Long-Term Causes of World War II PDF

Long-term causes The legacy ofthe First World War It has become popular to see the roots of the Second World War in the unsatisfactory conclusion to the First World War and there is certainly evidence to support this view. With the exception of the US, the victors were themselves near ruin. Germany...

Long-term causes The legacy ofthe First World War It has become popular to see the roots of the Second World War in the unsatisfactory conclusion to the First World War and there is certainly evidence to support this view. With the exception of the US, the victors were themselves near ruin. Germany and the other Central Powers were sliding into chaos and denied a seat at Versailles and with it any meaningful say in the future of their countries. The Nazi Party came to power partially on a promise of reversing the verdict of Versailles and Germany's subsequent military programme had this as one of its key aims. The Bolshevik government in Russia extracted itself from the war only to face three more years of devastating civil war during which she was ostracized from European politics. The commander of the French army, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, recognized that the end of the war brought little stability to Europe when he said at the signing of the treaty of Versailles, "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for 20 years". Insofar as wars are often fought to address issues in international relations, the unsatisfactory outcome of the First World War seems to suggest that at least some of these issues were outstanding for some if not all the combatants. Indeed the victors sought to recreate the conditions of the 1 9th century that had brought them to the commanding positions They enjoyed international politics and economics. Britain eschewed the politics of the continent after Versailles and instead looked to its empire to return it to its former position. It would take part in the League of Nations insofar as it helped to confirm its worldview ­ that it was the natural leader of its empire and this empire should serve first the mother country. For Britain this desire to return to the balance of the 1 9th century also meant a return to the belief that international disputes could be sorted out by discussion and compromise. War as a The tool of diplomacy was to be used as a last resort. Such an approach, however, could no more be expected to resolve issues in the 1 9 30s than it could in 1 9 14. And many of the same issues remained, if in somewhat altered forms. Germany was dissatisfied with its place in European and world politics. Versailles had stripped it of its colonies and these sources of income needed to be replaced, especially in light of the massive public spending that Germany undertook once the Nazis came to power. Nationalism in the Balkans riled Mussolini and the Italians. Nationalism also posed a threat to more established empires such as the British and French. The Soviet Union can be seen as an exception. Russia's position and interests were more of an enigma to the West than it had been in 191 4 and she was certainly not the continental power she had been in 1 9 1 4, although her industrial and thus her military potential was still massive. Between them Britain and France controlled a third of the world by the 1 9 30s and each country saw its empire as vital to its economic health. This was especially true in the years after the stock market crash of 1 929. Of course, it was an advantage denied to Germany, Italy and Japan in 1919. While colonies may have been an economic asset, strategically they could also be a liability, as they had in the years leading up to 1 9 14. While countries may have little to bring them into conflict in Europe - say Britain and France - colonial issues could collide in Africa or Asia thus destabilizing Europe. Protecting such large empires was expensive and in the 1 9 30s neither country could afford to do so adequately. Britain and France were faced with using their limited military to police and defend their empires, thus leaving them only diplomacy to maintain their international interests. If continuity marked western governments' approach to the international situation after the First World War, change was the key word for the attitude of the general population. In contrast to the bellicose attitude of many Europeans in 1914, western Europeans looked on the international situation of the inter-war period with a sense of unease and pacifism. This took many forms, from popular support for official neutrality in the US to student-led peace movements throughout Europe. The legacy of the First World War in western Europe was one of military and diplomatic weakness. This weakness was obscured by the absence of any power to challenge it. The rise of fascism in the 1 920s and 1 9 30s would provide such a power and expose that weakness. Fascism The catastrophe of the First World War convinced many, and confirmed the conviction of others, that political systems based on liberal democracy were incapable of organizing and governing modern states to the benefit of the many. Two ideologies that rejected liberal principles, one from a class perspective and the other from an ultra-nationalist perspective, rose to the fore in the dislocation of the First World War. Fascism, based as it was on ultra-nationalism, had expansionism built into its central tenets. In Italy, Mussolini used theatre and violence to ride socio -economic unrest and parliamentary weakness to power. Part of Mussolini's political theatre was to invoke the grandeur of the Roman Empire with rhetoric and symbols, but with the Great Depression and Mussolini's policy of autarky this rhetoric would take on more substance. The Italian military was expanded as an expression of national strength and virility. Initial forays into the Balkans proved insufficient and in 1935 Italy invaded Abyssinia in a quest for an empire of its own, in the process destabilizing the diplomatic situation in Europe even further. The form that fascism took in Germany was of a kind, but more lethal in its execution. Taking as its premise the racial superiority of Germans and certain social Darwinian concepts, Nazism preached the need for Germany to expand in response to economic and demographic pressures. A belief that Jews and Slavs were inferior provided a racist justification for expansion to the east. The tool of this expansion, or Lebensraum, was to be a massive and modern national military seen, as it was in Italy, as an expression of national strength. Restoration of terrritory also fuelled Nazi ideology. The fact that German-speaking people in Austria, parts of Czechoslovakia and Poland were not part of Germany was anathema to the Nazis' ultra-nationalism. The means and justification for war was built into Nazism. Short-term causes The Great Depression After the First World War it became clear that the only national economy that could in any way claim to be healthy was that of the United States s. Any kind of recovery in the post-war years, therefore, would in some way, shape or form be dependent on the US economy. This proved true with the adoption of the Dawes Plan as a solution to the Ruhr Crisis and attendant economic turmoil. Money in the form of loans and capital flowed from the US to Germany. Reparations in turn flowed from Germany to France and Britain, which then paid back wartime loans to the US. This triangular flow seemed to work at first. The German economy, with its new currency, began to recover in the years 1 9 24-1 929, the so-called Golden Age of the Weimar Republic. After the Wall Street Crash of 1 929, cash-strapped US banks recalled German loans and investors sold German securities, plunging Germany into depression. Eight million Germans were unemployed by 1 9 32 and Hitler and the Nazis rode this wave of economic hardship into office. In this sense the Great Depression can be seen as a long-term because of the war , it brought an expansionist ideology to power. The depression also prompted countries into adopting protectionist economic policies that isolated countries such as Germany and Japan, who had to look elsewhere for markets. This increased economic rivalry between European powers in South America, China and the Balkans. Economic isolation helped fuel diplomatic isolation, especially in the case of the United States, which emboldened expansionist powers. Economic hardship also hampered the rearmament of the western allies at exactly the time the expansionist powers were rapidly increasing the size of their militaries. German expansion With the ideological justification of National Socialism and a mandate, manipulated though it was, from the German people, Hitler set about undoing the hated Treaty of Versailles. In 1935 he tore up the disarmament clauses of the treaty and announced conscription and rearmament, responding, he said, to the lengthening of French conscription terms. This was to be the first example of Hitler's approach to the West. He would push the envelope and wait for the Allies' reaction and judge his next step accordingly. When Britain and France did not react to his rearmament programme he accelerated it. The Anglo - German Naval Agreement of 1 9 35, although seeming to limit German naval building, signified for Hitler a tacit approval of German Rearmament. In 1 9 36 he again tested the West's commitment to Versailles. Hitler ordered the German army to re -occupy the Rhineland, German territory demilitarized by Versailles, and waited for the Allies' response. German commanders had orders to pull back across the Rhine should France show the slightest inclination to intervene. Hitler did not want to risk his fledgling army. When France did nothing, Hitler was again emboldened. The next year, Germany intervened in the Spanish Civil War on the side of Franco and the rebels while France and Britain rigorously upheld their non-interventionist stance. If France and her British ally did not respond to threats on its border, why would they object to German expansion in the east? The territorial ambitions of Nazism pushed Germany to annex Austria, the Anschluss, in 1 9 3 8, an act forbidden by Versailles. Again the British and the French raised no objections. Versailles was clearly dead. Perhaps more disturbingly for the British was Hitler's preference for unilateral action, without recourse to diplomacy or negotiation. If Germany no longer played by the rules that Britain assumed underpinned international relations, rules like the sanctity of treaties and agreements and the use of war as a last resort rather than a preferred response, then her whole approach to European relations was built on sand. Hitler's ephemeral promises were illustrated when he ignored the Munich Agreement within six months of signing it and occupied what remained of Czechoslovakia. When France and Britain guaranteed Poland's borders in response Hitler had no reason to believe that this commitment was any more solid than the Allies' commitment to Munich. Appeasement Very simply, appeasement is to give in to demands in order to avoid conflict. This, however, obscures the great complexity with which appeasement was used in the 1 9 30s. With the benefit of hindsight, many post-war commentators used the word with disdain to denote what they saw as British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's naive and weak approach to German foreign policy in the late 1 9 30s. Superficially this assessment seems to hold, however, more recent scholarship interprets appeasement differently. Appeasement can be seen as a continuation of traditional British diplomacy: based on discussion and negotiation  based on Britain's economic and military strength considering the global scope of Britain's interests treating each issue on its own merits avoiding war when possible resorting to war if it were in Britain's interest to do so. These principles were applied by the British to each of Hitler's foreign policy adventures. When he re -occupied the Rhineland, it was clearly no direct threat to British interests and could be seen as a return to a more normalized situation of German autonomy. Likewise it was not clear how the Anschluss threatened British interests. Certainly the Sino ­ The Japanese war was more of a concern for Britain globally. At Munich, Chamberlain judged the Czechs' sovereignty to be less of a concern than the costs of any kind of British intervention, if such an intervention was even feasible, and negotiated an end to the crisis. Germany's actions did not threaten her shores as any movement toward France or Belgium would. It did not threaten their sea routes and communications through the Mediterranean. It in no way impeded the operation of the British Empire. Rearmament, started in 1 9 38, nevertheless continued in Britain. There were two underlying assumptions when it came to applying this policy to German actions in central Europe. This first assumption was that German leadership held the same values as did Britain and France in terms of international agreements. The second assumption was that German ambitions could be satisfied. Both assumptions in the end proved to be false. Once it became obvious that they were false, and the British rearmament programme was close to putting Britain on par with German military output, war became a more feasible solution to future situations. This interpretation suggests that the key question is not why did the Allies not fight for Czechoslovakia, but rather why did they fight for Poland? As mentioned, British rearmament had reached peak production by mid- 1 9 39 and French rearmament was progressing. Globally, the Sino -Japanese war seemed to be sapping Japanese ability to menace British holdings. The Nazi- Soviet Non-aggression Pact removed the USSR as a deterrent to German expansion. In the end, the British abandoned their assumption that Hitler could be sated and thus their ability to affect the course of world affairs and by so doing protect their interests through diplomacy were no longer feasible. Appeasement had worked until it did not.