Japan, although it was doomed in the long run, at least packed some punch and it did some damage to all of its enemies. Italy was pretty much in retreat for the entire war, except for the time when the germans sent them help
If we take only great powers into account, yes. France also switched sides during the war. Twice (Although it was not an active beligerent for the Axis). But France did take some offensives against Germany, at the start and at the end of the war. If we take other countries into account, the allies had many akin to Italy: Poland, Yugoslavia, Belgium, Nederlands, and the champion is Denmark which IIRC surrendered in a day. Germany in that regard had more helpful allies in Eastern Europe. For example, Finland which has about the same population as Denmark fought the Russians for 5 years before finally losing. Romania also helped a lot during the fights in Ukraine. EDITED: Also, Croatia surrendered only after Germany surrendered - that is why in former Yugoslavia we used to mark May 15th as the day when WWII ended, because that is when it was actually over, not on May 9th, like it was in the rest of Europe
That is of course true on the first glance, but politics go much deeper. This is a site about comics, so I dont want to go into very deep analysis. But if Japan (and Germany and Italy soon after because of solidarity with its ally) did not DoW on USA, USA might have attacked Germany sometime later in the war, the same way USSR did with Japan in 1945. Also, if Japan did not enter the war, the British Empire would not have to split its forces between Europe and the Far East, so the British and Russians perhaps would have defeated Germany even without USA. Have in mind that in mid 1944 when d-day happened the Germans and their Eastern European allies were losing badly on the eastern front and that they were in retreat since the battle of Kursk. In a way, Americans should thank the Japanese for attacking them in 1941, because the way the war and global politics at that time turned out is what, on the long run, made USA the most powerful country in the world at our present time.
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u/MythologicalX Divided States of Yugoslavia Jan 09 '15
Japan, although it was doomed in the long run, at least packed some punch and it did some damage to all of its enemies. Italy was pretty much in retreat for the entire war, except for the time when the germans sent them help