Making pacts wasn’t the only thing that Germany did during the run up to WWII. Hitler also pursued his foreign policy aims, left the League of Nations and started to openly re-arm. One of his foreign policy aims was to tear up the treaty of Versailles, so naturally he would do the opposite to what it said. In the 1920s, Hitler didn’t do anything because he didn’t have any power; the only thing he could do was to rally public support for his Nazi Party. This is exactly what he did, and in 1933 he was elected as German Chancellor. The first thing that he did was to withdraw from the League of Nations. He also spoke about re-arming and building more aircraft, and then in 1935, he openly announced conscription for all men. This is the time when Britain and France should have and could have acted to stop Hitler taking any more liberties. They didn’t do anything because France didn’t have a strong enough leader to act without Britain’s support and Britain had problems in her own empire. From then on Hitler got more powerful and more confident, and Britain and France had missed their chance to stop him. You could argue that it was partly Britain and France’s faults for not acting when they should have done that WWII started, but blame is usually for doing something wrong, not for not doing anything.
The treaty of Versailles had forbidden any troops in the Rhineland, but Hitler was going against the treaty as part of his foreign policy. In 1936 he marched into the Rhineland, but instead of meeting of the League intervening like they should have done, there was no one to oppose him and he was allowed to have the Rhineland. Naturally he was happy and once again it had been proven that if you wanted something, force was the best way to get it. One of Hitler’s biggest steps to war was when he invaded the Sudetenland. The Sudetenland was largely populated by Germans, but it belonged to Czechoslovakia. This didn’t bother Hitler, and in 1938, he invaded the Sudetenland. After doing this, the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, pursued a policy of Appeasement towards Germany, which meant giving in to the demands that were reasonable. Chamberlain had several meetings with Hitler before they eventually signed the Munich Agreement, which stated their desire never to go to war with one another again. This didn’t really bother Hitler either, because he still invaded Poland on 1st September 1939, and he knew that he could only get away with so much and that eventually he would have to go to war.
The other main power in the Anti-Comintern Pact was Japan. Whilst Japan weren’t involved in the European part of the war because they were so far away, they certainly contributed to the war, and it was because of Japan’s attacks on the USA that it became a global war. In WWI, Japan fought on the side of the Allies and the Versailles Peace settlement gave Japan former German colonies from the Pacific and German rights in Shantung.
Japanese relations with America got off to a bad start because America didn’t like Japanese retention of Shantung. However, they did get better when Japan took part in the Washington Naval Conference and agreed the ratio of 5:5:3 between the American, British and Japanese fleets. Japan still had lots of domestic problems, which were made worse by the depression in 1939. Their main problem was a lack of raw materials because they had to import everything from abroad. In 1931, the Japanese army decided to invade Manchuria to try and solve this problem. Unfortunately, all they managed to do was push themselves further away from Britain and American, and closer to war with China. The Japanese Government instructed the army to withdraw from Manchuria after the Chinese had appealed to the League of Nations, but the army ignored them, and the League of Nations’ follow up action was to send a commission to investigate. Lord Lytton, head of the commission, told the League of Nations Council that Japan should be ordered to leave Manchuria, which they did. Japan ignored this and promptly left the League of Nations.
The growth of the Japanese military after more invasions of Chinese provinces for resources meant that they gained more power in the government. They used this power to force the government to follow a more aggressive foreign policy, like that of Italy’s and Germany’s. The USSR were feeling continually threatened by Japan, and ordered communist parties to join with other political parties to help stop the spread of Fascism. In China, the communists joined up with the Nationalists, who wanted to drive the Japanese out of North China. In response to this, Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Germany, which brought them closer together, and took Japan further from the Western Powers. At the beginning of WWII, Japan weren’t on either side, because they still had relations with America, Britain and Germany. This meant that they couldn’t fight for just one side. With all of the resources that Japan had captured from China they were now in a very strong position and would be a valuable ally and a dangerous enemy. As it happened, Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy in 1940 and so completely severed their relations with Britain and America. Japan didn’t do a lot until they bombed Pearl Harbour in 1941 and brought America into the war. From then on, what had been a European war was now a World War.
Of course, it wasn’t just these three countries that caused the war; there were several other factors that certainly contributed towards the war. Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement towards Germany was one of these factors. There was great speculation about whether Chamberlain was doing the right thing, but when he came back with the Munich Agreement it looked like peace would remain in Europe. Unfortunately, all that the Munich Agreement did was to postpone war, not prevent it. It also gave Hitler a lot of the things that he needed to fight a war; new raw materials, more soldiers, and more factories to build tanks, guns etc. Despite giving in to Hitler there was still going to be a war, and appeasement could never have stopped it. I don’t think appeasement was to blame for the war, because by the time that Chamberlain created this policy, war was almost certain anyway and I don’t think that appeasement changed anything enough to be blamed.
However, the depression played a very big part in the causes of the war. Whilst it wasn’t a direct cause of the war, it was the reason behind other causes. The reason that countries were invading other countries was because the depression had hit their industries so hard that they needed to take over other countries industries to recover. This spelt bad news for smaller countries that bordered large countries. It also meant that any large countries that had treaties with smaller countries might have to fight to protect them if there was a threat of invasion. There were lots of alliances being made during the 1930s because countries were very weak after the depression and by making alliances with other countries it meant they could portray the image of having powerful allies, even though their allies were in exactly the same position. This is how Europe became divided into two camps, because all of the small countries were allying with the larger powers, and they either joined with Britain and France or Germany and Italy.
The failure of the League of Nations was also crucial in the years that led up to the war. By the mid 1930s, the League had failed to keep the peace so many times that there were very few countries who were willing to listen to them. This was demonstrated when Japan invaded China and the League’s advice to cut trade with them was completely ignored. From that point on it was clear that the League of Nations had absolutely no power to keep the peace, and it was no longer a threat to Hitler. Had the League acted correctly over disputes in the 1920s then it would have had more respect in the 1930s and may have been able to stop the war. There were places where the League succeeded in keeping peace, but because they were minor in relation to disputes such as the Abyssinian crisis and the Corfu incident, they weren’t paid any attention. I believe that the League of Nations’ failures did contribute towards the war, and that part of the blame could be placed on the council for not acting when it should have done. The League of Nations was the only way in which Hitler could have been stopped without going to war, but the opportunity to do so was ignored so many times that going to war became the only option.
Overall, I don’t believe that anything or anyone is solely to blame for World War II, but all of the countries are equally to blame, because they all did things that caused the war and they all did things that had no effect on the war. I think the League of Nations played a big part in the causes of World War II, firstly because it did nothing to stop Germany and Italy and secondly because none of the member countries paid any attention to it and just did whatever they felt like. I also believe that it’s not just Germany, Italy and Japan that are to blame. I think that Britain, France and the USSR could also share some of the blame for doing things or not doing things. For example, Britain allowing Germany to build up her navy to 35% of Britain’s. So in conclusion, the blame for WWII can be shared among most of the European powers, as well as the depression, the policy of appeasement and the League of Nations.