essay on ww1 and ww2

World War I vs. World War II

The First World War (WWI) was fought from 1914 to 1918 and the Second World War (or WWII) was fought from 1939 to 1945. They were the largest military conflicts in human history. Both wars involved military alliances between different groups of countries.

World War I (a.k.a the First World War, the Great War, the War To End All Wars) was centered on Europe. The world warring nations were divided into two groups namely ‘The Central Powers’ and ‘The Allied Powers’. The central powers group consisted of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria. The Allied powers group consisted of France, Britain , Russia, Italy, Japan, Canada and (from 1917) the U.S.

World War II (a.k.a the Second World War), the opposing alliances are now referred to as ‘The Axis’ and ‘The Allies’. The Axis group consisted of Germany, Italy, and Japan. The Allies group consisted of France, Britain, the U.S., the Soviet Union, Canada and China. World War II was especially heinous because of the genocide of Jewish people perpetrated by the Nazis .

Comparison chart

Causes of the War

World war i trigger.

• The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on 28 June 1914, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary was the trigger for the war. He was killed by Serbian nationalists.
• Austria-Hungary invaded Serbia.
• At same time Germany invaded Belgium , Luxembourg and France
• Russia attacked Germany
• Several alliances formed over the past decades were invoked, so within weeks the major powers were at war; as all had colonies, the conflict soon spread around the world.

This video from Yale explains the events that led to World War I:

Causes of World War II

The Versailles Treaty signed at the end of World War I not only lay the moral blame of the conflict on Germany but also forced the Germans to make huge payments to the victors of the war. France and Britain needed these reparations payments in order to pay down their own debts. But they were highly onerous, arguably unjustifiably so, and were deeply unpopular in Germany. Hitler seized on this growing resentment and promised to "undo this injustice and tear up this treaty and restore Germany to its old greatness". In fact, the payments demanded were so large that Germany was able to repay the final installment of interest on this debt only on October 3, 2010. [1] The following causes of World War II are generally acknowledged:

• Treaty violations and acts of aggression on various fronts.
• Political and economic instability in Germany, combined with bitterness over its defeat in World War I and the harsh conditions of the Treaty of Versailles.
• Rise of power of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. In the mid-1930s Hitler began secretly to rearm Germany, in violation of the treaty.
• Adolf Hitler signed alliances with Italy and Japan to oppose the Soviet Union
• German invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939

The following documentary delves into the causes of World War II:

Sequence of events

World war i.

The sequence of events for World War I began in 1914 with Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia on 28 July 1914 in a bid to reassert its authority as a Balkan power. With war breaking out between Austria-Hungary on one side and Serbia on the other, Europe quickly fell back to the alliances nations had formed. Austria-Hungary and Germany were allies. Serbia was allied with Russia; as was France. Russia aided Serbia and attacked Austria. So Austria-Hungary was fighting in two fronts with Serbia and with Russia and consequently lost on both fronts. In a bid to aid Austria-Hungary against Russia, and fearing an attack from France, Germany mobilized its army and attacked France.

• The French, redeploying round Paris, together with the British, checked the now extended German armies on the Marne. In March and April 1915 British sea and land forces attacked the Dardanelles. The Turks countered both threats, causing the British to evacuate the Gallipoli peninsula at the end of 1915.
• A joint Austro-German offensive at Gorlice-Tarnow (2 May 1915) unlocked Russian Poland and the tsar's shattered armies fell back
• In 1915 the Allies agreed that simultaneous attacks on all fronts were the way to drain the reserves of the Central Powers
• On 21 February 1916 Germans attacked the Verdun salient; however this attack was stalled in June. Austrians' independent offensive against the Italians in the Trentino also stalled.
• Germany finally adopted unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1917, and in doing so drove America into the war.
• The Germans extended their front while reducing their strength by almost a million men. Simultaneously they continued to advance in the east, competing with their Austrian allies in the Ukraine and the Turks in the Caucasus. * The French counter-attacked in July and the British in August. Together with the Americans, they drove the Germans back in a series of individually limited but collectively interlocking offensives.
• On 15th September the Anglo-French forces at Salonika attacked in Macedonia, forcing the Bulgars to seek an armistice by the end of the month.
• The whole of the Central Powers' Italian front crumbled after the Austrian defeat on the Piave in June.
• The German high command initiated the request for an Armistice on 4 October. After the war Germany claimed that the army was ‘stabbed in the back’ by revolution at home. The people of Germany and Austria-Hungary were battered by food shortages and inflation.
• On 11 November an armistice with Germany was signed in a railroad carriage at Compiègne. At 11 a.m. on 11 November 1918 a ceasefire came into effect.

1919 A formal state of war between the two sides persisted for another seven months, until signing of the Treaty of Versailles with Germany on 28 June 1919

World War II

The war that broke out in 1939 was a war for the European balance of power. The immediate cause of the conflict was the German demand for the return of Danzig and part of the Polish ‘corridor’ granted to Poland from German territory in the Versailles Treaty of 1919. Poland refused to agree to German demands, and on 1 September 1939 overwhelming German forces launched the Polish campaign and defeated her in three weeks. Russia also invaded eastern Poland. Poland thus got divided into two parts. In March 1939 Britain and France had guaranteed Polish sovereignty, and in honor of that pledge first demanded that German forces withdraw, and then on 3 September declared war on Germany. America was committed by the Neutrality Acts of 1935 and 1937 of non-intervention in overseas conflicts.

This video presents a concise history of the events of World War II:

• German armies invaded Belgium, Luxembourg, and northern France and within six weeks defeated western forces.
• Britain was able to resist German air attacks in the battle of Britain in August and September 1940, and survived a German bombing offensive (the ‘Blitz’) in the winter of 1940-1, but it was not possible for Britain to defeat Germany unaided.
• On 10 June 1940 Mussolini's Italy declared war on Britain and France.
• In December 1940 Hitler turned attention away from Britain and approved BARBAROSSA, the large-scale invasion of the USSR.
• America started giving increasing economic assistance to Britain and China following President Roosevelt's pledge to act as the ‘arsenal of democracy’.
• BARBAROSSA was launched on 22 June 1941 when three million German, Finnish, Romanian, and Hungarian soldiers attacked the whole length of the Soviet western frontier. Soviet Union was shattered.
• In North Africa, Commonwealth forces stationed in Egypt drove Italian armies back across Libya by February 1941
• In Abyssinia and Somaliland Italian forces were forced to surrender by May 1941.
• Italy's complete defeat in Africa was avoided only by Hitler's decision to send German reinforcements under Rommel, and the weak logistical position of Commonwealth forces.
• The US navy became closely involved in the battle of the Atlantic in efforts to break the German submarine blockade of shipping destined for Britain. In March 1941 Congress approved the Lend-Lease Bill which allowed almost unlimited material aid, including weapons, for any state fighting aggression. In the autumn of 1941 this came to include the USSR, despite strong American anti- communism . Throughout 1940 and 1941 the USA tightened an economic blockade of Japan which threatened to cut off most Japanese oil supplies.
• American actions provoked both Japanese and German retaliation. On 7 December 1941 Japanese naval aircraft attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, followed by the rapid conquest of western colonies in south-east Asia and the southern Pacific.
• On 11 December Germany declared war on the USA.
• Russia made a remarkable recovery and in November Germany and her allies attacking Stalingrad (now Volgograd) were cut off by a massive Soviet encirclement, URANUS.
• In November 1942 at Alamein a predominantly Italian force was defeated by Montgomery.
• The USA fought a largely naval and air war between 1942 and 1945, using its very great naval power to deploy troops in major amphibious operations, first in the Solomon Islands to halt the Japanese Pacific advance, then in TORCH, a combined American-British landing in Morocco and Algeria in November 1942.

The entry of the USA signaled a change in the political balance of the war of great significance. German forces in Stalingrad surrendered in January 1943and by May 1943 Italian and German forces finally surrendered in Tunisia, enabling the Allies to mount the invasion of Sicily and then Italy. Italy sued for an armistice in September 1943.

American economic might and political interests helped to bind together the different fronts of conflict, while America's worldwide system of supply and logistics provided the sinews of war necessary to complete the defeat of the aggressor states. A major intelligence deception operation and declining air power weakened the German response and by September 1944 German forces had been driven from France.

• German surrendered on 7 May 1945 following Hitler's suicide on 30 April.
• A long-range bombing campaign destroyed the Japanese cities and most of the Japanese navy and merchant marine. America’s newest weapon, the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
• Soviet forces destroyed the Japanese army in Manchuria; Japan finally capitulated on 2 September.

War strategies

Many of the weapons that dominate military operations today were developed during World War I, including the machine gun, the tank and specialized combat aircraft. This is a great video that explains the military strategies and tactics used during World War I.

• After the war, the Paris Peace Conference imposed a series of peace treaties on the Central Powers. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles officially ended the war. Building on Wilson's 14th point, the Treaty of Versailles also brought into being the League of Nations on 28 June 1919. In signing the treaty, Germany acknowledged responsibility for the war, agreeing to pay enormous war reparations and award territory to the victors. It caused a lot of bitterness.
• Austria–Hungary was partitioned into several successor states.
• The Russian Empire lost much of its western frontier as the newly independent nations of Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland were carved from it.
• The war ended with the total victory of the Allies over Germany and Japan in 1945. The United Nations was established to foster international cooperation and prevent future conflicts.
• The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers.
• Although the totalitarian regimes in Germany, Italy, and Japan were defeated, the war left many unresolved political, social, and economic problems in its wake and brought the Western democracies into direct confrontation with their erstwhile ally, the Soviet Union under Josef Stalin, thereby initiating a period of nearly half a century of skirmishing and nervous watchfulness as two blocs, each armed with nuclear weapons , faced each other probing for any sign of weakness.
• The European economy had collapsed with 70% of the industrial infrastructure destroyed.
• A rapid period of decolonization also took place within the holdings of the various European colonial powers. These primarily occurred due to shifts in ideology, the economic exhaustion from the war and increased demand by indigenous people for self-determination.
• Wikipedia: World War II
• Wikipedia: World War I
• Wikipedia: World War I casualties
• Wikipedia: World War II casualties
• World War I - Encyclopædia Britannica
• What are some interesting facts about the Second World War? - Quora

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Comments: World War I vs World War II

Anonymous comments (5).

September 13, 2012, 2:37pm this is awesome — 152.✗.✗.49

May 13, 2014, 5:05pm This is actually really helpful if you'r learning about the ww1 and ww2- it makes things a lot easier. Thxs — 2.✗.✗.119

April 7, 2014, 1:27pm So helpful good for a nerd like me. — 182.✗.✗.155

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October 7, 2013, 8:12pm Genocide by Germany, was carried out on more than those listed. — 204.✗.✗.1

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Historyplex

A Definitive Comparison Between World War 1 and World War 2

World War I (1914-1918) and World War II (1939-1945) were two of the most important events in world history. Almost all the continents were involved in the wars, and they led to a massive destruction all over the world. Millions lost their lives.

Switzerland maintained neutrality during both the world wars.

Is war necessary, we wonder sometimes. Can the world not live in peace? While some argue that wars are necessary to establish peace, others say that they are fought out of the hunger for power. Conflicting ideologies between countries, and their ambitions to gain supremacy, may take the ugly shape of a war, which may involve only those countries, or sometimes, the whole world. That’s exactly what was seen in both the world wars. There were millions of casualties and the outcomes were disastrous. Here, we try to compare the two world wars on the basis of their causes, effects, and the tactics and strategies used in the two.

During World War I, with several claiming hierarchical control and princely states refusing to shed their independence, the differences peaked. Some countries refused to come to the table to negotiate peace terms. The economic instability brought by the First World War led to the rise of Fascism in Europe, which is one of the factors that further led to the Second World War. Also, the way in which peace settlement was done at the end of the first war, became a major contributing factor to the second one. Here, we try to compare to the two world wars with respect to their causes and effects.

World War I

► The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was one of the events that triggered the war. Austro-Hungarians waged war against Serbia.

► The imperialistic and territorial rivalries between Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary were another cause of the war.

► German U-boats sank US submarines which led to the United States declaring war on Germany.

► The alliances between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy formed the Central Powers to stop the triple alliance between France, Britain, and Russia called the Allied Powers. This too, played a major role in triggering the war.

World War II

►The Treaty of Versailles was an important cause of the Second World War. Though it was meant for establishing peace, it did not satisfy the Germans. Germany lost territory and had to face economic problems. The treaty had weakened Germany and hence proved to be a trigger for the rise of Fascism and Hitler’s dominance in the country.

► Adolf Hitler and the Nazis made unreasonable demands. Nazi ideologies created tension. Britain and France, allied with Poland, threatened Germany with a war. Germany and USSR came together, thus dividing Europe.

► The war in Europe that started on September 1, 1939 was triggered by the Danzig crisis.

► Japan joined the war to prove its might and invaded Manchuria in China.

►The bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japan in 1944 gave the United States of America, a reason to join the war.

► Each soldier would be given a rifle, a bayonet, and 3 grenades.

► Tanks were first introduced in the war with the British Mark V.

► The Germans introduced machine guns with each battalion having a minimum of 6. The Russians had 8 machine guns while the British had two.

► Mortars were explosive bombs that were shot in a projectile motion.

► Heavy artillery was used. It would be rarely successful because of its weak aiming and speed of reloading.

► Gases were commonly used to occupy enemy trenches.

► In 1915, Germany employed flamethrowers against the French.

► Barbed wire would be placed near enemy camps to prevent enemy soldiers from entering. Artillery shot at barbed wire would explode and injure soldiers on both sides.

► Light machine guns were used against low-flying aircraft and cannons on carriers were used against heavy aircraft.

► The bazooka was used as an anti-tank missile against the German Army which could travel at a range of 400 yards.

► Guided bombs were used by the Germans against anti-aircraft guns in the form of the Fritz-X bomb.

► The Panther tank was used by the German Army and formed the backbone of the Blitzkrieg tactic.

► The atom bomb was used to wipe out the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

► Germany used U-boats to sink American ships.

► During World War I, between the trench battles of the Ottomans and British, the Ottomans had run out of cigarettes. The British spread cigarettes wrapped in propaganda. The Ottomans threw them away. At the last minute, the British spread cigarettes laced with heroin which turned the tide of the war.

► The way a trench would be attacked was that about a hundred men ran into machine guns and barbed wire. And to defend a trench, men would stand along it, and shoot at the approaching men.

► Light flares were launched on a half-hourly basis to spot enemy soldiers to spot and shoot them.

► Germany used mustard gas in September 1917 claiming 1,976 British soldiers’ lives.

► Infiltration tactics included letting soldiers occupy enemy sentry points and then bombarding them with heavy artillery.

► Germany used air warfare to bomb cities with the help of its secret air force called the Luftwaffe.

► Fighter-bombers were used to strike enemy outposts and destroy supply and communication centers.

► The Germans were the first to use an airborne invasion during the Battle of Flanders on the island of Crete.

► 700 gliders, loaded with troops and equipment, and three divisions of paratroops were used by the Allies during the Normandy division.

► Germany deployed submarines homing torpedoes to target enemy submarines.

► The US Marines developed methods for landing troops near defended shores, which were used in the Normandy landings.

► The introduction of tanks changed the landscape of the war. The Soviet P-34 and the Panther were the most fearsome opponents on land.

► The German V-2 ballistic missile was used as a long-range artillery weapon.

► The Allies were equipped with semi-automatic weapons.

► Operation Mincemeat was carried out to deceive the Germans by Great Britain in believing they were attacking Sardinia instead of Italy. They used a corpse of a homeless man stuffed with false documents of the war and alerted the Spanish. The Spanish quickly alerted the Germans who repositioned their troops.

► The British had captured Nazi POWs and placed them in a country mansion, instead of prison. They were supplied with lavish food and other material comforts, turning a blind eye to the fact that the house was bugged and their conversations were used to find more information about German tactics.

► The Blitzkrieg was used extensively by the German Army to raze Poland and Czechoslovakia.

► Communism spread among the Soviet Union resulting in the Russian revolution of 1917.

► The Treaty of Versailles blamed the war on the Germans and the German Army was forced to pay $31.5 billion dollars as reparation.

► The empire of Austria-Hungary split their union and formed independent countries of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

► Colonies such as India and Nigeria started asserting their independence.

► There was a Great Depression in America.

► The war lasted for 4 years.

► The war ended with the victory of the Allies against Germany and Japan in 1945.

► The European economy had collapsed with 70% of the industrial infrastructure destroyed.

► Germany split into two, with East Germany adopting a communist policy and West Germany, a democratic state.

► Japan was under military rule of the United States (temporarily).

► Hitler and his closest associates committed suicide but many associates, especially Hermann Göring was sentenced to life imprisonment for hate crimes.

► The United Nations was formed on 24th October 1945, promising to uphold the peace.

► The duration of the war was of 6 years.

Though the wars spanned four and six years respectively, the consequences they had were severe and lasted for years.

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The Causes of WWII

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The origins of the Second World War (1939-45) may be traced back to the harsh peace settlement of the First World War (1914-18) and the economic crisis of the 1930s, while more immediate causes were the aggressive invasions of their neighbours by Germany, Italy , and Japan . A weak and divided Europe , an isolationist USA, and an opportunistic USSR were all intent on peace, but the policy of appeasement only delivered what everyone most feared: another long and terrible world war.

The main causes of WWII were:

• The harsh Treaty of Versailles
• The economic crisis of the 1930s
• The rise of fascism
• Germany's rearmament
• The cult of Adolf Hitler
• The policy of appeasement by Western powers
• Treaties of mutual interest between Axis Powers
• Lack of treaties between the Allies
• The territorial expansion of Germany, Italy, and Japan
• The Nazi-Soviet Pact
• The invasion of Poland in September 1939
• The Japanese attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbour

Treaty of Versailles

Germany was defeated in the First World War, and the victors established harsh terms to ensure that some of the costs of the war were recuperated and to prevent Germany from becoming a future threat. With European economies and populations greatly damaged by the war, the victors were in no mood to be lenient since Germany had almost won and its industry was still intact. Germany remained a dangerous state. However, Britain and France did not want a totally punitive settlement, as this might lead to lasting resentment and make Germany unable to become a valuable market for exports.

The peace terms were set out in the Treaty of Versailles, signed by all parties except the USSR on 28 June 1919. The Rhineland must be demilitarised to act as a buffer zone between Germany and France. All colonies and the Saar, a coal-rich area of western Germany, were removed from German authority. Poland was given the industrial area of Upper Silesia and a corridor to the sea, which included Danzig (Gdánsk) and cut off East Prussia from the rest of Germany. France regained the regions of Alsace and Lorraine. Germany had to pay war reparations to France and Belgium. Germany had limits on its armed forces and could not build tanks, aircraft, submarines, or battleships. Finally, Germany was to accept complete responsibility, that is the guilt, for starting the war. Many Germans viewed the peace terms as highly dishonourable.

The settlement established nine new countries in Eastern Europe, a recipe for instability since all of them disputed their borders, and many contained large minority groups who claimed to be part of another country. Germany, Italy, and Russia, once powerful again after the heavy costs of WWI, looked upon these fledgling states with imperialist envy.

In the 1920s, Germany signed two important treaties. The Locarno Treaty of 1925 guaranteed Germany's western borders but allowed some scope for change in the east. The 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact was signed by 56 countries. All the major powers promised not to conduct foreign policy using military means. In 1929, Germany's reparations as stipulated by the Treaty of Versailles were reduced from £6.6 million to £2 million. In 1932, the reparations were cancelled altogether. This was all very promising, but through the 1930s, the complex web of European diplomacy began to quickly unravel in a climate of economic decline.

Economic Crisis

The Great Depression, sparked off by the Wall Street stock-market crash of 1929, resulted in a crisis in many economies through the 1930s. There was a collapse in world trade , prices, and employment. In Germany in 1923, there was hyperinflation, which made savings worthless, a blow many of the German middle class never forgot. The regular loans from the United States (the Dawes Plan), upon which the German economy depended, stopped. There was a hostile attitude amongst many states as international trade collapsed. The USA, the world's most important money lender, pursued an isolationist strategy. Britain and France looked only to their empires. Protectionism and trade tariffs became the norm.

Germany became determined to reach self-sufficiency and not rely on world trade partners, a policy that required the acquisition of natural resources through military occupation. Germany saw the route out of the financial mess as one of massive rearmament which would create jobs in factories and the armed forces. The policy involved not only stockpiling weapons but also creating an economy geared towards total war, where the armaments industry was given priority in terms of resources, energy, factories, and skilled workers.

Hitler & the Nazi Party

Nationalist fascist parties were doing well across Europe. From 1922, Italy was ruled by Benito Mussolini (l. 1883-1945), leader of the fascist party there. By 1939, Spain had a fascist ruler in General Franco (l. 1892-1975). In Germany, Adolf Hitler (l. 1889-1945) was the leader of the fascist National Socialist Party (Nazi Party), the largest party after the July and November elections of 1932. There were even fascist parties in democracies like Britain. Charismatic leaders were turning popular nationalist feelings into a much more sinister way of thinking: fascism. Fascist parties, although not exactly the same in different countries, did have some key goals in common. Fascist leaders wanted absolute power and to achieve this new order they emphasised "conformism, hostility to outsiders, routine violence, contempt for the weak, and extreme hatred of dissident opinions" (Dear, 274). Fascist parties initially gained popularity as opponents to communism, seen as a threat by many ever since the Russian Revolution of 1917. Indeed, in Western countries, a deep suspicion of communism prevented a powerful political and military alliance from being formed with the USSR, which might ultimately have avoided war.

Hitler promised the humiliation of Versailles would be revenged and that Germany would be made great again. Many Germans believed they had been betrayed by the high command of the army in WWI and were tired of the endless round of ineffective coalition governments since the war. Hitler, with no connections to the established elite, offered a new beginning, and most of all, he promised jobs and bread in a period when unemployment and poverty were at extremely high levels. The Nazi party promised a dynamic economy which would power German expansion, seen as a glorious endeavour, with the virtues of war championed. Nazism called for Lebensraum (living space) for the German people – new lands where they could prosper. Nazism identified its principal internal enemies as Jews, Slavs , Communists and trade unionists, all people who were holding Germany back from realising its full potential the Nazis claimed. Nazism called for an international struggle where Germans could achieve their destiny and prove themselves the master race. Such ideas, none of which were radically new, meant war was inevitable. The argument that totalitarian regimes require wars and liberal democracies require peace to prosper may be simplistic but has some validity. Hitler promised the new Third Reich would last for 1,000 years and, using propaganda, show, and brutal repression of alternative ideas, many believed him as he expertly tapped into long-held views in Germany and Austria. As F. McDonough states, "Hitler was the drummer of an old tune accompanied by modern instruments" (93).

In January 1933, the German President Paul von Hindenburg (l. 1847-1934), having run out of all other options, invited Hitler to become Chancellor. After systematically crushing any opposition, Hitler began to put his domestic policies into practice and establish a totalitarian regime, everything he had written in his book Mein Kampf ( My Struggle ) back in 1924. When Hindenburg died in August 1934, Hitler effectively merged the positions of President and Chancellor and declared himself Germany's leader or Führer. Hitler had become the state, and all that was now needed for him to achieve his impossible dream was a rearmed Germany.

Germany's Rearmament

Hitler was determined to rebuild the nation's armed forces. Rearmament rocketed despite the restrictions of Versailles, which Hitler formally repudiated in March 1935. The army was already four times bigger than permitted. Eventually, Western powers were obliged to take a damage-limitation approach. In June 1935, the Anglo-German Naval Agreement was signed, which capped the German navy's strength to 35% of the Royal Navy and allowed Hitler to build giant new ships like the battleship Bismarck .

In another instance of the cult of Adolf Hitler, all armed forces personnel had to swear allegiance to Hitler personally. Thanks to rearmament, Germany had achieved near-full employment by 1938. Hitler had fulfilled his promises to the German people. Germany's new war machine came at a cost. Rearming necessitated huge imports of raw materials, and these could not be bought for much longer as Germany's balance of payments went into tilt from 1939. Occupying territories where these resources could be found seemed a simple solution to the problem. Crucially, Germany had an arms advantage over its enemies, but this situation would not last long. For Hitler, the time to strike was now.

Appeasement

Allowing Germany to rearm was part of the policy of appeasement: giving reasonable concessions to avoid the total disaster of war. Appeasement, which was pursued by Britain, France, and the United States, did not mean peace at any price, but the problem with the policy was that it did give, step by step, aggressive powers the impression that their continued aggression might not necessarily lead to a wider war. To review these steps, we must look at global politics in the early 1930s.

The League of Nations (forerunner of today's United Nations) was established after WWI to ensure international disputes were settled and world peace was maintained. Although US President Woodrow Wilson (in office 1913-21) was instrumental in forming the League, crucially, the United States never joined it, seriously weakening the organisation. Germany joined in 1926 but left in 1933; Japan left the same year. The League proved to be utterly incapable of achieving its aims, as was shown most starkly by its failure to prevent Japan's invasion of Manchuria in September 1931 and Italy's invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in October 1935. Hitler no doubt watched these events and the League's total lack of a military response with particular interest as, with his own armed forces rejuvenated, he prepared to expand Germany's borders.

From 1933 to 1935, Hitler had pursued an ambiguous foreign policy, sometimes promising he had peaceful intentions. He caused confusion with such diplomatic conjuring tricks as a peace treaty with Poland in January 1934 and a statement later the same year that he had no intention of merging Austria into the Reich. Then, from 1935, his plans became ever clearer, even if some historians maintain the Führer actually had no plans at all but was merely seizing opportunities as his enemies presented them. Some historians claim Hitler was not entirely free to act as he would wish, due to constraints within the rather chaotic and factional Nazi party. In March 1935, the Saar was reunified with Germany following a plebiscite. The same year, conscription was announced. In March 1936, Germany occupied the Rhineland. In October, Germany and Italy became formal allies with the Rome -Berlin Axis. In November 1936, Italy and Germany (and later Japan) signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, a treaty of mutual cooperation in empire -building and a united front against communism. In March 1938, Hitler achieved the Anschluss, the formal unification of Germany and Austria. Encouraged by the League of Nations' lack of a strong response, Hitler then occupied the Sudetenland, the industrial area of Czechoslovakia which shared a border with Germany, the excuse being a German minority there was being repressed. Again, the Western powers made no military reaction despite France and the USSR having signed a treaty of assistance with the Czechs. The Munich Agreement of September 1938 was signed between Germany, France, Italy, and Britain, which accepted Germany's new, expanded borders. The USSR was not invited, a lost and last opportunity to present a united front against fascism – perhaps here was the real price of pursuing a policy of appeasement to the exclusion of any other possible strategies. The British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (served 1937-40), fluttering before journalists a piece of paper Hitler had signed, confidently declared that he had achieved "peace with honour" (Dear, 597) and that we now had "peace in our time" (McDonough, 121). Chamberlain was nominated for that year's Nobel Peace Prize.

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Appeasement was an attractive policy to Western leaders since the horrors of the last war were still fresh in everyone's minds. France, in particular, was politically weak in this period, experiencing 16 coalition governments through the 1930s. Britain feared losing its empire if weakened by another great war. Public opinion was overwhelmingly against war and rearmament in Britain, France, and the United States. Further, it was by no means certain that Hitler would continue to expand Germany's borders; certainly, he had promised he had no additional ambitions beyond restoring Germany to its previous territories before WWI. Finally, appeasement, even if not actually believed to be a policy with any chance of success, did gain crucial time for Western powers to follow Germany's lead and rearm. In Britain and France, there were, too, strong lobbies which considered rearmament a waste of resources in economically turbulent times and pointed out that Germany was Britain's fifth largest customer for its exports. Hindsight has shown that appeasement was folly since Hitler was intent on occupying as much of Europe as he possibly could, and his track record of breaking treaties proved negotiation was pointless. Keeping the Czech heavy industry out of German hands was probably a better point to go to war over than the subsequent invasion of Poland, but Britain, France, and the USSR were simply not then equipped for war. Not until 1939 did these countries seriously begin to establish economies geared to war.

Invasion of Poland

In 1939, there was further significant activity by Germany and Italy in their quest to occupy more and more of Europe. In March 1939, Germany absorbed the rest of Czechoslovakia and Memel (part of Lithuania) into the Third Reich. Increasingly appalled by the Nazis' attacks on German Jews, Western powers now began to question if negotiating with such a regime could ever be justified on moral grounds. Appeasement was finally dead.

On 31 March, Britain and France promised to guarantee Poland's borders, and in April, this was extended to Romania. Turkey and Greece also began talks of mutual protection with Britain and France. It had finally dawned on leaders in Britain and France that the fascists were intent on territorial expansion at any cost. There was already a localised war going on, the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39, which directly involved German and Italian military hardware on the one side and Soviet aid on the other. In April, Italy occupied Albania. At the end of the same month, Hitler repudiated the Anglo-German Naval Agreement. In May 1939, Italy and Germany signed a military alliance, the ‘Pact of Steel'.

In August 1939, Germany agreed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (Nazi-Soviet Pact), named after the foreign ministers of each state. The Soviet leader Joseph Stalin (l. 1878-1953) was increasingly aware that Britain and France seemed perfectly willing to appease Hitler as long as he moved eastwards in his direction. The possibility of 'collective security' (Britain, France, and the USSR working together) was not realised because of a lack of trust between the parties. The Nazi-Soviet Pact, in contrast, allowed Stalin to grab eastern Poland and keep the USSR out of a war for a while, gaining precious time for rearmament. Perhaps, too, the possibility for Germany to wage war only in the West against Britain and France – Stalin's 'blank cheque' for Hitler – would sufficiently weaken all three so that they could no longer threaten the USSR.

Europe was a tinder box awaiting a single spark that would explode it into war. The spark came soon enough with Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939. The next day Chamberlain warned Hitler war would follow if Germany did not withdraw. Hitler ignored the ultimatum. On 3 September, Britain and France, in order to protect free and independent nations, declared war on Germany. Italy, waiting in the wings to see what might happen to its advantage, remained neutral for the time being. The world, too, awaited with bated breath to see what would happen next. The unexpected answer was nothing at all.

The 'phoney war', when the Allies and Axis powers did not directly confront each other, lasted until April 1940 when Germany invaded Norway. In May, Germany invaded the Low Countries and France. Germany proved unstoppable, and by the end of June, France had fallen. In October, Italy invaded Greece. In 1941, Germany occupied Yugoslavia. Britain was left alone to fight for its survival until Hitler invaded the USSR in June 1941 (Operation Barbarossa).

The war became a global conflict when Japan attacked the US naval fleet at Pearl Harbour, Hawaii, on 7 December 1941. Japan had already invaded Eastern China over concern at the rise in Chinese nationalism and then occupied most of South East Asia in search of imperial glory and natural resources, especially oil, whose import was restricted by a US embargo. Japan perhaps hoped events in Europe would prevent any direct reaction against them, but the United States did finally join the conflict. Peace would not be achieved until the world had suffered four more long and bitter years of war.

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Bibliography

• Dear, I. C. B. & Foot, M. R. D. The Oxford Companion to World War II. Oxford University Press, 1995.
• Dülffer. Nazi Germany, 1933-1945 - Faith & Annihilation by Dülffer, Jost [Paperback ]. Blomsbury USA, Paperback(2009), 2009.
• Holmes, Richard. The World at War. Ebury Press, 2007.
• Liddell Hart, B. History of the Second World War. Caxton, 1989
• McDonough, Frank. The Origins of the First and Second World Wars . Cambridge University Press, 1997.
• Speer, Albert. Inside the Third Reich. Simon & Schuster, 1997.
• Taylor, A.J.P. The Origins of The Second World War. Simon & Schuster, 1996.

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