Talk:Allies of World War II

We've discussed this over on the Axis page, and it's also true here: the map is quite problematic. Vichy France is included on it but its status is not clear. The Baltic states are included despite, again, their role in WW2 not being somewhat disputable (they were invaded and annexed by the USSR under the Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty in 1940 - not clear to me how you define that on a scale from "Allies" to "Axis" when they weren't independent states when Operation Barbarossa started!). The zone of India invaded by the Japanese is included as a "state" of sorts, again, something that is pretty disputable. Yugoslavia is, in contrast to France, shown as a single state without any borders being shown within it.

I honestly don't think this is something that can be fixed in a single map in the infobox. It is far too complicated, and requires taking decisions on controversial issues in a way that fails NPOV. If a map is necessary, it might make sense to show the allied membership and territorial extent at a particular point in time. However, a photograph demonstrating Allied membership (e.g., the "United for Victory" poster) might work better (EDIT: I've now boldly made this edit, if you object please WP:BRD).

I have to say, this page also seems to suffer from a "Paradox game outlook", where countries are assembled under different headings under what strategy-game-rules would make them, rather than what reliable sources actually say about them. For example, Iraq is listed under "Co-belligerents (former Axis powers)", but no source describes it as having ever been an Axis power per se - the Rashid government fought against the UK briefly but no formal alliance was ever concluded. FOARP (talk) 09:05, 11 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

I don't understand while Pearl Harbor is a treshold here; seems the only purpose is to color SU with dark green and USA with light green. It gives the false impression, because SU was an ally of Nazi Germany, while USA supported allies since 1939. Marcelus (talk) 10:15, 11 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

It's arbitrarily selected and reflects a certain POV (essentially that WW2 started in earnest with Pearl Harbour). Another reason to deprecate the map. FOARP (talk) 13:38, 11 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

The issue may just be too complex for a map. Slatersteven (talk) 10:21, 11 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

Given to agree. This is highlighted particularly by the use of different-coloured diamond/circle symbols on some countries to convey information about them that 100% aren't going to be visible on even the largest monitor screen - just too complex a topic to try to communicate graphically, and too much information just for the infobox. FOARP (talk) 12:47, 11 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

Why are we describing states as "combatant states" that never actually fought in the war? For example, as far as I am aware Paraguayan forces never actually took part in combat against the Axis. Was Saudi Arabia really a "state combatant", when, as far as can be seen from the sources, Saudi Arabian forces never engaged in combat? Is there a reliable source that describes them all as such?

It would be better simply to define them as members of the Allies. FOARP (talk) 09:43, 11 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

Someone recently added a large number of states to the info box. The entire article is a poorly sourced mess but most people are only interested in the info box. If it were up to me I would list only The British Empire, France, the Soviet Union, the USA and China in the info box (as the major allies) because the info box is only supposed to record key information. A table of other allies should be in the article with proper sourcing and explanations because complicated information should be in the article not the info box. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 10:46, 11 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

The issue here (I suspect) is the section labeled (in the body) "Combatant states", which may need renaming. Slatersteven (talk) 10:49, 11 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

It's an issue both in the body-text and the infobox. FOARP (talk) 12:48, 11 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

I think finding a good name for the section might be a bit of a challenge. As far as I can see, we have fighting states, non-fighting states that supported the Allies and declared war, non-fighting states that supported the Allies and non-fighting states that declared war to gain access to the United Nations. Roughly, at least. The Banner talk 12:59, 11 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

I'd look at what reliable sources use to describe them. "Big Three" is a well-known descriptor for the three largest allied powers, but for the rest of them it looks like descriptors that were invented by editors themselves. FOARP (talk) 13:10, 11 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

I'm going to have a look at how reliable sources describe the membership of the Allies so we can get a feeling as to how we should be describe them here.

• The Library of Congress World War II Companion, p. 39-40 in a section headed "Combatants", and a sub-section listed "The Allies":

Extended quote

"Led by Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union, the Allies broadly comprised those in opposition to the fascist Axis, despite their political differences. The first Allied association (Britain, France, and Poland) began in September 1939, following the German invasion of Poland, and other states later joined. On January 1, 1942, 26 nations issued the United Nations declaration, a pledge of co-operation and a commitment to defeat the Axis. The signatories were the United States of America, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, China, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Poland South Africa, and Yugoslavia. Later Adherents, in order of signing, were Mexico, the Philippines, Ethiopia (1942); Iraq, Brazil, Bolivia, Iran, Colombia (1943); Liberia, France (1944); and Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Paraguay, Venezuela, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Syria (1945). A number of countries under occupation had Allied governments-in-exile, usually located in Cairo or London. In the case of France, under German occupation, the Vichy government, named for the city where it was based, accommodated Nazi rule. The opposition Free French movement operated with the Allies and on its own as a military force under General Charles de Gaulle."

What can seen here is that 1) they lead this list with the "Big Three", 2) they don't really distinguish between governments-in-exile and others when listing, and 3) they don't distinguish between countries that deployed forces and those that didn't. The "Big Four" and "Big Five" are not mentioned here at all.

• The Concise Encyclopedia Of World War II, Greenwood Encyclopaedia, p. 39-40:

Extended quote

"ALLIES Common term for the members of the wartime coalition formally called the United Nations alliance from January 1, 1942. The principal Allies were the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain. China was a nominal fourth major ally, but it was divided on the ground between Guomindang and Chinese Communists and in any case exercised little to no influence over Allied councils. It is commonplace to use “Allies” in a more confined sense, comprising only the major Western democracies and smaller attached powers but excluding the Soviet Union. References to the Western powers alone in this work are instead rendered as “Western Allies.” That more restrictive term meant primarily Britain and France and their satellites and minor allies to June 1940; Britain, its Commonwealth, and several governments-in-exile from June 1940 to December 1941; and Britain, the United States, and all other smaller Western powers (including the Free French) from December 1941 to the end of the war. The most notable minor Western Allies were Australia in the Pacific and Canada in the Battle of the Atlantic and in Western Europe. Others of varying note were Brazil, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, South Africa, and in a distant sense only, Greece and Yugoslavia. Belgium was knocked out of the war very quickly in May 1940, as was the Netherlands. They along with Greece and several other European countries established governments-in-exile and kept some forces in the field with British aid. Lesser allies in the early period included the Free French and Abyssinia, with “Fighting France” contributing substantially more militarily from 1943 to 1945. In Asia, Burma and the Philippines also had governments-in-exile claiming to be their rightful representatives and recognized as such in Western Allied capitals. By the end of the war 40 smaller nations and territories joined the United Nations alliance. Many contributed nothing to the war effort beyond signatures to varied proclamations. Most of these nonactive *belligerents" were in Latin America. Two million troops of the Indian Army fought for the British cause. It is possible that without them Britain might have lost control of the Middle East. Other than Abyssinians and white South Africans, most Africans who fought for the Allies did so within various colonial forces such as the Armée d'Afrique or Tirailleurs Senagalese or in colonial units of the British Army. British West Indies colonies contributed men in varying degree. Burmese, Tonkinese, Filipinos, and other Asian peoples were associated by connection to larger imperial powers. Some fought as resistance fighters against the Japanese, receiving Allied matériel aid and advisers. In Burma, Malaya, and elsewhere in Southeast Asia others chose to fight against the former colonial power alongside the Japanese. The formal name of the Allied wartime alliance was transferred to the postwar security organization founded in 1945 by the major victor nations."

Again the "Big Three" is highlighted and China discussed only as a "nominal" additional major power. No complete listing of the countries is attempted here.

• Facts about American Wars, Bowman, p. 430-431:

Extended quote

"The Allies: The Allies and the dates on which they entered World War II are listed below. In general, those countries that entered after 1942 did not play an active role — several, in fact, joined in only when they saw which side was winning. On the other hand, some countries — China and Ethiopia, for example — that did not enter officially until the dates given below were actually among the earliest victims of Axis aggression. Argentina: March 27, 1945 Australia: September 3, 1939 Belgium: May 10, 1940 Bolivia: April 7, 1943 Brazil: August 22, 1942 Canada: September 10, 1939 Chile: April 1 1,1945 China: December 8, 1941 Colombia: November 26, 1943 Costa Rica: December 8, 1941 Cuba: December 9, 1941 Czechoslovakia: December 16, 1941 Dominican Republic: December 8, 1941 Ecuador: February 2, 1945 Egypt: February 24, 1945 El Salvador: December 8, 1941 Ethiopia: December 14, 1942 France: September 3, 1942 Great Britain: September 3, 1939 Greece: October 28, 1940 Guatemala: December 9, 1941 Haiti: December 8, 1941 Honduras: December 8, 1941 India: September 3, 1939 Iran: August 25, 1941 Iraq: January 17, 1943 Lebanon: February 27, 1945 Liberia: January 27, 1944 Luxembourg: May 10, 1940 Mexico: May 22, 1942 Mongolian People's Republic: August 9, 1945 Netherlands: May 10, 1940 New Zealand: September 3, 1939 Nicaragua: December 11, 1941 Norway: April 9, 1940 Panama: December 7, 1941 Paraguay: February 7, 1945 Peru: February 12, 1945 Poland: September 1, 1939 Soviet Union: June 22, 1941 San Marino: September 21, 1944 Saudi Arabia: March 1, 1945 South Africa: September 6, 1939 Syria: June 8, 1941 Turkey: February 23, 1945 United States: December 8, 1941 Uruguay: February 15, 1945 Venezuela: February 15, 1945 Yugoslavia: April 6, 1941 The main combatants among the Allies were clearly Great Britain and the Commonwealth nations, the Soviet Union, China, and the United States. Members of the British Commonwealth that contributed greatly in terms of manpower and materiel were Australia, Canada, India, South Africa, and New Zealand. The main combatants not only sent large armed forces into battle but also provided support of all kinds for the forces and operations of other countries: An example of the latter was the many British and American airdrops of materiel (food items, munitions, radio devices, etc.) and secret agents to support partisan and resistance groups in Axis-occupied countries."

This does highlight the "Big Four", but does not distinguish between occupied and unoccupied states. Having gone through the list I'm also sceptical about the overall standard of accuracy here: did Panama really declare war on 7 December 1941? Was San Marino really an Allied state? This seems to be one of the less reliable sources.

• The Oxford Handbook of World War II, Chapter 12: The United Nations and the Grand Alliance, p. 219-236

Extended quote

"There was another development during the fateful weeks that followed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that was equally important to the defeat of the Axis and the establishment of world peace, however, and that was the creation of the “Grand Alliance.” Technically speaking, the “Grand Alliance” and “United Nations” both refer to the association of nations that was brought together to defeat the Axis. But in practice the two appellations came to embody two separate, and at times, quite different, entities, with the Grand Alliance most often referring to the military coalition among Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union, or the “Big Three,” while the “United Nations” refers to the much broader affiliation of anti-Axis powers represented in the January 1, 1942 declaration ... ...FDR also assumed that the Big Three plus China would play a special role in maintaining world peace, what he sometimes referred to as the “trusteeship of the powerful” for the well-being of the less powerful... ...Prior to this, a de facto alliance among the three powers had already emerged, made manifest through Roosevelt’s initiation of secret staff talks among the American, British, and Canadian Chiefs of Staff in January 1941 (the ABC-1 Talks), followed by the establishment of the Lend Lease program in March—which would provide war materiel to both Great Britain and the Soviet Union before the year was out—and the Atlantic Charter Conference in August... ...These basic understandings on strategy would not last, however, as the tensions between the overall purposes of a war waged on behalf of the “Grand Alliance” versus a war waged on behalf of the “United Nations” began to emerge. One the first and most dramatic manifestations of the tensions between these two separate visions for the war can be seen in the ordering of signatories to the Declaration by United Nations. Both Churchill and Roosevelt—along with the Soviet and Chinese ambassadors to Washington—agreed that the first four powers listed for signature under the declaration should be the United States, China, the Union of Soviet Republics, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—what FDR by this point was beginning to call “the Four Policemen.” Thereafter, Churchill favored listing the four British dominions plus India under the United Kingdom, after which the remaining signatory nations would be listed in alphabetical order. But FDR found this so distasteful that he insisted—as illustrated by his edits to the initial hand written draft that the two leaders had drawn up —that the British Dominions and India should incorporated into the alphabetical list. It was FDR who also insisted that India should be added to the list as a separate nation, even though India was not an independent dominion like Australia or Canada....

This is unfortunately too long to excerpt in its totality so I've taken selected quotes. This chapter does not attempt to list all the states Allied states, indeed it does not even treat the Allies as a single group of countries but instead discussed two different groupings. It does emphasise the primacy of the "Big Three" (these are described as being the leaders of the "Grand Alliance") whilst also discussing the "Big Four". However, since it essentially does not accept the framework of their being a single Allied alliance, it seems a potentially fringe source. FOARP (talk) 08:39, 12 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

The Oxford Handook of World War II entry for "Allied Powers" states:

"Allied powers,

those countries which actively opposed the Axis powers. The principal ones were China, France, the UK and its empire, the USA, and the USSR. From January 1942 all countries, including the governments-in-exile of those countries occupied by the Germans, which became a party to the United Nations Declaration were also regarded as Allied powers. See also Grand Alliance."

So this source is an authority for dividing the Allies into:

1) the principal allied powers: "China, France, the UK and its empire, the USA, and the USSR"

2) the Grand Alliance (a subset of 1.)

3) all countries which became a party to the United Nations Declaration (with a possible subset of occupied powers with governments-in-exile). Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 21:45, 12 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

I’m not sure which Oxford Handbook you’re looking at (I can’t open your link), it isn’t the 2023 version which isn’t structured as an Encyclopaedia and doesn’t have entries per se. At any rate, we can see the other sources above tend to put the “Big Three” front-and-centre. FOARP (talk) 08:22, 13 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

I am looking at the The Oxford Companion to World War II (2014, online edition) Edited by: I. C. B. Dear  and M. R. D. Foot.

I any event I would be happy if the Info Box just listed the Big Three with a link to the full table in the article. The full table should list all the Allies that signed up to the United Nations declaration in order of their signing. the info box is definitely not the place for a full list of the allied powers. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 03:19, 14 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

Given to agreeing on this. One other source is The Oxford History of World War II, 2023, Richard Overy (ed.), which has a chapter about the Allies (Chapter 6 - The Allies from Defeat to Victory, p. 157-189). This describes the Allies as follows:

Extended quote

"It was indeed a strange and strained ‘alliance’. The members did not have a common set of political objectives—beyond the cardinal one of completely overthrowing German power. Two new partners joined in 1941, but only with great reluctance, and only under direct attack by Germany or Japan. The leading states of the ‘United Nations’, Britain and America on one side, and Communist Russia on the other, had been bitter ideological enemies before June 1941. Their ways would part almost as soon as Germany and Japan were defeated; World War was quickly followed by Cold War. The three major Allies also did not have one conception of how to achieve victory. They fought the war in very different ways, achieved different effects, and paid different costs. Indeed at one or another point between 1939 and 1945 the leaders (and much of the population) of each of the states involved were content to have the others do all or most of the fighting for them. While Britain and America co-ordinated their conducting of the war closely from 1941 onwards, there was little practical combined planning with the Russians (there was, however, considerable one-sided co-ordination on the logistics side, in the form of Lend Lease)."

Again, the "Big Three" highlighted, no attempt at a full listing, no focus on China. FOARP (talk) 08:05, 15 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

I would also specify that "Britain" rather than "The United Kingdom" was one of the "Big Three." Just about every source refers to "Britain" (or "Great Britain") rather than "The United Kingdom" for the obvious reason that it was the British Empire and its self-governing Dominions that provided most of the manpower and resources for Britain's war effort. I would therefore, in the info box, have a note under "Britain" which states: "Includes the British Empire and its Dominions." I would then list India and the Dominions alphabetically (or in order of signature) in the Table in the article (not the Info Box). Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 09:35, 15 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

As Britain is an island, at least it should be Great Britain. For the rest: do you have sources to back up your claim? The Banner talk 11:07, 15 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure which claim you mean. The importance of the Empire? Plenty of sources for that. Such as this one. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 23:13, 15 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

The issue we've got here is there is no brief, specific terminology for what you're looking for. If you say "British Empire" this doesn't clearly include the dominions (which were already equal in status to the UK after the 1926 Balfour Declaration). If you say "British Commonwealth" then it's not clear that this includes the colonies. If you say "Great Britain" then, whilst this is used informally to refer to the UK, it is not the correct term since it exclude Northern Ireland. If you say "Britain" then there is the same issue.

The sources are saying "Britain" for the British Empire and Commonwealth for the same reason they say "Russia" for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and "America"/"United States" for the United States of America - it is informal and briefer. FOARP (talk) 07:48, 16 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

The term is the British Empire and Commonwealth or simply the British Commonwealth, given that by 1939 the Commonwealth was an equal partnership between the British Empire (including India and the colonies), the Dominions and Canada (Canada being by 1939 a fully independent nation within the Commonwealth). Just to be clear, I would put Britain in the info box with a note stating: "includes the British Empire and the Commonwealth"). As you correctly state, Britain is mostly used in the sources as shorthand for all the lands under the British Crown. Those born in the dominions and colonies were British subjects and many joined the British armed forces rather than the armed forces of the dominions. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 22:57, 16 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

File:WWII Allies and Axis territory (red blue).png already exists, but the meaning of the various colors is unclear to me. Then there's a whole series that vary over time, starting with File:Ww2 allied axis 1939 sep.PNG. -- Beland (talk) 07:20, 14 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

I don't think the first map makes much sense. Iraq is shown as an Axis country despite being an Allied country for most of the war, Hainan island is also shown as Axis territory, but it was part of China and never governed by anyone but the Chinese and Japanese occupation authorities. The series maps are better but they need to show the USSR as the same colour as the other Allies. November 1942 might be taken as a "maximum extent of the Axis" map, but it does not illustrate the Allies so much - the later ones seem to have disputed accuracy. I'm not sure any of these work for an infobox FOARP (talk) 08:19, 15 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps the best thing to do would be to simply map the countries that are already listed in the infobox, with four different colors or patterns to show the different four different categories. -- Beland (talk) 17:12, 15 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

I don't think those categories are necessarily supported by sources either. FOARP (talk) 18:19, 15 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

OK, sounds like we need to nail down those lists, then. -- Beland (talk) 19:00, 16 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

The whole point of the "Co-belligerents" was that they weren't Allied countries. Why are we listing them in the infobox, in an article about the Allies, without sources saying that they were Allied countries? Notably none of the sources referred to above - not even the Bowman source that tries to give an extensive listing of Allied countries - includes them in their list of Allied countries. This is different to the Finnish wartime claim only to have ever been a "co-belligerent" of the Axis, since most sources just lump Finland in with the Axis anyway and describe it as having been an Axis state. Few sources (very possibly no sources), when listing the Allies, includes Finland/Italy/Romania/Bulgaria as unambiguously members of the Allies. FOARP (talk) 08:35, 15 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

The infobox does distinguish co-belligerents from Allies, in that it does not use the word "Allies" to refer to the co-belligerents, and makes clear they formerly fought on the Axis side. It does seem useful for the sake of completeness to have a list of all the countries that fought against Germany and Japan, whether or not they formally signed the Declaration of United Nations, etc. World War II does not do that; it defers that list to the two articles on the Allies and Axis sides. Would it help to make the label even more specific like adding "non-Allies" in some way? -- Beland (talk) 19:07, 16 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

I think there are two issues: 1) How do we classify the Allies, the anti-Axis belligerents and the signatories to the Declaration of the United Nations in the article? 2) How much information about them do we put in the Info Box?

I don't think complex and contested information belongs in the Info Box Wikipedia:INFOBOXPURPOSE. The only (almost) universally accepted information about the Allies is that there was a Big Three: Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States. Therefore this is the only information that should be in the info box. However, the Info Box should also have a category named "Other Anti-Axis nations" (or similar wording) which links to a Table in the article which lists all these nations and the date(s) they declared war on any of the Axis powers or signed the declaration of the UN. The Table could also note whether they actually took arms against an Axis power. The Table should be sortable either alphabetically or by the date they declared war (or signed a relevant document).

As for how these nations are grouped and discussed in the article, a possible structure is mostly geographic which avoids contested issues about their status as belligerents/non-belligerents/occupied powers etc. Each nation can then be discussed separately and the complexities about their status dealt with.

Proposed new structure:

1) History

a) Origins

b) Formation of "The Grand Alliance"

c) United Nations

2) Anti-Axis nations

a) The Big Three

b) Commonwealth of Nations (incuding India and British colonies). This could be a sub-section of the Big Three.

c) Other European nations

d), e), f) etc. Other American nations, Asia nations, African nations etc.

See also the discussion above about the Info Box. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 02:07, 17 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

This seems like it would be an improvement as the existing structure is a bit confusing. Certainly if the list of co-belligerents is taken out of the infobox, it should be included in the table of which nations declared war vs. actually fought, as proposed. -- Beland (talk) 02:46, 17 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

I'm in favour of taking the "co-belligerents" out of the infobox, because no source unambiguously identifies these as Allied nations, and in an infobox for an article about Allied nations, you would expect the countries in it to be Allied nations.

For the others I think the issue is 50 countries is too long for an infobox. It's like listing all the cast of a film, or all of the players in a football team.

"Allied combatant" countries gives a smaller list, but no reliable source I've seen lists all the "combatant" countries. It is also not a clear-cut distinction. Consider the following examples:

• Cuban warships sank a U-boat so was Cuba a "combatant" based on that single incident?
• A Colombian warship attacked a U-boat so was Colombia a "combatant"?
• Venezuela and Panama had merchant ships sunk during the war - for example by U-502. Were they "combatants"?
• Vessels of many countries travelled in Allied convoys and were sunk - were these "combatants"? Even the neutrals like the Republic of Ireland?
• Do colonial troops make a colony a "combatant"?

This kind of issue is inevitable when we try to decide categories ourselves rather than just going with what reliable sources say. FOARP (talk) 08:03, 17 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

I've moved most of the list out of the infobox and into the "Summary table" section. The prose of the article explains the circumstances of some countries in detail already, but for the remainder, there is now space to explain the fuzzy boundaries.

It's certainly interesting to know the extent to which each country was militarily involved in the war. That could be done in summary by adding a fourth column to the table indicating each country's contribution. The Big Three might be something like "Land invasion, naval bombardment, air raids, espionage" whereas others might be "Munitions, U-boat attack" with a link to the related article. This would "show not tell" and avoid making a classification as to what counts for "combatant" status. It also means the "co-belligerents" could be included, just marking them as not signing the various Allied documents. -- Beland (talk) 17:23, 17 September 2024 (UTC)Reply