The Causes of World War Two

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The Causes of World War Two
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• There were three main causes of World War Two in
  Europe
• The Treaty of Versailles
• The Great Depression
• The Failure of the League of Nations

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• The causes of the war in the pacific were
  slightly different, they included
• Japanese Depression
• Japan was the only independent Asian nation with
  her own empire
• The Depression took a terrible toll on Japan,
  trade fell by 2/3
• They attempted to break out of the Depression
  through conquest
• They did this through aggressive nationalism

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• 2. Japan invaded Manchuria (China) in 1931
• The United States was concerned by this act and
  reacted by
• Freezing Japanese assets in the United States
• Oct 4th, 1941 they cut off all oil to Japan,
  Japan had been getting 90 of her oil from the US

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The Treaty Of Versailles

• The war guilt clause was a tremendous source of
  anger and discontentment in Germany
• Many blamed all of Germanys woes on the treaty
• Reparation payments left Germanys economy ruined
• Hitler used the Treaty as a vehicle to attain
  power

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The Great Depression

• The Great Depression had the greatest impact on
  Germany and Japan
• Germany was burdened by reparation payments
• Japan was reliant on foreign imports of oil
• Both nations turned to radical political
  solutions to solve their economic problems

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The Failure of the League of Nations

• The United States never joined the League of
  Nations because Congress failed to ratify the
  Treaty of Versailles
• This left the league weak from the start due to
  incomplete membership
• The league also failed to provide the collective
  security it had promised to deliver

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• The league refused to take military action
  against both Japan and Italy when they acted as
  aggressors
• In 1931 Japan
• attacked
• Manchuria with
• the goal of
• taking their
• natural
• resources

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• In 1935 Italy invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in an
  effort to begin to re-establish the Roman Empire
• In both cases the League of Nations took no
  action
• The League declared that the Manchurian incident
  was irrelevant to Europe and thus was unimportant
• The league attempted to dissuade the Italians by
  imposing economic sanctions

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• Britain and France who were both unwilling to go
  to war over Ethiopia, refused to honour the
  sanctions and Ethiopia was given to Italy
• The League failed for the following reasons
• The League was too closely linked with the Treaty
  of Versailles
• The allies realized that the Treaty was unjust
  and were trying to distance themselves from it
• Nationalism was simply too strong

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The Road to War
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• Nazi Foreign Policy was based on three main
  principles
• Repudiation of the Treaty of Versailles
• Uniting all German peoples- Austria,
  Czechoslovakia, East Prussia and the Polish
  Corridor all contained Germans
• Lebensraum- the need for more living space,
  Hitler had been eyeing the Ukraine for this
  purpose

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The Nazis and Appeasement

• Appeasement was an approach to foreign relations
  which attempted to maintain the peace while
  making concessions to the enemy
• This was the strategy that France and Britain
  adopted to deal with Hitler
• The appeasers wanted to prevent another war in
  Europe
• They felt Hitlers aggression was due to the
  unfairness of the Treaty of Versailles

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• The appeasers wanted to prevent a repeat of the
  First World War
• They also thought that Hitler made an effective
  block against communism, which concerned them more

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The Rhineland Crisis

• The Rhineland, which separated France and
  Germany, had been declared a de-militarized zone
  by the Treaty of Versailles
• The Germans wanted it back and on March 7, 1936
  the German army moved in and reclaimed it
• Hitler claimed this was merely a defensive action
  against France

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• France was angry and complained to the League of
  Nations, who refused to take action against the
  Nazis
• Hitler saw that the rest of Europe was unwilling
  to take action against him
• At this point Appeasement became the accepted
  policy for dealing with Hitler

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The Anschluss Crisis

• The Treaty of Versailles prevented the
  unification of Austria and Germany
• Hitler wanted to annex Austria and so he used the
  Austrian Nazi Party
• The Austrian President called a plebiscite on the
  issue of Austrian independence on March 13, 1938

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• Hitler feared the result of this vote so he used
  a massive propaganda campaign
• Hitler sensing that the Nazis were going to lose
  the vote, threatened the Austrian president
  Schuschnigg, with invasion unless he turned the
  government over to the head of the Austrian Nazis
• Schuschnigg gave in and turned the government
  over to the Nazis who invited Hitler into Austria
  to ensure safety of the citizens

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Czechoslovakia and the Nazis

• Hitler was interested in the area of
  Czechoslovakia known as the Sudatenland where 3.5
  million ethnic Germans lived
• Hitlers true goal was to annex all of
  Czechoslovakia, despite his claims that he was
  only interested in the Sudatenland
• September 15th 1938 Chamberlain returns from a
  meeting with Hitler where it is agreed that the
  Germans can have the Sudatenland if they can work
  out the logistics

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• No one has asked the Czech President Benes, for
  his opinion on the matter.
• The British and the French now put pressure on
  the Czechs to accept as they do not want to go to
  war over Czechoslovakia
• Benes reluctantly agrees but demands several
  months to allow for the transfer to occur
• Hitler doesnt want this crisis to die down yet,
  so he states that the Nazis will occupy the
  Sudatenland on October 1st
• The Czechs would resist which would cause a war

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The Munich Conference

• In hopes of diffusing the situation Mussolini now
  enters and offers to serve as a mediator,
  proposing a four way conference at Munich
• Hitler makes concessions to delay occupation
  until the tenth of October, on September 29th the
  French and British agree

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• Chamberlain returns home claiming that this will
  ensure peace in our time
• March 1939
• Hitler
• threatens to sign
• away Czech
• independence
• or face invasion

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• Benes agrees and all Czechoslovakia becomes
  German territory
• Chamberlain finally realizes that Everything I
  have worked for in my public life lies in ruin.
• March 30, Chamberlain gives Poland a public
  guarantee ending the policy of Appeasement

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Nazi-Soviet Pact

• In August of 1939 Hitler and Stalin signed the
  Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact
• This stated that neither nation would attack the
  other
• Also they secretly agreed to divide Poland
• It gave both countries time and a buffer between
  them
• Both knew they would be fighting each other
  eventually