Axis powers

Romania was probably more important than Italy in the Axis war effort. Not just in its role on the Eastern Front, but as Germany's main source of oil.

it's absolutely not a coincidence. OP is on point in that they were all latecomers to the imperial and colonial game, and their ambitions were bigger than the borders that contained them. Whereas international institutions that existed were structured so that they were always seen as lesser players whose interests were always subordinate to the English and French overseas and commercial interests or as powers to be appeased or contained but not as powers to be negotiated with as equals.

Most important Axis minor? Romania.
Most loyal? Croatia.
Most competent? Hungary.
Most courageous? Finland.
Most unreliable? Slovakia.

>Finland attacking Soviet territory is Soviet´s fault

how is Slovakia most unreliable?

High desertion rate. Slovakian fighter squadrons had to be withdrawn from the frontlines because too many pilots flew over to the Soviets.

yea that's bullshit. the most unreliable were bulgaria, hungary and especially italy. that said all the european axis allies were all looking to abandon ship in the late war so they all became unreliable as hitler rightly suspected them of negotiating secretly with the allies. desu i don't blame them

as , i'm ignorant of the slovakian war effort so maybe "bullshit" is too strong a word. but the slovakian government if it was incompetent at the war effort was pretty loyal to hitler and ultimately did carry out the Final Solution faithfully unlike, say, Bulgaria or Hungary and eventually Antonescu in Romania when he realized the Allies were winning and killing jews was bad PR

...

Good point, this was also a case in the Hungarian army, because their autism caused deployement of Slovak troops from South Slovakia on the front

Continuation war was a retarded idea for sure, but not unjustified after having to cede territory to Soviets as a result of Wint- oh are trying to meme that the shelling of Mainila was Finnish aggression?

Bulgaria wasn't even technically an ally, it was just aligned, it didn't declare war on anyone

Never claimed that, but Continuation war wasnt justified since Finns never "just wanted to take the old territories back"

That's beside the point

France.

>Karelia
>Soviet territory

learn some geography nigger

Fun fact. Hungary had better tank designs than Japan or Italy.

I've heard about Denmark and Bulgaria hiding their Jews, but not about Hungary. Care to elaborate?

>germany
>extremely late to the industrialization game

that's because the italian king was for a defensive stance and thought that tanks would be useless in the italian terrain (since it's mostly mountains)

Horthy failed to comply with hitler and ribbentrops suggestions and insistences to deport hungarian jews to poland so much so you still have nearly a million (ithink?) jews in the country as late as early 1944. However horthy was trying to switch sides because he saw where thinngs were going after Stalingrad but hitler already made plans to invade hingary because after romania hungary was nazis biggest supplier of oil and romania switched sides around thos time. Hitler insisted horthy sign away his countrys independence and allow nazi officials in especially to deport the jews. Horthy refused. Hotler encouraged the hungarian fascist party the arrow cross to take power and pressure horthy so they kidnap his son and deport him to germany as a hostage. Horthy had to submit to save his son. Nazi officials let in. Eichmann in like three or four mobths deports 400k jews to aischwitz all get gassed basically as the extermination system had been perfected at this point. For some reason i think allied protest or threats the or hubgarian ones the nazis halt at some point but the arrow cross regime also brutslly kolls jews usually by working them to death buolding defenses againdt the red army

How is it even possible to have this many typos in one post

>Slovakian fighter squadrons had to be withdrawn from the frontlines because too many pilots flew over to the Soviets.
That was 4 pilots in total who did that.

To become a great power you need to take the opportune moment to seize possessions from the ruling powers. WW2 was the moment and the decision was made with their ambitions in mind. Kind of like the Seven Year War and Prussia.

Out of 5 that's a lot.

>out of 5
What

Although ca 400 000 hungarian jews were deported, when the time came for the 160 000 of Budapest Horthy intervened and used the army to oppose the germans. This was in the late summer of -44, so the more pressing concerns at the time were the Arpad line and by the new year the battle for Budapest. As a result the deportation of jews never really resumed its original pace. Just to note, about 40 % of the jews in Budapest were killed, partially by the general fighting, though mostly by the germans and the Arrow Cross party.

In addition there is debate surrounding when Horthy came to be aware of the deportations. Some claim he knew all along, some claim he knew and did not intervene, while Horthy himself claims in his memoirs that he did not know until July -44, which is when the aforementioned stand off took place.

The Axis powers hoped to expand in order to achieve the resources needed for industrialization. World War II was at its heart a resource war, with ideology driving it. Germany was locked in Europe after losing their colonial empire, Italy's colonies didn't have much other than coffee plantations as Libyan oil wasn't discovered yet, and Japan severely lacked any source for steel/iron ore and oil. All subscribed to the idea that in order to industrialize and survive as nation-states, they needed to seize what they needed from Britain, France, and the Soviet Union, 3 of the most resource rich states with either massive amounts of land to mine/grow food from or far flung colonial empires to bring in what was needed.

As you go through the early stages of the war, it was just Germany attempting to seize the materiel needed to prosecute war, taking the iron and aluminium from Norway, the rich farmland of northern/central France, and securing oil fields in Romania. Italy needed the resource rich mountains of the Balkans and Greece and control of Mediterranean trade from the Suez Canal, and japan needed the oil and rubber plants of the Dutch East Indies and French Indochina. It very much was a war to take what was needed for industrialization, rather than be beholden to larger powers with the means to blockade and embargo them, setting back any progress.

and this lack of industrial might led to their downfall for all of them, all three major axis powers combined could never have hoped to match the rate of production the Soviet Union was churning out for tanks and artillery, and were even more hopelessly outclassed by the United States' rate they produced any kind of war material. The gamble to quickly seize empires for themselves to rise and challenge the greater powers failed as the US and Soviet Union just outproduced them in every major category.

This. A war economy in the truest sense.

I forgot to mention it so I'll just add to it here.

Horthy opposed any deportations up until -44. He did succumb to german pressure and from the start of the war enacted harsher and harsher laws regarding the rights of jews, however deportations was a line he did not cross. This changed in -44, when the aforementioned deportations took place. As a side note, almost all of the hungarian jews were sent to Auschwits-Birkenau, and so make up about a 1/3 of the total death toll of that camp. The deportations took place from spring -44, untill late summer.

Apparently this means they only had 5 pilots.

They didn't need to go to war to take what was needed for industrialization. You can buy raw materials. That's how things are done now. However you need to go to war to take resources if you are unable to sell the products of your industry for foreign currency. That's what happened: Germany, Italy, and Japan decided to focus their industry on enlarging their military, and the only way to realize returns on their investments was to win wars. Hence they went to war.

Which would be incorrect.

>Was WWII a beta uprising?
Pretty much. It was some of the world's beta and lower-tier powers trying to become alpha.
Roughly speaking, I'd say that in 1939, it was like this...
Alpha: US
Alpha minus: British Empire, USSR
Beta: France, Germany, etc.
Beta minus: Japan, Italy, etc.
Gamma: Romania, Hungary, etc.

Omega: Poland

>Germany
>extremely late to the industrialization game

Phin poster posted from my iphone desu

>Germany
>late to industrialisation
End yourself, retard.

>Was WWII a beta uprising?
Basically, yes. Fascism was a reaction to being behind and a way to get a SSJ power boost

Honorary Axis

it would literally still be justified

Only on Veeky Forums would a non-controversial statement be mobbed down by idiots.
Germany was very late to industrialization. Even Belgium was more advanced than anywhere in Germany outside the Ruhr.

>They were all extremely late to the industrialization game

That's not 100% true for Japan. They industrialized extremely quickly once they got started.

Oh you silly, didn't you know, it's not war if one nation think they have a right to the area they're occupying with their military!

>Even Belgium
Belgium, France and England were the first ones though. You're not late just because you're not the top lads who actually started it.

That's like saying Naples was late to the renaissance.

>They were all extremely late to the industrialization game
>three most industrialized nations in the world besides uk and usa

>Germany was very late to industrialization

Peg down USSR to beta, and France to alpha-minor.

France was technically the power with the most influence in Europe in the inter-war years, which would explain why the British were so eager to prop up Germany again (naval treaties, etc...), and had networked out a series of alliance that made lots of Europe their direct underlings (the 'small Entente'), which they didn't use because Britain ended up never wanting to fight Germany until it was maybe too late.

Meanwhile, the USSR was very lonely on the international stage, with as friends only Turkey. They were very strong industrially, but it was Something neither they nor the world suspected.