The Second World War was a ‘total’ war,
unprecedented in its destruction of military and
non-military assets and people, and truly worldwide
in its scope. Its outbreak in Europe in
September 1939 was preceded in August 1937
by the Sino-Japanese War and succeeded in
December 1941 by the entry of the US against
both Japan and Germany.
The peace treaties of 1919, coupled with the
Russian Revolution of 1917 and a fundamentally
weak League of Nations, did not resolve the basic
problems of security of Europe. Deep seated
ambitions, fears, insecurities, and mistrust there
were bound to clash politically and militarily in
the absence of habits, institutions, and
mechanisms to facilitate the peaceful resolution
of conflict.
Nazi Germany in general and Adolf Hitler
in particular was primarily responsible for the
war and deliberately prepared for it, whether or
not he intended the exact timing of its outbreak
or expected its ultimate scope. Britain and France
were equally responsible for the war because
their leaders had appeased Hitler’s ambitious
demands instead of checking them, had neglected
to build an anti-fascist alliance, and had
encouraged an eastward expansion of Germany
so as to draw the Soviet Union into war.
Germany was penalized by the 1919 peace
treaties but not destroyed; it remained potentially
the strongest power in Europe. Germany
harboured many grievances that some people in
Britain and the US considered legitimate and
was the leading proponent of ‘revisionism’ even
while it strove in the 1920s toward acceptability
in world councils and democracy at home under
the Weimar Constitution. That constitution could
not withstand the strain of coping with economic
depression The Nazi Party had eliminated all
opposition, especially of the Communists and the
Socialists. Hitler led a ‘resurgence’ of Germany
on an explicit ideology of ‘Aryan’ racial purity,
virtue and superiority, reunification by ‘selfdetermination’
of the German race, lebensraum
or ‘living space’ for them, and cancellation of
the 1919 peace treaties.
The US was at fault for not participating in
the League, for being isolationist and ambivalent
about Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, and then
for encouraging Britain, France and Poland to
resist without clearly warning Hitler. Poland was
at fault for not forming a common front with
the Soviet Union and then for not submitting
‘peacefully’ to German demands. Mussolini was
blamed for support and encouragement of Hitler,
before joining the Western allies in 1943.
The Soviet Union was responsible for
propagating the idea of an ‘inevitable’ conflict
between communism and capitalism/fascism,
but most of all for entering into a non-aggression
pact with Nazi Germany in August 1939 and so
giving it a ‘green light’ for attack on Poland while
simultaneously annexing several territories itself.
This temporary alliance was reversed when Hitler
ordered an invasion of the Soviet Union on 22
June 1941 and his armies advanced towards
Moscow and other cities before being halted at
Stalingrad in the winter of 1942-43.
In East Asia and the Pacific militarist Japan
took on an aggressive role with all its neighbors
to build on Economic Co-Prosperity Zone,
antagonizing the US, another Pacific Ocean
power that tried to deny Japan access to oil and
other raw materials. When Japan destroyed part
of the US fleet anchored at Pearl Harbour in
Hawaii on 6 December 1941, and Hitler declared
war on the US on 11 December 1941, the US
entered a new global war against both Japan
and Germany, which ended only with their
‘unconditional surrender’ in 1945.
Reasons of World War 2
The treaties (of Versailles, Riga, Lausanne,
Locarno, etc.) simply, redrew the map of Europe.
Four great empires, the Russian Romanov, the
Hohenzollern, the Habsburg, and the Ottoman
faced defeat and collapsed. Germany became a
republic, suffering from the stigma of defeat and
burdened by allied reparations. The victorious
western democracies gained territories. France,
for instance, gained Alsace-Lorraine which was
with Germany since 1871. Discontent over the
severity of the Allied peace terms and squabbles
over the newly drawn frontiers contained seeds
of future conflicts.
The idea of a world organization for
maintaining peace in the globe was proposed by
Woodrow Wilson, the American President. But
it did not generate much hype as the treaty of
Versailles, the cornerstone of this organizationthe
League of Nations-was not ratified even by
America. Moreover, the defeated powers were
also not invited to become members. Germany
was allowed to join the League only in 1926.
League sponsored Disarmament Conference in
Geneva (1932-34) failed to reach any agreement.
Cracks began to appear in global peace in the
early 1930s. The League lacked the executive
powers to impose peaceful solutions. Japanese
Militarism, Italian Fascism and German Nazism
became increasingly strident in their demands.
In 1931, Japanese forces seized Manchuria, a
region of China rich in natural resources, and
made in a puppet state called Manchukuo. Italian
forces invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and
conquered it by May 1936. In Germany, Hitler
started a program of military build-up-in
violation of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.
In March 1936, he notified to the western powers
the existence of a German Air Force (Luftwaffe).
In the same year, Germany and Italy formed an
alliance, called the Rome-Berlin Axis, which was
joined in 1940 by Japan.
Germany abrogated the disarmament clauses
of the Treaty in December 1933 and proceeded
to build an army, air force and navy machine
oriented to the future that virtually overran
Europe in 1940-41. Germany recovered the Saar
region by plebiscite in January 1935, overturned
the free city status of Danzig between 1934 and
1936, and remilitarized the Rhineland in March 1936.
Months of negotiations and increasing tension
culminated in a four power conference of Britain,
France, Germany and Italy in Munich on 29
September 1938 renouncing war and permitting
German military occupation of most of
Czechoslovakia.
In March 1938, German army moved into
Austria to achieve union (Anschluss) with
Germany. In 1938, Hitler sought the control of
Sudetanland, a region of Western Czechoslovakia
dominated by German speaking people. Britain
wished to preserve peace at all costs, by meeting
Hitler's demands and following a policy of
appeasement.
In September 1938, British Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlain and French Premier
Daladier agreed to turn over the Sudeten-land
to Germany and forced Czechoslovakia to accept
the agreement (which became known as the
Munich Agreement). The failure of appeasement
soon became clear. Hitler violated the Munich
Agreement in March 1939 and seized the rest of
Czechoslovakia. Similar treatment was meted out
to Poland later on.
In Spain in 1936, a 'popular front' of
republicans, socialists, anarchists and syndicates
assumed power. The army leaders and right-wing
parties, socialists, anarchists and syndicates
assumed power. The army leaders and right-wing
parties feared the program of this front and
rebelled under General Franco. The situation thus
became ripe for other world military powers to
show their powers. The divisions were quite
apparent. The Fascist and Nazi regimes provided
military support to General Franco while the
Soviet Union helped the Republicans. The
Republican forces also received "volunteers" from
many countries though liberal democracies
desisted from a direct national participation at
this time.
