ant, and the expansion of the battlefield to include all of the enemy's territory. The most important determinants of its outcome were industrial capacity and personnel. In the last stages of the war, two radically new weapons were introduced: the long-range rocket and the atomic bomb. In the main, however, the war was fought with the same or improved weapons of the types used in World War I. The greatest advances were in aircraft and tanks.There can be no real statistical measurement of the human and material cost of World War II. The money cost to governments involved has been estimated at more than $1,000,000,000,000 but this figure cannot represent the human misery, deprivation, and suffering, the dislocation of peoples and of economic life, or the sheer physical destruction of property that the war involved. The destruction of World War II was immense and far exceeded that of World War I. France estimated the total cost at an amount equivalent to three times the total French annual national income. Belgium and The Netherlands suffered damage roughly in similar proportions to their resources. In Great Britain about 30 percent of the homes were destroyed or damaged; in France, Belgium, and The Netherlands about 20 percent. Agriculture in all the occupied countries suffered heavily from the destruction of facilities and farm animals, the lack of machinery and fertilizers, and the drain on manpower. Internal transport systems were completely disrupted by the destruction or confiscation of rail cars, locomotives, and barges, and the bombing of bridges and key rail centers. By 1945 the economies of the continental nations of western Europe were in a state of virtually complete paralysis. In eastern Europe the devastation was even worse. Poland reported 30 percent of its buildings destroyed, as well as 60 percent of its schools, scientific institutions, and public administration facilities, 30-35 percent of its agricultural property, and ...
