Causes+of+World+War+Two

WHY DID WAR BREAK OUT?

There has been a long lasting debate about who or what was responsible for the Second World War:


 * The Versailles Treaties have been blamed for filling the Germans with bitterness and the desire for revenge.
 * The League of Nations and the idea of collective security have been criticised because they failed to secure general disarmament and to control potential aggressors.
 * The world economic crisis has been mentioned, since without it, Hitler would probably never have been able to come to power.

While these factors no doubt helped to create the sort of atmosphere and tensions which might well lead to a war, something more was needed. It is worth remembering also that by the end of 1938, most of Germany's grievances had been removed: reparations were largely cancelled, the disarmament clauses had been ignored, the Rhineland was re-militarised, Austria and Germany were united, and 3.5 million Germans had been brought into the Reich from Czechoslovakia. Germany was a great power again. So what went wrong?

Was the Second World War inevitable? Was it essentially a continuation of the First World War or an entirely different conflict which competent diplomacy could have prevented? In 1918 the Germans were defeated but not destroyed. Germany still remained potentially strong and ultimately capable of making a second attempt at dominating Europe. In that sense the Treaty of Versailles, which humiliated but did not permanently weaken Germany, could well be seen as the 'seed bed' of the Second World War. Arguably, the chain of crises that started with the German remilitarisation of the Rhineland and ended in the German attack on Poland owed its origins to the Versailles settlement. Does it therefore follow that Versailles made the Second World War inevitable?

Stresemann, Briand and Austen Chamberlain appeared for a time to be able to make the settlement work after modifying the reparation clauses. Nevertheless, it was clear that a revived Germany would still demand its drastic revision, as indeed Stresemann was already beginning to do by the late 1920s. In that sense, there was a natural contnuity of aims between the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. Yet despite historian **A.J.P.Taylor's** attempts to portray Hitler as a normal politician, his coming to power in January 1933, which was made possible by the catastrophe of the Great Depression, did make a crucial difference. He gave a new and powerful impetus not only to German revisionism but to German demands for //Lebensraum// in eastern Europe based on the doctrine of racial superiority. It was this that prompted him to invade Russia in 1941 leaving an undefeated Britain supplied by the USA on his other front.

To a certain extent the horrendous figure of Adolf Hitler obscures the fact that the British and French governments went to war to maintain their position as great powers rather than to wage a crusade against the evil force of Nazism. There is no doubt that Hitler's successes in eastern Europe in 1938-39 did threaten to destabilise the whole continent. After the German occupation of Bohemia, the British and French gvernments believed that they had no chice but to oppose Hitler if they wished to maintain any influence in Europe. Of course, they still kept the door open to negotiations, and pursued the increasingly vain hope of a gneral settlement with Germany, but essentially Britain and France were ready to risk war in 1939. Indeed the British Treasury was beginning to argue that Britain's financial position would decline after 1939, and that if war had to come, it was preferable sooner rather than later. In France, Daladier had steadied the economy and the aeronautical industry was rapidly expanding in early 1939.

It does seem, therefore, that Britain and France went to war in 1939, as they did in 1914, to contain Germany and safeguard their own Great Power status. Arguably, then it was a continuation of the same struggle, even though Italy and Japan were later to join Germany, and the USSR only became an ally of Britain after the German invaion of June 1941. As in 1917, the USA again became Britain's key ally, but only entered the was as a result of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

THE POLICY OF APPEASEMENT WAS TO BLAME

There has been major historical debate over appeasement. Post-war historians have usually agreed with Winston Churchill's view and his arguments on how appeasement had flaws that made war more likely. However, the post-war revisionist view has argued that the prime minister at the time, Neville Chamberlain, had little option except to re-arm and buy time by making concessions in the light of British public opinion, he weakness of Britain's economy, its lack of military preparedness and it's unreliable allies.

DID THE USSR MADE WAR INEVITABLE

__**BIBLIOGRAPHY**__ Lowe, Norman. //Mastering Modern World History//. Palgrave MacMillan, New York, 2005, Fouth Edition. Pages 86-87. Morris, T. & Murphy, D. //Europe 1870-1991.// HarperCollins Publishers Ltd., London, 2007. Pages 354-357. Williamson, David G. //War and Peace: International Relations 1878-1941//. Hodder Education, London, 1994. Pages 180-181. <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 110%;">Mr.McGregor IB history website