The League of Nations was set up to achieve peace by protecting the borders, boundaries and independence of nations and to resolve disputes peacefully. However, right form the start, it had inherent weaknesses. It needed unanimous decisions to employ sanctions, and had a weak membership due to more powerful nations such as America and Russia not joining. This meant it couldn’t successfully carry out sanctions, and lacked authority. This lack of power within the League also meant that it didn’t have enough strength to produce an army to carry out military action or act as a deterrent for would-be aggressors. Also, there were secret treaties (e.g. the Locarno Pact, or the Kellogg-Briand Pact) between member nations to settle disputes peacefully, thereby effectively rendering the League useless. This meant that aggressive nations could take advantage and not get punished, and led to nations within the league becoming more forceful. Such instances included Japan in Manchuria, which later inspired Mussolini’s Italy in Abyssinia. This may have contributed to war, because the weakness of the League allowed nations to get away with being aggressive and encouraged them to get their way by force, thus reasoning for war.
Also, many of the nations were pushed to aggressive foreign policies due to the Great Depression. This occurred after the Wall Street Crash in 1929, and affected the whole world. Inflation rose rapidly as did unemployment, and people turned to nationalist and fascist government to sort out their problems. Countries looked out for themselves, and their governments employed aggressive foreign policies, hoping that military conflict could sort out their social and demographic problems and deviate attention from economics difficulties.
One of the Fascist leaders that came to power at this time was Adolf Hitler. He took power of Germany in 1933, and set about with his foreign policy, which he outlined in his book, ‘Mein Kampf’. He felt passionately that, even though Austrian, Germany had been treated unfairly at Versailles. His ambitions were to tear up the Treaty of Versailles by creating the forbidden Anschluss with Austria, attain Lebensraum (living space for the German people) and create a Third Reich by uniting all German speaking people. This he did, by remilitarising the Rhineland in March 1936, occupying Austria in March 1938 and taking over the Sudetenland in October 1938, whilst developing his military strength by increasing his navy, air force and army.
At the same time Britain and France were employing a policy of appeasement. Britain and France believed that Germany had genuine grievances with the Treaty of Versailles. The memory of the First World War was still around and they felt it essential to avoid a war at all costs, and if war, for which Britain was totally unprepared for, was to occur appeasement would give Britain time to get ready. Also, Britain and France hoped that a strong Germany would keep Communist Russia at bay, and allowed Germany to have a naval fleet 35% the size of its own. Britain and France allowed Germany to fulfil its ambitions in Europe, by allowing it to re-arm and union with Austria, hoping it would be content with its lot. In 1938 at the Munich Conference Neville Chamberlain, signed over the Sudetenland to Germany, declaring it ‘Peace for our time,’ believing Hitler had no more territorial ambitions in Europe. This only encouraged Hitler more, whose next target was Poland, since Britain and France were backing off him and he felt he could get away with anything, convinced that Britain and France would remain passive once again.
At the same time Russia, an ally with Britain and France was losing faith in them. It felt that Britain and France would never fight and in an attempt to secure its safety, it signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact in 1939 with Germany. It was a treaty of non-aggression between Germany and Russia, who secretly agreed to invade Poland and carve it up between them. The Nazi-Soviet pact contributed to the outbreak of WW2 in the fact that it removed the threat of a war on two fronts for Hitler, as before he would not dare invade Poland, because this would mean fighting France and Britain on a western front and Russia in the east.
All the above points had a great effect upon the outbreak of war. The Treaty of Versailles set in motion the slow drive to war. Even though drawn up to create peace, it ended up creating even more unrest, by punishing Germany too hard and leaving it feeling bitter and aggrieved. The League of Nations was designed to prevent war, but its inherent weaknesses allowed aggressor to take advantage, another step in the drive to war. The Wall Street Crash made countries turn inward-looking and nationalistic, and made them turn to aggression in an attempt to remove their problems, and were allowed to do so by the weak League. Hitler arose from this turmoil, and his radical foreign policy was key in the outbreak of war because his aggression was not stopped by the appeasement of Britain and France. This allowed Hitler to do what he thought he wanted, and by signing the Nazi-Soviet pact with Russia, removed the threat of a two-front war which enabled him to invade Poland.
Out of these reasons all are important, because they are all linked in some way. However, I believe that the first three are the least important, since by 1938 most of Germany’s grievances had been removed. Reparations were cancelled, disarmament was allowed, the Rhineland was remilitarized, the Anschluss had been made and 3.5million German speaking people were brought into the Third Reich. The events that had proceeded to put Hitler into power had resulted in all of Hitler’s aims being achieved without war. However, Hitler showed he wanted more than he suggested. His all fronted attack upon Poland instead of simply occupying Danzig and the Polish Corridor, for which he had strong claims, demonstrated that he had gone beyond his aims, and had begun taking over the land of non-Germanic people. However, this only occurred due to the appeasement of Britain and France, and the securing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, which also carry some blame. Had appeasement not had been carried out, there would be no desire for Hitler to take over Poland, but had the Nazi-Soviet Pact not occurred, Germany would have not had the chance to invade Poland anyway. I believe that it is these three points are the important reasons to the outbreak of war, with each affecting the other, but in the end, it is the appeasement of Britain and France that is the most important. Their passive attitude allowed Germany to take control of the situation and planted the seeds of conquest in its mind. Allowing it to do what it wanted pushed Russia to sign the Nazi-Soviet Pact allowing Germany to invade Poland which in the end could only end in one thing - war
