Download From Appeasement to War

17.1 Notes:
From Appeasement to War
Objectives
•
Analyze the threat to world peace posed by
dictators in the 1930s and how the Western
democracies responded.
•
Describe how the Spanish Civil War was a “dress
rehearsal” for World War II.
•
Summarize the ways in which continuing Nazi
aggression led Europe to war.
1
Dictators took aggressive action in the 1930s.
Japan
Germany
Italy
Military
leaders
Overran Manchuria and
much of eastern China
Hitler
Rebuilt the military and
invaded the Rhineland
Mussolini
Invaded and conquered
Ethiopia
2
Western democracies denounced these
invasions but chose a policy of appeasement.
•
France could not take on Hitler
without British support, and
Britain did not want to confront
him. Both countries viewed
Hitler’s fascism as a defense
against the spread of Soviet
communism.
•
The Great Depression exhausted
Western nations.
•
Disillusion with the previous war
had led to widespread pacifism.
•
In the United States, Congress
passed a series of Neutrality
Acts aimed at avoiding
involvement in a European war.
3
By the mid-1930s,
the antidemocratic
aggressive powers
formed an alliance.
•
Italy, Germany, and
Japan became the
Axis powers.
•
The Rome-Berlin-Tokyo
Axis agreed to fight
Soviet communism.
•
They also pledged not
to interfere with one
another’s plans for
territorial expansion.
Mussolini and Hitler
4
A civil war in Spain increased tensions.
• In 1931, a rebellion ousted the king of
Spain.
• Reformers created a republic with a liberal
constitution, and took land and privileges
from the Church and old ruling classes.
• Conservative general Francisco Franco
launched a revolt against the republic in
1936.
5
Sides in the Spanish Civil War
Nationalists
Loyalists
Fascists and
the right wing
Supported
conservative
Franco
Communists,
Supported
socialists, and those
the republic
wanting democracy
6
The Spanish Civil War became a “dress rehearsal”
for a wider European war.
• Hitler and Mussolini sent arms and forces to
support Franco, while the Soviet Union sent
soldiers to help the Loyalists.
• Nazi leaders used the war to test new bombers.
• More than 500,000 people died in the struggle.
• By 1939, Franco had won. He created a fascist
dictatorship similar to those of Germany and Italy.
7
Meanwhile, Hitler took aggressive steps to bring all
German-speaking people into the Third Reich.
• One of Hitler’s goals was the Anschluss,
or union of Austria and Germany.
• In 1938, German troops entered Austria.
• Although Hitler’s annexation of Austria
violated the Treaty of Versailles, the
Western democracies took no action.
8
Hitler next threatened to annex the Sudetenland.
Britain and France protested, but they were unwilling
to go to war.
At the Munich Conference in 1938, British and
French leaders gave in to Hitler’s demands. Hitler
promised that he had no further plans to expand.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announced
that they had achieved “peace for our time.”
9
Europe rapidly plunged toward war.
• After gaining the
Sudetenland, Hitler broke
his promises and took the
rest of Czechoslovakia.
• The democracies accepted
that appeasement had
failed. They pledged to
protect Poland.
• In August 1939, Hitler and
Stalin announced the NaziSoviet Pact. This was a
shaky alliance, since
neither Hitler nor Stalin
trusted the other.
10
On September 1, 1939, a week after the
Nazi-Soviet Pact, German forces invaded Poland.
Two days later, Britain
and France declared
war on Germany.
World War II
had begun.
11
What events unfolded between
Chamberlain’s declaration of “peace for our
time” and the outbreak of a world war?
After the horrors of World War I, Western
democracies tried to preserve peace.
However, Germany, Italy, and Japan were
preparing to build new empires, and the world
was headed to war again.
12
Terms and People
•
appeasement – giving in to the demands of an
aggressor to keep peace
•
pacifism – opposition to all war
•
Neutrality Acts – a group of laws enacted by
the United States to avoid involvement in a
European conflict
•
Axis powers – Germany, Italy, and Japan
Terms and People (continued)
•
Francisco Franco – a conservative Spanish
general supported by Fascists and Nationalists in
the Spanish Civil War; later became dictator
•
Anschluss – union of Austria and Germany
•
Sudetenland – a region of Czechoslovakia
•
Nazi-Soviet Pact – a nonaggression pact uniting
Germany and the Soviet Union