World War II

Reference

63 million casualties; [Smithsonian, p. 478]

Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia

". . . the almost simultaneous victory of nationalist, war-like, and actively aggressive regimes in two major military powers--Japan (1931) and Germany (1933)--constituted the most far-reaching and sinister political consequence of the Great Depression. The gates to the Second World War were opened in 1931." [Hobsbawm: Extremes, p. 104] "The decisions to invade Russia and to declare war against the U.S.A. decided the result of the Second World War." [Hobsbawm: Extremes, p. 41]"The milestones on the road to war were the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931; the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935; the German and Italian intervention in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39; the German invasion of Austria in early 1938; the German crippling of Czechoslovakia later in the same year; . . ." [Hobsbawm: Extremes, p. 37] "The old balance of power on the European continent which had helped to restrain German expansionism was no more. 'Russia had withdrawn; Austria-Hungary had vanished. Only France and Italy remained, both inferior in manpower and still more in economic resources, both exhausted by the war.'” [Kennedy: Great Powers, p. 288]