ABSTRACT
The First World War was essentially a European War which spilled over into other continents, and in which non-Europeans (notably the United States and Japan) intervened. The Second World War was very different. Its first phase was indeed European – The Last European War, as John Lukacs called it.1 This lasted from September 1939 to December 1941, when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into the war, drawing two separate conflicts in Europe and East Asia into a genuinely world-wide war. The second phase began in 1942, when, despite German victories, the initiative passed to the Allied side, and continued in a period of Allied victories, though also of stubborn German resistance which prolonged the war until May 1945. The conflict ended with Europe in ruins, and with the armies of the United States and the Soviet Union (the first certainly, and the second arguably, a non-European power) meeting in the heart of the continent.
