Download The United States and World War II

The Rise of Totalitarianism in
the East and West
Russia (communist)
Italy (fascist)
Japan (fascist)
Germany (fascist)
Italy
• Birthplace of fascism
• Mussolini won power (appointed prime
minister by the king) in 1922, after the
“March on Rome”
• 1932 “The Doctrine of Fascism”Mussolini
Mussolini’s
ambitions:
1935: aggressive war against Ethiopia
(Italians lost against Ethiopia,or
Abyssinia, in 1898)
The Italians used:
– Poison gas
– Aeroplanes
– Machine guns
against ill-equipped Ethiopian troops
The invasion of Albania-April, 1939
Invasion of Greece- October, 1940 (WW II)
Germany had to intervene to avoid Italian
defeat
Japan
The U.S. expected conflict with Japan (and
planned for it) before a fight with Germany
Why?
Commercial rivalry
Territorial rivalry
Before the 1940’s, both Japan and the United
States had vied for influence in the Pacific
The Japanese?
Forced to open to trade when the Americans sailed into
Tokyo Harbor in 1853
Why “forced”?
• US economic imperialism---Japan had a large
population, representing a potentially huge market for
American goods (both raw materials and manufactured
goods)
• Japan had spurned western technology and culture, then
found itself at the mercy of it
“After the signing of the treaty, the
Japanese invited the Americans to a
feast. The Americans admired the
courtesy and politeness of their
hosts, and thought very highly of the
rich Japanese culture.”
http://www.history.navy.mil
The Japanese
Military, ca.
1850
The Japanese military, ca. 1905—defeat of the
Russian fleet at Tsushima
Japan had been a marginal ally of the Allied
powers in WW I in order to expand its Asian
territories
By the 1930’s, it had transformed itself into an
imperial power, calling it the…
“Greater East-Asian Co-prosperity
Sphere”
Japan’s Growing Power (1870-1942)
Escalating Conflict:
Mid-1930’s -1940 the U.S. had:
a)
Placed an embargo on exports to Japan---despite trade
treaty with Japan that had been signed in 1911
b)
Frozen Japanese assets
c)
Placed an embargo on all oil and remaining raw materials
not covered under the previous Acts
At the same time, Japan had pursued a brutal, expansionist
foreign policy (not unlike European empire-building 150-200
years before)
Outbreak
The Japanese resolved to deal a crippling blow
to the American Navy at its new Pacific base,
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
“Anyone who has seen the auto
factories in Detroit and the oil fields in
Texas … “knows that Japan lacks the
national power for a naval race with
America.”
-Yamamoto
Admiral Yamomoto:
“In the first six to twelve months of a
war with the United States and Great
Britain I will run wild and win victory
upon victory. But then, if the war
continues after that, I have no
expectation of success.”
Germany
Hitler appointed chancellor in
1933
Expansion:
Rhineland (1936)
Sudetenland/Czechoslovakia
(1938)
Austria (1938)
The 1930’s were years of economic and
political instability around the world
Democracy was the exception, not the
rule.