'One day president Roosevelt told me he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once "the unnecessary war",' Examine this statement by Winston Churchill.

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‘One day president Roosevelt told me he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once “the unnecessary war”,’ Examine this statement by Winston Churchill. To what degree do you agree or disagree that World War II was ‘the unnecessary war’?

‘The unnecessary war’ as expressed by Winston Churchill, describes a war, which in his viewpoint could’ve been avoided if certain things and groups had lived up to their ideals.  This ‘Unnecessary war’ as defined, is an opinion which in varying degrees is quite correct but it is clear that at the end of diplomatic timeline that all out war was indeed necessary and undeniably inevitable. The reasons behind such an opinion include the failure of the Versailles treaty, the League of Nations and democracy in addition increasingly militarised and ambitious Nazi Germany.  

One of the ideas behind the unnecessary war was the Treaty of Versailles. This document which Germany signed after their unconditional surrender in World War 1 was in effect a record telling the world that the sole cause of the war was Germany and that they had to make reparations for everything. It was too harsh by all terms and it imposed sanctions on Germany that did nothing except cripple her not only militarily but economically. Had the treaty had lighter restrictions then almost without doubt Germany would have been in better shape and not been in a situation where extremist politics were the main political powers. It is certainly true in the saying that says ‘desperate times call for desperate measures.’ In post-war Germany, the economic downturn would have played a huge role into the Nazi party coming into power. Germany had lost 13% of its territories and with a drastically reduced armed force, was not only humiliating for superpower but also extremely demoralizing. Hitler had entered into the political arena as a commoner, someone who had endured the battlefront and one who hated the incompetence of the government and outcome of the war. He had the charisma and could relate to the people, even with radical and dictatorial ideals, the peoples of Germany wanted change. With these examples it is quite clear that had a weaker treaty of Versailles been forged then the strong moderate political parties could have stayed in power and thus averted a war started by the ideals of a madman.

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Perhaps a more ambiguous idea would have been the failure of the League of Nations. This league, having been formed to keep democracy well alive and prevent future catastrophic total wars, was to have the power to uphold its ideals. However it was without doubt the failure of this body that led to World War II. Even if Hitler had risen to power all could have been salvaged. For example, the failure of the League to monitor Germany’s armed forces led to a huge expansion of the ‘police force’, the militarisation of the Rhineland created not even a stir ...

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