Causes of the Second World War.
After world one in 1918 the world leaders involved got together and decided a treaty in Versailles, France. This became known as The Versailles Treaty, in this treaty it set out some strict rules which the offending countries had to adhere to, this treaty mostly affected Germany which the world felt was responsible for the first world war. The sanctions imposed on them were that firstly they had to pay for damages caused to affected countries, all military forces including naval forces and armed forces had too be disbanded and never get as big as they were and that as part of the compensation they had to give some of their land up, for example the Rhine land which France took over. In conclusion too this Germany was forced to take full responsibility for world war one.
In 1933 the German people voted for a leader named Adolf Hitler, into power. Hitler believed that Germany was hard done by, and that the treaty of versailles was unfair towards Germany and that nobody had the right to take their land and tell them what armed forces to have or indeed not to have. Hitler led a political party in Germany called the National Socialists or Nazis. Hitler promised to make his country great again and quickly began to build up the armed forces and to seize land from other countries. The first thing Hitler done was rebuild his army, although this was against the terms set out in the treaty of versailles this did not stop Hitler and he continued to build up his military. Then in 1938 German forces invaded and captured the Rhine land from France, calming back what they believed was theirs, when this happened the world took a deep breath, particularly France as the Rhine land was given to them as part of the compensation of WWI, when the world’s leaders met up in France and talked to Hitler. Naval chamberlain, the British prime minister at that time agreed to appease Hitler and allow him to reclaim the land, (this was a big mistake according to many historians as this was said to be the burning match to the hay stack, this was the stepping stone Hitler needed to be on his way of making Germany the super power of the world.)
The conditions of this was that Germany stop rebuilding their army and take no more land. However Hitler failed to do this and shortly before 5am on Friday 1st September, 1939, German forces stormed the Polish frontier. Tanks and motorized troops raced into the country over ground, supported by Stuka dive bombers overhead. A total of 1.25 million Germans soldiers swept into Poland. This caused Britain and France to declare war on Germany on the 3rd of September 1939, before doing so Britain gave Germany the ultimatum to withdraw from Poland, they did not comply and consequently we see the start of world war II, Charles de Gaulle was Colonel of France at the time of world war two, however due to the destruction of world war one and the shire economic state of France it did not take long for the country to be captured by German forces in fact it only took a matter of weeks.
The German First Panzer Army used Gaullist tactics against France, and sent the country down, and de Gaulle managed to flee to Britain, where he started and commanded the Free French Movement, which earned him the death penalty in Occupied France. He fought with the allies during this time, commanding the French to victory. They were created on June 18, 1940, and Winston Churchill was quoted as saying "De Gaulle carried with him, in that small airplane, the honor of France" when de Gaulle arrived in England. France was split into too groups the resistance and the pro German, the reason why there was pro German groups was that some people beloved that after the recession of WWI Germany would be able to give stability to France.
France was occupied by the Germans until 1944. June 6 of that year was D-Day. A massive Allied force invaded the beaches of Normandy.
Through the summer and fall, the Allies pushed eastward through France towards Germany. In August, Allied troops also landed in the South of France.
Through the summer and fall, the Allies pushed eastward through France towards Germany. In August, Allied troops also landed in the South of France.
By the end of the war, about 350,000 French soldiers had been killed, and almost a half million French civilians had died.
If it had not of been for the spirit of the French resistance then the D-day invasion would not have been a success, also the strategic location of France which had helped it be captured in the first place acted at the perfect spot to invade main land Europe by the allies and fight the German army and ultimately win the war.
Viv LES FRANCE
16 comments:
common people comment on my blog !!!
Alright John I agree that the treaty of Versailles was one of the main causes of the Second World War but the blackened shadow of communism which was starting to cause a treat to democracy was heightened after the First World War.
The Treaty of Versailles was neither lenient enough to appease Germany, nor harsh enough to prevent it from becoming the dominant continental power again.
This treaty placed the War Guilt clause on Germany, Austria, and Hungary. It punished them for their responsibility rather than working out an agreement that would assure peace in the long term future. The treaty resulted in harsh monetary reparations, territorial dismemberment, and “mass ethnic resettlements and indirectly hampered the German economy by causing rapid hyperinflation”. This left Germany in a crippled position and after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 it left Germany paralyzed. Many European countries needed individual heroism to take them forward Now with the dark fear of communism spreading throughout Europe it gave many power hungry men a chance to take over countries. This is how Hitler, Mussolini and the rest of the dictators of the twentieth came to power.
Germany were the main cause of the Second World War but looking back on how they were treated after the first world war, how can you blame them from doing what they done. By my last statement I am by all means not saying there actions were justifiable because Hitler’s greed for power became overwhelming and his actions towards the Jews were inhuman.
Hitler believed that it was possible for him to take control of Russia but he knew it would take longer than any other country because of its mass. There was an agreement between Germany and the Soviet Union this was the “German-Soviet Non-aggression Pact”. Joseph Stalin believed that Hitler wouldn’t invade the Soviet Union until France and Brittan had been taken. He also knew that if Hitler did not attack them in the summer of 1941 they would have to wait until next year because not even somebody as mad as Hitler would dear attack Russia during its infamous winters. In the 22 of June 1941 Hitler invaded Russia this was called operation Barbarossa. This broke all pacts between these two countries and this fully brought Russia into the war. The first few months of the war were disastrous for the Soviet Union. The German northern forces surrounded Leningrad while the centre group made steady progress towards Moscow. German forces had also made deep inroads into the Ukraine. The Soviet Union was falling fast but Stalin managed to hold them off from attacking Moscow. This later became one of the turning points of the war because Stalin was able to hold German troops off until the cold bitter winter kicked in. German troops showed they were much unprepared for the Russian’s winter. Their tanks froze and food supplies shorthand. This showed the rest of Europe that the Germans were not invincible.
well micheal im not tryen te be rude either, but maby you should concentrate on getting your comment posted about the content of the blog up as apose to the style of it. and as fare as i know all the names are spelt right. !!!!!
look forword to reading yours ?
leo i agree with you , some great points there,
but i nevre said that the treaty of veraille apeased Hitler, (just incase anyboudy got that impression), what i said was that after Germany invaded the ryann land and reclaimed it , Chamberlan and de Gaulle got togesther along with the other leaders in Versaille and they decided to apeas Hitler by letting him have the Ryann land, as long as that was it, they taught that would be the solution, they were basically saying "ok hitler weal let yeah have the ryann land but just dont get gready, etc" but as soon as germany invaded Poland that was it, the gloves were off and WWII as we know it began
I agree with you about the point on the soviet Union also .
Deladier was the French prime minister at the the time of the Munich conference (1938) which decided to appease Hitler. De Gaulle was only an army officer at this time. The Rhineland had been demilitarised after Versailles but Hiler occupied in 1936 as a show of strength. Munich was about the Sudetenland. So why was France prepared to give in at Munich? Why did Britain?
I mean Hitler!
After the First World War Germany were forced into signing the treaty of Versailles. Under this agreement Germany had to take full responsibility for the war. This infamously became known as the “War Guilt Clause”. Germany suffered severely over this treaty they lost a lot of substantial territorial concessions and had to pay reparations to certain countries that had formed to be big powers. It also reduced his army to 100,000 men.
This treaty was a complete failure because it was initially established to stop the war and maintain world peace but this treaty only postponed war because later this treaty became one of the major problems which led to the out break of the Second World War. Hitler used this treaty to blame the allies on Germany’s poor treatment after the war. Hitler stopped paying reparations and start building his army up. The league of nation failed to act on Hitler’s antics and this gave Hitler a boost of confidence. Now German forces reoccupied the Rhineland in 1936, as part of a diplomatic test of will. This action went unpunished and it led to Hitler wanting more land. This led up to ‘The Munich Agreement’
This was a meeting that took place in Munich on 29th September, 1938. Brittan was Desperate to avoid war, and anxious to avoid an alliance with Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union. Neville Chamberlain and Eduard Daladier agreed that Germany could have the Sudetenland. Hitler promised that he wouldn’t take any more land in or out of Europe. “Adolf Hitler, Neville Chamberlain, Eduard Daladier and Benito Mussolini now signed the Munich Agreement which transferred the Sudetenland to Germany”. This agreement showed Hitler strength to the rest of Europe and he became the master of central Europe. Brittan had no real choice to sign this agreement because they were in no shape to fight a war taking into account that ww1 was not even over 20 years gone. Nobody wanted war incept one mad man Hitler
Patrick good question the reasion.
In April, 1938, Daladier once again became prime minister. He was a supporter of appeasement and on 29th September, 1938, he joined with Adolf Hitler, Neville Chamberlain and Benito Mussolini in signing the Munich Agreement which transferred to Germany the Sudetenland, a fortified frontier region that contained a large German-speaking population.
When asked about why he done this by the Czechoslovakia's head of state,( who had not been invited to Munich),who protested this decision, Daladier and Neville Chamberlain told him that their countries would be unwilling to go to war over the issue of the Sudetenland.
In March 1940 Paul Reynaud became France's new prime minister. Daladier was appointed war minister in Reynaud's government. When the German Army invaded France in May 1940, Daladier escaped to Morocco. Henri-Philippe Petain ordered his arrest and he was tried in February, 1942, with Leon Blum and Paul Reynaud for betraying his country. He was then handed over to the Germans who held him prisoner until 1945.
After the war Daladier was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1946. A strong opponent of Charles De Gaulle, Daladier retired from politics in 1958. Edouard Daladier died in Paris on 10th October, 1970.
leo well done.
yeah took the words right out of my mouth, after WWI nobody wanted to enter another war, least of all france. I mean this country was in a total state of kaios, the economy was in termoil, what is suprissing tho is how BOutain collabrated with Hitler when he knew full well that if Germany put one more foot wrong it could mean war.
to summerise, France along with britian and other countries would rather give up/back the Sudetenland than face aq conflict that could lead to war, however after the Rhineland and Poland they were faced with little choice.
The primary reason for Japan entering the war is pretty simple, and proves that after over sixty years the only thing to change in the field of imperialism is the name. The answer is something that’s unevenly distributed throughout the world; it’s responsible for the progression of the industrial machine and has possibly by this time caused more bloodshed than religion. You guessed it! OIL!!!
Japanese Industry was growing so fast that the meagre natural recourses we possessed could hardly support it. Oil export was pretty much controlled by the British, Americans and Dutch, this really limited us Japanese to what we could do. So we simply HAD to invade china… we couldn’t allow outside powers with influence in OUR continent to dictate our progression as a world power!
We’d tried to get some favour with the allies, much like Italy we were ignored during the treaty of Versailles in WWI and our empire failed to grow in the same way as the greedy lead powers did. We moved into China in 1937 and stepped on the toes of the League of Nations who sanctioned us. How could western powers possibly have more of a right to empires in Asia than the Asians themselves?
The navy grew and became more powerful than the combined American and British fleets in the Pacific. Expansion was now detriment to our ever expanding economy. So in September 1940 we joined the axis along with two other powers that dreamed of empirical expansion.
America was involved in the war even before pearl harbour in 1941. America’s involvement in causing world war two can be traced back to the Versailles treaty in 1919, when Woodrow Wilson was president. Wilson’s problem was that he did not really understand European politics and was too idealistic with no idea of the reality of how much bitterness the war had caused in Europe, especially between France and Germany. most of his “fourteen point plan” which included points like freedom of the seas, all the countries disarming themselves and creating equal trade conditions for all countries would never have worked out due to the general distrust between most of the countries in Europe. One of Wilson’s ideas that did go through was setting up a League of Nations. The United States did not want to get involved in more European politics and would not join the league. This was probably one of Wilson’s biggest mistakes. Without America, to back it, the league could do very little when Hitler and Mussolini came to power, they were only able to impose meaningless sanctions on them, which was basically them just saying “don’t do that”. Not very effective. Wilson was also very reluctant to anger his allies so soon after victory, and as a result offered little resistance to crippling terms like the reparations and reducing the army. I totally agree that the failure of the Versailles treaty was one of the greatest causes for world war two. It was also mentioned a lot in the propaganda Hitler used to gain support for the Nazis.
The reason Italy joined WWII was because at the time Italy was being ruled by fascist dictator too so it soon became an ally of Germany, although Italy didn’t declare war on France and Britain until July, 11, 1940 when the French army had already been beaten. Italy did not expect the war to go on as long as it did they had assumed the war would be over in a matter of months and thought by entering the war they would make some easy gains. Italy had previously signed a pact with Germany which said that they would support each other in the event of a war; although Italy was exhausted after the Spanish civil war and as they did not join until late into it they were not very successful in many of the battles and Germany was left trying to bail them out. They proved to be more of a burden than a help to Hitler. When Italy joined the war along side Germany and Imperial Japan the three countries became known as the Axis powers. Italy had the ambition to expand the country. When they joined the war they launched attacks on the Albanians, Greeks and British in North Africa. The Greeks and the British were beating the Italians so German being their allies had to come to the rescue. The Germans conquered Greece and most of North Africa. Basically Italy's expansionist desires under Mussolini got them involved with what became WWII.
Officially world war two began on the 3rd of September 1939 when Great Britain and France declared war on Germany after it had invaded Poland without valid reason. But the world was on a path to war long before this date. It can be said that the build up to World War 2 started the day A. Hitler became chancellor of Germany in august 1933. This was six years before the start of the war. He had been planning for this day for many years and knew exactly what he had to do to get total domination of Germany and eventually Europe. The following year when the president died he combined the offices of chancellor and president to create the office of the leader. Hitler truly believed that he had a right to invade the other countries in Eastern Europe so that he could create a greater Germany and have the living space that the country needed to live. The Nazi-Soviet pact that was agreed between Hitler and Stalin was so that both could have a near full strength army when Germany invaded Russia and that they would be ready for the invasion. The tactics that Germany employed i.e. lighting attacks or Blitzkrieg made sure that they where very successful in the early part of de war and that they suffered minimal loses. Hitler and Germanys main problem was that it’s main ally in Europe, Italy had a very incompetent army and it needed to be saved by the Germany forces. This led to the delay of many major operations. He also choose wrongly to attack or declare war on countries when he did. He set himself up against the world’s biggest army Russia, the world’s biggest empire Britain and the world’s greatest financial and industrial power in America. But for Germany to become the power that it once was, it had to join up with Austria, it needed to take control of the Sudetenland. One of the other major causes of the war is the policy of appeasement that used by a weak and scared France and a conservative Britain. They didn’t have the bottle to stop Germany from taking over Austria or the Sudetenland or the rest of Czechoslovakia.
At the beginning of the war chamberlain was the prime minister in Brittan. During this time Germany was reaching out and claiming whatever land it could; Germany seized the Rhineland, the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, eventually this increased to the whole of Czechoslovakia, and also Germany annexed Austria. So this then lead to Brittan and Frances involvement in March 1939 with a treaty (military alliance) that ensured Poland the backing of both Brittan and France in their struggle to hold off Germany.
On the 1 September 1939 Hitler invaded Poland, two days later this forced Brittan and France into war with Germany. This then caused Hitler’s war to become a world war.
In Churchill was then elected as prime minister in may 1940 and even though Churchill was advised that there may be drastic economic effects upon the country due to their involvement in the war he continued. Had the British people known what Churchill knew, that war would likely bankrupt the country, they would probably not have supported Churchill and his war campaign.
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