Why had international Peace Collapsed by 1939

When Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933 he was pledged to reverse the treaty of Versailles and to increase German territory. Hitler was pledged to reverse the treaty of Versailles and to increase German territory because he said he would in his book Mein kampf. He was pledged to carry out these actions because he had promised them in 1924 only if he was elected into power. In 1933 the people liked his pledges so they elected him so he could carry out his pledges, now Hitler could get to work. The treaty was a constant reminder of defeat and humiliation.

Hitler believed the treaty was unfair and made Germany look weak so he had to abolish it. If Hitler were going to demolish the treaty of Versailles then he would also get back the land that was taken away from Hitler in the treaty. So he could really kill two birds with one stone. Hitler wanted to gain more land too and build an Empire so he could also increase German territory. Hitler’s people expected the pledges to be for filled so Hitler must complete them to keep Germany satisfied with its leader. In the 1930’s there were two incidents that really tested the League of Nations.

The failure of the League of Nations in Manchuria and Abyssinia, which made it easier for Hitler to achieve his objectives. The Manchurian crisis helped Hitler to achieve his objectives. In 1933 when Hitler came to power. Japan left the League of Nations because they had decided Japan had invaded Manchuria unlawfully and must withdraw. Japan took over Manchuria and invaded more of China. The League was powerless to stop Japan, and ended up only discussing sanctions that it could use against Japan, but they never used any action, so Japan got away with it.

This gave Hitler the impression that the League was weak when it came to protecting a country that was being invaded for land gaining purposes. So this gave Hitler the confidence to invade other countries with positive assurance that the League would not intervene. Japan was isolated and needed a friend, Germany wanted strength on its side, so Japan would be an obvious ally choice. Hitler had seen that Britain wanted to remain friends with Japan so they weren’t willing to do anything to protect Manchuria.

Self-interests of France and Britain were on the priority list. Japan setting the example though to invade a country and get away with it gave Hitler the idea to invade another country. The weak actions and delayed decisions of the League that lead the league failing to protect Manchuria. Because the League seemed weak and ineffective after the failure Hitler was encouraged by their lack of strength to invade a country. Invading a country would help Hitler to gain land and even get land back that the treaty of Versailles had taken off Germany.

This would mean that Hitler had started to complete his objectives by breaking the treaty by taking land that was taken away from Germany back; and to invade other countries and gain land. The Abyssinian crisis helped Hitler to achieve his targets because the League let Italy take Abyssinia and did nothing to help it but made the situation worse. Britain and France are the main leading countries of the League so they make the decisions. The decisions that the League made should have revolved around making countries safe from attack. This was not the case with Britain and France.

Britain and especially France wanted to appease Mussolini because he was their strongest ally against Hitler for the fear of future war. If Italy could not have Abyssinia they would be unhappy so the League delayed decisions put sanctions in place against Italy that wouldn’t even work. France told Hoare that if Italy were not given two thirds of Abyssinia then it would not support sanctions. Britain and France wanting to give Italy two thirds of Italy was leaked to the French press and soon got around Europe. The only reason they wanted to appease Italy is to have a strong ally against Hitler.

This demonstrated to Hitler that the League thought it would extra strength against Hitler in a war and would use appeasement to get it. Because the League also failed to protect Abyssinia then this shows Hitler another failure of strength after Manchuria making the League look like a walk over. Because the League was so busy with the Abyssinian debate they failed to see what Hitler would be doing with the time the league was too busy to watch Him. Hitler was building up Troops and weapons that were not allowed by the treaty of Versailles.

On the 7th of March in 1936 Hitler moved his troops into the Rhineland an act that was not allowed in the treaty. This was because the league had not been paying enough attention to Hitler’s movements and was too distracted with the Abyssinian debate and protecting themselves. In 1936 Hitler and Mussolini signed an agreement called the Rome Berlin Axis. So from the failure of Abyssinia Hitler had got a new ally rearmed land and was breaking the treaty of Versailles. In 1936 Hitler began his policy of expanding German influence over areas and was encouraged to do so.

France did not like Germany and did not want to or need to appease them. Britain did appease Hitler this encouraged Hitler to take more and more gambles. For example Hitler was given the whole of the whole of the Sudaten land because Britain believed that this was all Hitler would want. Chamberlain thought this would bring peace to Europe and that Hitler would be satisfied. Before this Chamberlain had given Hitler the right to unite with Austria and did not stop them rearming the Rhine land and rearming all together.

Because Chamberlain kept on giving Hitler things to appease him and stay on friendly terms with him this encouraged Hitler even more. Hitler thought that because Britain was always letting Hitler do what he wanted then he could carry on doing what he wanted taking bigger gambles and bigger land. Britain and France followed the policy of appeasement to stop future war and to stay friendly with allies and even Hitler. Britain tried to appease countries to be allies against Germany with them. For example this happened in the Abyssinian debate like I mentioned. In 1939 Hitler made an agreement with Stalin called the Nazi Soviet Pact.

This involved Hitler and Stalin not attacking one another and to divide Poland between them. The Pact helped Stalin because he thought it would make Hitler happy. He did not believe Hitler would keep his word but he hoped for time to build up forces against an attack he knew would come. The Pact would help Hitler because it cleared the way for Hitler’s invasion of Poland. Plus Hitler would gain land from the Pact, which was also one of his objectives. When Hitler invaded Poland in 1939 Britain and France declared war on Germany, which Hitler was not expecting.

Hitler had kept on invading more and more land but this time he had gone too far. Other countries in Europe were being increasingly worried about Hitler’s ambitions for taking more and more land and that they may be next. Invading Poland and succeeding would mean that Hitler would have one of the largest empires in Europe and that other countries would be at risk from a fatal attack that they would not be able to fight. Hitler had made it clear that he wanted to get a big empire other countries realised that this was what he was achieving and that they must stop him.

So Britain and France declared war on him. The invasion of Poland led to war in Europe because a number of countries were involved in it. Britain, France, Germany, Poland, America, Holland, Australia, India, Newzeland, and Sweden. From Hitler starting the war he couldn’t turn back he had to complete all his objectives. Poland was the starting point because from then on he took other countries land and the countries started to fight back but along the ways also the allies of countries Hitler was fighting got dragged into the war so the war through Europe grew as he fought more countries to get land.

Although it was Hitler’s actions that led to war, many other factors were important in making the war happen. Such as Chamberlain encouraging Hitler’s growing ambitions. Chamberlain appeased Hitler to try and make him satisfied and only encouraged Hitler to think that he could get away with more and more and do nothing wrong. Also if the League had told Hitler from the start that he must not be so ambitious then would probably would have stopped then. The League made too many ineffective delayed decisions that would have had no effect on Hitler but only bought him more time to rearm.

Many causes that influenced Hitler were to blame like communism he had a big ambition to crush it. The treaty of Versailles must be crushed and Hitler wanted revenge for the treaty. Events in Manchuria and Abyssinia would have distracted the Leagues attention from Hitler to the situations. The Nazi Soviet Pact was a cause because it gave Hitler the path to invade the rest of Poland and the war started from there. The League should have done more to stop Hitler at an earlier stage than letting him get away with things and encouraging him.