ABSTRACT
The total collapse of the European balance of power in 1940 revolutionised Britain’s international position. Its chances of defeating Germany now depended heavily on America and, after Hitler turned east in June 1941, the Soviet Union. This would have significant repercussions for the post-war world. At the same time Italian and Japanese exploitation of the interna tional power vacuum helped broaden the struggle by 1942 into global war, with Mussolini’s botched opportunism opening up a North African theatre and Japan’s more serious bid for power transforming East Asia and the Pacific in the early months of 1942.
