Why did war break out in Europe in 1939?The Treaty of Versailles, signed between the big three, on June 28th,1919 solved nothing and it made the first step

Italy but nothing that would slow their war efforts. Theydid not close the Suez Canal or place an oil sanction that would havestopped Italy, for their own purposes. The more the League failed, theless people trusted it. Hitler saw all of these and became convincedthat the League would do nothing to stop him either. If the League hadprevented the first cases aggression, war might have been prevented.When Hitler came to power in 1933, his aim was to make a Germany agreat country again. He promised his people that he will tear up theTreaty of Versailles, reunite all German speaking people, to giveGermany more Lebensraum which will provide more lands and rawmaterials.To achieve his ambition, his first objective was to rearm Germany. Hitler began to build up his armed forces. In 1935 he reintroducedconscription. This broke the Treaty of Versailles, but Britain andFrance let him get away with it. Britain, France and Italy signed theStresa Front agreement but they took no military actions. Britain feltsympathy for Germany, many politicians thought it was an unfair treatyand felt that German ought to be able to defend itself. It even signedthe Anglo-German Naval Agreement, to allow the Germans to build a navyup to 35% in size of Britain’s. France would not go to war for therearmament of Germany without Britain’s assist and used this as areason to build the Maginot Line.His next objective was to remilitarize the Rhineland and here he tooka big gamble. In 1936 whilst the British and French were dealing withMussolini, Hitler took the opportunity and moved his troops into theRhineland. Once again his has broken the Treaty of Versailles. Heclaimed that Germany is intimidated by the recent alliance betweenFrance and the USSR and he was doing this to protect himself from aFranco-Russo Invasion. At that time Germany was still weak andunconfident, there were orders to retreat if there is any resistance.If France had attacked at that time, the Second World War might havebeen averted.Last time Hitler tried to take over Austria Mussolini opposed, butthis time they are allies. Austrian Fascists wanted to unite withGermany but Schuschnigg, the Austrian Chancellor, wanted Austria to beindependent. under the Nazi troops, a plebscit was held and 99.75%voted for Anschluss. In 1938, Hitler took over Austria, while Britainand France turned a blind eye.His next objective was the Sudetenland which were given toCzechoslovakia. Another piece of land where mainly German speakingpeople lived under, a perfect excuse for Hitler to take over. Thepolicy of appeament was tested to the limit here. Hilter demanded thathe was only interested in parts of the Sudetenland, following theappeasment, Britain and France gave in. 3 days later, he demanded allthe Sudetenland and claimed that the Czech’s government weremistreating them. With Mossolini’s help, the Munich Aggrement wassigned between Hitler, Mussolini, Chamberlain and Daladier withouteven consulting the Czech’s Prime Minister, Benes. So far Hitler hadonly taken German speaking territory, so Chamberlain could stillappease Hitler. However, six monthes later, Hitler threatened to bombPrague, so the Czechs surrendered and he took over the rest of thecoountry. Chamberlain realised appeasement had failed, so he began torearm Britain and guarantee peace in Poland.The appeasment had failed. It had only encouraged Hitler to be moreaggressive and dared him to go further and further untile the end hewent too far. This is a important cause of the war because it had makeHitler think that he could take what ever land he wanted becauseFrance and Britain weren’t stopping him. In 1936 he was stillvulnerable when he ordered the remilitarisation of the Rhineland. Butby 1939 he possessed the finest army in the world and he had destroyedthe two countries, Poland and Czechoslovakia, which were created toprevent German expansion in 1919. Neville Chamberlain followed thepolicy of appeasement, in hope that Hitler will stop his aggressivepolicy once he torn apart the Treaty of Versailles, by putting toomuch trust in Hitler’s promises. But Chamberlain did have his reasonsto follow this policy of appeasement. It gave the people time torealize the only solution to end the aggression, is war. It alsoallowed time for him to rearm his forces.Hitler’s next objective was, of course, the Polish Corridor, whichused to be a strip of German’s land. He was confident that Britainand France wouldn’t go to war over this and was less certain aboutStalin’s USSR. Hitler hated Communism and hoped to extend his empireinto Soviet territory. But he knew that he would never win a war ontwo fronts. So Hitler and Stalin signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact that theywill not attack each other and secretly agreed to divide Polandbetween them. This gave Stalin time to build up his force andstrengthen his defense. It also expanded their empire and would giveStalin more power. Hitler would also gain more land, but moreimportantly he would have removed both Czechoslovakia and Poland asthreats on the German border. This would leave France vulnerable toGerman invasion, because they would have no allies to force theGermans to fight on multiple fronts. This event did not cause the waras Hitler would attack Poland sooner or later even without theguaranty, but it did make it more inevitable. It also made France andBritain recognize that Hitler wanted to take control of Eastern Europeand only they could prevent him from doing so. If they did not actsoon would he turn upon Western Europe once he had taken over theeast.German tanks invaded West Prussia and Posen on the 1st September 1939using blitzkrieg tactics. Chamberlain sent an ultimatum warning sayingthat if Hitler did not withdraw from Poland by 11am, 3rd September1939, Britain would declare war. Hitler took no notice, on 3rdSeptember, Britain, followed by France, declared war on Germany andthe Second World War broke out.Although it was Hitler’s actions which led to war, many other factorswere important in making the war happen. Hitler had no real plans, hewas a big gambler and he took opportunities. If the League had beenstrong, or if Britain and France did not follow the policy ofappeasement, they could have stopped Hitler at the beginning before hewent a step too far, when Germany was still weak. It was during theGreat Depression that allowed Hitler and the Nazi Party to rise.Germany was recovering rapidly fast and was stabilizing underStresserman’s government. He had negotiated the Dawes Plan to helpwith Germany’s reparation payments; the Locarno treaty then the YoungPlan which further helped the international relationships. Then theWall Street Crash in America hit Germany extremely hard because it hadlarge numbers of US loans which were not renewed. The economicproblems in Germany made it unstable and led to the polarization ofpolitics. Hitler grabbed this opportunity and came to power byconvincing Germans that he will make Germany a great nation onceagain. He blamed all of the problems in Germany on the Treaty ofVersailles which they had been forced to sign, and also on other races(especially Jews); his solution was to wipe out all but his “masterrace”. So the people voted for the Nazis (National Socialist GermanWorkers Party) as it was the only alternative people believed theyhad. Japan invaded China as its own industry collapsed and Mussolinitried to build an oversea empire. It was the Great Depression that letto aggressive nationalism in Germany, Italy, Japan and the democraticpowers failed to stop the aggression.