Second Great War (RFTL1)

Second Great War
Date 1 March 1938 - 7 June 1946 Location Europe • South America • North Africa • East Africa • Central Africa • Russian Far East • Ezo/Hokkaido • Australia
Belligerents
Allies British Empire American Dominion German Empire Brazil Japan Italy and others	League France Spain Portugal Argentina Revolutionary Italy (from 1939) and others
	Russia (against Japan)
Commanders and leaders
Main Allied Leaders: Neville Chamberlain # Winston Churchill Clement Attlee Mackenzie King Theodore Roosevelt Jr. Hermann Müller # Konrad Adenauer Erwin von Witzleben Júlio Prestes Hamaguchi Osachi Pietro Badoglio Peppino Garibaldi	Main League Leaders Jacques Doriot José Antonio Primo de Rivera Francisco Rolão Preto Manuel Carlés  † Nimio de Anquin † Pedro Pablo Ramírez   Edelmiro Julián Farrell   Juan Perón   Benito Mussolini Michele Bianchi
Casualties and losses
Over 12,000,000	Over 15,000,000

The Second Great War, also known as the Second World War, was a global conflict primarily between two coalitions, the Allied Powers and the League of Europe. The majority of the fighting occurred in Europe, South America and North Africa, with major fighting also taking place across Africa, India and Outer Manchuria. The conflict saw the heavily increased usage of tanks and aircraft and mass investment into industrial and scientific resources by all parties to achieve total war. The conflict is regarded as one of the deadliest wars in human history, with upwards of 30 million civilian and military dead.

The causes of the Second Great War included the rise of hyper-nationalist, syncretic and far-right ideologies in Europe and Latin America and various unresolved conflicts in the wake of the First World War. Various French governments before the far-right popular party had made it clear they wished to take revenge on Britain and Germany for the Great War, something only increased with the election of Jacques Doriot and their effective takeover of the French government in 1936. World War II is generally considered to have begun on 1 March 1938, when France demanded the return of Alsace Lorraine from Germany and the surrender of Romandy of Switzerland, after which the French Army invaded Germany the next day, to which Britain declared war on France and Spain. Driving through Alsace and the neutral Netherlands with armored spearheads, the lines of the German Empire collapsed within months, leaving Britain and her Empire effectively alone until the French invasion of Italy and beginning of the North African Campaign.

Argentina, under a nationalist dictatorship since the 1920s, had a longstanding rivalry with Brazil and many in her government dreamed of one day restoring the borders of the former Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. In December 1938, after the fall of Germany, Argentina invaded Brazil and Paraguay (launching Paraguay into an effective civil war), which resulted in Brazil aligning with the United Kingdom; an attempted mutiny in Montevidéu, and a declaration of a state of emergency in Chile. The war in South America, namely the Uruguay-Paraná campaign, lasted over seven years in an environment much less mobile than that in Europe, seeing widespread usage of trench warfare and fighting in mud and along riverbeds, often compared to the conditions of the First Great War. Throughout 1939 the allies were pushed out of Southern Italy and Libya and with the German African holdings beginning to crumble, the Suez and Egypt were put under threat until League forces were routed at the Battle of Bardia. By 1940, two years into the war where it was clear Britain was not going to surrender, French forces began amassing at for a full-scale invasion of Britain, heavily utilizing captured elements of the German and Italian navies. In 1941, as the League had further conquered Austria and the Balkans, the French Army finally began the total invasion of Britain, pushing allied forces to pre-established lines further north. Despite the fall of London in August, allied forces continued to give heavy resistance through out 1942 before being forced to evacuate the island in early 1943. With the complete fall of the United Kingdom, the British Government relocated to Philadelphia, vowing to fight on, but by fall, the remaining allies were forced to sign an armistice with the League, with no formal peace treaty ever established, although the state of war between the remaining allies and the league would be ended in 1947. Brazil, who had committed men to defend Britain despite her own obligations at home, although crushed by the weight of the loss in Europe, was nevertheless opposed to any concessions to the Argentine State, believing victory could still be achieved in South America, especially with the scheduled arrival of American troops from Europe. For two years after the European armistice, Brazil and the three dominions of British America continued to wage a campaign against Argentina, finally achieving a full breakthrough past the Paraná river by June of 1945. By November, the Manuel Carlés and his expected successor Nimio de Anquin were killed in a bombing raid over Buenos Aires, seeing the the ascension of General Pedro Pablo Ramírez and the establishment of a pseudo-popularist military junta. The Junta continued to hold out for several months, regrouping along the Río de la Plata, until, on June 1, Ramírez was ousted by the anti-popularist General Edelmiro Julián Farrell, although his less outright anti-popularist ally Juan Domingo Perón was established as President. On 3 June, Argentina entered negotiations with the allies, signing a conditional surrender on the seventh.