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Events preceding World War II in Europe
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In Europe, the origins of the war are closely tied to the rise of fascism, especially in Nazi Germany. A discussion of how the Nazis came to power is a requisite in this context.
The origins of World War II are generally viewed as having its roots in the aftermath of the First World War (1914-1918). In that war Imperial Germany under the nationalistic Kaiser Wilhelm II had been defeated along with its allies, chiefly by a combination of the United Kingdom, United States and France. The war was directly blamed by the victors on the militant nationalism of the Kaiser's Germany; it was Germany that effectively started the war with an attack on France through Belgium. France had in 1871 suffered a defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, which directly was followed by the constitution of a German Empire under Prussian leadership. France now demanded revenge for its financial devastation during the First World War (and its humiliation in the earlier war), which ensured that the various peace treaties, specifically the Treaty of Versailles imposed tough financial war reparations and restrictions on Germany. (See: Aftermath of World War I for more details.)
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The Nazi Party, led by Adolf Hitler, blamed Germany's ruined economy on the harshness of the Versailles Treaty, on faults of democracy, and the Dolchstosslegende. In Germany, as in post-Austro-Hungarian Austria, citizens recalled the pre-war years under autocratic rule as prosperous, but the post-war years under weak democratic rule as chaotic and economically disastrous. The situation was further aggravated by the world-wide economic depression that followed the Wall Street crash in 1929. Left-wing and right-wing anti-democratic parties in the Reichstag (the German parliament) obstructed parliamentary work, while different cabinets resorted to government by the special emergency powers of the Weimar constitution. This enabled the President and Cabinet to bypass the parliament.
Hitler was appointed Reichskanzler (Chancellor) on January 30, 1933. The arson of the Reichstag building on February 27 – now commonly believed to have been instigated by Nazis – was used as an excuse for the cancellation of civil and political liberties, enacted by the aged president Paul von Hindenburg and the right-wing coalition cabinet led by Hitler.
After new elections, a Nazi-led majority passed the Enabling Act on March 23. This transfered legislative powers to Hitler's cabinet. Hitler's remaining political opposition, the KPD and SPD, were banned, before Hitler turned on internal threats to his power during the Night of the Long Knives. Chief among those was Ernst Röhm, the leader of the Nazi Brown Shirts.
After President Hindenburg died on August 2, 1934, Hitler replaced the offices of Chancellor and President with a single dictactorial position by declaring himself Führer ("Leader") of a new German Reich – the Third Reich. With little resistance from its leadership, the oath taken by members of Germany's armed forces (the Wehrmacht) was modified to become a statement of unconditional obedience to Hitler himself.
The Italian economy also fell into a deep slump following World War I. 1914's Red Week had expanded into the post-war Biennio rosso, and many were gravely worried that a Bolshevik-style Communist revolution was imminent.
After a number of liberal governments failed to rein in these threats, and the Fascists had increased their public profile by highly visible punishment expeditions to supposedly crush the Socialist threat, King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy invited Benito Mussolini to form a government on October 29, 1922. The Fascists maintained an armed paramilitary wing, which they employed to fight Anarchists, Communists, and Socialists.
Within a few years, Mussolini had consolidated dictatorial power, and Italy became a police state. On January 7, 1935, he and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval signed the Franco–Italian Agreement giving him a free hand in the Abyssinia Crisis with Ethiopia, in return for an alliance against Hitler. There was little international protest he then sent large numbers of troops to Eritrea and Italian Somaliland, the two colonies of Italy that bordered Ethiopia.
Britain attempt to broker peace but failed, as Mussolini was bent on conquest. Following that, Britain then declared an arms embargo on both Italy and Ethiopia. Britain also cleared its warships from the Mediterranean, further allowing Italy unhindered access. Shortly after the League exonerated both parties in the Walwal incident, Italy attacked Ethiopia, resulting in the Second Italo–Abyssinian War.
Shortly after Italy conquered Ethiopia the Spanish Civil War began. During the Spanish Civil War, seen by many as a testing ground for the Second World War, he provided troops, weapons and other aid to Francisco Franco's Nationalists.
While many nations refused to become involved in the Spanish Civil War, notably Britain and France, troops were sent by both Hitler and Mussolini to aid the Spanish Nationalists, which included those with Fascist leanings. It would prove to be a precursor to many of the tactics and methods employed in the Second World War, such as the test bombing of Guernica, which aimed to see how effective the Blitz would be. Spain would be neutral during World War Two, but the division during the Civil War of Fascism (Germany and Italy) versus democracy (many volunteers joined the forces against the Nationalists from countries with an official stance of neutrality) and Communism (the USSR) was repeated during the Second World War.
Meanwhile in Germany, once political consolidation (Gleichschaltung) was in place, the Nazis turned their attention to foreign policy with several increasingly daring acts.
On March 16, 1935, the Versailles Treaty was violated as Hitler ordered Germany to re-arm. Germany also reintroduced military conscription (the treaty stated that the German Army should not exceed 100,000 men).
These steps produced nothing more than official protests from the United Kingdom and France, for they were more serious about enforcing the economic provisions of the treaty than its military restrictions. Many Britons felt the restrictions placed on Germany in Versailles had been too harsh, and they believed that Hitler's aim was simply to undo the extremes of the treaty, not to go beyond that. This sentiment was underscored by the signing of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, which authorized Germany to build a fleet one third the size of the Royal Navy and put an end to British naval operations in the Baltic Sea, granting Germany supremacy there. Faced with no opposition, Hitler moved troops into the Rhineland on March 7, 1936. Under the Versailles treaty, the Rhineland should have been demilitarized, for France wanted it for a buffer between herself and Germany. But, as before, Hitler's defiance was met with inaction, despite Polish proposal to put in action the Polish-French alliance.
The first German conquest was Austria. After Italy had joined Germany in the Anti-Comintern Pact, thereby removing the main obstacle of an Anschluss of Austria, Germany announced the annexation on March 12, 1938, making it a German province: "Gau Ostmark."
With Austria secured, Hitler turned his attention to Czechoslovakia. Unlike Austria, Czechoslovakia was not a German-speaking country, had a large and modern army backed with a huge armament industry, and had military alliances with France and England. Despite all this, Hitler, encouraged by reluctance of major European powers to stop his violation of post WWI treaties, was intended to go to the edge of war, convinced that France would shrink back again, not fulfilling her treaty obligations to Czechoslovakia. His first order of business was to seize the mountainous border regions called Sudetenland, in which lived a significant German-speaking majority, and was based on the right of self-determination on a unification with Germany. This region formed about one third of Bohemia (western Czechoslovakia) in terms of territory, population and economy and were vital for the country's existence. With Austria in German hands, this western part of Czechoslovakia, equipped with a huge defense system (larger than the Maginot line), was nearly surrounded by Germany.
Following lengthy negotiations, and blatant war threats from Hitler, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain went out of his way with French leaders to appease Hitler. In the Munich Agreement of September 30, 1938, the major European powers, allowed, for the sake of "peace in our time", German troops to occupy the Sudetenland. Czechoslovakia, which at that time already mobilized an over one million man army and was prepared to fight for independence, was not allowed to participate in the conference. When the French and British negotiators informed the Czechoslovak representatives about the agreement, and that if Czechoslovakia would not accept it, France and Britain would consider Czechoslovakia to be responsible for war, president Edvard Beneš capitulated. German (and soon after also Polish and Hungarian) forces invaded. A few months after that, on March 15, 1939, the now virtually defenseless remaining parts of the Czech lands were occupied by Germany as well and Hitler (in the Prague Castle) proclaimed Bohemia and Moravia a German protectorate. After one day before (on March 14) Slovakia had declared her independence, recognized by France, Britain and other important powers (see under Jozef Tiso).
