Lingyun
Abstract: During World War II, the Axis camp was not only Germany, Italy, and Japan, but also Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Finland and other countries in Europe that followed Nazi Germany. So these accomplices who aided and abetted the abuse also suffered a lot of losses in the war, and in the end, how big were the losses of these countries? Why did hungary not withdraw from the Axis in the end?
Figure 1: Group photo of Axis leaders
During World War II, the Axis camp was not only Germany, Italy, and Japan, but also Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Finland and other countries that followed Nazi Germany in Europe. So these accomplices who aided and abetted the abuse also suffered a lot of losses in the war, and in the end, how big were the losses of these countries? Why did hungary not withdraw from the Axis in the end?
Italy is a special situation, strictly speaking, Italy is the birthplace of fascism, and even Nazi Germany is an apprentice of Italy, so the statement of Italy as a vassal state is not very accurate. But Italy was really carrying tofu on horseback – it couldn't afford to lift it, it was beaten by the Allies in North Africa, and in the end it had to rely on Germany.
In September 1943, the Italians rebelled against the water, overthrew the fascist regime, and joined the Allied camp anyway; they became the first German allies to withdraw from the Axis powers, and Italy had a religious and cultural importance in Europe since ancient times, so there were relatively few killings and destruction, and the main losses in the war were the losses caused by the previous German invasion of the Soviet Union, the losses caused by the operation in North Africa, and the losses caused by the landing of American troops in Italy.
About 300,000 Italian soldiers died, 160,000 civilians died, and the total population loss was about 460,000, accounting for 1.03% of the Italian population. It is worth mentioning that the Italian Navy killed 35,000 people in battle, and the war loss ratio is second only to Japan in World War II. After the war, nineteen countries, including my own, signed a treaty of understanding with Italy, which lost all of its African colonies except Somalia — almost all of northeastern Africa and newly occupied Ethiopia. In Europe, the abandonment of all disputed territories with its neighbors would result in a loss of about 3% of the native area.
It should be said that these losses are not too big, for Italy, the losses do exist, but they are far from the point of serious injury.
Figure 2: Italian troops in World War II
Romania is known as the "fourth axis", can be regarded as the backbone of the Axis camp, in World War II to support Germany, not only the most important thing is oil, militarily in the European battlefield, the Romanian army is also the German allies can take the shot. At Hitler's request, Romania maintained an army size of half a million people, which was a considerable burden for a country with a population of only twenty million. The ratio of one to forty soldiers and civilians is close to the value of exhaustion, but Romania itself is not the protagonist, and it is really a sad thing for a small country like Romania to stir up the Soviet-German battlefield, the largest meat grinder in human history.
The Romanian army is very poorly equipped, but the combat effectiveness of the soldiers is OK, it is said to be stronger than the Soviet army in the early stages of the war, the Battle of Odessa is the main battle of the Romanian army, the front is hard to intimidate the Soviet army, causing losses to the Soviet army of 50,000 people, and they also paid for the loss of 80,000 people. This reliable combat power was highly anticipated by the Germans, and the Romanian army was incorporated into the battle sequence of Army Group South and participated in the Battle of Stalingrad. In this crucial battle, which is known as the turning point of the Soviet-German battlefield, the Romanian army was almost completely destroyed; the 400,000 troops, killed, seriously wounded and captured, reached 370,000, it can be said that the essence of the Romanian army was swept away, and the troops that were later replenished were basically unable to fight any battle.
In World War II, Romania's final losses were 350,000 soldiers and 500,000 civilians, but this figure does not include the 170,000 lost by reorganizing the Romanian army and attacking Hungary after the Soviet counterattack to Romania. If you count these 170,000 people, the total number of deaths in Romania exceeds one million, accounting for 5% of the total population.
Figure 3: Romanian troops in World War II
And Bulgaria is the most slippery, the military and political high-level pro-German, the middle class rich class pro-British, most of the people are Slavs and therefore pro-Soviet, the three sides each hold their own thighs, do not interfere with each other, all hold very well, and with the Germans under the pretext of watching the Turks, their own army can not go abroad to fight, anyway, it has not been out of the army. In the whole of World War II, less than a thousand people died, and it became one of the defeated countries, but nothing was done, and no one went to Bulgaria to settle accounts, so this defeated country not only suffered the smallest loss among the participating countries, but also because of the original Romanian South Dobroga region, the land area increased...
Turning to Finland, Finland is not actually a country in the Axis camp, but is trying to use the Axis camp to regain the benefits it has lost in the Soviet Partition War. Finland was a country that had just gained independence from Tsarist Russia before its overthrow. After the Soviet Union and Germany partitioned Poland, they ostensibly signed a non-aggression pact, and behind their backs sharpened their knives, the Soviet Union's preparations included attacking Finland. This is to fight for the Western Front, to prepare a rear with no worries. After Finland's independence, the border was almost close to Leningrad, the important town in the north of the Soviet Union, and the straight-line distance was only fifteen kilometers, and Finland could shell Leningrad without crossing the border. TheRefore, the Soviet Union proposed to replace the Karelia region in the northern suburbs of Leningrad with other wastelands, but the Finns disagreed, which led to the Soviet-Finnish War. At the beginning of the war, the Soviet army, which had just ended the Great Purge, was in disarray and suffered heavy losses, until Timoshenko took command, straightened out the relationship and reorganized; after breaking through the Finnish Mannerheim Line in three days, Finland humiliatedly conceded defeat.
But finland thus formed a bond with the Soviet Union, and then mobilized the whole country, with a conscription rate of up to 20%, ready to be disgraced. Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union was defeated at first, allowing Finland to see an opportunity to immediately enter the war and quickly defeat the Soviet forces occupying the Karelia region. Hitler felt that the Finns were very good at fighting, even surpassing the Germans, and hoped that the Finns would take on greater responsibility. However, the Finns had their own small calculations, and when they restored their original borders, they became extremely passive and never entered the Territory of the Soviet Union again. After the Soviet Victory at the Battle of Stalingrad, the Finns immediately sent people to seek peace with Stalin, and the price was nothing more than the restoration of the original border, that is, the maintenance of the current Finnish occupation. Stalin angrily refused, the Soviets and Finnish went to war for the second time, and the Finns exchanged their heavy sacrifices for the heavy sacrifices of the Soviet Union. However, watching the Soviet Union's endless million troops, once again humiliatingly cutting up land and seeking peace, losing 5,600 square kilometers of land, killing 95,000 soldiers and 2,000 civilians, and completely withdrawing from the war. The deaths of nearly 100,000 people were definitely quite damaging for a small country of three million people, but Finland eventually retained its independence and was not annexed by the Soviet Union like the three Baltic states.
Figure 4: Finnish army in World War II
Finally, Hungary,] In 1000 AD, István I established the Kingdom of Hungary. In 1526 the Ottoman Empire invaded and the Kingdom of Hungary disintegrated. In 1541 Hungary was divided into three, ruled by the Ottoman Empire, the Austrian Habsburgs, and the Grand Duchy of Erdey. From 1699 onwards the territory was ruled by the Austrian Habsburg dynasty. In 1867, the Austrian Empire merged to prevent Hungarian independence to form the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After the defeat of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in World War I in 1918, Hungary regained its independence from Austria, established the Hungarian Soviet Republic in March 1919, and was overthrown by soldiers led by Horti Miklos in August of the same year, and the Kingdom of Hungary was established as a constitutional monarchy, with Horti as regent of the Kingdom of Hungary.
In 1920, Hungary, as the first defeated country in the world, signed the Treaty of Trianon with the Allies, and lost 72% of its territory and 64% of its population less than two years after its establishment. This strongly stimulated the national and patriotic sentiment of Hungary.
Similarly, Germany was forced to sign the humiliating Treaty of Versailles with the Allies because of its defeat in World War I, and the two countries could be described as brothers and sisters with the same disease, and they were once allies in World War I, so Hitler tried his best to win Hungary over and promised to help Hungary regain its lost territory.
When Germany occupied Czechoslovakia in 1939, it returned all the Hungarian territory occupied by Czechoslovakia to Hungary. Hungary then signed the Anti-Comintern Pact and withdrew from the League of Nations.
In 1940, Germany intervened again, and Romania returned half of the occupied Hungarian territory to Hungary.
In this way, Hungary decided to formally join the Axis camp in April 1941 and sent troops to participate in the invasion of Yugoslavia, and to recover all the territories occupied by Yugoslavia.
In June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and initially Hitler did not ask Hungary to send troops, but Hungary took the initiative to send 32 divisions of the Second Army with a total strength of 300,000 people to the war, and as a result, it was almost completely lost in the 1943 battles of Kharkov and Rostov. However, Hungary then rebuilt another 230,000 Second Army into the Soviet-German battlefield, but soon lost 170,000 men under the fierce Offensive of the Soviet Army.
Figure 5: Hungarian army in World War II
In 1944, Horthy saw that the Axis powers were gone, so he began to secretly make peace with the Allies, but unfortunately the secrecy work was not home, the information leaked, Germany quickly preemptively intervened, sent special forces to raid Horti's headquarters, and took him prisoner, but he was also blessed by misfortune, and after the war, he escaped the trial of war criminals, and then Germany supported the Hungarian Nazi organization Arrow October Party leader Stoyauy Demais to form a puppet government. The Hungarian puppet government was naturally dead set on Nazi Germany, and until October 1944, when the Soviets invaded Hungary, they still stubbornly resisted with the Germans, and launched a fierce urban offensive and defensive battle in the capital Budapest comparable to the Battle of Stalingrad, which lasted 108 days and was not captured by the Soviets until February 1945, with the Hungarian army losing about 90,000 people and the civilian deaths reaching 78,000. Because of this fierce battle, several leaders of the Arrow October Party were sentenced to death as war criminals after the war, and became the bearers of Horti.
In this way, Hungary became the last ally of Nazi Germany and the only ally of Germany in Europe by the end of 1944.
(The picture of this article is from the network)