What Were the Reasons For the Outbreak of the Second World War?
What were the reasons for the outbreak of the Second World War?
One of the most important reasons for the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 was the Treaty of Versailles. This was because the Germans felt humiliated by the conditions placed on them. The German people saw their country as a powerful state, which demanded respect. The military restrictions placed upon them by the Treaty cut their army and navy and abolished their air force. This effectively removed the power they thought they commanded. The shock of this was magnified by the German leaders pretending that their forces were winning, right up to the last few weeks. This was easy because news was almost non-existent from the front line, and any that did leak through was heavily censored. The Treaty also cut the German territory by 13%, losing with that 10% of the population. On top of all this, the Germans were forced to accept full responsibility for the outbreak of war, and to pay £6600 million in reparations. The Germans were absolutely furious with the constraints placed upon them because they had agreed to the armistice, thinking that the Treaty would be based on Woodrow Wilson's 14 Points, which the Germans felt were more reasonable. Opponents to the Treaty were to argue that as the German people had not had a say in the composition of the Treaty, they were under no obligation to abide by it. So, when Hitler and the Nazi Party appeared on the scene, promising the abolition of the Treaty of Versailles, support was widespread and huge.
Another long-term cause for the war was the weakness of the League of Nations. It was immediately set back by the failure of the USA to sign, meaning it lacked America's huge economic and military clout. These underlying weaknesses were shown up by two major events: The Failure in Manchuria, and the Invasion of Abyssinia by Italy. In Manchuria, the League was put in a difficult situation. The Japanese had longstanding economic rights in Manchuria, but China appealed for help and the League had to respond. They ordered Japanese forces to withdraw, but were ignored. There was very little they could do if they were being ignored, and they had been exposed as being powerless to intervene if the offending nation was determined enough. After the League commissioned the Lytton Report, Japan simply ignored the report and left the League. However, despite the severity of the situation, the events did not damage the League immensely. They had taken place in Eastern Asia, not in Europe. The League's supporters believed that if a similar situation arose in Europe, the League would be able to cope with it. This was almost immediately put to the test, as in October 1935 Italy invaded the North African state of Abyssinia. As Abyssinia bordered Eritrea and Somaliland, both Italian colonies, it was an easy target for the new Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. By 1935, tension had peaked and the war seemed inevitable, leaving the League once again in a difficult situation. If Italy invaded, which they almost certainly would, the League would have to take action, but both Italy and Abyssinia were members, which left the League wondering what to do. Italy invaded in October 1935 and the League failed to stop it. Abyssinia did not have a chance against the comparatively space aged forces of Italy. Mussolini's own son, a pilot in the Italian Air Force, said, "The bombing was magnificent sport. One group of Abyssinian horsemen gave me the impression of a budding rose unfolding as the bomb fell into their midst." After 8 months of war, on June 30th 1936, the Abyssinian Emperor Haile Selassie fled his country and addressed the League of Nations at the Assembly, complaining about the lack of support from the other member nations. The speech effectively disbanded the League, marking its demise as a respected international organisation. Once this happened, there was no ruling body, and no cohesion between the countries throughout the world. Therefore, a second World War was, eventually, inevitable.
The last major long term cause was Hitler coming to power in 1933. As I explained in my first paragraph, the German people and leaders were outraged at the terms of the Treaty Of Versailles. Hitler's Nazi Party were promising to dispose of the Treaty as early as 1920, and when he finally came to power, he proceeded to do so. He left the League of Nations, reintroduced conscription, built a military air force, and most importantly, he reoccupied the Rhineland, the consequences of which will be explained in the next section. However, another very important event instigated ...
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The last major long term cause was Hitler coming to power in 1933. As I explained in my first paragraph, the German people and leaders were outraged at the terms of the Treaty Of Versailles. Hitler's Nazi Party were promising to dispose of the Treaty as early as 1920, and when he finally came to power, he proceeded to do so. He left the League of Nations, reintroduced conscription, built a military air force, and most importantly, he reoccupied the Rhineland, the consequences of which will be explained in the next section. However, another very important event instigated by Hitler was the Anschluss. Hitler himself was of course Austrian, and he had promised to unite all German-speaking peoples in a Greater Germany. In 1934, the Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss was murdered in an attempted invasion, halted by Mussolini's threat of Italian and Yugoslavian intervention. However, in 1934, Mussolini told the new Chancellor Kurt Schussnigg that Austria would not always have Italy's support in the future. The second attempt at the Anschluss started in 1938, when Schussnigg met with Hitler, and agreed to introduce Nazi ministers into the Austrian Cabinet. These included Arthur Seyss-Inquart, who became Minister for the Interior. On March 11th, Hitler demanded Seyss-Inquart to be instated as Chancellor, so that he could request the assistance of Germany in returning order to Austria. Seyss-Inquart was named Chancellor at 8.00pm that day, and Germany invaded the next. Mussolini did not interfere this time round, as since the Rome-Berlin Axis Agreement in 1936, himself and Hitler had been more closely connected, and without Italy's protection, Austria was doomed. The Anschluss had happened, directly disobeying the Treaty of Versailles, but Britain and France did not react quickly enough to put up any real opposition.
As I mentioned earlier, in his attempts to destroy the Treaty of Versailles, Hitler reoccupied the Rhineland, the first short term cause of the Second World War. Under the territorial terms of the Treaty, the Rhineland was to be permanently demilitarised by Germany, and would be occupied by Allied Forces for 15 years. In 1935, the time came for Allied Forces to be withdrawn. On March 7th 1936, Hitler denounced the Locarno Pacts and reoccupied the Rhineland. When Britain and France did not take any action, Hitler was convinced that they would not take action against any further aggression. France would not act without at least Britain's support, and Britain's leaders saw no reason to attempt to stop Germany and risk another war. This mood was summed up by one politician saying it was only Germany "going into their backyard". Hitler felt he had to reoccupy the Rhineland, as it left Germany vulnerable to attack for the west. Hitler knew he was taking a huge risk remilitarising the area. The armed forces were far from a combat-ready level, and he really had no real idea how the Allied Forces and the League of Nations would react. He himself commented after that "the forty-eight hours after the march into the Rhineland were the most nerve racking of my life. If the French had opposed us we would have had to withdraw. Our forces were not strong enough even to put up a moderate resistance." But when no resistance was forthcoming, Hitler saw he had used force, and no one had tried to stop him.
The second short term cause the policy of appeasement. This was the slightly odd ideal that meeting their demands could pacify the dictators. This was, looking back on it, a very serious mistake and it merely encouraged them to make even more demands.
Appeasement is often linked to the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. However, it was widely agreed in British political circles by as early as 1930 that the Treaty of Versailles could not be totally upheld, therefore it was imperative that an agreement with Hitler was made to pacify Germany for the foreseeable future. There were arguments for appeasement. For example, the British public accepted that the Treaty was too harsh. They also wanted to find peaceful solutions to Germanys problems, but the most important argument for appeasement was the simple fact that Britain could not fight Germany. They were just not ready. The re-armament program was not introduced until 1936, and was not expected to be completed until 1940. When the Czechoslovakian Crisis arose in 1938 (explained as the next major short term cause in the next paragraph), Britain needed more time to rearm, and by giving into Hitler at Munich, they bought themselves another year before war broke out, and they were (just) ready for Germany. However well appeasement worked as a quick fix solution, it did not work even in the short term. To start with, the leaders at Munich in 1938 totally misjudged Hitler. They treated him as a respectable, balanced and judicial politician. By the time they could see that this was obviously not the case, it was too late. Also, if the appeasers had not been so busy looking to give Hitler what he was after, they might have seen some of the excellent chances to stop him that passed them by. As I mentioned earlier on, Hitler had known that if there was any British or French military presence in the Rhineland, then his forces would not have a chance. And in Munich in 1938, the Allies deserted Czechoslovakia who, with a little help, could have put up a substantial resistance to a German invasion. There was another slightly weaker but equally as viable argument that appeasement was simply morally wrong. Britain and France allowed Germany to break international agreements, and they abandoned Czechoslovakia in return for Hitler's meaningless promises. Overall, appeasement only served to increase the chances of a Second World War.
The final short-term cause is the Czechoslovakian Crisis, which I briefly mentioned earlier. Once Hitler had completed the Anschluss in March 1938, his target was to be Czechoslovakia. The alliance he had achieved with Austria meant that Germany literally surrounded western Czechoslovakia. It was crucial for Hitler to conquer Czechoslovakia, as it would make a successful German offensive in the West impossible. With Czechoslovakia's territory thrusting deeply into Germany, it would be a very real threat, as it had a modern and well-armed army. It did have one weakness though. Of the large number of ethnic minorities that made up Czechoslovakia's population, there were 3.5 million ethnic Germans living in the area along the Czech-German border known as the Sudetenland. Hitler's plan was to utilise the Sudeten Germans to kick up trouble. The Czechs knew that they couldn't surrender the Sudetenland as all of their frontier defences against Germany were stationed there, and if they were to hand it over, Hitler would have access to the rest of Czechoslovakia whenever he wanted. This meant that war between Germany and Czechoslovakia looked very likely. If this were to happen, then France and most likely Britain as well would aid Czechoslovakia. But neither country wanted to fight Germany. On September 12th 1938, Hitler demanded self-government for all German-speaking Czechs in the Sudetenland. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had seen this coming and had already formulated a plan (which he called Plan Z). This plan was as soon as Hitler tried to seize the Sudetenland, Chamberlain would meet him face to face and sort it out. On September 15th, he flew to Berchtesgaden to meet Hitler. Hitler made it clear to Chamberlain that he would only be satisfied when the Sudetenland was handed to Germany. Chamberlain told Hitler that he had objection to this as long as it was done peacefully. Once Chamberlain returned to Britain, he travelled to Paris and persuaded the French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier to support him in his actions. A week later, after forcing the Czechs to agree to the transfer of the Sudetenland, Chamberlain travelled to Germany, this time to Bad Godesberg, to meet with Hitler again. However, Hitler had revised his demands, and now wanted the transfer to take place by October 1st, and for claims on Czech territory by Poland and Hungary be met. If theses conditions were not met by October 1st, Hitler promised to invade Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain was now desperate to find any solution that could possibly avoid another European War. Benito Mussolini suggested a four-way conference, and Chamberlain, Daladier and Hitler agreed to attend. Hitler could see that he might be able to achieve his aims without going to war. The meeting started September 29th, in Munich, and all four leaders signed a pact, agreeing to Hitler's terms from Bad Godesberg. It also included the stipulation that Czechoslovakia's new borders were guaranteed by the four present powers. Chamberlain and Daladier could no claim to have saved Czechoslovakia from invasion and Europe from war. It was saved from invasion (for the time being), but it lost a lot, lot more. In total, 11,000² miles were lost. With that, every Czech fortification, 66% of its coal, 86% percent of its chemicals, 70% of its electrical power and nearly half of its timber. What's more, Czechoslovakia was never even consulted on the Munich Agreement, and was forced to agree.
Two days after the original agreement, Chamberlain and Hitler met again and signed the Anglo-German Declaration, stating that the two countries would never go to war again, and would sort out problems by discussion. It was a copy of this agreement that Chamberlain waved at the crowds when he made his (in)famous "Peace in our time" speech.
Meanwhile, Czechoslovakia was being destroyed from the inside. The enmity between the Czechs and the Slovaks was increasing, and with such a large chunk of its assets claimed by Germany, they were totally incapable of defending themselves. In March 1939, Hitler had his armies invade two parts of Czechoslovakia that had been protected by the agreement at Munich; Bohemia and Moravia. With Hungary taking another region (Ruthenia), Czechoslovakia no longer existed.
On March 23rd 1939 Hitler occupied Memel in Lithuania. Everyone could see now that appeasement had failed. Czechoslovakia had been destroyed, and Europe was sliding closer and closer to the pit of war.
In the next paragraph, I will explain the final spark that finally kicked the war off. This is widely regarded to be the Nazi-Soviet Pact, which led to the invasion of Poland. This pact was very unexpected in the West. Fascist Germany and the Communist Soviet Union should have been the most acrimonious of enemies and now they were signing agreements not to fight each other. It was signed August 23rd 1939 by the respective foreign ministers of each country, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov. On the face of it, the pact seemed like a simple non-aggression pact, but it contained several hidden clauses. The Soviet Union agreed not to interfere when Hitler invaded Poland, and to let him have a free hand in Western Europe. In return, Hitler would allow Stalin to occupy eastern Poland and would not interfere if he wanted to occupy the Baltic States and Finland.
The pact had left Britain and France initially on their own. Hitler couldn't believe they would go to war over Poland, but his resolve was definitely shaken by the signing of the Protection Agreement between Poland and Britain on August 25th 1939. Britain and France would not be able to back out of this as they had done with Czechoslovakia. If they did so, they would no longer be considered major world powers. This alliance did not really change a lot though, and Hitler had recomposed himself after a couple of days, and on September 01st he ordered the invasion of Poland. Britain and France ordered Hitler to call off the attack. Of course Hitler refused and the Allies declared war on September 03rd 1939. It took only 3 weeks for Hitler's armies to claim Poland as their own, and two weeks into the offensive, the Soviets invaded Poland from the East, as well as occupying Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. This was the single most important cause for the Second World War. Britain and France did not want to fight, they wanted to negotiate. Poland had seen what had happened to Czechoslovakia through negotiating and didn't want to go the same way. Britain and France had to honour the agreement with Poland, for their own benefit as much as anything else, so war had become inevitable.
