World war ii

WORLD WAR II

The Second World War began in 1939 and lasted six years. Most of the major powers of Europe were involved, battles were staged in all four corners of the globe and over 45 million people were killed, making it the most devastating war in history.

PRINCIPAL CAUSES OF THE WAR

• The First World War

The Treaty of Versailles that dealt specifically with the future ofGermany left no room for discussion on the part of the German people. The result was that Germany was left bitter and full of hatred for those who had sought to demean them as a race - hatred that Hitler would exploit in the 1930s in his rise to power. Hitler stood under the banner of revenge against the other countries for Germany's defeat. His desire for power was justified by claims that he wantedto get rid of the government that surrendered in the First World War, and replace it with his own organization (the National Socialist German Workers' Party, which became known as the Nazi party) so that he could have full control of the European powers that had subjugated Germany after 1918.

• The Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles angered the German people for many reasons.The first was that it was a Diktat ('Dictated Peace'): Germany had no say in the formulation of the treaty and was forced to agree to the terms of the treaty regardless of whether its people liked them or not.
Reparations - effectively a ‘fine’ for the damage done by Germany in 1914-18 - were possibly the most unpopular part of the Treaty of Versailles. At the end of the war, land had beendestroyed all over Europe, but especially in France. The treaty said that Germany had to make reparations by paying regular sums of money to France. This issue of reparations was eventually solved by the Dawes Plan and Germany was able to pay France again.

• The Dawes Plan
The Dawes Plan was created so that Germany could afford their reparations to France, but it also seemed to solve many ofthe world's money problems. America loaned money to Germany, Germany used it to pay for the reparations, France used it to pay Britain the money they owed, and Britain used it to pay America the money they owed. However, it had one major flaw - if anything went wrong, and one of the countries was no longer able to pay another, then conflict would ensue and the economic and diplomatic situationcould be worse than it was before. This happened in 1929 with the Great Depression.

• The League of Nations
The League of Nations was an organization created by the Treaty of Versailles. The idea was that the League would become the world's 'police' and enforce peace in Europe. The League failed in 1931 when Japan invaded Manchuria. Japan was one of the main countries in the League, andBritain and France did not want to have bad relations with them. Italy saw how the League appeased Japan, and in 1935 Italy invaded Abyssinia. Now nobody trusted the League to protect them, and it wasn't long until Germany, under Hitler's rule, followed Japan and Italy's example.

• Hitler's Foreign Policy
Germany was, as already stated, still reeling from their defeat in the First World War.The nation's desire for 'revenge' for how they had been treated over the previous two decades influenced Hitler' foreign policy:
← To go back on the terms of the Treaty of Versailles
← To re-arm
← To unite all German-speaking people in one country (GrossDeutschland)
← To win living space (Lebensraum) for Germany - The only way that Hitler could do this was to takecontrol of the countries around Germany, even if such a move could lead to war.
← To racially cleanse the Reich
← To destroy Communism

• Appeasement
It was a large cause of the war as it allowed countries to get what they wanted, and in the end, allowed Germany to become such a powerful force in Europe. It was through appeasement that the most devastating war in history began....