shouldn't other "commanders" like Truman/Attlee (Allies) and Fumimaro Konoe (Axis) be included? And I also think it would definitely help the quality of the article if the ACTUAL military leaders (Zhukov, Eisenhower, etc.) are included as well. Swang 22:31, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

This problem was discussed many times. For Japan the names of Hirohito (who was according to the constitution, "head of the state" and "supreme commander of the army and the navy") and Konoe were considered but many wanted Tôjô because he was prime minister, minister of the army and at the end, chief of staff during the war against Occident.

For all the countries, the choice that was made by the majority is a kind of compromise between political and military leaders. I agree it is far from perfect but I think there can be no consensus about it. --Flying tiger 22:54, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I've removed Mao from the list. He wasn't the supreme commander of the China theater and wasn't part of any major conferences. BlueShirts 04:42, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Commander generally refers to the Commander in Chief of that state's forces, Mao does not belong. --NEMT 19:32, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Need Picture of Japanese Troops

This article has No Pictures of Japanese Troops.

Can someone find some good pictures of Japanese troops and add them.

Thanks Mercenary2k 06:30, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

To Do List

Could I suggest that we simply get rid of the To Do list? It clutters the top of the page and tends to be the place new editors put their comments instead of putting them in a new section here. I think it also discourages users from just making changes to the article - they put it on the To Do list when it should either be done or discussed here. --Habap 15:35, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I second that motion. Parsecboy 16:16, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Nuke it. Haber 17:46, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Quote from the article: "six million Jews were murdered by Germany"

How can a whole country murder anyone? Last time I checked only people can murder others. Additionally you should not forget that people from both Germany's allies and from occupied terroritories did not hesitate to take part in those actions, too. Last but not least I don't think that it is the job of an encyclopedia to decide whether those people were murdered or killed, since this is a subjective assessment (a rather difficult one, btw, if you want to assess six million cases)--AchtungAchtung 21:47, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Sure, they all met with unfortunate accidents by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nothing to do with the Germans at all, who must be held blameless. And nobody died through murder in the "extermination" camps. Plus I think I saw the moon in a balloon this morning. :-( MarkThomas 22:09, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Try to stick what I said, alright? I know it's a controversial topic, but don't get too emotional.--AchtungAchtung 22:18, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think you could honestly call what happened in Auschwitz or Treblinka anything other than murder, unless you want to sound like a revisionist. Since it was the German government doing the killings, it is perfectly alright to say the state murdered them. Because it did. And sure, other Axis members participated in the slaughter, but Germany was the primary country behind the killings. If you want to change anything about that sentence, add "by Germany and its fellow Axis members" or something to that effect. Parsecboy 23:26, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't deny that they have been killed. I merely propose the word "killed" instead of "murdered", since that seems more neutral to me.--AchtungAchtung 23:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Watch your tone (as in above - "don't get emotional") - I am very calm. I am calmly informing you that your revisionist attempt to redefine pre-planned Nazi and German extermination and mass-murder as some kind of indeterminate "we don't know who did this or if it happened" "killing" will not wash. Any changes you make along those lines that don't meet Misplaced Pages's need to speak the facts will absolutely be reverted. MarkThomas 00:18, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

AchtungAchtung, "kill" may sound more neutral to you, but to me it sounds like a feeble attempt at mitigating Germany's involvement in one of mankind's worst human tragedies. Without diving into legal definitions of murder around the world, whether or not a human being dies as a direct result of being fired upon or after being malnourished (an understatement) over an extended period of time — it's murder. — Dorvaq (talk) 14:50, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Well said Mark, Parseq, and Dorvaq. I'm glad we have such a good crew interested in this article. Haber 14:55, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

"Killed" or possibly "executed" does seem more appropriate than "murdered" in this case. Murder has a more personal connotation not generally ascribed to actions of the state. --NEMT 21:52, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

"Killed" is too watered down to properly convey the scale and barbarity of what occurred, and "executed" makes it sound like they were criminals being "justly" killed by the state. here's a definition for you, taken from  :

mur·der
–noun
1. Law. the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law. In the U.S., special statutory definitions include murder committed with malice aforethought, characterized by deliberation or premeditation or occurring during the commission of another serious crime, as robbery or arson (first-degree murder), and murder by intent but without deliberation or premeditation (second-degree murder).
2. Slang. something extremely difficult or perilous: That final exam was murder!
3. a group or flock of crows.
–verb (used with object)
4. Law. to kill by an act constituting murder.
5. to kill or slaughter inhumanly or barbarously.
6. to spoil or mar by bad performance, representation, pronunciation, etc.: The tenor murdered the aria.
–verb (used without object)
7. to commit murder.

I direct your attention to number 5. If that does not fit the bill perfectly, I don't know what does. Parsecboy 01:05, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

You've picked a pretty strange one of the definitions to back up your case. The humanity or lack thereof in the nazi death camps is rarely considered a major issue - would it still be "murder" in your eyes if the prisoners were euthanized? Gassing and shooting are relatively humane and civil with respect to the history of mass killing. The bottom line is murder contains a human, person element, and is not a NPOV term, nor is it appropriate when describing actions of the state. Kill is much better suited in this case. Many of those killed in the camps died from starvation and exhaustion, as well, which doesn't fit well with any definition of murder. Would you say the soviets murdered those sent to the gulag? --NEMT 03:18, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

NEMT, you're actually comparing a prisoner convicted of a crime with the Jewish people sent to the Nazi concentration camps? Fine... If you are so bent on taking out "murder" as the word contains too much of a human element, then I propose we use "slaughter" as a compromise. I mean, the paragraph in question does deal with the Holocaust and if you look at the definition of Holocaust in most dictionaries, then you'll probably find something along the lines of, "the mass slaughter of people." — you know, that thing the UK did to its livestock during the foot-and-mouth crisis back in 2001. — Dorvaq (talk) 15:19, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how you can call the actions of the Einsatzgruppen "humane". Machine-gunning defenseless civilians in pits, leaving many of them wounded but still living, and then burying them alive is somehow "civil"? Yes, it would still be murder if they were euthanized, because it would still be a completely unjustified and illegitimate killing. Soldiers who die in combat are not "murdered" by the enemy, but unarmed civilians who are rounded up and are shot/gassed/etc. for being a certain race/religion/political party/etc. ARE. Dorvaq, I think "slaughtered" would be a good substitute for "murdered". Parsecboy 15:32, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Slaughter is even less appropriate, as slaughter connotes killing for the purpose of consumption. What, exactly, is the problem you guys have with "killed?" "It doesn't make the nazis look evil enough" doesn't really count. No one is denying the barbarism of the holocaust, but "murder" is not appropriate when describing actions of state, period. Additionally, I have no idea where you got "you're actually comparing a prisoner convicted of a crime with the Jewish people sent to the Nazi concentration camps?" from, and I suggest you try to focus on what's actually been said rather than your own ridiculous strawman scenarios. --NEMT 15:49, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Straw man scenarios? Ok, now you're getting carried away. I admit I misread your sentence on the euthanasia of prisoners, but my comment was not meant as a straw man argument. My problem with replacing the word "murder" with "kill" is that the replacement trivializes the actions taken by the German state... and where on earth are you getting that killing by the state does not constitute murder? People sent to the camps were not sent there to survive. If they weren't to die at the camps due to the horrible living conditions, they were to eventually die by other means. — Dorvaq (talk) 16:41, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

The word "killed" is preferred by revisionists because it sounds like somehow it maybe was accidental, or maybe we don't know who did it. Murdered is used when we know who the murderer was. On a different subject, could some of the editors here look in please at Talk:Adolf Hitler where some fairly revisionist editors are currently seeking to claim that Hitler had no responsibility for World War 2. Thanks. MarkThomas 19:22, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

MarkThomas, well put. NEMT, Slaughter as used in conjuction with food is only one definition or connotation. I present another definition, taken from the same online dictionary as above:

slaugh·ter
–noun 1. the killing or butchering of cattle, sheep, etc., esp. for food.
2. the brutal or violent killing of a person.
3. the killing of great numbers of people or animals indiscriminately; carnage: the slaughter of war.
–verb (used with object)
4. to kill or butcher (animals), esp. for food.
5. to kill in a brutal or violent manner.
6. to slay in great numbers; massacre.
7. Informal. to defeat thoroughly; trounce: They slaughtered our team.

Both #2 and #3 (#'s 5 and 6 are essentially the same) seem appropriate to this situation. Parsecboy 19:26, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I have to concur that either "murdered" or "slaughtered" are appropriate while "killed" is not. Soldiers get killed in battle, civilians who are rounded up and either gassed, shot, starved or worked to death are murdered or slaughtered. --Habap 20:16, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree more with simply using "murdered" as is currently used. Despite slaughter being a fair representation of many of the deaths, I don't believe it's a proper general term for all of the deaths. To me "slaughter" implies the direct physical involvement with the use of tool/weapon in the kill. I apologize for the confusion, but I was being sarcastic when I first proposed the word. — Dorvaq (talk) 20:52, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I assumed as much, I was merely trying to prove a point with the definition. The sentence should remain as is - "murdered", not "killed". Parsecboy 20:58, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Slaughtered is a much better word then murdered. Potaaatos 09:21, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

sprotect

Are we no longer semi-protected despite the tag header? We seem to be getting attacks from recently registered users today... MarkThomas 19:18, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Need Help with this Article

Hi Guys, I have been re-structuring this article for a while now. It looks very good. All we have to do now is fix up the choppy narrative of the sections and this article is ready.

In my opinion the following sections flow nicely and have a good prose and do not require major re-structuring are:

• War breaks out in Europe (September 1939 – May 1940)
• Western Front (September 1939 – May 1940)
• Western Front (May 1940 – September 1940)
• Pacific (June 1943 – July 1945)
• Eastern Front (February 1943 – January 1945)
• Eastern Front (January 1945 – April 1945)

These ones require major re-structuring as they are totally choppy and lacking major information are:

• War breaks out in Asia (July 1937 – September 1939)
• Western Front (September 1940 – June 1944) -->This one needs MAJOR HELP!
• Mediterranean (April 1940 – May 1943)
• Eastern Front (April 1941 – February 1943) -->I am gonna personally fix this up, so don't worry about this one.
• Pacific (April 1941 – June 1943)
• China and South East Asia (September 1941 – March 1944)
• Mediterranean (May 1943 – March 1945)
• China and South East Asia (March 1944 – June 1945)
• War ends in Europe -->Gonna personally fix this up, so don't worry about it.
• War ends in Asia -->Gonna personally fix this up, so don't worry about it.

So there you guys go. I need help with the above mentioned sections. Especially with the Western Front (September 1940 - June 1940). Thanks all help is appreciated.

Mercenary2k 03:36, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

images

This is a great article, but to me it looks like there a few to many images scattered around. I think it would be a good idea if some of them are extracted from the article and put into an image gallery at the bottom. This will help the article look a little more organised and structured.--Chickenfeed9 14:26, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

CANADA2

In the list of main allies, there is the neglect of Canada to the war! Canada really deserves a spot there because they played a big part - Dieppe, Juno Beach, the Italian Campaign! China is listed, even though they did not do as much!

This has been discussed to death. Canada didnt play a big part in WWII. Live with it. Dieppe and Juno beach are insignificant in the greater scheme of WWII. USSR, USA, China and UK were the big players in WWII on the Allied Side. China lost 20 million men, killed 3 million japanese troops in WWII. Can Canada say the same? Mercenary2k 20:38, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

It is an insult to Canada and Canadian history to maintain that they made 'little' effort. Many Canadians fought in operations that few people have heard of, such as the Gindrinker's line in Hong Kong. Their contribution is still as valuable, a Canadian killed is worth anyone else killed. The contribution of British Empire and Dominion states is always going to be disputed because Canada was just forming independence when war broke out. Canada, NZ and Australia were invaluable allies in both world wars. That doesn't even take into account all the Canadian airmen in the Battle of Brtiain or Canadian merchant seamen.

Thatstheway

Canada did relatively little, even compared to Free France and Poland. Additionally, a case could be made for Canada being implicitly included with the UK. "Live with it." --NEMT 21:32, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Canada is not "implicitly included with the UK". The Statute of Westminster (1931) gave the "White Dominions" independence in foreign policy. And I don't think changing the U.K. listing to "British Commonwealth" (official name in 1926-49) would satisfy anyone.

While I agree that Canada was not a major ally, the number of times that this comes up (and the number of times that people question China's inclusion) illustrates the problem with only having major allies in the box. Grant | Talk 02:40, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

China killed 3 million Japanese troops, tied up 60% of the entire Japanese Military, lost 20 million people. China was a major Ally Mercenary2k 03:19, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

This is just further proof we're better off with 'Axis Powers' and 'Allied Powers' alone in the combatants section, no states. --NEMT 05:23, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Here here! http://en.wikipedia.org/User:Thatstheway 11:11, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I think some of the frustration might come from a perceived need to debate every single Canadian jingoist on this talk page. While I admire the patience it must take to do this, I think it's counterproductive if the end result is that everyone throws up their hands and clears the infobox. There is broad consensus for the 5 v 3. It's not perfect, but it's useful. Haber 15:19, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

The difference between the contribution of USA, USSR, China and GB versus Canada, Australia, India, Philippines and NZ is exactly the difference between Major and Minor allies. I'm canadian and despite this I strongly advocated to keep China in the list; however, the line must be drawn somewhere and Canada is on the other side... There is more than the infobox in this article! --Flying tiger 15:42, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. I'm Canadian, and I strongly believe your all giving Canada less credit than your giving. Were they a major power? Debatable. As big as China? Probably not, but that is also debatable. Despite all that, I also beleive China was a major power. These debates are truly getting old. In terms of the actual infobox, though, the only way we'll ever solve this is to actually come up with a accepted definition of "major", something which we'll never do. In my opinion (This is just my opinion here), despite the "usefulness" of the 5x3 we have now, it should be 3x3 (Or 4x3, possibly, as France was important...), as the three "major" Allied powers were the USSR, USA and UK, despite anyone's claims. They tower over any other country in terms of what they did, and when I say everyone that includes China and Canada and any other country people want to complain about. They are historically and publicly accepted as the "Big 3", and since it's 3 they should be the three in the infobox. --Plasma Twa 2 09:53, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

If someone is itching to eliminate a country from the combatant box of Allied Powers, it should be FRANCE! After all, the French and the British lost the battle of France in what...a month and ten days! Not to mention that Vichy France is an Axis collaborator that fought the Allies and eagerly handed the French Jews to the Nazis. DCTT 13:17, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok I'll try to defend both. China - numbers. The sheer scale of their participation and of the casualties dwarfs 10 Canadas. France - history and the origins of the war. Many people view WWII almost as a continuation of I, or even of the Franco-Prussian War. France really underperformed (vs. Canada which overperformed for its size), but still no one can understand the causes, politics, or the peace settlements without having some idea what France was trying to do. Haber 14:02, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The argument about France and the Holocaust is a diversive issue. We accept that the three Unions were the major allies in WWII. Without the Battle of Britain, Battle of Midway and Battle of Stalingrad the war would have played out very differently. Canada's role in WWII, although laudable, was very much to assist existing US and UK efforts, such as Hong Kong or Caen. They did not fight alone at any juncture and were very much under British military control. I'm in support of a 6 v 3 arrangement, with Britain,USA,USSR,France, China and British Empire vs Germany, Italy and Japan. Thatstheway 14:07, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I've just removed France & de Gaulle again. A major power in WW1, and it may have been in 1939-40 and 1944-45. But for four years it did little and was even an Axis co-belligerent. Grant | Talk 14:16, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

If we're going to include any countries past the "Big Three" it should only be China (though I myself don't believe it should be listed, if that's the consensus, I can live with it), and nothing more. Canada, France, Poland, etc. all do not belong on the list. 4v3 at very most. If people want to start adding more, then we should add more Axis powers. Surely Hungarian or Finnish troops contributed as much to the Axis war effort as Canadian or Free French did to the Allies, if not more. Including both Britain and the British Empire doesn't make sense, as Britain would be a part of the Empire, so why list it twice? PS. I slapped a "2" in the title of this section, as the link in the table of contents would go to the original "canada" discussion topic. Parsecboy 14:35, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect. Britain was not part of it's own Empire. Finland was not truly an Axis member as she was interested in self-preservation in the face of Soviet expansion, not helping Germany. Finland is the anomaly in WW2. Any pro-German actions Finland took were solely made under duress.

I don't see how you can say that the British Isles were not part of the British Empire. The British monarch or parliament held no sway over them? You might as well say that Washington D.C. isn't a part of the United States, or that Brandenburg isn't a part of Germany.

Finland might not have been a Tripartite Pact member, but it was an Axis co-belligerent, which is good enough to include on the Axis side. It also wasn't the only co-belligerent, as Thailand fought the Allies on the Japanese side, but never formally joined the Axis. Iraq was the same case; it fought the British but wasn't an Axis member. Parsecboy 14:58, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you to whoever changed the heading to CANADA2. These conflicts could easily be resolved by not listing anyone. The article goes to great lengths to explain who fought for which side and when (and why). We don't need lists of belligerents and pretty little flags in the infobox, what proportion of the discussion here is centered around inclusion in it? --NEMT 15:15, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Remember that in 1940, when almost everyone else was sitting on their hands, France faced Germany practically alone. From Battle of France, "On 10 May there were 93 French, 22 Belgian, ten British and nine Dutch divisions in the North, for a total of 134." Having De Gaulle represent France is a different story, but again I think he's the best choice we have (though by some accounts he was an arrogant sideshow worse than useless). Haber 15:18, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

What's your point? Finland faced the Soviets alone - and did considerably better than the French did against the Germans. --NEMT 15:24, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Finland fielded an army of 250,000. France 6 million. France also faced a better trained and equipped opponent. Let's get some perspective. Haber 15:54, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Lets not denigrate Finland, it's army was actually almost twice that, at 475,000. France, however, was better equiped than Germany, and had a larger military, so where's the excuses now? Parsecboy 16:06, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I put the 2 in there to differentiate on the table of contents...As for France, sure, they "invaded" Germany. If you want to call such a poor excuse for an attack that only advanced 8km with almost no German resistance and then retreated a "major contribution", then go right ahead. Parsecboy 15:35, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Who was talking about an "invasion"? Not me. Try to have some understanding for what those millions of French soldiers did for you. Even though things didn't go their way, if they hadn't taken a stand the war would have been over, Axis victory, 1939. Haber 15:54, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

What on earth are you talking about? What stand did France take? An abortive offensive into Germany that achieved absolutely zip? France did nothing to defeat Germany in 1939-40. If anything it's France's fault that the war didn't end in 1939-40 in an Allied victory. If France had not abandoned the Saar Offensive, they would have steam-rolled into Germany, as they outnumbered and had more/better tanks than Germany did at the time. You said "Remember that in 1940, when almost everyone else was sitting on their hands, France faced Germany practically alone." The only thing you possibly could have been referring to is the Saar offensive, other than that, France sat on their hands too. Parsecboy 16:06, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

"France did nothing to defeat Germany in 1939-40." I don't think you really believe this. Come on. Haber 17:37, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I actually do seriously believe that. Give me one example of a French action that actively contributed to a possible Allied victory in 1939-40 other than the worthless Saar offensive. They sat on their asses just as much (if not more so than, I say that because they were actually in a position to end the war in 1939, they chose not to do so) as Britain. Therefore, they made no contribution of even minimal significance in 39-40. And their efforts didn't really improve thereafter. You ignored my question earlier though; what on earth did you mean when you said "...if they hadn't taken a stand the war would have been over, Axis victory, 1939."? Parsecboy 18:14, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

To answer the question, if France doesn't declare war in 1939, then neither does Great Britain. German aggression goes unchecked. When France and the UK are finally forced to fight, it is under less advantageous circumstances. Germany wins. Therefore, France helped to defeat Germany by taking a stand, early. They continued this by refusing to make peace after Poland fell. They committed some of their best forces to the crazy sweep into Belgium (that Belgium should have allowed months before), and then had their entire plan fall apart as those elite forces had to turn around and try to fight their way back into France. The Maginot line held out for a long time, even when attacked from behind. The French kept fighting even as the Brits were running for the boats and hoarding their aircraft for the Battle of Britain. I wouldn't say they made "no contribution of even minimal significance", and I'm surprised that you think that. Haber 18:50, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The way I see it (it being the eventual conflict between Germany and the Anglo-French if they had not declared war in 1939) is the war would've gone substantially the same way. Germany still wouldn't have been able to invade England, and still would've invaded Russia and thus sealed it's fate. I don't see how fighting under "less advantageous circumstances" would've produced an outcome wildly different from what actually happened. If anything, it would've helped the Allies to delay, as they could have substantially increased their defense budgets, etc. to counter the obviously growing German threat. I suppose your argument is that Germany would've armed itself better in the time between the fall of Poland and the opening of hostilities with France/England. It would have produced the exact same result, and little more. The Luftwaffe never really intended to build a strategic bombing force that could've subdued Britain, and the Kriegsmarine wouldn't have been able to build up a surface fleet large enough to protect a forced landing in England. England would have still remained the island base from which the American/British invasion of Europe was launched. Parsecboy 19:15, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

We're getting on all sorts of tangents. Believe me, the Fall of France was hardly a foregone conclusion, and surprises just about every analyst and historian to this day. If you're interested I suggest you track down the chapter in Military Misfortunes : The Anatomy of Failure in War, Free Press, 1990, ISBN 0-02-906060-5, by Cohen and Gooch. These guys really break it down and make some sense out of it. Haber 20:53, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Please dont include France or anyone else. USA, USSR, UK, the 3 U's and China, were the big players in WW2 vs Germany, Italy and Japan. If you include France, then why not Romania and Hungary or Finland. This article is already to heavily slanted towards A Western point of view. I fixed up and enhanced the Eastern front sections to be fair to the Russians who killed and destroyed 90% of all German and 40% of Japanese forces. Mercenary2k 15:47, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

See above. Fear of Eurocentrism doesn't mean we should ignore the most significant Allied combatant of 1939-1940. Haber 15:54, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

This (nationalistic?) idiocy regarding France and others is symptomatic of the whole problem. These distinctions are completely arbitrary. There is no way to resolve this dispute thorugh compromise and the only effective resolution is to remove the country names from the infobox, as suggested by me and others above. This has already boldly been tried and has been immediately reverted. Shall we therefore consider mediation or an RfC as a next step towards resolving this (seemingly intractable) problem? Badgerpatrol 15:59, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I still don't see what all the fuss is about. USA, UK, USSR and China vs Germany, Italy and Japan. Thats it. France was taken out in 1940 and thus not a major player in WWII. The French inflicted 25,000 German dead in WWII and the Germans lost that many in 1 day of fighting in Stalingrad. Lets just leave it at USA, UK, USSR and China vs Germany, Italy and Japan. Any other country belongs in the Other category and not in the Big 3 + China Category. Look at how other encyclopedias do it. No one includes France, Canada or Poland in the Major Allied Category because they were not. Just accept it and move on. This article still needs a lot of help and all you guys seem to care about is which country to include in the battle box. Mercenary2k 17:56, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Which other encyclopedias? From Britannica: "The principal belligerents were the Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—and the Allies—France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and, to a lesser extent, China." From Encarta: "It began in 1939 as a European conflict between Germany and an Anglo-French coalition but eventually widened to include most of the nations of the world." I don't think we should be looking to other encyclopedias as sources, but you're the one who brought it up. I do agree with you though, that the article needs more work. Haber 18:21, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Badgerpatrol, I don't know why others don't accept that the only way to effectively stop these arguments is to remove the names altogether. I would support mediation or an RfC to end this dispute. Parsecboy 16:12, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

France needed to do more than field "93 divisons" for nine months, then surrender and actively resist the Allies, to qualify as a major Ally. Australia maintained 10 divisions for about five years, along with an air force of about fifty squadrons and a navy of about 60 warships. But Australia wasn't a major power either. Grant | Talk 19:43, 13 February 2007 (UTC) And once again I reiterate my support for the removal of all countries from the list of Allies and Axis powers.Grant | Talk 19:46, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Just a nitpick - but if you read the quote more closely you'll notice that that was 93 divisions in Northern France. That figure doesn't include the whole French military, which exceeded the population of Australia including men, women, children, and koala bears. Haber 17:07, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of the number of men and women in French service at the start of the war, Grant makes a good point about needing to do more than field an army and then surrender after 9 months. The comparison to Australia's population (what about the kangaroos and wombats?) is irrelevant; you'll notice that Grant never said Australia was a major Ally. Saying that one stone is larger than another doesn't make it a boulder. Parsecboy 19:09, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I didn't even bring up Australia. Let's not use the wallabys and Tasmanian devils as straw men. His point about division-years was interesting, but was based on the false assumption that 93 divisions was all the French had. All the quote serves to show is that the war in 1939-40 was essentially a war between "Germany and an Anglo-French coalition", like Encarta phrases it. Haber 19:52, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The exact number of French divisions/etc. is completely irrelevant, as is the fact that for 9 months, it was an Anglo-French coalition against Germany. So France was the major Allied country for 9 months. For the next 5 years of the war, its contribution was pretty much nil. That does not qualify, in my opinion, as a major ally. Parsecboy 20:06, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I hear you, but again I have to pick another nit. By the end of 1944 France had 1 million men under arms, and by May 1945 they had 1.25 million men. 10 divisions were fighting in Germany, including 3 armored divisions, and another 5 were fighting in the Alps. The other Allies considered France major enough in 1945 to give it occupation zones and a permanent seat on the security council. And I still think that even if none of this had happened the events of 1939-40 would have been enough to call France "major". Of course you're entitled to your opinion, but I'd hate to see it based on misconceptions about the French army in 1940 or them not getting back into the war when they had the chance. Haber 20:37, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I would define my personal criteria for whether a country should be considered "major" in one simple statement: did the country in question contribute greatly to the Allied victory, and without it, could the Allies still have triumphed? I don't think you could answer "yes" for France. The 1 million French troops in late '44 were irrelevant, as the Soviets had already destroyed most of the German army, and the British/American forces were poised to enter Germany from the west. The Allied victory was a foregone conclusion. Therefore, France made no significant contribution to the end of the war in Europe. The French were given occupation zones and a permanent seat on the Security Council to make them feel better about themselves. Parsecboy 20:51, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Removing all the countries is by far the easiest way to end these discussions. And Mercenary, I have to point out that, on the level of the other three China was not a major power. It may be bigger than Canada, but it is not major when it's compared to the USSR or the UK. --Plasma Twa 2 21:21, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

This line caught my attention above all else mentioned: Try to have some understanding for what those millions of French soldiers did for you. This is clearly the remark of someone with little or no understanding of wikipedia's NPOV guidelines. These guidelines are particularly important when discussing wars. --NEMT 21:52, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

It is all a matter of what level you go to as far as a country's contribution is concerned. Canada misses out because it had a relatively small population and was far away as a country from the fighting. As far as sacrifice is concerned, of course Canada suffered. But you have to remember 62 million people died, so the suffering was great in many places. Canada, was lucky in that it was allowed to perticipate in some glamorous battles such as D-Day. Compare that with Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India, which had to slog it out in some really rotten campaigns. These countries also have a relatively realistic idea of what they contributed. I do feel that some country's historians, in particular, the UK, Canada and Poland do tend to overstate their country's involvement. Wallie 23:37, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

These annoying Canadians have forced us to remove the commander and and combatants from the battle box. This is a shame. Mercenary2k 23:57, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Alas, but on the bright side there shouldn't be any more of these damn arguments. --Plasma Twa 2 00:07, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I removed them, as I've been suggesting someone do since the RoC debate. It's just better this way. --NEMT 00:10, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

What really sucks about this is how the question of whether the flags should be there or not seemingly always degenerates into a "who contributed the most" type argument, which I've stated before is irrelevant.

The irony of it all is that it's not even a Canadian who re-initiated this argument. Regardless, despite being a proponent of the "pretty flags", I will side with their removal. Note, I know this has already been achieved, but I'm listing my vote now for future reference. — Dorvaq (talk) 15:17, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The reason it always degenerates into a "who was the most important" discussion is because there isn't really another way to determine whether a country should be added to the list or not. That's the whole problem inherent with the "pretty flags"; it's subjective. It's impossible to create a clear-cut set of guidelines by which countries are included or removed that satisfy everyone. We tried that in the "China?" discussion, but it couldn't be agreed upon. Therefore, it's either all or nothing, unless you want to continue having these ridiculous arguments every single day. How many times has this been discussed? How many times have we reached a consensus, only to have an anon or new user cause another problem? Parsecboy 15:42, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Exactly why I now vote to have them removed as I stated above. — Dorvaq (talk) 20:56, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes I'm sorry I got sucked into that re:France. I thought we were having an interesting discussion but evidently it hurts people to hear this stuff to the point where they feel compelled to delete useful content. Haber 16:19, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

New look for battlebox

I think the box looks a lot tidier without the countries/leaders. Following comments here, I rewrote Allies of World War II to include the major Allies in the introduction.

I don't know what it is with my Commonwealth cousins in Canada; some of them also keep changing Allies of World War I, to list Canada separately there, even though the Dominions didn't even have independence in foreign policy until 1931. I guess it has something to do with living next door to he only superpower :-) Grant | Talk 03:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

No, Canadians are just a mix of proud and ignorant. THAT comes from lving next door to the only superpower (I just insulted myself. Keen.) But your right, it looks alot nicer. If someone wants to find out who fought in WWII, they only need to read the article and/or click on the link. Sadly, though, I think your rewrite of Allies of World War II may get some people angry...

Now, only if we could fix the infobox problems over on the WWI page... But that's a diffrent topic for a diffrent time. --Plasma Twa 2 04:29, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

PLEASE PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THAT "UK/Great Britain" REPRESENTS ALL THE DOMINIONS THAT PLAYED A PART...IF CANADA SHOULD BE LISTED THEN WHY SHOULDN'T AUSTRAILIA?? ANYWAYS CANADA WILL NEVER BE UP THERE. I MYSELF AM A PROUD CANADIAN BUT I ACCEPT THAT WE ARE NOT PUT ON THERE. ANYONE WHO ISN'T STUPID KNOWS THAT CANADA WAS IN WW2. SO IT BEING PUT UP THERE REALLY MEANS NOTHING. THE STATES ARE UP THERE BECAUSE OF THERE MILITARY PRESENCE. MUCH LIKE WW1 WHERE THE USA ONLY JOINED BECAUSE SOMETHING HAPPENED TO THEM, AND THEY JOINED LATE. BUT THE USA HAD/HAS A HUGE MILITARY SO THERFORE IS GOING TO BE ADDED TO THE LIST.

MY MAIN POINT IS THAT CANADA WAS PART OF THE "UK" and the "UK" IS ON THERE. 205.251.204.250 22:13, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

What brittish politicain declared war on germany?

This is something that google has not come up with an answer for and I cant find it in this article. Was it Churchill? - Thanks, H4eafy

lol. it was chamberlain Mercenary2k 22:50, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Jews counted as Axis casualties?

are german jews part of axis casualties? BlueShirts 23:59, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Try World War II casualties, which is well-referenced and has a very knowledgeable main author/editor. Grant | Talk 03:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

If you look at the chart on that page, you can see that 3 million were Polish, another million were Russian, and a large chunk of the rest came from other conquered countries like France, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, etc., so if anything, they should count on the Allied side. Parsecboy 16:14, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Infobox without major combatants/commanders, a dissenting opinion

Well, looks like I'm outnumbered at the moment. For now I'll just go on the record in favor of the 5v3 infobox with the pretty little flags. I think the decision to remove the combatants and commanders was made out of frustration (not a good way to write an encyclopedia), but for now I will honor the wishes of the more vocal group. When the silent majority out there starts to chime in, if ever, I would like to reinstate the 5v3. (UK, USSR, US, France, China vs. Germany, Italy, Japan ; Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, De Gaulle, Kai-shek vs. Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo) Haber 16:26, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

You'd better honor our wishes - or you will be crushed. Crushed like the Wei at Red Cliffs.

I kid, of course, but thank you for respecting our consensus. --NEMT 18:49, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I wish to have those pretty flags as well, but I am compelled to side with keeping them removed for reasons I have mentioned in the Canada2 section. — Dorvaq (talk) 21:03, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Seems people love those pretty flags. As much as I miss them, I think this way will work the best. If someone wants to know if China was in WWII, they only have to scroll down or click on the link provided. --Plasma Twa 2 02:36, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I want the combatants and commanders reinstated. This is ridiculous. Germany, Italy and Japan are shoe in for the Axis side and USA, USSR, British Empire and China are in for the Allied Side. I think British Empire is a good compromise as it will contain the England as well as Canada and others....Mercenary2k 19:33, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Look at it this way, when asked "Whom was WW2 fought between?" the vast majority of english speaking individuals will respond "the axis and allies," not a rambling list of everyone he or she considers "major" on each side. --NEMT 20:34, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Merc, "British Empire" would be my last pick, behind Great Britain or United Kingdom, but regardless if you want to put up the 4v3 your way I can't complain. It's better than nothing. I won't add the frogs for now, but if I ever find a person who agrees with me about them we might have to have another horrible discussion. Haber 23:59, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Avoid using racist terms, please. They have no place in an adult discussion, even if meant in jest. Badgerpatrol 01:01, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Hey I'm not the one trying to write them out of history. Haber 01:15, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

No one is trying to write them out of history, we're just arguing that France's role was minor when compared to the USSR, USA, UK, and China. Their contribution was arguably less than Canada's or India's, so if we include the French, those countries deserve mention too. Besides, what does it matter whether they're on the now-defunct list anyways? They're in the article, what's the difference? Parsecboy 03:01, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I think more people would respond "nazis" than axis. BlueShirts 00:39, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I dont think France, Poland or Canada belong in the list. USA, UK, USSR and China were the main combatants for Germany, Italy and Japan. France was initially a main Allied partner but got taken out in June 1940. For almost 5 years France was non-issue for the Germans so how can they be considered a main Ally? As for Canada, Canada had 200,000 Troops in Europe but were under British Command. India, Australia, had more troops than Canada and fought longer in North Africa and Burma and others. As for Poland it was taken out in the opening phases of WWII so how the heck can they be considered. This is a non issue, I dont know why we are wasting so much of our time debating this when there is so much to be done in this article. Mercenary2k 05:52, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

But weren't Indian/Australian troops under British command as part of the empire/commonwealth, along with the Canadians? RHB 00:20, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Ya So like I said, British Empire is a good comprimise as it can include UK as well as all its commonwealth allies. Mercenary2k 02:11, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Look like things have changed and some others besides myself miss the infobox. I'm going to edit it periodically so that I am happy with the way it looks. You all know how I feel, and you can revert it if you really think that's the right thing to do. No hard feelings. Good luck. Haber 02:45, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

What has been said above about the "British Empire" is incorrect:

• 1. The official name in 1926-49 was British Commonwealth, not British Empire.
• 2. The Dominions received control over their foreign and military affairs in 1931. The British Commonwealth, like the Commonwealth of Nations that succeeded it, has never been a military organisation. It was and is merely a forum for countries which were once part of the British Empire, present-day British overseas territories, the UK itself and anyone else who wants to join.
• . 3. Officially, the Allies had joint supreme command structures in each theatre, not "American" or "British" commands. For example, Australian troops most of the time were not under British command. After 1942, their supreme commander was usually Douglas MacArthur.

Grant | Talk 19:22, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

What happened to the consensus (yet a-freaking-gain)

Haber, why did you reinsert the list of Allies and Axis countries despite the consensus to leave them out? Why can't you accept the majority opinion? Why are you so obstinate? Parsecboy 02:47, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

There is no consensus it's you and three other guys who do nothing but stink up the talk page and revert the infobox. Plenty of people want it back and it seems like now they are coming out of the woodwork. Haber 02:50, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what talk page you've been reading, but if you look at this one, you'll see that it's more than myself and two other guys. Grant, NEMT, Plasma Twa, Dorvaq, and Badgerpatrol all voted to have them removed. I don't see how that's not a consensus, as it's just you and Merc who voted to keep them in. Parsecboy 02:59, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Two other editors have replaced the infobox today. This isn't a democracy. Haber 03:05, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

That still only makes it 6 v 4. Perhaps you should read WP:CON. Regardless, France does not belong on the list, and every editor to voice an opinion on this talk page save yourself agrees with that. Parsecboy 03:12, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Parsecboy, the list is going to be inserted into the article. Period. Also, France was a major ally during WW2. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thegoodson (talk • contribs)

I'm not sure who you think you are, or from where you think you derive your authority, but you are clearly mistaken. The consensus is to leave the list out, deal with it. And no, France was not a major ally. Period. Parsecboy 03:24, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, France was a major ally. I, and many others, would consider Italy not a major Axis power either, but yet, it's listed. France, along with the UK, was the first to declare war on Germany. France got a piece of Germany and a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. The list stays, and France will be on it. Forget your "consensus" talk. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, in case you don't know that yet. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thegoodson (talk • contribs)

I am well aware that Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia (there's that subtle hint in the title) but there are certain guidelines that editors must follow, like the need to establish consensus before making controversial changes. We can do without the snide remarks too. What did France contribute to the Allies? Their seat on the UNSC and their occupation zones were merely to re-inflate the damaged French ego because they got spanked by Germany in a few short weeks, nothing more. The US and UK felt the need to return to the ante-bellum order, and gave France some power back. Regardless, post-war decisions are irrelevant when determining war-time contributions. Was Germany a minor Axis power because it effectively didn't exist after the war? By your logic, yes, and it doesn't belong on the list. Perhaps you should remove them too. As for Italy, they contributed more to the Axis war effort than the French to the Allies, and you can't argue that and keep a straight face. Italy contributed the majority of troops to North Africa and a sizeable chunk to the Eastern Front. Parsecboy 03:46, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Despite the relatively small role France played after 1940ish, their initial involvement, which was basically getting the crap kicked out of them, is of great historic significance. Personally I feel that due to that fact alone, they should be included. In addition, if memory servers me right, the French played some part in Operation Torch and the liberation of their country. As I sit here writing this and looking at half my library, perhaps "France/Free French" would be a more appropriate listing, as the Free French did play an instrumental part in the war. If some of my facts are slightly off, forgive me, I've been reading too much about the War of 1812 as of late... American Patriot 1776 05:14, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the notion of France being a major ally is based more on appearances, i.e. their military strength before and after the war, than on reality. Where is the historical evidence that France was more significant than Poland, Canada or Australia over the whole six years of WW2? Between 1940 and 1944, at least as many Vichy France personnel fought as Axis co-belligerents than fought with the Free French Forces. On balance, IMO, France was a second-tier ally (like Poland, Canada or Australia) during the war.

And I still support the removal of countries from the box Grant | Talk 06:29, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't know the details but Poland got knocked out pretty early too, so if France's there, shouldn't Poland too? But I still like the little flags though BlueShirts 08:28, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Poland did not surrender and many individual Poles contributed to both the western Allies and on the eastern front throughout the war, see Polish contribution to World War II: 400,000 troops in the British and Soviet armies, 400,000 partisans in the Armia Krajowa, 14,000 Polish airmen in British and US squadrons, as well as several warships. Grant | Talk 10:59, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I vote for removal of the countries from the box as well. This was a world war. Reducing it down to some mix of flags that happens to suite some subset of readers personal feelings about who was major and who wasnt is BS. If there isnt consensus on who were the major combatants, and its very clear there isnt, then it shouldnt be up there. I think every nation left out thinks its an insult, and including various people is problematic. At the beginning the soviets were "neutral" with pro-axis inclinations so should they be in both boxes? Demerphq 22:18, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Also calling Winston Churchil the "commander" of the British forces is just assinine. In fact, right after I post this I will change it to be "Leaders" as Commander implies a formal military command position. Which neither Roosevelt, nor Churchil, nor to the best of my knowledge Stalin held. And no, I dont think Roosevelt's formal title of "Commander In Chief of The Army and Navy of the United States" counts. Its a political position, not a field command position. Similar arguement with Roosevelt and Stalin. Demerphq 22:18, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually no i'm not. (I got intimidated by the notation:-) But I think it should be changed. Demerphq 22:22, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

The change from "commanders" to "leaders" would open another discussion as Hirohito is much more the true leader of Japan than Tôjô who was just prime minister for a little more than 2 and half years... --Flying tiger 00:35, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Request for Comment: Inclusion of Combatants and Commanders in Infobox

Several prior discussions (#CANADA2, #Infobox without major combatants/commanders, a dissenting opinion, and #What happened to the consensus (yet a-freaking-gain) for starters, plus others in the archives) have yet to reach a clear (or undisputed) consensus on the issue of whether or not Combatants and Commanders should be listed in the Infobox. Further, if they are listed, which countries are "major" enough on each side to be listed? 00:59, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Statements by editors previously involved in dispute

• To reiterate my position, I would prefer only the links to the separate articles, but if the consensus is to include the countries/commanders in the infobox, I would support USSR, UK, USA, and China for the Allied side, with Germany, Japan, and Italy on the Axis. No other Allied country contributed as much to the overall war effort to be listed, when compared to the Big Three and China. Parsecboy 02:52, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

• This part of the infobox is a useful educational tool that allows people unfamiliar with the subject to quickly be brought up to speed. It will never be "fair", but it should be consistent with the literature on the subject. My recommendation: China, France, Great Britain, Soviet Union, United States vs. Germany, Italy, Japan. Combatants are listed in alphabetical order. Haber 03:26, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

• The combatants listed solely as Axis and Allied powers with links to their articles is the ideal solution. It also perfectly exemplifies the war as a global conflict, and does not minimalize the minor roles dozens of less involved belligerents played. Should consensus be established otherwise, however, the allied powers listed should consist only of the US, UK and USSR - for reasons discussed at length previously. Under no circumstances should the Free French be included. --NEMT 04:26, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

• As no consensus can be reach on countries/commanders and so much time is wasted on this discussion, I prefer links to Axis and Allies articles but if a list is chosen, in alphabetical order : China, Great Britain, Soviet Union, USA vs Germany, Italy, Japan. --Flying tiger 04:37, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

• Support infobox with USSR, UK, USSA, and China vs Germany Japan Italy. I think it's useful for readers to know who the big players were at a glance. BlueShirts 04:49, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

• I agree in general with Parsecboy and Flying tiger: my first choice is no countries and no leaders in the battlebox; my second is USA-USSR-UK-China & Germany-Japan-Italy. Grant | Talk 04:54, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

• I am really not too fussed about this. But the key to the discussion is whether or not Canada should be in the list of major combatants. China was not earlier there, but was later included. There seems to be a concensus which is pretty sensible in my view, that the same seven countries are mentioned. Perhaps there is a case for France, as it put up a massive force against the Germans in 1940, but were defeated, and so couldn't play a major part. The United Nations also put the five onb the Security Council, indicating that these were the five major victors. Also Germany was cut into four sectors, without China, as they were not involved to any extent in Europe. Wallie 08:28, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

• I'm against the infobox with the flags, and I'm against the commanders list for reasons I state elsewhere. I think it should just be a list of nations involved in either side. This was a "World War" with obviously many countires contributing in various degress. If you choose a measure of "major" contribution that includes only a subset one can always find another definition of major that produces a different list. If you choose gross expenditure you get one list, troops kiled another, contribution versus capacity another, focus on Europe you get another, focus on aisa another. Etc, etc. Including something potentially disrespectful so people can play toy soldiers with the flags is just silly and most importantly is inappropiate in a NPOV environment like this. For instance to many from nations who were involved from the very beginning of the war, the inclusion of nations that entered later, but due to their size were able to make bigger contributions can be perceived ais either biased or insulting. Either list everybody, and I mean everybody, or list no-one. I'd say the list should probably be ordered by date of joining the war or alphabetically, if there is a list. Demerphq 12:07, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

• My first choice is simply to link to Axis and Allies, without any countries listed at all, per my previous comments. I don't have a second choice. Anything else is inherently POV, and the debate over what constitutes a "major" or "minor" ally is, frankly, somewhat insulting and I feel tinged with nationalistic biases and preconceptions. I don't see another way to resolve the issue. Badgerpatrol 17:24, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

• My vote goes for the links to Axis and Allies. By doing that, it does not hurt anyone, nor offends anyone (Unless they're just dumb). If you want to see who the major allies or axis powers were, you simply go and read the article or click on the link. It's not hard. If you complain you must be pretty lazy.

• My initial position was to have the countries listed in the infobox (either 4v3 or 5v3), but only as a tool. Yet, after witnessing what occurs each time they are listed, I now prefer to have them removed entirely and use the "Allies" and "Axis" format instead. Their removal is the only solution to prevent the whole "flag" idea from degenerating into a "who contributed the most" debate. Evidently, opinions differ on what constitutes any degree of contribution, which is irrelevant to begin with as we are supposed to maintain a neutral point of view. So if we can not achieve a strictly tool functionality with these "pretty flags", then we must remove them. — Dorvaq (talk) 14:40, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

If there must be countries in the infobox, it should be USSR, USA, and UK vs. Germany, Italy, and Japan. The argument China supporters use makes no sense. Hungary and Romania did more than most other Axis countries, so lets put up them on the major Axis powers list. There are the major 3 allies, the USSR, USA, and UK, and then there is everybody else. It doesn't matter if China did more than France or Canada or Poland. The fact is China did not do as much as the Big 3. The Big 3 are above the line, so to speak, and then everyone else is under, no matter what they did, because the Big 3 did more than them.

Being a major power is not measured by number of casualties. It's a mix of many things, and a big part of that is, for a lack of a better term, common knowledge. Walk up to the average person on the street - someone who knows only the very basics about World War II - and ask them "Who were the major Allies?". They will say the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. Mabye some of them will add France or Canada. I'm willing to bet many people don't know China even fought against Japan. Why? Because China is overshadowed by the USA. The average person knows that the USA is a major power, and an enemy against Japan, but they may not know China was. Besides, on everyone's 'Major WWII Allies list', the USSR, UK, and USA are the only ones that are ALWAYS on the list. China, Canada, France, and anyone else may or may not be on the list, but the Big 3 are always considered 'major'. If a country isn't on their level of notability - and for a matter of fact, their overall contribution to the war effort - they do not deserve to be on the list. --Plasma Twa 2 05:05, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

This doesn't make any sense at all to me Plasma, we should be trying to correct misconceptions, not reinforce them. Grant | Talk 06:04, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

What misconceptions? Bottom line is the major Allies were the USSR, USA, and UK. No one else can be compared to them. If it was the way I worded it, sorry, but that was the point I was trying to put across. --Plasma Twa 2 06:30, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

See Four Policemen. Some here have argued that China was more significant than Britain, because of the size of its army and the huge number of Japanese soldiers it killed and otherwise occupied, for eight years.

The general ignorance about these facts is no reason why the Misplaced Pages article abour WW2 should fall in line. Grant | Talk 06:50, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

You know, until you brought that term up, I never heard of it before. I'm not denying that China was important to the war effort, but look at it this way. There is the Four Policemen, a term used, from what the article says, by Roosevelt perhaps once or twice. But then there is the Big 3, a term used since the end of WWII around the world, not to mention that (I'm not sure how to explain this, so bear with me) the Big 3 are 3 of the 'Four Policemen', thereby placing them higher above China. As it has beenbrought up before, Canada is not a major power because it didn't do as much as the Four Policemen, and by that logic China is not a major power because it didn't do as much as the Big 3.

Some people here have argued that Canada was more significant that China or France, as well. And, I think when we consider the major combatants in WWII, everyone would do best to remember that WWII went from 1939-45. I'm not trying too undermind anyone here, I mean nothing bad or nothing, but when we talk about WWII we should only have that time period in mind. --Plasma Twa 2 07:04, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

That's rather a Eurocentrist attitude. There really is no definitive "state date" for World War II, at least not one universally accepted. Sept 1, 1939 just marked the beginning of another European war. One could argue that World War II didn't truly begin until it became a global conflict in 1941, when America and the USSR joined, and the two separate theatres merged into one conflict. The fighting in China in 1937 is no less important than the fighting in Poland in 1939. Parsecboy 13:18, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

As I like to say, the US Navy fought most of the Japanese navy; the Chinese army fought most of the Japanese army. Grant | Talk 15:36, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Look at it this way. Most people from North America and Europe consider the war to start in 1939. Most of them seen to believe the war against Japan was USA only. It may not be universally accepted, but it's the view of majority, so to say. --Plasma Twa 2 19:41, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Comments

• I have tried to stay out of this dispute, but feel it has gone on long enough that we need to start working our way through the dispute resolution process. I am hopeful that some wider outside comments will help clear up this dispute. —Krellis 00:59, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

• I support an infobox with the major leaders/commanders and the 7 major combatants (UK, US, China, USSR, Germany, Italy, Japan), no more, no less. Under Allies/Axis it is sufficient with two "more"-links which link to the specific articles "Allies of World War II" and "Axis Powers". Furthermore, I personally would prefer the combatants sorted in regard to military casualties, i.e. Allies: USSR, China, US, UK and Axis: Germany, Japan, Italy, since I think this would be most fair. On the other hand, an alphabetical sort wouldn't disturb me too much. My reason for wanting to include combatants and commanders is simply because I think it would be of benefit to the casual reader to be able to find these quick links in the infobox. My regards, --Dna-Dennis 13:17, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

When and where does it start?

Perhaps we should start clarifying some things. The article states that WWII started with the German attack on Poland in 1939. We could mention there with a brief link that the official German version (Gleiwitz incident) was that the Poles were attacking them again (like the Greater Poland Uprising (1918–1919) and especially the Silesian Uprisings, which were perceived as attacks on German territory and helped to improve the acceptance of Freikorps and Black Reichswehr in the population because the Reichswehr could hardly handle the situation). However, China had been fighting the Second Sino-Japanese War since 1937, but both conflicts end together in 1945. So one could say that the European War and this war were more grouped together, although being quite independant. In the European theatre it would be adviseable to mention France and Poland (Poland was a major ally until the US joined and France was a major power, no matter how fast they and the British Army were knocked out), similar to the Seven Years' War, the French Revolutionary Wars or the Napoleonic Wars.

Take the FA Corinthian War as an example how short you can keep an infobox. I think it would be a far better idea to list opposing commanders of each area of conflict in tables in the more specific sub sections, while in the general sections we can briefly introduce the commanders in chief in a similar table. Wandalstouring 18:36, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

"So one could say that the European War and this war were more grouped together, although being quite independant." No, I don't think so. The world-wide efforts of the Western Allies were overseen and co-ordinated by the Combined Chiefs of Staff and there was cooperation between the Axis powers, e.g. Japanese submarines operated as far west as the coast of Africa (see Battle of Madagascar) and U-Boats were still operating the Pacific and Indian Oceans in 1945 (see Axis naval activity in Australian waters). Grant | Talk 02:28, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Meh, as long as you say WWII started 39 and not 37 it is grouped together. Some submarines hardly make a big interaction between the war scenes and German naval units had also been operating in these waters during WWI. The connection was that some allies fought in both theatres and there was a formal alliance between Japan and the European powers leading to the German declaration of war against the US in response for the US declaration of war against Japan after the initial Japanese attack. How the allies handled things in their chain of command is pretty irrelevant. Please list substantial non-Chinese troops fighting in the Chinese mainland against Japan. Chenault doesn't count because these were mercenaries.Wandalstouring 14:29, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Au contraire, Wandal, the AVG were generally not mercs (though there were some private citizens), they were almost completely volunteers from the USN, USMC, and USAAF, under a secret presidential sanction, with American government funding. You want more examples of Western troops in China? General Stillwell was Chiang's Chief of Staff. The Fourteenth Air Force was based in China, and the AVG became the 23d Fighter Group. The Twentieth Air Force flew B29s out of Chengdu. Parsecboy 15:00, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

"One of General Stratemeyer's favorite cartoons showed him sitting at his desk surrounded by pictures of his eight bosses, all of whom could give him orders in one or another of his capacities. The American air commander in the CBI had a status comparable to that of Stilwell, who also wore quite a number of hats. Part of Stratemeyer's command, the Tenth Air Force, had been integrated with the RAF in India in December and was operating under Mountbatten. Another part of it, the Fourteenth Air Force in China, was at least technically under the jurisdiction of Chiang as theater commander. And although the India-China wing of the Air Transport Command received its assignments of tonnage from Stratemeyer as Stilwell's deputy, control actually stemmed from Washington. By the spring of 1944, when the B-29's arrived in the theater, another complex air factor would be added to the potpourri." (Maurice Matloff, 1959, Strategic Planning For Coalition Warfare 1943-1944, United States Army, Washington, D. C., Chapter XIX: "The Second Front and the Secondary War The CBI: January-May 1944", p.441)

Grant | Talk

And there were Indian and Arabian troops serving in the Wehrmacht. Come on, these units are hardly significant compared to the total of US forces (For WWI you do hardly mention the Pacific theatre were some German sailing ships played privateers.). The AVP were mercenaries because they did not fight for their native country and weren't officially recognized as such(that was their status if becoming POW until they were made a US unit). Where they came from and who paid them doesn't doesn't change this. Wandalstouring 17:14, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

You asked for "substantial non-Chinese troops fighting in the Chinese mainland against Japan". Q.E.D. Grant | Talk 19:19, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I just wanted to say that given this discussion I do not feel it was appropriate for Godefroy to unilaterally change the thing that we are all debating. Demerphq 15:08, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

for the popular view of start point of devastating WWII,39 is always viewed by europeans,but considering the Nazi and Japan were two separating decision making countries,the WWII for Nazi really began in 39,and the WWII for Japan and China began in 37.the WWII for the Soviet began in 1941,the USA began in 1941 also.So what importance is how people viewed this war.--Ksyrie 15:10, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

France in the infobox

• In answer to some messages received on my talk page: I have added France in the list of Allied Powers because it is generally considered as one of the main victors of WWII, reflected by its seat in the Security Council. To list UK, US, USSR, and even China, but not listing France, appears to me as simply covert French bashing. Here it is not our job to discuss the merits of the victors, or to say which victor is more worthy of the status of victor than others. In the best of worlds we would list all allied countries, but that would make the infobox way too long, so we have to select only a few. In order to avoid bias, we need some sort of objective criteria. The five allied nations who were recognized as the main victors in 1945 and given a seat in the Security Council appears as an objective criteria. In the same way, the three countries who were part of the Axis Treaty also appears as an objective criteria (hence we don't mention Bulgaria or Hungary). It should also be noted that these 8 countries (5 allies and 3 axes) were the largest contributors in troops, with these 8 nations contributing several millions of troops each, which is way more than any other nation (Poland, for example, had only 950,000 troops at its most in 1939). Godefroy 15:40, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

To be blunt, France got a seat on the UNSC to prop up it's damaged ego after WWII and to return Europe to an ante bellum status quo, where France was a major power, not because it was a major power during the war. Excluding France from the infobox is not French-bashing, it's realism; France contributed very little to the overall Allied victory. As it's been mentioned before, there was the Big Three, as well as the Four Policemen (Big 3 and China). As for the Tripartite pact members, you're wrong. Hungary, Slovakia, and Bulgaria all signed the pact. Parsecboy 15:52, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Though I hold no authority to tell people what to do, I strongly discourage everyone from adding or deleting entries in the list until the debate is over. We shouldn't be changing the infobox while still in RfC status so I went ahead and reverted the infobox back to the one used at the onset of the RfC. This will be my one and only revert regarding the infobox. — Dorvaq (talk) 16:08, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

"To prop up its damaged ego after WWII" is POV. As far as I know, POV is not allowed on Misplaced Pages (read Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view). To complete what I said earlier, here is the total number of troops in the allied armies at their peak:

USSR: 12,500,000

USA: 12,364,000

UK: 5,120,000

France: 5,000,000

China: 5,000,000

British India: 2,150,000

Poland: 950,000

Canada: 780,000

Australia: 680,000

Belgium: 650,000

Yugoslavia: 500,000

Greece: 414,000

The Netherlands: 410,000

New Zealand: 157,000

South Africa: 140,000

etc.

And for the Axis:

Germany-Austria: 10,200,000

Japan: 6,095,000

Italy: 3,750,000

Romania: 600,000

Bulgaria: 450,000

Hungary: 350,000

Godefroy 16:14, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, how I love circular arguments. Sure, France contributed 5 million troops at the onset of the war, but what did France DO with those troops? Absolutely nothing, unless you want to include the abortive Saar offensive in mid-Sept. 1939 that accomplished nothing. Numbers on paper are all fine and good, but real-world accomplishments should be the real criteria for determining inclusion on the list. Oh, and if France didn't get a permanent seat on the UNSC for the reasons I stated, why did they get it? Parsecboy 16:19, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Again, this is POV. We are not here to judge the merits of countries during the war. It is also interesting to note that the Dutch, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish Wikipedias all mention France in the list of main allied powers in their infoboxes, while the German Misplaced Pages does not have an infobox but does mention five allied powers (incl. France) in its introduction. So why is it that only the English Misplaced Pages does not mention France among the main allied countries? How odd! Godefroy 16:30, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

They are also all European languages. How odd. 19:43, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree, stupidity of the supreme command is no reason to exclude France. The same argument could be used to question British significance in the WWI, preferably refering to the tactical brilliance of Field Marshal Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig. Wandalstouring 17:05, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

How is using actual accomplishments or contributions towards ending the war as opposed to what was on paper POV? IMO, what was on paper was utterly worthless, as it wasn't used effectively, or to any real effect. Who said anything about judging the merits of countries? I'm talking about what what done, and by whom. I'm not saying that the bad decisions made by the French supreme command excludes them from the list; you're not listening to me. The fact that they were essentially a non-entity in the years between 1940-44, when all the tough fighting (i.e., the fighting that won the war for the Allies) occurred, should exclude them from the list. Parsecboy 17:18, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Slow down, they still did contribute their share with the Résistance and not too few of the French youths were involved. Furthermore they did play a substantial role for the Western allied ability to disable German defences and reenter the European theatre in France. Wandalstouring 17:41, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Sure, they contributed with the Resistance, but if we use that as the justification for inclusion, then Poland and Yugoslavia deserve inclusion as well, as they had equally if not more successful resistance movements. Moreover, the Western Allies would have still invaded and liberated Western Europe without the assistance of the Resistance. France simply just doesn't rate at the same level as the Big Three or China, in terms of contribution towards winning the war. Parsecboy 17:50, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

You constantly judge them inefficient and based on this argument you say they have to be excluded. The French wikipedia seems to suggest the following view based on general Eisenhower, but their citation style is not up to English wiki standards.

On se réfère souvent au commentaire du général Eisenhower dans son «Rapport sur les opérations en Europe des forces expéditionnaires» :

« Notre QG estimait que par moment, la valeur de l'aide apportée par les FFI à la campagne représentait l'équivalent en hommes de 15 divisions d'infanterie et grâce à leur assistance, la rapidité de notre avance en France en fut grandement facilitée.»

Une division d'infanterie (DI) représente à peu près 10 000 hommes. La conversion des forces de la Résistance en DI a ses limites. Comment convertir les renseignements fournis aux alliés ? Et l'intoxication des Allemands que l'Intelligence Service tenta en manipulant le réseau Prosper du SOE ? On n'aura jamais de réponse certaine à la question : « Est-ce que l'apport de la Résistance fut décisif pour que la tête de pont établie en Normandie ne soit pas rejetée à la mer ? »

So the contribution of the FFI of the Résistance is estimated equivalent to 150.000 soldiers and they did build up this force during several years of occupation (Freeing Corsica already in 1943). It is not clear whether or not the allies would have had the same success without them (especially without intelligence and without attacks on the German supplies and communication). Wandalstouring 18:02, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I never said they were inefficient, I said they did not win the war. Nor did they really contribute much to the effort. The European theatre was largely won by the Soviets, with American backing (lend-lease) and the Anglo-American bombing raids that dismantled Germany's industrial capacity, and to a very limited extent, the partisans on the eastern front that harassed German resupply to the front lines. The war was already won by Normandy, and the drive across Europe just rolled up the German garrisons there, and was pretty much just to control as much of Europe as possible, to prevent Stalin from gaining too much power. My point here, is that the French resistance was irrelevant in the larger context of the war. Parsecboy 18:16, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

There are other sources arguing that the only effect of the allied bombing were homeless people and killed civilians, while the industrial capacity didn't decline. So you do present a personal assessment. Once again, it is tradition to take the pre-war status and not the status during the war to determine significance. Wandalstouring 18:28, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

To an extent, German manufacturing capacity moved underground or dispersed in small shops in the countryside, but the bombings did have an effect. Take the bombings of Ploesti for example. Taking the pre-war status doesn't make any sense whatsoever. By that standard, the USA wasn't a major power, as it's army was woefully undermanned, underequipped, and undertrained. That argument is ludicrous. Parsecboy 18:43, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

<reset>That's funny, as soon as it goes against the US all arguments are ludicrous, while France was almost equal to the Reich initially. As far as the US is concerned, the navy was a force to be reckoned with and the US army/air force were traditinally of minor importance. As far as the bombing is concerned, they continued to produce and produce increasingly more until the factories were taken by the ground forces. Yes, some equipment got bombed, but possibly not that much. However, starting an assessment of the airraids here is rather pointless, I just wanted to mention that there are opinions viewing its effects very criticical. The whole debate starts to get senseless. Wandalstouring 19:04, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

These arguments are getting us nowhere. Lets take a look at the critical years of the war: '41-'43, where the tough fighting occurred, the fighting that decided the outcome of the war. In 1941, GB was fighting in North Africa, the Atlantic, and in Burma, Malaysia, etc. the Soviets were being crushed under Barbarossa, and China was essentially in a stalemate with Japan. In '42, the Brits continued in the same areas as 1941, the Soviets made their first successful counterattack at Moscow, and fought around Stalingrad, and the US landed in N.A., fought battles in the Solomons, Midway, etc. In 1943, when the tide turned irreversibly, the Brits and Americans mopped up N.A., and invaded Sicily and Italy, the Soviets were driving the Germans back from Stalingrad, Kursk, Kharkov, etc., in the Pacific, the Americans finished in the Solomons, and landed in the Marshalls, beginning the island hopping campaign. Where in this time were the French armies? In what battles did they participate? Parsecboy 19:29, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

And where was the US in 1939 can be asked when the war was decided in Western Europe? If Hitler's big appetite hadn't received a chilling surprise it would have been questionable whether the Western remains such as the UK could have resisted much longer. The war in the West was over when France was knocked out and there was no really notable fighting afterwards (D-Day and the following operation was mopping up what hadn't been sent East).

The war in Western Europe wasn't decided until 1940, unless you're talking about the failure of France to knock out Germany when it had the chance. Your fixation with Europe is your problem. Are you aware that there was a whole other theatre in the war? And that France contributed absolutely zip to it? While the US, China and to a smaller extent the British (as far as major Allies goes, not trying to belittle Indians, Aussies, etc.) bore the brunt of the fighting? As for the lack of "notable fighting", are you nuts? North Africa ring a bell? Say the Brits had lost the Suez, India and then China would have ultimately collapsed, and Japan could have attacked the USSR from the east forcing a two front war on Stalin. The war could've ended competely differently. Even the invasion of Italy helped tie down German troops there, where they might have had better effect reinforcing the Eastern front or perhaps garrisoning the Atlantic wall. Parsecboy 20:04, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Look, if you want to use one guideline, make it consistent. If you argue for the exclusion of France, you have to exclude Italy based on the same arguments. As long as you don't strictly use your criteria on all participants your argumentation is only French-bashing. Wandalstouring 19:49, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Does anybody think this debate is going to end if we dont remove the flags in the infobox? Demerphq 17:46, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

No. Parsecboy 17:50, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

So far France was a major power, but was defeated, continued to fight without an official army and was reranked as a major power after the war. How far the French contribution was more or less significant than the Chinese (where the soldiers lacked guns) is no point we can judge. It has been tradition in all wars to list the major powers involved and France was a major power when it was involved. Arguably Italy could be deleted because they weren't able to achieve anything without the Germans doing the job for them and eventually were overrun and disarmed by the Germans. Wandalstouring 18:08, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The arguments about inclusion or exclusion of military powers boil down to an argument who contributed how much to the war. The French were arguably knocked out very fast and the US were very late to join, while the Chinese didn't have enough guns for all soldiers. In all other wars it has been policy to include all major powers, no matter how much or little they did. If anyone can prove the opposite he shouldn't hesitate to list these examples. Wandalstouring 19:04, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

1. More French personnel fought against the Allies in 1940-44 than fought with them.

2. Canada and Australia had bigger militaries for the last five years of the war, and they weren't major allies.

2. Being a major power for nine months of the war and a UN security council member after the war does not make France a major ally. This is all hopelessly Eurocentric. Grant | Talk 19:14, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Circular logic leads to insanity. Please try to read the specific question and than answer it and don't post things that are no reply. Wandalstouring 19:29, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

There is no "question". Grant | Talk 19:43, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

If the infobox includes China, it should definitely include France. It may not have had much military action througout the war, but France and the UK were basically the leading countries that stood up to Germany until the USSR joined. Also, although it may not mean much in terms of "major", alot of the war - as in, the stuff an average person knows about it - was about liberating France. --Plasma Twa 2 19:47, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

What about the "average" hundreds of millions in China? Or are we supposed to be reinforcing the ignorance of readers in some countries. Grant | Talk 19:57, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

It is about criteria and not feelings.

Is that clear enough:

'In all other wars it has been policy to include all major powers, no matter how much or little they did. If anyone can prove the opposite he shouldn't hesitate to list these examples.' Wandalstouring 19:51, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Feelings? Like the irrational reliance on France's status in 1939-40 and post-1945? Grant | Talk 19:57, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Joker, if the status of France during these times is your criteria, than do name it, but once again:

Is that clear enough:

'In all other wars it has been policy to include all major powers, no matter how much or little they did. If anyone can prove the opposite he shouldn't hesitate to list these examples.' Wandalstouring 19:51, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Rather difficult to understand? Wandalstouring 20:05, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Since I had something of a role in starting this, I will try to summarize my thoughts briefly:

1. Size of armed forces - Godefroy's troop counts above are compelling data. The French army dwarfs that of the minor powers.
2. Population of France - 41,502,000 (1936).
3. Armed forces among most modern and well-equipped in the world.
4. Both World Wars were started largely out of French/German competition for dominance in continental Europe.
5. The Fall of France should not be viewed as insignificant simply because of its brevity or its relatively low body count.
6. France got back into the war at the end, fielding 1.25 million troops by May 1945.
7. Permanent position on UN security council, and dedicated German occupation zone, speak to French importance and influence as others have noted.
8. Reliable sources - Although it might be impossible to find a reliable source that will tell us which places or events are "major", we can have a rough idea based on the amount of space various historians devote to a given topic. The overwhelming majority of professional historians, the people that write the books that we are supposed to be using as references, consider France major enough to devote extensive space in their texts to it. It is important for the success of Misplaced Pages that we adhere to such traditions as much as possible. Haber 20:13, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

If you use the word "frog" as a racial pejorative again I will endeavour to have you banned. Regards, Badgerpatrol 20:42, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

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