THE ROOTS OF WORLD WAR II

THE ROOTS OF WORLD WAR II

World War II is often described as Chapter 2 of the War that started in 1914. Only 20 years of peace lie in between the end of World War I and the beginning of World War II, and in many ways the hostilities never ceased.

THE RISE OF JAPAN
The Meiji Restoration of the late 19th century had greatly strengthened Japan in almost every way: militarily, politically, and economically. As the political oligarchy imitated western imperialist success and as China's strength faded, Japan's influence along the Pacific Rim grew. Japanese success against Russia in the Russo-Japanese War in the early 20th century surprised many western nations and proved that Japan was becoming a world power. When World War I broke out, Japan entered on the side of the Allied Powers, and almost immediately began to claim German territories around them. In 1915 Japan made Twenty-one Demands of China that allowed Japan a great deal of control over Chinese trade and production, even though China did not accept all of the demands.

Japan broke the post-war peace in 1931 by invading traditionally Chinese Manchuria, clearly reflecting their intention to expand their empire at the expense of China. This invasion angered the international community, and many nations reacted by enacting economic sanctions, but Japan was undeterred. From there, China itself was threatened, even after the League of Nations condemned Japanese actions. In 1937, they began a full-scale invasion of China, and rapidly began to control more and more of the mainland.

EXPANSIONISM IN EUROPE
Even as the Versailles Conference was going on, new stirrings of nationalism served as precursors of what was to come. Italy's representative to Versailles, Prime Minister Orlando, was called home early because his government had suffered a coup led by Benito Mussolini. Mussolini appealed to Italian nationalism in his quest to rebuild the glories of Ancient Rome through his military leadership. However, most menacing of all was the Nazi movement in Germany, led by an Austrian named Adolf Hitler.

Post-war Struggles in Germany

After World War I ended, Germany suffered countless obstacles in reestablishing order and stability. War debts were crushing, vital resources in the west had been claimed by France, and inflation became rampant as the country tried to rebuild itself after the devastation of the war. When the Great Depression spread throughout Europe in 1929-30, weakened Germany was the most vulnerable to its punch.

In their desperation, Germans were open to new political solutions, including those advocated by communism. On the other end of the political spectrum, Adolf Hitler, an Austrian artist who had fought in World War I, attracted attention as the leader of the German Socialist Workers Party. In a series of clever political moves, he established his party in the Reichstag, and eventually convinced Hindenberg to appoint him as chancellor. After Hindenberg died, he and his "Nazi" party came to dominate German politics with promises to restore German prosperity. That they did, but by blatantly breaking the provisions of the Versailles Treaty. He rebuilt the army, seized the resource-rich Rhineland from France, and played upon the loss of German pride suffered by the humiliations of the Versailles Treaty. His Nazi state was authoritarian and militaristic, and like Japan and Italy, also incredibly expansionistic.

German Expansion

Under Hitler, Germany began claiming territory around but outside its borders established by the Versailles Treaty. The claims were backed by military force, and at first they were only the lands that Germany believed had been unfairly taken from them by the Versailles Treaty. But eventually Hitler's forces attacked the Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia with many German people, but also home to Czechs and other Slavs. Finally, with this action, Hitler experienced some reaction from the old Allied Powers.

The Munich Agreement and the Start of the War

England and France answered Czechoslovakia's pleas for help by calling a meeting with Hitler in Munich in 1938. Under the leadership of Britain's Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, the Allies reached an agreement with Hitler, infamously known as appeasement, or giving Hitler the land he had already seized in exchange for his promise to not take any more. Chamberlain promised the British people upon his return home that he had achieved "peace in our time," but the war began the very next year when Hitler broke his promise by attacking Poland. England and France were still war-weary from World War I, but they reluctantly declared war on Germany. Chamberlain was replaced as Prime Minister by Winston Churchill, who had long warned Britain about the danger posed by Adolf Hitler.

THE NATURE OF THE WAR
The nations of the world aligned themselves with the Allied Powers (originally led by Britain and France, later joined by Russia and the United States) and the Axis Powers (led by Germany, Italy, and Japan.) Even though the causes of World War II were rooted in unsettled business from World I, the nature of the war was far different from any previous conflict in world history. Some distinct characteristics of World War II are:

Worldwide participation - The war was truly fought in all corners of the globe. Only eleven countries did not become directly involved in the war: Afghanistan, Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, Mongolia, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tibet, and Yemen.
Technology - Major war technologies contributed to changes in the nature of warfare. Although airplanes and tanks had been used to some extent in World War I, they came to dominate World War II. For example, in the Pacific, airplanes attacked from giant aircraft carriers that allowed the United States navy to "hop" from one set of island to the next, finally zeroing in on Japan. In Europe airplanes on both sides bombed their opponents with high explosives and incendiaries that killed millions of people and devastated the infrastructure, particularly in large urban areas. Other technologies, such as radar and more accurate and powerful weaponry, helped submarines and warships to target the enemy. The most unique and deadly technology, the atom bomb, was introduced at the end of the war.
Widespread killing of civilians - Whereas civilian casualties were not unique to World War II, the war is characterized by deliberate targeting of non-military people. Because the bombings sought to destroy the industrial infrastructure, they focused on urban areas where many people lived. In some cases the bombs were intended to torment populations so that the enemy would surrender. The German Nazis deliberately killed Jews and many other groups of people that they considered to be inferior to them, and of course, the atom bomb killed all those in its path, regardless of their military or civilian status.

All of these characteristics combine to make World War II a total war, one that involved almost all citizens in all countries and mobilized deadly weapons created by the organizational capacity that accompanied industrialized economies. Overall, at least 35 million people died in World War II.

THE HOLOCAUST

Genocide (ethnic based mass killings) characterized World War II. For example, the Japanese tortured and killed as many as 300,000 Chinese citizens in Nanking after the city had fallen. The bombings of Hiroshima killed 78,000 Japanese, and Nagasaki killed tens of thousands more. The largest slaughter resulted from Hitler's decision, made at the Wannsee Conference in 1942, to eliminate Jews in Germany and eastern Europe resulted in 6 million deaths in concentration camps that specialized in efficient methods of extermination. The Holocaust was an unprecedented modern genocide that also targeted gypsies and political dissidents. The "final solution" to the "Jewish problem" included death by gassing, electrocution, phenol injections, flamethrowers, and machine guns. Others died in concentration camps from starvation and medical experiments.

THE COURSE OF THE WAR

The war officially began in Europe with Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939. He used a war technique called blitzkrieg (lightning war) to quickly conquer Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium and France. Blitzkrieg involved bombing civilian targets and rapidly moving troops, tanks, and mechanized carriers. By 1940 only Britain resisted German attack. Germany could not execute his techniques on the island nation, so the Battle of Britain was fought primarily in the air between the Royal Air Force and the German Luftwaffe. Germany stretched its armies when in decided to attack Russia to the east, despite an earlier non-aggression treaty signed between the two countries. The attack sparked Russia's entry on the Allied side in 1941, and the Germans suffered their first defeat of the war in Stalingrad in 1942.

The course of the war changed dramatically when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in 1941, causing the United States to enter the war. The United States fought in both arenas, Europe and the Pacific, and played a much larger role in World War II than they did in World War I.

The European Arena - The European war strategy, devised primarily by American and British generals, began in northern Africa where combined Allied forces defeated the German forces that occupied the area. From there, Allies attacked, defeated, and occupied Italy, depriving Germany of a major ally. In 1944, Allied forces, including Canadians, crossed the English Channel in the famous "D-Day" assault on Normandy that led to the liberation of France. From there, Allies attacked across Belgium and into western Germany, where they eventually joined Russian forces marching across eastern Germany. The meeting of the armies east and west represented the defeat of Germany.
The Pacific Arena - By 1941 the Japanese occupied large parts of eastern Asia and were preparing to seize Australia, a major Allied Power in the area. British troops were fighting the Japanese in Southeast Asia when the Americans joined the war. With a navy seriously crippled by the Pearl Harbor attack, the United States first had to rebuild and reposition its ships, planes, and equipment, and then had to stop Japanese expansion eastward toward the American West Coast. Japan and the United States fought a great sea-air naval war that resulted in the blocking of Japanese attacks of Midway Island and the Aleutian Islands and in the successful defense of Australia. The "island hopping" campaign brought the United States very close to Japan, but the war ended with Japanese surrender after the United States dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.