I think you’ve read accounts that overdramatize the Yugoslavian contribution. The various Yugoslav partisan groups focused their efforts primarily on positioning themselves to rule the country after it was liberated, and conducted much more limited operations against the occupiers, possibly mostly to convince the British Special operations Executive to keep funding them.
The contributions of resistance forces in all occupied countries tend to be wildly exaggerated, possibly as a consequence of Allied wartime propaganda and the romanticism of the underdog. Historian John Keegan pointed out that on June 6, 1944, the last date at which the Germans could claim uncontested mastery of the European continent, fewer than 20 divisions out of 300 were used against resistance forces altogether, and not one of those units was suitable for front-line combat against modern militaries anyway, resulting in roughly zero net deduction of combat strength from German order-of-battle.
The Germans were driven out of Yugoslavia by the approach of the Soviets. Saying the partisans “drove the German armies out of the country” is akin to my shouting a warning at a guy standing on a train track, and after he dives away from the approaching locomotive, taking credit for moving him with the power of my mind alone. Even if he moved because of my action, it was his assessment of the train that moved him.
On the German side, there was Finland, Hungary, and Rumania as well as the puppet state of Slovakia. Hungary and Rumania both provided the largest armies, but were the least capable. From the beginning of the fighting Rumania performed horribly. During their siege of Odessa in 1941 which lasted 73 days they launched 4 failed attempts to assault the city, suffering 93,000 casualties. To add insult to injury the Soviets were able to evacuate most of their forces by sea, and after their ‘victory’ at Odessa the Romanians had to be pulled from the line for reinforcement, reorganization and retraining.
Bulgaria was also a German ally, but in a rather unique position. They sided with the Axis to invade Greece and Yugoslavia, and made a formal declaration of war against the USA to make Hitler happy, but they never declared war on the USSR. When the Red Army crashed through Rumania and was barreling towards the Bulgarian border Bulgaria made attempts to try to appease the USSR by proclaiming their neutrality and announcing that they were interning any German troops crossing the border. The USSR was having none of that bullshit and demanded that Bulgaria declare war on Germany. To make the point clear, they declared war on Bulgaria. Facing the reality of the situation, Bulgaria quickly surrendered and declared war on Germany.
There were also a lot of volunteers from conquered nations that served with the Germans in the ‘crusade against Bolshevism.’ Spain, while neutral, allowed a volunteer division, the Blue division given the number 250th Infantry by the Germans to be raised to serve on the Eastern Front. Most foreign units eventually wound up under the purview of the Waffen SS, the list of Waffen SS Divisions in Wiki lists the primary makeup of the personnel under Origin. Contrary to popular perception, the SS wasn’t formed primarily from tall, blonde haired blue eyes Aryans. It was in the beginning when it was small, but by the end of the war it had ballooned to ~900,000 men including those of ‘inferior stock’ under Nazi ideology and even those considered untermenschen by their twisted ideology such as Slavic peoples.
More a footnote than anything else, there were even British former POWs who served in the SS as the Britisches Freikorps. The total who served was 59, with a maximum of 27 at any one time. After the war their leader, John Amery plead guilty to high treason and was hung.
Spain: never formally at war, Franco sent the “Blue Legion” to fight in Russia-these guys were volunteers. I haven’t ever read about their fate.
I believe that there was a special muslim division in the SS (how this squared with Himmler’s racial stuff I do not understand). Where these guys fought I don’t know.
Sorry, Cece, but I believe you are incorrect. In 1939, Canada was a dominion of the British Empire. Canada had de facto, declared war on Germany when the UK did. The Canadian parliament had no authority to declare war (except as a gesture of solidarity).
The Blue Legion was formed from the 250th Blue division when Franco ordered the division back home in early 1944. About 3,000 Spaniards refused to go and were formed into the Blue Legion, remaining on the Eastern Front.
All the racial nonsense went out the window as the size of the SS expanded. The elite SS panzer and panzergrenadier divisions remained largely German/Germanic, but the foreign divisions, which by the end of the war substantially outnumbered the ‘German’ SS divisions consisted of everything from Estonians to Hungarians to Russians. Remember Slavs were only just above Jews as far as the Nazis were concerned. The ‘Muslim’ division was the Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st_Croatian) was only about 1/2 Bosnian Muslims, the other 1/2 were Croatians. The SS was equal opportunity when it came to raising troops in the Balkans for anti-partisan duty, aside from the 13th Mountain they also raised 21st Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Skanderbeg (1st Albanian) and 23rd Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Kama (2nd Croatian).
From an Australian perspective, we were heavily involved in the war effort, but largely in ‘fringe’ battle areas. As in, we weren’t present in force in Western Europe, nor were we heavily involved in the island hoping campaign in the Pacific. Our major efforts in the pacific were largely in the South West, focused around Papua, Borneo, and the Phillipines. I would imagine from an American-centric point of view those aren;t ‘high profile’ contributions.
Where Australia was heavily involved is: North Africa Campaign - El Alamein, Tobruk
Mediterranean - we were heavily involved in the defence of Greece, and other actions around the Med, but we withdrew from the area when the Pacific Campaign started in earnest, and Australia itself was being threatened.
The Pacific South West - which was earlier in the Pacific Campaign, quite a while before the more ‘famous’ American amphibious landings took place. But in Papua in particular we were for all intents and purposes defending the homeland. An interesting fact of note, that it was an Australian force that inflicted the Japanese’s first major land defeat of WWII at a place called Milne Bay! How’s that for notable. Depending upon which books you read, that action had a major impact on the allied forces right across the Pacific.
As part of the overall Pacific Campaign, Australia provided significant levels of support to the American forces, including basing, supplies, etc. MacArthur operated his headquarters from my hometown of Brisbane.
While not at a ‘significant’ level, Australian forces were interspersed with British forces across virtually all fronts of the war
And the Royal Australian Navy had ships mixed in with both British and American fleets both in the Atlantic, and the Med, bot more so in the Pacific.
Canada declared war separately, on September 10. You may be confusing that war with the First World War.
A weird fact; Canada’s Parliament did not pass a formal, separate declaration of war against Japan after Pearl Harbor. The declaration of war against Germany gave Parliament the right to make war against Germany and all her allies, so upon learning of the Japanese attack, Mackenzie King’s government simply announced Canada was at war with Japan, under the proviso of the September 10, 1939 declaration, announcing it in the Canada Gazette (an official federal government publication.) So, weirdly, Canada legally declared war on Japan two years before we knew we had to.
But just to be nationalistically fair,
The naval base near Honolulu, and so the famous battle that took place there, is named “Pearl Harbor.” It’s a proper name.
This is only a tangential point, but it’s little-remembered today that prior to the war, Nazi Germany was a major supporter of Nationalist (KMT) China, and provided a lot of training and matériel which ended up getting used against the Japanese rather than the Communists. See Sino-German cooperation (1911–1941), particularly the section on Germany and Chinese military modernization.
I’ve thought it unfortunate that the general public in the US wasn’t more aware of the Australian contribution in particular. MacArthur was largely relying on Australian troops for the better part of a year after he ingloriously fled from the Philippines. And the Royal Australian Navy was present at almost every significant engagement in the Pacific. Unfortunately these contributions tend to disappear under summary versions of the histories.
Poland may a huge contribution to the Allied war effort. It was Polish military intelligence that broke the Enigma code when other countries believed it was impossible. When Poland was invaded, the Poles passed on their code-breaking system to France and Britain.
Now that you mention it, the Polish military-in-exile did fight furiously against the Germans, I think most famously in the 303rd fighter squadron and at Monte Cassino. All in all, the Poles fielded close to 250,000 men. Not a bad contribution for being post-defeat.
Not forgetting the the Polish fighter squadrons during the Battle of Britain. They had the highest kill rate and the lowest casualty rate of all the squadrons that took part in that campaign.
A great source of info on the 1st 3 is the semi-autobiographical The Big Red One, by Sam Fuller, who was there. Some of the revelations that surprised me:
North Africa - the goumiers, or goums. Under the command of the Free French, these horsebacked tribesmen would attack German columns and tanks, support the American flanks, and cut off German ears for trade with the Americans. Not really a nation (they most reminded me of Bedouins the way Fuller described them), they nevertheless did turn the tide in some battles & were counted on by the Americans, for flank support, guiding thru desert passes, reporting on German movement, and battle participation.
By the same token, who can forget the disgusting Vichy French. So there was the oddity of soldiers under French command fighting each other in North Africa (*goums *& Free French vs. Vichy).
Belgium - while fighting was getting closer to Germany and the Allies were advancing thru Belgium, they stumbled upon the Rexist movement - Belgian Nazis as dedicated as the Vichy French to help Hitler. I can’t find a reliable count of their strength, but again according to Fuller they were an effective force and did cause appreciable American casualties. Technically Belgium was an occupied country but the Rexists considered themselves separate from the king (Leopold?) and his Allied alliance.
The strange case of Brazil - on the 1 hand, a lot of their soldiers fought on the Allied side, especially known for their actions at Monte Cassino (Italy). On the other hand, unconfirmed reports tell of bases for Japanese submarines (don’t know the class or designation) that were used as mini aircraft carriers - they could hold 1 or 2 planes - and here’s the strange part - they were based in Sao Paolo Brazil, supposedly which had a big Japanese population and the state it was in (province, whatever they’re called there) did NOT support their country combatting Japan. These mini-carriers (whose existence is confirmed, the Americans confiscated them after the surrender) supposedly menaced the South Atlantic, & weren’t all accounted for & drydocked until 1951! (like those soldiers who hid in the Phillipine jungle and didn’t stop fighting til 1970). I’d love to get confirmation of that story.
Footnote
Vietnam? Hope someone can confirm this for me - 1 thing I heard about Vietnam and the 1st VietCong, Ho Chi Minh, was that he was an American agent, rallying guerrilla fighters against the Japanese! Supposedly mid-Vietnam war, he would tell a story about being decorated by an American commander for his actions (!!!) Only 20 years later, they’d be an enemy (the VC & Minh).
Putting China in the second power group is wrong. By your own definition “able to give the big dogs serious resistance” China should be in the first group - and nothing to do with temporary alliance of KMT and Red Army.
Japan’s principle war effort was in China and China fought them to a standstill. Holding on alone from 1937-42 and with very little direct support through to 1945 Chinese armies were repeatedly beaten but never completely defeated. IIRC there were 40 Japanese Divisions facing the Chinese, far more than the total number of troops spread across the Pacific and in Indo-china.
Sidelining China’s contribution to victory in the war against Japan in favour of the story of the American advance across the Pacific is a serious misunderstanding of history akin to focussing on D-Day and the fighting in France without looking at the Eastern Front. Note: Not running down American or British Empire efforts against the Japanese, just pointing out is not the whole story.
And of course at time the Chinese contribution was recognised with the China as one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council.
