Causes of World War Two Essay Example

moans and cutting consumer expenditure, Germany's military expenditure nearly quadrupled from 1 937 to 1 939 and by 1939 there were 2,758,000 men in the army and 4000 frontline aircrafts in the Luftwaffe (German air force of WI).

Hitter's decision for a German military expansion played a key role in causing WI as it triggered the subsequent launching of rearmament programs in Britain and France, which then exacerbated the nations' financial problems, further leading onto deepened economic rivalries.

Adding to this was world economic crisis, and the combination of all these factors prompted y Hitler led to the outbreak of WI to a large extent. Overall, orthodox historians put forward an intentionality argument, that Hitler had a fanatical will and a consistent program of aggression. For instance, Hugh Tremor-Roper maintained that Hitler had a very coherent strategy through which he aimed to achieve his objectives step-by-step and that he wanted to have war for ideological reasons.

Tremor-Roper uses the Mien Kampala and Hassock Memorandum as evidence that reflects Hitter's radical pursuit of his objectives with coherence and conviction. The orthodox nine, however, is strongly challenged by revisionist and structuralism historians who claim that Hitler was an opportunist. Historians with such views emerged as the world became increasingly aware of the complexity of context, and they place greater emphasis upon the context in which the German regime operated and upon the opportunities it was able to exploit. For example, A. J. P.

Taylor, who once said 'Far from wanting war, a general war was the last thing Hitler wanted', contends that Hitler, instead of being an 'evil monster who molded events to fit his master plan,

was a man of 'the-spur-of-the- moment bright idea' and opportunism, who simply took advantages of situations as they occurred. Moreover, Taylor supports the structuralism view by stating that evidence from Treaty of Brest Litotes and Batman-Hollowed Memorandum shows that Hitter's ideas, such as Lebensraum, were essentially traditional, which implies that even if Hitler had not led Germany, the same consequences would have been elicited.

Furthermore, appeasement, a policy based on the assumption that willingness to compromise would avert conflict by protecting the essential interests of nations, is regarded as another major cause of WI. Appeasement was an increasingly prevalent theme in international foreign policies up to WI, and Britain, which saw previous successes from Anglo- French and Anglo-Russian colonial agreements of 1 904 and 1 907, was most eager in adopting it as a main policy.

Moreover, along with France, Britain was also given justifications to continue the policy of appeasement on the grounds of the Treaty of Versailles.

In 1937 Britain launched a major initiative in which it had hoped to divert German expansion in Eastern Europe by offering Germany colonies in Africa. However, the complete failure of this approach was marked by the even accelerated pace of German expansion as seen in Unclasps and the German destruction of Czechoslovakia in 1939.

Following the failure, Chamberlain, the Prime Minister of Britain, was bitterly accused by not only both left and right wing British historians and the general British public, but also the French historians and politicians, who claimed that he bullied them into appeasement. Orthodox historians, such as R.

A. C. Parker and John Wheeler-Bennett, follow this line of criticism, claiming that Chamberlain's foreign

policy was a 'diplomacy of illusion' and placed Britain and France in a very weak military position by preventing them from having any major allies.

On the contrary, revisionist historians maintain that the policy of appeasement should be viewed within the context of the times, how Britain at the time was so economically feeble that Chamberlain had no other choice but to attempt to appease Germany if he were to preserve the Empire. Overall, appeasement contributed in eliciting WI to a large extent as it had ultimately failed to achieve its aim of diverting conflict and as its inability to UT brakes on Hitler ultimately made the aggressive German foreign policy possible.

However, its significance is less of that of Hitler, as even if appeasement had been successful, it would still have failed to fully restrain Hitler, whose power was growing mightier by the day and closer towards WI. Moreover, the Treaty of Versailles is also considered to have contributed in causing WI. Its Article 231, 'the War Guilt' clause, forced defeated Germany to admit that it bore the moral responsibility for the bloodshed by virtue of their aggressive policies before 1914.

In addition, Germany was stripped of 25,000 square miles of territory and 7,000,000 inhabitants and it was coerced to diminish the size of its army to 96,000 men.

It was also demanded to pay a reparation of E 66 billion. All of these terms infuriated the Germans, who believed they had been fighting a defensive war against aggression from the Allied powers, most notably Russia. This was an important factor in causing WI as it directly opened doors for Hitler-?he took advantage of

the German resentment in his rise to power by gaining German support through rumoring them to end these humiliating conditions.

Another problem of the Treaty of Versailles was that it on Ii produced an uneasy comport sis that was only sustainable in the short-term. This idea is supported by Ferdinand Foci, who reacted to the treaty by saying 'This is not peace, it is a truce for 20 years'. Overall, the harsh terms imposed upon the Germans and the failure to establish a long-term conciliation planted the seeds of WI to an extent.

Moreover, the treaty also pushed France and Britain closer to their policy of appeasement, and the combination of the two drew the nations closer to WI.

The French historian Maurice Beaumont, however, suggests an alternative interpretation of the Treaty of Versailles; he stresses that the shortcomings that survived the peace conference shouldn't blind us to the fact that 'as a whole the treaties righted age-old wrongs', especially with regard to the subject nationalities of central Europe. Although the significance of the Treaty of Versailles on the whole is considerably less than that of Hitler, it is an undeniable fact that its terms provided Hitler with an opportunity to strengthen his power by gaining German support.

In addition, the weakness of the League of Nations is another cause of the Second World War.

The League of Nations, which was created as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, was an international organization created by Woodrow Wilson, and it held the high aims of maintaining world peace by preventing future conflict through peaceful settlement, promoting disarmament, promoting general international cooperation and supervising mandated territories

such as the Garland referred to the league by peace treaties.

Despite such high ideals, the league was ultimately a failure for several reasons. Firstly, it was not complete in terms of its membership to be able to exert a fully international influence. For instance, the United States of America was never a member as the Senate refused to ratify, Russia was not a part until 1 934 and Germany was only a member from 1926 to 1933.

Secondly, the league was a failure in that its ideals were directly ignored by the domination of Britain and France, known as 'the victors' club', both of which were self-interested and far from holding up altruistic ideals. Thirdly, the decisions of the league were completed neglected in many cases, such as n the Polish seizure of the town of Villa in 1920, Japanese aggression in Manchuria in 1 931, Italian attacks on Abyssinia in 1 935 and all of Hitter's expansionist moves.

Fourthly, the league could not be influential as it wasn't equipped with sufficient armed force to enforce its decisions; Mussolini once said 'The League is all right when sparrows quarrel. It fails when eagles fall out'.

Above all factors, the biggest failure of the League of Nations was that it failed in its primary task of deterring a war. The extent of the league's failure is evident in how Lord David Cecil once said 'the L of N...

As been found inconvenient and not tried'.

On the whole, these failures of the League of Nations meant that the countries had no one to stop themselves from causing even more aggression and tension, which encouraged Britain

and France even to adhere to appeasement even more, and the combination of these factors directly contributed to the cause of WI. Once again, although the failure Of the League Of Nations does not come above the influence of Hitler in causing WI, it was still a contributory factor that gave Hitler even more strength as the league had failed to restrain him.