Road to World War 2: Key Dates & Appeasement

• End of the War and Manhattan Project is not on the Test

Key Dates

• The Beer Hall Putsch occurred on November 8th, 1923
• Hitler became Chancellor of Germany on January 30th, 1933
• Hitler united the roles of Chancellor and President after the President of Germany died in August 1934
  • This created the title of “Fuhrer,” making Hitler the absolute dictator of Germany
• The Reichstag Fire occurred on February 27th, 1933
• Kristallnacht occurred on November 9th, 1938
• The Annexation of Austria (Anschluss) occurred on March 13th, 1938
• Germans invaded Poland on September 1st, 1938
• Great Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 3rd, 1939
• Canada declared war on Germany on September 10th, 1939

Appeasement and the Road to War

• Appeasement involves giving in to someone else's demands hoping to satisfy them
• One general cause of WW2 was that many issues from WW1 were not resolved
• Hitler saw certain other countries being very aggressive
• The League of Nations was an organization made up of representative countries
  • Their goal was to resolve international conflict
• On March 7th, 1935, Hitler sent troops into the Rhineland
• The Access powers were Germany, Italy, and Japan
• On September 1st, 1939, the Nazis invaded Poland, starting WW2

Major Battles of WW2: The Lighting War: 1939 - 1940

• Great Britain issued an ultimatum, which was rejected with Great Britain and France declaring war on Germany
• The Nazis declared war on September 3rd, 1989
• Canada had the ability to decide for themselves whether or not to go to war after Britain declared war
• There was widespread support from the people and politicians to go to war
• Canada went to war on September 10th, 1939
• Germany crushed Poland, forcing them to surrender
• The Germans used a strategy called “Blitzkrieg” (Lighting war) which was a rapid aggressive attack from the air and the ground
• Luftwaffe was the German Air Force
• Using this revolutionary strategy, Germany blitzed their way to Europe
• In the spring of 1940, the Germans invaded Denmark and Norway, and they fell very quickly
  • They then attacked Netherlands and Belgium
• During the 1930s, the French built up defenses along the Maginot Line
• They believed that these defenders would prevent the Germans from attacking them along this border if the Germans were to attack again
• It forced the Germans to attack through Belgium, like they did in WW1, which the French believed would keep the fighting out of French territory
• The plan was unsuccessful and French were defeated by the Nazis in 6 weeks
• This meant that Hitler and the Nazis controlled all of mainland Europe, with the exception of countries like Spain and Switzerland
• On June 22nd, 1940, France signed an armistice with Germany, allowing the Nazis to occupy about half of French territory while leaving the other half "Independent”
• They adopted a policy of collaboration with the Nazis and adopt many Nazi policies
• France kept half of the country to germany, and kept a france for themselves under the Vichy government
• Vichy maintains control of their colonies

The Different War Fronts

• Eastern Front
• Western Front (European Theatre)
• Mediterranean/ North Africa theater
• Pacific Theatre

The Battle of Dunkirk

• Occurred May 26th - June 4th 1940
• Dunkirk: Small town on the coast of France
• There were 338,000 British and other allied troops were forced to evacuate from Dunkirk to Great Britain as German forces started to close in on them
• Known as the "Miracle of Dunkirk"
• On the evening of May 26th, the British began the evacuation from Dunkirk called "Operations Dynamo”
• The operation predicted a rescue of 45, 000 at most but by the end of it ended approximately 198 000 British troops were evacuated
• 140,000 troops evacuated with 90 000 were left behind

The Battle of Britain

• Occurred between July and October 1940
• Major air campaign fought largely over southern England
• Germany planned to gain air superiority
• GB (Great Britain) had radar
• Germany thought Great Britain would surrender easily, but they didn't

Canada Gears up for War

• On September 9th, 1939, Canada officially declared war on all the access powers and mobilization began
• Canada had greater autonomy and independence when this war began
• More people agreed with this war than WW1
• Because Canadians saw what was happening in Europe (Fascism rising)
• The first Canadian troop started arriving in Britain near the end of December 1930
• Before May 40, there was a "Phony war”
• As WW2 began, Canada only made 40 planes a year and basically had no munition plants
• By the end of the war, Canada produced over 16,000 crafts, which forced Canada to boost munition production
• It forced Canada to build up their weapon production
• Canada's aircrafting manufacturing was 4th largest in the country
• Canada again had a victory bond campaign and income tax was increased
• The King also increased economic controls to try and ensure that the people were not devastated after the war, like in WW1
• Rationing was introduced and goods could not increase in price, in order to appeal to Canadians' emotions

WW2 on the Home Front:

• Britain had Food and Clothing rationing and was in short supply
  • It caused fear, injury, death, and destruction
  • Families were often separated due to evacuation and fathers going away to fight
  • In 8 months of attacks, 43,000 civilians were killed
  • Half of Britain's total civilian deaths were for all of WW2
  • One of every 6 Londoners was made homeless at some point during the Blitz, which was a period of 8 months where Germans attacked from the land and air endlessly
  • 1.1 million Houses were destroyed

Canada

• Towns and cities busted with activity as factories converted to round the clock production of military equipment
• Canadian seaports and coastal airports were extremely busy
• Anybody to old or to young would join either the student cadet corps and some would be in the reserved military unites to carry out evening and weekend service
• Most community groups and religious faiths performs volunteer work by knitting warm clothes
• Canadian children went to school with more than 7 000 British children who had been evacuated from Britain to Canada, most of them in 1940 amid hears of German invasion
  • These were called "Guessed Children"
• Canadians of German or Italian descent were teased, taunted, or assaulted
• Canadian families dealt with shortages or sugar, meat, butter, and gasoline
• Rationing coupons were issued to provide a fair share
• Japanese Canadians were treated the worst
• There were housing shortages, so working class families had to double up in homes or live in garages, basements, or attics
• People thought German and Italian descents might be spies because of WW1

Japanese Internment

• Beginning in early 1942, the Canadian government detained and disposed more than 90% of Japanese Canadians, with some 21 000 people living in BC
• The War Measures Act was a series of laws that were put in place curing emergencies that allowed the Canadian government to take away people's rights
• On December 7th, 1941, Japan attacks Pearl Harbor and Hong Kong where Canadian troops were stationed
• In 1988, Prime Minister Brian Murphy apologized on behalf of the Canadian government for the wrong it committed against Japanese Canadians
• During the Japanese Internment, Japanese people were put in camps
  • They had to leave their homes because of the War measures act
  • Around 21 000 Japanese Canadians were forcibly taken from their homes
  • In March 1941, Japanese Canadians were forced to register with the government effectively declaring them enemy aliens
  • Japanese men were removed from the British Columbia coast and moved to camps
  • 60% of the men had to leave who were Canadian born
  • They made it legal to evict Japanese men from there home by 1942 and all Japanese were moved from the west coast
• Japan was aggressively attacking China before WW2, starting at 1931 and continuing to 1937
• The US watched Japan's aggressive behavior and didn't like it, so the punished Japan and bombed them (Pearl Harbor)
• The reason Japan attacked Pearl Harbor is because they wanted to ruin the US Navy ability and stop the US, so Japan can continue expanding
• The attack was 75 minutes and killed around 2100 Americans
• On December 8, 1941, America declared war
• Japanese used Kamikaze Warfare Tactic
  • In the Kamikaze Warfare Tactic, pilot's deliberately crashed their planes into allied warships
  • The pilots were purposely crashing a plane to kill others
  • More than 3000 Japanese pilots were killed using this tactic, and there were more than 7000 allied casualties from this tactic
• After the Nazi surrender in 1945, the allies were able to turn their full attention to the pacific
• Japan didn't surrender, even after the Nazi's surrendered in 1945
• On July 26th, 1945, President Truman issued the Potsdam declaration
• Japan was asked to surrender or face "prompt and utter annihilation" but Japan wouldn't surrender, so USA planted 2 nuclear bombs