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The Road to World War II During the negotiation of the Treaty of Versailles, one prominent politician of the time remarked that the treaty would only bring twenty years of peace. Little did the world know that a series of events would make this prophesy come true. Historians generally acknowledge the aggressiveness of several nations, as well as the attempts at appeasement by others, as the major causes of World War II. Specifically, territorial aggrandizement by Japan in China, by Fascist Italy in Ethiopia, and by Nazi Germany in central and eastern Europe brought the world to war. The League of Nations failed to take decisive action to curb armaments or stem aggression by these states. The Western powers continued to pursue policies of neutrality and appeasement until it became clear that the expansionist nations would not rest content with their gains. At the 1921-22 Washington Conference, Japan had concurred in guaranteeing China’s territorial integrity and recognizing the Open Door principle, which required Chinese trade to be open to all nations. Despite this pledge, Japan’s extreme nationalists looked longingly to the Chinese province of Manchuria, a huge area of potential wealth. On September 18, 1931, Japanese soldiers stationed in southern Manchuria were involved in a minor clash with Chinese troops. Japan used the incident to justify the spreading of its forces throughout Manchuria. By January 1932, Japan had subdued the region establishing a puppet state of Manchukuo. The League of Nations condemned Japan in 1933 but imposed no sanctions. Japan responded by pulling out of the League. Around the same time, two rulers within Europe attempted to change their nation’s strategic position. Both Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini pushed for territorial expansion, yet for different reasons. Hitler was not only driven by his desire for a large German empire, but for the completion of an ethnically unified Germany. During the period in which Hitler’s Nazi Party controlled Germany, Hitler preached nationalism and promised Germans victory and supremacy. However, Mussolini’s desires for territorial expansion were not hinged on the unification of a nationality. Mussolini hoped to return Italy to the heights experienced during the days of the Ancient Roman Empire, with borders stretching throughout the world. His Fascist state emphasized the principles that the state was superior, that war was necessary in the world, that a true democracy could not exist in a fascist state, and that the people should consider what was in the best interests of the state. German chancellor Adolf Hitler abandoned the efforts of the Weimar Republic, who encouraged Germany to ease into the provisions of the Versailles Treaty through a policy of reconciliation with the World War I victors. Instead, Hitler unilaterally tore up the treaty. Hitler took Germany out of the League in 1933 and began a massive program to build up the Germany army, navy, and air force. In March 1935, he restored universal military service. The western democracies did not react to either violation of the Versailles Treaty. Britain even concluded a naval agreement with Germany in 1935 that permitted greater German strength than allowed by the Versailles Treaty. In 1936, Hitler continued his attack on the Versailles Treaty by sending troops into the demilitarized Rhineland. In 1935, Italy continued its attempt to expand into Africa. Benito Mussolini, seeking an easy foreign victory to galvanize his country, sent troops into Ethiopia from Italian Eritrea on October 3, 1935 in an attempt to avenge an 1896 failed conquering of Ethiopia. Another thrust came from Italian Somaliland. Throwing mechanized troops against untrained and poorly armed Ethiopians, the Italians completed the conquest in 1936. With Eritrea and Italian Somaliland, Ethiopia was organized as Italian East Africa. In response to Italy’s aggression, the League of Nations imposed an embargo against Italy. The failure to include oil in the embargo only further discredited the League of Nation’s authority. In July 1936, a Civil War in Spain started. This conflict between Spain’s liberal-leftist republican coalition government and rightists led by General Francisco Franco soon brought international repercussions. Hitler and Mussolini sent planes, troops, and supplies to Franco, using the war as a continual training for the inevitable war both men sought. Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin gave military equipment to the republicans. Organized with Soviet Comintern aid, thousands of British and American anti-Fascist volunteers known as the Lincoln Brigade went to Spain to help the republican coalition. However, the United States government adhered to a policy of strict neutrality. Anxious to prevent a general war, Britain and France forbade the shipment of war material to the republic. Cooperation between Germany and Italy in Spain helped cement the vague Rome-Berlin Axis, an understanding that they had concluded in 1936. Franco’s victory in 1939 strengthened Hitler and Mussolini’s positions in the Mediterranean. In 1936, the Japanese concluded the Anti-Comintern Pact with Germany. One year later, Italy joined what would be known as the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis; this group prefigured the later alliance structure of the general war. On July 7, 1937, a Chinese-Japanese military clash occurred at the Marco Polo Bridge near Peking. This altercation provided the pretext for an all-out Japanese campaign of conquest in China. By 1939, Japan controlled populous eastern China. Reacting to these events in China, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke in October 1937 of the need to “quarantine the aggressor,” which encouraged a continuation of neutrality, but urged Americans to be morally anti-Axis. A strong negative response to this call indicated the wide extent of isolationist sentiment in the United States. Not until 1940 did Japanese expansionism begin to draw the attention of the American public. Proclaiming the unity of the German people, Hitler had sought Anschluss (“union”) between Germany and his native Austria since 1934. In February 1938, he used the threat of invasion to force Austrian chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg to admit Nazis into his cabinet. On March 112, 1938, Hitler invaded Austria and incorporated it into his Third Reich. Almost immediately afterward, the Nazi regime began agitating on behalf of the Sudeten Germans who lived in pockets of western Czechoslovakia known as the Sudetenland. Hitler claimed they were a persecuted minority in Czechoslovakia. Although the Czech government made numerous concessions to the Sudeten Germans, Hitler demanded the immediate cession of the Sudetenland to Germany in September 1938. On September 29-30, Czechoslovakia’s allies, Britain and France, agreed at the Munich Conference to yield to Hitler. Hitler claimed to make no further territorial demands in Europe. Czechoslovakia was excluded from participation at Munich. Unlike Austria, Czechoslovakia was democratic, and its president, Eduard Benes, was prepared to resist Hitler, but the two western European democracies insisted on submission. Britain’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain hailed the Munich agreement as bringing “peace in our time.” In March 1939, Hitler destroyed what remained of Czechoslovakia by occupying Bohemia-Moravia and making Slovakia a German protectorate. He also took Memel from Lithuania and began threatening the Polish Corridor, a narrow strip of land that separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany. In the meantime, Italy occupied and annexed Albania in April 1939. The Western powers could no longer avoid acknowledging that Hitler’s promises were worthless and that his territorial ambitions were not restricted to German-speaking areas but might be limitless. Desperately, Britain and France began to prepare military resistance to Nazi expansionism. In the spring of 1939, they both guaranteed Poland support against German aggression. They also sought to begin negotiations with the USSR, whose earlier efforts to form an anti-Axis coalition they had rebuffed. Stalin, however, had become convinced that Britain and France were conspiring to help throw the full weight of German strength against the USSR. Therefore, despite their bitterly antagonistic ideologies, Stalin sought an accommodation with Hitler. On August 23, 1939, Germany and the USSR signed the 10-year Nazi-Soviet Pact of non-aggression. The secret protocol provided for the division of Poland between the two nations, and also guaranteed the Russian takeover of the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia without German interference. For a delighted Hitler, the treaty meant that he would not have to fight a war on two fronts. The arrangement also signaled Soviet acceptance of German actions against Poland. For Britain and France, the Nazi-Soviet pact meant they would be without major allies as they belatedly prepared to defend Poland. Germany’s invasion of Poland would start on September 1, 1939. Hitler referred to the strategy as blitzkrieg, or “lightning war” that utilized heavy air strikes that preceded a rapidly advancing ground invasion. The object of the blitzkrieg strategy was to shock the opponent so severely that there would be little resistance, allowing the country to be overrun quickly, with minimal German losses. Britain and France would declare war on Germany on September 3, 1939, starting World War II. Stalin would send Russian troops into Poland two weeks later. Although America would attempt to remain neutral, America’s entry to the war would not take place until December 1941.