Causes of the Second World War – The Second World War (Senior 3 History and Citizenship) | Ganzaa

The Second World War

Lessons

Senior 3 · History and Citizenship

The Second World War

5 lessons

Lesson 1 of 5

Causes of the Second World War

25 min

"A piece of paper"

On 30 September 1938 the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, flew home from a conference in Munich, in Germany. At Heston aerodrome near London he held up a short declaration that he and Adolf Hitler had both signed that morning. It said that the two peoples desired never to go to war with one another again. That evening, outside his home in Downing Street, Chamberlain told the crowd that he believed it was "peace for our time".

Eleven months later Germany invaded Poland, and Britain was at war with Germany. This lesson asks how peace could collapse so quickly, only twenty years after the "war to end all wars".

Source B. On 23 August 1939, in Moscow, the foreign ministers of Nazi Germany (Joachim von Ribbentrop) and the Soviet Union (Vyacheslav Molotov) signed a treaty of non-aggression. Article II reads:

Should one of the High Contracting Parties become the object of belligerent action by a third power, the other High Contracting Party shall in no manner lend its support to this third power.

A secret protocol, signed the same day and kept hidden, added:

In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish state the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narew, Vistula, and San.

Treaty of Nonaggression between Germany and the USSR, and Secret Additional Protocol, Moscow, 23 August 1939. Text: the Avalon Project, Yale Law School.

Analysing the sources. Source A shows a leader who believed that giving Hitler what he demanded would keep the peace. Source B shows why that hope failed: two dictatorships that hated each other agreed not to fight, and secretly agreed to divide Poland between them. With the Soviet Union neutral, Hitler could attack Poland without fearing a war on two fronts. Read in the right order, the two sources tell the story of the last year of peace.

Definition

Long-term cause: a condition that built up over years and made war likely, such as resentment of a peace treaty. Immediate cause (or trigger): the event that actually started the fighting.

Appeasement: the policy of avoiding war by giving in to an aggressive power's demands. It was followed by Britain and France towards Hitler from 1935 to 1939.

Aggression: an unprovoked attack by one state on another.

Lebensraum ("living space"): Hitler's aim of conquering land in eastern Europe for German settlers.

Remilitarisation: sending troops and weapons back into an area that had been kept free of them, as Germany did in the Rhineland.

Non-aggression pact: a treaty in which two states promise not to attack each other.

The long-term causes

The Treaty of Versailles. You studied in Unit 3 how the treaty of 1919 blamed Germany for the First World War, took away land and all its colonies, limited its army to 100,000 men and demanded reparations. Most Germans saw it as a "dictated peace". Hitler promised to tear it up, and each of his first steps broke one of its terms.
The failure of the League of Nations. The League had no army of its own, and the United States never joined it. When Japan seized Manchuria, in northern China, in 1931, the League condemned the invasion; Japan simply left the League in 1933. When Italy invaded Ethiopia on 3 October 1935, the League's sanctions left out oil, the one product Italy could not fight without. Aggressors learned that the League could not stop them.
The Great Depression. As Unit 4 showed, mass unemployment helped Hitler to power in Germany and pushed Japan's military leaders to seek land and raw materials by conquest.
The aims of the dictators. Nazism taught that Germans were a "master race" that needed Lebensraum in the east. Mussolini dreamed of a new Roman empire around the Mediterranean and in Africa. Japan's army leaders wanted an empire in East Asia. All three glorified war.
Rearmament. Germany rebuilt its army and air force from 1935, openly breaking the treaty. Britain and France were slow to rearm until 1938 and 1939.
Appeasement. Britain and France remembered the slaughter of 1914 to 1918 and their people did not want another war. Many in Britain also felt that Versailles had been too harsh, and some saw Hitler as a barrier against Soviet communism. So they gave way to Hitler, step by step.
New alliances. Germany and Italy formed the Rome–Berlin Axis in 1936 and the "Pact of Steel" on 22 May 1939; Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact in November 1936, and Italy joined it in 1937. The aggressors now stood together.

Hitler's steps to war

Figure 1. Each step that went unpunished made the next one easier. Dates from the Wikipedia articles listed in the credits.

Look at the colours in Figure 1. Until 1936 Hitler broke the rules of the peace treaties inside Germany's own borders. From 1938 he took land from his neighbours. At first he could claim that he was only uniting German-speaking people: Austria, and the three million German speakers of the Sudetenland, the border region of Czechoslovakia. At Munich on 29 and 30 September 1938, Britain, France and Italy agreed that Germany could take the Sudetenland. Czechoslovakia itself was not invited to the conference.

On 15 March 1939 German troops marched into Prague, the Czech capital. Hitler had taken land where almost no Germans lived, and appeasement was finished. On 31 March Britain, and then France, promised to defend Poland if it was attacked.

At the Munich conference, 29 September 1938. In front, from the left: Neville Chamberlain (Britain), Édouard Daladier (France), Adolf Hitler (Germany), Benito Mussolini and his foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano (Italy). No one from Czechoslovakia is in the picture, because no Czechoslovak leader was invited. Photo: unknown photographer, German Federal Archive (Bild 183-R69173), CC BY-SA 3.0 DE, via Wikimedia Commons

The immediate cause: Poland, 1939

Hitler next demanded the city of Danzig (today Gdańsk), which the peace settlement had made a "free city" under the League, and a road and railway across the "Polish Corridor", the strip of land that gave Poland a way to the sea and separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany. Poland refused.

The Nazi–Soviet Pact of 23 August 1939 (Source B) removed Hitler's last fear. On 1 September 1939 German forces invaded Poland. Britain and France demanded that Germany withdraw; when it did not, they declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939. On 17 September the Soviet army invaded eastern Poland, as the secret protocol had allowed.

The war in Asia

In East Asia the fighting had started earlier. Japan, which had held Manchuria since 1931, began a full-scale war against China on 7 July 1937. For this reason many Chinese historians count the Second World War from 1937, not 1939. The two wars, in Europe and in Asia, joined into one world war in December 1941, as the next lesson shows.

Worked example: a "how far" question

Question: "Appeasement was the main cause of the Second World War." How far do you agree? (8 marks)

Step 1. The case for. By giving way over the Rhineland in 1936, Austria and the Sudetenland in 1938, Britain and France convinced Hitler that they would never fight. He invaded Poland in 1939 expecting the same result.

Step 2. The case against. Appeasement only allowed aggression; it did not create it. The deeper causes were Hitler's aim of Lebensraum, German anger at the Treaty of Versailles, the Depression that brought the Nazis to power and the weakness of the League. The Nazi–Soviet Pact was the immediate trigger.

Step 3. Judgement. Appeasement was an important cause because it let Germany grow strong without a fight, but the main cause was Hitler's plan for conquest. A good answer weighs at least three causes and ends with a clear judgement, supported by dates.

Tip

Learn the steps by their years: 33 out of the League, 35 the army, 36 the Rhine, 38 Austria and the Sudetenland, 39 Prague, the Pact and Poland. If you can draw Figure 1 from memory, you can answer most "causes" questions.

Warning

Two common slips. Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, but Britain and France declared war on 3 September, not on the same day. And the Munich Agreement gave Hitler only the Sudetenland; he seized the rest of the Czech lands six months later, in March 1939.

Discuss

Chamberlain's supporters said appeasement bought Britain a year to build fighter aircraft and radar stations. His critics said every step made Hitler stronger. Was appeasement a sensible choice in 1938 with what Chamberlain knew then? What does this teach about how countries and the United Nations should respond to aggression today?

✦

Practice

What is the difference between a long-term cause and an immediate cause of a war?
Name two terms of the Treaty of Versailles that Hitler broke between 1935 and 1936.
Give two reasons why the League of Nations failed to stop aggression in the 1930s.
Why did Britain and France follow a policy of appeasement? Give three reasons.
What did the Munich Agreement decide, and who was left out of the conference?
Using Source B, explain why the Nazi–Soviet Pact made a German attack on Poland more likely.
Why do some historians date the Second World War from 1937 rather than 1939?
Source A was taken by a press photographer to show a moment of triumph. How useful is it to a historian studying appeasement?

Show answersHide answers

A long-term cause is a condition built up over years that makes war likely (such as resentment of the Treaty of Versailles); an immediate cause is the event that starts the fighting (the invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939).
Any two: he rebuilt the army by conscription in March 1935 (the treaty limited it to 100,000 men); he rebuilt an air force; he sent troops into the demilitarised Rhineland in March 1936.
Any two: it had no army of its own; the United States never joined; its sanctions were weak (oil was left out of the sanctions on Italy in 1935); aggressors such as Japan simply left it.
Any three: memories of the losses of 1914 to 1918; public opinion against war; a feeling that Versailles had been too harsh; fear of Soviet communism; Britain and France were not ready to fight and needed time to rearm.
Germany could take the Sudetenland, the German-speaking border region of Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia was not invited.
Article II meant the Soviet Union would not help Poland if Germany attacked it, and the secret protocol divided Poland between them, so Hitler no longer feared a war on two fronts.
Because Japan began a full-scale war against China on 7 July 1937, two years before Germany invaded Poland.
Useful: it shows how Chamberlain presented Munich to the public and that many people welcomed it; it is dated and its place is known. Limited: it shows a single moment and the mood of a crowd, not what was agreed or what Hitler intended, and a staged press photo cannot show whether the policy was wise.

Sources and credits

Treaty of Nonaggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Secret Additional Protocol (23 August 1939), the Avalon Project, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School. Quoted.
Causes of World War II, Munich Agreement and Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Wikipedia contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0. Adapted by Ganzaa.
Chamberlain at Heston aerodrome, 1938, unknown photographer, National Digital Archives of Poland, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0; Munich Agreement, heads of government, German Federal Archive, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE.
The diagram, worked example and Practice were written by Ganzaa.

This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.

1"A piece of paper"

2The long-term causes

3Hitler's steps to war

4The immediate cause: Poland, 1939

5The war in Asia

6Discuss