Why did war break out in 1939?

WHY DID WAR BREAK OUT IN 1939?

World War II began when Hitler, Germany’s leader invaded Poland. This war involved many countries from around Europe and all blamed Hitler for the start of the war. On the 1st of September Adolf Hitler’s Germany invaded Poland taking thousands of troops on horseback and on foot to try and take over the land around Poland and rule what went on. Not knowing Britain and France had a treaty with Poland this brought in the two countries to help defend Poland from Germany.

In 1933 the German people voted for Hitler as he promised he would make Germany great again.

Hitler realised after the Abyssinian war that if Italy could get away with invading Abyssinia then Germany should be allowed to get away with invading Poland. Hitler thought that Jews were bad strange people, so when he invaded Poland there were lots of Jews and he destroyed them all. Hitler also invaded Poland for more land, especially in the east to expand Germany. If Germany gained more land over 900,000 people would live there! He said “We must turn our gaze to the land in the east. When we speak of new land we mean Russia and her borders”. Britain and France had a contract with Poland to defend the country if they suddenly got attacked. So on the 3rd of September Britain and France declared war on Germany and helped defend Poland. Russia also came into the war when it declared war on Poland and started to attack Britain and France. The treaty of Versailles told Germany and Austria that they weren’t allowed to unite with each other so Germany had less people to attack Poland. In March 1936 German troops entered the Rhineland because The USSR and France had just signed a mutual assistance treaty, so Germany was surrounded and needed protection. The British didn’t do anything about this and the French would not act alone. This showed that another war was about to begin otherwise neither France and the USSR would have united!

In November 1936 Hitler made alliances with both Italy and Japan.

This is a preview of the whole essay

In November 1936 Hitler made alliances with both Italy and Japan.

March 1938: Hitler sent his army into Austria. Austria became part of Germany. Hitler wanted to restore order in Austria because the Austrian nazi party stirred up fights and demonstrations. Hitler also forced the Austrian leader Schuschnigg to resign; a Nazi replaced him. The Austrians had a vote to see if they wanted to unite with Germany. 99.75 percent said yes! After this Schuschnigg asked Britain, France and Italy for help, but they refused. Hitler announced later on in 1938 that his German army were ready to invade the Sudetenland of the Czech Republic to protect the Germans there. Apparently the Czech republic government was mistreating the three million Germans there. The French had promised to help Czechoslovakia, and began to prepare for war. Chamberlain, the British prime minister, was worried that a war would start if Germany didn’t get their own way, so lots of meetings happened between Hitler, the French and Chamberlain. They all agreed that the Germans got some of the Sudetenland at a meeting in Munich in September 1938. This is called the “Munich agreement”. So as agreed Hitler’s troops marched into the Sudetenland on the 1st of October 1938.

Hitler invaded the rest of the Czech Republic in March 1939 and Britain and France both knew that if Hitler continues he will invade Poland as well.

August 1939: Hitler realises he will need to get the USSR on his side to be able to invade Poland. So he decided to sign the Nazi-soviet pact with Stalin. They agreed not to attack each other. They also secretly divided Poland up between them; a war was about to begin!

In September 1939 Germany invaded Poland, he began to demand the port of Danzig and the “Polish corridor”. On the 3rd of September Britain and France declared war on Germany to help defend Poland. It is now clear that Hitler is the person who started the 2nd world war; he had also broken the terms of the treaty of Versailles.

The Appeasement was a bad thing because firstly Germany got away with re-occupation over the Rhineland also Hitler was allowed to take German bombers into the Spanish civil war! No action was taken over Anschluss and they gave in over Sudetenland in Munich, this made Germany stronger and Hitler knew that Britain and France wouldn’t take any action over anything else he did so that is why he attacked the Czech republic. Chamberlain trusted Hitler over the Sudetenland because Hitler apparently made it clear he didn’t want it, this also helped Hitler realise he would get away with anything. Chamberlain wanted to unite with Russia but Stalin didn’t trust Britain thinking if Hitler invaded Poland Russia would have to help fight with Britain. Then Germany offered half of Poland to Russia so they don’t unite with Britain otherwise Germany would be outnumbered fighting Poland.

I have picked out 8 reasons of what the Appeasement let happen:

Let Hitler grow stronger.
Gave Britain time to re-arm.
Humiliated Britain – no country in central Europe ever trusted Britain again.
Abandoned millions of people to the Nazis.
Caused the war, by encouraging Hitler to think he could do anything.
Gave Britain the morale high ground – when war came, Britons knew they had done everything possible to keep the peace.
Would never have stopped Hitler, who was determined to go to war.
Was a fine attempt to prevent the deaths of millions of people in a war.

Abyssinia was also a major cause of war. Italy attacked Abyssinia in October 1935 and the League of Nations couldn’t do anything about it! The League of Nations was suppose to stop countries invading each other and stops a war from happening, but this wasn’t the case. When Italy got away with the attack Germany knew that they would be able to get away with invading a country. This helped Hitler to decide on war and other countries. The League of Nations didn’t help at all.

The USA helped Britain in World War 2 by giving out supplies, soldiers and bomber ships. The Germans used submarines to fire missiles at the ships that went across the Atlantic Ocean but still Britain’s army got better thanks to the USA’s help. Food was most important in the war and America was happy to help Britain by giving out food supplies. Also Britain’s colonies helped out with supplying Britain with food and soldiers.

I think the most important factor to spark World War 2 was when the League of Nations was formed. This system didn’t work as they only met once a year. Hitler knew that he would be able to attack any country and the League wouldn’t be able to do anything. Had the League of Nations been stronger and stricter Germany wouldn’t have become so strong and this could have prevented a second war from happening.

BY: