Download World War Looms

World War Looms
Dictators Threaten World Peace
I. Nationalism Threatens Europe and Asia
A. “The seeds of World War II were
sown at Versailles”
1. Germany was bitter over the
treaty—especially the war guilt
clause
2. Economies were wrecked and
saddled with debt or reparations
B. New democracies in Germany, Austria,
Italy, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania
and Greece were replaced by Dictators
C. Joseph Stalin transforms the Soviet
Union
1. He tried to create a model
Communist state bringing great
suffering to his people
2. Through forced starvation and
executions known as the Great Purge
somewhere around 10 million of his
own people were murdered
D. The rise of fascism in Italy
1. Benito Mussolini established the
Fascist Party in 1921 and in 1922 took
over the government
2. Fascism is an extreme nationalistic
and militaristic system that believes in
private property with strong
government controls
3. He crushed all opposition
and turned Italy into a
totalitarian state
E. The Nazis take over Germany
1. 1921—Adolph Hitler head of the
Nazi Party
2. 1923—tried to overthrow the
German government and thrown in jail
3. while in jail he wrote Mein Kamph
(My Struggle)
4. Hitler promised to repeal the Treaty
of Versailles and restore Germany’s
military
5. He also promised to build a “Greater
Germany”
F. Desperate Germans suffering from the
Depression turned to Hitler and the Nazi’s
in 1932
1. In January 1933 Hitler was made
chancellor
2. Once in power he dismantled the
German democracy and established
the Third Reich
G. Militarists gain control in Japan
1. Eager for more land and resources
the Japanese invaded the Chinese
province of Manchuria in 1931
2. The world condemned the
aggression but Japan ignored the
protests
H. Aggression in Europe
1. Hitler builds up his military and
invades the Rhineland in violation of
the Versailles treaty
2. Mussolini invades Ethiopia
3. The world does nothing…
II. The United States Responds Cautiously
A. The United States was isolationist in
the 1930s
B. FDR tried to reach out to the world
1. Officially recognized the Soviet
Union in 1933
2. The Good Neighbor policy in
Latin America
C. Congress passed the Neutrality Acts
in 1935 to keep the US out of war
D. Neutrality breaks
down
1. Spanish Civil War:
dress rehearsal for
WWII
2. FDR calls for the
“quarantine” or
isolation of aggressor
nations
III. War in Europe
A. Austria and Czechoslovakia Fall
1. March 1938—Austria falls to the
Nazis without a fight
2. British Prime Minister Neville
Chamberlain agreed to give Hitler the
Sudetenland (a German-speaking part
of Czechoslovakia) in return for a
guarantee from Hitler that he would not
take any more territory at the Munich
Conference
B. The German offensive begins
1. Hitler invades the rest of
Czechoslovakia in March 1939
2. August 1939, Hitler and Stalin sign a
nonaggression pact
3. September 1, 1939—Hitler invaded
Poland and World War II began
C. Blitzkrieg in Poland—The “Lightning
War” allowed Germany to defeat Poland
in three weeks before England or France
could respond
1. The Soviets took the eastern part of
Poland
2. By the end of the month Poland
ceased to exist
D. The phony war
1. During the next few months nothing
happened as both sides regrouped
2. Then the Soviets invaded and took
over Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and
Finland
3. By the end of May, the Nazis had
overrun Denmark, Norway, the
Netherlands, Belgium, and
Luxembourg
E. France and Britain fight on
1. France fell in June 1941
2. The Battle of Britain
a. Hitler tried to bomb England
into submission
b. The RAF (Royal Air Force)
fought back
c. Winston Churchill pledged that the
Brits would defend their island…”We
shall fight on the landing grounds, we
shall fight in the fields and in the
streets, we shall fight in the hills; we
shall never surrender.”
IV. America Moves Toward War
A. America moves away from neutrality
1. “cash and carry” allowed
countries to buy weapons from the
US as long as they paid cash and
carried them home on their own
ships
2. Congress passed the Neutrality
Act of 1939 which put “cash and
carry” into effect
B. The Axis threat
1. September 1940—Germany, Italy and
Japan sign the Tripartite Pact— they
became known as the Axis powers
2. FDR started a policy known as “lendlease” in 1941 where we sent war
material to Britain in order to keep them
alive
3. The US went from being neutral to nonbelligerent
4. FDR was reelected in 1940
5. Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in June
1941
C. Planning for War
1. Atlantic Charter—Churchill and FDR
met to discuss the reasons why WWII
would be fought
2. After the August 1941 meeting the
US was still not close to declaring war
D. Japan attacks
1. The Japanese wanted to build an
empire in the Pacific
2. They were successful in their
invasion of China and the US stood in
their way
3. When the US cut off the supply of oil
to Japan in a trade embargo, Japan
decided to attack the US
E. On December 7th 1941 Japan launched
a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in
Hawaii
1. Much of the Pacific fleet was
destroyed
2. 2400 Americans were killed
3. The president asked for a
declaration of war on December 8th and
the US entered WWII