ABSTRACT
The Second World War was the most violent, all–encompassing conflict in human history, yet as wars go, it started slowly. Europe was, once again, the source of the war, which inexorably spread to Africa, the Americas, Asia, and their surrounding oceans. The clash of competing ideologies—between liberal democracies and militaristic fascist states—eventually dragged the Communist Soviet Union into the fight as well. For several politicians in 1939, with the bitter memory of the Great War of 1914–18 still fresh in their minds, the clarion of war was all too familiar. It was a highly reluctant Britain under the direction of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain that declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939; after Adolf Hitler had ordered his armed forces into Poland just two days earlier.
