World War 2

World War 2 was a global war about 20 years after World War 1.

International Relations Antecedents

Failure of the League

Despite advocacy for the League of Nations, Wilson failed to get Senate ratification of the charter and allow the U.S. to join.

Germany left the League in 1933.

After Mussolini ordered the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, Selasse spoke in the League and led a condemnation of Italy. Italy left the League as a direct response.

Japan left the League.

Treaty of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles imposed harsh terms on Germany.

1. Germany was demilitarized.
2. Reparations payments in gold were extreme. Payments only completed in 2010.

3. Reparations payments in coal were unsustainable. Defaults were common until the Dawes Plan was negotiated.

4. Italy annexed the southern half of Tyrol.

5. Poland annexed West Prussia, including the port city of Danzig.

More generally, Wilson's Fourteen Points failed to be realized in the peace process. MacDonald argued against the terms in the League of Nations.

Lack of Military Defeat

Germany did not suffer a complete military defeat in World War 1. Much of the navy had still been administering the occupation of Eastern Europe and, rather than allow its seizure, officers ordered it scuttled.

The leaders of the Weimar Republic came to be seen as traitors to the nation.

International Fallout of the Ruhr Crisis

Reparations payments in terms of coal were impossible to fulfill. Hyperinflation and general dissatisfaction led to strikes, which forced frequent defaults on the payments.

In January 1923, Poincaré ordered the invasion and occupation of the Ruhr Valley. 130 civilians were killed during the occupation. Internationally, France was recognized as the aggressor in this crisis. MacDonald advocated for Germany in bilateral relations with Herriot.

The Dawes Plan was implemented as a solution.

European Remilitarization

The demilitarization of Germany made maintenance of other European militaries a lower priority. The Great Depression then provided an incentive to reduce them. This was contrary to the political aims of many other governments.

Baldwin bilaterally re-negotiated the naval demilitarization; the new limits were relative to the tonnage of the British navy.

Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil War became a proxy war of fascism.

Franco's victory demonstrated the viability of 'exporting fascism' through the German military-industrial complex.

Asia

Imperial Japan was largely excluded from peace negotiations, and as a result their representatives were unable to capture the benefits that European powers did.

German colonies in Asia were seized and divided.

Sudetan Crisis

Hitler supported separatist movements in the Sudetenland, a borderland of Czechoslovakia that was ethnically German. There was popular belief that Germans were discriminated and persecuted in Czechoslovakia. Beneš declared martial law to counter Germanic nationalism.

Within the Sudetenland was Trans-Olza, and Bohumin (Bogumin), in particular. As a strategic rail city and as a result of the rift created by the Spa Conference, Poland also had been developing plans to seize this region. Hitler's overt political moves accelerated Poland's plans.

Beneš appealed to Stalin, who had already begun mobilization in Ukraine and Belarus alongside threats to dissolve the Soviet-Polish Nonagression Pact. Soviet planes were moved into Czech airfields and Czechoslovakia began to mobilize its own army.

The Polish delivered an ultimatum and gave Prague a single day to comply. They then followed through on the threat; the Polish army was decisively successful in invading, occupying, and annexing Trans-Olza.

In 1938, the British, French, and Italian government intervened diplomatically and came to agreement that Hitler could annex the Sudetenland and Poland could annex Trans-Olza. The Czechoslovak government was told afterwards that rejecting the Munich Agreement (or Munich Dictate, or Munich Betrayal) would mean the rest of Europe would consider them the aggressor.

Polinization policies were established and national governmental control was instituted over a locality that had previously enjoyed significant autonomy and multiculturalism as a way to maintain tenuous peace. Czech schools had generally been better funded and sociopolitically advantageous compared to the Polish schools, and the new administration had swiftly banned both the German and Czech languages. Socialists grabbed onto overt discrimination (as opposed to the covert discrimination of segregated schools) as a political platform.

The Czechoslovak defense plan rested on the mountain fortifications of the Sudetenland, so they were left largely defenseless.

One month after the Munich Agreement, the First Vienna Award was negotiated. Hungary annexed the southern parts of Carpathian Ruthenia and Slovakia that were largely ethnically Hungarian. Spiš and Orava were also annexed by Poland.

In March 1939, Hitler supported Hungary in invading, occupying, and annexing the remainder of Carpathian Ruthenia. This re-created a Polish-Hungarian border.

Hitler finally annexed the remainder of Czechoslovakia later that year 1939.

Danzig Crisis

Hitler demanded the return of Danzig from Poland in 1939.

The subsequent invasion on September 1st is the direct start of World War 2.

Domestic Political and Socioeconomic Antecedents

Political Fallout of the Treaty of Versailles

The harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles combined with the lack of complete military defeat led to the leaders of the Weimar Republic being labeled as traitors and criminals.

Germany's nobility was tightly connected to the military officer corps. The imposition of demilitarization necessarily meant the exclusion of this politically powerful group. A cross-cutting social cleavage emerged from this powerful class, the veterans, and the military-industrial complex.

The hyperinflation created by reparations payments generally radicalized the German public.

Domestic Fallout of the Ruhr Crisis

Within Germany, radical parties seized on French occupation of the Ruhr as evidence that the Weimar Republic was led by traitors. In particular, Hitler led the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich. While the coup failed, the act itself and the highly publicized trial that followed established Hitler as a heroic figure.

The Nazis became a mainstream political party and Hitler was released from prison after just 9 months.

Expansionism and Irredentism

Mussolini sought to recreate the Roman Empire around the Mediterranean Sea. He justified expansion with ideas like spazio vitale. The first target of Italian expansion was the Abyssinian Empire in 1935. This was followed by Albania and Greece in 1938.

Hitler justified expansion with ideas like liebensraum, Social Darwinism, and the existence of a master Aryan race. He also sought the anschluss of Germany with Austria, which eventually proceeded in 1938.

The Japanese military saw expansionary wars as an opportunity for continued political dominance. Pan-Asian ideas of 'Asia for the Asian' were used to justify expansion, primarily in negotiations with Western powers. The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (大東亜共栄圏, dai toua kyoueiken) was the most formal institutional expression of this.

German Remilitarization

Hitler remilitarized Germany in 1935, including the reestablishment of an offensive navy.

Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland in 1936.

International Relations of the Axis

The Axis alliance was initially negotiated around the Anti-Comintern Pact, of which the original signatories were Germany and Japan in 1936. Italy joined the next year on condition it was recognized as an original signatory. Hungary and Spain also joined in 1939.

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact significantly shifted the balance of power. The Tripartite Pact became the new foundational treaty in 1940. Once again Germany, Italy, and Japan were the original signatories. Hungary and Romania quickly joined. Bulgaria and Yugoslavia joined the following year, though signing led to a coup in the latter, so Yugoslavia was invaded by the other signatories and partitioned between them.

Paul attempted to play the Axis alliance against the French, British, and Soviets. Ultimately he moved to align Yugoslavia with the Axis.

Pacific Theater

China

Western Theater

Yugoslavia

On March 27th, 1941, King Peter II overthrew the regency of Paul and established a pro-British military government. Hitler ordered a land and air invasion; Italian, Hungarian, and Bulgarian forces soon joined. Completely encircled, Yugoslavia rapidly fell.

Many border regions (and the Dalmatian coast for Italy) were seized. The remainder was partitioned into:

• the Italian governorate of Montenegro, an Italian puppet;

• the Independent State of Croatia, fascist government led by Pavelić; and

• the Government of National Salvation in Serbia, a German puppet.

There were two resistance groups. The Chetniks, led by Mihailović, were royalists and the preferred client of the Allies. Eventually the Chetniks shifted strategies from resistance to playing the two sides of the war, and the Allies ceased cooperation.

Tito led the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia, generally known as the Yugoslav Partisans. The Partisans were far more effective as a military resistance and, when territory was reclaimed, rapidly developed a new Yugoslavian state to govern these territories.

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