Durgaprasad

CAUSES: * Expansion in government services, as a result of Second World War
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World War II
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from Second World War)
"WWII" redirects here. For other uses, see WWII (disambiguation). For Winston Churchill 's history, see The Second World War (book series).

World War II | Clockwise from top left: Chinese forces in the Battle of Wanjialing, Australian 25-pounder guns during the First Battle of El Alamein, German Stuka dive bombers on the Eastern Frontwinter 1943–1944, US naval force in the Lingayen Gulf,Wilhelm Keitel signing the German Instrument of Surrender, Soviet troops in the Battle of Stalingrad | Date | 1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945(6 years, 1 day) | Location | Europe, Pacific, Atlantic, South-East Asia,China, Middle East, Mediterranean andAfrica, briefly North and South America | Result | Allied victory * Collapse of the Third Reich * Fall of Japanese and Italian Empires * Creation of the United Nations * Emergence of the United States and the Soviet Union as superpowers * Beginning of the Cold War (more...). | | Belligerents | Allies Soviet Union (1941–45) United States (1941–45) United Kingdom China (1937–45) France[a] Canada Australia Belgium (1940–45) Poland Yugoslavia (1941–45) Brazil (1942–45) Greece (1940–45) Netherlands (1940–45) New Zealand Norway (1940–45) South Africa Mexico (1942–45) Czechoslovakia Mongolia (1945)Client and puppet states Philippines (1941–45) | Axis Germany Japan (1937–45) Italy (1940–43) Hungary (1940–45) Romania (1941–44) Bulgaria (1941–44)Co-belligerents Finland (1941–44) Thailand (1942–45) Iraq (1941)Client and puppet states Manchukuo Italy (1943–45) Croatia (1941–45) Philippines (1944–45) Slovakia | Commanders and leaders | Allied leaders Joseph Stalin Franklin D. Roosevelt Winston Churchill Chiang Kai-shek | Axis leaders Adolf Hitler Hirohito Benito Mussolini | Casualties and losses | Military dead:
Over 16,000,000
Civilian dead:
Over 45,000,000
Total dead:
Over 61,000,000 (1937–45)
...further details | Military dead:
Over 8,000,000
Civilian dead:
Over 4,000,000
Total dead:
Over 12,000,000 (1937–45)
...further details | | |
World War II (WWII or WW2), also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world 's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, with more than 100 million people serving in military units from over 30 different countries. In a state of "total war", the major participants placed their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities at the service of the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the only use of nuclear weapons in warfare, it resulted in an estimated 50 million to 85 million fatalities. These deaths make World War II the deadliest conflict in human history.[1]
The Empire of Japan aimed to dominate East Asia and was already at war with the Republic of China in 1937,[2] but the world war is generally said to have begun on 1 September 1939 with the invasion of Poland by Germany and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by Franceand the United Kingdom. From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany formed the Axis alliance with Italy, conquering or subduing much of continental Europe. Following the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories between themselves of their European neighbours, including Poland and the Baltic states. The United Kingdom and the other members of the British Commonwealth were the only major Allied forces continuing the fight against the Axis, with battles taking place in North Africa as well as the long-running Battle of the Atlantic. In June 1941, the European Axis launched an invasion of the Soviet Union, giving a start to the largest land theatre of war in history, which tied down the major part of the Axis ' military forces for the rest of the war. In December 1941, Japan joined the Axis, attacked the United States and European territories in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific.
The Axis advance was stopped in 1942 Japan lost a critical battle at Midway, near Hawaii, and never regained its earlier momentum. Germany was defeated in North Africa and, decisively, at Stalingrad in Russia. In 1943, with a series of German defeats in Eastern Europe, the Allied invasion of Italy which brought about that nation 's surrender, and American victories in the Pacific, the Axis lost the initiative and undertook strategic retreat on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the United States defeated the Japanese Navy and captured key Western Pacific islands.
The war in Europe ended with an invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union culminating in the capture of Berlin by Soviet and Polish troops and the subsequent German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945. Following the Potsdam Declaration by the Allies on 26 July 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 August and 9 August respectively. With an invasion of the Japanese archipelago imminent, and the Soviet Union having declared war on Japan by invading Manchuria, Japan surrendered on 15 August 1945, ending the war in Asia and cementing the total victory of the Allies over the Axis.
World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world. The United Nations (UN) was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The great powers that were the victors of the war—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, and France—became the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.[3] The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers started to decline, while the decolonisation of Asia and Africa began. Most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to stabilise postwar relations and fight more effectively in the Cold War.
Contents
[hide] * 1 Chronology * 2 Background * 3 Pre-war events * 3.1 Italian invasion of Ethiopia (1935) * 3.2 Spanish Civil War (1936–39) * 3.3 Japanese invasion of China (1937) * 3.4 Japanese invasion of the Soviet Union and Mongolia (1938) * 3.5 European occupations and agreements * 4 Course of the war * 4.1 War breaks out in Europe (1939–40) * 4.2 Western Europe (1940–41) * 4.3 Mediterranean (1940–41) * 4.4 Axis attack on the USSR (1941) * 4.5 War breaks out in the Pacific (1941) * 4.6 Axis advance stalls (1942–43) * 4.7 Allies gain momentum (1943–44) * 4.8 Allies close in (1944) * 4.9 Axis collapse, Allied victory (1944–45) * 5 Aftermath * 6 Impact * 6.1 Casualties and war crimes * 6.2 Concentration camps and slave work * 6.3 Home fronts and production * 6.4 Occupation * 6.5 Advances in technology and warfare * 7 See also * 8 Notes * 9 Citations * 10 References * 11 External links
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Chronology
See also: Timeline of World War II
The start of the war is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland; Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. Other dates for the beginning of war include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937.[4]
Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and the two wars merged in 1941. This article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935.[5] The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of the Second World War as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939.[6]
The exact date of the war 's end is also not universally agreed upon. It has been suggested that the war ended at the armistice of 14 August 1945 (V-J Day), rather than the formal surrender of Japan (2 September 1945); in some European histories, it ended on V-E Day (8 May 1945). However, the Treaty of Peace with Japan was not signed until 1951,[7] and that with Germany not until 1990.[8]
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Background
Main article: Causes of World War II
World War I radically altered the political map, with the defeat of the Central Powers—including Austria-Hungary, Germany and the Ottoman Empire—and the 1917 Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia. Meanwhile, existing victorious Allies such as France, Belgium, Italy, Greece and Romania gained territories, while new states were created out of the collapse of Austria-Hungary and the Russian and Ottoman Empires.
Despite the pacifist movement in the aftermath of the war,[9] the losses still caused irredentist and revanchist nationalism to become important in a number of European states. Irredentism and revanchism were strong in Germany because of the significant territorial, colonial, and financial losses incurred by the Treaty of Versailles. Under the treaty, Germany lost around 13 percent of its home territory and all of its overseas colonies, while German annexation of other states was prohibited, reparations were imposed, and limits were placed on the size and capability of the country 's armed forces.[10] Meanwhile, the Russian Civil War had led to the creation of the Soviet Union.[11]
The German Empire was dissolved in the German Revolution of 1918–1919, and a democratic government, later known as the Weimar Republic, was created. The interwar period saw strife between supporters of the new republic and hardline opponents on both the right and left. Although Italy as an Entente ally made some territorial gains, Italian nationalists were angered that the promises made by Britain and France to secure Italian entrance into the war were not fulfilled with the peace settlement. From 1922 to 1925, the Fascist movement led by Benito Mussolini seized power in Italy with a nationalist, totalitarian, and class collaborationist agenda that abolished representative democracy, repressed socialist, left-wing and liberal forces, and pursued an aggressive foreign policy aimed at forcefully forging Italy as a world power—a "New Roman Empire".[12]
In Germany, the Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler sought to establish a Nazi state in Germany. With the onset of the Great Depression, domestic support for the Nazis rose and, in 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. In the aftermath of the Reichstag fire, Hitler created a totalitarian single-party state led by the Nazis.[13]
The Kuomintang (KMT) party in China launched a unification campaign against regional warlords and nominally unified China in the mid-1920s, but was soon embroiled in a civil war against its formerChinese communist allies.[14] In 1931, an increasingly militaristic Japanese Empire, which had long sought influence in China[15] as the first step of what its government saw as the country 's right to rule Asia, used the Mukden Incident as a pretext to launch an invasion of Manchuria and establish the puppet state of Manchukuo.[16]
Too weak to resist Japan, China appealed to the League of Nations for help. Japan withdrew from the League of Nations after being condemned for its incursion into Manchuria. The two nations then fought several battles, in Shanghai, Rehe and Hebei, until the Tanggu Truce was signed in 1933. Thereafter, Chinese volunteer forces continued the resistance to Japanese aggression in Manchuria, andChahar and Suiyuan.[17]

Benito Mussolini (left) andAdolf Hitler (right)
Adolf Hitler, after an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government in 1923, became the Chancellor of Germany in 1933. He abolished democracy, espousing a radical, racially motivated revision of the world order, and soon began a massive rearmament campaign.[18] It was at this time that multiple political scientists began to predict that a second Great War might take place.[19] Meanwhile, France, to secure its alliance, allowed Italy a free hand in Ethiopia, which Italy desired as a colonial possession. The situation was aggravated in early 1935 when the Territory of the Saar Basin was legally reunited with Germany and Hitler repudiated the Treaty of Versailles, accelerated his rearmament programme and introduced conscription.[20]
Hoping to contain Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy formed the Stresa Front. The Soviet Union, concerned due to Germany 's goals of capturing vast areas of eastern Europe, wrote a treaty of mutual assistance with France. Before taking effect though, the Franco-Soviet pact was required to go through the bureaucracy of the League of Nations, which rendered it essentially toothless.[21] However, in June 1935, the United Kingdom made an independent naval agreementwith Germany, easing prior restrictions. The United States, concerned with events in Europe and Asia, passed the Neutrality Act in August.[22] In October, Italy invaded Ethiopia, and Germany was the only major European nation to support the invasion. Italy subsequently dropped its objections to Germany 's goal of absorbingAustria.[23]
Hitler defied the Versailles and Locarno treaties by remilitarising the Rhineland in March 1936. He received little response from other European powers.[24] When theSpanish Civil War broke out in July, Hitler and Mussolini supported the fascist and authoritarian Nationalist forces in their civil war against the Soviet-supported Spanish Republic. Both sides used the conflict to test new weapons and methods of warfare,[25] with the Nationalists winning the war in early 1939. In October 1936, Germany and Italy formed the Rome-Berlin Axis. A month later, Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, which Italy would join in the following year. In China, after the Xi 'an Incident the Kuomintang and communist forces agreed on a ceasefire in order to present a united front to oppose Japan.[26]
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Pre-war events
Italian invasion of Ethiopia (1935)

World colonial empires in 1936.
Main article: Second Italo-Abyssinian War
The Second Italo–Abyssinian War was a brief colonial war that began in October 1935 and ended in May 1936. The war was fought between the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy (Regno d 'Italia) and the armed forces of the Ethiopian Empire (also known as Abyssinia). The war resulted in the military occupation of Ethiopia and its annexation into the newly created colony of Italian East Africa (Africa Orientale Italiana, or AOI); in addition, it exposed the weakness of the League of Nations as a force to preserve peace. Both Italy and Ethiopia were member nations, but the League did nothing when the former clearly violated the League 's own Article X.[27]
Spanish Civil War (1936–39)

The bombing of Guernica in 1937 sparked Europe-wide fears that the next war would be based on bombing of cities with very high civilian casualties.
Main article: Spanish Civil War
During the Spanish Civil War, Hitler and Mussolini lent military support to the Nationalist rebels, led by General Francisco Franco. The Soviet Union supported the existing government, the Spanish Republic. Over 30,000 foreign volunteers, known as the International Brigades, also fought against the Nationalists. Both Germany and the USSR used this proxy war as an opportunity to test in combat their most advanced weapons and tactics. The bombing of Guernica by the German Condor Legion in April 1937 heightened widespread concerns that the next major war would include extensive terror bombing attacks on civilians.[28][29] The Nationalists won the civil war in April 1939; Franco, now dictator, bargained with both sides during the Second World War, but never concluded any major agreements. He did send volunteers to fight under German command but Spain remained neutral and did not allow either side to use its territory.[30]
Japanese invasion of China (1937)
Main article: Second Sino-Japanese War

A Chinese machine gun nest in the Battle of Shanghai, 1937.
In July 1937, Japan captured the former Chinese imperial capital of Beijing after instigating the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, which culminated in the Japanese campaign to invade all of China.[31] The Soviets quickly signed a non-aggression pact with China to lend materiel support, effectively ending China 's prior co-operation with Germany. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek deployed his best army to defend Shanghai, but, after three months of fighting, Shanghai fell. The Japanese continued to push the Chinese forces back, capturing the capital Nanking in December 1937 and committed the Nanking Massacre.
In June 1938, Chinese forces stalled the Japanese advance by flooding the Yellow River; this manoeuvre bought time for the Chinese to prepare their defences at Wuhan, but the city was taken by October.[32] Japanese military victories did not bring about the collapse of Chinese resistance that Japan had hoped to achieve; instead the Chinese government relocated inland to Chongqing and continued the war.[33][34]
Japanese invasion of the Soviet Union and Mongolia (1938)
See also: Nanshin-ron and Soviet–Japanese border conflicts

Soviet and Mongolian troops fought the Japanese during the Battle of Khalkhin Gol in Mongolia, 1939.
On 29 July 1938, the Japanese invaded the USSR and were checked at the Battle of Lake Khasan. Although the battle was a Soviet victory, the Japanese dismissed it as an inconclusive draw, and on 11 May 1939 decided to move the Japanese-Mongolian border up to the Khalkhin Gol River by force. After initial successes the Japanese assault on Mongolia was checked by the Red Army that inflicted the first major defeat on the Japanese Kwantung Army.[35]
These clashes convinced some factions in the Japanese government that they should focus on conciliating the Soviet government to avoid interference in the war against China and instead turn their military attention southward, towards the US and European holdings in the Pacific, and also prevented the sacking of experienced Soviet military leaders such as Georgy Zhukov, who would later play a vital role in the defence of Moscow.[36]
European occupations and agreements
Further information: Anschluss, Appeasement, Munich Agreement, German occupation of Czechoslovakia, and Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

From left to right (front): Chamberlain,Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini, and Ciano pictured before signing the Munich Agreement.
In Europe, Germany and Italy were becoming bolder. In March 1938, Germany annexed Austria, again provoking little response from other European powers.[37]Encouraged, Hitler began pressing German claims on the Sudetenland, an area of Czechoslovakia with a predominantly ethnic German population; and soon France and Britain conceded this territory to Germany in the Munich Agreement, which was made against the wishes of the Czechoslovak government, in exchange for a promise of no further territorial demands.[38] Soon afterwards, Germany and Italy forced Czechoslovakia to cede additional territory to Hungary and Poland.[39]
Although all of Germany 's stated demands had been satisfied by the agreement, privately Hitler was furious that British interference had prevented him from seizing all of Czechoslovakia in one operation. In subsequent speeches Hitler attacked British and Jewish "war-mongers" and in January 1939 secretly ordered a major build-up of the German navy to challenge British naval supremacy. In March 1939, Germany invaded the remainder of Czechoslovakia and subsequently split it into the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and a pro-German client state, the Slovak Republic.[40]
Alarmed, and with Hitler making further demands on Danzig, France and Britain guaranteed their support for Polish independence; when Italy conquered Albania in April 1939, the same guarantee was extended to Romania and Greece.[41] Shortly after the Franco-British pledge to Poland, Germany and Italy formalised their own alliance with the Pact of Steel.[42] Hitler accused Britain and Poland of trying to "encircle" Germany and renounced the Anglo-German Naval Agreement and the German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact. He offered Poland a new non-aggression pact and recognition of its current frontiers if it agreed to permit the German-inhabited city of Danzig to return to Germany, but the Poles declined the proposal and emphasised that Danzig was necessary for Poland 's security.[43]
In August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact,[44] a non-aggression treaty with a secret protocol. The parties gave each other rights to "spheres of influence" (western Poland and Lithuania for Germany; eastern Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Bessarabia for the USSR). It also raised the question of continuing Polish independence.[45] The agreement was crucial to Hitler because it assured that Germany would not have to face the prospect of a two-front war, as it had in World War I, after it defeated Poland.
The situation reached a general crisis in late August as German troops continued to mobilise against the Polish border. In a private meeting with the Italian foreign minister, Count Ciano, Hitler asserted that Poland was a "doubtful neutral" that needed to either yield to his demands or be "liquidated" to prevent it from drawing off German troops in the future "unavoidable" war with the Western democracies. He did not believe Britain or France would intervene in the conflict.[46] On 23 August Hitler ordered the attack to proceed on 26 August, but upon hearing that Britain had concluded a formal mutual assistance pact with Poland and that Italy would maintain neutrality, he decided to delay it.[47] In response to British pleas for direct negotiations, Germany demanded on 29 August that a Polish plenipotentiary immediately travel to Berlin to negotiate the handover of Danzig and the Polish Corridor to Germany as well as to agree to safeguard the German minority in Poland. The Poles refused to comply with this request and on the evening of 31 August Germany declared that it considered its proposals rejected.[43]
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Course of the war
Further information: Diplomatic history of World War II
War breaks out in Europe (1939–40)

Common parade of GermanWehrmacht and Soviet Red Armyon 23 September 1939 in Brest,Eastern Poland at the end of the Invasion of Poland. In the centre is Major General Heinz Guderian and on the right is Brigadier Semyon Krivoshein.
On 1 September 1939, Germany and Slovakia (which was a German client state at the time) invaded Poland on the false pretext that Poland had launched attacks on German territory.[48] On 3 September France and Britain, followed by the fully independent Dominions[49] of the British Commonwealth,[50] – Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa – declared war on Germany, but provided little support to Poland other than a small French attack into the Saarland.[51] Britain and France also began a naval blockade of Germany on 3 September which aimed to damage the country 's economy and war effort.[52] Germany responded by ordering U-boat warfare against Allied merchant and war ships (Battle of the Atlantic).
On 17 September 1939, after signing a cease-fire with Japan, the Soviets also invaded Poland.[53] The Polish army was defeated and Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on 27 September, with final pockets of resistance surrendering on 6 October. Poland 's territory was divided between Germany and the Soviet Union, withLithuania and Slovakia also receiving small shares. The Poles did not surrender; they established a Polish Underground State and an underground Home Army, andcontinued to fight alongside the Allies on all fronts in Europe and North Africa.[54]
About 100,000 Polish military personnel were evacuated to Romania and the Baltic countries; many of these soldiers later fought against the Germans in other theatres of the war.[55] Poland 's Enigma codebreakers were also evacuated to France.[56] During this time, Japan launched its first attack against Changsha, a strategically important Chinese city, but was repulsed by late September.[57]
On 6 October Hitler made a public peace overture to Britain and France, but said that the future of Poland was to be determined exclusively by Germany and the Soviet Union. Chamberlain rejected this on 12 October, saying "Past experience has shown that no reliance can be placed upon the promises of the present German Government."[43] After this rejection Hitler ordered an immediate offensive against France, but his generals persuaded him to wait until May of next year.
In December 1939 Britain won a naval victory over Germany in the south Atlantic during the Battle of the River Plate.
Following the invasion of Poland and a German-Soviet treaty governing Lithuania, the Soviet Union forced the Baltic countries to allow it to station Soviet troops in their countries under pacts of "mutual assistance."[58][59][60] Finland rejected territorial demands and was invaded by the Soviet Union in November 1939.[61] The resulting conflict ended in March 1940 with Finnish concessions.[62] France and the United Kingdom, treating the Soviet attack on Finland as tantamount to entering the war on the side of the Germans, responded to the Soviet invasion by supporting the USSR 's expulsion from the League of Nations.[60]

German troops by the Arc de Triomphe, Paris, after the 1940 fall of France.
In Western Europe, British troops deployed to the Continent, but in a phase nicknamed the Phoney War by the British and "Sitzkrieg" (sitting war) by the Germans, neither side launched major operations against the other until April 1940.[63] The Soviet Union and Germany entered a trade pact in February 1940, pursuant to which the Soviets received German military and industrial equipment in exchange for supplying raw materials to Germany to help circumvent the Allied blockade.[64]
Western Europe (1940–41)
In April 1940, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway to protect shipments of iron ore from Sweden, which the Allies were attempting to cut off by unilaterally mining neutral Norwegian waters.[65] Denmark immediately capitulated, and despite Allied support, Norway was conquered within two months.[66] British discontent over the Norwegian campaign led to the replacement of the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, with Winston Churchill on 10 May 1940.[67]
Germany launched an offensive against France and, for reasons of military strategy, also invaded the neutral nations of Belgium, the Netherlands, andLuxembourg on 10 May 1940.[68] That same day Britain invaded Iceland to preempt a possible German invasion of the island.[69] The Netherlands and Belgiumwere overrun using blitzkrieg tactics in a few days and weeks, respectively.[70] The French-fortified Maginot Line and the Allied forces in Belgium were circumvented by a flanking movement through the thickly wooded Ardennes region,[71] mistakenly perceived by French planners as an impenetrable natural barrier against armoured vehicles.[72] As a result, the bulk of the Allied armies found themselves trapped in an encirclement and were annihilated.
British troops were forced to evacuate the continent at Dunkirk, abandoning their heavy equipment by early June.[73] On 10 June, Italy invaded France, declaring war on both France and Britain;[74] Paris fell on 14 June and eight days later France surrendered and was soon divided into German and Italian occupation zones,[75] and an unoccupied rump state under the Vichy Regime, which, though officially neutral, was generally aligned with Germany. France kept its fleet but the British feared the Germans would seize it, so on 3 July, the British sank it.[76]
In June 1940, the Soviet Union forcibly annexed Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania,[59] and then annexed the disputed Romanian region of Bessarabia. Meanwhile, Nazi-Soviet political rapprochement and economic co-operation[77][78] gradually stalled,[79][80] and both states began preparations for war.[81]
On 19 July Hitler again publicly offered to end the war, saying he had no desire to destroy the British Empire. Britain rejected this, with Lord Halifax responding "there was in his speech no suggestion that peace must be based on justice, no word of recognition that the other nations of Europe had any right to selfdetermination..."[82]
Following this, Germany began an air superiority campaign over Britain (the Battle of Britain) to prepare for an invasion.[83] The campaign failed, and the invasion plans were cancelled by September.[83]Frustrated, and in part in response to repeated British air raids against Berlin, Germany began a strategic bombing offensive against British cities known as the Blitz.[84] However, the air attacks largely failed to either disrupt the British war effort or convince them to sue for peace.
Using newly captured French ports, the German Navy enjoyed success against an over-extended Royal Navy, using U-boats against British shipping in the Atlantic.[85] The British scored a significant victory on 27 May 1941 by sinking the German flagship Bismarck.[86] Perhaps most importantly, during the Battle of Britain the Royal Air Force had successfully resisted the Luftwaffe 's assault, and the German bombing campaign largely ended in May 1941.[87]

The Battle of Britain ended the German advance in Western Europe.
Throughout this period, the neutral United States took measures to assist China and the Western Allies. In November 1939, the American Neutrality Act was amended to allow "cash and carry" purchases by the Allies.[88] In 1940, following the German capture of Paris, the size of the United States Navy was significantly increased. In September, the United States further agreed to a trade of American destroyers for British bases.[89] Still, a large majority of the American public continued to oppose any direct military intervention into the conflict well into 1941.[90]
Although Roosevelt had promised to keep the United States out of the war, he nevertheless took concrete steps to prepare for that eventuality. In December 1940 he accused Hitler of planning world conquest and ruled out negotiations as useless, calling for the US to become an "arsenal for democracy" and promoted the passage ofLend-Lease aid to support the British war effort.[82] In January 1941 secret high level staff talks with the British began for the purposes of determining how to defeat Germany should the US enter the war. They decided on a number of offensive policies, including an air offensive, the "early elimination" of Italy, raids, support of resistance groups, and the capture of positions to launch an offensive against Germany.[91]
At the end of September 1940, the Tripartite Pact united Japan, Italy and Germany to formalise the Axis Powers. The Tripartite Pact stipulated that any country, with the exception of the Soviet Union, not in the war which attacked any Axis Power would be forced to go to war against all three.[92] The Axis expanded in November 1940 when Hungary, Slovakia and Romania joined the Tripartite Pact.[93] Romania would make a major contribution to the Axis war against the USSR, partially to recaptureterritory ceded to the USSR, partially to pursue its leader Ion Antonescu 's desire to combat communism.[94]
Mediterranean (1940–41)
Italy began operations in the Mediterranean, initiating a siege of Malta in June, conquering British Somaliland in August, and making an incursion into British-held Egyptin September 1940. In October 1940, Italy invaded Greece due to Mussolini 's jealousy of Hitler 's success but within days was repulsed and pushed back into Albania, where a stalemate soon occurred.[95] Britain responded to Greek requests for assistance by sending troops to Crete and providing air support to Greece. Hitler decided to take action against Greece when the weather improved to assist the Italians and prevent the British from gaining a foothold in the Balkans, to strike against the British naval dominance of the Mediterranean, and to secure his hold on Romanian oil.[96]
In December 1940, British Commonwealth forces began counter-offensives against Italian forces in Egypt and Italian East Africa.[97] The offensive in North Africa was highly successful and by early February 1941 Italy had lost control of eastern Libya and large numbers of Italian troops had been taken prisoner. The Italian Navy also suffered significant defeats, with the Royal Navy putting three Italian battleships out of commission by a carrier attack at Taranto, and neutralising several more warships at the Battle of Cape Matapan.[98]

German paratroopers invading the Greek island of Crete, May 1941.
The Germans soon intervened to assist Italy. Hitler sent German forces to Libya in February, and by the end of March they had launched an offensive which drove back the Commonwealth forces who had been weakened to support Greece.[99] In under a month, Commonwealth forces were pushed back into Egypt with the exception of the besieged port of Tobruk.[100] The Commonwealth attempted to dislodge Axis forces in May and again in June, but failed on both occasions.[101]
By late March 1941, following Bulgaria 's signing of the Tripartite Pact, the Germans were in position to intervene in Greece. Plans were changed, however, due to developments in neighbouring Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav government had signed the Tripartite Pact on 25 March, only to be overthrown two days later by aBritish-encouraged coup. Hitler viewed the new regime as hostile and immediately decided to eliminate it. On 6 April Germany simultaneously invaded bothYugoslavia and Greece, making rapid progress and forcing both nations to surrender within the month. The British were driven from the Balkans after Germanyconquered the Greek island of Crete by the end of May.[102] Although the Axis victory was swift, bitter partisan warfare subsequently broke out against the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia, which continued until the end of the war.
The Allies did have some successes during this time. In the Middle East, Commonwealth forces first quashed a coup in Iraq which had been supported by German aircraft from bases within Vichy-controlled Syria,[103] then, with the assistance of the Free French, invaded Syria and Lebanon to prevent further such occurrences.[104]
Axis attack on the USSR (1941)

German infantry and armoured vehiclesbattle the Soviet defenders on the streets of Kharkiv, October 1941.
With the situation in Europe and Asia relatively stable, Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union made preparations. With the Soviets wary of mounting tensions with Germany and the Japanese planning to take advantage of the European War by seizing resource-rich European possessions in Southeast Asia, the two powers signed the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact in April 1941.[105] By contrast, the Germans were steadily making preparations for an attack on the Soviet Union, amassing forces on the Soviet border.[106]
Hitler believed that Britain 's refusal to end the war was based on the hope that the United States and the Soviet Union would enter the war against Germany sooner or later.[107] He accordingly decided to try to strengthen Germany 's relations with the Soviets, or failing that, to attack and eliminate them as a factor. In November 1940 negotiations took place to determine if the Soviet Union would join the Tripartite Pact. The Soviets showed some interest, but asked for concessions from Finland, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Japan that Germany considered unacceptable. On 18 December 1940 Hitler issued the directive to prepare for an invasion of the Soviet Union.
On 22 June 1941, Germany and Romania invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, with Germany accusing the Soviets of plotting against them. They were joined shortly by Finland and Hungary after Soviet aircraft bombed their territory.[108] The primary targets of this surprise offensive[109] were the Baltic region, Moscow and Ukraine, with the ultimate goal of ending the 1941 campaign near the Arkhangelsk-Astrakhan line, connecting the Caspian and White Seas. Hitler 's objectives were to eliminate the Soviet Union as a military power, exterminate Communism, generate Lebensraum ("living space")[110] by dispossessing the native population[111] and guarantee access to the strategic resources needed to defeat Germany 's remaining rivals. .[112]
Although the Red Army was preparing for strategic counter-offensives before the war,[113] Barbarossa forced the Soviet supreme command to adopt a strategic defence. During the summer, the Axis made significant gains into Soviet territory, inflicting immense losses in both personnel and materiel. By the middle of August, however, the German Army High Command decided to suspend the offensive of a considerably depleted Army Group Centre, and to divert the 2nd Panzer Group to reinforce troops advancing towards central Ukraine and Leningrad.[114] The Kiev offensive was overwhelmingly successful, resulting in encirclement and elimination of four Soviet armies, and made further advance into Crimea and industrially developed Eastern Ukraine (the First Battle of Kharkov) possible.[115]

Soviet counter-attack during the battle of Moscow, December 1941.
The diversion of three quarters of the Axis troops and the majority of their air forces from France and the central Mediterranean to the Eastern Front[116]prompted Britain to reconsider its grand strategy.[117] In July, the UK and the Soviet Union formed a military alliance against Germany[118] The British and Soviets invaded Iran to secure the Persian Corridor and Iran 's oil fields.[119] In August, the United Kingdom and the United States jointly issued the Atlantic Charter.[120]
By October, when Axis operational objectives in Ukraine and the Baltic region were achieved, with only the sieges of Leningrad[121] and Sevastopolcontinuing,[122] a major offensive against Moscow had been renewed. After two months of fierce battles, the German army almost reached the outer suburbs of Moscow, where the exhausted troops[123] were forced to suspend their offensive.[124] Large territorial gains were made by Axis forces, but their campaign had failed to achieve its main objectives: two key cities remained in Soviet hands, the Soviet capability to resist was not broken, and the Soviet Union retained a considerable part of its military potential. The blitzkrieg phase of the war in Europe had ended.[125]

Animation of the WWII European Theatre.
By early December, freshly mobilised reserves[126] allowed the Soviets to achieve numerical parity with Axis troops.[127] This, as well as intelligence data that established a minimal number of Soviet troops in the East sufficient to prevent any attack by the Japanese Kwantung Army,[128] allowed the Soviets to begin amassive counter-offensive that started on 5 December all along the front and pushed German troops 100–250 kilometres (62–160 mi) west.[129]
War breaks out in the Pacific (1941)
In 1939 the United States had renounced its trade treaty with Japan and beginning with an aviation gasoline ban in July 1940 Japan had become subject to increasing economic pressure.[82] Despite several offensives by both sides, the war between China and Japan was stalemated by 1940. In order to increase pressure on China by blocking supply routes, and to better position Japanese forces in the event of a war with the Western powers, Japan hadsent troops to northern Indochina[130] Afterwards, the United States embargoed iron, steel and mechanical parts against Japan.[131] Other sanctions soon followed.
In August of that year, Chinese communists launched an offensive in Central China; in retaliation, Japan instituted harsh measures (the Three Alls Policy) in occupied areas to reduce human and material resources for the communists.[132] Continued antipathy between Chinese communist and nationalist forces culminated in armed clashes in January 1941, effectively ending their co-operation.[133]
German successes in Europe encouraged Japan to increase pressure on European governments in south-east Asia. The Dutch government agreed to provide Japan some oil supplies from the Dutch East Indies, but negotiations for additional access to their resources ended in failure in June 1941.[134] In July 1941 Japan occupied southern Indochina, thus threatening British and Dutch possessions in the Far East. The United States, United Kingdom and other Western governments reacted to this move with a freeze on Japanese assets and a total oil embargo.[135][136]
Since early 1941 the United States and Japan had been engaged in negotiations in an attempt to improve their strained relations and end the war in China. During these negotiations Japan advanced a number of proposals which were dismissed by the Americans as inadequate.[137] At the same time the US, Britain, and the Netherlands engaged in secret discussions for the joint defence of their territories in the event of a Japanese attack against any of them.[138] Roosevelt reinforced the Philippines (an American possession since 1898) and warned Japan that the US would react to Japanese attacks against any "neighboring countries".[138]
Frustrated at the lack of progress and feeling the pinch of the American-British-Dutch sanctions, Japan prepared for war. On 20 November it presented an interim proposal as its final offer. It called for the end of American aid to China and the supply of oil and other resources to Japan. In exchange they promised not to launch any attacks in Southeast Asia and to withdraw their forces from their threatening positions in southern Indochina.[137] The American counter-proposal of 26 November required that Japan evacuate all of China without conditions and conclude non-aggression pacts with all Pacific powers.[139] That meant Japan was essentially forced to choose between abandoning its ambitions in China, or seizing the natural resources it needed in the Dutch East Indies by force;[140] the Japanese military did not consider the former an option, and many officers considered the oil embargo an unspoken declaration of war.[141]
Japan planned to rapidly seize European colonies in Asia to create a large defensive perimeter stretching into the Central Pacific; the Japanese would then be free to exploit the resources of Southeast Asia while exhausting the over-stretched Allies by fighting a defensive war.[142] To prevent American intervention while securing the perimeter it was further planned to neutralise the United States Pacific Fleet and the American military presence in the Philippines from the outset.[143] On 7 December (8 December in Asian time zones), 1941, Japan attacked British and American holdings with near-simultaneous offensives against Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific.[144] These included an attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, landings in Thailand and Malaya[144] and the battle of Hong Kong.

The February 1942 Fall of Singaporesaw 80,000 Allied soldiers captured and enslaved by the Japanese.
These attacks led the United States, Britain, China, Australia and several other states to formally declare war on Japan, whereas the Soviet Union, being heavily involved in large-scale hostilities with European Axis countries, preferred to maintain a neutrality agreement with Japan.[145]
Germany, followed by the other Axis states, declared war on the United States in solidarity with Japan, citing as justification the American attacks on German submarines and merchant ships that had been ordered by Roosevelt.[108]
Axis advance stalls (1942–43)
In January, the United States, Britain, Soviet Union, China, and 22 smaller or exiled governments issued the Declaration by United Nations, thereby affirming the Atlantic Charter,[146] and taking an obligation not to sign separate peace with the Axis powers.
During 1942 Allied officials debated on the appropriate grand strategy to pursue. All agreed that defeating Germany was the primary objective. The Americans favoured a straightforward, large-scale attack on Germany through France. The Soviets were also demanding a second front. The British, on the other hand, argued that military operations should target peripheral areas in order to throw a "ring" around Germany which would wear out German strength, lead to increasing demoralisation, and bolster resistance forces. Germany itself would be subject to a heavy bombing campaign. An offensive against Germany would then be launched primarily by Allied armour without using large-scale armies.[147] Eventually, the British persuaded the Americans that a landing in France was infeasible in 1942 and they should instead focus on driving the Axis out of North Africa.[148]
At the Casablanca Conference in early 1943 the Allies issued a declaration declaring that they would not negotiate with their enemies and demanded their unconditional surrender. The British and Americans agreed to continue to press the initiative in the Mediterranean by invading Sicily to fully secure the Mediterranean supply routes.[149] Although the British argued for further operations in the Balkans to bring Turkey into the war, in May 1943 the Americans extracted a British commitment to limit Allied operations in the Mediterranean to an invasion of the Italian mainland and to invade France in 1944.[150]
Pacific (1942–43)
By the end of April 1942, Japan and its ally Thailand had almost fully conquered Burma, Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, Singapore, and Rabaul, inflicting severe losses on Allied troops and taking a large number of prisoners.[151] Despite stubborn resistance in Corregidor, the Philippines was eventually captured in May 1942, forcing the government of the Philippine Commonwealth into exile.[152] Japanese forces also achieved naval victories in the South China Sea, Java Sea and Indian Ocean,[153] and bombed the Allied naval base at Darwin, Australia. The only real Allied success against Japan was a Chinese victory at Changsha in early January 1942.[154] These easy victories over unprepared opponents left Japan overconfident, as well as overextended.[155]
In early May 1942, Japan initiated operations to capture Port Moresby by amphibious assault and thus sever communications and supply lines between the United States and Australia. The Allies, however, prevented the invasion by intercepting and defeating the Japanese naval forces in the Battle of the Coral Sea.[156] Japan 's next plan, motivated by the earlier Doolittle Raid, was to seize Midway Atoll and lure American carriers into battle to be eliminated; as a diversion, Japan would also send forces to occupy the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.[157] In early June, Japan put its operations into action but the Americans, having broken Japanese naval codes in late May, were fully aware of the plans and force dispositions and used this knowledge to achieve a decisive victory at Midway over the Imperial Japanese Navy.[158]

American dive bombers engage theMikuma at the Battle of Midway, June 1942.
With its capacity for aggressive action greatly diminished as a result of the Midway battle, Japan chose to focus on a belated attempt to capture Port Moresbyby an overland campaign in the Territory of Papua.[159] The Americans planned a counter-attack against Japanese positions in the southern Solomon Islands, primarily Guadalcanal, as a first step towards capturing Rabaul, the main Japanese base in Southeast Asia.[160]
Both plans started in July, but by mid-September, the Battle for Guadalcanal took priority for the Japanese, and troops in New Guinea were ordered to withdraw from the Port Moresby area to the northern part of the island, where they faced Australian and United States troops in the Battle of Buna-Gona.[161]Guadalcanal soon became a focal point for both sides with heavy commitments of troops and ships in the battle for Guadalcanal. By the start of 1943, the Japanese were defeated on the island and withdrew their troops.[162] In Burma, Commonwealth forces mounted two operations. The first, an offensive into the Arakan region in late 1942, went disastrously, forcing a retreat back to India by May 1943.[163] The second was the insertion of irregular forces behind Japanese front-lines in February which, by the end of April, had achieved dubious results.[164]
Eastern Front (1942–43)
Despite considerable losses, in early 1942 European Axis members stopped a major Soviet offensive in Central and Southern Russia, keeping most territorial gains they had achieved during the previous year.[165] In May the Axis defeated Soviet offensives in the Kerch Peninsula and at Kharkiv,[166] and then launched their main summer offensive against southern Russia in June 1942, to seize the oil fields of the Caucasus and occupy Kuban steppe, while maintaining positions on the northern and central areas of the front. The Germans split the Army Group South into two groups: Army Group A struck lower Don River while Army Group B struck south-east to the Caucasus, towards Volga River.[167] The Soviets decided to make their stand at Stalingrad, which was in the path of the advancing German armies.

Soviet soldiers attack a house during theBattle of Stalingrad, 1943.
By mid-November, the Germans had nearly taken Stalingrad in bitter street fighting when the Soviets began their second winter counter-offensive, starting with an encirclement of German forces at Stalingrad[168] and an assault on the Rzhev salient near Moscow, though the latter failed disastrously.[169] By early February 1943, the German Army had taken tremendous losses; German troops at Stalingrad had been forced to surrender,[170] and the front-line had been pushed back beyond its position before the summer offensive. In mid-February, after the Soviet push had tapered off, the Germans launched another attack on Kharkiv, creating a salient in their front line around the Russian city of Kursk.[171]

British Crusader tanks moving to forward positions during theNorth African Campaign.
Western Europe/Atlantic & Mediterranean (1942–43)
Exploiting dubious American naval command decisions, the German navy ravaged Allied shipping off the American Atlantic coast.[172]
By November 1941, Commonwealth forces had launched a counter-offensive, Operation Crusader, in North Africa, and reclaimed all the gains the Germans and Italians had made.[173] In North Africa, the Germans launched an offensive in January, pushing the British back to positions at the Gazala Line by early February,[174] followed by a temporary lull in combat which Germany used to prepare for their upcoming offensives.[175] Concerns the Japanese might use bases in Vichy-held Madagascarcaused the British to invade the island in early May 1942.[176] An Axis offensive in Libya forced an Allied retreat deep inside Egypt until Axis forces were stopped at El Alamein.[177] On the Continent, raids of Allied commandos on strategic targets, culminating in the disastrous Dieppe Raid,[178] demonstrated the Western Allies ' inability to launch an invasion of continental Europe without much better preparation, equipment, and operational security.[179]
In August 1942, the Allies succeeded in repelling a second attack against El Alamein[180] and, at a high cost, managed to deliver desperately needed supplies to the besieged Malta.[181] A few months later, the Allies commenced an attack of their own in Egypt, dislodging the Axis forces and beginning a drive west across Libya.[182]This attack was followed up shortly after by an Anglo-American invasion of French North Africa, which resulted in the region joining the Allies.[183] Hitler responded to the French colony 's defection by ordering the occupation of Vichy France;[183] although Vichy forces did not resist this violation of the armistice, they managed toscuttle their fleet to prevent its capture by German forces.[184] The now pincered Axis forces in Africa withdrew into Tunisia, which was conquered by the Allies in May 1943.[185]
In early 1943 the British and Americans began the "Combined Bomber Offensive", a strategic bombing campaign against Germany. The goals were to disrupt the German war economy, reduce German morale, and "de-house" the German civilian population. By the end of the war most German cities would be reduced to rubble and 7,500,000 Germans made homeless.[186]
Allies gain momentum (1943–44)

A contemporary video showing bombing of Hamburg by the Allies.

Soviet Il-2 planes attacking a Wehrmachtcolumn during the Battle of Kursk, 1 July 1943.
Following the Guadalcanal Campaign, the Allies initiated several operations against Japan in the Pacific. In May 1943, Allied forces were sent to eliminate Japanese forces from the Aleutians,[187] and soon after began major operations to isolate Rabaul by capturing surrounding islands, and to breach the Japanese Central Pacific perimeter at the Gilbert and Marshall Islands.[188] By the end of March 1944, the Allies had completed both of these objectives, and additionallyneutralised the major Japanese base at Truk in the Caroline Islands. In April, the Allies then launched an operation to retake Western New Guinea.[189]
In the Soviet Union, both the Germans and the Soviets spent the spring and early summer of 1943 making preparations for large offensives in Central Russia. On 4 July 1943, Germany attacked Soviet forces around the Kursk Bulge. Within a week, German forces had exhausted themselves against the Soviets ' deeply echeloned and well-constructed defences[190] and, for the first time in the war, Hitler cancelled the operation before it had achieved tactical or operational success.[191] This decision was partially affected by the Western Allies ' invasion of Sicily launched on 9 July which, combined with previous Italian failures, resulted in the ousting and arrest of Mussolini later that month.[192] Also in July 1943 the British firebombed Hamburg killing over 40,000 people.
On 12 July 1943, the Soviets launched their own counter-offensives, thereby dispelling any hopes of the German Army for victory or even stalemate in the east. The Soviet victory at Kursk heralded the downfall of German superiority,[193] giving the Soviet Union the initiative on the Eastern Front.[194][195] The Germans attempted to stabilise their eastern front along the hastily fortified Panther-Wotan line, however, the Soviets broke through it at Smolensk and by the Lower Dnieper Offensives.[196]
On 3 September 1943, the Western Allies invaded the Italian mainland, following an Italian armistice with the Allies.[197] Germany responded by disarming Italian forces, seizing military control of Italian areas,[198] and creating a series of defensive lines.[199] German special forces then rescued Mussolini, who then soon established a new client state in German occupied Italy named the Italian Social Republic.[200] The Western Allies fought through several lines until reaching the main German defensive line in mid-November.[201]
German operations in the Atlantic also suffered. By May 1943, as Allied counter-measures became increasingly effective, the resulting sizeable German submarine losses forced a temporary halt of the German Atlantic naval campaign.[202] In November 1943, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met withChiang Kai-shek in Cairo and then with Joseph Stalin in Tehran.[203] The former conference determined the post-war return of Japanese territory,[204] while the latter included agreement that the Western Allies would invade Europe in 1944 and that the Soviet Union would declare war on Japan within three months of Germany 's defeat.[205]

British troops firing a mortar during theBattle of Imphal, North East India, 1944.
From November 1943, during the seven-week Battle of Changde, the Chinese forced Japan to fight a costly war of attrition, while awaiting Allied relief.[206][207][208] In January 1944, the Allies launched a series of attacks in Italy against the line at Monte Cassino and attempted to outflank it with landings at Anzio.[209] By the end of January, a major Soviet offensive expelled German forces from the Leningrad region,[210] ending the longest and most lethal siege in history.
The following Soviet offensive was halted on the pre-war Estonian border by the German Army Group North aided by Estonians hoping to re-establish national independence. This delay slowed subsequent Soviet operations in the Baltic Sea region.[211] By late May 1944, the Soviets had liberated Crimea, largely expelled Axis forces from Ukraine, and made incursions into Romania, which were repulsed by the Axis troops.[212] The Allied offensives in Italy had succeeded and, at the expense of allowing several German divisions to retreat, on 4 June, Rome was captured.[213]
The Allies experienced mixed fortunes in mainland Asia. In March 1944, the Japanese launched the first of two invasions, an operation against British positions in Assam, India,[214] and soon besieged Commonwealth positions at Imphal and Kohima.[215] In May 1944, British forces mounted a counter-offensive that drove Japanese troops back to Burma,[215] and Chinese forces that had invaded northern Burma in late 1943 besieged Japanese troops in Myitkyina.[216] Thesecond Japanese invasion attempted to destroy China 's main fighting forces, secure railways between Japanese-held territory and capture Allied airfields.[217]By June, the Japanese had conquered the province of Henan and begun a renewed attack against Changsha in the Hunan province.[218]
Allies close in (1944)

Allied Invasion of Normandy, 6 June 1944

Red Army personnel and equipment crossing a river, 1944
On 6 June 1944 (known as D-Day), after three years of Soviet pressure,[219] the Western Allies invaded northern France. After reassigning several Allied divisions from Italy, they also attacked southern France.[220] These landings were successful, and led to the defeat of the German Army units in France. Paris was liberated by the local resistance assisted by the Free French Forces on 25 August[221] and the Western Allies continued to push back German forces in Western Europe during the latter part of the year. An attempt to advance into northern Germany spearheaded by a major airborne operation in the Netherlands ended with a failure.[222] After that, the Western Allies slowly pushed into Germany, unsuccessfully trying to cross the Rur river in a large offensive. In Italy the Allied advance also slowed down, when they ran into the last major German defensive line.
On 22 June, the Soviets launched a strategic offensive in Belarus (known as "Operation Bagration") that resulted in the almost complete destruction of the German Army Group Centre.[223] Soon after that, another Soviet strategic offensive forced German troops from Western Ukraine and Eastern Poland. The successful advance of Soviet troops prompted resistance forces in Poland to initiate several uprisings, though the largest of these, in Warsaw, as well as aSlovak Uprising in the south, were not assisted by the Soviets and were put down by German forces.[224] The Red Army 's strategic offensive in eastern Romania cut off and destroyed the considerable German troops there and triggered a successful coup d 'état in Romania and in Bulgaria, followed by those countries ' shift to the Allied side.[225]

Polish insurgents during the Warsaw Uprising, in which around 200,000 civilians perished.
In September 1944, Soviet Red Army troops advanced into Yugoslavia and forced the rapid withdrawal of the German Army Groups E and F in Greece, Albaniaand Yugoslavia to rescue them from being cut off.[226] By this point, the Communist-led Partisans under Marshal Josip Broz Tito, who had led an increasingly successful guerrilla campaign against the occupation since 1941, controlled much of the territory of Yugoslavia and were engaged in delaying efforts against the German forces further south. In northern Serbia, the Red Army, with limited support from Bulgarian forces, assisted the Partisans in a joint liberation of the capital city of Belgrade on 20 October. A few days later, the Soviets launched a massive assault against German-occupied Hungary that lasted until the fall of Budapest in February 1945.[227] In contrast with impressive Soviet victories in the Balkans, the bitter Finnish resistance to the Soviet offensive in the Karelian Isthmus denied the Soviets occupation of Finland and led to the signing of Soviet-Finnish armistice on relatively mild conditions,[228][229] with a subsequentshift to the Allied side by Finland.
By the start of July, Commonwealth forces in Southeast Asia had repelled the Japanese sieges in Assam, pushing the Japanese back to the Chindwin River[230] while the Chinese captured Myitkyina. In China, the Japanese were having greater successes, having finally captured Changsha in mid-June and the city of Hengyang by early August.[231] Soon after, they further invaded the province of Guangxi, winning major engagements against Chinese forces at Guilin and Liuzhou by the end of November[232] and successfully linking up their forces in China and Indochina by the middle of December.[233]
In the Pacific, American forces continued to press back the Japanese perimeter. In mid-June 1944 they began their offensive against the Mariana and Palau islands, and decisively defeated Japanese forces in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. These defeats led to the resignation of the Japanese Prime Minister,Hideki Tōjō, and provided the United States with air bases to launch intensive heavy bomber attacks on the Japanese home islands. In late October, American forces invaded the Filipino island of Leyte; soon after, Allied naval forces scored another large victory during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, one of the largest naval battles in history.[234]
Axis collapse, Allied victory (1944–45)
On 16 December 1944, Germany attempted its last desperate measure for success on the Western Front by using most of its remaining reserves to launch a massive counter-offensive in the Ardennes to attempt to split the Western Allies, encircle large portions of Western Allied troops and capture their primary supply port at Antwerp in order to prompt a political settlement.[235] By January, the offensive had been repulsed with no strategic objectives fulfilled.[235] In Italy, the Western Allies remained stalemated at the German defensive line. In mid-January 1945, the Soviets and Poles attacked in Poland, pushing from the Vistula to the Oder river in Germany, and overran East Prussia.[236] On 4 February, US, British, and Soviet leaders met for the Yalta Conference. They agreed on the occupation of post-war Germany, and on when the Soviet Union would join the war against Japan.[237]
In February, the Soviets invaded Silesia and Pomerania, while Western Allies entered Western Germany and closed to the Rhine river. By March, the Western Allies crossed the Rhine north and south of the Ruhr, encircling the German Army Group B,[238] while the Soviets advanced to Vienna. In early April, the Western Allies finally pushed forward in Italy and swept across Western Germany, while Soviet and Polish forces stormed Berlin in late April. The American and Soviet forces linked up on Elbe river on 25 April. On 30 April 1945, the Reichstag was captured, signalling the military defeat of the Third Reich.[239]
Several changes in leadership occurred during this period. On 12 April, President Roosevelt died and was succeeded by Harry Truman. Benito Mussolini was killed by Italian partisans on 28 April.[240]Two days later, Hitler committed suicide, and was succeeded by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz.[241]
German forces surrendered in Italy on 29 April. Total and unconditional surrender was signed on 7 May, to be effective by the end of 8 May.[242] German Army Group Centre resisted in Prague until 11 May.[243]
In the Pacific theatre, American forces accompanied by the forces of the Philippine Commonwealth advanced in the Philippines, clearing Leyte by the end of April 1945. They landed on Luzon in January 1945 and captured Manila in March following a battle which reduced the city to ruins. Fighting continued on Luzon, Mindanao and other islands of the Philippines until the end of the war.[244] In March the Americans firebombed Tokyo which killed 80,000 people.
In May 1945, Australian troops landed in Borneo, overrunning the oilfields there. British, American and Chinese forces defeated the Japanese in northern Burma in March, and the British pushed on to reach Rangoon by 3 May.[245] Chinese forces started to counterattack in Battle of West Hunan that occurred between 6 April and 7 June 1945. American forces also moved towards Japan, taking Iwo Jima by March, and Okinawa by the end of June.[246] American bombers destroyed Japanese cities, and American submarines cut off Japanese imports.[247]
On 11 July, the Allied leaders met in Potsdam, Germany. They confirmed earlier agreements about Germany,[248] and reiterated the demand for unconditional surrender of all Japanese forces by Japan, specifically stating that "the alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction".[249] During this conference the United Kingdom held its general election, and Clement Attlee replaced Churchill as Prime Minister.[250]
As Japan continued to ignore the Potsdam terms, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early August. Between the two bombings, the Soviets, pursuant to the Yalta agreement, invaded Japanese-held Manchuria, and quickly defeated the Kwantung Army, which was the largest Japanese fighting force.[251][252] The Red Army also capturedSakhalin Island and the Kuril Islands. On 15 August 1945 Japan surrendered, with the surrender documents finally signed aboard the deck of the American battleship USS Missouri on 2 September 1945, ending the war.[253] *
American and Soviettroops meet in April 1945, east of the Elbe River. *
A devastated Berlin street in the city centre after theBattle of Berlin, 3 July 1945. *
Atomic explosion atNagasaki, 9 August 1945.
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Aftermath
Main article: Aftermath of World War II
The Allies established occupation administrations in Austria and Germany. The former became a neutral state, non-aligned with any political bloc. The latter was divided into western and eastern occupation zones controlled by the Western Allies and the USSR, accordingly. A denazification program in Germany led to the prosecution of Nazi war criminals and the removal of ex-Nazis from power, although this policy moved towards amnesty and re-integration of ex-Nazis into West German society.[254]
Germany lost a quarter of its pre-war (1937) territory, the eastern territories: Silesia, Neumark and most of Pomerania were taken over by Poland; East Prussia was divided between Poland and the USSR, followed by the expulsion of the 9 million Germans from these provinces, as well as of 3 million Germans from the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, to Germany. By the 1950s, every fifth West German was a refugee from the east. The USSR also took over the Polish provinces east of the Curzon line (from which 2 million Poles were expelled),[255] Eastern Romania,[256][257] and part of eastern Finland[258] and three Baltic states.[259][260]

Winston Churchill gives the "Victory" sign to crowds in London on Victory in Europe Day.

World map of colonisation in 1945. With the end of the war, the wars of national liberation ensued, leading to the creation of Israel, together with the decolonisation of Asia and Africa.

The Supreme Commanders on 5 June 1945 in Berlin: Bernard Montgomery, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Georgy Zhukov and Jean de Lattre de Tassigny
In an effort to maintain peace,[261] the Allies formed the United Nations, which officially came into existence on 24 October 1945,[262] and adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, as a common standard for all member nations.[263] The great powers that were the victors of the war—the United States, Soviet Union, China, Britain, and France—formed the permanent members of the UN 's Security Council.[3] The five permanent members remain so to the present, although there have been two seat changes, between the Republic of China and the People 's Republic of China in 1971, and between the Soviet Union and its successor state, the Russian Federation, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The alliance between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union had begun to deteriorate even before the war was over.[264]
Germany had been de facto divided, and two independent states, Federal Republic of Germany and German Democratic Republic[265] were created within the borders of Allied and Soviet occupation zones, accordingly. The rest of Europe was also divided onto Western and Soviet spheres of influence.[266] Most eastern and central European countries fell into the Soviet sphere, which led to establishment of Communist led regimes, with full or partial support of the Soviet occupation authorities. As a result, Poland, Hungary, East Germany,[267] Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Albania[268] became Soviet Satellite states. Communist Yugoslavia conducted a fully independent policy, causing tension with the USSR.[269]
Post-war division of the world was formalised by two international military alliances, the United States-led NATO and the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact;[270] the long period of political tensions and military competition between them, the Cold War, would be accompanied by an unprecedented arms race and proxy wars.[271]
In Asia, the United States led the occupation of Japan and administrated Japan 's former islands in the Western Pacific, while the Soviets annexed Sakhalinand the Kuril Islands.[272] Korea, formerly under Japanese rule, was divided and occupied by the US in the South and the Soviet Union in the North between 1945 and 1948. Separate republics emerged on both sides of the 38th parallel in 1948, each claiming to be the legitimate government for all of Korea, which led ultimately to the Korean War.[273]
In China, nationalist and communist forces resumed the civil war in June 1946. Communist forces were victorious and established the People 's Republic of China on the mainland, while nationalist forces retreated to Taiwan in 1949.[274] In the Middle East, the Arab rejection of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine and the creation of Israel marked the escalation of the Arab-Israeli conflict. While European colonial powers attempted to retain some or all of theircolonial empires, their losses of prestige and resources during the war rendered this unsuccessful, leading to decolonisation.[275][276]
The global economy suffered heavily from the war, although participating nations were affected differently. The US emerged much richer than any other nation; it had a baby boom and by 1950 its gross domestic product per person was much higher than that of any of the other powers and it dominated the world economy.[277] The UK and US pursued a policy of industrial disarmament in Western Germany in the years 1945–1948.[278] Due to international trade interdependencies this led to European economic stagnation and delayed European recovery for several years.[279][280]
Recovery began with the mid-1948 currency reform in Western Germany, and was sped up by the liberalisation of European economic policy that the Marshall plan (1948–1951) both directly and indirectly caused.[281][282] The post 1948 West German recovery has been called the German economic miracle.[283] Also the Italian[284] and French economies rebounded.[285] By contrast, the United Kingdom was in a state of economic ruin,[286] and although it received a quarter of the total Marshall Plan assistance, more than any other European country,[287] continued relative economic decline for decades.[288]
The Soviet Union, despite enormous human and material losses, also experienced rapid increase in production in the immediate post-war era.[289] Japan experienced incredibly rapid economic growth, becoming one of the most powerful economies in the world by the 1980s.[290] China returned to its pre-war industrial production by 1952.[291]
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Impact
Casualties and war crimes
Main articles: World War II casualties and War crimes during World War II

World War II deaths
Estimates for the total casualties of the war vary, because many deaths went unrecorded. Most suggest that some 75 million people died in the war, including about 20 million soldiers and 40 million civilians.[292][293][294] Many civilians died because of disease, starvation, massacres, bombing and deliberate genocide. The Soviet Union lost around 27 million people during the war,[295] including 8.7 million military and 19 million civilian deaths. The largest portion of military dead were ethnic Russians(5,756,000), followed by ethnic Ukrainians (1,377,400).[296] One of every four Soviet citizens was killed or wounded in that war.[297] Germany sustained 5.3 million military losses, mostly on the Eastern Front and during the final battles in Germany.[298]
Of the total deaths in World War II, approximately 85 percent—mostly Soviet and Chinese—were on the Allied side and 15 percent on the Axis side. Many of these deaths were caused by war crimescommitted by German and Japanese forces in occupied territories. An estimated 11[299] to 17 million[300] civilians died as a direct or indirect result of Nazi ideological policies, including the systematic genocide of around six million Jews during the Holocaust along with a further five million ethnic Poles and other Slavs, notably Ukrainians and Belarusians,[301] Roma, homosexuals and other ethnic and minority groups.[300]
Roughly 7.5 million civilians died in China under Japanese occupation.[302] Hundreds of thousands (varying estimates) of ethnic Serbs, along with gypsies and Jews, were murdered by the Axis-aligned Croatian Ustaše in Yugoslavia,[303] with retribution-related killings of Croatian civilians just after the war ended.

Chinese civilians to be buried alive by Japanese soldiers.
The best-known Japanese atrocity was the Nanking Massacre, in which several hundred thousand Chinese civilians were raped and murdered.[304] Between 3 million to more than 10 million civilians, mostly Chinese, were killed by the Japanese occupation forces.[305] Mitsuyoshi Himeta reported 2.7 million casualties occurred during the Sankō Sakusen. General Yasuji Okamura implemented the policy in Heipei and Shantung.[306]
The Axis forces employed limited biological and chemical weapons. The Italians used mustard gas during their conquest of Abyssinia,[307] while the Imperial Japanese Army used a variety of such weapons during their invasion and occupation of China (see Unit 731)[308][309] and in early conflicts against the Soviets.[310] Both the Germans and Japanese tested such weapons against civilians[311] and, in some cases, on prisoners of war.[312]
While many of the Axis 's acts were brought to trial in the world 's first international tribunals,[313] incidents caused by the Allies were not. Examples of such Allied actions include population transfers in the Soviet Union and Japanese American internment in the United States; the Operation Keelhaul,[314] expulsion of Germans after World War II,[315] rape during the occupation of Germany;[316] the Soviet Union 's Katyn massacre, for which Germans faced counter-accusations of responsibility. Large numbers of famine deaths can also be partially attributed to the war, such as the Bengal famine of 1943 and theVietnamese famine of 1944–45.[317] Brutalised by war and fuelled by racist propaganda, many American soldiers in the Pacific mutilated corpses and kept grisly war trophies.[318]
It has been suggested by some historians, e.g. Jörg Friedrich, that the mass-bombing of civilian areas in enemy territory, including Tokyo and most notably the German cities of Dresden, Hamburg and Cologne by Western Allies, which resulted in the destruction of more than 160 cities and the deaths of more than 600,000 German civilians be considered as war crimes.[319]
Concentration camps and slave work
Further information: The Holocaust, Consequences of Nazism, Japanese war crimes, and Allied war crimes during World War II

Dead bodies in theMauthausen-Gusen concentration camp after liberation, possiblypolitical prisoners or Soviet POWs
The Nazis were responsible for The Holocaust, the killing of approximately six million Jews (overwhelmingly Ashkenazim), as well as two million ethnic Poles and four million others who were deemed "unworthy of life" (including the disabled and mentally ill, Soviet prisoners of war, homosexuals, Freemasons, Jehovah 's Witnesses, and Romani) as part of a programme of deliberate extermination. About 12 million, most of whom were Eastern Europeans, were employed in the German war economy as forced labourers.[320]
In addition to Nazi concentration camps, the Soviet gulags (labour camps) led to the death of citizens of occupied countries such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, as well as German prisoners of war (POWs) and even Soviet citizens who had been or were thought to be supporters of the Nazis.[321] Sixty percent of Soviet POWs of the Germans died during the war.[322] Richard Overy gives the number of 5.7 million Soviet POWs. Of those, 57 percent died or were killed, a total of 3.6 million.[323] Soviet ex-POWs and repatriated civilians were treated with great suspicion as potential Nazi collaborators, and some of them were sent to the Gulag upon being checked by the NKVD.[324]
Japanese prisoner-of-war camps, many of which were used as labour camps, also had high death rates. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East found the death rate of Western prisoners was 27.1 percent (for American POWs, 37 percent),[325] seven times that of POWs under the Germans and Italians.[326] While 37,583 prisoners from the UK, 28,500 from the Netherlands, and 14,473 from United States were released after the surrender of Japan, the number for the Chinese was only 56.[327]
According to historian Zhifen Ju, at least five million Chinese civilians from northern China and Manchukuo were enslaved between 1935 and 1941 by the East Asia Development Board, or Kōain, for work in mines and war industries. After 1942, the number reached 10 million.[328] The US Library of Congress estimates that in Java, between 4 and 10 million romusha (Japanese: "manual laborers"), were forced to work by the Japanese military. About 270,000 of these Javanese labourers were sent to other Japanese-held areas in South East Asia, and only 52,000 were repatriated to Java.[329]
On 19 February 1942, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, interning thousands of Japanese, Italians, German Americans, and some emigrants from Hawaii who fled after the bombing of Pearl Harborfor the duration of the war. The US and Canadian governments interned 150,000 Japanese-Americans,[330][331] In addition, 14,000 German and Italian residents of the US who had been assessed as being security risks were also interned.[332]
In accordance with the Allied agreement made at the Yalta Conference millions of POWs and civilians were used as forced labour by the Soviet Union.[333] In Hungary 's case, Hungarians were forced to work for the Soviet Union until 1955.[334]
Home fronts and production
Main articles: Military production during World War II and Home front during World War II

Allied to Axis GDP ratio
In Europe, before the outbreak of the war, the Allies had significant advantages in both population and economics. In 1938, the Western Allies (United Kingdom, France, Poland and British Dominions) had a 30 percent larger population and a 30 percent higher gross domestic product than the European Axis (Germany and Italy); if colonies are included, it then gives the Allies more than a 5:1 advantage in population and nearly 2:1 advantage in GDP.[335] In Asia at the same time, China had roughly six times the population of Japan, but only an 89 percent higher GDP; this is reduced to three times the population and only a 38 percent higher GDP if Japanese colonies are included.[335]
Though the Allies ' economic and population advantages were largely mitigated during the initial rapid blitzkrieg attacks of Germany and Japan, they became the decisive factor by 1942, after the United States and Soviet Union joined the Allies, as the war largely settled into one of attrition.[336] While the Allies ' ability to out-produce the Axis is often attributed to the Allies having more access to natural resources, other factors, such as Germany and Japan 's reluctance to employ women in the labour force,[337] Allied strategic bombing,[338] and Germany 's late shift to a war economy[339] contributed significantly. Additionally, neither Germany nor Japan planned to fight a protracted war, and were not equipped to do so.[340] To improve their production, Germany and Japan used millions of slave labourers;[341] Germany used about 12 million people, mostly from Eastern Europe,[320] while Japan pressed more than 18 million people in Far East Asia.[328][329]
Occupation
Main articles: Collaboration with the Axis Powers during World War II, Resistance during World War II, and German-occupied Europe

Soviet partisans hanged by German forces in January 1943
In Europe, occupation came under two forms. In Western, Northern and Central Europe (France, Norway, Denmark, the Low Countries, and the annexed portions of Czechoslovakia) Germany established economic policies through which it collected roughly 69.5 billion reichmarks (27.8 billion US Dollars) by the end of the war; this figure does not include the sizeable plunder of industrial products, military equipment, raw materials and other goods.[342] Thus, the income from occupied nations was over 40 percent of the income Germany collected from taxation, a figure which increased to nearly 40 percent of total German income as the war went on.[343]
In the East, the much hoped for bounties of Lebensraum were never attained as fluctuating front-lines and Soviet scorched earth policies denied resources to the German invaders.[344] Unlike in the West, the Nazi racial policy encouraged excessive brutality against what it considered to be the "inferior people" of Slavic descent; most German advances were thus followed by mass executions.[345] Although resistance groups did form in most occupied territories, they did not significantly hamper German operations in either the East[346] or the West[347] until late 1943.
In Asia, Japan termed nations under its occupation as being part of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, essentially a Japanese hegemony which it claimed was for purposes of liberating colonised peoples.[348] Although Japanese forces were originally welcomed as liberators from European domination in many territories, their excessive brutality turned local public opinions against them within weeks.[349] During Japan 's initial conquest it captured 4,000,000 barrels (640,000 m3) of oil (~5.5×105 tonnes) left behind by retreating Allied forces, and by 1943 was able to get production in the Dutch East Indies up to 50 million barrels (~6.8×106 t), 76 percent of its 1940 output rate.[349]
Advances in technology and warfare
Main article: Technology during World War II
Aircraft were used for reconnaissance, as fighters, bombers and ground-support, and each role was advanced considerably. Innovation included airlift (the capability to quickly move limited high-priority supplies, equipment and personnel);[350] and of strategic bombing (the bombing of civilian areas to destroy industry and morale).[351] Anti-aircraft weaponry also advanced, including defences such asradar and surface-to-air artillery, such as the German 88 mm gun. The use of the jet aircraft was pioneered and, though late introduction meant it had little impact, it led to jets becoming standard in worldwide air forces.[352]
Advances were made in nearly every aspect of naval warfare, most notably with aircraft carriers and submarines. Although at the start of the war aeronautical warfare had relatively little success, actions at Taranto, Pearl Harbor, the South China Sea and the Coral Sea established the carrier as the dominant capital ship in place of the battleship.[353][354][355]
In the Atlantic, escort carriers proved to be a vital part of Allied convoys, increasing the effective protection radius and helping to close the Mid-Atlantic gap.[356] Carriers were also more economical than battleships due to the relatively low cost of aircraft[357] and their not requiring to be as heavily armoured.[358] Submarines, which had proved to be an effective weapon during the First World War[359] were anticipated by all sides to be important in the second. The British focused development on anti-submarine weaponry and tactics, such as sonar and convoys, while Germany focused on improving its offensive capability, with designs such as the Type VII submarine and wolfpack tactics.[360] Gradually, improving Allied technologies such as the Leigh light, hedgehog, squid, and homing torpedoesproved victorious.
Land warfare changed from the static front lines of World War I to increased mobility and combined arms. The tank, which had been used predominantly for infantry support in the First World War, had evolved into the primary weapon.[361] In the late 1930s, tank design was considerably more advanced than it had been during World War I,[362] and advances continued throughout the war in increasing speed, armour and firepower.
At the start of the war, most commanders thought enemy tanks should be met by tanks with superior specifications.[363] This idea was challenged by the poor performance of the relatively light early tank guns against armour, and German doctrine of avoiding tank-versus-tank combat. This, along with Germany 's use of combined arms, were among the key elements of their highly successful blitzkrieg tactics across Poland and France.[361] Many means of destroying tanks, including indirect artillery, anti-tank guns (both towed and self-propelled), mines, short-ranged infantry antitank weapons, and other tanks were utilised.[363] Even with large-scale mechanisation, infantry remained the backbone of all forces,[364] and throughout the war, most infantry were equipped similarly to World War I.[365]
The portable machine gun spread, a notable example being the German MG42, and various submachine guns which were suited to close combat in urban and jungle settings.[365] The assault rifle, a late war development incorporating many features of the rifle and submachine gun, became the standard postwar infantry weapon for most armed forces.[366][367]
Most major belligerents attempted to solve the problems of complexity and security presented by using large codebooks for cryptography with the use of ciphering machines, the most well known being the German Enigma machine.[368] SIGINT (signals intelligence) was the countering process of decryption, with the notable examples being the Allied breaking of Japanese naval codes[369] and BritishUltra, which was derived from methodology given to Britain by the Polish Cipher Bureau, which had been decoding Enigma for seven years before the war.[370] Another aspect of military intelligence was the use of deception, which the Allies used to great effect, such as in operations Mincemeat and Bodyguard.[369][371] Other technological and engineering feats achieved during, or as a result of, the war include the world 's first programmable computers (Z3, Colossus, and ENIAC), guided missiles and modern rockets, the Manhattan Project 's development of nuclear weapons, operations research and the development of artificial harbours and oil pipelines under the English Channel.[372] *
American Boeing B-17E. The Allies lost 160,000 airmen and 33,700 planes during the air war over Europe.[373] *
German U-995 Type VIIC. Between 1939 and 1945, 3,500 Allied merchant ships were sunk at a cost of 783 German U-boats. *
Soviet T-34, the most-produced tank of the war. Over 57,000 were built by 1945.

Migration of people from Pakistan after partition of India

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Partition of India
The Partition of India was the partition of the British Indian Empire which led to the creation, on August 14, 1947 and August 15, 1947, respectively, of the sovereign states of the Dominion of Pakistan (later Islamic Republic of Pakistan and People 's Republic of Bangladesh) and the Union of India (laterRepublic of India). "Partition" here refers not only to the division of the Bengal province of British India into East Pakistan and West Bengal (India), and the similar partition of the Punjab province into Punjab (West Pakistan) and Punjab (India), but also to the respective divisions of other assets, including theBritish Indian Army, the Indian Civil Service and other administrative services, the railways, and the central treasury.
The secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan in the 1971 is not covered by the term Partition of India, nor is the earlier separation of Burma (now Myanmar) from the administration of British India, or the even earlier separation of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Ceylon, part of the Madras Presidency of British India from 1795 until 1798, became a separate Crown Colony in 1798. Burma, gradually annexed by the British during 1826–86 and governed as a part of the British Indian administration until 1937, was directly administered thereafter. [1] Burma was granted independence on January 4, 1948 and Ceylon on February 4,1948. (See History of Sri Lanka and History of Burma.)
The remaining countries of present-day South Asia, Nepal, Bhutan, and the Maldives were unaffected by the partition. The first two, Nepal and Bhutan, having signed treaties with the British designating them as independent states, were never a part of the British Indian Empire, and therefore their borders were not affected by the partition.[2] The Maldives, which became a protectorate of the British crown in 1887 and gained its independence in 1965, was also unaffected by the partition.

The British Indian Empire shown in theImperial Gazetteer of India map of 1909.

Map of India and Pakistan as envisaged in the Partition Plan 1947
Late nineteenth and early twentieth century[edit source | editbeta]
The All India Muslim League (AIML) had been formed in Dhaka in 1906 by Muslims who were suspicious of the Hindu-majority Indian National Congress. They complained that Muslim members did not have the same rights as Hindu members. A number of different scenarios were proposed at various times. Among the first to make the demand for a separate state was the writer and philosopher Allama Iqbal, who, in his presidential address to the 1930 convention of the Muslim League, proposed a separate nation for Muslims was essential in an otherwise Hindu-dominated Indian subcontinent. According to Iqbal, such a separation was imminent in a near future, according to his vision.
The Sindh Assembly passed a resolution making its separate nation a demand in 1935. Iqbal, Jouhar and others worked hard to draft a resolution, working with Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who had until then worked for Hindu-Muslim unity and who now was to lead the movement for this new nation. By 1930, Jinnah had begun to despair at the fate of minority communities in a united India and had begun to argue that mainstream parties such as the Congress, of which he was once a member, were insensitive to Muslim interests.
The 1932 Communal Award which seemed to threaten the position of Muslims in Hindu-majority provinces catalysed the resurgence of the Muslim League, with Jinnah as its leader. However, the League did not do well in the 1937 provincial elections, demonstrating the hold of the conservative and local forces at the time. | 1909 Percentage of Hindus. | | 1909 Percentage of Muslims. | | 1909 Percentage of Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains. | | 1901 Population Density. | |
1932–1942[edit source | editbeta]

An aged and abandoned Muslim couple and their grand children sitting by the roadside on this arduous journey. "The old man is dying of exhaustion. The caravan has gone on," wrote Bourke-White.

An old Sikh man carrying his wife. Over 10 million people were uprooted from their homeland and travelled on foot, bullock carts and trains to their promised new home. Colonial India | Imperial Entities of India | Dutch India | 1605–1825 | Danish India | 1620–1869 | French India | 1769–1954 | Portuguese India 1505–1961 | Casa da Índia | 1434–1833 | Portuguese East India Company | 1628–1633 | British India 1612–1947 | East India Company | 1612–1757 | Company rule in India | 1757–1858 | British Raj | 1858–1947 | British rule in Burma | 1824–1948 | Princely states | 1721–1949 | Partition of India | 1947 | * v * t * e |
In 1940, Jinnah made a statement at the Lahore conference that seemed to call for a separate Muslim country. This idea, though, was taken up by Muslims and particularly by Hindus[citation needed] in the next seven years, and became a more territorial plan. All Muslim political parties including the Khaksar Tehrikand Allama Mashriqi opposed the partition of India[citation needed] Mashriqi was arrested on 19 March 1940.
Savarkar strongly opposed the partition of India. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar summaries Savarkar 's position, in his Pakistan or The Partition of India as follows, “ | Mr. Savarkar... insists that, although there are two nations in India, India shall not be divided into two parts, one for Muslims and the other for the Hindus; that the two nations shall dwell in one country and shall live under the mantle of one single constitution;... In the struggle for political power between the two nations the rule of the game which Mr. Savarkar prescribes is to be one man one vote, be the man Hindu or Muslim. In his scheme a Muslim is to have no advantage which a Hindu does not have. Minority is to be no justification for privilege and majority is to be no ground for penalty. The State will guarantee the Muslims any defined measure of political power in the form of Muslim religion and Muslim culture. But the State will not guarantee secured seats in the Legislature or in the Administration and, if such guarantee is insisted upon by the Muslims, such guaranteed quota is not to exceed their proportion to the general population.[3] | ” |
Most of the Congress leaders were secularists and resolutely opposed the division of India on the lines of religion. Mohandas Gandhi and Allama Mashriqibelieved that Hindus and Muslims could and should live in amity. Gandhi opposed the partition, saying, "My whole soul rebels against the idea that Hinduism and Islam represent two antagonistic cultures and doctrines. To assent to such a doctrine is for me a denial of God."[4]
For years, Gandhi and his adherents struggled to keep Muslims in the Congress Party (a major exit of many Muslim activists began in the 1930s), and in the process enraged both Hindu Nationalists and Indian Muslim nationalists. Gandhi was assassinated soon after Partition by Hindu extremist Nathuram Godse, who believed that Gandhi was appeasing Muslims at the cost of Hindus[citation needed].
Politicians and community leaders on both sides[citation needed] whipped up mutual suspicion and fear, culminating in dreadful events such as the riots during the Muslim League 's Direct Action Day of August 1946 in Kolkata (then "Calcutta"), in which more than 5,000 people were killed and many more injured. As public order broke down all across northern India and Bengal, the pressure increased to seek a political partition of territories as a way to avoid a full-scale civil war.
1942–1947[edit source | editbeta]
Until 1940, the definition of Pakistan as demanded by the League was so flexible that it could have been interpreted as a sovereign nation or as a member of a confederated India.
Some historians believe Jinnah intended to use the threat of partition as a bargaining chip in order to gain more independence for the Muslim dominated provinces in the west from the Hindu-dominated center.[5]
Other historians claim that Jinnah 's real vision was for a Pakistan that extended into Hindu-majority areas of India, by demanding the inclusion of the East of Punjab and West of Bengal, including Assam, a Hindu-majority region. Jinnah also fought hard for the annexation of Kashmir, a Muslim majority state with Hindu ruler; and the accession of Hyderabad and Junagadh, Hindu-majority states with Muslim rulers.[citation needed]
The British colonial administration did not directly rule all of "India". There were several different political arrangements in existence: Provinces were ruled directly and the Princely States with varying legal arrangements, like paramountcy.
The British Colonial Administration consisted of Secretary of State for India, the India Office, the Governor-General of India, and the Indian Civil Service. The British were in favour of keeping the area united. The 1946 Cabinet Mission was sent to try and reach a compromise between Congress and the Muslim League. A compromise proposing a decentralized state with much power given to local governments won initial acceptance, but Nehru was unwilling to accept such a decentralized state and Jinnah soon returned to demanding an independent Pakistan.[6]
The Indian political parties were the following: All India Muslim League, Communist Party of India, Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam, Hindu Mahasabha, Indian National Congress, Khaksar Tehrik, Shiromani Akali Dal and Unionist Muslim League (mainly in the Punjab).
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Actual partition, 1947[edit source | editbeta]
Mountbatten Plan[edit source | editbeta]

Mountbatten with a countdown calendar to the Transfer of Power in the background
The actual division of British India between the two new dominions was accomplished according to what has come to be known as the 3 June Plan orMountbatten Plan. It was announced at a press conference by Mountbatten on 3 June 1947, when the date of independence was also announced – 15 August 1947. The plan 's main points were: * Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims in Punjab and Bengal legislative assemblies would meet and vote for partition. If a simple majority of either group wanted partition, then these provinces would be divided. * Sindh was to take its own decision. * The fate of North West Frontier Province and Sylhet district of Bengal was to be decided by a referendum. * India would be independent by 15 August 1947. * The separate independence of Bengal also ruled out. * A boundary commission to be set up in case of partition.
The Indian political leaders accepted the Plan on 2 June. It did not deal with the question of the princely states, but on 3 June Mountbatten advised them against remaining independent and urged them to join one of the two new dominions.[7]
The Muslim league 's demands for a separate state were thus conceded. The Congress ' position on unity was also taken into account while making Pakistan as small as possible. Mountbatten 's formula was to divide India and at the same time retain maximum possible unity.
Within British India, the border between India and Pakistan (the Radcliffe Line) was determined by a British Government-commissioned report prepared under the chairmanship of a London barrister, Sir Cyril Radcliffe. Pakistan came into being with two non-contiguous enclaves, East Pakistan (today Bangladesh) and West Pakistan, separated geographically by India. India was formed out of the majority Hindu regions of British India, and Pakistan from the majority Muslim areas.
On 18 July 1947, the British Parliament passed the Indian Independence Act that finalized the arrangements for partition and abandoned British suzerainty over the princely states, of which there were several hundred, leaving them free to choose whether to accede to one of the new dominions. The Government of India Act 1935 was adapted to provide a legal framework for the new dominions.
Following its creation as a new country in August 1947, Pakistan applied for membership of the United Nations and was accepted by the General Assembly on 30 September 1947. The Union of Indiacontinued to have the existing seat as India had been a founding member of the United Nations since 1945.[8]
Radcliffe Line[edit source | editbeta]
Further information: Radcliffe Line

A map of the Punjab region ca. 1947

The claims (Congress/Sikh and Muslim) and the Boundary Commission Award in the Punjab in relation to Muslim percentage by Tehsils. The unshaded regions are the princely states.

The communities in the disputed regions of the Upper Bari Doab in 1947.
The Punjab – the region of the five rivers east of Indus: Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej — consists of interfluvial doabs, or tracts of land lying between two confluent rivers. These are the Sind-Sagar doab (between Indus and Jhelum), the Jech doab (Jhelum/Chenab), the Rechna doab (Chenab/Ravi), the Baridoab (Ravi/Beas), and the Bist doab (Beas/Sutlej) (see map). In early 1947, in the months leading up to the deliberations of the Punjab Boundary Commission, the main disputed areas appeared to be in the Bari and Bist doabs, although some areas in the Rechna doab were claimed by the Congress and Sikhs. In the Bari doab, the districts of Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Lahore, and Montgomery (Sahiwal) were all disputed.[9]
All districts (other than Amritsar, which was 46.5% Muslim) had Muslim majorities; albeit, in Gurdaspur, the Muslim majority, at 51.1%, was slender. At a smaller area-scale, only three tehsils (sub-units of a district) in the Bari doab had non-Muslim majorities. These were: Pathankot (in the extreme north of Gurdaspur, which was not in dispute), and Amritsar and Tarn Taran in Amritsar district. In addition, there were four Muslim-majority tehsils east of Beas-Sutlej (with two where Muslims outnumbered Hindus and Sikhs together).[9]
Before the Boundary Commission began formal hearings, governments were set up for the East and the West Punjab regions. Their territories were provisionally divided by "notional division" based on simple district majorities. In both the Punjab and Bengal, the Boundary Commission consisted of two Muslim and two non-Muslim judges with Sir Cyril Radcliffe as a common chairman.[9]
The mission of the Punjab commission was worded generally as the following: "To demarcate the boundaries of the two parts of the Punjab, on the basis of ascertaining the contiguous majority areas of Muslims and non-Muslims. In doing so, it will take into account other factors."[9]
Each side (the Muslims and the Congress/Sikhs) presented its claim through counsel with no liberty to bargain. The judges too had no mandate to compromise and on all major issues they "divided two and two, leaving Sir Cyril Radcliffe the invidious task of making the actual decisions."[9]
Massive population exchanges occurred between the two newly formed states in the months immediately following Partition. Once the lines were established, about 14.5 million people crossed the borders to what they hoped was the relative safety of religious majority. Based on 1951 Census of displaced persons, 7,226,000 Muslims went to Pakistan from India while 7,250,000 Sikhs and Hindus moved to India from Pakistan immediately after partition.[citation needed]
About 11.2 million or 78% of the population transfer took place in the west, with Punjab accounting for most of it; 5.3 million Muslims moved from India to West Punjab in Pakistan, potentially 3.8 million Hindus and Sikhs could have moved from West Pakistan to East Punjab in India but 500,000 had already migrated before the Radcliffe award was announced; elsewhere in the west 1.2 million moved in each direction to and from Sind.

A crowd of Muslims at the Old Fort (Purana Qila) in Delhi, which had been converted into a vast camp for Muslim refugees waiting to be transported to Pakistan. Manchester Guardian, 27 September 1947.
The newly formed governments were completely unequipped to deal with migrations of such staggering magnitude, and massive violence and slaughter occurred on both sides of the border. Estimates of the number of deaths range around roughly 500,000, with low estimates at 200,000 and high estimates at 1,000,000.[10]
Punjab[edit source | editbeta]
The Indian state of East Punjab was created in 1947, when the Partition of India split the former British province of Punjab between India and Pakistan. The mostly Muslim western part of the province became Pakistan 's Punjab province; the mostly Sikh and Hindu eastern part became India 's East Punjab state. Many Hindus and Sikhs lived in the west, and many Muslims lived in the east, and the fears of all such minorities were so great that the partition saw many people displaced and much intercommunal violence.
Lahore and Amritsar were at the centre of the problem, the Boundary Commission was not sure where to place them – to make them part of India or Pakistan. The Commission decided to give Lahore to Pakistan, whilst Amritsar became part of India. Some areas in west Punjab, including Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan, and Gujrat, had a large Sikh and Hindu population, and many of the residents were attacked or killed. On the other side, in East Punjab, cities such as Amritsar, Ludhiana, Gurdaspur, and Jalandhar had a majority Muslim population, of which thousands were killed or emigrated.
Bengal[edit source | editbeta]
Main article: Partition of Bengal (1947)
The province of Bengal was divided into the two separate entities of West Bengal belonging to India, and East Bengal belonging to Pakistan. East Bengal was renamed East Pakistan in 1955, and later became the independent nation of Bangladesh after the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971.
While the Muslim majority districts of Murshidabad and Malda were given to India, the Hindu majority district of Khulna and the majority Buddhist, but sparsely populated Chittagong Hill Tracts was given to Pakistan by the award.
Sindh[edit source | editbeta]
Hindu Sindhis were expected to stay in Sindh following Partition, as there were good relations between Hindu and Muslim Sindhis. At the time of Partition there were 1,400,000 Hindu Sindhis, though most were concentrated in cities such as Hyderabad, Karachi, Shikarpur, and Sukkur. However, because of an uncertain future in a Muslim country, a sense of better opportunities in India, and most of all a sudden influx of Muslim refugees from Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajputana (Rajasthan) and other parts of India, many Sindhi Hindus decided to leave for India.
Problems were further aggravated when incidents of violence instigated by Muslim refugees broke out in Karachi and Hyderabad. According to the census of India 1951, nearly 776,000 Sindhi Hindus moved into India.[11] Unlike the Punjabi Hindus and Sikhs, Sindhi Hindus did not have to witness any massive scale rioting; however, their entire province had gone to Pakistan thus they felt like a homeless community. Despite this migration, a significant Sindhi Hindu population still resides in Pakistan 's Sindh province where they number at around 2.28 million as per Pakistan 's 1998 census while the Sindhi Hindus in India as per 2001 census of India were at 2.57 million. However Some bordering Districts in Sindh was Hindu Majority like Tharparkar District, Umerkot, Mirpurkhas, Sangharand Badin, but number is reducing, in fact Umerkot, still has majority Hindu in district.[12]
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Perspectives[edit source | editbeta]

TIME magazine 27 October 1947 coverBoris Artzybasheff depicting a self-hurting goddess Kali as a symbol of the partition of India. The caption says: "INDIA: Liberty and death."

Refugees on train roof during Partition
The Partition was a highly controversial arrangement, and remains a cause of much tension on the Indian subcontinent today. The British Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten of Burma has not only been accused of rushing the process through, but also is alleged to have influenced the Radcliffe Line in India 's favour.[13][14] However, the commission took so long to decide on a final boundary that the two nations were granted their independence even before there was a defined boundary between them. Even then, the members were so distraught at their handiwork (and its results) that they refused compensation for their time on the commission.[citation needed]
Some critics allege that British haste led to the cruelties of the Partition.[15] Because independence was declaredprior to the actual Partition, it was up to the new governments of India and Pakistan to keep public order. No large population movements were contemplated; the plan called for safeguards for minorities on both sides of the new border. It was a task at which both states failed. There was a complete breakdown of law and order; many died in riots, massacre, or just from the hardships of their flight to safety. What ensued was one of the largest population movements in recorded history. According to Richard Symonds: At the lowest estimate, half a million people perished and twelve million became homeless.[16]
However, many argue that the British were forced to expedite the Partition by events on the ground.[17] Once in office, Mountbatten quickly became aware if Britain were to avoid involvement in a civil war, which seemed increasingly likely, there was no alternative to partition and a hasty exit from India.[17] Law and order had broken down many times before Partition, with much bloodshed on both sides. A massive civil war was looming by the time Mountbatten became Viceroy. After the Second World War, Britain had limited resources,[18] perhaps insufficient to the task of keeping order. Another viewpoint is that while Mountbatten may have been too hasty he had no real options left and achieved the best he could under difficult circumstances.[19] The historian Lawrence James concurs that in 1947 Mountbatten was left with no option but to cut and run. The alternative seemed to be involvement in a potentially bloody civil war from which it would be difficult to get out.[20]
Conservative elements in England consider the partition of India to be the moment that the British Empire ceased to be a world power, following Curzon 's dictum: "the loss of India would mean that Britain drop straight away to a third rate power."[21]
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Refugees settled in India[edit source | editbeta]
Many Sikhs and Hindu Punjabis migrated from Western Punjab and settled in the Indian parts of Punjab and Delhi. Hindus migrating from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) settled across Eastern Indiaand Northeastern India, many ending up in close-by states like West Bengal, Assam, and Tripura. Some migrants were sent to the Andaman islands where Bengali today form the largest linguistic group.
Hindu Sindhis found themselves without a homeland. The responsibility of rehabilitating them was borne by their government. Refugee camps were set up for Hindu Sindhis. Many refugees overcame the trauma of poverty, though the loss of a homeland has had a deeper and lasting effect on their Sindhi culture. In 1967, the Government of India recognized Sindhi as a fifteenth official language of India in two scripts. In late 2004, the Sindhi diaspora vociferously opposed a Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court of India which asked the Government of India to delete the word "Sindh" from theIndian National Anthem (written by Rabindranath Tagore prior to the partition) on the grounds that it infringed upon the sovereignty of Pakistan.
Delhi received the largest number of refugees for a single city – the population of Delhi grew rapidly in 1947 from under 1 million (917,939) to a little less than 2 million (1,744,072) during the period 1941–1951.[22] The refugees were housed in various historical and military locations such as the Purana Qila, Red Fort, and military barracks in Kingsway (around the present Delhi university). The latter became the site of one of the largest refugee camps in northern India with more than 35,000 refugees at any given time besides Kurukshetra camp near Panipat. The camp sites were later converted into permanent housing through extensive building projects undertaken by the Government of India from 1948 onwards. A number of housing colonies in Delhi came up around this period likeLajpat Nagar, Rajinder Nagar, Nizamuddin East, Punjabi Bagh, Rehgar Pura, Jungpura and Kingsway Camp. A number of schemes such as the provision of education, employment opportunities, and easy loans to start businesses were provided for the refugees at the all-India level. The Delhi refugees, however, were able to make use of these facilities much better than their counterparts elsewhere.[23]
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Refugees settled in Pakistan[edit source | editbeta]
In the aftermath of partition, a huge population exchange occurred between the two newly formed states. About 14.5 million people crossed the borders, including 7,226,000 Muslims who came to Pakistan from India while 7,249,000 Hindus and Sikhs moved to India from Pakistan. About 5.5 million settled in Punjab, Pakistan and around 1.5 million settled in Sindh.
Most of those migrants who settled in Punjab, Pakistan came from the neighbouring Indian regions of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh while others were from Jammu and Kashmir andRajasthan. On the other hand, most of those migrants who arrived in Sindh were primarily of Urdu-speaking background (termed the Muhajir people) and came from the northern and central urban centres of India, such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan via the Wahgah and Munabao borders; however a limited number of Muhajirs also arrived by air and on ships. People who wished to go to India from all over Sindh awaited their departure to India by ship at the Swaminarayan temple in Karachi and were visited by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan.[24]
Later in 1950s, the majority of Urdu speaking refugees who migrated after the independence were settled in the port city of Karachi in southern Sindh and in the metropolitan cities of Hyderabad,Sukkur, Nawabshah and Mirpurkhas. In addition, some Urdu-speakers settled in the cities of Punjab, mainly in Lahore, Multan, Bahawalpur and Rawalpindi. The number of migrants in Sindh was placed at over 540,000 of whom two-third were urban. In the case of Karachi, from a population of around 400,000 in 1947, it turned into more than 1.3 million in 1953.
Former President of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, was of Urdu-speaking background and born in the Nahar Vali Haveli in Daryaganj, Delhi, India. Several previous Pakistani leaders were also born in regions that are in India. Pakistan 's first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan was born in Karnal (now in Haryana). The 7-year longest-serving Governor and martial law administrator of Pakistan 's largest province, Balochistan, General Rahimuddin Khan, was born in the predominantly Pathan city of Kaimganj, which now lies in Uttar Pradesh. General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who came to power in a military coup in 1977, was born in Jalandhar, East Punjab. The families of all four men opted for Pakistan at the time of Partition.
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Aftermath[edit source | editbeta]
Rehabilitation of women[edit source | editbeta]
See also: Rape during the partition of India
Both sides promised each other that they would try to restore women abducted during the riots. The Indian government claimed that 33,000 Hindu and Sikh women were abducted, and the Pakistani government claimed that 50,000 Muslim women were abducted during riots. By 1949, there were governmental claims that 12,000 women had been recovered in India and 6,000 in Pakistan.[25] By 1954 there were 20,728 recovered Muslim women and 9,032 Hindu and Sikh women recovered from Pakistan.[26] Most of the Hindu and Sikh women refused to go back to India fearing that they would never be accepted by their family; similarly, the families of some Muslim women refused to take back their relatives.[27] | Rural Sikhs in a long ox-cart train headed towards India. 1947. Margaret Bourke-White. | | Two Muslim men (in a rural refugee train headed towards Pakistan) carrying an old woman in a makeshift doli or palanquin. 1947. | | "With the tragic legacy of an uncertain future, a young refugee sits on the walls of Purana Qila, transformed into a vast refugee camp in Delhi." Margaret Bourke-White, 1947. | | A refugee train on its way to Punjab, Pakistan. | |

| Photo of a railway station in Punjab. Many people abandoned their fixed assets and crossed newly formed borders. | | Train to Pakistan steaming out of New Delhi Railway Station, 1947. | | Train to Pakistan being given a warm send-off. New Delhi railway station, 1947 | | Muslim couple and their grandchildren by the roadside: "The old man is dying of exhaustion. The caravan has gone on,"-Bourke-White. | |
Treatment of minorities by Pakistan and India[edit source | editbeta]
Further information: Hinduism in Pakistan
Further information: Persecution of Muslims#Communal violence in India

1971 newsreel film about the partition and its aftermath
Before independence, Hindus and Sikhs had formed 20 per cent of the population of the areas now forming Pakistan, presently the percentage has "whittled down to one-and-a half percent".[28]:66 M. C. Chagla, in a speech at the UN General Assembly said that, Pakistan solved its minority problem by the ethnic cleansing of the Hindus, resulting in "hardly any" Hindu minority population in West Pakistan.[29] India suspected Pakistan of ethnic cleansing when millions of Hindus fled its province of East Pakistan in 1971.[30] Hindus remaining in Pakistan have been persecuted.[31][32] Yasmin Saikia writes that "although a large number of Muslims migrated to Pakistan in 1947, the bulk of the Muslim population chose to stay in their homelands in India".[33] According to Azim A. Khan Sherwani, the Hashimpura massacre case is "a chilling reminder of the apathy of the (Indian) state towards access to justice for Muslims", he writes that the case demonstrates that it is not just the Hindutva lobby, but also the Congress-Left and the socialists that are apathetic, and that Muslim "leaders" are more concerned with their personal ambitions and not with "issues afflicting the community".[34] In Pakistan, Hindus have been facing discrimination and often forced to convert to Islam.[35][36]
Pakistan tried preventing Harijans (untouchables etc) from leaving Pakistan so that they stayed to clean toilets and other things. To this effect, the Government there passed the Essential Services Maintenance Act barring their emigration.[37] Eagerness to woo the Harijans was shown by India by instituting constitutional reforms for their upliftment[38] and setting up of various institutions for their rehabilitation.[39]
Integration of refugee populations with their new countries did not always go smoothly. Some Urdu speaking Muslims (Muhajirs) who migrated to Pakistan have at certain times complained of discrimination in government employment. Municipal political conflict in Karachi, Pakistan 's largest city, often pitted native Sindhis against Muhajir settlers. Sindhi, Bengali, and Punjabi refugees in India also experienced poverty and other social issues as they largely came empty-handed. However, fifty years after partition, almost all ex-refugees have managed to rebuild their lives[citation needed]. The repression of minorities in Pakistan remains a global concern but Pakistani politicians have largely ignored the issue. Those who have attempted to lobby or campaign on this issue have been threatened and murdered like Sherry Rehman, and Salman Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti.[40]
All three nations resulting from the partition of India have had to deal with endemic civil conflicts. Inside India, these have been largely due to inter-religious unrest and disruptive far left forces. Civil unrest inside India includes: * The Sikh separatist movement of the 1980s which has since become almost non-existent.[41] * Islamist separatist movement in Jammu and Kashmir resulting in the ethnic cleansing[42][43][44][45][46][47] of Kashmiri Hindus and massacres against Hindus such as the ones in Wandhama andKaluchak. It has been found with enough evidence that the Pakistani government and its intermediaries have tacitly backed and armed these militants.[48][49][50] The recent example of unrest, the insurgency in Kashmir, is related to the ongoing Kashmir conflict and periodic human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir by state forces, issues which have affected relations between India and Pakistan.
Within Pakistan, unrest is mainly because of ethnicities, with Sindhis, Bengalis, Balochis, all vying for more representation within the federation and in some cases, the creation of an independent state. * In 1971, the Bangladesh Liberation War and the subsequent Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, which led to further partition of Pakistan.
Current religious demographics of India proper and former East and West Pakistan[edit source | editbeta]
Despite the huge migrations during and after Partition, India is still home to the third largest Muslim population in the world (after Indonesia and Pakistan). The current estimates for India (seeDemographics of India) are as shown below. Islamic Pakistan, the former West Pakistan, by contrast, has a much smaller minority population. Its religious distribution is below (see Demographics of Pakistan). As for Bangladesh, the former East Pakistan, the non-Muslim share is somewhat larger (see Demographics of Bangladesh):
India (2006 Est. 1,095 million vs. 1951 Census 361 million) * 80.5% Hindus (839 million) * 13.10% Muslims (143 million) * 2.31% Christians (25 million) * 2.00% Sikhs (21 million) * 1.94% Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and others (20 million)
Pakistan (2005 Est. 162 million vs. 1951 Census 34 million) * 98.0% Muslims (159 million) * 1.0% Christians (1.62 million) * 1.0% Hindus, Sikhs and others (1.62 million)
Bangladesh (2005 Est. 144 million vs. 1951 Census 42 million) * 86% Muslims (124 million) * 13% Hindus (18 million) * 1% Christians, Buddhists and Animists (1.44 million)
India and Pakistan after the Partition[edit source | editbeta]
Main article: Indo-Pakistani wars and conflicts
In the aftermath of the bloody Partition, India and Pakistan have had strained relations. One of the biggest contentions is over the disputed region of Kashmir, over which there have been three wars. India and Pakistan have fought the following four wars since: * Indo-Pakistani War of 1947: Pakistani-backed tribals (and later its army) invaded the princely state of Kashmir that acceded to India as per the scheme of accession provided in Indian Independence Act 1947. A stalemate followed since 1949. * Indo-Pakistani War of 1965: Pakistani-backed guerrillas invaded Jammu & Kashmir state of India. India is generally believed to have had the upper hand when a ceasefire was called. Whereas Pakistan believed its air-superiority over army and navy against India in the war to be key achievement and future success if war continued.[51] * Indo-Pakistani War of 1971: After India announced support for the Bengalis in East Pakistan, Pakistan launched air strikes against India. India eventually liberated East Pakistan and helped in the creation of Bangladesh. * 1999 Kargil Conflict: Pakistani army troops invaded high peaks in Kargil sector in Jammu & Kashmir during the winter when high mountain posts were unoccupied. India recaptured all territory lost.[52]
India and Pakistan have also engaged in a nuclear arms race.
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Artistic depictions of the Partition[edit source | editbeta]
Main article: Artistic depictions of the partition of India
The partition of India and the associated bloody riots inspired many creative minds in India and Pakistan to create literary/cinematic depictions of this event.[53] While some creations depicted the massacres during the refugee migration, others concentrated on the aftermath of the partition in terms of difficulties faced by the refugees in both side of the border. Even now, more than 60 years after the partition, works of fiction and films are made that relate to the events of partition.
Literature describing the human cost of independence and partition comprises Bal K. Gupta 's memoirs "Forgotten Atrocities(2012), Khushwant Singh 's Train to Pakistan (1956), several short stories such as Toba Tek Singh (1955) by Saadat Hassan Manto, Urdu poems such as Subh-e-Azadi (Freedom’s Dawn, 1947) by Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Bhisham Sahni 's Tamas (1974), Manohar Malgonkar 's A Bend in the Ganges (1965), and Bapsi Sidhwa 's Ice-Candy Man (1988), among others.[54][55] Salman Rushdie 's novel Midnight 's Children (1980), which won the Booker Prize and the Booker of Bookers, weaved its narrative based on the children born with magical abilities on midnight of 14 August 1947.[55] Freedom at Midnight (1975) is a non-fiction work by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre that chronicled the events surrounding the first Independence Day celebrations in 1947. There is a paucity of films related to the independence and partition.[56][57][58] Early films relating to the circumstances of the independence, partition and the aftermath include Nemai Ghosh 's Chinnamul (Bengali) (1950),[56] Dharmputra (1961)[59] Lahore (1948), Chhalia (1956), Nastik (1953)<ref. Gupta, Bal K.>Ritwik Ghatak 's Meghe Dhaka Tara (Bengali) (1960), Komal Gandhar (Bengali) (1961), Subarnarekha (Bengali) (1962);[56][60] later films include Garm Hava (1973) and Tamas (1987).[59] From the late 1990s onwards, more films on this theme were made, including several mainstream films, such as Earth (1998), Train to Pakistan (1998) (based on the aforementined book), Hey Ram (2000),Gadar: Ek Prem Katha (2001), Pinjar (2003), Partition (2007) and Madrasapattinam (2010),.[59] The biopics Gandhi (1982), Jinnah (1998) and Sardar (1993) also feature independence and partition as significant events in their screenplay. A Pakistani drama Daastan, based on the novel Bano, also tells the tale of young Muslim girl during partition.

The Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to some time between 1820 and 1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines, new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes, improved efficiency of water power, the increasing use of steam power and the development of machine tools. It also included the change from wood and other bio-fuels to coal. It began inGreat Britain and within a few decades had spread to Western Europe and the United States.
The Industrial Revolution marks a major turning point in history; almost every aspect of daily life was influenced in some way. In particular, average income and population began to exhibit unprecedented sustained growth. In the words of Nobel Prize winner Robert E. Lucas, Jr., "For the first time in history, the living standards of the masses of ordinary people have begun to undergo sustained growth ... Nothing remotely like this economic behavior is mentioned by the classical economists, even as a theoretical possibility."[2]

William Bell Scott Iron and Coal, 1855–60
The period of time covered by the Industrial Revolution varies with different historians. Eric Hobsbawm held that it 'broke out ' in Britain in the 1780s and was not fully felt until the 1830s or 1840s,[3] while T. S. Ashton held that it occurred roughly between 1760 and 1830.[4]
Some 20th-century historians such as John Clapham and Nicholas Crafts have argued that the process of economic and social change took place gradually and the term revolution is a misnomer. This is still a subject of debate among historians.[5][6] GDP per capita was broadly stable before the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of the modern capitalist economy.[7] The Industrial Revolution began an era of per-capita economic growth in capitalist economies.[8] Economic historians are in agreement that the onset of the Industrial Revolution is the most important event in the history of humanity since the domestication of animals and plants.[9]
The First Industrial Revolution evolved into the Second Industrial Revolution in the transition years between 1840 and 1870, when technological and economic progress gained momentum with the increasing adoption of steam-powered boats, ships and railways, the large scale manufacture of machine tools and the increasing use of steam powered factories.
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Etymology
The earliest use of the term "Industrial Revolution" seems to be a letter of 6 July 1799 by French envoy Louis-Guillaume Otto, announcing that France had entered the race to industrialise.[13] In his 1976 book Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, Raymond Williams states in the entry for "Industry": "The idea of a new social order based on major industrial change was clear in Southeyand Owen, between 1811 and 1818, and was implicit as early as Blake in the early 1790s and Wordsworth at the turn of the [19th] century." The term Industrial Revolution applied to technological change was becoming more common by the late 1830s, as in Jérôme-Adolphe Blanqui description in 1837 of la révolution industrielle.[14] Friedrich Engels in The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 spoke of "an industrial revolution, a revolution which at the same time changed the whole of civil society". However, although Engels wrote in the 1840s, his book was not translated into English until the late nineteenth century, and his expression did not enter everyday language until then. Credit for popularising the term may be given to Arnold Toynbee, whose lectures given in 1881 gave a detailed account of it.[15]
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Important technological developments

The only surviving example of a Spinning mule built by the inventor Samuel Crompton
Major technological developments
The commencement of the Industrial Revolution is closely linked to a small number of innovations,[16] beginning in the second half of the 18th century. By the 1830s the following gains had been made in important technologies: * Textiles – Mechanized cotton spinning powered by steam or water increased the output of a worker by a factor of about 1000. The power loom increased the output of a worker by a factor of over 40.[17] The cotton gin increased productivity or removing seed from cotton by a factor of 50.[11] Large gains in productivity also occurred in spinning and weaving of wool and linen, but they were not as great as in cotton.[18] * Steam power – The efficiency of steam engines increased so that they used between one-fifth and one-tenth as much fuel. The adaption of stationary steam engines to rotary motion made them suitable for industrial uses. The high pressure engine had a high power to weight ratio, making it suitable for transportation. Steam power underwent a rapid expansion after 1800. * Iron making – The substitution of coke for charcoal greatly lowered the fuel cost of pig iron and wrought iron production.[19] Using coke also allowed larger blast furnaces,[20][21] resulting in economies of scale. The cast iron blowing cylinder was first used in 1760. It was later improved by making it double acting, which allowed higher furnace temperatures. The puddling process produced a structural grade iron at a lower cost than the previous processes.[22] The rolling mill was fifteen times faster than hammering wrought iron.[22] Hot blast (1829) greatly increased fuel efficiency in iron production in the following decades.

Textile manufacture
Main article: Textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution

Model of the spinning jenny in a museum in Wuppertal, Germany. The spinning jenny was one of the innovations that started the revolution
In the late 17th and early 18th centuries the British government passed a series of Calico Acts in order to protect the domestic woolen industry from the increasing amounts of cotton fabric that were being imported from East India.
There was also a demand for heavier fabric, which was met by a domestic industry around Lancashire that produced fustian, a cloth with flax warp and cottonweft. Flax was used for the warp because wheel spun cotton did not have sufficient strength, but the resulting blend was not as soft as 100% cotton and was more difficult to sew.[23]
Spinning and weaving were done in households, for domestic consumption and as a cottage industry under the putting-out system. Occasionally the work was done in the workshop of a master weaver. Under the putting-out system, home based workers produced under contract to merchant sellers, who often supplied the raw materials. In the off season the women, typically farmer 's wives, did the spinning and the men did the weaving. Using the spinning wheel it took anywhere from four to eight spinners to supply one hand loom weaver.[18][23][24] The flying shuttle patented in 1733 by John Kay, with a number of subsequent improvements including an important one in 1747, doubled the output of a weaver, worsening the imbalance between spinning and weaving. It became widely used around Lancashire after 1760 when Robert Kay, John 's son, invented the drop box.[25] * Watch video: Demonstration of fly shuttle
Lewis Paul patented the roller spinning machine and the flyer-and-bobbin system for drawing wool to a more even thickness, developed with the help of John Wyatt in Birmingham. Paul and Wyatt opened a mill in Birmingham which used their new rolling machine powered by a donkey. In 1743, a factory was opened in Northampton with fifty spindles on each of five of Paul and Wyatt 's machines. This operated until about 1764. A similar mill was built by Daniel Bourn in Leominster, but this burnt down. Both Lewis Paul and Daniel Bourn patented carding machines in 1748. Using two sets of rollers that travelled at different speeds, it was later used in the first cotton spinning mill. Lewis 's invention was later developed and improved by Richard Arkwright in his water frame and Samuel Crompton in his spinning mule.
In 1764 in the village of Stanhill, Lancashire, James Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny, which he patented in 1770. It was the first practical spinning frame with multiple spindles.[26] The jenny worked in a similar manner to the spinning wheel, by first clamping down on the fibers, then by drawing them out, followed by twisting.[27] It was a simple, wooden framed machine that only cost about £6 for a 40 spindle model in 1792,[28] and was used mainly by home spinners. The jenny produced a lightly twisted yarn only suitable for weft, not warp.[29]
The spinning frame or water frame was developed by Richard Arkwright who, along with two partners, patented it in 1769. The design was partly based on a spinning machine built for Thomas High by clock maker John Kay, who was hired by Arkwright.[30] For each spindle, the water frame used a series of four pairs of rollers, each operating at a successively higher rotating speed, to draw out the fiber, which was then twisted by the spindle. The roller spacing was slightly longer than the fiber length. Too close a spacing caused the fibers to break while too distant a spacing caused uneven thread. The top rollers were leather covered and loading on the rollers was applied by a weight. The weights kept the twist from backing up before the rollers. The bottom rollers were wood and metal, with fluting along the length. The water frame was able to produce a hard, medium count thread suitable for warp, finally allowing 100% cotton cloth to be made in Britain. A horse powered the first factory to use the spinning frame. Water power was used by Arkwright and partners at a factory in Cromford, Derbyshire in 1771, giving the invention its name. * Watch video: Demonstration of water frame
Samuel Crompton 's Spinning Mule, introduced in 1779, was a combination of the spinning jenny and the water frame in which the spindles were placed on a carriage, which went through an operational sequence during which the rollers stopped while the carriage moved away from the drawing roller to finish drawing out the fibers as the spindles started rotating.[31] Crompton 's mule was able to produce finer thread than hand spinning and at a lower cost. Mule spun thread was of suitable strength to be used as warp, and finally allowed Britain to produce good quality calico cloth.[31] * Watch video: Demonstration of spinning mule
Realizing that the expiration of the Arkwright patent would greatly increase the supply of spun cotton and lead to a shortage of weavers, Edmund Cartwright developed a vertical power loom which he patented in 1785. In 1776 he patented a two man operated loom, that was more conventional.[32] Cartwright built two factories; the first burned down and the second was sabotaged by his workers. Cartwright 's loom design had several flaws, the most serious being thread breakage. Samuel Horrocks patented a fairly successful loom in 1813. Horock 's loom was improved by Richard Roberts in 1822 and these were produced in large numbers by Roberts, Hill & Co.[33]
The demand for cotton presented an opportunity to planters in the Southern United States, who thought upland cotton would be a profitable crop if a better way could be found to remove the seed. Eli Whitney responded to the challenge by inventing the cotton gin, an inexpensive device. With a cotton gin a man could remove seed from as much upland cotton in one day as would have previously taken a woman working two months to process at one pound per day.[11]
Other inventors increased the efficiency of the individual steps of spinning (carding, twisting and spinning, and rolling) so that the supply of yarn increased greatly, which fed a weaving industry that was advancing with improvements to shuttles and the loom or 'frame '. The output of an individual labourer increased dramatically, with the effect that the new machines were seen as a threat to employment, and early innovators were attacked and their inventions destroyed.
To capitalise upon these advances, it took a class of entrepreneurs, of which the most famous is Richard Arkwright. He is credited with a list of inventions, but these were actually developed by people such as Thomas Highs and John Kay; Arkwright nurtured the inventors, patented the ideas, financed the initiatives, and protected the machines. He created the cotton mill which brought the production processes together in a factory, and he developed the use of power—first horse power and then water power—which made cotton manufacture a mechanised industry. Before long steam power was applied to drive textile machinery. Manchester acquired the nickname Cottonopolis during the early 19th century owing to its sprawl of textile factories.[34]
Metallurgy

The Reverberatory Furnace could produce wrought iron using mined coal. The burning coal remained separate from the iron ore and so did not contaminate the iron with impurities like sulphur and ash. This opened the way to increased iron production.

The Iron Bridge, Shropshire, England

The Barrow Hematite Steel Companybased in Barrow-in-Furness, Lancashireoperated the largest iron and steelworks in the world during the Industrial Revolution.
A major change in the metal industries during the era of the Industrial Revolution was the replacement of wood and other bio-fuels with coal. For a given amount of heat, coal required much less labor to mine than cutting wood,[35] and coal was more abundant than wood.[36]
Use of coal in smelting started somewhat before the Industrial Revolution, based on innovations by Sir Clement Clerke and others from 1678, using coalreverberatory furnaces known as cupolas. These were operated by the flames playing on the ore and charcoal or coke mixture, reducing the oxide to metal. This has the advantage that impurities (such as sulfur ash) in the coal do not migrate into the metal. This technology was applied to lead from 1678 and tocopper from 1687. It was also applied to iron foundry work in the 1690s, but in this case the reverberatory furnace was known as an air furnace. The foundry cupola is a different (and later) innovation.
This was followed by Abraham Darby, who made great strides using coke to fuel his blast furnaces at Coalbrookdale in 1709. However, the coke pig iron he made was used mostly for the production of cast-iron goods such as pots and kettles. He had the advantage over his rivals in that his pots, cast by his patented process, were thinner and cheaper than theirs. Coke pig iron was hardly used to produce bar iron in forges until the mid-1750s, when his sonAbraham Darby II built Horsehay and Ketley furnaces (not far from Coalbrookdale). By then, coke pig iron was cheaper than charcoal pig iron. Since cast ironwas becoming cheaper and more plentiful, it began being a structural material following the building of the innovative Iron Bridge in 1778 by Abraham Darby III.
Bar iron for smiths to forge into consumer goods was still made in finery forges, as it long had been. However, new processes were adopted in the ensuing years. The first is referred to today as potting and stamping, but this was superseded by Henry Cort 's puddling process. From 1785, perhaps because the improved version of potting and stamping was about to come out of patent, a great expansion in the output of the British iron industry began. The new processes did not depend on the use of charcoal at all and were therefore not limited by charcoal sources.[37]
Henry Cort developed two significant iron manufacturing processes: rolling in 1783 and puddling in 1784.[38] Rolling replaced hammering for consolidating wrought iron and expelling some of the dross. Rolling was 15 times faster than hammering with a trip hammer. Puddling produced a structural grade iron at a relatively low cost.
Puddling was a means of decarburizing pig iron by slow oxidation, with iron ore as the oxygen source, as the iron was manually stirred using a long rod. The decarburized iron, having a higher melting point than cast iron, was raked into globs by the puddler. When the glob was large enough the puddler would remove it. Puddling was backbreaking and extremely hot work. Few puddlers lived to be 40. Puddling was done in a reverberatory furnace, allowing coal or coke to be used as fuel. The puddling process continued to be used until the late 19th century when iron was being displaced by steel. Because puddling required human skill in sensing the iron globs, it was never successfully mechanized.
Up to that time, British iron manufacturers had used considerable amounts of imported iron to supplement native supplies. This came principally from Swedenfrom the mid-17th century and later also from Russia from the end of the 1720s. However, from 1785, imports decreased because of the new iron making technology, and Britain became an exporter of bar iron as well as manufactured wrought iron consumer goods.
An improvement was made in the production of steel, which was an expensive commodity and used only where iron would not do, such as for the cutting edge of tools and for springs. Benjamin Huntsman developed his crucible steel technique in the 1740s. The raw material for this was blister steel, made by thecementation process.
The supply of cheaper iron and steel aided a number of industries such as those making nails, hinges, wire and other hardware items. The development ofmachine tools allowed better working of iron, causing it to be increasingly used in the rapidly growing machinery and engine industries.
Mining
Coal mining in Britain, particularly in South Wales started early. Before the steam engine, pits were often shallow bell pits following a seam of coal along the surface, which were abandoned as the coal was extracted. In other cases, if the geology was favourable, the coal was mined by means of an adit or drift minedriven into the side of a hill. Shaft mining was done in some areas, but the limiting factor was the problem of removing water. It could be done by hauling buckets of water up the shaft or to a sough (a tunnel driven into a hill to drain a mine). In either case, the water had to be discharged into a stream or ditch at a level where it could flow away by gravity. The introduction of the steam pump by Savery in 1698 and the Newcomen steam engine in 1712 greatly facilitated the removal of water and enabled shafts to be made deeper, enabling more coal to be extracted. These were developments that had begun before the Industrial Revolution, but the adoption of John Smeaton 's improvements to the Newcomen engine followed by James Watt 's more efficient steam engines from the 1770s reduced the fuel costs of engines, making mines more profitable.
Coal mining was very dangerous owing to the presence of firedamp in many coal seams. Some degree of safety was provided by the safety lamp which was invented in 1816 by Sir Humphry Davy and independently by George Stephenson. However, the lamps proved a false dawn because they became unsafe very quickly and provided a weak light. Firedamp explosions continued, often setting offcoal dust explosions, so casualties grew during the entire 19th century. Conditions of work were very poor, with a high casualty rate from rock falls.
Steam power
Main article: Steam power during the Industrial Revolution

The 1698 Savery Engine – the world 's first commercially usefulsteam engine: built by Thomas Savery
The development of the stationary steam engine was an important element of the Industrial Revolution; however, for most of the period of the Industrial Revolution, the majority of industrial power was supplied by water and wind. In Britain by 1800 an estimated 10,000 horsepower was being supplied by steam. By 1815 steam power had grown to 210,000 hp.[39] Small power requirements continued to be provided by animal and human muscle until the late 19th century.[40]
The first real attempt at industrial use of steam power was due to Thomas Savery in 1698. He constructed and patented in London a low-lift combined vacuum and pressure water pump, that generated about one horsepower (hp) and was used in numerous water works and tried in a few mines (hence its "brand name", The Miner 's Friend). Savery 's pump was economical in small horspower ranges, but was prone to boiler explosions in larger sizes. Savery pumps continued to be produced until the late 18th century.

Newcomen 's steam powered atmospheric engine was the first practical engine. Subsequent steam engines were to power the Industrial Revolution
The first safe and successful steam power plant was introduced by Thomas Newcomen before 1712. Newcomen apparently conceived the Newcomen steam engine quite independently of Savery, but as the latter had taken out a very wide-ranging patent, Newcomen and his associates were obliged to come to an arrangement with him, marketing the engine until 1733 under a joint patent.[41][42] Newcomen 's engine appears to have been based on Papin 's experiments carried out 30 years earlier, and employed a piston and cylinder, one end of which was open to the atmosphere above the piston. Steam just above atmospheric pressure (all that the boiler could stand) was introduced into the lower half of the cylinder beneath the piston during the gravity-induced upstroke; the steam was then condensed by a jet of cold water injected into the steam space to produce a partial vacuum; the pressure differential between the atmosphere and the vacuum on either side of the piston displaced it downwards into the cylinder, raising the opposite end of a rocking beam to which was attached a gang of gravity-actuated reciprocating force pumps housed in the mineshaft. The engine 's downward power stroke raised the pump, priming it and preparing the pumping stroke. At first the phases were controlled by hand, but within ten years an escapement mechanism had been devised worked by a vertical plug tree suspended from the rocking beam which rendered the engine self-acting.
A number of Newcomen engines were successfully put to use in Britain for draining hitherto unworkable deep mines, with the engine on the surface; these were large machines, requiring a lot of capital to build, and produced about 5 hp (3.7 kW). They were extremely inefficient by modern standards, but when located where coal was cheap at pit heads, opened up a great expansion in coal mining by allowing mines to go deeper. Despite their disadvantages, Newcomen engines were reliable and easy to maintain and continued to be used in the coalfields until the early decades of the 19th century. By 1729, when Newcomen died, his engines had spread (first) to Hungary in 1722, Germany, Austria, and Sweden. A total of 110 are known to have been built by 1733 when the joint patent expired, of which 14 were abroad. In the 1770s, the engineer John Smeaton built some very large examples and introduced a number of improvements. A total of 1,454 engines had been built by 1800.[43]

James Watt
A fundamental change in working principles was brought about by James Watt. In close collaboration with Matthew Boulton, he had succeeded by 1778 in perfecting his steam engine, which incorporated a series of radical improvements, notably the closing off of the upper part of the cylinder thereby making the low pressure steam drive the top of the piston instead of the atmosphere, use of a steam jacket and the celebrated separate steam condenser chamber. The separate condenser did away with the cooling water that had been injected directly into the cylinder, which cooled the cylinder and wasted steam. Likewise, the steam jacket kept steam from condensing in the cylinder, also improving efficiency. These improvements increased engine efficiency so that Boulton & Watts engines used only 20-25% as much coal per horsepower-hour as Newcomen 's. Bolton and Watt opened the Soho Foundry, for the manufacture of such engines, in 1795.
Nor could the atmospheric engine be easily adapted to drive a rotating wheel, although Wasborough and Pickard did succeed in doing so towards 1780. However by 1783 the more economical Watt steam engine had been fully developed into a double-acting rotative type, which meant that it could be used to directly drive the rotary machinery of a factory or mill. Both of Watt 's basic engine types were commercially very successful, and by 1800, the firm Boulton & Watt had constructed 496 engines, with 164 driving reciprocating pumps, 24 serving blast furnaces, and 308 powering mill machinery; most of the engines generated from 5 to 10 hp (7.5 kW).
The development of machine tools, such as the lathe, planing and shaping machines powered by these engines, enabled all the metal parts of the engines to be easily and accurately cut and in turn made it possible to build larger and more powerful engines.
Until about 1800, the most common pattern of steam engine was the beam engine, built as an integral part of a stone or brick engine-house, but soon various patterns of self-contained portative engines (readily removable, but not on wheels) were developed, such as the table engine. Around the start of the 19th century, the Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick, and the American, Oliver Evans began to construct higher pressure non-condensing steam engines, exhausting against the atmosphere. This allowed an engine and boiler to be combined into a single unit compact enough to be used on mobile road and rail locomotives and steam boats.
In the early 19th century after the expiration of Watt 's patent, the steam engine underwent many improvements by a host of inventors and engineers.
Chemicals

The Thames Tunnel (opened 1843).
Cement was used in the world 's first underwater tunnel
The large scale production of chemicals was an important development during the Industrial Revolution. The first of these was the production of sulphuric acidby the lead chamber process invented by the Englishman John Roebuck (James Watt 's first partner) in 1746. He was able to greatly increase the scale of the manufacture by replacing the relatively expensive glass vessels formerly used with larger, less expensive chambers made of riveted sheets of lead. Instead of making a small amount each time, he was able to make around 100 pounds (50 kg) in each of the chambers, at least a tenfold increase.
The production of an alkali on a large scale became an important goal as well, and Nicolas Leblanc succeeded in 1791 in introducing a method for the production of sodium carbonate. The Leblanc process was a reaction of sulphuric acid with sodium chloride to give sodium sulphate and hydrochloric acid. The sodium sulphate was heated with limestone (calcium carbonate) and coal to give a mixture of sodium carbonate and calcium sulphide. Adding water separated the soluble sodium carbonate from the calcium sulphide. The process produced a large amount of pollution (the hydrochloric acid was initially vented to the air, and calcium sulphide was a useless waste product). Nonetheless, this synthetic soda ash proved economical compared to that from burning specific plants (barilla) or from kelp, which were the previously dominant sources of soda ash,[44] and also to potash (potassium carbonate) derived from hardwood ashes.
These two chemicals were very important because they enabled the introduction of a host of other inventions, replacing many small-scale operations with more cost-effective and controllable processes. Sodium carbonate had many uses in the glass, textile, soap, and paper industries. Early uses for sulphuric acid included pickling (removing rust) iron and steel, and for bleaching cloth.
The development of bleaching powder (calcium hypochlorite) by Scottish chemist Charles Tennant in about 1800, based on the discoveries of French chemist Claude Louis Berthollet, revolutionised the bleaching processes in the textile industry by dramatically reducing the time required (from months to days) for the traditional process then in use, which required repeated exposure to the sun in bleach fields after soaking the textiles with alkali or sour milk. Tennant 's factory at St Rollox, North Glasgow, became the largest chemical plant in the world.
In 1824 Joseph Aspdin, a British bricklayer turned builder, patented a chemical process for making portland cement which was an important advance in the building trades. This process involvessintering a mixture of clay and limestone to about 1,400 °C (2,552 °F), then grinding it into a fine powder which is then mixed with water, sand and gravel to produce concrete. Portland cement was used by the famous English engineer Marc Isambard Brunel several years later when constructing the Thames Tunnel.[45] Cement was used on a large scale in the construction of the London sewerage system a generation later.
After 1860 the focus on chemical innovation was in dyestuffs, and Germany took world leadership, building a strong chemical industry.[46] Aspring chemists flocked to German universities in the 1860–1914 era to learn the latest techniques. British scientists by contrast, lacked research universities and did not train advanced students; instead the practice was to hire German-trained chemists.[47]
Machine tools
Main article: Machine tool
See also: Interchangeable parts

Sir Joseph Whitworth, a leading machine tool maker and namesake of the British Standard Whitworth thread for machine screws.
The Industrial Revolution created a demand for metal parts used in machinery. This led to the development of several machine tools for cutting metal parts. They have their origins in the tools developed in the 18th century by makers of clocks and watches and scientific instrument makers to enable them to batch-produce small mechanisms. The mechanical parts of early textile machines were sometimes called 'clock work ' because of the metal spindles and gears they incorporated. The manufacture of textile machines drew craftsmen from these trades and is the origin of the modern engineering industry.
Machines were built by various craftsmen—millwrights built water and wind mills, carpenters made wooden framing, and smiths and turners made metal parts. A good example of how machine tools changed manufacturing took place in Birmingham, England, in 1830. The invention of a new machine by pen manufacturers Joseph Gillott, William Mitchell, and Josiah Mason allowed mass manufacture of robust, cheap steel pen nibs.[48] Because of the difficulty of manipulating metal and the lack of machine tools, the use of metal was kept to a minimum. Wood framing had the disadvantage of changing dimensions with temperature and humidity, and the various joints tended to rack (work loose) over time. As the Industrial Revolution progressed, machines with metal parts and frames became more common, but they required machine tools to make them economically. Before the advent of machine tools, metal was worked manually using the basic hand tools of hammers, files, scrapers, saws and chisels. Small metal parts were readily made by this means, but for large machine parts, production was very laborious and costly.

A lathe from 1911, a machine tool able to shape parts (usually metal) for other machines
Apart from workshop lathes used by craftsmen, the first large machine tool was the cylinder boring machine used for boring the large-diameter cylinders on early steam engines. The planing machine, the slotting machine and the shaping machinewere developed in the early decades of the 19th century. Although the milling machine was invented at this time, it was not developed as a serious workshop tool until somewhat later in the 19th century.
Military production, as well, had a hand in the development of machine tools. Henry Maudslay, who trained a school of machine tool makers early in the 19th century, was employed at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, as a young man where he would have seen the large horse-driven wooden machines for cannon boring made and worked by the Verbruggans. He later worked for Joseph Bramah on the production of metal locks, and soon after he began working on his own. He was engaged to build the machinery for making ships ' pulley blocks for the Royal Navy in the Portsmouth Block Mills. These machines were all metal and were the first machines for mass production and making components with a degree of interchangeability. The lessons Maudslay learned about the need for stability and precision he adapted to the development of machine tools, and in his workshops he trained a generation of men to build on his work, such as Richard Roberts, Joseph Clement andJoseph Whitworth.
James Fox of Derby had a healthy export trade in machine tools for the first third of the century, as did Matthew Murray of Leeds. Roberts was a maker of high-quality machine tools and a pioneer of the use of jigs and gauges for precision workshop measurement.
Gas lighting
Main article: Gas lighting
Another major industry of the later Industrial Revolution was gas lighting. Though others made a similar innovation elsewhere, the large scale introduction of this was the work of William Murdoch, an employee of Boulton and Watt, the Birmingham steam engine pioneers. The process consisted of the large scale gasification of coal in furnaces, the purification of the gas (removal of sulphur, ammonia, and heavy hydrocarbons), and its storage and distribution. The first gas lighting utilities were established in London between 1812 and 1820. They soon became one of the major consumers of coal in the UK. Gas lighting had an impact on social and industrial organisation because it allowed factories and stores to remain open longer than with tallow candles or oil. Its introduction allowed night life to flourish in cities and towns as interiors and streets could be lighted on a larger scale than before.
Glass making
Main article: Glass production

The Crystal Palace held the Great Exhibition of 1851
A new method of producing glass, known as the cylinder process, was developed in Europe during the early 19th century. In 1832, this process was used by the Chance Brothers to create sheet glass. They became the leading producers of window and plate glass. This advancement allowed for larger panes of glass to be created without interruption, thus freeing up the space planning in interiors as well as the fenestration of buildings. The Crystal Palace is the supreme example of the use of sheet glass in a new and innovative structure..
Paper machine
Main article: Paper machine
A machine for making a continuous sheet of paper on a loop of wire fabric was patented in 1798 by Nicholas Louis Robert who worked for Saint-Léger Didotfamily in France. The paper machine is known as a Fourdrinier after the financiers, brothers Sealy and Henry Fourdrinier, who were stationers in London. Although greatly improved and with many variations, the Fourdriner machine is the predominant means of paper production today.
The method of continuous production demonstrated by the paper machine influenced the development of other continuous rolling and other continuous production processes.[49]
Agriculture
The invention of machinery played a big part in driving forward the British Agricultural Revolution. Agricultural improvement began in the centuries before the Industrial revolution got going and it may have played a part in freeing up labour from the land to work in the new industrial mills of the 18th century. As the revolution in industry progressed a succession of machines became available which increased food production with ever fewer labourers.
Jethro Tull 's seed drill invented in 1701 was a mechanical seeder which distributed seeds efficiently across a plot of land. This was important because the yield of seeds harvested to seeds planted at that time was around four or five. Joseph Foljambe 's Rotherham plough of 1730, was the first commercially successful iron plough.[50] The threshing machine, invented by Andrew Meikle in 1784, displaced hand threshing with a flail, a laborious job that took about one-quarter of agricultural labor.[51] It took several decades to diffuse[52] and was the final straw for many farm labourers, who faced near starvation, leading to the 1830 agricultural rebellion of the Swing Riots.
Other developments
Other developments included more efficient water wheels, based on experiments conducted by the British engineer John Smeaton[53] the beginnings of a machinery industry [54][11] and the rediscovery of concrete (based on hydraulic lime mortar) by John Smeaton, which had been lost for 1300 years.[55]
Transportation
Main article: Transport during the British Industrial Revolution
See also: Productivity improving technologies (historical)#Infrastructures
At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, inland transport was by navigable rivers and roads, with coastal vessels employed to move heavy goods by sea. Railways or wagon ways were used for conveying coal to rivers for further shipment, but canals had not yet been constructed. Animals supplied all of the motive power on land, with sails providing the motive power on the sea.
The Industrial Revolution improved Britain 's transport infrastructure with a turnpike road network, a canal and waterway network, and a railway network. Raw materials and finished products could be moved more quickly and cheaply than before. Improved transportation also allowed new ideas to spread quickly.
Canals
Main article: History of the British canal system

The Bridgewater Canal, famous because of its commercial success, crossing theManchester Ship Canal, one of the last canals to be built.
Building of canals dates to ancient times. The Grand Canal in China, "the world 's largest artificial waterway and oldest canal still in existence," parts of which were started between the 6th and 4th centuries BC, is 1121 miles long and links Hangzhou with Beijing.[56]
Canals were the first technology to allow bulk materials to be easily transported across the country, coal being a common commodity. A single canal horse could pull a load dozens of times larger than a cart at a faster pace.[57][58]
Canals began to be built in the late 18th century to link the major manufacturing centres across the country. The first successful canal was the Bridgewater Canal inNorth West England, which opened in 1761 and was mostly funded by The 3rd Duke of Bridgewater. From Worsley to the rapidly growing town of Manchester its construction cost £168,000 (£21,920,770 as of 2013),[59][60] but its advantages over land and river transport meant that within a year of its opening in 1761, the price of coal in Manchester fell by about half.[61] This success helped inspire a period of intense canal building, known as Canal Mania.[62] New canals were hastily built in the aim of replicating the commercial success of the Bridgewater Canal, the most notable being the Leeds and Liverpool Canal and the Thames and Severn Canal which opened in 1774 and 1789 respectively.
By the 1820s, a national network was in existence. Canal construction served as a model for the organisation and methods later used to construct the railways. They were eventually largely superseded as profitable commercial enterprises by the spread of the railways from the 1840s on. The last major canal to be built in the United Kingdom was the Manchester Ship Canal, which upon opening in 1894 was the largest ship canal in the world,[63] and opened Manchester as a port. However it never achieved the commercial success its sponsors had hoped for and signalled canals as an dying mode of transport in an age dominated by railways, which were quicker and often cheaper.
Britain 's canal network, together with its surviving mill buildings, is one of the most enduring features of the early Industrial Revolution to be seen in Britain.
Roads
Much of the original British road system was poorly maintained by thousands of local parishes, but from the 1720s (and occasionally earlier) turnpike trusts were set up to charge tolls and maintain some roads. Increasing numbers of main roads were turnpiked from the 1750s to the extent that almost every main road in England and Wales was the responsibility of a turnpike trust. New engineered roads were built by John Metcalf, Thomas Telford and most notably John McAdam, with the first 'macadamised ' stretch of road being Marsh Road at Ashton Gate, Bristol in 1816.[64] The major turnpikes radiated from London and were the means by which the Royal Mail was able to reach the rest of the country. Heavy goods transport on these roads was by means of slow, broad wheeled, carts hauled by teams of horses. Lighter goods were conveyed by smaller carts or by teams of pack horse. Stage coaches carried the rich, and the less wealthy could pay to ride on carriers carts.
Railways
Main article: History of rail transport in Great Britain

Painting depicting the opening of theLiverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830, the first inter-city railway in the world and which spawned Railway Mania due to its success.
Wagonways for moving coal in the mining areas had started in the 17th century and were often associated with canal or river systems for the further movement of coal. These were all horse drawn or relied on gravity, with a stationary steam engine to haul the wagons back to the top of the incline. The first applications of the steam locomotive were on wagon or plate ways (as they were then often called from the cast-iron plates used). Horse-drawn public railways did not begin until the early years of the 19th century. Steam-hauled public railways began with the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825.
On 15 September 1830, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was opened, the first inter-city railway in the world and was attended by Prime Minister, theDuke of Wellington.[65] The railway was engineered by Joseph Locke and George Stephenson, linked the rapidly expanding industrial town of Manchester with the port town of Liverpool. The opening was marred by problems, due to the primitive nature of the technology being employed, however problems were gradually ironed out and the railway became highly successful, transporting passengers and freight. The success of the inter-city railway, particularly in the transport of freight and commodities, led to Railway Mania.
Construction of major railways connecting the larger cities and towns began in the 1830s but only gained momentum at the very end of the first Industrial Revolution. After many of the workers had completed the railways, they did not return to their rural lifestyles but instead remained in the cities, providing additional workers for the factories.
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Social effects
Main article: Life in Great Britain during the Industrial Revolution

A Middleton miner in 1814
Standards of living
The history of the change of living conditions during the industrial revolution has been very controversial, and was the topic that from the 1950s to the 1980s caused most heated debate among economic and social historians.[66] A series of 1950s essays by Henry Phelps Brown and Sheila V. Hopkins later set the academic consensus that the bulk of the population, that was at the bottom of the social ladder, suffered severe reductions in their living standards.[66]
During the period 1813–1913, there was a significant increase in worker wages.[67][68][69]
Food and nutrition
Chronic hunger and malnutrition were the norm for the majority of the population of the world including Britain and France, until the latter part of the 19th century. Until about 1750, in large part due to malnutrition, life expectancy in France was about 35 years, and only slightly higher in Britain. The U.S. population of the time was adequately fed, were much taller and had life expectancy of 45–50 years.[70]
In Britain and the Netherlands food supply had been increasing and prices falling before the Industrial Revolution due to better agricultural practices; however, population was increasing as well, as noted by Thomas Malthus.[71][72][73][74] Prior to the Industrial Revolution, advances in agriculture or technology soon led to an increase in population, which again strained food and other resources, limiting increases in per capita income. This condition is called the Malthusian trap, and it was finally overcome by industrialization.[75]
Transportation improvements, such as canals and improved roads, also lowered food costs. Railroads were introduced near the end of the Industrial Revolution.
Housing

Over London by Rail Gustave Doré c. 1870. Shows the densely populated and polluted environments created in the new industrial cities
Living conditions during the Industrial Revolution varied from the splendour of the homes of the owners to the squalor of the lives of the workers.
In The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 Friedrich Engels described backstreet sections of Manchester and other mill towns where people lived in crude shanties and shacks, some not being completely enclosed, some with dirt floors. These shantytowns had narrow walkways between irregularly shaped lots and dwellings. Sanitary facilities were nonexistent. These slum areas had extremely high population densities. It was common for groups of unrelated mill workers to share rooms in very low quality housing where eight to ten people may occupy a single room, which often had no furniture, with the occupants sleeping on a pile of straw or sawdust.[76]
These homes would share toilet facilities, have open sewers and would be at risk of developing pathologies associated with persistent dampness. Disease was spread through a contaminated water supply. Conditions did improve during the 19th century as public health acts were introduced covering things such as sewage, hygiene and making some boundaries upon the construction of homes. Not everybody lived in homes like these. The Industrial Revolution created a larger middle class of professionals such as lawyers and doctors. Health conditions improved over the course of the 19th century because of better sanitation; the famines that troubled rural areas did not happen in industrial areas. However, urban people—especially small children—died due to diseases spreading through the cramped living conditions. Tuberculosis (spread in congested dwellings), lung diseases from the mines, cholera from polluted water and typhoid were also common.
In the introduction of the 1892 edition of Engels (1844) he notes that most of the conditions he wrote about in 1844 had been greatly improved.
Clothing and consumer goods
Consumers benefited from falling prices for clothing and household articles such as cast iron cooking utensils, and in the following decades, stoves for cooking and space heating.
Population increase
According to Robert Hughes in The Fatal Shore, the population of England and Wales, which had remained steady at 6 million from 1700 to 1740, rose dramatically after 1740. The population of England had more than doubled from 8.3 million in 1801 to 16.8 million in 1850 and, by 1901, had nearly doubled again to 30.5 million.[77] As living conditions and health care improved during the 19th century, Britain 's population doubled every 50 years.[78][79] Europe 's population increased from about 100 million in 1700 to 400 million by 1900.[80]
Labor conditions
Social structure and working conditions
In terms of social structure, the Industrial Revolution witnessed the triumph of a middle class of industrialists and businessmen over a landed class of nobility and gentry. Ordinary working people found increased opportunities for employment in the new mills and factories, but these were often under strict working conditions with long hours of labour dominated by a pace set by machines. As late as the year 1900, most industrial workers in the United States still worked a 10-hour day (12 hours in the steel industry), yet earned from 20 to 40 percent less than the minimum deemed necessary for a decent life.[81] However, harsh working conditions were prevalent long before the Industrial Revolution took place.[citation needed] Pre-industrial society was very static and often cruel—child labour, dirty living conditions, and long working hours were just as prevalent before the Industrial Revolution.[82]
Factories and urbanisation

Manchester, England ("Cottonopolis"), pictured in 1840, showing the mass of factory chimneys
Industrialisation led to the creation of the factory. Arguably the first was John Lombe 's water-powered silk mill at Derby, operational by 1721. However, the rise of the factory came somewhat later when cotton spinning was mechanised.
The factory system was largely responsible for the rise of the modern city, as large numbers of workers migrated into the cities in search of employment in the factories. Nowhere was this better illustrated than the mills and associated industries of Manchester, nicknamed "Cottonopolis", and the world 's first industrial city.[83]
For much of the 19th century, production was done in small mills, which were typically water-powered and built to serve local needs. Later each factory would have its own steam engine and a chimney to give an efficient draft through its boiler.
The transition to industrialisation was not without difficulty. For example, a group of English workers known as Luddites formed to protest against industrialisation and sometimes sabotaged factories.
In other industries the transition to factory production was not so divisive. Some industrialists themselves tried to improve factory and living conditions for their workers. One of the earliest such reformers was Robert Owen, known for his pioneering efforts in improving conditions for workers at the New Lanark mills, and often regarded as one of the key thinkers of the early socialist movement.
By 1746, an integrated brass mill was working at Warmley near Bristol. Raw material went in at one end, was smelted into brass and was turned into pans, pins, wire, and other goods. Housing was provided for workers on site. Josiah Wedgwood and Matthew Boulton (whose Soho Manufactory was completed in 1766) were other prominent early industrialists, who employed the factory system.
Child labour

A young "drawer" pulling a coal tub along a mine gallery.[84] In Britain laws passed in 1842 and 1844 that improved working conditions in mines.

Wheaton Glass Works, November 1909. Photographed by Lewis Hine.
The Industrial Revolution led to a population increase, but the chances of surviving childhood did not improve throughout the Industrial Revolution (although infant mortality rates were reduced markedly).[85][86] There was still limited opportunity for education, and children were expected to work. Employers could pay a child less than an adult even though their productivity was comparable; there was no need for strength to operate an industrial machine, and since the industrial system was completely new there were no experienced adult labourers. This made child labour the labour of choice for manufacturing in the early phases of the Industrial Revolution between the 18th and 19th centuries. In England and Scotland in 1788, two-thirds of the workers in 143 water-powered cotton mills were described as children.[87]
Child labour had existed before the Industrial Revolution, but with the increase in population and education it became more visible. Many children were forced to work in relatively bad conditions for much lower pay than their elders,[88] 10-20% of an adult male 's wage.[89] Children as young as four were employed.[89] Beatings and long hours were common, with some child coal miners and hurriers working from 4 am until 5 pm.[89]Conditions were dangerous, with some children killed when they dozed off and fell into the path of the carts, while others died from gas explosions.[89] Many children developed lung cancer and other diseases and died before the age of 25.[89] Workhouses would sell orphans and abandoned children as "pauper apprentices", working without wages for board and lodging.[89] Those who ran away would be whipped and returned to their masters, with some masters shackling them to prevent escape.[89] Children employed as mule scavenger by cotton mills would crawl under machinery to pick up cotton, working 14 hours a day, six days a week. Some lost hands or limbs, others were crushed under the machines, and some were decapitated.[89] Young girls worked at match factories, where phosphorus fumes would cause many to develop phossy jaw.[89] Children employed at glassworks were regularly burned and blinded, and those working at potteries were vulnerable to poisonous clay dust.[89]
Reports were written detailing some of the abuses, particularly in the coal mines[90] and textile factories[91] and these helped to popularise the children 's plight. The public outcry, especially among the upper and middle classes, helped stir change in the young workers ' welfare.
Politicians and the government tried to limit child labour by law, but factory owners resisted; some felt that they were aiding the poor by giving their children money to buy food to avoid starvation, and others simply welcomed the cheap labour. In 1833 and 1844, the first general laws against child labour, theFactory Acts, were passed in Britain: Children younger than nine were not allowed to work, children were not permitted to work at night, and the work day of youth under the age of 18 was limited to twelve hours. Factory inspectors supervised the execution of the law, however, their scarcity made enforcement difficult.[89] About ten years later, the employment of children and women in mining was forbidden. These laws decreased the number of child labourers; however, child labour remained in Europe and the United States up to the 20th century.[92]
Luddites
Main article: Luddite

Luddites smashing a power loom in 1812.

The Great Chartist Meeting onKennington Common, 1848
The rapid industrialisation of the English economy cost many craft workers their jobs. The movement started first with lace and hosiery workers nearNottingham and spread to other areas of the textile industry owing to early industrialisation. Many weavers also found themselves suddenly unemployed since they could no longer compete with machines which only required relatively limited (and unskilled) labour to produce more cloth than a single weaver. Many such unemployed workers, weavers and others, turned their animosity towards the machines that had taken their jobs and began destroying factories and machinery. These attackers became known as Luddites, supposedly followers of Ned Ludd, a folklore figure. The first attacks of the Luddite movement began in 1811. The Luddites rapidly gained popularity, and the British government took drastic measures, using the militia or army to protect industry. Those rioters who were caught were tried and hanged, or transported for life.
Unrest continued in other sectors as they industrialised as well, such as with agricultural labourers in the 1830s when large parts of southern Britain were affected by the Captain Swing disturbances. Threshing machines were a particular target, and hayrick burning was a popular activity. However, the riots led to the first formation of trade unions, and further pressure for reform.
Organisation of labour
See also: Trade union#History
The Industrial Revolution concentrated labour into mills, factories and mines, thus facilitating the organisation of combinations or trade unions to help advance the interests of working people. The power of a union could demand better terms by withdrawing all labour and causing a consequent cessation of production. Employers had to decide between giving in to the union demands at a cost to themselves or suffering the cost of the lost production. Skilled workers were hard to replace, and these were the first groups to successfully advance their conditions through this kind of bargaining.
The main method the unions used to effect change was strike action. Many strikes were painful events for both sides, the unions and the management. In Britain, the Combination Act 1799 forbade workers to form any kind of trade union until its repeal in 1824. Even after this, unions were still severely restricted.
In 1832, the year of the Reform Act which extended the vote in Britain but did not grant universal suffrage, six men from Tolpuddle in Dorset founded the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers to protest against the gradual lowering of wages in the 1830s. They refused to work for less than 10 shillings a week, although by this time wages had been reduced to seven shillings a week and were due to be further reduced to six shillings. In 1834 James Frampton, a local landowner, wrote to the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, to complain about the union, invoking an obscure law from 1797 prohibiting people from swearing oaths to each other, which the members of the Friendly Society had done. James Brine, James Hammett, George Loveless, George 's brother James Loveless, George 's brother in-law Thomas Standfield, and Thomas 's son John Standfield were arrested, found guilty, and transported to Australia. They became known as the Tolpuddle martyrs. In the 1830s and 1840s the Chartist movement was the first large scale organised working class political movement which campaigned for political equality and social justice. Its Charter of reforms received over three million signatures but was rejected by Parliament without consideration.
Working people also formed friendly societies and co-operative societies as mutual support groups against times of economic hardship. Enlightened industrialists, such as Robert Owen also supported these organisations to improve the conditions of the working class.
Unions slowly overcame the legal restrictions on the right to strike. In 1842, a General Strike involving cotton workers and colliers was organised through the Chartist movement which stopped production across Great Britain.[93]
Eventually effective political organisation for working people was achieved through the trades unions who, after the extensions of the franchise in 1867 and 1885, began to support socialist political parties that later merged to became the British Labour Party.
Other effects
The application of steam power to the industrial processes of printing supported a massive expansion of newspaper and popular book publishing, which reinforced rising literacy and demands for mass political participation.
During the Industrial Revolution, the life expectancy of children increased dramatically. The percentage of the children born in London who died before the age of five decreased from 74.5% in 1730–1749 to 31.8% in 1810–1829.[85]
The growth of modern industry from the late 18th century onward led to massive urbanisation and the rise of new great cities, first in Europe and then in other regions, as new opportunities brought huge numbers of migrants from rural communities into urban areas. In 1800, only 3% of the world 's population lived in cities,[94] a figure that has risen to nearly 50% at the beginning of the 21st century.[95] In 1717 Manchester was merely a market town of 10,000 people, but by 1911 it had a population of 2.3 million.[96]
The greatest killer in the cities was tuberculosis (TB).[97] By the late 1800s, between 7 and 9 in 10 city dwellers in Europe and North America were infected with tuberculosis, and about 8 in 10 of those who developed active tuberculosis died of it. Forty percent of deaths among the urban working class were from tuberculosis.[98]
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Industrialisation beyond Great Britain
Continental Europe
The Industrial Revolution on Continental Europe came a little later than in Great Britain. In many industries, this involved the application of technology developed in Britain in new places. Often the technology was purchased from Britain or British engineers and entrepreneurs moved abroad in search of new opportunities. By 1809 part of the Ruhr Valley in Westphalia was called 'Miniature England ' because of its similarities to the industrial areas of England. The German, Russian and Belgian governments all provided state funding to the new industries. In some cases (such as iron), the different availability of resources locally meant that only some aspects of the British technology were adopted.
Belgium

Workers ' housing at Bois-du-Luc (1838–1853) in La Louvière
Belgium was the second country, after Britain, in which the industrial revolution took place and the first in continental Europe:
Wallonia (French speaking southern Belgium) was the first region to follow the British model successfully. Starting in the middle of the 1820s, and especially after Belgium became an independent nation in 1830, numerous works comprising coke blast furnaces as well as puddling and rolling mills were built in the coal mining areas around Liège and Charleroi. The leader was a transplanted Englishman John Cockerill. His factories at Seraing integrated all stages of production, from engineering to the supply of raw materials, as early as 1825.[99]
Wallonia exemplified the radical evolution of industrial expansion. Thanks to coal (the French word "houille" was coined in Wallonia),[100] the region geared up to become the 2nd industrial power in the world after Britain. But it is also pointed out by many researchers, with its Sillon industriel, 'Especially in the Haine,Sambre and Meuse valleys, between the Borinage and Liège, (...) there was a huge industrial development based on coal-mining and iron-making... '.[101]Philippe Raxhon wrote about the period after 1830: "It was not propaganda but a reality the Walloon regions were becoming the second industrial power all over the world after Britain."[102] "The sole industrial centre outside the collieries and blast furnaces of Walloon was the old cloth making town of Ghent."[103]Michel De Coster, Professor at the Université de Liège wrote also: "The historians and the economists say that Belgium was the second industrial power of the world, in proportion to its population and its territory (...) But this rank is the one of Wallonia where the coal-mines, the blast furnaces, the iron and zinc factories, the wool industry, the glass industry, the weapons industry... were concentrated" [104]
Demographic effects

Wallonia 's Sillon industriel (the blue area in the north is not in Wallonia)

Gallow frame of the Crachet inFrameries IN Wallonia 's French Châssis à molettes or Belfleur (French Chevalement

Official Poster of the Liège 's World fair in 1905
Wallonia was also the birthplace of a strong Socialist party and strong trade-unions in a particular sociological landscape. At the left, the Sillon industriel, which runs from Mons in the west, to Verviers in the east (except part of North Flanders, in another period of the industrial revolution, after 1920). Even if Belgium is the second industrial country after Britain, the effect of the industrial revolution there was very different. In 'Breaking stereotypes ', Muriel Neven and Isabelle Devious say:
The industrial revolution changed a mainly rural society into an urban one, but with a strong contrast between northern and southern Belgium. During the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, Flanders was characterised by the presence of large urban centres (...) at the beginning of the nineteenth century this region (Flanders), with an urbanisation degree of more than 30 per cent, remained one of the most urbanised in the world. By comparison, this proportion reached only 17 per cent in Wallonia, barely 10 per cent in most West European countries, 16 per cent in France and 25 per cent in Britain. Nineteenth century industrialisation did not affect the traditional urban infrastructure, except in Ghent (...) Also, in Wallonia the traditional urban network was largely unaffected by the industrialisation process, even though the proportion of city-dwellers rose from 17 to 45 per cent between 1831 and 1910. Especially in the Haine, Sambre and Meuse valleys, between the Borinage and Liège, where there was a huge industrial development based on coal-mining and iron-making, urbanisation was fast. During these eighty years the number of municipalities with more than 5,000 inhabitants increased from only 21 to more than one hundred, concentrating nearly half of the Walloon population in this region. Nevertheless, industrialisation remained quite traditional in the sense that it did not lead to the growth of modern and large urban centres, but to a conurbation of industrial villages and towns developed around a coal-mine or a factory. Communication routes between these small centres only became populated later and created a much less dense urban morphology than, for instance, the area around Liège where the old town was there to direct migratory flows.[105]
France
The industrial revolution in France followed a particular course as it did not correspond to the main model followed by other countries. Notably, most French historians argue France did not go through a clear take-off.[106] Instead, France 's economic growth and industrialisation process was slow and steady through the 18th and 19th centuries. However, some stages were identified by Maurice Lévy-Leboyer: * French Revolution and Napoleonic wars (1789–1815), * industrialisation, along with Britain (1815–1860), * economic slowdown (1860–1905), * renewal of the growth after 1905.
Germany
Main article: Economic history of Germany

The BASF-chemical factories inLudwigshafen, Germany, 1881
Based on its leadership in chemical research in the universities and industrial laboratories, Germany became dominant in the world 's chemical industry in the late 19th century. At first the production of dyes based on aniline was critical.[107]
Germany 's political disunity—with three dozen states—and a pervasive conservatism made it difficult to build railways in the 1830s. However, by the 1840s, trunk lines linked the major cities; each German state was responsible for the lines within its own borders. Lacking a technological base at first, the Germans imported their engineering and hardware from Britain, but quickly learned the skills needed to operate and expand the railways. In many cities, the new railway shops were the centres of technological awareness and training, so that by 1850, Germany was self-sufficient in meeting the demands of railroad construction, and the railways were a major impetus for the growth of the new steel industry. Observers found that even as late as 1890, their engineering was inferior to Britain 's. However, German unification in 1870 stimulated consolidation, nationalisation into state-owned companies, and further rapid growth. Unlike the situation in France, the goal was support of industrialisation, and so heavy lines crisscrossed the Ruhr and other industrial districts, and provided good connections to the major ports of Hamburg and Bremen. By 1880, Germany had 9,400 locomotives pulling 43,000 passengers and 30,000 tons of freight, and pulled ahead of France[108]
Sweden
Main article: Economic history of Sweden
During the period 1790–1815 Sweden experienced two parallel economic movements: an agricultural revolution with larger agricultural estates, new crops and farming tools and a commercialisation of farming, and a protoindustrialisation, with small industries being established in the countryside and with workers switching between agricultural work in the summer season and industrial production in the winter season. This led to economic growth benefiting large sections of the population and leading up to a consumption revolution starting in the 1820s.
In the period 1815–1850 the protoindustries developed into more specialized and larger industries. This period witness increasing regional specialisation with mining in Bergslagen, textile mills in Sjuhäradsbygden and forestry in Norrland. Several important institutional changes took place in this period, such as free and mandatory schooling introduced 1842 (as first country in the world), the abolishment of a previous national monopoly on trade in handicrafts in 1846, and a stock company law in 1848.
During the period 1850–1890 Sweden witnessed a veritable explosion in its export sector, with agricultural crops, wood and steel being the three dominating categories. Sweden abolished most tariffs and other barriers to free trade in the 1850s and joined the gold standard in 1873.
During the period 1890–1930 the second industrial revolution took place in Sweden. During this period new industries developed with their focus on the domestic market: mechanical engineering, power utilities, papermaking and textile industries.
United States
Main article: Technological and industrial history of the United States

Slater 's Mill
See also: History of Lowell, Massachusetts
The United States originally used horse-powered machinery to power its earliest factories, but eventually switched to water power, with the consequence that industrialisation was essentially limited to New England and the rest of the Northeastern United States, where fast-moving rivers were located. Horse-drawn production proved to be economically challenging and a more difficult alternative to the newer water-powered production lines. However, the raw materials (cotton) came from the Southern United States. It was not until after the Civil War in the 1860s that steam-powered manufacturing overtook water-powered manufacturing, allowing the industry to fully spread across the nation.
Thomas Somers and the Cabot Brothers founded the Beverly Cotton Manufactory in 1787, the first cotton mill in America, the largest cotton mill of its era,[109]and a significant milestone in the research and development of cotton mills in the future. This cotton mill was designed to utilise horse-powered production, however the operators quickly learned that the economic stability of their horse-drawn platform was unstable, and had fiscal issues for years after it was built. Despite the losses, the Manufactory served as a playground of innovation, both in turning a large amount of cotton, but also developing the water-powered milling structure used in Slater 's Mill.[110]

Bethlehem Steel, founded in 1857, was once the second-largest manufacturer ofsteel in the United States; its Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, location has been transformed into a casino.
Samuel Slater (1768–1835) is the founder of the Slater Mill. As a boy apprentice in Derbyshire, England, he learned of the new techniques in the textile industry and defied laws against the emigration of skilled workers by leaving for New York in 1789, hoping to make money with his knowledge. Slater founded Slater 's Mill at Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 1793. He went on to own thirteen textile mills.[111] Daniel Dayestablished a wool carding mill in the Blackstone Valley at Uxbridge, Massachusetts in 1809, the third woollen mill established in the U.S. (The first was inHartford, Connecticut, and the second at Watertown, Massachusetts.) The John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor retraces the history of "America 's Hardest-Working River ', the Blackstone. The Blackstone River and its tributaries, which cover more than 45 miles (72 km) fromWorcester to Providence, was the birthplace of America 's Industrial Revolution. At its peak over 1100 mills operated in this valley, including Slater 's mill, and with it the earliest beginnings of America 's Industrial and Technological Development.

Men working their own coal mines. Early 1900s, USA
While on a trip to England in 1810, Newburyport merchant Francis Cabot Lowell was allowed to tour the Britishtextile factories, but not take notes. Realising the War of 1812 had ruined his import business but that a market for domestic finished cloth was emerging in America, he memorised the design of textile machines, and on his return to the United States, he set up the Boston Manufacturing Company. Lowell and his partners built America 's second cotton-to-cloth textile mill at Waltham, Massachusetts, second to the Beverly Cotton Manufactory After his death in 1817, his associates built America 's first planned factory town, which they named after him. This enterprise was capitalised in a public stock offering, one of the first uses of it in the United States. Lowell, Massachusetts, utilising 5.6 miles (9.0 km) of canals and ten thousand horsepower delivered by the Merrimack River, is considered by some to be a major contributor to the success of the American Industrial Revolution. The short-lived utopia-like Lowell System was formed, as a direct response to the poor working conditions in Britain. However, by 1850, especially following the Irish Potato Famine, the system had been replaced by poor immigrant labour.
The industrialisation of the watch industry started 1854 also in Waltham, Massachusetts, at the Waltham Watch Company, with the development of machine tools, tools, gauges and assembling methods adapted to the micro precision required for watches.
Japan
Main articles: Meiji Restoration and Economic history of Japan
The industrial revolution began about 1870 as Meiji period leaders decided to catch up with the West. The government built railroads, improved roads, and inaugurated a land reform program to prepare the country for further development. It inaugurated a new Western-based education system for all young people, sent thousands of students to the United States and Europe, and hired more than 3,000 Westerners to teach modern science, mathematics, technology, and foreign languages in Japan (O-yatoi gaikokujin).
In 1871 a group of Japanese politicians known as the Iwakura Mission toured Europe and the USA to learn western ways. The result was a deliberate state led industrialisation policy to enable Japan to quickly catch up. The Bank of Japan, founded in 1877, used taxes to fund model steel and textile factories. Education was expanded and Japanese students were sent to study in the west.
Modern industry first appeared in textiles, including cotton and especially silk, which was based in home workshops in rural areas.[112]
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Second Industrial Revolution
Main article: Second Industrial Revolution

Sächsische Maschinenfabrik inChemnitz, Germany, 1868

Bessemer converter
Steel is often cited as the first of several new areas for industrial mass-production, which are said to characterise a "Second Industrial Revolution", beginning around 1850, although a method for mass manufacture of steel was not invented until the 1860s, when Sir Henry Bessemer invented a new furnace which could convert wrought iron into steel in large quantities. However, it only became widely available in the 1870s after the process was modified to produce more uniform quality.[113][114] Bessemer steel was being displaced by the open hearth furnace near the end of the 19th century.
This second Industrial Revolution gradually grew to include the chemical industries, petroleum refining and distribution, electrical industries, and, in the 20th century, the automotive industries, and was marked by a transition of technological leadership from Britain to the United States and Germany.
The introduction of hydroelectric power generation in the Alps enabled the rapid industrialisation of coal-deprived northern Italy, beginning in the 1890s. The increasing availability of economical petroleum products also reduced the importance of coal and further widened the potential for industrialisation.
By the 1890s, industrialisation in these areas had created the first giant industrial corporations with burgeoning global interests, as companies like U.S. Steel,General Electric, Standard Oil and Bayer AG joined the railroad companies on the world 's stock markets.
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Intellectual paradigms and criticism
Capitalism
Main article: Capitalism
The advent of the Age of Enlightenment provided an intellectual framework which welcomed the practical application of the growing body of scientific knowledge—a factor evidenced in the systematic development of the steam engine, guided by scientific analysis, and the development of the political andsociological analyses, culminating in Adam Smith 's The Wealth of Nations. One of the main arguments for capitalism, presented for example in the book The Improving State of the World, is that industrialisation increases wealth for all, as evidenced by raised life expectancy, reduced working hours, and no work for children and the elderly.
Socialism
Main article: Socialism
Socialism emerged as a critique of capitalism. Marxism began essentially as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution.[115] According to Karl Marx, industrialisation polarised society into the bourgeoisie(those who own the means of production, the factories and the land) and the much larger proletariat (the working class who actually perform the labour necessary to extract something valuable from the means of production). He saw the industrialisation process as the logical dialectical progression of feudal economic modes, necessary for the full development of capitalism, which he saw as in itself a necessary precursor to the development of socialism and eventually communism.
Romanticism
Main article: Romanticism
During the Industrial Revolution an intellectual and artistic hostility towards the new industrialisation developed. This was known as the Romantic movement. Its major exponents in English included the artist and poet William Blake and poets William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. The movement stressed the importance of "nature" in art and language, in contrast to "monstrous" machines and factories; the "Dark satanic mills" of Blake 's poem "And did those feet in ancient time". Mary Shelley 's novel Frankenstein reflected concerns that scientific progress might be two-edged.
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Causes

Regional GDP per capita changed very little for most of human history before the Industrial Revolution. (The empty areas mean no data, not very low levels. There is data for the years 1, 1000, 1500, 1600, 1700, 1820, 1900, and 2003)
The causes of the Industrial Revolution were complicated and remain a topic for debate, with some historians believing the Revolution was an outgrowth of social and institutional changes brought by the end of feudalism in Britain after the English Civil War in the 17th century. As national border controls became more effective, the spread of disease was lessened, thereby preventing the epidemics common in previous times.[116] The percentage of children who lived past infancy rose significantly, leading to a larger workforce. The Enclosure movement and theBritish Agricultural Revolution made food production more efficient and less labour-intensive, forcing the surplus population who could no longer find employment in agriculture into cottage industry, for example weaving, and in the longer term into the cities and the newly developedfactories.[117] The colonial expansion of the 17th century with the accompanying development of international trade, creation of financial marketsand accumulation of capital are also cited as factors, as is the scientific revolution of the 17th century.[118]
Until the 1980s, it was universally believed by academic historians that technological innovation was the heart of the Industrial Revolution and the key enabling technology was the invention and improvement of the steam engine.[119] However, recent research into the Marketing Era has challenged the traditional, supply-oriented interpretation of the Industrial Revolution.[120]
Lewis Mumford has proposed that the Industrial Revolution had its origins in the Early Middle Ages, much earlier than most estimates.[121] He explains that the model for standardised mass production was the printing press and that "the archetypal model for the industrial era was the clock". He also cites the monastic emphasis on order and time-keeping, as well as the fact that medieval cities had at their centre a church with bell ringing at regular intervals as being necessary precursors to a greater synchronisation necessary for later, more physical, manifestations such as the steam engine.
The presence of a large domestic market should also be considered an important driver of the Industrial Revolution, particularly explaining why it occurred in Britain. In other nations, such as France, markets were split up by local regions, which often imposed tolls and tariffs on goods traded among them.[122] Internal tariffs were abolished byHenry VIII of England, they survived in Russia till 1753, 1789 in France and 1839 in Spain.
Governments ' grant of limited monopolies to inventors under a developing patent system (the Statute of Monopolies in 1623) is considered an influential factor. The effects of patents, both good and ill, on the development of industrialisation are clearly illustrated in the history of the steam engine, the key enabling technology. In return for publicly revealing the workings of an invention the patent system rewarded inventors such as James Watt by allowing them to monopolise the production of the first steam engines, thereby rewarding inventors and increasing the pace of technological development. However, monopolies bring with them their own inefficiencies which may counterbalance, or even overbalance, the beneficial effects of publicising ingenuity and rewarding inventors.[123] Watt 's monopoly may have prevented other inventors, such as Richard Trevithick, William Murdoch or Jonathan Hornblower, from introducing improved steam engines, thereby retarding the industrial revolution by about 16 years.[124][125]
Causes in Europe
Main article: Great Divergence

A 1623 Dutch East India Company bond.
European 17th century colonial expansion, international trade, and creation of financial markets produced a new legal and financial environment, one which supported and enabled 18th century industrial growth.
One question of active interest to historians is why the industrial revolution occurred in Europe and not in other parts of the world in the 18th century, particularly China, India, and the Middle East, or at other times like in Classical Antiquity[126] or the Middle Ages.[127] Numerous factors have been suggested, including education, technological changes[128] (see Scientific Revolution in Europe), "modern" government, "modern" work attitudes, ecology, and culture.[129] The Age of Enlightenment not only meant a larger educated population but also more modern views on work. However, most historians contest the assertion that Europe and China were roughly equal because modern estimates of per capita income on Western Europe in the late 18th century are of roughly 1,500 dollars in purchasing power parity (and Britain had a per capita income of nearly 2,000 dollars[130]) whereas China, by comparison, had only 450 dollars.
Some historians such as David Landes[131] and Max Weber credit the different belief systems in China and Europe with dictating where the revolution occurred. The religion and beliefs of Europe were largely products of Judaeo-Christianity, and Greek thought. Conversely, Chinese society was founded on men like Confucius, Mencius, Han Feizi (Legalism), Lao Tzu (Taoism), and Buddha (Buddhism). Whereas the Europeans believed that the universe was governed by rational and eternal laws, the East believed that the universe was in constant flux and, for Buddhists and Taoists, not capable of being rationally understood.[citation needed] Other factors include the considerable distance of China 's coal deposits, though large, from its cities as well as the then unnavigable Yellow River that connects these deposits to the sea.[132]
Regarding India, the Marxist historian Rajani Palme Dutt said: "The capital to finance the Industrial Revolution in India instead went into financing the Industrial Revolution in Britain."[133] In contrast to China, India was split up into many competing kingdoms, with the three major ones being the Marathas, Sikhs and the Mughals. In addition, the economy was highly dependent on two sectors—agriculture of subsistence and cotton, and there appears to have been little technical innovation. It is believed that the vast amounts of wealth were largely stored away in palace treasuries by totalitarian monarchs prior to the British take over. Absolutist dynasties in China, India, and the Middle East failed to encourage manufacturing and exports, and expressed little interest in the well-being of their subjects.[134]
Causes in Britain

As the Industrial Revolution developed British manufactured output surged ahead of other economies. After the Industrial Revolution, it was overtaken later by the United States.
Great Britain provided the legal and cultural foundations that enabled entrepreneurs to pioneer the industrial revolution.[135] Key factors fostering this environment were: (1) The period of peace and stability which followed the unification of England and Scotland; (2) no trade barriers between England and Scotland; (3) the rule of law (respecting the sanctity of contracts); (4) a straightforward legal system which allowed the formation of joint-stock companies (corporations); and (5) a free market (capitalism).[136]
Geographical and natural resource advantages of Great Britain were the fact that it had extensive coast lines and many navigable rivers in an age where water was the easiest means of transportation and having the highest quality coal in Europe.[73]
There were two main values that really drove the industrial revolution in Britain. These values were self-interest and an entrepreneurial spirit. Because of these interests, many industrial advances were made that resulted in a huge increase in personal wealth. These advancements also greatly benefitted the British society as a whole. Countries around the world started to recognize the changes and advancements in Britain and use them as an example to begin their own industrial revolutions.[137]
The debate about the start of the Industrial Revolution also concerns the massive lead that Great Britain had over other countries. Some have stressed the importance of natural or financial resources that Britain received from its many overseas colonies or that profits from the Britishslave trade between Africa and the Caribbean helped fuel industrial investment. However, it has been pointed out that slave trade and West Indian plantations provided only 5% of the British national income during the years of the Industrial Revolution.[138] Even though slavery accounted for minimal economic profits in Britain during the Industrial Revolution, Caribbean-based demand accounted for 12% of Britain 's industrial output.[139]
Instead, the greater liberalisation of trade from a large merchant base may have allowed Britain to produce and use emerging scientific and technological developments more effectively than countries with stronger monarchies, particularly China and Russia. Britain emerged from the Napoleonic Wars as the only European nation not ravaged by financial plunder and economic collapse, and having the only merchant fleet of any useful size (European merchant fleets were destroyed during the war by the Royal Navy[140]). Britain 's extensive exporting cottage industries also ensured markets were already available for many early forms of manufactured goods. The conflict resulted in most British warfare being conducted overseas, reducing the devastating effects of territorial conquest that affected much of Europe. This was further aided by Britain 's geographical position—an island separated from the rest of mainland Europe.
Another theory is that Britain was able to succeed in the Industrial Revolution due to the availability of key resources it possessed. It had a dense population for its small geographical size. Enclosure of common land and the related agricultural revolution made a supply of this labour readily available. There was also a local coincidence of natural resources in the North of England, the English Midlands,South Wales and the Scottish Lowlands. Local supplies of coal, iron, lead, copper, tin, limestone and water power, resulted in excellent conditions for the development and expansion of industry. Also, the damp, mild weather conditions of the North West of England provided ideal conditions for the spinning of cotton, providing a natural starting point for the birth of the textiles industry.
The stable political situation in Britain from around 1688, and British society 's greater receptiveness to change (compared with other European countries) can also be said to be factors favouring the Industrial Revolution. Peasant resistance to industrialisation was largely eliminated by the Enclosure movement, and the landed upper classes developed commercial interests that made them pioneers in removing obstacles to the growth of capitalism.[141] (This point is also made in Hilaire Belloc 's The Servile State.)
Britain 's population grew 280% 1550–1820, while the rest of Western Europe grew 50-80%. 70% of European urbanisation happened in Britain 1750–1800. By 1800, only the Netherlands was more urbanised than Britain. This was only possible because coal, coke, imported cotton, brick and slate had replaced wood, charcoal, flax, peat and thatch. The latter compete with land grown to feed people while mined materials do not. Yet more land would be freed when chemical fertilisers replaced manure and horse 's work was mechanised. A workhorse needs 3 to 5 {{{u}}} (1.21 to 2.02 ha) for fodder while even early steam engines produced 4 times more mechanical energy.
In 1700, 5/6 of coal mined worldwide was in Britain, while the Netherlands had none; so despite having Europe 's best transport, most urbanised, well paid, literate people and lowest taxes, it failed to industrialise. In the 18th century, it was the only European country whose cities and population shrank. Without coal, Britain would have run out of suitable river sites for mills by the 1830s.[142]
Transfer of knowledge

A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery(ca. 1766). Informal philosophical societies spread scientific advances
Knowledge of innovation was spread by several means. Workers who were trained in the technique might move to another employer or might be poached. A common method was for someone to make a study tour, gathering information where he could. During the whole of the Industrial Revolution and for the century before, all European countries and America engaged in study-touring; some nations, like Sweden and France, even trained civil servants or technicians to undertake it as a matter of state policy. In other countries, notably Britain and America, this practice was carried out by individual manufacturers eager to improve their own methods. Study tours were common then, as now, as was the keeping of travel diaries. Records made by industrialists and technicians of the period are an incomparable source of information about their methods.
Another means for the spread of innovation was by the network of informal philosophical societies, like the Lunar Society of Birmingham, in which members met to discuss 'natural philosophy ' (i.e. science) and often its application to manufacturing. The Lunar Society flourished from 1765 to 1809, and it has been said of them, "They were, if you like, the revolutionary committee of that most far reaching of all the eighteenth century revolutions, the Industrial Revolution".[143] Other such societies published volumes of proceedings and transactions. For example, the London-based Royal Society of Arts published an illustrated volume of new inventions, as well as papers about them in its annual Transactions.
There were publications describing technology. Encyclopaedias such as Harris 's Lexicon Technicum (1704) and Abraham Rees 's Cyclopaedia (1802–1819) contain much of value. Cyclopaedia contains an enormous amount of information about the science and technology of the first half of the Industrial Revolution, very well illustrated by fine engravings. Foreign printed sources such as the Descriptions des Arts et Métiers and Diderot 's Encyclopédie explained foreign methods with fine engraved plates.
Periodical publications about manufacturing and technology began to appear in the last decade of the 18th century, and many regularly included notice of the latest patents. Foreign periodicals, such as the Annales des Mines, published accounts of travels made by French engineers who observed British methods on study tours.
Protestant work ethic
Main article: Protestant work ethic
Another theory is that the British advance was due to the presence of an entrepreneurial class which believed in progress, technology and hard work.[144] The existence of this class is often linked to the Protestant work ethic (see Max Weber) and the particular status of the Baptists and the dissenting Protestant sects, such as the Quakers and Presbyterians that had flourished with the English Civil War. Reinforcement of confidence in the rule of law, which followed establishment of the prototype of constitutional monarchy in Britain in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and the emergence of a stable financial market there based on the management of the national debt by the Bank of England, contributed to the capacity for, and interest in, private financial investment in industrial ventures.
Dissenters found themselves barred or discouraged from almost all public offices, as well as education at England 's only two universities at the time (although dissenters were still free to study at Scotland 's four universities). When the restoration of the monarchy took place and membership in the official Anglican Church became mandatory due to the Test Act, they thereupon became active in banking, manufacturing and education. The Unitarians, in particular, were very involved in education, by running Dissenting Academies, where, in contrast to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge and schools such as Eton and Harrow, much attention was given to mathematics and the sciences—areas of scholarship vital to the development of manufacturing technologies.
Historians sometimes consider this social factor to be extremely important, along with the nature of the national economies involved. While members of these sects were excluded from certain circles of the government, they were considered fellow Protestants, to a limited extent, by many in the middle class, such as traditional financiers or other businessmen. Given this relative tolerance and the supply of capital, the natural outlet for the more enterprising members of these sects would be to seek new opportunities in the technologies created in the wake of the scientific revolution of the 17th century.

Eleventh five year plan that aimed at urbanisation for the economic development of India
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Urbanization

Citations: Pre-war events Italian invasion of Ethiopia (1935) Spanish Civil War (1936–39) The bombing of Guernica in 1937 sparked Europe-wide fears that the next war would be based on bombing of cities with very high civilian casualties. Japanese invasion of China (1937) Main article: Second Sino-Japanese War A Chinese machine gun nest in the Battle of Shanghai, 1937. See also: Nanshin-ron and Soviet–Japanese border conflicts Soviet and Mongolian troops fought the Japanese during the Battle of Khalkhin Gol in Mongolia, 1939. War breaks out in Europe (1939–40) Common parade of GermanWehrmacht and Soviet Red Armyon 23 September 1939 in Brest,Eastern Poland at the end of the Invasion of Poland