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Chapter 17: World War II: The Road to War (1931 – 1941)
Section 1: The Rise of Dictators
- totalitarian rule – government exerts total control over a nation
o dominates every aspect of life, using terror to suppress individual rights and silence all
forms of opposition
- fascism – emphasizes the importance of the nation, or an ethnic group and the supreme
authority of the leader
- communism – relies upon a strong, dictatorial government that does not respect individual
rights and freedoms
Stalin’s Soviet Union
- five-year plans to modernize agriculture and build new industries from the ground up
- Stalin’s Economic Plans
o combine small family farms into huge collective farms owned and run by the state
o millions of people died from starvation, and millions more fled to the cities
o agricultural production fell dramatically
o rapid industrialization – industrial centers where iron, steel, oil, and coal were produced
 caused severe shortages of essential products
- Stalin’s Reign of Terror
o purges – process of removing enemies and undesirable individuals from power
 purged local party officers, collective farms, the secret police, and the army of
anyone whom he considered a threat
o arrested more than 7 million people
o million were executed, and millions more ended up in forced labor camps
Fascism in Italy
- Benito Mussolini – believed strongly that the Versailles Treaty should have granted Italy more
territory, began calling himself Il Duce ~ “the leader”
o organized fascist groups throughout Italy of thugs, called Blackshirts
o appointed prime minister by king
o suspended elections, outlawed all other political parties, and established a dictatorship
o dreams of forging a new Roman Empire
o invaded the independent African kingdom of Ethiopia and took over
Hitler’s Rise to Power
- discontented Austrian painter who especially hated the war-guilt clause of the Versailles
Treaty, that forced Germany to accept the blame for starting World War I
- The Nazi Party
o National Socialist Workers’ Party or Nazi Party
o Nazism – form of fascism shaped by Hitler’s fanatical ideas about German nationalism
and racial superiority
o had powerful public-speaking abilities
o Hitler tried to overthrow the German government and was sentenced to five years in
prison
 while in prison, wrote his autobiography Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”) which
outlined the Nazi philosophy
in it he also criticized the Jewish population, which he blamed irrationally for
Germany’s defeat in World War I
o proposed a strengthening of Germany’s military and expanding German borders to
include Germans living in other countries
o called for purifying the so-called “Aryan race”
o promised to stabilize the country, rebuild the economy, and restore the empire that had
been lost
- Hitler Becomes Chancellor
o Reichstag – lower house of the German parliament
o Hitler made chancellor by the ailing President
o moved to suspend freedom of speech and freedom of the press
o passed an Enabling Bill which gave him dictatorial powers
o after the death of the president, he became both chancellor and president and gave
himself the title of Der Führer ~ “the leader”
- Germany Rearms
o Nazis secretly began spending money on rearming and expanding the armed forces in
violation of the Versailles Treaty
o industry prospered
o Germans needed more territory, or what Hitler called lebensraum ~ “living space”
o main goal was the conquest of eastern Europe and the Soviet Union
o March 1936 – Hitler enters the Rhineland and remilitarizes it
o forms an “axis” between Rome and Berlin; joined later by Japan
o Axis Powers – Germany, Italy, and Japan
- Germany Expands
o Hitler pressed his homeland of Austria for Anschluss or political union with Germany
o demanded the Sudetenland, an industrial region of western Czechoslovakia
o appeasement – giving in to a competitor’s demands in order to keep the peace
o Britain and France agreed to sacrifice the Sudetenland; though no one consulted
Czechoslovakia’s leaders
The Spanish Civil War
- Spain’s democratic government held what would be the country’s last free elections under the
old republic in February of 1936
- numerous political parties vied for power
- Francisco Franco – began an aggressive takeover
- Germany and Italy provided planes, tanks, and soldiers to Franco and his Nationalists
- German pilots incinerated the town center of Guernica and fired on civilians from the air
o preview of the destruction that would strike hundreds of cities in Britain, Germany,
Poland, and other countries a few years later
o was an experiment for the German Luftwaffe to see what it would take to destroy a
town by air attack
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Section 2: Europe Goes to War
- see PowerPoint
Section 3: Japan Builds an Empire
- emerged from isolation in the mid-1800s when the United States forced Japan to open its
markets to foreigners when Commodore Matthew C. Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay in 1853
- engaged in wars against China (1894-1895) and Russia (1904-1905) to expand its sphere of
influence in East Asia
- developed into the strongest nation in East Asia and one of the most powerful nations in the
world
Growing Military Power
- Kellogg-Briand Pact – Japan joined and condemned war and pledged to solve all disagreements
peacefully
- Democracy in Crisis
o Japan’s industries depended on selling their goods to foreign countries
o high tariffs put in place by the United States caused industrial decline
- Rise of Nationalism
o people wanted a return to traditional ways and an end to multiparty rule, powerful
businesses, and other Western-style institutions
o hoped to force the military to take over the government
The Manchurian Incident
- saw the acquisition of Manchuria as a solution to their need for space and raw materials
o had both coal and iron ore and immense areas of undeveloped land
- Manchurian Incident – Japanese armies seizure of Manchuria
- Japan announced that Manchuria was now the independent state of Manchukuo
o became a puppet state – a supposedly independent country under the control of a
powerful neighbor
- increased the army’s power over the government
o naval officers helped assassinate the prime minister
o military officers assisted in the murder of several high government officials
o citizens dared not criticize the military
- began to develop Manchuria as a base for even further Japanese expansion in Asia
War Against China
- Japan resumed its invasion of Chinese territory
o minor clash at the Marco Polo Bridge outside Beijing turned into a full-scale war
o occupied the major cities of Beijing and Tianjin
o Japan’s superior weapons overcame China’s huge manpower advantage
o Japanese warplanes ruthlessly bombed Chinese cities
o soldiers brutalized and killed thousands in the “Rape of Nanjing”
- US Congress passed a series of Neutrality Acts that prevented the United States from becoming
involved in foreign conflicts
- Soviet Union aided China with arms, military advisors, and warplanes
- Britain – sent a steady stream of supplies along the Burma Road – a 700-mile-long highway
linking Burma to China
- Mao Zedong and Jiang Jeishi worked together to stop the Japanese, but were not successful
Looking Beyond China
- start of the war in Europe distracted European powers from the defense of their colonies in
East Asia
- Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere – Japan declared it would liberate Asia from European
colonizers
o in reality, they wanted the region’s natural resources, especially oil and rubber, to carry
on its war against China
- Japan allied itself with Germany and Italy through the Tripartite Pact
o also signed a neutrality pact with the Soviet Union (similar to Hitler)
Section 4: From Isolationism to War
- US was worried about solving its own domestic problems at this time and clung to its policy of
isolationism
- most Americans sympathized with the victims of aggression, but nothing short of a direct
attack on the United States would propel Americans into another war
The United States Chooses Neutrality
- Roosevelt was busy focusing on domestic issues
o more concerned with lifting the United States out of the Depression than with addressing
foreign concerns
- passed the Hawley-Smoot tariff to protect American industries and isolate the US
- Neutrality Acts – banned the United States from providing weapons to nations at war
o permitted trade with fighting nations in nonmilitary goods as long as they paid cash and
transported the cargo themselves (on their own ships) – the cash and carry system
American Involvement Grows
- began to look for ways to send more aid to the Allies
- Debating the American Role
o repealing the arms embargo and providing Britain and France with the weapons they
needed
 still prevented the United States from lending money to the Allies
o many Americans supported “all aid short of war” for Britain
 sent 50 old destroyers to Britain in return for permission to build bases on British
territory
o America First Committee – wanted to block further aid to Britain
 included members like Charles Lindbergh
- Lend-Lease
o Roosevelt won reelection to a third term as President in 1940
o Britain was running out of money and would no longer be able to follow the cash & carry
o proposed providing war supplies to Britain without any payment in return
o Lend-Lease Act – authorized the President to aid any nation whose defense he believed
was vital to American security
Japan Attacks Pearl Harbor
- July 1940 – Roosevelt began limiting what Japan could buy from the US
- September 1940 – ended sales of scrap iron and steel
-
when Japanese forces seized French Indochina, Roosevelt froze Japanese financial assets in the
United States, and cut off all oil shipments
- officials from both sides sought ways to avoid war with each other
- Final Weeks of Peace
o American technicians had cracked a top-secret Japanese code
o American military leaders knew that Japanese aircraft carriers were on the move in the
Pacific
o target was Pearl Harbor, the naval base on the Hawaiian island of Oahu that served as
the home of the U.S. Pacific Fleet
o Japan wanted to cripple the American fleet
- The Attack
o radar operators had noticed a large blip on the radio screen; believed it was American
planes expected from San Francisco
o less than an hour later more than 180 Japanese warplanes streaked overhead
o bombed and strafed (attacked with machine-gun fire) the fleet and the airfields
o 2,400 Americans were killed and nearly 1,200 wounded
o 200 American warplanes had been damaged or destroyed, 18 warships had been sunk or
heavily damaged, including 8 of the fleet’s 9 battleships
 Japan lost just 29 planes
United States Declares War
- FDR called December 7, 1941 “a date which will live in infamy”
- December 8, 1941 – the US declares war on Japan
- December 11, 1941 – Germany and Italy declare war on the United States