The Second World War

Refer to chapter 27

The Weakness of the Democracies: Again to War

World War II TIMELINE

1919 1923 1929 1933 1935 1936 1938 1939

Treaty of Versailles

France occupies Ruhr

-Beerhall Pustch

Wall Street Crash

Nuremberg Laws

Germany occupies Austria

Hitler named

ChancellorGermany Invades Poland

Rhineland Reoccupied

Munich Conference

Germany occupies

Czechoslovakia (Sept.)

WHAT IS THIS?

Introduction• Conditions of the 1930s aggravated the

discontent with the Paris peace conference of 1919

• Germany, Italy, Japan, and the U.S.S.R. were not content with the conditions

– Willing to go to war to change them

• U.S., France, and Britain had also lost faith in the conditions of the Paris peace conference

– Not willing to go to war to uphold them

• 1939 to 1945 was the most destructive war, far reaching (every continent except Antarctica) in human history

• 60 million deaths (66% were civilians)

• Destroyed cities, ancient artifacts, genocide

• Weapons of mass destruction were advanced

• Gave birth to 2 Superpowers

The Pacifism and Disunity of the West • West (US and GB) believed WWI was a mistake and

found reasons to avoid war– Believed propaganda and arms manufactures led

the world into war– Treaty of Versailles was too hard on the Germans– Germans and Italians needed room to expand– Democracy was not suited to all nations

• France was defensive– 1.4 million lost in WWI– Lost 50 percent of the 20 to 30 year olds in WWI– Built the Maginot line (French Wall of China) up to

Ardennes• France was ideologically divided internally

– Conservative right leaning toward fascism and admired Hitler

– Popular front was leaning toward the USSR and admired Lenin

The Pacifism and Disunity of the West Continued• US and Britain adopt defensive

postures– dictators the demands that seem most

legitimate

– Oxford students pledged in 1933 never to take up arms for their nation under any conditions

• US became increasingly isolationist– Peace movements arose in universities

– The extremes of both the Left (Stalin) and Right (Hitler) made a unified foreign policy difficult

– Congress forbade loans, export of munitions, use of shipping to any belligerent

• Neutrality helped the aggressor nations in Europe

Russian Resentment• Leaders were revisionist and dissatisfied with new

borders of Versailles• Resented cordon sanitaire (1919) which was the

buffer states from Finland to Romania & meant to stop the spread of Bolshevism

• Still held to idea of world revolution • Still terrified of being attacked• Marxism made them inherently suspicious and anti

capitalistic • Western intervention against the Reds in 1919

confirmed this• Particularly alarmed by Germany

– Why?– Hitler’s Mein Kamf spoke of destroying

Bolshevism and taking parts of eastern Europe• Fear led them to join the League of Nations in 1934• Signed a treaty with France and Czechoslovakia in

1935• In light of the Great Purges and Show trials of the

1930s, the West mistrusted the Soviets

The March of Nazi and Fascist Aggression

• Hitler saw the weakness of the coalition system and began a diplomacy of attrition to undo it – made small moves

• Rant that he deserved the whole cake and then assure everyone that he would be appeased with just a slice

• He would get the slice and start the process again

Hitler’s aims• Created an ‘emergency’ to test the

French and Brits• Took Germany out of the League and

Disarmament Conference in 1933• Signed a non aggression pact with Poland

’34– Upset the French

• Austrian Nazis attempted a putsch and assassinated Chancellor Dollfuss– Called for union with Germany– While West still on sideline Mussolini

cried foul– Feared German power at the Brenner

Pass and mobilized to stop Hit from intervening

• Delayed unification until 1938

Hitler’s aims• Saar (though Nazi agitation)

voted to join the Reich 1935• March 1935 Germany openly

repudiated Versailles& began an arms build up while west did nothing

• 3/7/36 he repudiated the Locarno agreements and sent troops into the Rhineland (supposed to be demilitarized)

• French were unwilling to act without GB

• 1938 German troops moved into Austria– Anschluss (union) was

achieved

Mussolini’s Ambitions• Italians were dissatisfied with Versailles• Had not gotten what they thought they

deserved• Memory of their defeat by Ethiopia at

Adowa in 1896 still haunted them• 1935 Italy invaded Ethiopia• Denounced by League and members

were forbidden to sell necessary war materials (except oil)

• French actually sympathized with Mussolini and GB didn’t want a larger war so they did nothing

• Combined it with Italian Somaliland and Eritrea

• Haile Selassie appealed to the west at Geneva

• League of Nations showed its weakness again

The Spanish Civil War, 1936 – 1939• 1931 Alphonso XIII (Bourbon) was deposed

• Spanish Republic began reform movement

• Passed anticlerical legislation

– Church and state were separated

– Jesuit order was dissolved and its property was confiscated

– Schools were removed from clerical control

• Large estates were redistributed

• Movement was not extreme enough for radicals

– Strikes and uprisings erupted in Barcelona and Asturias (mining town) but were brutally put down

• Too extreme for the Church and conservative parties

Francisco Franco• Feb. 1936 elections

• Leftists (republicans, socialists, syndicalists, anarchists, communists) formed a Popular Front against the Right (old regime, monarchists, clericals, Falangist (Spanish fascists) and won

• But in July ’36, Military led by Franco moved against the Republican government

• Civil war broke out as much of the country supported the Republican government

•  600,000 lives lost

• Franco won in March 1939

• 1939 Franco established a fascist type rule over Spain

Spain Splits the World• Spanish Civil War was

dress rehearsal for WWII• Britain and France did not

intervene • U.S. maintained neutrality • Germany, Italy, and USSR

intervened anyway• German planes were tested

via bombings of Guernica (total war), Madrid, Barcelona– Sent troops (50 thousand

Italians)

Germany and Italy Grow Closer

• Italy and Germany increased relations

• Rome-Berlin Axis 1936

• Japan joined the Axis in ’36 under Anti-Comintern Pact

• 1938 Germany and Austria united

The Munich Crisis: Climax of Appeasement • Aunschluss

– surrounding Czechoslovakia – added 6 million Germans

• 3 million Germans lived in Czech

• Czechoslovakia – Had strong alliance with

France, USSR– Part of the Little Entente

with Romania and Yugo• Had strong army, highly dev.

Munitions industry, good fortresses in the North (Sudeten)– Sudeten population was

almost entirely German

The Munich Crisis: Climax of Appeasement Continued

• Sudeten Germans agitated via German Nazis and demanded unity with Germany

• May 1938 rumors of German invasion caused Czechs to mobilize– French, Brits, and USSR issued

warnings and Hit backed down

• Allowed British PM Chamberlain to negotiate

Appeasement: The Munich Agreement

• Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain

• Hit raised demands higher and mobilized war seemed imminent

• Loss of mountainous region of Sudetenland

• fortresses leaves Czech defenseless

• Chamberlain – “peace in our time”

Western Democratic Weakness• Munich crisis revealed the weakness

of western democracies

• Western democracies were not prepared to take on an invigorated Germany

• By playing the “nationalism” card Hitler placed the West in a difficult diplomatic situation

– Liberal West agreed with the concept of nationalism

• Saw fascism as a possible bulwark against the spread of communism

• Maybe Russia and Germany would destroy each other (they hoped)

End of Appeasement • 1939 Hitler took Czechoslovakia

– protectorate of Germany• Britain gave diplomatic guarantees

to Poland, Romania, and Greece• Difficult diplomatic position

– west wanted Soviet help, but the Soviets were communist

– Poles and Baltic states refused to allow Soviet troops in their borders

– Western powers had sent lesser diplomats to Moscow

• Chamberlain flew himself to meet Hitler

• Soviets were offended

The Nazi-Soviet Pact• Soviets saw that the Anglo-French

alliance wanted the USSR to take the brunt of a Nazi attack

• Soviets openly signed a nonaggression pact with Nazi Germany 8/23/39– Secret clause was to divide Poland– USSR would retain control over

the Baltic states• Stupefied the world

– Oil and Water Mixed?• 9/1/1939 Germany invade Poland• 9/3/1939 Britain and France declared

war against Germany