I think the biggest cause of World War II was no one standing up to Germany and Italy. At the end of World War I, Germany got 10% of their land taken away, their military was cut down, and they had to pay for the reparations. Italy on the other hand got nothing out of the Treaty of Versailles. At the beginning Germany followed what the Treaty of Versailles said however, when Hitler came into power he increased the military and stopped paying the reparations. But no one protested. The war had just ended and no one wanted to fight again so they didn't say anything. Germany then annexed Austria, Czechoslovakia, and other German speaking parts. This was against the Treaty of Versailles and yet no one did anything. Britain and France had a small conference with Germany asking them to stop increasing their land, which Germany did not follow through. As you can see France and Britain didn't even try stopping them and this caused Germany to break loose and do as they pleased. If someone would have stood up to Germany and put an end to it, I don't think the events would have happened as they did.
Sources:
Notes
Strayer 645-649
"Long Term Causes of World War II" <>
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I agree with you. As no one opposed Germany's original plan to take start conquering, they figured that no one would stand up to them. And they were correct, for no one did stand up to them. They began building an empire, and no one wanted to stop them, because many countries were still recovering from WWI, and no one wanted to go to war with Germany.
ReplyDeleteWhat could France and Britain have done to stop Germany?
ReplyDeleteGermany was a strong military power. Do you think that if anyone stood up to them that Germany would have kept going, or realize that people weren't going to let them get away with whatever they wanted?
ReplyDeleteWell I feel Lizzie, that Germany was already starting it's campaign, and frankly, there is very little one can do besides fighting them that would end it. You have to imagine Germany like a ball rolling down a hill. At first it's really easy to stop the ball from rolling because it hasn't gained any speed. But as soon as you let the ball start rolling for a minute, the ball will have accelerated quite a bit thus making it really hard to catch and really hard to stop. Germany had already rolled down the hill for a while and no country was in the position to take action, but that didn't mean that we were in no position to stop them. We saw that ball moving too fast and we collectively stopped their campaign.
ReplyDeleteI understand what you are saying Austin, I just am expressing how difficult it is to stop an army like that when they had already become a superpower. They had ravaged many countries and taken land, so it was obvious how big the "empire" was becoming. I'm not saying it was impossible per say, just very difficult to do.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't disagreeing, I was just merely attempting to answer your question.
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