2007年10月2日星期二
2007年9月10日星期一
2007年9月8日星期六
In a New Video, Bin Laden Predicts U.S. Failure in Iraq
Saturday, September 8, 2007; Page A01
Ending a nearly three-year absence from public view, a dark-bearded Osama bin Laden surfaced yesterday in a new video in which he repeatedly taunted the Bush administration but made no overt threats of renewed terrorist attacks.
The al-Qaeda leader appeared visibly older and spoke in somber tones as he delivered a rambling, 25-minute monologue that included a lengthy tirade against Western capitalism sprinkled with references to recent news events and cultural and political figures.
 Gallery The Elusive Osama Bin Laden Osama bin Laden -- al Qaeda leader and alleged mastermind behind the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- has continued to wage his holy war from hiding, periodically appearing in video tapes calling upon Muslims to rise up against the United States. VIDEO | First Glimpse of New bin Laden Video (AP) The Search for OsamaWho's Blogging?Read what bloggers are saying about this article.  Most Blogged About Articles  |
Addressing his message to "the people of America," bin Laden predicted failure for U.S. forces in Iraq and warned against what he described as the continued oppression and humiliation of Muslims by the West.
"The blood of the Muslims will not be spilled with impunity," he said.
The tape was undergoing technical evaluation by U.S. intelligence analysts, but an initial review indicated it was authentic. "The analysis suggests that the voice on the tape is indeed that of Osama bin Laden," said a U.S. intelligence official, speaking on the condition that he not be identified by name.
If confirmed as genuine, the recording will represent the first video footage of the al-Qaeda leader since he appeared in an October 2004 tape during the run-up to the U.S. presidential elections.
Terrorism analysts said the video offered little new information but appeared intended to show that bin Laden is not only alive but vital and committed to continuing his campaign against the West nearly six years to the day after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The tape, which appears to have been professionally produced, is believed to have been made no earlier than mid-August, analysts said.
"He is saying, 'I am still here, and we are still engaged in the war against the United States -- and we will widen the circle of the war,' " said Husain Haqqani, an expert on Islamic terrorist groups and the director of the Center for International Relations at Boston University. "The overall message is one of trying to bolster the morale of the al-Qaeda faithful and at the same time thumbing his nose at the United States."
In Sydney, President Bush told reporters: "The tape is a reminder about the dangerous world in which we live. And it is a reminder that we must work together to protect . . . against these extremists who murder the innocent in order to achieve their political objectives."
"I found it interesting that on the tape Iraq was mentioned, which is a reminder that Iraq is a part of this war against extremists," Bush continued. "If al-Qaeda bothers to mention Iraq, it is because they want to achieve their objectives in Iraq, which is to drive us out and to develop a safe haven."
Bin Laden's lengthy speech is interspersed with references suggesting that the al-Qaeda leader closely follows events in the West. He refers to the recently elected leaders of Britain and France -- Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy -- saying they, like Bush, "talk about freedom and human rights with a disregard for the intellects of human beings." He even refers to global warming and the troubled credit and real estate markets in the United States.
The tape's most striking feature was bin Laden's physical appearance: The straggly, gray-streaked whiskers of his previous images had been replaced with a neatly trimmed beard of black or dark brown. While some analysts speculated that the beard was fake, others said it was likely that bin Laden had dyed his beard, as is customary for older men in some Muslim cultures.
In the rugged area along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, where U.S. officials believe al-Qaeda is based and is regrouping, Muslim men use a locally made henna dye that leaves a dark red color, said John O. Brennan, an al-Qaeda expert and former acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
"In some respects he appears to be demonstrating his vanity," Brennan said.
In the video, bin Laden also had replaced his customary military camouflage jacket with a more traditional gold robe and white tunic. Against a plain backdrop, he reads his remarks from a script, occasionally gesturing with one hand to emphasize a point. He does not appear obviously ill, though some analysts said his face is visibly wizened compared with his appearance in earlier videos, and the dark circles beneath his eyes are more pronounced.
The tape surfaced less than 24 hours after the appearance of announcements on several Islamic Web sites of the imminent release of a new statement from the "Lion Sheik" bin Laden.
The video was obtained early yesterday by U.S. intelligence officials and was first made public on the Web site of the SITE Institute, a D.C.-based nonprofit group that studies terrorist organizations. The circumstances of its release were unusual: No copy of the video had appeared on Islamic Web sites as of yesterday, as has been the norm for past al-Qaeda videos. A spokesman for SITE declined to comment on how it obtained the most recent video.
A script in English and Arabic that accompanied the video gives the title of bin Laden's message as "The Solution" and links his remarks to the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. In the speech, bin Laden calls on Americans to "embrace Islam" as the true religion, and he contends that the attacks succeeded in damaging the U.S. economy and undermining the United States' reputation and global prestige.
"Despite America being the greatest economic power and possessing the most powerful and up-to-date military arsenal . . . 19 young men were able, by the grace of Allah, the Most High, to change the direction of its compass," he says in the speech, referring to the 19 hijackers who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks.
He chides not only Bush -- a leader who he says "harvests nothing but failure" -- but also the Democratic leadership of Congress. "Why have the Democrats failed to stop this war, despite them being the majority?" he asks, according to the translation provided by the SITE group. Later, answering his own question, he argues that the failure of Americans to stop the Iraq war was attributable to the political dominance of large corporations that "benefit from this continuation."
In a speech yesterday at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden did not comment directly on the tape. But he said al-Qaeda leaders, working from bases inside Pakistan, continue to plot against the United States.
"Al-Qaeda is focusing on targets that would produce mass casualties, dramatic destruction, and significant economic aftershocks," Hayden said. "Al-Qaeda's success with planting operatives in this country is less certain."
Staff writers Dafna Linzer in New York and Michael A. Fletcher in Sydney contributed to this report.
2007年8月21日星期二
俄惟一航母重新“起航”
俄罗斯拥有的惟一现役航母———“库兹涅佐夫元帅”号。
俄罗斯国家电视台19日报道，俄罗斯惟一一艘航母———“库兹涅佐夫元帅”号已经开始起降战斗机，这表明它已经结束了两年的休整期，恢复了日常执勤状态。有分析认为，此举是俄罗斯复兴海军重要事件。
其他航母全部退役或出售
“库兹涅佐夫元帅”号航母隶属于北方舰队，从上世纪80年代开始服役。排水量为5.5万吨，长302米，额定船员1960人，可搭载36架飞机和16架 直升机，于1993年起被编入战斗序列。“库兹涅佐夫元帅”号航母是前苏联海军发展的第三代航空母舰，也是俄罗斯海军现役舰艇中吨位最大的舰只。
“库兹涅佐夫元帅”号是俄罗斯目前仅存的一艘航母，其他前苏联时期建造的航母要么已经退役，要么被卖到其他国家。
“经历两年休整后，飞机正在从‘库兹涅佐夫元帅’号航母甲板上起飞和着陆，”俄罗斯电视一台报道说，“对于飞行员和工作人员来说，再现这一时刻似乎太久了。”
技术资金问题让航母瘫痪？
2005年9月，一架苏－33战机在“库兹涅佐夫元帅”号降落时，由于航母上的制动索突然断裂，致使战机冲出甲板并坠入海中，幸好当时落水的飞行员安全获救，没有造成人员伤亡。2006年4月，“库兹涅佐夫元帅”号在执行完一次出海航行任务后，便开始接受维修。
俄媒体曾报道说，因为技术故障和资金匮乏，“库兹涅佐夫元帅”号曾长时间停留在港口，或者接受维修。
俄罗斯海军总司令弗拉基米尔·马索林表示，为了避免再次出现意外情况，维修后的“库兹涅佐夫元帅”号已配备经过特殊培训的飞行员。他还说，俄罗斯未来还计划建造另一艘航母。
经济发展助推俄重振军力
分析人士认为，随着俄罗斯经济迅速发展，该国国防预算得到政府财政有力支持，俄罗斯海军正寻求重振往日雄风。惟一航母重新启用，为该国海军发展重要事 件。俄总统普京曾在多个场合公开表示，要重新振兴俄罗斯海军，马索林最近也曾表示，俄罗斯应在地中海设立常驻海军。目前，美国拥有12艘航母，位居世界第 一。
除了海军，几天前俄还宣布重新启动停止多年的远程战略轰炸机巡航，但美国则讽刺这些飞机“太老旧”。
台湾客机爆炸：初步调查事故原因是燃料泄漏
日本当地时间昨日上午10时34分（北京时间9时34分），中国台湾“中华航空公司”的一架波音 737-800型客机在日本冲绳那霸机场着陆后不久发生爆炸起火，机身折为三段。所幸机上157名乘客和8名机组人员全部脱险、无人伤亡。初步调查显示事 故原因是燃料泄漏，日本警方已确认与恐怖袭击无关。
意外
机未停稳突然起火 两位机师跳窗逃生
这架航班号为CI120的华航班机于20日上午7时15分从台北出发，计划9时30分抵达冲绳那霸机场。
据了解，班机在9时27分正常、安全降落后，由塔台引导滑行进入41号停机坪；9时31分，飞机尚未停稳，地勤人员使用飞机前起落架外的耳 机插孔与正副驾驶员取得联系，告知飞机发生燃油泄漏并引致左侧发动机起火！飞行员立即广播通知后舱机组：紧急疏散!飞行员随即执行关闭发动机的必要程序。
机组人员随即打开紧急逃生舱门，启动充气逃生梯，机上旅客迅速在90秒内逃离客机。就在最后一名乘务员逃生后不到5秒，身后的飞机突然爆 炸，紧接着起火燃烧，一时间，烈焰遮天。此时还未离开的正副机师已无法从舱门逃生，只能将驾驶舱玻璃打破，直接从近两层楼高的驾驶舱跳下，飞机的中央油箱 也几乎在同一时间爆炸，巨大气浪把机师的帽子都吹跑了，还好，两人都未受伤。
事故发生后，那霸市消防部门动用了所有消防车前往机场灭火。大火在11时37分被扑灭，但客机已被烧毁，机体断裂成三截。·本报综合新华社消息·
上图：飞起起火爆炸，浓烟蔽日 新华社发
出击
场面如同灾难大片 劫后余生心有余悸
对于该机的全部乘客和机组人员来说，此次意外是永生难忘的可怕经历。虽然有惊无险，但成功逃生后在机场候机楼内，眼睁睁地看着刚刚还在乘坐的客机瞬间化成一堆残骸———死里逃生的滋味也并不好受。
一名日本乘客说：“我先听到很大的爆炸声，四声很大的声响。”另一名日本乘客说：“我听到爆炸的声音，然后看到火焰，乘客还在疏散时，火吞噬整个机身，很惊险。”
一名当时正搭出租车经过那霸机场旁边的目击者接受采访时说：“我看到有几名乘客从那架飞机逃生梯疏散，大约过了1分钟，就听到爆炸声。”日本国土交通省一名官员也证实：“飞机进入停机坪后约4分钟,发动机就爆炸起火了。”
根据机上日籍旅客的说法,在飞机降落后,机舱内并没有异常的现象,不过随后感觉舱内比较热,好像有热风吹进来,这时旅客才警觉到可能有问题。
搭乘这架班机的台湾旅客戴先生也表示，快到那霸时，他闻到飞机上有烟臭味，机长在降落前15分钟就感觉有问题，还在空中时就以广播告知乘客：“发生了一点状况，希望旅客冷静，我们也快到机场了。”
据乘坐该机的一另位台湾客人透露，飞机着陆后乘客正在做离机准备时发生起火。机务人员曾一度向乘客解释是飞机轮胎着火，没有大碍，要大家保 持冷静。后来，火势渐大，机务人员才打开紧急通道，疏导乘客利用充气滑梯离开。此时，起火后的浓烟已进入机舱，乘客来不及携带手提行李匆忙逃难。在大部分 乘客跑至距离飞机200米外的休息室门前、最后离机的乘客距离飞机仅100米时，燃烧中的飞机发生爆炸。
万幸
百余乘客无人遇难 确定不是恐怖袭击
据报道，乘坐该客机的157名乘客中，大部分为中国台湾到冲绳旅游的游客，另有8名中国大陆乘客，此外还有23名日本人和十几名美国人，全 部安全撤离。事故发生后，日本乘客全部离开，大部分台湾乘客则忙于和华航交涉损失行李的索赔问题。华航现场的有关人员表示，目前没有现金对乘客进行赔偿， 暂时只能发给每人1万日元应急。
发生意外后，华航已经表示其所有起降安排都按照安全程序，其维修和飞行都按照正常计划，初步排除意外是恐怖袭击的可能。
对于飞机爆炸起火的原因，华航表现得相当低调，仅表示飞机发生了爆炸，至于原因如何，华航表示要等到专业鉴定报告出炉才能对外说明。
上图：飞机断成三截 新华社发
上图：乘客紧急逃生 新华社发
善后措施
同类客机停飞 华航股票大跌 保险费要上涨
华航客机在日本那霸机场爆炸起火，引起对同类型飞机安全的关注。台湾“民航局”成立“空难灾害应变小组”，并已下令岛内同型号飞机停飞接受特别检查。
台“交通部民用航空局长”张国政表示，岛内所有波音737－800型客机将全部停飞特检，此外，台“民航局飞安委员会”将会同日本有关方面调查。
当天台湾股市中的华航股票也受到了影响。华航股票早盘以13．5元新台币开出，随着台股反弹大涨，一度上攻至13．55元，但受飞机爆炸起火的消息影响，股价应声下挫，一路下滑至12．5元，才在大单敲进下止跌回升。
另据报道，华航近三年来“飞安”情况大为改善，保险费率也更为“经济”，但此次事故或将带来重大影响。华航今年保费谈判提前于7月完成，保 费由原来约1800万美元降到1300万美元左右，因此，尚不至于影响今年度保险费用，但业内人士指出，“明年度的费用可能受到影响，会略为提高”，但整 体上影响程度，还待明年与其他共保公司评估后才知道。业内人士估计明年续约时保费恐将提高两到三成。
上图：大火过后，一片狼藉 新华社发
事故原因
事故很罕见 原因成谜团
此次发生意外的华航波音737－800于2002年7月引进，机龄仅5年。华航737－800客机过去也曾有飞行安全的不良记录，分别在2002年3月和5月高雄机场发生擦撞以及仪表板故障。
刹车过热恰遇漏油着火？
事后日本国土交通省在第一时间召开了记者会，公布初步调查结果。国土交通省表示，当时地勤人员看到引擎漏油,立即告知机长，机长关闭引擎后，飞机随之起火爆炸。
飞机降落且停妥后发生爆炸事件，是罕见特例。有关航空专家则指出，从事故现场来看，飞机起火后只有地面人员拿着灭火器灭火，机场方面显然事 前不知情。飞机若空中出现警情，仪表应该有显示；即使机长未发觉，塔台也应该看得到，航管人员不可能让起火的飞机滑行到停机坪。由此可以确定飞机降落前未 出现发动机故障或起火等异常状况。
专家表示，从飞机在10分钟内就被烧成三截的情况来看，应有漏油才会助长火势快速蔓延。飞机下降后，滑行必须常用刹车，由于仪表不会显示刹车过热状况，事故原因极可能是因刹车过热又刚好碰到油箱漏油，随即出现爆裂。这也就是地面机务人员向机师报告飞机起火的状况。
油箱早有问题引发事故？
另有日本媒体指出，2002年8月30日，美国联邦航空局曾通令各航空公司对所有旗下波音客机进行检查，改善命令名单也包括这次出事的 737─800型飞机。但专家说，当年发出的技术检修令，是中油箱及机尾油箱有问题，昨天华航737─800型客机是机翼附近的油箱出问题，与当时要求检 修的情形不同，不宜相提并论。
链接：华航安全成问题
近年来，台湾“华航”曾发生多起飞行事故和空难。
1993年，香港启德机场“华航”飞机冲出跑道滑入海湾，造成23人受伤；
1994年，“华航”B1816班机在日本名古屋坠机，造成252人死亡，11人受伤；
1998年，“华航”飞机在桃园机场上空爆炸坠毁，飞机上和陆地民宅一共202人死亡；
1999年，“华航”一架MD11型班机因为遭到台风，在香港新机场翻覆，造成3死31伤；
2003年，“华航”班机又在马公外海坠毁，机上225名乘客，无人生还。
2007年8月16日星期四
6意大利人命丧德枪击案
15日，德国西部城镇杜伊斯堡发生一起枪击案，6名意大利籍的年轻男子中弹身亡。目前警方正对此全力调查。
据悉，警方接到报案后在两辆车内发现了5具头部中弹的尸体，其中一辆是在杜伊斯堡当地登记的小型卡车，另一辆汽车是在德国西南部城市伯茨海姆登记的白色轿车。
警察在白色轿车内发现还有一伤者有轻微生命迹象。但是在去医院途中，这名伤者也停止了呼吸。
当地警方发言人罗特林表示，“六名受害者都是意大利人，他们的年龄在16-39岁之间。”警方在现场并没有发现作案的凶器，只在地上找到了几只弹壳。初步调查也显示，受害者在事件发生时手无寸铁。警方已经把整个火车站封锁起来进行调查。
当地人怀疑此案有可能是当地的意大利黑手党所为。
美报:美为何要定伊朗国家武装部队为恐怖组织?
新华网消息：据美国《纽约时报》网站8月15日报道，美国政府高级官员14日说，布什政府准备宣布伊朗革命卫队为外国恐怖组织。
若果真如此，这将表明布什政府对伊朗的态度变得更具对抗性，同时也是美国首次将某个主权国家的武装部队列入恐怖组织行列。
革命卫队被认为是伊朗军方最大的组成部分。虽然美国早就将伊朗列为支持恐怖主义的国家，但是决定将革命卫队单挑出来，这等于美国政府向伊朗发出新的咄咄逼人的挑战。
据一些欧洲外交官说，美国国务卿赖斯最近在与欧洲一些同级别官员谈话时，提到要对伊朗采取这样的举动，并说由于对伊朗实施进一步经济制裁的建议迟迟得不到联合国安理会批准，使得美国政府别无选择，只好采取单方面行动。
对于赖斯来说，将伊朗革命卫队列为外国恐怖组织至少会起到两个作用：首先可以暂时安抚政府内极力主张对伊朗采取军事行动的鹰派；其次，可以进一步催促美国的盟友加紧在安理会通过制裁伊朗的决议。
美国国务院和财政部官员正敦促联合国安理会对伊朗政府官员实施更加严厉的制裁，其中包括广泛的旅行禁令和旨在限制伊朗金融机构在海外做生意的进一步举措。美国官员也在设法让欧洲和亚洲的银行采取针对伊朗的额外措施。
美国政府高级官员说，根据当前的计划，本月就要宣布将伊朗革命卫队归为恐怖组织，不过他们提醒说，如果安理会能够更加迅速地采取行动，就核计划对伊朗实施广泛制裁，那么美国有可能推迟这一行动，甚至取消该计划。
美国官员说，赖斯极力主张将革命卫队定位为恐怖组织，但他们没有说国家安全委员会和五角大楼是否支持这种做法。
阅兵式上的伊朗革命卫队战士。 （图片来源：广州日报）
布什总统上周对伊朗表现出更为强硬的态度，他提醒大家注意，在向伊拉克什叶派好战分子提供弹药、对他们进 行训练以及提供其它支持方面，伊朗革命卫队发挥了积极作用。而这些好战分子一直在伊拉克袭击美国军人。布什9日在记者招待会上提到伊朗时说：“如果被我们 发现你发挥的是不好的作用，你就要付出代价。”
将革命卫队列为恐怖组织会启动一系列制裁措施，从而让美国更方便地冻结革命卫队控制的金融账户和其它资产。这一行动尤其能让美国方便地冻结革命卫队在美国的所有资产，不过后者不大可能在美国银行或其它机构拥有多少资产。
近几个月来，围绕外交途径是否起作用的话题，美国政府内部争论再起。据说副总统切尼的一些助手也极力主张 更多地考虑采取军事行动的可能性。之所以出现这样的争论，一方面是因为国际核查人员的报告中详细谈到了伊朗核计划的进展，其中包括安装了1000多个用于 铀浓缩的离心机，另一方面是因为美国情报官员说，伊朗在向伊拉克什叶派民兵组织和阿富汗塔利班好战分子提供武器和其它支持方面发挥了作用。
目前，有42个组织被美国国务院列为外国恐怖组织，其中包括“基地”组织、黎巴嫩的真主党和巴勒斯坦的哈马斯及伊斯兰圣战组织。
美国政府这次把矛头对准革命卫队，也是为分化伊朗人。布什在9日召开的记者招待会上直接对伊朗人民发出了信息。布什说：“我向伊朗人民传达的信息是，‘你们可以比这届政府做得更好，你们不必受到孤立。你们不必处于这种无法彻底发挥自身经济潜力的局面’。”
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塔利班索要赎金 一人质主动让"生机"
塔利班武装人员对释放韩国人质索要赎金,每名人质要价超过50万美元。塔利班先前已杀死两名韩国男人质,释放了两名女人质。韩国现有19名人质在塔利班手中。按照塔利班的要价,韩国要支付大约1000万美元左右的赎金。
据该消息来源透露,韩国代表团只愿支付50万美元的赎金来换取这19名人质的安全释放。目前,赎金的数量问题已成为双方的谈判焦点。
谈判的有关人士表示,塔利班之所以提出“每名人质50万美金”的要求,可能是希望韩国为剩余的人质支付至少200万-300万美金的赎金。该人士表示,之前之所以释放2名韩国女人质,“肯定”是有韩国官员支付了一笔数目不详的赎金给塔利班。
塔利班武装发言人艾哈迈迪15日说,塔利班与韩国政府代表将于16日再次就韩国人质问题举行面对面谈判。艾哈迈迪说,谈判定于当地时间16日10时(北京时间13时30分)在加兹尼省首府加兹尼市举行。
另据韩国媒体15日报道说,一名本有机会获释的女人质把机会让给了同伴。
《朝鲜日报》援引阿富汗加兹尼省卡拉巴格地区塔利班指挥官阿卜杜拉的话报道,塔利班当时根据人质健康状况,选择释放两名身体最不好的女人质。但是其中一 人说:“我的身体在逐渐好转,先释放其他人吧。”于是他们决定释放另一名女人质。阿卜杜拉没有透露那名女人质的名字。他说:“这位富有勇气的女性的名字太 难记,我没有记住。” 综合新华社等报道
2007年8月15日星期三
美俄丹加四国争斗不断 北极到底是谁家的边疆？
资料图片：美国海岸警卫队“希利”号重型破冰船
负责北极科考任务的美国新罕布什尔大学研究人员拉里·迈尔新8月12日称，正在前往北冰洋的美国“希利”号破冰船所肩负的任务不是去把美国国旗插在北冰洋洋底，而是去绘制洋底地图。
迈尔新先生的表白显然是针对俄罗斯的。8月2日，俄罗斯科考队从北极点下潜到北冰洋洋底，并在那里插上了一面钛合金制造的俄罗斯国旗。三天后，美国派出科考队前往北极地区。加拿大也随即宣布将在北极地区建立军事基地。
正当迈尔新试图向世人表明美国并没有在北极“圈地”的想法之际，一支丹麦科考队正在启程向寒冷的北极前进。丹麦媒体称，该科考队将在丹麦的格陵兰岛北部海域收集北冰洋海底有关数据，以证明2000多公里长的罗蒙诺索夫海岭属于丹麦所属的格陵兰大陆架的延伸部分。
北冰洋属于国际海域。然而，美国、俄罗斯、丹麦和加拿大近来针对北极地区“舞台味 道浓郁”的举动却不能不引起国际社会的担心。分析家们认为，美俄关系中近来凸起的对抗性因素是北极争夺的背景，而这种被西方媒体称为“弥漫着19世纪味道 的领地争夺”必然会对全球战略稳定造成某种程度的冲击。一些喜欢并且善长新闻炒作的西方媒体则断言，就目前情势而言，一场极具规模和影响的“北极争夺战” 已经开始。
北极是能源宝库，也是战略要地。正是出于这两方面的考虑，一些国家急于在北冰 洋部分地区寻求当家做主的权力。首先，北冰洋海底能源资源蕴藏丰富，石油和天然气储量可能达到全球总储量的四分之一。如此丰厚的油气资源必然要引起一些国 家的强烈兴趣，何况能源问题目前已成为众多国家事关国家安全和战略机遇的重大问题。正因为如此，美国媒体才把俄罗斯在北极插旗的真实意图理解成“长期保持 在国际能源市场上霸主地位”的雄心；其次,作为一条潜在军事和商务航道，北冰洋无疑是诱人的战略要地，对世界上任何一个国家都具有重要意义。
北极的宝藏诱人而又神奇，但独自享有这一宝藏却不应该是世界上任何一个国家的 权力。按照国际海洋公约的有关规定，世界大洋及洋底的土地不属于任何一个国家。依据《联合国海洋法公约》，由于目前没有证据表明任何一个国家的大陆架延伸 至北极，因此北极点及附近地区不属于任何国家。北极地区被视为国际范围，属于国际海域。北极不是也不该是某个或某些国家的领地，而是全人类的共同财富。
即使是在科学技术高度发达的今天，北极对整个人类来说仍然是神圣之地，仍有不少 尚未破解之迷。随着全球气候暖化及能源枯竭进程的逐渐加快，作为一座巨大的能源宝库和重要的交通走廊，北极当然会吸引世人的目光。然而，在目前条件下，人 类对北极的认识仍然十分有限，也没有真正发现北极对整个人类生存和发展所具有的价值、意义和影响。面对北极，人类的思考方式和意识观念都要来一次超越和解 放。与其花心思去琢磨如何去占有它，不如花心血去了解和认识它。北极是属于人类的，也是属于科学的。通过科考活动更多地了解和认识北极是人类面临的首要任 务，而了解和认识北极则是世界所有国家的权利和责任。北极如同一面镜子，既可以反映人类的弱点和局限，也可以映照出人类政治智慧和科技能力的光芒。（记者 汪嘉波）
《光明日报》（2007年8月15日 第8版）
>>>>更多内容请关注国际频道<<<<2007年8月10日星期五
200万英镑转会查尔顿 郑智创中国球员留洋纪录
海口晚报综合报道郑智留洋一事终于水落石出。昨日下午，鲁能俱乐部宣布，郑智以200万英镑的身价永久转会英冠查尔顿俱乐部，合同为期两年。郑智200万英镑的转会费创下了中国球员转会欧洲球队的最高纪录。
自从6月份的英超联赛结束之后，郑智及其经纪人立刻开始了接下来的留洋运作。这期间也确实有一些英超俱乐部与郑智、与鲁能俱乐部进行了接触，但是在涉及到一些转会细节问题时，几方面进行了非常艰苦的谈判，最终郑智也与一些英超俱乐部擦肩而过。
这时候，一直等待郑智归来的查尔顿再次向鲁能俱乐部、向郑智本人表明 了他们欢迎郑智归来的想法，而且非常渴望郑智能够早些回到查尔顿参加训练，以备战新赛季的比赛。鲁能俱乐部最初的态度是，如果去英超或者欧洲其他国家的顶 级联赛，那肯定没有问题，一定放行，但是如果去踢英冠联赛，俱乐部希望郑智能够留下来。这几天，查尔顿再次向鲁能俱乐部、向郑智表达了强烈的引进郑智的愿 望，并且提出希望永久转会。在这种情况下，鲁能俱乐部在征求了郑智本人意见之后决定做出让步，同意郑智永久转会查尔顿俱乐部。
据悉，郑智将于8月10日下午从北京飞往伦敦，准备随同查尔顿开始新赛季的英冠联赛。
布什邀在美国度假的萨科齐共进午餐:过来玩玩
郑洁
正在美国度假的法国总统萨科齐本周末将到布什的老家缅因州拜访，布什届时将邀请萨科齐一家共进私人午餐。
萨科齐目前正在美国新罕布什尔州的温尼湖畔度假，距离缅因州的肯纳邦克波特有50英里距离，那里有老布什及其夫人芭芭拉拥有的湖边别墅。
萨科齐此前因为美国记者偷拍其在温尼珀索基湖水域的泳装照发火，怒斥“狗仔队”。
不是峰会
美国白宫发言人托尼·斯诺说，布什计划于9日抵达肯纳邦克波特，周末在那里参加一场婚礼。布什家人和萨科齐家人于11日共进午餐。第一夫人劳拉早在6月的G8峰会上就向萨科齐夫人发出了邀请。
“美国和法国享有深厚的友谊。”斯诺说，“自从我们国家为保护全球自由而建立以来它们就一起合作。”
斯诺说:“总统坚信要建立与其他国家领导人的私人友谊。我确信他们会讨论一些国际议题。但这不是一场峰会，而是一个日程，这个日程是‘既然来了就过来玩玩’。”
法国对萨科齐选择在美国度假感到紧张，因为他是第一位在美国度假的法国领导人。萨科齐所选择的处所是美国最古老的消暑场所，可追溯到1759年。关于这场度假的花费和谁支付这些开销成为很多人的疑问。
明智选择？
斯诺称萨科齐的选择是明智的，“他当然选择了一个好地方度假，不是吗？”
布什和萨科齐在今年的G8峰会上首次见面。他们当时在布什的房间里进行了非正式的会面，因为布什犯胃病，他们会后没有和媒体见面。白宫对萨科齐对改善因伊拉克战争而受损的美法关系的前景感到乐观。萨科齐在竞选期间也表达了对美国的好感并承诺修复与华盛顿的关系。
现在，萨科齐精巧安排的假日，有了“意外的”收获。
据悉，布什家族位于缅因州的这幢避暑豪宅到目前为止只供现任总统布什进行过一次外交会晤——一个月前，俄罗斯总统普京曾到访2天。
联合国官员认为加沙地带经济面临全面崩溃
2007年08月10日01:16 来源：新华社
8 月9日，在加沙地带北部的拜特拉希耶镇，一名儿童站在装有联合国提供的面粉的马车上。联合国近东巴勒斯坦难民救济和工程处高级官员菲利浦·格兰迪9日在加 沙城说，由于以色列持续关闭加沙地带通往外界的所有通道，加沙地带经济正面临全面崩溃的危险。 新华社记者纳赛尔摄
格兰迪当天在加沙城举行的新闻发布会上说，加沙地带的人道主义状况正在严重恶化。他呼吁加沙地带、约旦河西岸以及以色列的领导人重新审视加沙地带面临的人道主义危机。
格兰迪说，加沙地带经济在未来几个月内将完全依靠国际人道主义援助。他指出，加沙地带的农业和工业部门正面临“一场灾难”。他敦促以色列尽快重开连接加沙地带和以色列的唯一货物进出通道卡尔尼口岸。他表示，重开该口岸是“阻止加沙地带经济全面崩溃的唯一办法”。
巴勒斯坦伊斯兰抵抗运动（哈马斯）今年６月中旬占据加沙地带后，以色列关闭了加沙地带通往外界的所有通道。加沙地带经济状况和生存条件恶化，失业率不断攀升，加沙地带的多数投资项目都已停止。世界银行此前已警告说，加沙地带的经济面临崩溃。
俄恢复冷战时期做法 战机飞越关岛美军基地
新华网消息：据路透社9日援引一位
俄罗斯空军负责长距离飞行任务的帕维尔·安德罗索夫少将说，一架俄罗斯轰炸机星期三飞越了美国在太平洋的关岛军事基地，并与匆忙想追踪它的美国飞行员“用微笑打了招呼”。
安德罗索夫在记者招待会上说：“我们以前一直有这样长距离飞行的传统，到大洋上去会会(美国的)
“昨天我们恢复了这一传统，我们的两个飞行员去了关岛基地。”
“我认为这次的效果很好。我们碰到了同行——(美国)航空母舰上的战斗机飞行员。我们用微笑打了招呼，然后就回来了。”
路透社的消息说，俄罗斯最近在
上个月，
日本搜索将是百度进军海外的第一步 将会在年底上线
百度日本将本土化运行
百度进军日本的具体时间一直受外界猜测。昨天，百度首席财务官王湛生向记者透露，今年年底前，百度日本搜索将上线。在昨天的大会上，李彦宏也表示“2007年是百度国际化元年”。
百度大会嘉宾，纳斯达克股票市场公司副懂事长迈克尔·奥克斯利表示，百度已经超过了纳斯达克的平均水平，代表着世界级企业的未来，也代表着中国企业的未来，“百度会成为世界市场的有力竞争者”。
王湛生表示，在百度日本的运行将大部分依靠当地人。百度2007年主要精力在百度日本的团队建立，目前，已经在日本招募了一批优秀人才。不过，对于CEO人选仍在考虑当中，“现在任命，为时太早了”，但王湛生透露，也将是位日本人。
短期内不会考虑欧美市场
在敲定进军日本后，百度会不会把触角再伸到欧美？王湛生表示，作搜索引擎主要看三个方面的因素，人口规模、互联网民数量和当地经济规模。具备这样条件的 地区全球不多。美国、日本，欧洲是三个最大的市场。但欧洲是多国家多政府组成的，实际上市场已成规模。但日本，无论人口、网民还是经济规模，本身都非常 大，对于百度国际化第一步，是个理想的地方。所以，百度现在短期不会考虑欧美市场。
全面通胀威胁需警惕
通胀风险趋于上升
在这份《报告》中，央行花了不少篇幅阐述当前国内的通胀问题，并指出当前价格上行压力加大，通胀风险值得关注。
《报告》显示，当前国内供给和工业生产能力增长较快，瓶颈制约有所缓解，加之国家及时出台了一系列平抑食品价格上涨的综合性措施，都对价格上行有一定的 抑制作用，但考虑到国际收支顺差矛盾持续积累后，有向物价上涨扩散的趋势，综合国内外因素判断，当前物价上涨并非仅受偶发或临时性因素影响，通货膨胀风险 趋于上升。
至于通胀压力加大的原因，央行表明主要有四方面因素。一是粮食、肉类等食品价格短期内易涨难落。当前旱情较重，秋粮生产形 势有不确定性，此外肉价维持高位的时间可能会比较长，并容易波及其他食品价格。二是能源资源价格存在上涨压力。近期国际油价再次走高，国内推进资源价格改 革，加强环保，也将推动能源资源价格上涨。三是劳动力成本上升。一方面将在产品和服务价格中反映出来，另一方面可能拉动消费物价上涨。四是通胀预期增强， 对价格形成进一步的上涨压力。
对此，复旦大学经济学院孙立坚教授认为，在当今流动性过剩的背景下，由食品涨价向一般消费品传导，进而 引发全面通货膨胀风险的可能性非常大。由于货币流动性充裕，居民购买力很强，在有着通胀预期的情况下，消费者会抢购或者提前购买一些并不需要的商品，由此 就会产生不真实的需求，给市场错误的需求信号，使得供求关系扭曲，进一步促成了通胀现象。
7月CPI或将超5％
央行《报告》中也专门提到了居民的通胀预期。《报告》指出，公众对通胀的感受主要基于经常购买商品的价格，当前价格上涨最快的肉禽蛋是居民日常消费的重 要商品，因此居民感受到的通胀可能高于实际通胀水平。当“感受通胀”大于“实际通胀”时，价格预期可能进一步被推高。总的来看，在全球通胀压力上升的背景 下，更需关注食品等涨价向一般消费品传导的风险。
孙立坚表示，在此轮商品价格上涨的背后是国内流动性过剩的现实，因此，政府只能采取控制价格的措施，而不能增加货币供应量。“在消费物价上涨的同时，监管部门要从源头上查处一些乱涨价的行为，合理增加供给，将居民的消费预期降下来，从而缓解正在不断加大的通胀风险。”
6月份，全国CPI增幅达到4.4％，创下了33个月来的新高，这一数据也在公众中产生了不小反响，不少人认为中国将逐渐进入“通胀时代”。下周二，国 家统计局将发布7月份的CPI数据，这也被视为下半年宏观调控的重要依据。日前，多家投行均对此作出预测，预测数据更是都高于5％。据摩根士丹利大中华区 首席经济学家王庆的最新报告，7月CPI增幅可能达到5.5％，此前，高盛给出的预测也达5.1％。不过，王庆认为，此次通胀仍是“阶段性的”，而非“长 期性的”。展望下半年，王庆表示央行可能会针对通胀采取一系列的紧缩政策，但不会像2004年和2006年那样，推出强硬的宏观调控措施。
展望下阶段的宏观调控措施，孙立坚教授强调：“央行会坚定地执行其货币政策，只要通胀指数超过3.0％，央行一定会继续加息。”他同时表示，负利率在一 定程度上来说是非常糟糕的情况。存银行意味着亏钱的这一现实，使得大多数居民现在都将资金转移至资本市场，而资本市场赚钱之后，便增加了不必要的消费支 出，令通货膨胀进一步恶化。“下半年的宏观调控肯定不会一步到位，央行将依旧采取组合拳的形式———加息、提高存款准备金率、发行央票。与此同时，政府也 可能会动用财政工具，如1.55万亿元的特别国债、取消5％的利息税等。人民币汇率也会继续其升值步伐。此外，要缓解通胀压力，国资委、物价局等有关部门 也会有所行动，查处乘机乱涨价的源头、控制商品价格等。”
自住购房需求加大
据《报告》显示，截至2007年6月末，全部金融机构人民币贷款余额25.1万亿元，同比增长16.5％，增速比上年同期高1.2个百分点。在人民币贷款中，居民户贷款特别是消费贷款显著增多，而个人住房贷款是拉动居民户中长期消费性贷款显著增多的重要因素。
对此，一些市场人士表示，楼价的新一轮持续上涨是拉动房贷增长的重要因素。“由于预期房价会继续上涨，因此很多人抱着‘迟买不如早买’的想法，将房子买了。”
在《报告》中，央行指出，2007年以来，我国住房需求持续旺盛，虽然房地产开发投资加快增长，但供需关系仍趋于紧张，房地产价格又出现了加快上涨势 头，部分城市价格涨幅依然较高。同时，央行首次评价说，“住房需求较快增长，在我国当前发展阶段具有一定的客观性和合理性”，主要是由于“居民可支配收入 快速增长，直接拉动住房需求；大量农村人口进入城镇，直接加大了住房需求；房价上涨预期和非理性的住房观念导致购房需求近期内集中释放；住房供给不足，结 构调整进展缓慢。”
孙立坚告诉记者，6月份的CPI指数能为央行这一说法提供有力证据。“从6月份CPI数据来看，家具、建材等与住 房支出有关的费用成为主要推动力，很大程度上体现了居民购买住房的确出于真实需求。在消费者有购买力、偿还力的情况下，银行向居民提供房贷的渠道也就变得 顺利和畅通了。”
是谁让哈利·波特开口说中文？
虽然许多哈迷不喜欢《哈5》的黑暗基调，对长大了不再可爱的哈利更是怨声不断，可吴磊却觉得，成熟的“坏”哈利让他配起音来更轻松。“我和哈利是一起成熟的！”很显然，26岁的吴磊，对16岁的哈利已经有了很深的感情。
配“坏”哈利最轻松
“这一集配得最轻松，以前高音部分必须得故意做出小孩子的声音，但是现在只要注意语气就可以了，哈哈……”电话那头的声音很清丽，比电影里更洪亮一些，显然，吴磊的心情很好。
理比以往任何一部都复杂，说话更沉稳，更有主见，底气也更足了。
“《哈利·波特》是我第一次当一个大片的配音主角，我可是和哈利一起长大，一起变成熟的！”吴磊的语气里透着得意。
“呼神护卫咒”最难念
不必用“语言”帮着哈利在银幕上谈情说爱，也让这个有些羞涩的大男孩大松了一口气。《哈5》是吴磊配过的4部《哈利·波特》中最轻松的一部。“虽然哈利 几乎每场戏都出现，但是台词量却没有以前多了。这部影片更侧重的是哈利的内心矛盾，他的话很少，经常说一两句就被其他人打断了，而且情感一直都处在同样的 状态中。”
运营商宽带新政
中国电信：开辟自己的领地
在近日于香港召开的中国电信股东大会上，中国电信总经理王晓初表示，中国电信非话音业务并非依赖宽带业务带动，而是由互联网接入及内容增值业务带动增长。他希望，今年中国电信除保持宽带的客户增长外，还具有良好的盈利能力。
而这不仅与人们的印象不同，而且与今年年初中国电信总工程师韦乐平在NGN全球峰会上的说法也不一致。当时，韦乐平披露，宽带接入已经成为中国电信业务增长的第一驱动力，2006年整个中国电信的业务增长为4.7%，而仅宽带一项就占了3.71%，贡献率达到80%，可谓举足轻重。以韦乐平所披露每月76元的ARPU值计算，2006年全年，宽带业务为中国电信贡献了约258亿元的收益，而2006年，中国电信财报显示的互联网业务总收入为236亿元。
如何理解两位中国电信高层说法之间的不一致？两者的说法中又透露出中国电信在宽带市场中何种策略信息呢？
尽量延长宽带业务成长期
首先，必须注意到的是，王晓初在谈到宽带业务时，将其与互联网接入与内容增值业务并列，而目前，宽带接入已经占据互联网接入用户的绝大部分。根据信 息产业部的统计数据，2006年，基础电信运营企业的互联网用户中，拨号用户为2642.0万户，而宽带接入用户为5189.9万户。两者的比例约为 1∶2。因此，王晓初言下的宽带业务应指非接入型的宽带业务，也即宽带应用而言。
事实上，中国电信的宽带业务当前主要靠接入费，宽带应用的收入还很小。即便经历了连年100%的增长，中国电信互联星空2006年的业务收入也仅为5.56亿元，对中国电信每年1000多亿元的总收入贡献相对有限。因此，韦乐平才会说，连接性是多数赢利业务的基本属性。
其次，王晓初将宽带业务定位于宽带应用，体现了中国电信对待宽带业务的增长策略。那就是，不单纯依靠规模的扩张来增加收益，而是在尽量延长宽带业务成长期的基础上，通过多种应用的开发，增加宽带业务的盈利性。
据中国电信内部人士透露，在2006年底的中国电信2007年工作会议上，中国电信集团公司就要求各下属公司要正确处理好宽带ARPU下降与市场规模关系。即不能为了扩张市场，而导致ARPU值急速下滑。
双驱动的业务开拓策略
而在具体的宽带市场开拓中，中国电信采取了两条腿走路的办法。
首先是加快宽带向农村地区的渗透。在这方面，中国电信的策略是积极实施“千乡万村”信息化示范工程，推进乡乡通宽带。而在提高宽带业务渗透率的同时，中国电信仍然体现了其重视信息应用的一贯策略，也即推进“信息进万家”。中国电信除了在农村进行宽带互联网的基础建设外，还开发了农村信息平台、涉农企业及个人增值宽带应用等多种信息服务产品。
而为了促进宽带业务在农村的普及率，而不仅是保障其能够接入，中国电信两个转型试点省份之一的江苏电信，今年联合PC厂商推出了终端捆绑的客户发展模式，很快被中国电信集团认可并准备向全国推广。
政企业客户市场，是除了农村市场外中国电信宽带业务开拓的另一大重点市场。这一市场的一大特点是规模大、ARPU值高，而且具有一定的行业特点，中 国电信的“商务领航”覆盖的正是这一部分客户。按照中国电信市场部有关人士的说法，行业和聚类市场系列应用具有示范效应和连带影响，通过抓行业发展、抓聚 类应用的做法，能构成规模地、成片地发展城市宽带用户。
因此，我们可以看到，今年以来，中国电信在各地不断加快区县、甚至社区一级的电子政务应用，数字酒店、数字校园等行业应用的推广力度也在加大。
开辟自己的宽带领地
事实上，王晓初重点强调，希望宽带具有良好的盈利能力，表面上看是针对宽带应用的发展，其实质是针对宽带的商务模式。
中国电信北京研究院副院长赵慧玲就指出，宽带是未来网络业务的核心，“但是单一的包月制模式将宽带市场送入了恶性发展的怪圈。”目前，中国电信和中国网通都可为用户提供包月制的宽带服务，“宽带业务的ARPU值下降，P2P更是对网络造成了冲击。”
“宽带应用要想成功商用还有赖于5大关键因素，分别是高质量、开放性、交付性、安全性和盈利性。”赵慧玲说，“盈利性是一定要有的，不盈利谁也不会有做的兴趣。”
如何保持宽带业务的长期可盈利？在现行互联网管理模式与商业模式不可能做出调整的情况下，中国电信的做法是另外开辟一块属于自己的领地，无论是CN2，还是IPTV，都体现了中国电信的这种思路。其中IPTV更被称为重要的战略性增长领域。这种战略性，按照韦乐平的说法，是因为其“作为种子业务的作用开始逐渐显现”。
事实上，除了开通广播电视节目外，在IPTV业务上，中国电信还提供电视黄页、影像空间、餐饮、财经、娱乐、购物等服务，可以说是互联网的“浓缩版”。
而IPTV业务也是中国电信升级网络的最大动力。韦乐平认为到2010年，接入带宽将增加二十到三十倍。其主要判断依据也是集中在，到2010年左右，高端用户的带宽需求主要集中在高清电视、标清电视、视频通信等高带宽业务上。
对于中国电信来说，宽带已经成为其ARPU值最高的业务，并已经占到其总收入的15%左右，如何尽量保持其成长以支撑中国电信的转型战略，成为其市场策略的基本出发点。
中国网通：服务提升价值
宽带世界论坛亚洲会议召开前夕，作为东道主的中国网通格外繁忙：短短半个多月内，先是启动了国家电子政务网中央级传输骨干网建设工作，然后又与有关方面签署了建设中俄(黑河)和中越(凭祥)陆地光缆的合作备忘录。紧接着，主办了“第三届中国传媒科技高峰论坛”，探讨如何利用先进的科技手段，全面支撑奥运会的报道和信息传播。与此同时，网通与香港电讯盈科所属的电盈环球(PCCWGlobal)合作推出首个连接香港与北京的高端商业以太网专线服务———京港E线通(IEPL)，与欧洲广播联盟的合作也达成协议。除此之外，还于近日完成了“奥运‘城市通’综合信息服务及救助系统”的开发工作，并将于今年下半年在北京率先推出……
从骨干网到最新传媒业务，从国际合作到奥运服务系统，网通的宽带发展战略全线铺开。自从2002年重组以来，中国网通的发展方向从未像今天这样明确，也从未感到时间像今天这样紧迫。
转型之痛困则思变
作为以经营固定电话、宽带通信为主营业务的电信企业，中国网通集团近年来随着技术进步加速、市场竞争加剧，企业遇到了前所未有的挑战。一方面，移动通信迅猛发展的直接效应，是大量替代固定语音通信业务，使固定电话业务增长速度日趋缓慢；另一方面，随着以IP技术为代表的互联网业务日益普及，迫切要求固定通信宽带化、智能化，这同样要求企业加大投入，进行技术改造、业务创新。
中国网通(香港)有限公司CEO左迅生告诉记者：“坦率地讲，全世界做固定电话的企业，这些年没有不感到压力很大的。对固定电信运营商，出路有两条，一条是实现固定通信和移动通信的融合，把两种业务的优势结合起来，为客户提供全面的服务；另一条是把IT(信息技术)业务和CT(通信技术)业务结合起来，做集成度更高的信息通信服务(ICT业务)，即做话音、数据、视频一体化的业务开发和传播，如IPTV(网络电视)。”虽然因为政策方面的原因，中国网通在业务转型中遇到了一些困难，但左迅生表示，随着各方面认识渐趋一致，他对解决这些困难充满信心。
在技术业务转型的同时，中国网通也经历了“融合重组、改制上市”的复杂历程。对此，左迅生笑言：“相比之下，国内各大电信企业，没有哪一家在改制过 程中遇到了我们那么多的复杂问题。但是，让人感到欣慰的是，经过几年以来的努力，新的企业治理机制已经建立，各方面投资人对此都很认可。这对我们未来积极 推进宽带战略，将是一个非常有利的因素。”
奥运东风恰逢其时
正当网通苦于为宽带战略的推广寻找一个切入点时，中国网通成为“北京2008年奥运会固定通信官方合作伙伴”，整个网通集团上下为此欢欣鼓舞，视之为不可多得的良机。
网通做出决策：把第29届奥运会办成真正的宽带奥运。
所谓宽带奥运，其内涵在于最大限度地满足客户对信息传播的稳定性、安全性、便捷性和高速度的需求。网通希望，通过努力，实现北京奥运会固定通信的全 面宽带化：即国际出口和国际资源的宽带化，国内长途与本地接入的宽带化，以及通信应用终端的宽带化。“这是一项系统工程，非常富有挑战性！如果成功了，同 样也会有效地提高对普通宽带用户的服务质量。”左迅生认为。
几年来，中国网通集团已经制定并正在落实奥运保障、发展、辐射三项计划。网通认为，其中的关键，一是要按照为奥运会服务的高标准要求自己，提高对每 一个网通用户的服务水平，提升企业的品牌价值；二是要把在此过程中开发的宽带通信新技术、新产品，推广到老百姓的日常生活中去，满足日益增长的通信需求。 左迅生认为：“这两条落实好了，我们的服务会上水平，技术会上台阶，业务会出名牌，企业的招牌也会金光闪闪。”
宽带又一“黄金期”？
在2004年改制上市的过程中，中国网通认真研究了自己的企业定位和发展方向，最终确定了要成为“宽带通信和多媒体服务提供商”。
中国网通技术部总经理焦刚告诉记者，这条创新之路是一项系统工程，贯穿于集团的战略规划、产品开发、市场推广、技术应用、网络维护、工程建设、客户服务等各项工作中，也贯穿于集团的文化建设和队伍建设中。
左迅生说，前几天在济南，一个现象引起了他的深思：由于股市火爆，一些股民纷纷要求开办家庭宽带接入业务，个别营销点甚至重新出现了“待装户”的现象。这使他想起了10多年前，网通在发展电话时也曾出现过“待装户”问题，而那正是固网发展史上永垂史册的“黄金时代”。这种现象再度出现，也许意味着网通发展又一个“黄金期”的到来。
“对于我们，关键要审时度势，加强与各方面的合作，抓住时机发展自己”，左迅生深受鼓舞。
韩国经验“打造宽带的文化基因
韩国是世界上宽带普及率最高的国家。据统计，韩国宽带渗透率达到76%，超过97%的人能够接入宽带。同时，韩国宽带的传输速率也是非常快的，目前可以达到50Mbit/s，大多数用户的宽带速度达到了10Mbit/s以上，高于全球其他任何一个国家。
KT是韩国最大的宽带接入服务运营商，也是韩国宽带领先的关键动力。KT是经营全业务的电信运营商，既有固话业务，也有移动业务。其宽带接入方式包括有线接入和无线接入，相应的宽带业务品牌为有线宽带业务Megapass和无线宽带业务Nespot。Megapass业务采用了多种技术，如ADSL、VDSL和以太网技术。尽管韩国宽带接入市场已经趋于饱和，但是Megapass用户在2005年里增加了20多万户，其市场份额达到了51.4%，相应的宽带收入也不断增加。随着KT一系列针对不同客户群体的丰富的宽带增值服务的提供，Megapass已经成为韩国宽带市场的领导者。
而随着无线信息终端(如笔记本电脑)的迅速普及以及“韩国版移动WiMax”———WiBro网络的正式商用，无线宽带Nespot业务正呈现出很大的潜在市场。基于WLAN的Nespot业务不受线缆的限制，终端用户可以在大楼或园区中，不必经过专门布线设接入点，可以随时随地连接到有线数据网，因而逐渐受到用户的欢迎，成为公司增加收入的新渠道。
韩国之所以能够成为宽带强国，与政府的政策支持也是分不开的。20世纪90年代末，韩国遭受亚洲金融危机的打击，制造业和银行业受到重创。也正是这 个时候，韩国政府决定重振韩国，使韩国成为“知识超级大国”，实现这一目标的第一步就是解除管制、允许韩国其他公司与垄断韩国电信运营的SK电讯株式会社进行竞争。竞争降低了宽带的安装费用，而政府的舆论宣传使韩国父母相信宽带能够改善孩子在学校的表现，于是宽带的需求开始大幅上升。在这种需求的推动下，韩国企业不断挖掘研发潜力，三星和LG等开始生产从宽带线到宽带手机、甚至是时尚的“宽带公寓”等产品。
同时，政府出巨资建成广域网，将宽带接到学校和政府办公室，并且为电信公司提供上亿元的财政补贴，将宽带网接到千家万户。在当时的韩国，如果没有政府为激励宽带行业竞争而提供的慷慨补贴，那么不管是供应商，还是消费者都无法承受高额的费用。
另外，韩国的文化也有助于宽带的普及。据估算，50%以上的韩国网民都喜欢网络游戏(美国的这一数字只有6%)，最初，这些网络游戏爱好者都到网吧 里去玩，但很快他们就希望家中的宽带能达到同样的网速，这种需求带动的激烈竞争意味着宽带安装费的急剧下降，目前韩国宽带的家庭收费一般是每月20至35 美元，而美国的收费是40至60美元。
财媒看中国：汇丰进军中国农村
《金融时报》：汇丰银行将进军中国农村市场
据英国《金融时报》8月10日报道，汇丰银行即将成为首家进军中国农村市场的外资银行。汇丰银行目前是中国境内最大的国际银行，在全国有40个城市分行。
汇丰银行已经在湖北省随州市曾都区建立了汇丰农村银行公司。该地区是中国最大的香菇出口地区，香港进口香菇总数的一半来自当地。汇丰银行将把目标对准进行小型经营的农民、农产品供应方以及出口方，经营业务包括普通银行服务以及贸易金融等。
中国正在逐渐放宽农村地区的金融机构准入，汇丰银行在这样的大环境下获得了中国银监会的批准。预计这样的措施将提高中国农业板块的增长。汇丰银行有 限公司中国业务总裁翁富泽表示：“这一前景令人兴奋。我们能够从中获得经验，并在其他国家农村金融市场提供多种金融服务，例如在印度。”
预计汇丰农村银行公司将有25名员工，并于年底完成建设。瑞士信贷驻香港分析师Bill Stacey则表示，金融服务的放开将提高中国农村人口的流动性。
《金融时报》：通胀将抑制中国能源价格
据英国《金融时报》8月10日报道，2005和2006年，为了应对逐渐上涨的煤炭价格，中国政府出台政策向消费者征收附加费。然而，尽管今年的煤炭价格仍继续升高，但是分析师认为，受通胀影响中国政府将不会再征收能源附加费。
美林证券分析师Joseph Jacobelli表示，不收取附加费主要是因为较高的通胀率。对于中国通胀，投资界持有两种观点，一是认为中国的物价上涨是临时性的，主要是由于食品价格上涨引起的，二是认为情况并没有这么简单。
中国政府将于下周发布7月份的CPI指数，预计将超过6月份的4.4%。里昂证券经纪人Andy Rothman表示：“中国政府已经意识到，近期的物价上涨是由于国内的供应不足而造成的，并非用于需求的大幅增长。因此我们认为，政府将不会采取措施为目前的经济降温。”
而瑞士信贷分析师Dong Tao在本周的分析报告中则表示：“政府和市场低估了通胀的程度。”他指出，除食品价格上涨外，工资增长也已经在制造业和服务业等领域中出现，这将导致产品成本上升。
《英文虎报》：国外投资者称中国市场透明度逐渐提高
据香港《英文虎报》8月10日报道，法国兴业银行中国部门负责人Raymond Hui日前表示，中国金融市场正向四年前承诺的方向发展。
Raymond Hui称：“中国市场正变得更加开放、更加透明。外资银行也更全面、更深入地进入中国市场。”“由于央行新的市场运作系统，价格发现机制也逐渐变得更加有效，这使得外资和中资银行对固定收入和债券交易更感兴趣。”
Raymond Hui表示，2003年他刚来到上海时，甚至无法从市场获得准确报价。而外资银行因为无法把握市场上最主要的资金流动，往往被市场边缘化。此外，一些最基本的业务，例如利率掉期、开放式债券回购等均不存在。不过，在过去几年中，这些业务已经逐渐放开。
哈利·波特将再创商业奇迹
俄军出动30架战略轰炸机演练大规模远程空袭
8月8日早上，在俄罗斯领空同时飞机30架远程战略轰炸机，其中有4架图-160，12架图-95，14架图-22М3。配合这些战略轰炸机，俄空军同时动用了4架伊尔-78空中加油机。
此次演习持续两天，从8月8日到8月9日，远程战略轰炸机将在大西洋，
此次参加演习的人员中有经验丰富的老飞行员，也有首次飞出俄罗斯国界进行导弹射击的年轻飞行员。
另据塔斯社报道，8月8日，俄罗斯空军总司令助理上校亚历山大·德罗贝舍夫斯基称，当地
他说：“在今天的飞行演习中，俄空军出动30多架飞机，包括图-160，图-95МС，图-22М3和伊尔-78。远程战略轰炸机的飞行员将在此次演习中将
他同时指出：“俄空军
加拿大总理亲自北上争夺北冰洋
【南京日报报道】加拿大总理斯蒂芬·哈珀8日北上前往加拿大北极地区，亲自为加拿大争夺北冰洋的努力造势。哈珀这次北上则让对北极的争夺更为激烈。面对加拿大的冷嘲热讽，俄总统普京毫不在乎，并称将以科考结果作为俄方在北极大陆架问题上的立场基础。
北冰洋沿岸5个国家对北冰洋的争夺近来急剧升温。一星期前，俄罗斯北极科考队出动深海潜水器，在北极点下潜至4000多米深的海底，插上了钛合金制造的俄罗斯国旗。
加拿大舰艇战机北极演练
加拿大舰艇战机北极演练哈珀此次北上行程将耗时3天。预计他将作出数项与加拿大在北冰洋主权有关的声明，其中最重要的是宣布加拿大在北冰洋首个深水港的地点。他还可能宣布在北极地区建立一个军事训练基地。
哈珀将于9日同大约800名加拿大军人、加拿大皇家骑警队员和因纽特巡游部队人员见面。这些部队正在加北极地区开展扫毒与预防环境灾难训练行动。
一名不愿公布姓名的加政府官员说：“俄罗斯派出一艘潜水器在海底安插了一面小旗，我们就派出政府总理去维护加拿大主权。”
宣布加拿大在北冰洋首个深水港位置则将是哈珀此行的最重要活动。哈珀上月说：“加拿大在是否维护北极地区主权上只有两个选择，要么开发要么失去。听清楚了，这届政府打算开发北极。”
加拿大为争夺北冰洋近年来痛下血本。哈珀上月宣布将建造6艘至8艘破冰巡逻船，加强对加拿大在北极地区的领海与岛屿的海防保卫工作，同时也为争夺北冰洋添加筹码。
加拿大还宣布派出海岸警卫队的驱逐舰一艘、海军船只与潜艇各一艘，以及战斗机前往北部弗罗比舍湾、哈得孙海峡和戴维斯海峡参加扫毒与预防环境灾难训练。
俄探险队回国受 到英雄般欢迎俄罗斯前往北极水底“插旗”的科考队7日回到俄罗斯受到了英雄般的欢迎。科考队在北极地区搜集证据，以证明罗蒙诺索夫海岭等从地质角度上讲是 西伯利亚大陆架的延伸。如果他们的证据得到联合国认可，俄罗斯将对120万平方公里北冰洋水域拥有权益，接近北极圈面积的一半。俄总统普京在接见科考队时 说，这次科考成果应该作为解决北极地区归属问题的依据，“至于我们大陆架的延伸问题，今后当然需要和同行讨论，需要向国际组织证明，需要把你们的考察结果 列为在解决这些问题时俄罗斯立场的基础。这一重大功绩，既属于科学，也属于从事这些活动的具体的人。”
据悉，俄罗斯摩尔曼斯 克海运公司总经理梅德韦杰夫已经宣布，俄罗斯拥有现实的技术能力，一年半以后就能开始在北极地区俄罗斯大陆架部分钻探石油和天然气。而且俄专家已经起草了 实现北极大陆架油气钻探计划的方案，准备改装现役原子破冰船，使其成为既能破冰航行又能展开勘探工作的钻探平台。
热点聚焦
北冰洋面积为2100万平方公里。北冰洋可能蕴藏着极其丰富的石油、煤炭能源，已经勘探出天然气，还发现了丰富的钻石资源，特别是随着国际能源价格的上涨，加拿大、俄罗斯、美国、丹麦、挪威都希望在此跑马占地。
《华尔街日报》网站有望免费开放
最近的默多克好事不断，成功入主道琼斯，而新闻集团最新公布的业绩报告也让其满意。据财报显示，新闻集团截至6月30日的上一财政年度的营运利 润为45亿美元。其中，互联网业务“福克斯互动媒体”收入超过了5.5亿美元，盈利为1000万美元。Myspace是福克斯互动媒体公司的最主要网站资 产，其创造的财年收入超出了默多克的预期。新闻集团同时表示，其本财政年度营运利润较上一年度的增幅有望超过10%，那也就是说至少可达到49亿美元。
收益颇多的默多克开始更多地考虑他的新阵地，其表示，《华尔街日报》是一个仍有很多开发余地的品牌，收购道琼斯的交易堪称物有所值。将《华尔街日报》网站免费开放，从短期来看是非常费钱的做法，但是长远来看还是非常值得的，其将慎重的作出决定。
此外，默多克表示，要进一步开拓《华尔街日报》在欧洲和亚洲的业务，报道更多的国内和国际新闻，提升其竞争力。并计划卖掉道琼斯旗下现有的地方报纸业务，预计此项收购交易也可为默多克带来5000万美元的成本协同效应。
【相关新闻】
日前，美国《福布斯》杂志排出了一个超级富豪太太排行榜。在这个排行榜上，默多克的现任太太邓文迪位居第一。邓文迪现年39岁，能力过人，她持 有耶鲁大学MBA学位，近年更开始沾手丈夫的传媒王国，替他打理中国MySpace。而比尔·盖茨的太太梅琳达·盖茨位列第二。
乌克兰巨人2.54米 力压鲍喜顺成世界新第一高人
乌克兰总统尤先科与世界第一巨人合影
据俄罗斯纽带网报道，乌克兰一位37岁的男子身高达到2.54米，超过中国的鲍喜顺刷新了吉尼斯世界纪录， 成为世界第一高人。该纪录将会被记载在2008年新出版的《吉尼斯世界纪录大全〉。
根据吉尼斯世界纪录组织的证实，该男子名叫雷奥尼特-斯塔特尼克，于1971年出生在乌克兰的一个小农庄， 他在农庄从事的工作为兽医。由于其惊人的身高，他所穿鞋子的尺码也同样惊人的达到60码。
之前根据吉尼斯世界纪录，世界最高的人是来自中国的鲍喜顺，他的身高达到了2.36米。
美宣布对台湾出售改良型鱼叉反舰飞弹
这项销售包括六十枚AGM-84L鱼叉飞弹、三十组空射架、以及五十套将AGM-84G版本升级为AGM-84L版本的组件。
鱼叉飞弹可以从战斗机、水面舰艇或潜舰中发射，攻击地面以及水面目标。
鱼叉飞弹制造厂波音公司表示，在全球定位系统协助下，鱼叉飞弹可以分辨船只与附近岛屿或陆地的区别，也可以在拥挤的海上航道中攻击目标。
波音公司资料显示，鱼叉飞弹五百磅的高爆弹头对於许多地上目标可发挥致命摧毁力，包括海岸防卫设施、地对空飞弹发射设施、飞机、港口工业设施以及停泊在港口中的船只等。
国防部在声明中指出，台湾以前曾向美国购买空射型以及舰射型鱼叉飞弹。国防部同时表示，美国根据台湾关系法对台湾出售这批武器，美国政府在台湾关系法中承诺对台湾提供「防御性武器。
联想减持神州数码股份 套现近9亿元引发业界猜想
目前这一交易正在报请中国政府有关部门审批。
神州数码承诺不会退市
公告显示，联想控股向买家赛富投资基金、弘毅投资和Fine Elite Management Ltd.出售29.6%的股份，交易完成后，联想控股所持神码股份将降至17.83%。GA公司则向赛富投资基金和郭为全资拥有的KIL投资公司出售其全 部所持的13.34%股份。按每股预定的收购价3.5港币，本次收购共涉资约13.18亿港元。
该收购完成后，几家大的投资公司加上郭为以及联想控股总股份达到60.87%，再加上员工所持有的期权即达到75%。香港联交所规定，公司实际控制人所拥有的股权超过75%之后，而剩余25%股东中有90%人同意被大股东要约收购，公司即可达到退市标准。
神州数码在公告中承诺，股权变化完成后，神州数码将重新选举产生新的董事会，公司将继续进行现有的IT服务业务，并将会维持在联交所上市的地位。但联交 所表示，收购完成后，如果公众持股少于25%或者联交所相信股份买卖存在或者可能存在退市的情况，公众持有股份不足以维持一个有序市场，将暂停股份买卖。
联想控股减持不是避嫌
神州数码和联想集团是联想控股旗下的两大子公司。神州数码的前身是联想科技。2000年联想集团分拆出旗下联想科技、联想系统集成和联想网络公司，这三 家公司成立新的神州数码公司。其主营业务是提供IT服务，如IT产品分销、提供信息技术应用服务以及开发系列软件等。
在4年前，联想集团和神州数码曾因光大银行信息化项目而同室操戈，一度联想集团和神州数码的业务冲突越演越烈，尤其反映在IT服务领域。而在不久前，美 国第三大电脑厂商Gateway悄然进入中国市场，神州数码成为其总代理商。因此也有业内人士认为联想控股减持神州数码，主要是避免再出现“左手打右手” 的尴尬。
神州数码新闻发言人昨天否认了这一说法，称现在与联想集团在业务上已经截然不同，不会出现竞争。Gartner中国硬件市场首席分析师叶磊也认为，近年 来联想集团已经明确把电脑和手机作为其主营业务，几乎再没有和神州数码业务重合的部分。叶磊同时认为，联想控股不太会继续减持神州数码的股份。
这次抛售是资金正常流动 联想控股这次减持共可回收现金近9亿元。前日，联想集团已发公告称正在谈判收购欧洲第三大电脑制造商Packard Bell公司。按以往并购的惯例，联想与Packard Bell的交易方式可能也将包括现金加股票。据此，有分析人士大胆猜想联想控股此举是为其子公司收购Packard Bell募集资金。叶磊认为这种猜测的可能性不大。“首先联想集团并不缺这近9亿元现金。现在联想集团的账上仍有十几亿元现金。另外，联想控股回流的现金 要划给联想集团还需要转交。如果联想集团需要资金不必通过这样繁琐的程序。”
对于这次收购，叶磊更倾向于将它定位为一次正常的资本运作。新进入的资本主要来自国外基金公司，这样对于以后神州数码的海外发展十分有益。同时，联想控股 是一家金融控股机构，这次抛售是资金的正常流动。而对于神州数码执行董事兼CEO郭为的购入行为，叶磊指出，这至少表明在神州数码内部是很看好这次收购 的，不然郭为也不会自己参购。
热身赛-吉拉迪诺错失良机 AC米兰0-1贝蒂斯
腾讯
AC米兰在莫斯科进行的铁路杯上一平一负，仅靠点球击败东道主取得季军。此役是奥利维拉转会米兰时定下的比赛，安切洛蒂带上了全部的主力，吉拉迪诺新赛季首次亮相，西多夫、卡卡在身后游弋，内斯塔、卡拉泽坐镇后防。贝蒂斯正在为建队百年大搞庆典，葡萄牙门将里卡多把守大门，包括华尼托、索比斯、马克-冈萨雷斯、奥东克尔等名将悉数上阵。
第1分钟，奥东克尔禁区右翼突然起脚打门，迪达飞身将球扑出底线。一分钟后，奥东克尔右路
第11分钟，奥多右路斜传禁区，吉拉迪诺前点接应转身凌空抽射打高。第13分钟，扬库洛夫斯基左路突进扣过铲截的两名后卫传中，吉拉迪诺头球顶偏。第15分钟，皮尔洛23码外任意球攻门，皮球擦着立柱飞出底线！第18分钟，奥东克尔前场高速突破被卡拉泽放倒，贝蒂斯任意球开到禁区，后点纳诺头球顶高。
第22分钟，扬库洛夫斯基斜传禁区，吉拉迪诺背对大门漂亮的勾球转身，但打门太正被破坏出底线。第24分钟，吉拉迪诺再次错失绝佳
第33分钟，皮尔洛右路任意球开到禁区，安布罗西尼后点凌空劲射打高。第37分钟，卡卡右路传中，里卡多后退中将球托出底线。随后西多夫禁区左侧大力低射打偏。第39分钟，奥东克尔
易地再战，斯托拉里替下了迪达。第47分钟，斯托拉里在禁区内犯规，主裁判处以极刑！马克-冈萨雷斯主罚点球得手，1-0！第51分钟，西多夫在25码外尝试一脚远射打高。第54分钟，卡卡直塞，吉拉迪诺突入禁区低射被回防的后卫挡出。第57分钟，卡卡带球长驱直入到禁区横敲，里卡多将球扑住。
第63分钟，布罗基和古尔库夫上场，皮尔洛和安布罗西尼被替下。第70分钟，西多夫任意球开 到后点，布罗基后点凌空大力抽射打高。第74分钟，索比斯被换下。第76分钟，西多夫23码外任意球打门，里卡多奋力扑救，球砸在横梁上弹出！第80分 钟，吉拉迪诺中路头球攻门，里卡多飞身将球扑出！第81分钟，奥巴梅扬替下了吉拉迪诺。第85分钟，马克-冈萨雷斯外围低射打偏。全场比赛结束，贝蒂斯主 场1-0力克AC米兰。(kerlon)
贝蒂斯：里卡多/伊利奇、华尼托、纳诺、巴比奇/里维拉、胡安德(安格尔86')、奥东克尔/拉法埃尔-索比斯、马克-冈萨雷斯、帕沃内
AC
专家认为新发现的大行星表明行星系统多样
新华网江苏频道南京8月9日电（蔡玉高、周润健）针对美国科学家宣布发现已知最大行星“ＴｒＥＳ－４”的消息，中国行星专家、中科院紫金山天文台研究员王思潮表示，这表明太阳系外行星系统是多样的，这一新发现对人类研究行星系统的起源、结构和演化都有重要意义。
每逢８月，行星总是带给人们惊喜。去年８月，国际天文学界召开联合大会，重新确定了行星的定义。今年８月初，美国洛厄尔天文台对外宣布，他们已经发现迄今已知最大行星，其直径为地球的２０倍，为太阳系最大行星木星的１．７倍。
王思潮说，根据去年８月重新确定的行星定义，无论从个头，还是从其与母星（恒星）的关系来看，“ＴｒＥＳ－４”都是绝对符合行星标准的。
王思潮表示，以前人类也曾在太阳系外发现过比木星大的行星，但是此次发现的“ＴｒＥＳ－４”个头却比以往所发现的行星都大很多。其组成成分和木星有些类似，都是以氢为主。
王思潮说，更让人兴奋的是，“ＴｒＥＳ－４”与其母星（Ｇｓｃｏ２６２０－００６４８恒星）的距离比太阳系内任何一颗行星与母星太 阳的距离都要小得多，这表明了太阳系外行星系统是多样的。这比以往天文研究对行星的认识又深入了一步。此次发现对人类研究行星系统的起源、结构和演化都有 重要意义。
对于公众最关心的“ＴｒＥＳ－４”是否会有生命的问题，王思潮表示，从其表面温度以及组成物质来看，有生命的可能性几乎为零。格鲁吉亚呼吁安理会开会讨论“战机入侵”事件
与此同时，欧盟和美国呼吁格俄双方保持克制，合作调查事件真相。
8月7日，在格鲁吉亚哥里的一个军事基地，一枚被格政府认定由俄罗斯战斗机发射的未爆导弹被引爆。俄罗斯外交部副部长卡拉辛当日说，俄罗斯主张立即查明6 日晚在格鲁吉亚领空出现的不明飞机一事。此前，格内务部长瓦诺·梅拉比什维利在格首都第比利斯说，来自俄罗斯方向的苏-24飞机6日晚入侵了格领空，并在 齐泰卢巴尼村投下一枚导弹。 新华社/路透
格方呼吁安理会商讨
格鲁吉亚外长格拉·别茹阿什维利８日宣布，格方将要求安理会就这一事件举行紧急会议，并称格方已搜集到更多证据。
别茹阿什维利说：“格鲁吉亚要求联合国安理会举行紧急会议，商讨最近发生的战机入侵投弹事件。”他还宣布，格方已搜集到更多有关俄战机“入侵”的雷达资料证据。
格驻联合国临时代办伊拉克利·奇科万尼当天在纽约联合国总部说，他计划会见安理会轮值主席，要求安理会举行紧急会议，讨论战机入侵格领空事件。他声称，格鲁吉亚拥有“不可置疑的证据”，证明俄方战机“侵入”格鲁吉亚领空。
在被问及格俄双方是否因此处于冲突对立状态时，奇科万尼说：“我们不认为双方此时处于冲突状态，但我们要求俄方就此展开调查，向格方提供相关信息，并参加格方的调查。”
俄罗斯声明否认入侵
俄罗斯方面８日再次否认其战机侵入格领空，并暗示格方制造了这起事件，有意向俄方挑衅。
俄副外长格里戈里·卡拉辛在一份声明中说：“俄罗斯对这一事件极为关注，认为（制造事件者）企图破坏俄格关系取得的积极进展，并使南奥塞梯问题解决前景复杂化。”
路透社报道，初步调查显示，“入侵战机”并没有发射导弹，而是将其丢弃。不愿透露姓名的格鲁吉亚官员说，南奥塞梯地方武装错误地向战机发射导弹，飞行员随后丢弃导弹逃离格领空。
俄国防部反驳了这种解释。南奥塞梯地方政府官员也表示，上述解释非常“荒谬”，因为其武装力量根本没有装备导弹。
格外交部发表声明说，６日坠落在首都第比利斯西北约６０公里处的导弹是一枚“彩虹”ＫＨ－５８反雷达导弹，由一架俄制苏－２４战机投掷。声明指出，格军方没有装备上述型号的战机和导弹。
欧美呼吁双方克制
在俄格双方争执的同时，美国和欧盟呼吁两国保持克制，合作调查清楚事件真相。
美国务院发言人肖恩·麦科马克说，美国就此事分别与格鲁吉亚和俄罗斯通话，并正在对事件进行分析。
麦科马克说：“类似入侵此前也发生过，不管哪一方对此次事件负责，此类挑衅行为必须停止……美国正在对事件进行分析，我们对此持谨慎态度，以便了解所有事实。”
欧盟方面也呼吁格俄双方保持克制，指出全部事实有待进一步调查。欧盟女发言人克里斯蒂安·霍曼说：“我们首先呼吁俄罗斯和格鲁吉亚保持克制，并要求双方合作，对事件展开调查。”
俄驻格鲁吉亚南奥塞梯维和部队人员８日继续在导弹坠落处调查，欧洲安全与合作组织（欧安组织）也派出观察员前往监督调查。（韩建军） 格鲁吉亚称俄威胁欧洲 要西方做出“正确反应” 新闻晨报消息：在格鲁吉亚指责俄罗斯战机入侵其领空并发射空对地导弹后，俄罗斯特使和格鲁吉亚总统都已前往事发现场了解情况。 目前，格方已向欧洲数国外长通报了此事，呼吁西方做出“正确反应”；俄罗斯外交部则要求立即调查这一事件，找出幕后黑手。 >>>点击详细 格俄争执"战机入侵"事件 联合国称不介入调查 新华网消息：格鲁吉亚７日向俄罗斯提出正式抗议，指责俄战机侵入格领空发射导弹，企图破坏格鲁吉亚稳定。俄方予以否认，暗示“战机入侵”事件实际上是格方栽赃。 联合国方面表示，不会对这一事件展开调查。分析人士认为，格俄两国自去年以来关系恶化，这一事件将给两国关系投下新的阴影。 俄外交部表示愿同格一起调查飞机入侵事件 新华网莫斯科８月８日电（记者 王丹蒂）俄罗斯外交部８日宣布，俄准备同格鲁吉亚一起调查不明飞机入侵格领空事件。 格鲁吉亚指责俄罗斯战机侵犯领空并投弹 新华网消息：格鲁吉亚内务部长７日说，两架俄罗斯战斗机６日侵犯了格鲁吉亚领空，并向格鲁吉亚领土发射了一枚空对地导弹。格方称俄方的举动为“侵略行为”，但俄方面则否认战机进入过格鲁吉亚领空。分析人士认为，这两个邻国间因此事的一番外交争执在所难免。 俄格局势骤紧 格鲁吉亚称遭到俄军直升机轰炸 环球时报消息：格鲁吉亚与俄罗斯是“冤家”邻居，自从各自宣布独立以来一直龃龉不断。12日，已经平静了一段时间的俄格局势又骤然紧张起来，原因就是格鲁吉亚指责有2架俄罗斯直升机袭击了格鲁吉亚的一座峡谷。 新闻分析： 专家称俄格关系步入死胡同 两国或成"绝对敌人" 中新网消息：据格鲁吉亚《佐治亚时报》《Georgian Times》报道，日前俄罗斯国际问题专家亚历山大-杜金亚历山大-杜金在接受来自格鲁吉亚记者采访时，发表了对俄格关系的担忧，甚至称格鲁吉亚有可能成为俄罗斯“绝对的敌人”。 南奥塞梯问题折射俄格关系 工人日报消息：2006年11月12日至13日，格鲁吉亚南奥塞梯自治州就脱离格鲁吉亚问题举行了全民公决，绝大多数公民投下赞成票。此结果并不出人意外，但还是激起方方面面的强烈反应。 俄格关系僵局难破 新 华网消息：在格鲁吉亚总统萨卡什维利表示愿意前往莫斯科与普京会面后，俄罗斯副总理兼国防部长伊万诺夫１０日向新闻界表示，普京和萨卡什维利近期会面的可 能性不大。从９月底格鲁吉亚扣押俄罗斯军人以来，俄对格鲁吉亚实施了空前的报复性制裁。舆论认为，俄格紧张关系折射出俄美争夺外高加索地区的斗争，是大国 在地缘政治斗争中的一次较量。 俄格“间谍风波”多面观 新华网消息：如果有间谍案发生，当事国通常以低调、谨慎的方法解决。但最近发生在俄罗斯与格鲁吉亚之间的“间谍风波”却闹得沸沸扬扬。从格鲁吉亚以间谍罪名逮捕俄军官，到俄罗斯大规模驱逐格非法移民、对格实施制裁，这场外交争端愈演愈烈，两国关系一路走低。
2007年8月9日星期四
World War II
World War II (abbreviated WWII), or the Second World War, was a worldwide military conflict which lasted from 1939 to 1945. World War II was the amalgamation of two conflicts, one starting in Asia, 1937, as the Second Sino-Japanese War and the other beginning in Europe, 1939, with the invasion of Poland.
This global conflict split a majority of the world's nations into two opposing camps: the Allies and the Axis. Spanning much of the globe, World War II resulted in the deaths of over 60 million people, making it the deadliest conflict in human history.[1]
World War II was the most widespread war in history, and countries involved mobilized more than 100 million military personnel. Total war erased the distinction between civil and military resources and saw the complete activation of a nation's economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities for the purposes of the war effort; nearly two-thirds of those killed in the war were civilians. For example, nearly 11 million of the civilian casualties were victims of the Holocaust, which was largely conducted in Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union.
The conflict ended in an Allied victory. As a result, the United States and Soviet Union emerged as the world's two leading superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War for the next 45 years. Self determination gave rise to decolonization/independence movements in Asia and Africa, while Europe itself began traveling the road leading to integration.
Course of the war
Overview
- See also: Timeline of World War II
In September, 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria under false pretexts and captured it from the Chinese. In 1937, Japan again attacked China, starting the Second Sino-Japanese War.
In 1933, Adolf Hitler of the Nazi Party became leader of Germany. Under the Nazis, Germany began to rearm and to pursue a new nationalist foreign policy. By 1937, Hitler also began demanding the cession of territories which had historically been part of Germany, like Rhineland and Gdansk.
In Europe, Germany, and to a lesser extent Italy, asserted increasingly hostile and aggressive foreign policies and demands, which the United Kingdom and France initially attempted to diffuse primarily through diplomacy and appeasement.
In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland and war in Europe followed. The United Kingdom and France declared war. The French and British did not declare war at first, hoping they could presuade Hitler to diplomacy, but Hitler failed to respond. During the winter of 1939/1940 there was little indication of hostilities since neither side was willing to engage the other directly. This period was called the Phoney War.
In 1940, Germany captured Denmark and Norway in the spring, and then in the early summer France and the Low Countries. The United Kingdom was then targeted; the Germans attempted to cut the island off from vitally needed supplies and obtain air superiority in order to make an seaborne invasion possible. This never came to pass, but the Germans continued to attack the British mainland throughout the war, primarily from the air. Unable to engage German forces on the continent, the United Kingdom concentrated on combating German and Italian forces in the Mediterranean Basin. It had limited success however; it failed to prevent the Axis conquest of the Balkans and fought indecisively in the Western Desert Campaign. It had greater success in the Mediterranean Sea, dealing severe damage to the Italian Navy, and dealt Germany's first major defeat by winning the Battle of Britain.
In June 1941, the war expanded dramatically when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, bringing the Soviet Union into alliance with the United Kingdom. The German attack started strong, overrunning great tracts of Soviet territory, but began to stall by the winter.
Since invading Manchuria, Japan had been subjected to increasing economic sanctions by the United States and other Western nations, and was attempting to reduce these sanctions through diplomatic negotiations. In December 1941, however, the war expanded again when Japan, already into its fifth year of war with China, launched near simultaneous attacks against the United States and British assets in Southeast Asia; four days later, Germany declared war on the United States. This brought the United States and Japan into the greater conflict and turned previously separate Asian and European wars into a single global one.
In 1942, though Axis forces continued to make gains, the tide began to turn. Japan suffered its first major defeat against American forces in the Battle of Midway, where 4 of Japan's Aircraft carriers were destroyed. German forces in Africa were being pushed back by Anglo-American forces, and Germany's renewed summer offensive in the Soviet Union had ground to a halt.
In 1943 Germany suffered devastating losses to the Soviets at Stalingrad, and then again at Kursk, the greatest tank battle in military history. Their forces were expelled from Africa, and Allied forces began driving northward up through Sicily and Italy. The Japanese continued to lose ground as the American forces seized island after island in the Pacific Ocean.
In 1944, the outcome of the war was becoming clearly unfavorable for the Axis. Germany became boxed in as the Soviet offensive became a juggernaut in the east, pushing the Germans out of Russia and pressing into Poland and Romania; in the west, the Western Allies invaded mainland Europe, liberating France and the Low Countries and reaching Germany's western borders. While Japan launched a successful major offensive in China, in the Pacific, their navy suffered continued heavy losses as American forces captured airfields within bombing range of Tokyo.
In 1945 the war ended. In Europe, a final German counter-attack in the west failed, while Soviet forces captured Berlin in May, forcing Germany to surrender. In Asia, American forces captured the Japanese islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa while British forces in Southeast Asia managed to expel Japanese forces there. Initially unwilling to surrender, Japan finally capitulated after the Soviet Union invaded Manchukuo and the United States dropped atomic bombs on the mainland of Japan.
European Theatre
Events leading up to the war in Europe
Germany and France had been struggling for dominance in Continental Europe for 80 years and had fought two previous wars, the Franco-Prussian War and World War I. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Communist revolutionary movements began spreading across Europe, briefly taking power in both Budapest and Bavaria; in response, extreme right-wing Fascist and Nationalist groups were born.[2]
In 1922, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his fascist party took control of the Kingdom of Italy and set the model for German dictator Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party, which, aided by the civil unrest caused by the Great Depression, took power in Germany and eliminated its democratic government, the Weimar Republic. These two leaders began to re-militarize their countries and become increasingly hostile. Mussolini first conquered the African nation of Abyssinia and then seized Albania, with both Italy and Germany actively supporting Francisco Franco's fascist Falange party in the Spanish Civil War against the Second Spanish Republic (which was supported by the Soviet Union). Hitler then broke the Treaty of Versailles by increasing the size of the Germany's military, and re-militarized the Rhineland. He started his own expansion by annexing Austria and sought the same against the German-speaking regions (Sudetenland) of Czechoslovakia.
The British and French governments followed a policy of appeasement in order to avoid military confrontation after the high cost of the First World War. This policy culminated in the Munich Agreement in 1938, which would give the Sudetenland to Germany in exchange for Germany making no further territorial claims in Europe.[3][4] In March 1939, Germany disregarded the agreement and annexed the remainder of Czechoslovakia. Mussolini, following suit, annexed Albania in April.
The failure of the Munich Agreement showed that negotiations with Hitler could not be trusted, and that his aspirations for dominance in Europe went beyond what the United Kingdom and France would tolerate. France and Poland pledged on May 19, 1939, to provide each other with military assistance in the event either was attacked. The following August, the British guaranteed the same.
On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact which provided for sales of oil and food from the Soviets to Germany, thus reducing the danger of a British blockade such as the one that had nearly starved Germany in World War I. Also included was a secret agreement that would divide Central Europe into German and Soviet areas of interest, including a provision to partition Poland. Each country agreed to allow the other a free hand in its area of influence, including military occupation.
Germany's war against the Western Allies
Blitzkrieg
On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, using the false pretext of a faked "Polish attack" on a German border post. On September 3, the United Kingdom issued an ultimatum to Germany. No reply was received, and Britain, Australia and New Zealand declared war on Germany, followed later that day by France. Soon afterwards, South Africa, Canada and Nepal also declared war on Germany. Immediately, Great Britain began seizing German ships and implementing a blockade.
Despite the French and British treaty obligations and promises to the Polish government, both France and Great Britain were unwilling to launch a full invasion of Germany. The French mobilized slowly and then mounted only a short token offensive in the Saar; neither did the British send land forces in time to support the Poles. Meanwhile, on September 8, the Germans reached Warsaw, having ripped through the Polish defenses. On September 17, the Soviet Union, pursuant to its prior agreement with Germany, invaded Poland from the east. Poland was soon overwhelmed, and the last Polish units surrendered on October 6.
After Poland fell, Germany paused to regroup during the winter while the British and French stayed on the defensive. The period was referred to by journalists as "the Phoney War" because of the inaction on both sides. In Eastern Europe, the Soviets began occupying Baltic states leading to a confrontation with Finland, a conflict which ended with land concessions to the Soviets on March 12, 1940. In early April 1940, both German and Allied forces launched nearly simultaneous operations around Norway over access to Swedish iron ore. It was a short campaign which resulted in complete German control of Denmark and Norway, though at a heavy cost to their surface navy. The fall of Norway led to the Norway Debate in London, which resulted in the resignation of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who was replaced by Winston Churchill.
On May 10, 1940, the Germans invaded France and the Low Countries. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and the French Army advanced into Flanders and planned to fight a mobile war in the north, while maintaining a static continuous front along the Maginot Line further south. This was foiled by an unexpected German thrust through the Ardennes, splitting the Allies in two. The BEF and French forces, encircled in the north, were evacuated from Dunkirk in Operation Dynamo. France, overwhelmed by the blitzkrieg, was forced to sign an armistice with Germany on June 22, 1940, leading to the direct German occupation of Paris and two-thirds of France, and the establishment of a German puppet state headquartered in southeastern France known as Vichy France.
With only the United Kingdom remaining as an opposing force in Europe, Germany began to prepare Operation Sealion, the invasion of Britain. Most of the British Army's heavy weapons and supplies had been lost at Dunkirk, but the Royal Navy was still stronger than the Kriegsmarine and kept control of the English Channel. The Germans then attempted to gain air superiority by destroying the Royal Air Force (RAF) using the Luftwaffe. The ensuing air war in the late summer of 1940 became known as the Battle of Britain. The Luftwaffe initially targeted RAF Fighter Command aerodromes and radar stations, but Luftwaffe Commander Hermann Göring and Hitler, angered by British bombing raids on German cities, switched their attention towards bombing English cities, an offensive which became known as The Blitz. This diversion of resources allowed the RAF to rebuild their airbases, eventually leading Hitler to give up on his goal of establishing air superiority over the English Channel; this in turn led to the permanent postponing of Operation Sealion.
With Germany and her allies having total control of the continent, the United Kingdom and its allies settled for strategic bombing and special forces operations in mainland Europe. Many of the conquered nations formed governments in exile and military units within the United Kingdom as well as domestic resistance movements. Germany, meanwhile, fortified its position by constructing the Atlantic Wall.
Battle of the Atlantic
The Battle of the Atlantic, a nautical campaign which lasted the duration of the war, started after the German invasion of Poland with the torpedoing of the British liner SS Athenia by a German submarine (U-boat). Having faced raids on shipping during the First World War, the British quickly implemented a convoy solution to protect merchant vessels; they were short of escort ships though, so many merchant ships had to sail without protection. At first, U-boats primarily operated within British waters while the Atlantic Ocean was covered by German surface vessels. The British attempted to counter the U-boat threat by forming anti-submarine hunting groups, which were ultimately ineffective because the U-boats proved too elusive.
With the German conquest of Norway and France by June 1940, U-boats enjoyed decreased resistance. The French Navy was removed as an Allied force, and additional ports in France on the Atlantic Ocean became available to the German Navy (Kriegsmarine), allowing them to increase the range of their vessels. The Royal Navy became severely stretched, having to remain stationed in the English Channel to protect against a German invasion, send forces to the Mediterranean Sea to make up for the loss of the French fleet, and provide escort for merchant vessels. This was somewhat mitigated by the Destroyers for Bases Agreement with the United States Navy in September 1940, in which the British exchanged several of their oversea bases for fifty destroyers which were then used for escort duties. The success of U-boats in this period led to an increase of their production and the development of the wolf pack technique.
The German surface navy, which had suffered substantial losses in the capture of Norway, had mixed results. While there were several successful merchant raids, such as Operation Berlin, they also suffered several losses, such as the battleships Graf Spee and Bismarck. The loss of the Bismarck had deeper ramifications on naval policy though, because as a result Hitler ordered all heavy surface vessels to Norwegian waters[2], shifting them from raiding operations to protection from a potential Allied invasion of Scandinavia. While the Royal Navy also suffered the loss of capital ships, such as the aircraft carrier HMS Courageous, the battleship HMS Royal Oak and the battlecruiser HMS Hood, their larger surface navy was better able to absorb the losses.
In May 1941, the British captured an intact Enigma machine, which greatly assisted in breaking German codes and allowed for plotting convoy routes which evaded U-boat positions. In the summer of 1941, the Soviet Union entered the war on the side of the Allies, but they lost much of their equipment and manufacturing base in the first few weeks following the German invasion. The Western Allies attempted to remedy this by sending Arctic convoys, which faced constant harassment from German forces. In September, many of the U-boats operating in the Atlantic were ordered to the Mediterranean to block British supply routes. When the United States entered the war that December, they did not take precautionary anti-submarine measures; this resulted in shipping losses so great that the Germans referred to it as a second happy time.
In February 1942, several German capital ships that were stationed in the port of Brest, France, managed to comply with Hitler's earlier order and slipped through the English Channel to their home bases in German waters, dealing a significant blow to the Royal Navy's reputation. In June, the Leigh light allowed Allied aircraft to illuminate U-boats that had been detected by the airplanes radar, but this was soon negated by the Germans with Metox, a radar detection system that gave them advance notice of such an aircraft's approach. In American waters, the institution of shore blackouts and an interlocking convoy system resulted in a drop in attacks, and the U-boats shifted their operations back to the mid-Atlantic by August. In December, a strong German surface navy force engaged an Arctic convoy destined for the Soviet Union and failed to destroy a single merchant ship; this resulted in the resignation of Grand Admiral (Großadmiral) Erich Raeder, supreme commander of the Kriegsmarine. He was replaced by Commander of Submarines Karl Dönitz, and all naval building priorities turned to the U-boats.
In January, 1943, the British developed the H2S radar system which was undetectable by Metox. As before, this was followed by a counter-invention on the German side, the Naxos radar detector, which allowed German fighters to hone in on Allied aircraft utilizing the H2S. In the spring, the Battle of the Atlantic began to turn in favour of the Allies with the pivotal point being Black May, a period where the Allies had fewer ships sunk and the Kriegsmarine lost 25% of their active U-boats. That December, the German surface fleet lost their last active battlecruiser in the Battle of North Cape. By this time, the Kriegsmarine was unable to regain the initiative; Allied production, such as the mass-produced Liberty ships, improved antisubmarine warfare tactics, sea route patrols with long range attack aircraft, and ever-improving technology led to increasing U-boat losses and more supplies getting through. This allowed for the massive supply build up in the United Kingdom needed for the eventual invasion of Western Europe in mid-1944.
Mediterranean, Africa, and the Middle East
Control of Southern Europe, the Mediterranean Sea and North Africa was important because the British Empire depended on shipping through the Suez Canal. If the canal fell into Axis hands or if the Royal Navy lost control of the Mediterranean, then transport between the United Kingdom, India, and Australia would have to go around the Cape of Good Hope, an increase of several thousand miles.
Almost immediately after declaring war on France and the United Kingdom in June 1940, Italy initiated the siege of Malta, an island under British control located in the Mediterranean between mainland Italy and its colony in Libya. Minimal resources were initially placed by both sides though, the Italians needing to reserve their strength for other planned invasions and the British not believing they could effectively defend it. As the importance of the campaigns in North Africa increased though, so did that of Malta and the disruptions of Axis supply lines that Allied forces stationed there could provide.
Following the French surrender, the British attacked the French Navy anchored in North Africa in July 1940, out of fear that it might fall into German hands; this contributed to a souring of British-French relations for the next few years. Soon following this action was the Battle of Calabria, the first large conflict between the Royal Navy and the Italian Navy (Regia Marina).
With France no longer a threat, Italy was able to relax its guard on its western possessions in Africa which bordered French territory and focus on the British forces in the east. In August, Italy invaded British Somaliland, located in the Horn of Africa, expelling British forces and creating Italian East Africa. The following month, the Italians then made a small incursion into British-held Egypt, starting the Western Desert Campaign.
The United Kingdom, along with the Free French Forces, a collection of resistance fighters under Charles de Gaulle, then attempted to replace Vichy control over French territories with that of the Free French. In September, 1940, they made a failed attempt to capture French West Africa, though in November, they later succeeded in French Equatorial Africa. Between these attempts, the Italians launched their own offensive from Albania and attacked Greece.
Starting in November of 1940, the British had a string of successful operations against Italian forces. On November 12 they launched the first all-aircraft naval attack against the Italian fleet at Taranto. Then, in December, the British Commander-in-Chief of the Middle East, General Archibald Wavell, launched Operation Compass, expelling Italian forces from Egypt and pushing them all the way west across Libya. Starting in January, 1941, he started another offensive into Italian East Africa, conquering the short-lived state. Italy was also facing problems in the Balkans, where the Greek Army had pushed the Italians out of Greece and were now stalemated in southern Albania.
Alarmed by the Italian setbacks, Hitler authorized reinforcements, and sent German forces to Africa in February. The British also started redeploying their forces, sending soldiers from North Africa to Greece starting in early March; in an effort to secure their transportation lines, the Royal Navy managed to engage the Regia Marina in the Battle of Cape Matapan, doing significant damage to the Italian fleet. The German forces in Africa, led by German General Erwin Rommel, however, launched an offensive against the now depleted British forces near the end of March. During this offense, the British also feared having their oil supply cut due to a Nazi-friendly coup d'état in Iraq in early April. They were further pressed when the Germans invaded Greece and Yugoslavia. By the middle of April, Rommel's forces had pushed the British forces back into Egypt with the exception of the port of Tobruk, which he encircled and besieged. Shortly after, the British responded to the coup in Iraq by invading and occupying the country. By the end of May, German forces had conquered Yugoslavia, mainland Greece and further captured the island of Crete, forcing a withdraw of all British forces from the Balkans.
In June 8, the British and Free French invaded Vichy controlled Syria and Lebanon due to the Vichy allowance of Axis forces to pass through the area and utilize military bases. A week later, Wavell launched Operation Battleaxe, which was intended to be a major offensive in the Western Desert, but resulted in the loss of nearly half of the British tanks in the region. Frustrated by the lack of success, Churchill had Wavell replaced with Claude Auchinleck in early July. In late August, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the British and the Soviets launched a joint invasion of Iran to secure its oilfields and the Persian Corridor supply route for Soviet use.
There was then a lull in activity. The Soviet-German war had significantly reduced the importance of the Mediterranean theatre to the Germans and the British spent their time building up their forces. On November 18, they launched Operation Crusader, an offensive in the Western Desert which pushed Rommel back to his original starting point at El Agheila in Libya. The British suffered a significant blow in the sea though, losing several ships shortly after the First Battle of Sirte.
With the entry of Japan into the war in December 1941, the British were again forced to withdraw units from the Western Desert, this time transferring them to Burma. Once again Rommel took advantage of the situation, and on January 21, launched an offensive which pushed the British back to Gazala, just west of Tobruk. There was another lull in activity as both sides built up their forces. In May, after the Japanese Indian Ocean raid, the British invaded Vichy controlled Madagascar to prevent the Imperial Japanese Navy from using as launch point for further such attacks. Rommel then launched his own attack in late May, overrunning the British position in the Western Desert and chasing them well into Egypt, being halted at El Alamein. Shortly after, the Royal Navy suffered significant damage getting much needed supplies to Malta.
Like Wavell before him, Auchinleck's perceived failures led to his replacement by Churchill, this time by Harold Alexander with Bernard Montgomery taking over the ground forces in Egypt.
In late October, after building up his forces, Montgomery launched his offensive, pushing the Axis forces back and pursuing them across the desert. In November, Anglo-American forces landed in Vichy-controlled Northwest Africa with minimal resistance; in retaliation, the Germans seized the remainder of mainland France, though they failed to capture the remainder of the French Navy. Soon, Rommel's forces were pincered in Tunisia and by May of 1943, were forced to evacuate Africa entirely.
In July, the Italian Campaign began with the Allied invasion of Sicily. The continued series of Italian defeats led to Mussolini being dismissed by the King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III and subsequently arrested. His successor, Pietro Badoglio, then began negotiating surrender with the Allies. On September 3 the Allies invaded Italy itself and the Italians signed an armistice. This was made public on September 8, the same day the Allies launched a subsequent invasion of the Italian held Dodecanese islands. Germany had been planning for such an event though, and executed Operation Achse, the seizure of northern and central Italy. A few days later, Mussolini was rescued by German special forces and before the end of September created the Italian Social Republic, a German client state.
From October until mid-1944, the Allies fought through a series of defensive lines and fortifications designed to slow down their progress. On April 25, a little over a year and half after its creation, the Italian Social Republic was overthrown by Italian partisans; Mussolini, his mistress and several of his ministers were captured by the partisans while attempting to flee and executed. Shortly after, one of strongest of the German defensive lines, the Winter Line, was breached nearly simultaneously in May at Monte Cassino by British-led forces and at Anzio by the Americans; though the Allies could have encircled and potentially destroyed the bulk of German forces in Italy, the American forces instead moved towards Rome, capturing the city on June 4.
In August, Allied forces in Italy were divided, with a significant portion sent to southern France to assist in the liberation of Western Europe while the remainder pressed north to engage the remaining German forces, notably at the Gothic Line. Fighting in Italy would continue until early May, 1945, only a few days prior to the general German surrender.
Liberation of Western Europe
| “ | You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world. | ” |
| “ | In the East, the vastness of space will … permit a loss of territory … without suffering a mortal blow to Germany’s chance for survival. Not so in the West! If the enemy here succeeds … consequences of staggering proportions will follow within a short time.[5] | ” |
| — Adolf Hitler |
By the Spring of 1944, the Allied preparations for the invasion of France and the initial stages for the liberation of western Europe (Operation Overlord) were complete. They had assembled around 120 Divisions with over 2 million men, of which 1.3 million were Americans, 600,000 were British and the rest Canadian, Free French and Polish. The invasion, code-named Operation Neptune but commonly referred to as D-Day, was set for June 5th but bad weather postponed the invasion to June 6, 1944.[6] Almost 85–90% of all German troops were deployed on the Eastern Front and only 400,000 Germans in two armies, the German Seventh Army and the newly-created Fifth Panzer Army, were stationed in the area. The Germans had also constructed an elaborate series of fortifications along the coast called the Atlantic Wall, but in many places the Wall was incomplete. The Allied forces under supreme command of Dwight D. Eisenhower had launched an elaborate deception campaign to convince the Germans that the landings would occur in the Calais area which caused the Germans to deploy many of their forces in that sector. Only 50,000 Germans were deployed in the Normandy sector on the day of the invasion.
The invasion began with 17,000 airborne troops being dropped in Normandy to serve as a screening force to prevent the Germans from attacking the beaches. During the early morning, a massive naval flotilla bombarded German defenses on the beaches, but due to lack of visibility most of the shots missed their targets. Additionally, most of the troop transport ships (with personnel, trucks, and equipment) were off-course, some as much as thousands of yards from their respective landing zone amongst the five beach areas (Utah, Omaha, Sword, Juno and Gold). The Americans in particular suffered heavy losses on Omaha beach due to the German fortifications being left intact. However by the end of the first day, most of the Allied objectives were accomplished even though the British and Canadian objective of capturing Caen proved too optimistic. The Germans launched no significant counterattack on the beaches as Hitler believed the landings to be a decoy. Only three days later the German High command realized that Normandy was the actual invasion, but by then the Allies had already consolidated their beachheads.
The bocage terrain of Normandy where the Americans had landed made it ideal ground for defensive warfare. Nevertheless, the Americans made steady progress and captured the deep-water port of Cherbourg on June 26, one of the primary objectives of the invasion. However, the Germans had mined the harbor and destroyed most of the port facilities before surrendering, and it would be another month before the port could be brought back into limited use. The British launched another attack on June 13 to capture Caen but were held back as the Germans had moved in large number of troops to hold the city. The city was to remain in German hands for another 6 weeks. It finally fell to British and Canadian forces on July 9.
Allied firepower, improved tactics, and numerical superiority eventually resulted in a breakout of American mechanized forces at the western end of the Normandy pocket in Operation Cobra on July 23. The allied advance to this point had been considerably slower than expected. Seven weeks after D-Day, U.S. First Army was holding an east-west line that ran from Caumont to Saint-Lô to Lessay on the Channel. Pre-D-Day projections had put the Americans on that line by D Plus Five [7] . When Hitler learned of the American breakout, he ordered his forces in Normandy to launch an immediate counter-offensive. However the German forces moving in open countryside were now easily targeted by Allied aircraft, as they had initially escaped Allied air attacks due to their well camouflaged defensive positions.
The Americans placed strong formations on their flanks which blunted the attack and then began to encircle the 7th Army and large parts of the 5th Panzer Army in the Falaise Pocket. Some 50,000 Germans were captured, but 100,000 managed to escape the pocket. Worse still, the British and Canadians—whose initial strategic objective to draw in enemy reserves and protect the American flanks so as to promote a later turning movement north had been achieved [8]—now began to break through the German lines. Any hope the Germans had of containing the Allied thrust into France by forming new defensive lines was now gone. The Allies raced across France, advancing as much as 600 miles in two weeks[9] The German forces retreated into Northern France, Holland and Belgium. By August 1944, Allied forces stationed in Corsica launched Operation Dragoon, invading the French Riviera on August 15 with the 6th Army Group, led by Lieutenant General Jacob Devers), and linked up with forces from Normandy. The clandestine French Resistance in Paris rose against the Germans on August 19, and the Free French 2nd Armored Division under General Philippe Leclerc, pressing forward from Normandy, received the surrender of the German forces on behalf of General von Choltiz from Paris and liberated the city on August 25.
Around this time the Germans began launching V-1's (known as the "buzz bomb"), the world's first cruise missile, at targets in southern England and Belgium. Later they would employ the much-larger V-2 rocket, a liquid-fuelled guided ballistic missile. These weapons were inaccurate and could only target large areas such as cities; they had little military effect and were intended to demoralize and/or terrorize Allied civilians.
Logistical problems plagued the Allies as they fanned out across France and the Low Countries, advancing towards the German border. With the supply lines still running back to Normandy, and critical shortages in fuel and other supplies all along the front, the Allies slowed the general advance and focused the available supplies on a narrow front strategy. Allied paratroopers and armor attempted a war-winning advance through the Netherlands and across the Rhine River with Operation Market Garden in September (the goal was to end the war by Christmas). The plan was to land paratroopers near bridges on the Rhine River, hold the position, and wait for the armour to cut through enemy lines to reinforce them and then cross into Germany. The plan was conceived and led by British General Montgomery, and included British, American, Polish, and Canadian forces. Although the plan encountered some initial success, many of the bridges were blown up, and the advancing armored columns ran into delays. As a result, the British 1st Airborne Division, holding the last bridge, was nearly annihilated. The Germans were able to entrench all along the front and the war continued through the winter.
In order to improve the supply situation, the Canadian First Army was assigned to clear the entrance to the port of Antwerp, the Scheldt estuary, which they successfully accomplished by late November 1944 making Canada the only country to successfully complete all D-Day objectives. In October, the Americans captured Aachen, the first major German city to be occupied.
Hitler had been planning to launch a major counteroffensive against the Allies since mid-September. The objective of the attack was to capture Antwerp. Not only would the capture or destruction of Antwerp prevent supplies from reaching the allied armies, it would also split allied forces in two, demoralizing the alliance and forcing its leaders to negotiate. For the attack, Hitler concentrated the best of his remaining forces, launching the attack through the Ardennes in southern Belgium, a hilly and in places a heavily wooded region, and the site of his victory in 1940. Dense cloud cover denied the Americans the use of their reconnaissance and ground attack aircraft.
Parts of the attack managed to break through the thinly-held American lines (about 4 divisions which were either new or refitting to cover about 70 miles of the front-line), and dash headlong for the Meuse. However the northern section of the line held, constricting the advance to a narrow corridor. The German advance was delayed at St. Vith, which American forces defended for several days. At the vital road junction of Bastogne, the American 101st Airborne Division and Combat Command B of the 10th Armoured Division held out, surrounded, for the duration of the battle. Patton's 3rd Army to the South made a rapid 90 degree turn and rammed into the German southern flank, relieving Bastogne.
The weather by this time had cleared unleashing allied air power as the German attack ground to a halt at Dinant. In an attempt to keep the offensive going, the Germans launched a massive air raid on Allied airfields in the Low Countries on January 1, 1945. The Germans destroyed 465 aircraft but lost 277 of their own planes. Whereas the Allies were able to make up their losses in days, the Luftwaffe was not capable of launching a major air attack again.[10]
Allied forces from the north and south met up at Houffalize and by the end of January they had pushed the Germans back to their starting positions. Many German units were caught in the pocket created by the Bulge and forced to surrender or retreat without their heavy equipment. Months of the Reich's war production were lost whereas German forces on the Eastern front were virtually starved of resources at the very moment the Red Army was preparing for its massive offensive against Germany. The final obstacle to the Allies was the river Rhine, which was crossed in late March 1945, aided by the fortuitous capture of the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen. Also, Operation Varsity, a parachute-assault in late March, got a foothold on the east bank of the Rhine River. Once the Allies had crossed the Rhine, the British fanned out northeast towards Hamburg, crossing the river Elbe and moving on towards Denmark and the Baltic Sea.
The U.S. 9th Army went south as the northern pincer of the Ruhr encirclement, and the U.S. 1st Army went north as the southern pincer of the Ruhr encirclement. These armies were commanded by General Omar Bradley who had over 1.3 million men under his command (the 12th Army Group). On April 4, the encirclement was completed, and the German Army Group B, which included the 5th Panzer Army, 7th Army and the 15th Army and was commanded by Field Marshal Walther Model, was trapped in the Ruhr Pocket. Some 300,000 German soldiers then became prisoners of war. The 1st and 9th U.S. Armies then turned east, halting their advance at the Elbe river where they met up with Soviet troops in mid-April.
Soviet-German War ("The Great Patriotic War")
The Eastern Front of the European Theatre of World War II encompassed the conflict in central and eastern Europe from June 22, 1941 to May 8, 1945. It was the largest theatre of war in history in terms of numbers of soldiers, equipment and casualties and was notorious for its unprecedented ferocity, destruction, and immense loss of life. The fighting involved millions of German and Soviet troops along a broad front hundreds of kilometres long. It was by far the deadliest single theatre of World War II, with over 5 million deaths on the Axis Forces; Soviet military deaths were about 10.6 million (out of which 2.8 - 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war (of 5.5 million) died in German captivity)[11][12][13]), and civilian deaths were about 14 to 17 million.[citation needed] More people fought and died on the Eastern Front than in all other theatres of World War II combined; the German army suffered 80% to 93% of all casualties there.[14][15] The fate of the Third Reich was decided at Stalingrad and sealed at Kursk.[citation needed] Although the Soviet Union was victorious in the war, the cost to the nation was an estimated 27 million dead, about half of all World War II casualties and the vast majority of allied deaths, and had devastated the Soviet economy in the struggle. In Soviet and Russian sources, the conflict is referred to as the Great Patriotic War.
Invasion of the Soviet Union
| “ | We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down. | ” |
| — Adolf Hitler |
The battle of Greece and the invasion of Yugoslavia delayed the German invasion of the Soviet Union by a critical six weeks.
Three German Army Groups along with various other Axis military units who in total numbered over 4.3 million men, 3.3 million Germans and 1 million Axis, launched the invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. Army Group North was deployed in East Prussia. Its main objectives were to secure the Baltic states and seize Leningrad. Opposite Army Group North were 2 Soviet Armies. The Germans threw their 600 tanks at the junction of the two Soviet Armies in that sector. The 4th Panzer Army's objective was to cross the River Neman and River Dvina which were the two largest obstacles in route to Leningrad. On the first day, the tanks crossed River Neman and penetrated 50 miles. Near Rasienai, the Panzers were counterattacked by 300 Soviet tanks. It took 4 days for the Germans to encircle and destroy the Soviet tanks. The Panzers then crossed River Dvina near Dvinsk, and approached Leningrad.
Army Group Center was deployed in Poland. Its main objective was to capture Moscow. Opposite Army Group Center were 4 Soviet Armies. Soviet forces occupied a salient which jutted into German territory with its center at Bialystok. Beyond, Bialystok was Minsk which was a key railway junction and guardian of the main highway to Moscow. 3rd Panzer Army punched through the junction of the two Soviet Armies from the North and crossed the River Neman, and 2nd Panzer Army crossed the River Bug from the south. While the Panzers attacked, the Infantry armies struck at the Salient and encircled Soviet troops at Bialystok. The Panzer Armies' objective was to meet at Minsk and prevent any Soviet withdrawal. On June 27, 2nd and 3rd Panzer Armies met up at Minsk advancing 200 miles into Soviet Territory. In the vast pocket between Minsk and the Polish border, 32 Soviet Infantry and 8 Tank Divisions were encircled and were mercilessly attacked. Soviet soldiers numbering 290,000 were captured, while another 250,000 managed to escape.
Army Group South was deployed in Southern Poland and Romania and also included two Romanian Armies and several Italian, Slovakian and Hungarian Divisions. Its objective was to secure the oil fields of the Caucasus. In the South, Soviet commanders quickly reacted to the German attack and commanded tank forces vastly outnumbering the Germans. Opposite the Germans in the South were 3 Soviet Armies. The German struck at the junctions of the 3 Soviet Armies but 1st Panzer Army struck right through the Soviet Army with the objective of capturing Brody. On June 26, five Soviet Mechanized Corps with over 1,000 Tanks mounted a massive counterattack on 1st Panzer Army. The Battle was among the fiercest of the invasion lasting over 4 days. In the end the Germans prevailed but the Soviets inflicted heavy losses on the 1st Panzer Army. With the failure of the Soviet Armored offensive, the last substantial Soviet tank forces in the south were now spent.
On July 3, Hitler finally gave the go-ahead for the Panzers to resume their drive east after the infantry armies had caught up. The next objective of Army Group Center was the city of Smolensk which commanded the road to Moscow. Facing the Germans was an old Russian defensive line where the Soviets had deployed 6 Armies. On July 6, the Soviets launched an attack with 700 Tanks against the 3rd Panzer Army. The Germans, using their overwhelming air superiority, wiped out the Soviet tanks. The 2nd Panzer Army crossed the River Dneiper and closed on Smolensk from the south while 3rd Panzer Army after defeating the Soviet counter attack approached Smolensk from the north. Trapped between their pincers were 3 Soviet Armies. On July 26, the Panzers closed the gap and then began to eliminate the pocket which yielded over 300,000 Soviet prisoners but 200,000 evaded capture. Hitler by now had lost faith in battles of encirclement and wanted to defeat the Soviets by inflicting severe economic damage which meant seizing the oil fields in the south and Leningrad in the North. Tanks from Army Group Center were diverted to Army Group North and South to aid them. Hitler's generals vehemently opposed this as Moscow was only 200 miles away from Army Group Center and the bulk of the Red Army was deployed in that sector and only an attack there could hope to end the war quickly. But Hitler was adamant and the Tanks from Army Group Center arrived and reinforced the 4th Panzer Army in the north which subsequently broke through the Soviet defenses on August 8 and by the end of August was only 30 miles from Leningrad. Meanwhile the Finns had pushed South East on both sides of Lake Ladoga reaching the old Finnish Soviet frontier.
In the South by mid-July below the Pinsk Marshes, the Germans had gotten to within a few miles of Kiev. The 1st Panzer Army then went South while the German 17th Army which was on 1st Panzer Army's southern flank struck east and between them trapped 3 Soviet Armies near Uman. As the Germans eliminated the pocket, their tanks turned north and crossed the Dneiper. Meanwhile 2nd Panzer Army, which was diverted from Army Group Center on Hitler's orders, had crossed the River Desna with 2nd Army on its right flank. This move resulted in the trapping of 4 Soviet Armies and parts of two others. The encirclement of Soviet forces in Kiev was achieved on September 16. The encircled Soviets did not give up easily, a savage battle now ensued lasting for 10 days, after which the Germans claimed over 600,000 Soviet soldiers captured. Hitler called it the greatest battle in history. After Kiev, the Red Army no longer outnumbered the Germans and there were no more reserves. To defend Moscow, Stalin had only 800,000 men left.
The Red Army was outflanked and on September 8 1941 the Germans had fully encircled Leningrad and Hitler ordered Leningrad to be besieged. The siege lasted for a total of 900 days, from September 8 1941 until January 27 1944. The city's almost 3 million civilians (including about 400,000 children) refused to surrender and endured rapidly increasing hardships in the encircled city.[16] Food and fuel stocks were limited to a mere 1-2 month supply, public transport was not operational and by the winter of 1941-42 there was no heating, no water supply, almost no electricity and very little food.[16] In January 1942 in the depths of an unusually cold winter, the city's food rations reached an all time low of only 125 grams (about 1/4 of a pound) of bread per person per day.[16] In just two months, January and February of 1942, 200,000 people died in Leningrad of cold and starvation.[16] Despite these tragic losses and the inhuman conditions the city's war industries still continued to work and the city did not surrender.
The Soviets had mounted an increasing number of attacks against Army Group Center but lacking tanks it was in no position to go on the offensive. Hitler had changed his mind and decided that tanks be sent back to Army Group Center for its all out drive on Moscow. Operation Typhoon, the drive on Moscow began on October 2. In front of Army Group Center was a series of elaborate defense lines. The Germans easily penetrated the first line as 2nd Panzer Army, returning from the south, took Orel which was 75 miles behind the Soviet first defense line. The Germans then pushed in and the vast pocket yielded 663,000 Soviet prisoners. Soviet forces now had only 90,000 men and 150 tanks left for the defense for Moscow.
Almost from the beginning of Operation Typhoon the weather had deteriorated steadily, slowing the German advance on Moscow to as little as 2 miles a day. On October 31, the Germany Army High Command ordered a halt on Operation Typhoon as the armies were re-organized. The pause gave the Soviets time to build up new armies and bring in the Soviet troops from the east as the neutrality pact signed by the Soviets and Japanese in April, 1941 assured Stalin that there was no longer a threat from the Japanese.
On November 15, the Germans resumed the attack on Moscow. Facing the Germans were 6 Soviet Armies. The Germans intended to let the 3rd and 4th Panzer Armies cross the Moscow Canal and envelop Moscow from the North East. The 2nd Panzer Army would attack Tula and then close in on Moscow from the South and the 4th Army would smash in the center. However, on November 22, Soviet Siberian Troops were unleashed on the 2nd Panzer Army in the South which inflicted a shocking defeat on the Germans. The 4th Panzer Army succeeded in crossing the Moscow canal and on December 2 had penetrated to within 15 miles of the Kremlin. But by then the first blizzards of the winter began and the Wehrmacht was not equipped for winter warfare. Frostbite and disease had caused more casualties than combat; dead and wounded had already reached 155,000 in 3 weeks. Some divisions were now at 50% strength and the bitter cold had caused severe problems for guns and equipment. Weather conditions grounded the Luftwaffe. Hitler's plans miscarried before the onset of severe winter weather; he was so confident of a lightning victory that he did not prepare for even the possibility of winter warfare in the Soviet Union. Yet his eastern army suffered more than 734,000 casualties (about 23 percent of its average strength of 3,200,000 troops) during the first five months of the invasion, and on 27 November 1941, General Eduard Wagner, the Quartermaster General of the German Army, reported that "We are at the end of our resources in both personnel and materiel. We are about to be confronted with the dangers of deep winter." Newly built up Soviet troops near Moscow now numbered over 500,000 men and Zhukov on December 5 launched a massive counter attack which pushed the Germans back over 200 miles but no decisive breakthrough was achieved. The invasion of the Soviet Union had so far cost the Germans over 250,000 dead, 500,000 wounded and most of their tanks.
German attack stalls
On January 6, 1942, Stalin, confident of his earlier victory, ordered a general counter-offensive. Initially the attacks made good ground as Soviet pincers closed around Demyansk and Vyazma and threatening attacks were made towards Smolensk and Bryansk. But despite these successes the Soviet offensive soon ran out of steam. By March, the Germans had recovered and stabilized their line and secured the neck of the Vyazma Pocket. Only at Demyansk was there any serious prospect of a major Soviet victory. Here a large part of the German 16th Army had been surrounded. Hitler ordered no withdrawal and the 92,000 men trapped in the pocket were to hold their ground while they were re-supplied by air. For 10 weeks they held out until April when a land corridor was opened to the west. The German forces retained Demyansk until they were permitted to withdraw in February 1943.
In May, the Soviets attempted to retake the city of Kharkov, in Eastern Ukraine. They opened with concentric attacks on either side of Kharkov and in both sides broke through German lines and a serious threat to the city emerged. In response, the Germans accelerated the plans for their own offensive and launched it 5 days later. The German 6th Army struck at the salient from the south and encircled the entire Soviet army assaulting Kharkov. In the last days of May, the Germans destroyed the forces inside the pocket. Of the Soviet troops inside the pocket, 70,000 were killed, 200,000 captured and only 22,000 managed to escape.
Hitler had by now realized that his Armies were too weak to carry out an offensive on all sectors of the Eastern Front, but if the Germans could seize the oil and fertile rich area of the Southern Soviet Union this would give the Germans the means to continue with the war. Operation Blue attempted the destruction of the Red Army's southern front, consolidation of the Ukraine west of the River Volga, and the capture of the Caucaus oil fields. The Germans reinforced Army Group South by transferring divisions from other sectors and getting divisions from Axis allies. By late June, Hitler had 74 Divisions ready to go on the offensive, 51 of them German.[citation needed]
The Soviets did not know where the main German offensive of 1942 would come. Stalin was convinced that the German objective of 1942 would be Moscow and over 50% of all Red Army troops were deployed in the Moscow region. Only 10% of Soviet troops were deployed in the Southern Soviet Union.[citation needed]
On June 28, 1942, the German offensive began. Everywhere Soviet forces fell back as the Germans sliced through Soviet defenses. By July 5, forward elements of 4th Panzer Army reached the River Don near Voronezh and got embroiled in a bitter battle to capture the city. The Soviets, by tying down 4th Panzer Army, gained vital time to reinforce their defenses. The Soviets for the first time in the war were not fighting to hold hopelessly exposed positions but were retreating in good order. As German pincers closed in they only found stragglers and rear guards. Angered by the delays, Hitler re-organized Army Group South to two smaller Army Groups, Army Group A and Army Group B. The bulk of the Armored forces were concentrated with Army Group A which was ordered to attack towards the Caucasus oil fields while Army Group B was ordered to capture Stalingrad and guard against any Soviet counter attacks.
By July 23, the German 6th Army had taken Rostov but Soviet troops fought a skillful rearguard action which embroiled the Germans in heavy urban fighting to take the city. This also allowed the main Soviet formations to escape encirclements. With the River Don's crossing secured in the south and with the 6th Army's advance flagging, Hitler sent the 4th Panzer Army back to join up with 6th Army. In late July, 6th Army resumed its offensive and by August 10, 6th Army cleared the Soviet presence from the west bank of the River Don but Soviet troops held out in some areas, further delaying 6th Army's march east. In contrast, Army Group A after crossing the River Don on July 25 had fanned out on a broad front. The German 17th Army swung west towards the Black Sea, while the 1st Panzer Army attacked towards the south and east sweeping through country largely abandoned by Soviet troops. On August 9, 1st Panzer Army reached the foothills of the Caucasus mountains, an advance of more than 300 miles.
In order to protect their forces in the Caucasus, the Germans attempted to capture Stalingrad, on their northeastern flank, crossing the Don River and advancing on the city. Germans bombers killed over 40,000 people and turned much of the city into rubble. The Soviet leadership realized that the German plan was the seizure of the oil fields and began sending large number of troops from the Moscow sector to reinforce their troops in the South. Zhukov, one of Stalin's most trusted generals, assumed command of the Stalingrad front in early September and mounted a series of attacks from the North which further delayed the German 6th Army's attempt to seize Stalingrad. On September 13, the Germans advanced through the southern suburbs and by September 23, 1942, the main factory complex was surrounded and the German artillery was within range of the quays on the river, across which the Soviets evacuated wounded and brought in reinforcements. Ferocious street fighting, hand-to-hand conflict of the most savage kind, now ensued in the ruins of the city. Exhaustion and deprivation gradually sapped men's strength. Hitler, who had become obsessed with the battle of Stalingrad, refused to countenance a withdrawal. General Paulus, in desperation, launched yet another attack early in November by which time the Germans had managed to capture 90% of the city. The Soviets, however, had been building up massive forces on the flanks of Stalingrad which were by this time severely undermanned as the bulk of the German forces had been concentrated in capturing the city and Axis satellite troops were left guarding the flanks. The Soviets launched Operation Uranus on November 19 1942, with twin attacks that met at the city of Kalach four days later, encircling the 6th Army in Stalingrad.
The Germans requested permission to attempt a breakout, which was refused by Hitler, who ordered Sixth Army to remain in Stalingrad where he promised they would be supplied by air until rescued. About the same time, the Soviets launched Operation Mars in a salient near the vicinity of Moscow. Its objective was to tie down Army Group Center and to prevent it from reinforcing Army Group South at Stalingrad.
Meanwhile, Army Group A's advance into the Caucasus had stalled as Soviet troops had destroyed the oil production facilities and a year's work was required to bring them back up, the other remaining oil fields lay south of the Caucasus Mountains. Throughout August and September, German Mountain troops probed for a way through but by October, with the onset of winter, they were no closer to their objective. With German troops encircled in Stalingrad, and Soviet armies threatening their lines of retreat, Army Group A began to fall back.
By December, Field Marshal von Manstein hastily put together a German relief force of units composed from Army Group A to relieve the trapped Sixth Army. Unable to get reinforcements from Army Group Center, the relief force only managed to get within 50 kilometers (30 mi) before they were turned back by the Soviets. By the end of the year, the Sixth Army was in desperate condition, as the Luftwaffe was able to supply only about a sixth of the supplies needed.
Shortly before surrendering to the Red Army on February 2, 1943, Friedrich Paulus was promoted to Field Marshal. This was a message from Hitler, because no German Field Marshal had ever surrendered his troops or been taken alive. Of the 300,000 strong 6th Army, only 91,000 survived to be taken prisoner, including 22 generals, of which only 5,000 men ever returned to Germany after the war. This was to be the greatest, and most costly, battle in terms of human life in history. Around 2 million men were killed or wounded on both sides, including civilians, with Axis casualties estimated to be approximately 850,000 and 750,000 for the Soviets.
Germany's second push
| “ | They want a war of annihilation. We will give them a war of annihilation. | ” |
After the surrender of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad on February 2, 1943, the Red Army launched eight offensives during the winter. Many were concentrated along the Don basin near Stalingrad. These attacks resulted in initial gains until German forces were able to take advantage of the over extended and weakened condition of the Red Army and launch a counter attack to re-capture the city of Kharkov and surrounding areas. This was to be the last major strategic German victory of World War II.
The rains of spring inhibited campaigning in the Soviet Union, but both sides used the interval to build up for the inevitable battle that would come in the summer. The start date for the offensive had been moved repeatedly as delays in preparation had forced the Germans to postpone the attack. By July 4, the Wehrmacht, after assembling their greatest concentration of firepower during the whole of World War II, launched their offensive against the Soviet Union at the Kursk salient. Their intentions were known by the Soviets, who hastened to defend the salient with an enormous system of earthwork defenses. The Germans attacked from both the north and south of the salient and hoped to meet in the middle, cutting off the salient and trapping 60 Soviet divisions. The German offensive in the Northern sector was ground down as little progress was made through the Soviet defenses but in the Southern Sector there was a danger of a German breakthrough. The Soviets then brought up their reserves to contain the German thrust in the Southern sector, and the ensuing Battle of Kursk became the largest tank battle of the war, near the city of Prokhorovka. The Germans lacking any sizable reserves had exhausted their armored forces and could not stop the Soviet counteroffensive that threw them back across their starting positions.
The Soviets captured Kharkov following their victory at Kursk and with the Autumn rains threatening, Hitler agreed to a general withdrawal to the Dnieper line in August. As September proceeded into October, the Germans found the Dnieper line impossible to hold as the Soviet bridgeheads grew. Important Dnieper towns started to fall, with Zaporozhye the first to go, followed by Dnepropetrovsk. Early in November the Soviets broke out of their bridgeheads on either side of Kiev and recaptured the Ukrainian capital. The 1st Ukrainian Front attacked at Korosten on Christmas Eve, and the Soviet advance continued along the railway line until the 1939 Soviet-Polish border was reached.
Soviet counter-attack and conquest of Germany
The Soviets launched their winter offensive in January 1944 in the Northern sector and relieved the brutal siege of Leningrad. The Germans conducted an orderly retreat from the Leningrad area to a shorter line based on the lakes to the south. By March the Soviets struck into Romania from Ukraine. The Soviet forces encircled the First Panzer Army north of the Dniestr river. The Germans escaped the pocket in April, saving most of their men but losing their heavy equipment. During April, the Red Army launched a series of attacks near the city of Iaşi, Romania, aimed at capturing the strategically important sector which they hoped to use as a springboard into Romania for a summer offensive. The Soviets were held back by the German and Romanian forces when they launched the attack through the forest of Târgul Frumos as Axis forces successfully defended the sector through the month of April.
As Soviet troops neared Hungary, German troops occupied Hungary on March 20. Hitler thought that Hungarian leader Admiral Miklós Horthy might no longer be a reliable ally. Germany's other Axis ally, Finland had sought a separate peace with Stalin in February 1944, but would not accept the initial terms offered. On June 9, the Soviet Union began the Fourth strategic offensive on the Karelian Isthmus that, after three months, forced Finland to accept an armistice.
Before the Soviets could begin their Summer offensive into Belarus they had to clear the Crimea peninsula of Axis forces. Remnants of the German Seventeenth Army of Army Group South and some Romanian forces were cut off and left behind in the peninsula when the Germans retreated from the Ukraine. In early May, the Red Army's 3rd Ukrainian Front attacked the Germans and the ensuing battle was a complete victory of the Soviet forces and a botched evacuation effort across the Black Sea by Germany failed.
With the Crimea cleared, the long awaited Soviet summer offensive codenamed, Operation Bagration, began on June 22, 1944 which involved 2.5 million men and 6,000 tanks. Its objective was to clear German troops from Belarus and crush German Army Group Center which was defending that sector. The offensive was timed to coincide with the Allied landings in Normandy but delays caused the offensive to be postponed for a few weeks. The subsequent battle resulted in the destruction of German Army Group Centre and over 800,000 German casualties, the greatest defeat for the Wehrmacht during the war. The Soviets swept forward, reaching the outskirts of Warsaw on July 31.
The proximity of the Red Army led the Poles in Warsaw to believe they would soon be liberated. On August 1, they revolted as part of the wider Operation Tempest. Nearly 40,000 Polish resistance fighters seized control of the city. The Soviets, however, did not advance any further.[17] The only assistance given to the Poles was artillery fire, as German army units moved into the city to put down the revolt. The resistance ended on October 2. German units then destroyed most of what was left of the city.
In Yugoslavia, the tide of the civil war was turning to favor the Partisans. On 16 June 1944, the Treaty of Vis was signed between the Partisans and the Royal Government, officially making the Partisans the regular army of Yugoslavia. By the end of August, Josip Tito was appointed as the Chief-of-Staff of the Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland, although his Royalist rival Mihajlović and many Chetniks continued fighting their own resistance until their final defeat in the Battle on Lijevča field by a Croatian coalition.
Following the destruction of German Army Group Center, the Soviets attacked German forces in the south in mid-July 1944, and in a month's time they cleared Ukraine of German presence inflicting heavy losses on the Germans. Once Ukraine had been cleared the Soviet forces struck into Romania. The Red Army's 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts engaged German Heeresgruppe Südukraine, which consisted of German and Romanian formations, in an operation to occupy Romania and destroy the German formations in the sector. The result of the Battle of Romania was a complete victory for the Red Army, and a switch of Romania from the Axis to the Allied camp. Bulgaria surrendered to the Red Army in September. Following the German retreat from Romania, the Soviets entered Hungary in October 1944 but the German Sixth Army encircled and destroyed three corps of Marshal Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky's Group Pliyev near Debrecen, Hungary. The rapid assault the Soviets had hoped that would lead to the capture of Budapest was now halted and Hungary would remain Germany's ally until the end of the war in Europe. This battle would be the last German victory in the Eastern Front.
As the Red Army continued their advance into the Balkans, Bulgaria left the Axis on September 9, and German troops abandoned Greece on October 12. Concurrently, Yugoslav Partisans shifted operations into Serbia, freed Belgrade on October 20 with Soviet help, and assisted the Albanian Resistance rout the Germans by November 29. By year end, the Partisans controlled the eastern half of Yugoslavia and the Dalmatian coast, and were ready for a final westward offensive by late March, 1945.
The Soviets recovered from their defeat in Debrecen and advancing columns of the Red Army liberated Belgrade in late December and reached Budapest on December 29, 1944 and en-circled the city where over 188,000 Axis troops were trapped including many German Waffen-SS. The Germans held out till February 13, 1945 and the siege became one of the bloodiest of the war. Meanwhile the Red Army's 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Baltic Fronts engaged the remnants of German Army Group Center and Army Group North to capture the Baltic region from the Germans in October 1944. The result of the series of battles was a permanent loss of contact between Army Groups North and Centre, and the creation of the Courland Pocket in Latvia where the 18th and 16th German Armies, numbering over 250,000 men were trapped and would remain there till the end of the war.
With the Balkans and most of Hungary cleared of German troops by late December 1944, the Soviets began a massive re-deployment of their forces to Poland for their upcoming Winter offensive. Soviet preparations were still on-going when Churchill asked Stalin to launch his offensive as soon as possible to ease German pressure in the West. Stalin agreed and the offensive was set for January 12, 1945. Konev’s armies attacked the Germans in southern Poland and expanded out from their Vistula River bridgehead near Sandomierz. On January 14, Rokossovskiy’s armies attacked from the Narew River north of Warsaw. Zhukov's armies in the center attacked from their bridgeheads near Warsaw. The combined Soviet offensive broke the defenses covering East Prussia, leaving the German front in chaos.
Zhukov took Warsaw by January 17 and by January 19, his tanks took Łódź. That same day, Konev's forces reached the German prewar border. At the end of the first week of the offensive, the Soviets had penetrated 160 kilometers (100 mi) deep on a front that was 650 kilometers (400 mi) wide. The Soviet onslaught finally halted on the Oder River at the end of January, only 60 kilometers (40 mi) from Berlin.
The Soviets had hoped to capture Berlin by mid-February but that proved hopelessly optimistic. German resistance which had all but collapsed during the initial phase of the attack had stiffened immeasurably. Soviet supply lines were over-extended. The spring thaw, the lack of air support, and fear of encirclement through flank attacks from East Prussia, Pommern and Silesia led to a general halt in the Soviet offensive. The newly created Army Group Vistula, under the command of Heinrich Himmler, attempted a counter-attack on the exposed flank of the Soviet Army but failed by February 24. This made it clear to Zhukov that the flank had to be secure before any attack on Berlin could be mounted. The Soviets then re-organized their forces and then struck north and cleared Pomerania and then attacked the south and cleared Silesia of German troops. In the south, three German attempts to relieve the encircled Budapest garrison failed, and the city fell to the Soviets on February 13. Again the Germans counter-attacked; Hitler insisting on the impossible task of regaining the Danube River. By March 16, the attack had failed, and the Red Army counter-attacked the same day. On March 30, they entered Austria and captured Vienna on April 13.
Hitler had believed that the main Soviet target for their upcoming offensive would be in the south near Prague and not Berlin and had sent the last remaining German reserves to defend that sector. The Red Army's main goal was in fact Berlin and by April 16 it was ready to begin its final assault on Berlin. Zhukov's forces struck from the center and crossed the Oder river but got bogged down under stiff German resistance around Seelow Heights. After three days of very heavy fighting and 33,000 Soviet soldiers dead,[18] the last defenses of Berlin were breached. Konev crossed the Oder river from the South and was within striking distance of Berlin but Stalin ordered Konev to guard the flanks of Zhukov's forces and not attack Berlin, as Stalin had promised the capture of Berlin to Zhukov[citation needed]. Rokossovskiy’s forces crossed the Oder from the North and linked up with British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's forces in northern Germany while the forces of Zhukov and Konev captured Berlin.
By April 24, the Soviet army groups had encircled the German Ninth Army and part of the 4th Panzer Army. These were main forces that were supposed to defend Berlin but Hitler had issued orders for these forces to hold their ground and not retreat. Thus the main German forces which were supposed to defend Berlin were trapped southeast of the city. Berlin was encircled around the same time and as a final resistance effort, Hitler called for civilians, including teenagers and the elderly, to fight in the Volkssturm militia against the oncoming Red Army. Those marginal forces were augmented by the battered German remnants that had fought the Soviets in Seelow Heights. Hitler ordered the encircled Ninth Army under General Theodor Busse to break out and link up with the German Twelfth Army under General Walther Wenck. After linking up, the armies were to relieve Berlin, an impossible task. The surviving units of the Ninth Army were instead driven into the forests around Berlin near the village of Halbe where they were involved in particularly fierce fighting trying to break through the Soviet lines and reach the Twelfth Army. A minority managed to join with the Twelfth Army and fight their way west to surrender to the Americans. Meanwhile the fierce urban fighting continued in Berlin. The Germans had stockpiled a very large quantity of panzerfausts and took a very heavy toll on Soviet tanks in the rubble filled streets of Berlin. However, the Soviets employed the lessons they learned during the urban fighting of Stalingrad and were slowly advancing to the center of the city. German forces in the city resisted tenaciously, in particular the SS Nordland which was made of foreign SS volunteers, because they were ideologically motivated and they believed that they would not live if captured. The fighting was house-to-house and hand-to-hand. The Soviets sustained 360,000 casualties; the Germans sustained 450,000 including civilians and above that 170,000 captured. Hitler and his staff moved into the Führerbunker, a concrete bunker beneath the Chancellery, where on April 30, 1945, he committed suicide, along with his bride, Eva Braun.
End of the war in Europe
Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin made arrangements for post-war Europe at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. Their meeting resulted in many important resolutions such as the formation of the United Nations, democratic elections in Poland, borders of Poland moved westwards at the expense of Germany, Soviet nationals were to be repatriated and it was agreed that Soviet Union would attack Japan within three months of Germany's surrender.
After Hitler's death (on April 30), Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz became leader of the German government but the German war effort quickly disintegrated. German forces in Berlin surrendered the city to Soviet troops on May 2, 1945. The German forces in Italy surrendered on May 2, 1945, at General Alexander's headquarters, and German forces in northern Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands surrendered on May 4. The German High Command under Generaloberst Alfred Jodl surrendered unconditionally all remaining German forces on May 7 in Rheims, France. The western Allies celebrated "V-E Day" on May 8, since the final German surrender was signed in Berlin on that day. The Soviet Union celebrated "Victory Day" on May 9 due to time zone differences; the final cessation of German military activity happened at one minute past midnight by their clock. Some remnants of German Army Group Center continued resistance until May 11 or May 12 (see Prague Offensive).[19]
Asia-Pacific Theatre
Events leading up to the war in Asia
After World War I, the victorious Western powers adopted policies that recognized Japan as a colonial power. Many Japanese politicians and militarist leaders, such as Fumimaro Konoe and Sadao Araki, promoted the idea that Japan had a right to conquer Asia and unify it, under the rule of Emperor Hirohito.
Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and China in 1937 to bolster its meager stock of natural resources, to relieve Japan from population pressures and to extend its colonial realm to a wider area. The Japanese made initial advances but were stalled in the Battle of Shanghai. The city eventually fell to the Japanese in December 1937, with the capital city Nanjing. As a result, the Chinese Nationalist government moved its seat to Wuhan and then to Chongqing for the remainder of the war. Conquered areas of China became subject to a harsh occupation, with many atrocities against civilians, most notably the Rape of Nanking. The Japanese Army also frequently used chemical weapons. Neither Japan or China officially declared war, for a similar reason—fearing declaration of war would alienate Europe and the United States, who might then cut off supplies badly needed to continue their war efforts.
In Spring 1939, Soviet and Japanese forces clashed in Mongolia. The growing Japanese presence in the Far East was seen as a major strategic threat by the Soviet Union, and Soviet fear of having to fight a two front war was a primary reason for the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with the Nazis (other historians mention the Munich Agreement as a supposition to this pact). The Japanese invasion of Mongolia was repulsed by Soviet units under General Georgiy Zhukov. Following this battle, the Soviet Union and Japan were at peace until 1945. Japan looked south to expand its empire, leading to conflict with the United States over the Philippines and control of shipping lanes to the Dutch East Indies. The Soviet Union and Japan eventually signed a non-agression pact in 1941. The Soviet Union focused on the west, with their eastern flank secured, while the Japanese directed their attention south, towards the British, Dutch, and American colonies of the South Pacific.
Japanese forces invaded French Indochina on September 22, 1940. The United States (after having renounced the U.S.-Japanese trade treaty of 1911), United Kingdom, Australia and the Netherlands (which controlled the oil of the Dutch East Indies), reacted in 1941 by instituting embargoes on exports of natural resources to Japan. The western powers also began making loans to China and providing covert military assistance.
Japan was faced with the choice of withdrawing from China and Indochina, negotiating some compromise, buying what they needed somewhere else, or going to war to conquer territories that contained oil, iron ore, bauxite and other resources necessary for continued operations in China. Japan's leaders believed that the existing Allies were preoccupied with the war against Germany, and that the United States would not be war-ready for years and would compromise before waging full-scale war. Japan thus proceeded with its plans for the war in the Pacific by launching nearly simultaneous attacks on Malaya, Thailand, Hong Kong, Hawaii, the Philippines, and Wake Island.
For propaganda purposes, Japan's leaders stated that the goal of its military campaigns was to create the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. This, they claimed, would be a co-operative league of Asian nations, freed by Japan from European imperialist domination, and liberated to achieve autonomy and self-determination. In practice, occupied countries and peoples were completely subordinate to Japanese authority.
China
| “ | I praise the Army for cutting down like weeds large numbers of the enemy. | ” |
| — Hirohito |
The Chinese Nationalist Army, under Chiang Kai-shek, and the Communist Chinese Army, under Mao Zedong, had been fighting a civil war since 1927, but agreed to a truce to fight the invading Japanese. Mao's forces were incorporated into the New Fourth Army and the Eighth Route Army, subordinate units within the Nationalist Army. Following the New Fourth Army Incident, the cooperation between the KMT and CCP fell apart. Conflict between Nationalist and Communist forces emerged long before the war; it continued after and, to an extent, even during the war, though less openly.
On December 3, 1941, the Imperial General Headquarters authorized general Yasuji Okamura to implement the sanko sakusen in North China [20].
Japan launched a major offensive in China following the attack on Pearl Harbor. The aim of the offensive was to take the strategically important city of Changsha, which the Japanese had failed to capture on two previous occasions. For the attack, the Japanese massed 120,000 soldiers under four divisions. The Chinese responded with 300,000 men, and soon the Japanese army was encircled and had to retreat.
Following the Changsha offensive, the war in China returned to the stalemate that had existed in 1940. The Chinese did not have the strength in terms of manpower or equipment to drive the Japanese out. The Japanese had taken heavy casualties as well, and were having trouble pacifying already conquered territory. The front lines changed little until the Japanese mounted a major offensive in early 1944.
In April 1944, the Japanese launched Operation Ichigo, to secure the railway route from Peking to Nanking, and to clear southern China of American airfields under the command of General Chennault[21] The operation was successful in that it opened a continuous corridor from Peking to Indochina, and the airfields were forced to relocate inland. However it failed to destroy the army of Chiang Kai-shek, and the Americans soon acquired the Marianas, from which they could bomb the Japanese Home Islands.
Japanese offensives (1941–1942)
On December 7, a Japanese carrier fleet launched an unexpected air attack on Pearl Harbor. The raid destroyed most of the American aircraft on the island and knocked the main American battle fleet out of action (three battleships were sunk, and five more were heavily damaged, though only USS Arizona and USS Oklahoma were permanently lost, the other six battleships were repaired and eventually returned to service). Nevertheless, the four American aircraft carriers that had been the intended main target of the Japanese attack were off at sea. At Pearl Harbor, the main dock, supply, and repair facilities were quickly repaired. Furthermore, the base's fuel storage facilities, whose destruction could have crippled the Pacific fleet, were untouched. The attack united American public opinion to demand vengeance against Japan. The following day, December 8, the United States declared war on Japan as did the United Kingdom.
Simultaneously with the attack on Hawaii, the Japanese attacked Wake Island, an American territory in the central Pacific. The initial landing attempt was repulsed by the garrison of Marines, and fierce resistance continued until December 23. The Japanese sent heavy reinforcements, and the garrison surrendered when it became clear that no American relief force was coming.
Japan also invaded the Philippines, a U.S. Commonwealth, on December 8, 1941. American and Filipino forces, under General Douglas MacArthur, were forced to retreat to the Bataan Peninsula. Dogged resistance continued until April, buying precious time for the Allies. Following their surrender, the survivors were led on the Bataan Death March. Allied resistance continued for an additional month on the island fortress of Corregidor, until it too surrendered. General MacArthur, who had been ordered to retreat to Australia, vowed, "I shall return."
Less than 24 hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan invaded Hong Kong. The British colonies of Malaya, Borneo, and Burma soon followed, with Japan's intention of seizing the oilfields of the Dutch East Indies. Despite fierce resistance by Philippine, Australian, New Zealand, British, Canadian, Indian, and American forces, all these territories capitulated to the Japanese in a matter of months. Singapore fell to the Japanese on February 15. Approximately 80,000 British Commonwealth personnel (along with 50,000 taken in Malaya), went into Japanese POW camps, representing the largest-ever surrender of British-led personnel. Churchill considered the British defeat at Singapore as one of the most humiliating British defeats of all time.
Disaster struck the British on December 10. 1941, when they lost two major capital ships, HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse. Both ships had been attacked by 85 Japanese bombers and torpedo planes based in Saigon, and 840 UK sailors perished. Churchill was to say of the event, "In all of the war I have never received a more direct shock." ABDACOM naval forces were all but destroyed in the Battle of the Java Sea—the largest naval battle of the war up to that point—on February 28 through March 1 1942. The joint command was wound up shortly afterwards, to be replaced by three Allied supreme commands in southern Asia and the Pacific.
In the six months after Pearl Harbor the Japanese had achieved nearly all of their naval objectives. Their fleet of eleven battleships, ten carriers, eighteen heavy and twenty light cruisers remained relatively intact. They had seriously damaged or sunk all U.S. battleships in the Pacific. The British and Dutch Far Eastern fleets had been destroyed, and the Royal Australian Navy had been driven back to port.[22] Their ring of conquests settled on a defensive perimeter of their choosing, extending from the Central Pacific to New Guinea to Burma. The only significant strategic force remaining to the Allies was the naval base at Pearl Harbor, including the U.S. Pacific Fleet's four aircraft carriers.
Allies re-group and counterattack
| “ | I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve. | ” |
| “ | When and where are you ever going to put up a good fight and a decisive battle? | ” |
The Allies were officially formed in the Declaration by United Nations on January 1, 1942. Soon afterwards, the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDACOM) was formed to unite Allied forces in South East Asia. It was the first Allied supreme command of the war.
In early May 1942, the Japanese implemented Mo Sakusen (Operation Mo), a plan to take Port Moresby, New Guinea. The first stage was thwarted by the U.S. and Australian navies in the Battle of the Coral Sea. This was both the first battle fought between aircraft carriers, and the first battle where the opposing fleets never made direct visual contact. The American aircraft carrier Lexington was sunk and the Yorktown was severely damaged, while the Japanese lost the light carrier Shōhō and the large carrier Shōkaku suffered moderate damage. Zuikaku lost half of her air complement, and along with Shōkaku, was unable to participate in the upcoming battle at Midway. The battle was a tactical victory for the Japanese, as they inflicted heavier losses on the American fleet, but it was a strategic American victory, as the Japanese attack on Port Moresby was deflected, and both Zuikaku and Shōkaku would not be ready to participate in the upcoming battle of Midway the following month.
In April, the Doolittle Raid, the first Allied air raid on Tokyo, boosted morale in the United States and caused Japan to shift resources to homeland defense, but did little physical damage. The raid was unique in that 16 land-based B-25 Mitchell bombers took off from an aircraft carrier, USS Hornet.
Both sides viewed a decisive battle between aircraft carriers as inevitable, and the Japanese were confident in that they held a numerical advantage in heavy carriers of 10:3.[24] They also had an excellent carrier-based aircraft in the Zero fighter. The Japanese sent a task force towards Midway Island, an outlier of the Hawaiian Islands, with the goal of drawing the remainder of the American fleet to battle.
On June 5, American carrier-based dive-bombers sighted the Japanese force and sank four of Japan's best aircraft carriers in the Battle of Midway, at the cost of the carrier Yorktown. This was a major victory for the United States and, as Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto predicted would happen six months after the Pearl Harbor attack[citation needed], it marked the turning point of the war in the Pacific where the USA gained the initiative. American shipbuilding and aircraft production vastly outpaced the Japanese, and the Japanese fleet would never again enjoy such numerical superiority.
New Guinea and the Solomon Islands
In July, the Japanese attempted to take Port Moresby by land, along the Kokoda Track, a rugged, single-file path through the jungle and mountains. An outnumbered, untrained and ill-equipped Australian reserve battalion—awaiting the return of regular units from North Africa and the U.S. Army—waged a fighting retreat against a 5,000-strong Japanese force.
On August 7, U.S. Marines began the Battle of Guadalcanal. For the next six months, U.S. forces fought Japanese forces for control of the island. Meanwhile, several naval encounters raged in the nearby waters, including the Battle of Savo Island, Battle of Cape Esperance, Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, and Battle of Tassafaronga.
In late August and early September, while battle raged on the Kokoda Track and Guadalcanal, an attack by Japanese marines at the eastern tip of New Guinea was defeated by Australian forces, in the Battle of Milne Bay. This was the first defeat for Japanese land forces during the Pacific War. On January 22, after a bitter battle at Gona and Buna, Australian and U.S. forces took back the major Japanese beachheads in eastern New Guinea, before American authorities declared Guadalcanal secure on February 9.
On June 30, the Allies launched Operation Cartwheel, a grand strategy for the South and South West Pacific, aimed at isolating the major Japanese base at Rabaul, before proceeding on an "island-hopping" campaign towards Japan. Three main objectives were identified: recapturing Tulagi and the Santa Cruz Islands; recapturing the north coast of New Guinea, and the central Solomon Islands and; the reduction of Rabaul and related bases.
By September, Australian and U.S. forces in New Guinea had captured the major Japanese bases at Salamaua and Lae. Soon afterwards they launched the Huon Peninsula, the Finisterre Range, Bougainville, and New Britain campaigns.
Island hopping campaign
In November 1943, U.S. Marines won the Battle of Tarawa. This was the first heavily opposed amphibious assault in the Pacific theater. The high casualties taken by the Marines sparked off a storm of protest in the United States, where the large losses could not be understood for such a tiny and seemingly unimportant island. The Allies adopted a policy of bypassing some Japanese island strongholds and letting them "wither on the vine", cut off from supplies and troop reinforcements.
The Allied advance continued in the Pacific with the capture of the Marshall Islands before the end of February. Some 42,000 U.S. Army soldiers and U.S. Marines landed on Kwajalein atoll on January 31. Fierce fighting occurred, and the island was taken on February 6. U.S. Marines next defeated the Japanese in the Battle of Eniwetok.
The U.S. strategic objective was to gain airbases within bombing range of the new B-29s on the Mariana Islands, especially Saipan, Tinian and Guam. Following Allied victories to the east at the Marshall and Gilbert Islands in late 1943 to early 1944, the US Navy pushed into the Central Pacific. The Japanese base at Truk was neutralized by a massive air raid on February 17 and 18, 1944. On June 11, the U.S. Naval fleet bombarded Saipan, defended by 32,000 Japanese troops; 77,000 Marines started landing on the 15th, and the island was secure by July 9.
The Japanese committed much of their declining naval strength in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, but suffered severe losses in both ships and aircraft. After the battle, the Japanese aircraft carrier force was no longer militarily effective. With the capture of Saipan, Japan was finally within range of B-29 bombers.
Guam was invaded on July 21 and taken on August 10, but the Japanese fought fanatically. Mopping-up operations continued long after the Battle of Guam was officially over. The island of Tinian was invaded on July 24 and was conquered on August 1. This operation saw the first use of napalm in the war.[25]
Return to the Philipines
General MacArthur's troops liberated the Philippines, landing on the island of Leyte on October 20. The Japanese had prepared a rigorous defense and used the last of their naval forces in a failed attempt to destroy the invasion force in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, October 23 through October 26, 1944, arguably the largest naval battle in history. This was the first battle that employed Japanese kamikaze attacks, HMAS Australia being the first Allied ship targeted by such an attack. The Japanese battleship Musashi, one of the two largest battleships ever built, was sunk by 19 torpedoes and 17 bombs.
In January 1945, the U.S. Sixth Army landed on Luzon, the main island of the Philippines. Manila was recaptured by March.
Japanese home islands
The United States captured Iwo Jima in February. The island was psychologically important because it was traditional Japanese territory, administered by the Tokyo prefecture. It was heavily defended with many underground entrenchments, but was eventually taken by Marines after they captured Mount Suribachi, a keystone of the defense. Iwo Jima proved invaluable because of its two airfields that were used for emergency landings for B29's, and because it was close enough to provide fighter escort that could reach the Japanese Home Islands.[26]
With the subsequent capture of Okinawa (April through June), the U.S. brought the Japanese homeland within easier range of naval and air attack. The Japanese defended the island with ground forces, kamikazes, and with the one-way suicide mission of the battleship Yamato, which was sunk by American dive-bombers. Amongst dozens of other Japanese cities, Tokyo was firebombed, and about 90,000 people died from the initial attack. The dense living conditions around production centres and the wooden residential constructions contributed to the large loss of life. In addition, the ports and major waterways of Japan were extensively mined by air in Operation Starvation, which seriously disrupted the logistics of the island nation.
South-East Asia
The Japanese had captured most of Burma, severing the Burma Road by which the Western Allies had been supplying the Chinese Nationalists. This loss forced the Allies to create a large sustained airlift from India, known as "flying the Hump". Under the American General Joseph Stilwell, Chinese forces in India were retrained and re-equipped, while preparations were made to drive the Ledo Road from India to replace the Burma Road. This effort was to prove an enormous engineering task.
While the Americans steadily built the Ledo Road from India to China, in March 1944, the Japanese began their own offensive into India. This "Delhi Chalo" ('March to Delhi') was initiated by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose,[27] the commander of Indian National Army (a force comprising POWs from the British Indian Army who had been captured by the Japanese and had decided to join the war in an attempt to rid India of their colonial rulers, and thereby attain independence).[28]
The Japanese attempted to destroy the main British and Indian forces at Imphal, resulting in ferocious fighting. While the encircled allied troops were reinforced and resupplied by transport aircraft until fresh troops broke the siege, the Japanese, in part due to torrential rains, ran out of supplies and starved. The surviving forces eventually retreated losing 85,000 men, one of the largest Japanese defeats of the war.
During the monsoon from August to November 1944, the Japanese were pursued to the Chindwin River in Burma. With the onset of the dry season in early 1945, while the American and Chinese forces finally completed the Ledo Road, although too late to have any decisive effect, the British Fourteenth Army, consisting of Indian, British, and African units, launched an offensive into Central Burma. The Japanese forces were heavily defeated, and the Allies pursued them southward, taking Rangoon on May 2 (see Operation Dracula).
Submarine warfare
After the destruction of the Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, one of the few resources at the American Navy's disposal was her submarine fleet. President Roosevelt ordered the boats to conduct unconditional submarine warfare within hours of the commencement of hostilities.
Throughout 1944, Allied submarines and aircraft attacked Japanese merchant shipping and deprived Japan's industry of the raw materials it had gone to war to obtain. The main target was oil, and Japan ran almost dry by late 1944. In 1944, submarines sank over two million tons of cargo,[29] while the Japanese were only able to replace less than one million tons.[30]
U.S. submarines accounted for 56% of the Japanese merchantmen sunk; most of the rest were destroyed by planes at the end of the war, or were sunk by mines. U.S. submariners also claimed 28% of Japanese warships destroyed, including the carriers Taihō and Shōkaku during the Battle of the Philippine Sea.[31] Furthermore, they played important reconnaissance roles, as at the battles of the Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf (and, coincidentally, at Midway), when they gave accurate and timely warning of the approach of the Japanese fleet. Submarines operated from secure bases in Fremantle, Australia; Pearl Harbor; Trincomalee, Ceylon; and later Guam. These bases were protected by surface fleets and aircraft.
End of the war in Asia
The last Allied conference of World War II was held at the suburb of Potsdam, outside Berlin, from July 17 to August 2. During the Potsdam Conference, agreements were reached among the Allies on policies for occupied Germany. An ultimatum was issued calling for the unconditional surrender of Japan.
U.S. president Harry Truman decided to use the new atomic weapon to bring the war to a swifter end. The battle for Okinawa had shown that an invasion of the Japanese mainland (planned for November) would result in large numbers of American casualties. The official estimate given to the Secretary of War was 1.4 to four million Allied casualties, though some historians dispute whether this would have been the case. Invasion would have meant the death of millions of Japanese soldiers and civilians, who were being trained as militia.
On August 6, 1945, a B-29 Superfortress, the Enola Gay, dropped a nuclear weapon dubbed Little Boy on Hiroshima, destroying the city. On August 9, a B-29 named Bockscar dropped the second atomic bomb, dubbed Fat Man, on the port city of Nagasaki.
On August 8, two days after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the Soviet Union, having renounced its nonaggression pact with Japan in April, attacked the Japanese in Manchuria, fulfilling its Yalta pledge to attack the Japanese within three months after the end of the war in Europe. The attack was made by three Soviet army groups. In less than two weeks, the Japanese army in Manchuria, consisting of over a million men, had been destroyed by the battle-hardened Soviets. The Red Army moved into North Korea on August 18. Korea was subsequently divided at the 38th parallel into Soviet and U.S. zones.
The American use of atomic weapons against Japan and the Soviet invasion of Manchukuo prompted the prime minister to ask Emperor Hirohito to intervene to end the war. In his radio address to the nation, the Emperor did not mention the entry of the Soviet Union into the war, but in his "Rescript to the soldiers and sailors" of August 17, ordering them to cease fire and lay down arms, he stressed the relationship between Soviet entrance into the war and his decision to surrender, omitting any mention of the atomic bombs.
The Japanese surrendered on August 15, 1945, or V-J day, signing the Japanese Instrument of Surrender on September 2. The Japanese troops in China formally surrendered to the Chinese on September 9, 1945. See image
Aftermath of the war
The end of the war hastened the independence of many British crown colonies (such as India) and Dutch territories (such as Indonesia) and the formation of new nations and alliances throughout Asia and Africa. The Philippines were granted their independence in 1946 as previously promised by the United States. France attempted and failed to regain control of its colonies in Indochina.
Poland's boundaries were re-drawn to include portions of pre-war Germany, including East Prussia and Upper Silesia, while ceding most of the areas taken by the Soviet Union in the Molotov-Ribbentrop partition of 1939, effectively moving Poland to the west. Germany was split into four zones of occupation, and the three zones under the Western Allies was reconstituted as a constitutional democracy. The Soviet Union's influence increased as they, with the tacit approval of the West, established hegemony over most of eastern Europe and incorporated parts of Finland and Poland into their new boundaries. This appeasement of Stalin by the West became known as the Western betrayal among the Soviet-dominated countries. Europe was informally split into Western and Soviet spheres of influence, which heightened existing tensions between the two camps and helped establish the Cold War.
To prevent (or at least minimize) future conflicts, the allied nations, led by the United States, formed the United Nations in San Francisco, California in 1945. One of the first actions of the United Nations was the creation of the State of Israel, partly in response to the Holocaust.
In 1947, U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall devised the "European Recovery Program", better known as the Marshall Plan. Effective from 1948 to 1952, it allocated 13 billion dollars for the reconstruction of Western Europe. Of Germany's four zones of occupation, coordinated by the Allied Control Council, the American, British, and French zones joined in 1949 as the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic. In Germany, economic suppression and denazification took place for several years. Millions of Germans and Poles were expelled from their homelands as a result of the territorial annexations in Eastern Europe agreed upon at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences. Mainstream estimates of German casualties from this process range 1–2 million. In the West, Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France, and the Saar area was separated from Germany and put in economic union with France. Austria was divided into four zones of occupation, which were united in 1955 to become the Republic of Austria. The Soviet Union occupied much of Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. In all the USSR-occupied countries, with the exception of Austria, the Soviet Union helped Communist regimes to power. It also annexed the Baltic countries Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
In Asia, Japan was occupied by the U.S, aided by Commonwealth troops, until the peace treaty took effect in 1952. The Japanese Empire's government was dismantled under General Douglas MacArthur and replaced by a constitutional monarchy with the emperor as a figurehead. The defeat of Japan also led to the establishment of the Far Eastern commission which set out policies for Japan to fulfill under the terms of surrender. In accordance with the Yalta Conference agreements, the Soviet Union occupied and subsequently annexed Sakhalin and the Kuril islands. Japanese occupation of Korea also ended, but the peninsula was divided between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, along 38th parallel. The U.S.-backed South Korea would fight the communist North Korea in the Korean War, with Korea remaining divided.
World War II was a pivotal point in China's history. Before the war against Japan, China had suffered nearly a century of humiliation at the hands of various imperialist powers and was relegated to a semi-colonial status. However, the war greatly enhanced China's international status. The central government under Chiang Kai-shek was able to abrogate most of the unequal treaties China had signed in the past century, and China became a founding member of the United Nations and a permanent member of the Security Council. China also reclaimed Manchuria and Taiwan. Nevertheless, eight years of war greatly taxed the central government, and many of its nation-building measures adopted since it came to power in 1928 were disrupted by the war. Communist activities also expanded greatly in occupied areas, making post-war administration of these areas difficult. Vast war damages and hyperinflation thereafter demoralized the populace, along with the continuation of the Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang and the Communists. Partly because of the severe blow his army and government had suffered during the war against Japan, the Kuomintang, along with state apparatus of the Republic of China, retreated to Taiwan in 1949 and in its place the Chinese communists established the People's Republic of China on the mainland.
Casualties, civilian impact, and atrocities
- See also: World War II casualties, War crimes during World War II, Consequences of German Nazism, and Population transfer in the Soviet Union
Estimates for the total casualties of the war vary, but most suggest that some 60 million people died in the war, including about 20 million soldiers and 40 million civilians.[32][33][34] Many civilians died as a result of disease, starvation, massacres, genocide. Of the total deaths in World War II, approximately 85% were on the Allied side (mostly Soviet and Chinese) and 15% on the Axis side. One estimate is that 12 million civilians died in Holocaust camps, 1.5 million by bombs, 7 million in Europe from other causes, and 7.5 million in China from other causes.[35] Figures on the amount of total casualties varies to a wide extent because the majority of deaths were not documented.
Concentration camps and slave work
The Holocaust was the killing of approximately six million European Jews, as well as another 6 million others who were deemed "unworthy of life", as part of a program of deliberate extermination planned and executed by the National Socialist government in Germany led by Adolf Hitler.
In addition to the Nazi concentration camps, the Soviet Gulag, or labor camps, led to the death of citizens of occupied countries such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, as well as German prisoners of war (POW) and even Soviet citizens themselves who had been supporters of the Nazis or were thought to be the ones. Sixty percent (1,238,000 ref. Krivosheev) of Soviet POWs died during the war. Vadim Erlikman puts it at 2.6 million Soviet POWs that died in German Captivity.[37] Richard Overy gives the number of 5.7 million Soviet POW and out of those 57% died or were killed.[38]
Japanese POW camps also had high death rates, many were used as labour camp. According to the findings of the Tokyo tribunal, the death rate of occidental prisonners was 27.1%, seven times that of POW's under the Germans and Italians [39] The death rate of Chinese was much larger as, according to the directive ratified on 5 August 1937 by Hirohito, the constraints of international law were removed on those prisoners [40]. Thus, if 37 583 prisoners from Great Britain and 28 500 from Netherlands were released after the surrender of Japan, the number for the Chinese was only 56. [41]
According to a joint study of historians featuring Zhifen Ju, Mark Peattie, Toru Kubo, and Mitsuyoshi Himeta, more than 10 million Chinese were mobilized by the Japanese army and enslaved by the Kôa-in for slave labor in Manchukuo and north China.[42] According to Mitsuyoshi Himeta, at least 2.7 million died during the Sankō Sakusen operation implemented in Heipei and Shantung by General Yasuji Okamura.
On February 19, 1942, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, leading to the internment of thousands of Japanese, Italians, German Americans, and some emigrants from Hawaii who fled after the bombing of Pearl Harbor for the duration of the war. 150,000 Japanese-Americans were interned by the U.S. and Canadian governments, as well as nearly 11,000 German and Italian residents of the U.S.
Chemical and bacteriological weapons
Despite the international treaties and a resolution adopted by the League of Nations on 14 May 1938 condemning the use of toxic gas by Japan, the Imperial Japanese Army frequently used chemical weapons. Because of fears of retaliation, however, those weapons were never used against Westerners but only against other Asians judged "inferior" by the imperial propaganda. According to historians Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Seiya Matsuno, the authorization for the use of chemical weapons was given by specific orders (rinsanmei) issued by Hirohito himself. For example, the Emperor authorized the use of toxic gas on 375 separate occasions during the invasion of Wuhan, from August to October 1938.
The bacteriological weapons were experimented on human beings by many units incorporated in the Japanese army, such as the infamous Unit 731, integrated by Imperial decree in the Kwantung army in 1936. Those weapons were mainly used in China and, according to some Japanese veterans, against Mongolians and Soviet soldiers in 1939 during the Nomonhan incident.[43] According to documents found in the Australian national archives in 2004 by Yoshimi and Yuki Tanaka, cyanide gas was tested on Australian and Dutch prisoners in November 1944 in the Kai islands. [44]
Bombings
Massive aerial bombing by both Axis and Allied air forces took the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians. For the first and so far only time, nuclear weapons were used in combat: two atomic bombs released by the United States over Japan devastated Hiroshima and, three days later, Nagasaki.
War trials
From 1945 to 1951, German and Japanese officials and personnel were prosecuted for war crimes. The most senior German officials were tried at the Nuremberg Trials, and many Japanese officials at the Tokyo War Crime Trial and other war crimes trials in the Asia-Pacific region.
