Hitler broke another condition of the Treaty of Versailles when he reunited with his former ally Austria. The League depended on Britain and France to provide firm support in times of crisis. Although the Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg asked for help from Britain and France he was refused it. Neither the British nor the French government were prepared to abandon their own self-interest to support the League.
The League was set up for failure from the beginning, without the USA they were basically useless, and they failed to accomplish most of their aims: to discourage aggression from any nation, to encourage nations to disarm. But it was also the effect of events that occurred during the presence of the league that helped Hitler to achieve what he did.
In 1929 the American Wall Street Crash started a long economic depression which caused economic problems throughout the world and damaged trade and industry of all countries. It also affected the relations between countries. In 1931 the depression hit Japan badly and both China and the USA had put up trade barriers against Japanese goods. The Japanese economy was in crisis and without trade Japan could not feed its people. Army leaders in Japan wanted to build the Japanese empire, by force. Hitler also wanted to build his empire and from watching how the Japanese invaded Manchuria and took it by force, Hitler also stated that he was ready to fight for the Sudetenland and began demanding back the former German territories .
An incident in 1931 in Manchuria gave the Japanese the opportunity they wanted. They claimed that the Chinese had sabotaged the railway and in retaliation they overran Manchuria and threw out all Chinese forces. When China appealed to the League, Japan stated that they were not invading as an aggressor but merely settling a local difficulty. Following their example Hitler did the same thing, when he used the agreement between the USSR and France to claim that Germany was under threat and that he should be allowed to place troops on his own frontier. And also when he claimed that the Czechs were mistreating the Germans in the Sudetenland and he intended to rescue them. By using these petty excuses Hitler was able to get what he wanted just like the Japanese had in China.
When the Japanese pulled out of the League of Nations it was like a warning to the League that they were not afraid to start a war. Banning arms sales to Japan were discussed but they were worried that Japan would retaliate and the war would escalade. Britain and France did not want to risk their navies or armies in a war with Japan and only the USA and the USSR had the resources from Japan but they were not members of the League. Hitler knew that Britain and France would not retaliate against him because they did not want to risk their armies, this made it easier for him to take the risks he took.
Disarmament was a big issue in Germany. Many Germans were still angry about the fact that they had been forced to disarm after the First World War while the other countries had not done the same. This is what forced Hitler to want to disarm because he felt that since the other countries had not been made to disarm then they didn’t have to either.
In 1932 an agreement was finally made to treat Germany equally. But when Hitler became Chancellor he secretly began rearming Germany. Hitler had already made it clear that rearmament was one of his major aims. If Hitler began rearming he knew the German people supported rearmament and it would boost Nazi support. Following Japans example and withdrawing from the League of Nations, He held a massive rally celebrating the German armed forces. This created alarm in other countries. But in 1936 he reintroduced conscription to the army. Although he was breaking the terms of the treaty he got away with it. Hitler figured many other countries were using rearmament to fight unemployment, and the collapse of the League of Nations Disarmament Conference in 1934 showed that other countries were not ready to disarm.
The last fatal blow to the league was Mussolini’s invasion of Abyssinia (now known as Ethiopia) in 1935. After a dispute between Italian and Ethiopian soldiers at the Wal-Wal oasis in Abyssinia, Mussolini took this as his cue and claimed that this was actually Italian territory. Hitler also wanted to get the territory taken back from him by the Treaty of Versailles.
The British and the French played for time instead of dealing with the problem. They did not want to start a war and they did not want to anger Mussolini either. When the League put forward a plan to give Mussolini some of Abyssinia, he rejected it. In 1936 Mussolini launched a full- scale invasion of Abyssinia. In 1938 when the same scenario happened with Hitler and the Sudetenland, He was given what he wanted. Most probably the French and the British were trying to avoid the same events that had happened with Mussolini.
In 1936 Hitler marched his troops into the Rhineland, this move was perfectly timed. The League watched on helplessly. And if they wanted the support of the Italians then they needed to give Mussolini what he wanted but they were too late because in November 1936 Hitler and Mussolini signed an agreement of their own called the Rome- Berlin axis. The League was too late because Mussolini had been an important ally against Hitler.
Hitler had luck on his side, he probably was not the ‘genius’ we think he is. He just had the perfect timing and he knew from past events what the risks were and how he should act to get what he wanted. Basically he had learnt from the others mistakes and he had studied the weaknesses of the league well. The Abyssinian crisis, the failure of disarmament, the Manchurian crisis and the failure of the League just made Hitler’s Job even easier. The league was so weak, he could basically just walk all over them and demand what he wanted or threaten them with war, this led to Britain and France following a policy of Appeasement . So it really makes u think, was Hitler just a lucky man who knew how to captivate the people and make everyone believe that he was the answer to their problems? Or was Hitler really the greatest mastermind of his time?
