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The Causes of WWII

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The origins of the Second World War (1939-45) may be traced back to the harsh peace settlement of the First World War (1914-18) and the economic crisis of the 1930s, while more immediate causes were the aggressive invasions of their neighbours by Germany, Italy , and Japan . A weak and divided Europe , an isolationist USA, and an opportunistic USSR were all intent on peace, but the policy of appeasement only delivered what everyone most feared: another long and terrible world war.

The main causes of WWII were:

• The harsh Treaty of Versailles
• The economic crisis of the 1930s
• The rise of fascism
• Germany's rearmament
• The cult of Adolf Hitler
• The policy of appeasement by Western powers
• Treaties of mutual interest between Axis Powers
• Lack of treaties between the Allies
• The territorial expansion of Germany, Italy, and Japan
• The Nazi-Soviet Pact
• The invasion of Poland in September 1939
• The Japanese attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbour

Treaty of Versailles

Germany was defeated in the First World War, and the victors established harsh terms to ensure that some of the costs of the war were recuperated and to prevent Germany from becoming a future threat. With European economies and populations greatly damaged by the war, the victors were in no mood to be lenient since Germany had almost won and its industry was still intact. Germany remained a dangerous state. However, Britain and France did not want a totally punitive settlement, as this might lead to lasting resentment and make Germany unable to become a valuable market for exports.

The peace terms were set out in the Treaty of Versailles, signed by all parties except the USSR on 28 June 1919. The Rhineland must be demilitarised to act as a buffer zone between Germany and France. All colonies and the Saar, a coal-rich area of western Germany, were removed from German authority. Poland was given the industrial area of Upper Silesia and a corridor to the sea, which included Danzig (Gdánsk) and cut off East Prussia from the rest of Germany. France regained the regions of Alsace and Lorraine. Germany had to pay war reparations to France and Belgium. Germany had limits on its armed forces and could not build tanks, aircraft, submarines, or battleships. Finally, Germany was to accept complete responsibility, that is the guilt, for starting the war. Many Germans viewed the peace terms as highly dishonourable.

The settlement established nine new countries in Eastern Europe, a recipe for instability since all of them disputed their borders, and many contained large minority groups who claimed to be part of another country. Germany, Italy, and Russia, once powerful again after the heavy costs of WWI, looked upon these fledgling states with imperialist envy.

In the 1920s, Germany signed two important treaties. The Locarno Treaty of 1925 guaranteed Germany's western borders but allowed some scope for change in the east. The 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact was signed by 56 countries. All the major powers promised not to conduct foreign policy using military means. In 1929, Germany's reparations as stipulated by the Treaty of Versailles were reduced from £6.6 million to £2 million. In 1932, the reparations were cancelled altogether. This was all very promising, but through the 1930s, the complex web of European diplomacy began to quickly unravel in a climate of economic decline.

Economic Crisis

The Great Depression, sparked off by the Wall Street stock-market crash of 1929, resulted in a crisis in many economies through the 1930s. There was a collapse in world trade , prices, and employment. In Germany in 1923, there was hyperinflation, which made savings worthless, a blow many of the German middle class never forgot. The regular loans from the United States (the Dawes Plan), upon which the German economy depended, stopped. There was a hostile attitude amongst many states as international trade collapsed. The USA, the world's most important money lender, pursued an isolationist strategy. Britain and France looked only to their empires. Protectionism and trade tariffs became the norm.

Germany became determined to reach self-sufficiency and not rely on world trade partners, a policy that required the acquisition of natural resources through military occupation. Germany saw the route out of the financial mess as one of massive rearmament which would create jobs in factories and the armed forces. The policy involved not only stockpiling weapons but also creating an economy geared towards total war, where the armaments industry was given priority in terms of resources, energy, factories, and skilled workers.

Hitler & the Nazi Party

Nationalist fascist parties were doing well across Europe. From 1922, Italy was ruled by Benito Mussolini (l. 1883-1945), leader of the fascist party there. By 1939, Spain had a fascist ruler in General Franco (l. 1892-1975). In Germany, Adolf Hitler (l. 1889-1945) was the leader of the fascist National Socialist Party (Nazi Party), the largest party after the July and November elections of 1932. There were even fascist parties in democracies like Britain. Charismatic leaders were turning popular nationalist feelings into a much more sinister way of thinking: fascism. Fascist parties, although not exactly the same in different countries, did have some key goals in common. Fascist leaders wanted absolute power and to achieve this new order they emphasised "conformism, hostility to outsiders, routine violence, contempt for the weak, and extreme hatred of dissident opinions" (Dear, 274). Fascist parties initially gained popularity as opponents to communism, seen as a threat by many ever since the Russian Revolution of 1917. Indeed, in Western countries, a deep suspicion of communism prevented a powerful political and military alliance from being formed with the USSR, which might ultimately have avoided war.

Hitler promised the humiliation of Versailles would be revenged and that Germany would be made great again. Many Germans believed they had been betrayed by the high command of the army in WWI and were tired of the endless round of ineffective coalition governments since the war. Hitler, with no connections to the established elite, offered a new beginning, and most of all, he promised jobs and bread in a period when unemployment and poverty were at extremely high levels. The Nazi party promised a dynamic economy which would power German expansion, seen as a glorious endeavour, with the virtues of war championed. Nazism called for Lebensraum (living space) for the German people – new lands where they could prosper. Nazism identified its principal internal enemies as Jews, Slavs , Communists and trade unionists, all people who were holding Germany back from realising its full potential the Nazis claimed. Nazism called for an international struggle where Germans could achieve their destiny and prove themselves the master race. Such ideas, none of which were radically new, meant war was inevitable. The argument that totalitarian regimes require wars and liberal democracies require peace to prosper may be simplistic but has some validity. Hitler promised the new Third Reich would last for 1,000 years and, using propaganda, show, and brutal repression of alternative ideas, many believed him as he expertly tapped into long-held views in Germany and Austria. As F. McDonough states, "Hitler was the drummer of an old tune accompanied by modern instruments" (93).

In January 1933, the German President Paul von Hindenburg (l. 1847-1934), having run out of all other options, invited Hitler to become Chancellor. After systematically crushing any opposition, Hitler began to put his domestic policies into practice and establish a totalitarian regime, everything he had written in his book Mein Kampf ( My Struggle ) back in 1924. When Hindenburg died in August 1934, Hitler effectively merged the positions of President and Chancellor and declared himself Germany's leader or Führer. Hitler had become the state, and all that was now needed for him to achieve his impossible dream was a rearmed Germany.

Germany's Rearmament

Hitler was determined to rebuild the nation's armed forces. Rearmament rocketed despite the restrictions of Versailles, which Hitler formally repudiated in March 1935. The army was already four times bigger than permitted. Eventually, Western powers were obliged to take a damage-limitation approach. In June 1935, the Anglo-German Naval Agreement was signed, which capped the German navy's strength to 35% of the Royal Navy and allowed Hitler to build giant new ships like the battleship Bismarck .

In another instance of the cult of Adolf Hitler, all armed forces personnel had to swear allegiance to Hitler personally. Thanks to rearmament, Germany had achieved near-full employment by 1938. Hitler had fulfilled his promises to the German people. Germany's new war machine came at a cost. Rearming necessitated huge imports of raw materials, and these could not be bought for much longer as Germany's balance of payments went into tilt from 1939. Occupying territories where these resources could be found seemed a simple solution to the problem. Crucially, Germany had an arms advantage over its enemies, but this situation would not last long. For Hitler, the time to strike was now.

Appeasement

Allowing Germany to rearm was part of the policy of appeasement: giving reasonable concessions to avoid the total disaster of war. Appeasement, which was pursued by Britain, France, and the United States, did not mean peace at any price, but the problem with the policy was that it did give, step by step, aggressive powers the impression that their continued aggression might not necessarily lead to a wider war. To review these steps, we must look at global politics in the early 1930s.

The League of Nations (forerunner of today's United Nations) was established after WWI to ensure international disputes were settled and world peace was maintained. Although US President Woodrow Wilson (in office 1913-21) was instrumental in forming the League, crucially, the United States never joined it, seriously weakening the organisation. Germany joined in 1926 but left in 1933; Japan left the same year. The League proved to be utterly incapable of achieving its aims, as was shown most starkly by its failure to prevent Japan's invasion of Manchuria in September 1931 and Italy's invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in October 1935. Hitler no doubt watched these events and the League's total lack of a military response with particular interest as, with his own armed forces rejuvenated, he prepared to expand Germany's borders.

From 1933 to 1935, Hitler had pursued an ambiguous foreign policy, sometimes promising he had peaceful intentions. He caused confusion with such diplomatic conjuring tricks as a peace treaty with Poland in January 1934 and a statement later the same year that he had no intention of merging Austria into the Reich. Then, from 1935, his plans became ever clearer, even if some historians maintain the Führer actually had no plans at all but was merely seizing opportunities as his enemies presented them. Some historians claim Hitler was not entirely free to act as he would wish, due to constraints within the rather chaotic and factional Nazi party. In March 1935, the Saar was reunified with Germany following a plebiscite. The same year, conscription was announced. In March 1936, Germany occupied the Rhineland. In October, Germany and Italy became formal allies with the Rome -Berlin Axis. In November 1936, Italy and Germany (and later Japan) signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, a treaty of mutual cooperation in empire -building and a united front against communism. In March 1938, Hitler achieved the Anschluss, the formal unification of Germany and Austria. Encouraged by the League of Nations' lack of a strong response, Hitler then occupied the Sudetenland, the industrial area of Czechoslovakia which shared a border with Germany, the excuse being a German minority there was being repressed. Again, the Western powers made no military reaction despite France and the USSR having signed a treaty of assistance with the Czechs. The Munich Agreement of September 1938 was signed between Germany, France, Italy, and Britain, which accepted Germany's new, expanded borders. The USSR was not invited, a lost and last opportunity to present a united front against fascism – perhaps here was the real price of pursuing a policy of appeasement to the exclusion of any other possible strategies. The British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (served 1937-40), fluttering before journalists a piece of paper Hitler had signed, confidently declared that he had achieved "peace with honour" (Dear, 597) and that we now had "peace in our time" (McDonough, 121). Chamberlain was nominated for that year's Nobel Peace Prize.

Appeasement was an attractive policy to Western leaders since the horrors of the last war were still fresh in everyone's minds. France, in particular, was politically weak in this period, experiencing 16 coalition governments through the 1930s. Britain feared losing its empire if weakened by another great war. Public opinion was overwhelmingly against war and rearmament in Britain, France, and the United States. Further, it was by no means certain that Hitler would continue to expand Germany's borders; certainly, he had promised he had no additional ambitions beyond restoring Germany to its previous territories before WWI. Finally, appeasement, even if not actually believed to be a policy with any chance of success, did gain crucial time for Western powers to follow Germany's lead and rearm. In Britain and France, there were, too, strong lobbies which considered rearmament a waste of resources in economically turbulent times and pointed out that Germany was Britain's fifth largest customer for its exports. Hindsight has shown that appeasement was folly since Hitler was intent on occupying as much of Europe as he possibly could, and his track record of breaking treaties proved negotiation was pointless. Keeping the Czech heavy industry out of German hands was probably a better point to go to war over than the subsequent invasion of Poland, but Britain, France, and the USSR were simply not then equipped for war. Not until 1939 did these countries seriously begin to establish economies geared to war.

Invasion of Poland

In 1939, there was further significant activity by Germany and Italy in their quest to occupy more and more of Europe. In March 1939, Germany absorbed the rest of Czechoslovakia and Memel (part of Lithuania) into the Third Reich. Increasingly appalled by the Nazis' attacks on German Jews, Western powers now began to question if negotiating with such a regime could ever be justified on moral grounds. Appeasement was finally dead.

On 31 March, Britain and France promised to guarantee Poland's borders, and in April, this was extended to Romania. Turkey and Greece also began talks of mutual protection with Britain and France. It had finally dawned on leaders in Britain and France that the fascists were intent on territorial expansion at any cost. There was already a localised war going on, the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39, which directly involved German and Italian military hardware on the one side and Soviet aid on the other. In April, Italy occupied Albania. At the end of the same month, Hitler repudiated the Anglo-German Naval Agreement. In May 1939, Italy and Germany signed a military alliance, the ‘Pact of Steel'.

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In August 1939, Germany agreed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (Nazi-Soviet Pact), named after the foreign ministers of each state. The Soviet leader Joseph Stalin (l. 1878-1953) was increasingly aware that Britain and France seemed perfectly willing to appease Hitler as long as he moved eastwards in his direction. The possibility of 'collective security' (Britain, France, and the USSR working together) was not realised because of a lack of trust between the parties. The Nazi-Soviet Pact, in contrast, allowed Stalin to grab eastern Poland and keep the USSR out of a war for a while, gaining precious time for rearmament. Perhaps, too, the possibility for Germany to wage war only in the West against Britain and France – Stalin's 'blank cheque' for Hitler – would sufficiently weaken all three so that they could no longer threaten the USSR.

Europe was a tinder box awaiting a single spark that would explode it into war. The spark came soon enough with Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939. The next day Chamberlain warned Hitler war would follow if Germany did not withdraw. Hitler ignored the ultimatum. On 3 September, Britain and France, in order to protect free and independent nations, declared war on Germany. Italy, waiting in the wings to see what might happen to its advantage, remained neutral for the time being. The world, too, awaited with bated breath to see what would happen next. The unexpected answer was nothing at all.

The 'phoney war', when the Allies and Axis powers did not directly confront each other, lasted until April 1940 when Germany invaded Norway. In May, Germany invaded the Low Countries and France. Germany proved unstoppable, and by the end of June, France had fallen. In October, Italy invaded Greece. In 1941, Germany occupied Yugoslavia. Britain was left alone to fight for its survival until Hitler invaded the USSR in June 1941 (Operation Barbarossa).

The war became a global conflict when Japan attacked the US naval fleet at Pearl Harbour, Hawaii, on 7 December 1941. Japan had already invaded Eastern China over concern at the rise in Chinese nationalism and then occupied most of South East Asia in search of imperial glory and natural resources, especially oil, whose import was restricted by a US embargo. Japan perhaps hoped events in Europe would prevent any direct reaction against them, but the United States did finally join the conflict. Peace would not be achieved until the world had suffered four more long and bitter years of war.

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Bibliography

• Dear, I. C. B. & Foot, M. R. D. The Oxford Companion to World War II. Oxford University Press, 1995.
• Dülffer. Nazi Germany, 1933-1945 - Faith & Annihilation by Dülffer, Jost [Paperback ]. Blomsbury USA, Paperback(2009), 2009.
• Holmes, Richard. The World at War. Ebury Press, 2007.
• Liddell Hart, B. History of the Second World War. Caxton, 1989
• McDonough, Frank. The Origins of the First and Second World Wars . Cambridge University Press, 1997.
• Speer, Albert. Inside the Third Reich. Simon & Schuster, 1997.
• Taylor, A.J.P. The Origins of The Second World War. Simon & Schuster, 1996.

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Why Did World War II Happen?

In this free resource on World War II, understand the causes of World War II and why these issues drove countries back to battle just two decades after World War I.

Troops in a landing craft approaching "Omaha" Beach on "D-Day" on June 6, 1944.

Source: U.S. National Archives via Naval History and Heritage Command

When World War I ended in 1918, the last thing people wanted was an even greater conflict. So why did the world return to combat just two decades later to fight World War II ?

Granted, Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939 triggered declarations of war from France and the United Kingdom, formally starting World War II. But that event was only the final straw in a series of events. Various other economic and political challenges had been building up tension for years.

This resource examines the era between World Wars I and II—also known as the interwar period—breaking down those issues that set the stage for the world’s second and far deadlier global conflict . 

The Treaty of Versailles

In 1919, representatives from more than two dozen countries gathered in France to draft peace treaties that would set the terms for the end of World War I. However, in a break with tradition, those on the losing end of the conflict were excluded from the conference. This particularly stirred resentment in Germany, the largest and most powerful defeated country.

Without German input, the victors—led by the United States, France, and the United Kingdom—decided what peace would look like after the conflict.

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson wanted to structure peace according to his framework for preventing future global conflicts. This framework, known as the Fourteen Points, advocated for the establishment of an international organization called the League of Nations. This multilateral governing body would be staked on the idea of collective security, meaning the invasion of one country would be treated like a threat to the entire group. Wilson’s Fourteen Points also called for arms reductions as well as free trade . Wilson further helped lay the groundwork for the principle of self-determination —the concept that groups of people united by common characteristics should be able to determine their political future.

Meanwhile, French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, fearing a resurgent Germany on France’s border, prioritized a more punitive approach over peace.

Negotiations dragged on for months, but in the end, the Treaty of Versailles forced Germany to accept blame for the conflict, give up its overseas colonies and 13 percent of its European territory, limit the size of its army and navy, and pay reparations (financial damages) to the war’s winners.

Back home, Germans were incensed and staged protests over what they saw as harsh and humiliating terms. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler said the treaty was designed “to bring twenty million Germans to their deaths and to ruin the German nation.” One of the central tenets of the Nazi party was to undo the deal. This kind of  campaign promise helped the Nazi Party gain followers prior to World War II. 

The exact role of the peace agreement in dooming the world to another war is still hotly contested. But some observers at the time had doubts it would ensure an end to hostilities. Economist John Maynard Keynes quit his post with the British delegation to Versailles over the treaty. Keynes argued it was too punitive and would lead to catastrophe in Europe. And one French military leader predicted with alarming accuracy that the treaty did not represent peace but rather an “ armistice for twenty years.”

The aftermath of World War I revealed that the way leaders make peace can be used as kindling for the future fires of war.

The Failed League of Nations

The League of Nations  emerged from the Treaty of Versailles with thirty-two member countries. The League included most of the victors of World War I, and eventually expanded to include Germany and the other defeated nations. (Despite President Wilson’s ardent campaigning, the U.S. Senate rejected membership.) Under the organization’s founding agreement, these countries promised not to resort to war again.

The League was premised on the idea that security threats to one member demanded responses from all members. But when it came time to respond to those threats, the organization largely failed.

The League’s department for settling international disputes required unanimous agreement before taking action, which severely limited its ability to act. For example, after Japan invaded the Chinese region of Manchuria in 1931, the League was unable to act, given Japan’s veto power.

In 1935, Italy invaded Abyssinia (now Ethiopia), and, once again, the League’s response was minimal. In an urgent address to the organization, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie asked , “What have become of the promises made to me?”

The unrealistic optimism that helped doom the League also plagued international relations more widely at the time. For example, the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact obligated its signatories to resolve conflicts without resorting to violence. However, the pact was effectively meaningless, as countries like Germany, Italy, and Japan blew through international agreements meant to prohibit aggression and expansionism and countries such as France and the United Kingdom refused to act to preserve the balance of power.

Traumatized and weakened from the First World War, the League’s great powers proved not only unable to respond to these security threats but uninterested in addressing them. As a result, the group’s toothless response to blatant aggression only encouraged more invasions. 

By the onset of World War II, the League had been effectively sidelined from international politics. Many experts believe its lack of U.S. membership doomed the organization from the start. Meanwhile, the withdrawal of other countries—Germany, Italy, and Japan had all left by 1937—also undermined the group’s credibility.

Though the League ultimately failed to prevent World War II, the organization made critical inroads on issues such as global health and arms control. Many of the group’s agencies and ideals carried over to its successor organization, the United Nations . But the challenges associated with collective security remain. Even amid the COVID-19 pandemic , the United Nations has struggled to take action due to disagreements among powerful member countries.

The Rise of Hitler

Germany’s road to the Second World War began near the end of the first, when it signed an armistice in November 1918. Although leaders on the frontlines saw the war was unwinnable, others refused to accept defeat.

A myth began to take hold that Germany could have won the war had it not been for unrest at home. This myth, promoted by conservatives and the military, falsely accused Jewish people and left-wing activists of stabbing the country’s war effort in the back. Some called members of the Weimar Republic—Germany’s new, democratic government—the “November criminals” and blamed them for Germany’s loss in World War I.

Then, back-to-back crises hit the German economy. In the early 1920s, the country experienced hyperinflation, a situation in which prices skyrocketed so quickly that German currency lost much of its value. Savings were suddenly worthless. By 1923, buying bread required a wheelbarrow for carrying bills.

A boy holds a kite made of banknotes in Germany in 1922, during an economic crisis in which Germany currency lost much of its value.

Source: Keystone/Getty Images

After a period of economic recovery—and a moment in which it seemed democracy could take hold in Germany—the Great Depression kicked off a new era of financial and political turmoil. Between 1929 and 1932, German unemployment skyrocketed nearly fivefold .  Eventually a quarter of the labor force was unemployed. Against this backdrop, popular support for the Nazi party surged. Between parliamentary elections in 1928 and 1932, the party went from winning 3 percent of the vote to 37 percent—at which point support apparently peaked.

The Nazis promised to tear up the Treaty of Versailles, resurrect the economy, and restore German honor. They also sought to create a much larger, racially pure Germany. Under Nazi ideology, Germans were racially superior and entitled to greater territory or lebensraum (living space) in the east. When they ascended to power, the Nazis persecuted those they saw as inferior, including Jewish, Slavic, Black, and Roma people.

Source: 'Power Distribution in the Weimar Reichstag in 1919-1933' by Fuad Aleskerov, Manfred J. Holler, and Rita Kamalova via London School of Economics; ParlGov.

In 1933, German President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor of the government. Many of the political elite thought they could control him. Instead, Hitler quickly seized the reins of the country, centralizing power and suspending civil liberties. Germany’s short-lived experiment with democracy had failed.

As Germany’s absolute ruler, or führer , Hitler reintroduced conscription, or mandatory military service; rebuilt the country’s armed forces; ordered the genocide of millions; and invaded countries across Europe. Three-quarters of a century after his death, Hitler’s rise to power and Germany’s fall from democracy into fascism serve as frightening reminders of the dangers of racism and extremism in politics. 

Japanese Imperialism

Japan’s 1941 aerial bombardment of the Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii brought the United States back into another global conflict. Though U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt called the strike a surprise attack, it did not come out of nowhere; rather, it grew from Japan’s ambitions for imperial power .

Frustrations had been building for decades in Japan over the country’s role in the world. In 1919, representatives from the country pushed for a statement affirming racial equality to be included in the Treaty of Versailles but were rejected. Discriminatory laws in several Western countries targeted Japanese immigration. And to many in Japan, the international system that emerged after World War I seemed designed to privilege Westerners’ access to wealth and resources.

Japan had long sought to accumulate imperial power. Taiwan became Japan’s first colony in 1895, and more territory followed.  In 1931, Japan invaded China’s Manchuria. The territory provided Japan with a geographic buffer against Soviet communism . Manchuria also had an abundance of natural resources  that the island nation desperately lacked. After provoking a war in 1937, the Japanese invaded huge parts of China to the south of Manchuria.

The invasion of Manchuria arguably marks the first salvo of the Second World War. Over the next decade, conflict escalated into outright war between Japan and China. 

Source: Atlas of World History.

During the war, Japanese forces massacred military prisoners and civilians and committed widespread sexual violence. Up to twenty million Chinese people are estimated to have died between 1937 and 1945. These tactics and global condemnation over atrocities at the Rape of Nanjing sparked widespread outrage. However, it took years for Japan’s aggression to provoke international retaliation.

But Japan’s ascendancy and the conflict in Europe concerned Roosevelt. He instituted an embargo cutting Japan off from U.S. oil in response to the country’s expansionism . Japan’s navy had only about six months of oil in reserve . The country decided it was time for an offensive strategy toward Western targets, including at Pearl Harbor.

The United States declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941, one day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. On December 11, Germany and Italy (allies with Japan under the 1940 Tripartite Pact) retaliated by declaring war on the United States.

U.S. Isolationism

The United States of the 1920s and 1930s had, in many ways, turned inward. The mood back home was dour in the aftermath of the First World War. The conflict had taken so many lives, and the Great Depression had ruined the lives of many who survived. The country continued to play an active international role, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean. However, it mostly removed itself from the armed conflicts unfolding across Europe and Asia.

Against this backdrop, Congress enacted high, protectionist tariffs intended to shield American businesses from competition. These economic policies  damaged relations between the United States and its trading partners. It also passed several Neutrality Acts aimed at ensuring the United States avoided foreign conflicts. (A decade prior, the Senate had rejected U.S. membership in the League of Nations for similar reasons.) Meanwhile, domestic resistance to President Roosevelt’s moves to support the Allies in the 1930s revealed to Germany and Japan that aggression had few downsides.

At the start of the 1940s, isolationism had strong support from a political organization called the America First Committee. The group had about eight hundred thousand members and a famous proponent—Charles Lindbergh, the first pilot to cross the Atlantic Ocean solo. The organization’s stated aim was to keep the United States out of the war, which began in Europe in 1939, but the group also served as a platform for racism and anti-Semitism.

At the start of the 1940s, isolationism had strong support from a political organization called the America First Committee. The group had about eight hundred thousand members and a famous proponent—Charles Lindbergh, the first pilot to cross the Atlantic Ocean solo. The organization’s stated aim was to keep the United States out of the war, which began in Europe in 1939. However, the group also served as a platform for racism and anti-Semitism.

Whether the United States could have helped prevent conflict through less isolationist economic and foreign policies is difficult to know. But the debate over the country’s role in international politics—and whether U.S. leaders should put “ America First” —has continued into the present.

Appeasement

In the 1930s, France and the United Kingdom practiced a policy of appeasement toward Nazi Germany. This policy entailed tolerating German territorial aggression rather than confronting it with force. The hope was that German ambition would settle down peacefully. This policy reached its low point in the late summer of 1938 when Hitler threatened to drag Europe into war if the Sudetenland, a majority-German region in Czechoslovakia, was not awarded to Germany.

Just months earlier, Germany had annexed Austria in an event called the Anschluss. Hitler aimed to unite ethnic Germans across Europe under his rule. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain hoped Hitler would be satisfied after acquiring the Sudetenland. British and French leaders signed the Munich Agreement and accepted Hitler’s demands in exchange for a promise that Germany would make no further demands. When Chamberlain returned to London, he arrived with an agreement signed by Hitler. The pact affirmed “the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.” As a result, Chamberlain believed he held the means to “peace for our time.” Needless to say, that was not the case, as fighting erupted the following year.

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain at Heston Airport in London on his return from Munich after meeting with Hitler, making his "Peace for Our Time" address, on September 30, 1938.

Source: Central Press/Getty Images

But according to the dictator himself, an earlier challenge from the French could have spelled the end of his ambitions. In 1936, after remilitarizing the Rhineland—a region on Germany’s border with France—in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, Hitler reportedly said , “The forty-eight hours after the march into the Rhineland were the most nerve-wracking in my life. If the French had then marched into the Rhineland, we would have had to withdraw with our tails between our legs.” 

In the decades since World War II, appeasement has been condemned as a disastrous foreign policy failure. Leaders have used and abused the term to justify (or deride) foreign intervention . But judgments of this strategy have the benefit of hindsight. When British and French leaders signed the Munich Agreement, they faced intense domestic pressure to avoid war. And though Chamberlain and others misjudged the massive scale of Hitler’s ambitions, it’s difficult to know whether more interventionist measures would have stopped him.

World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history.

World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history. And unlike World War I, which resulted in mostly military casualties, World War II saw civilian deaths outnumber soldier deaths  three-to-one. High civilian death tolls reflected the rise of aerial warfare that made it possible to bomb faraway cities and towns.  Another uniquely horrifying aspect to the conflict was the Holocaust. During World War II, the Nazis advanced a state-sponsored and systematic campaign of murder and persecution against those deemed inferior or to be enemies based on factors like race and behavior. At least eleven million people were killed, including six million European Jews and five million gay people , Romany , and people with disabilities , among others.

In total, forty-five million civilians died during World War II amid rampant mass killings, starvation, and disease.

World War II led to the creation of the world as it exists today. From the ashes of the conflict emerged the international system of institutions promoting free trade, human rights, and collective security. But it also introduced the potential for cataclysmic destruction, as it ushered in the era of nuclear weapons .

Was World War II inevitable?

It can be tempting to trace the causes of World War II back to one moment, such as Hitler’s invasion of Poland. But this moment only tells one part of the story. In reality, complex dynamics—including the rise of radical nationalism , U.S. isolationism, the failure to maintain a global balance of power, and misplaced optimism that World War I had been the war to end all wars—propelled countries around the world into combat.

Despite the simmering tensions around the globe at the time, World War II was not inevitable. It happened because people in power made decisions throughout the interwar period that helped set the fuse of conflict on fire. These decisions ultimately led to the explosive conflict. Evaluating the choices of policymakers is one of the benefits we have as students of history; and by studying them, we can learn how to avoid similar conflicts in the future.

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World War II summary

Learn about the events leading to world war ii, the war’s major battles, and how the war ended.

World War II , or Second World War , (1939–45) International conflict principally between the Axis powers —Germany, Italy, and Japan—and the Allied powers—France, Britain, the U.S., the Soviet Union, and China.

Political and economic instability in Germany, combined with bitterness over its defeat in World War I and the harsh conditions of the Treaty of Versailles , allowed Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party to rise to power. In the mid-1930s Hitler began secretly to rearm Germany, in violation of the treaty. He signed alliances with Italy and Japan to oppose the Soviet Union and intervened in the Spanish Civil War in the name of anticommunism.

Capitalizing on the reluctance of other European powers to oppose him by force, he sent troops to occupy Austria in 1938 (the Anschluss) and to annex Czechoslovakia in 1939. After signing the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact , Germany invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939. Two days later France and Britain declared war on Germany. Poland’s defeat was followed by a period of military inactivity on the Western Front, known as the Phony War.

At sea Germany conducted a damaging submarine campaign by U-boat against merchant shipping bound for Britain. By early 1940 the Soviet Union had divided Poland with Germany, occupied the Baltic states, and subdued Finland in the Russo-Finnish War. In April 1940 Germany overwhelmed Denmark and began its conquest of Norway. In May German forces swept through the Netherlands and Belgium on their blitzkrieg invasion of France, forcing it to capitulate in June and establish the Vichy France regime. Germany then launched massive bombing raids on Britain in preparation for a cross-Channel invasion, but, after losing the Battle of Britain , Hitler postponed the invasion indefinitely.

By early 1941 Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria had joined the Axis, and German troops quickly overran Yugoslavia and Greece in April. In June Hitler abandoned his pact with the Soviet Union and launched Operation Barbarossa, a massive surprise invasion of Russia, reaching the outskirts of Moscow before Soviet counterattacks and winter weather halted the advance.

In East Asia Japan expanded its war with China and seized European colonial holdings. In December 1941 Japan attacked U.S. bases at Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines. The U.S. declared war on Japan, and the war became truly global when the other Axis powers declared war on the U.S. Japan quickly invaded and occupied most of Southeast Asia, Burma, the Netherlands East Indies, and many Pacific islands. After the crucial U.S. naval victory at the Battle of Midway (1942), U.S. forces began to advance up the chains of islands toward Japan.

In the North Africa campaigns the British and Americans defeated Italian and German forces by 1943. The Allies then invaded Sicily and Italy, forcing the overthrow of the Fascist government in July 1943, though fighting against the Germans continued in Italy until 1945. In the Soviet Union the Battle of Stalingrad (1943) marked the end of the German advance, and Soviet reinforcements in large numbers gradually pushed the German armies back.

The massive Allied invasion of western Europe began with the Normandy Campaign in western France (1944), and the Allies’ steady advance ended in the occupation of Germany in 1945.

After Soviet troops pushed German forces out of the Soviet Union, they advanced into Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Romania and had occupied the eastern third of Germany by the time the surrender of Germany was signed on May 8, 1945. In the Pacific an Allied invasion of the Philippines (1944) was followed by the successful Battle of Leyte Gulf and the costly Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa (1945). The U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and Japan’s formal surrender on September 2 ended the war.

An estimated 40,000,000 to 50,000,000 people died during World War II, including about 6,000,000 Jewish men, women, and children who died in the Holocaust . Millions more civilians were wounded and made homeless throughout Europe and East Asia.

The Road to War: Understanding the causes of World War II

The Second World War was one of the deadliest and most devastating conflicts in human history, claiming the lives of tens of millions of people across the globe.

However, the war's causes were a combination of factors, including economic instability, political tensions, and territorial ambitions, contributing to the outbreak of hostilities in 1939.

World War II officially began when Nazi Germany invaded Poland on the 1st of September 1939.

However, this single action was not the only reason why the world fell into a global conflict for the second time.

Instead, there were both long-term and short-term causes that meant that the attack on Poland began the war. 

Long-term verses short-term causes

Every historical event occurs because of a series of events that happened beforehand. Things that directly lead to another event are called ‘Causes’.

Some causes occurred immediately before the event began, while others existed for several years before they caused the event.

• Causes that occurred only a few hours, days or weeks before the event are called 'Short-Term Causes'.
• Causes that existed for years, decades or centuries before the event are called 'Long-Term Causes'. 

Long-term causes of WWII

1. the treaty of versailles.

When World War One ended in 1918, the various countries involved had to decide how to punish Germany for starting the war.

To do this, leaders from countries across the world met at the Palace of Versailles in France in 1919 to create an official document to outline the specific punishments.

This document was called the Treaty of Versailles .

Each of the leaders had different desires for what to do to Germany. Prime Minister Clemenceau of France wanted the punishment to be severe so that Germany would not have the strength or resources to start another war.

On the other hand, the President of America, Woodrow Wilson, had a 14-point strategy that he believed would create world peace in a way that wasn't too harsh to Germany. 

However, the final treaty was particularly cruel. There were five things in the document that enraged a lot of Germans:

• Germany had to accept full blame for starting World War One
• Germany had to pay 6,600 million pounds for starting the war
• Germany was not allowed an army larger than 100,000 men, and was allowed no tanks, air force, nor submarines.
• Germany had to give up control of a region called the Rhineland, which was an important industrial centre.
• Various parts of Germany were handed over to other countries and Germany was banned from ever joining with Austria (called the Anschluss ).

These terms sent Germany into a deep economic crisis in the 1920s, with many people losing jobs and struggling to feed their families.

Just when Germany was recovering at the end of the decade, the Great Depression hit, which sent Germans into poverty again.

The German people were outraged and blamed the Treaty of Versailles for their suffering.

In the hope of finding a solution to their problems, the German people voted for  Adolf Hitler , who promised to undo the terms of the treaty.

2. Hitler's military aggression

After Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in January 1933, he immediately began ignoring the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.

First, i n 1934, he increased the size of the army beyond the 100,000 limit and created a German air force.

He also started investing in the latest military equipment and strategies for his armed forces.

The rest of the world were fully aware that these things were occurring, but they didn't intervene to enforce the terms of the treaty, because many people in other countries had come to believe that the treaty was too harsh, and they were willing to give Germany some flexibility.

Then, in 1936, Hitler marched German troops back into the Rhineland. This was a direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles and was a clear moment of military aggression: it may have been a test to see what the rest of the world would do.

Even though the rest of Europe was alarmed and voiced concern, no punishments were handed to Germany, and they were allowed to occupy the region again.

Britain in particular didn't respond to Hitler's actions, as it was preoccupied with its own domestic economic and political issues at the time.

The British politicians believed that the general public did not want to engage in another costly conflict so soon after the devastation of World War I.

Additionally, the British government believed that Germany's actions were not necessarily aggressive, but rather an attempt to restore its own territorial integrity.

Hitler was now more confident that he could expand further, and aimed to reclaim former German lands that had been taken away after World War One.

In March 1938, he marched into Austria, where Hitler forced the Austrian people to vote on whether they would like to join with Germany into a single country.

The results of the vote indicated that 99% of Austrians wanted Anschluss , which Hitler then promised to create.

However, these results are widely considered to have been manipulated by the Nazi authorities.

In this context, 'Anschluss' was the term used to describe the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany.

Alarmed, Austrian leaders called on Britain and France to intervene. When these countries sent their concerns to Hitler, he simply promised that the Anschluss was the end of his military invasions.

However, Hitler had no intention of stopping there and, six months later, he sent a demand to the neighbouring country of Czechoslovakia to hand back the former German region of the Sudetenland or face invasion.

Sudetenland was strategically important due to its mountainous terrain forming a natural defense line and its industrial resources, which were crucial for Germany’s war preparations.

Short-term causes of WWII

1. chamberlain's appeasement strategy.

The Prime Minister of Britain, Neville Chamberlain, thought that Hitler's threat was too much of a warning to ignore.

As a result, he met with Hitler three times during September of 1938 to try and find a way of preventing any future war.

Most of Europe still remembered the horror of the First World War, and Chamberlain believed that the world should do anything they could to avoid a repeat of that.

Chamberlain believed that he could 'appease' Hitler, which meant that he wanted to find a way to make Hitler happy enough that he wouldn't start another war. 

Following their meetings, Hitler and Chamberlain signed the ' Munich Agreement ', which stated that Hitler would be given the Sudetenland if he promised not to invade Czechoslovakia.

At the time, it was celebrated by many in Britain and France as a successful avoidance of war.

Chamberlain was pleased that Hitler had signed a promise to do no further military conquests, while Hitler was pleased that he had been able to take back a former German region at no cost.

2. Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia

Following their meeting, Hitler first took over the Sudetenland as per the agreement. 

Unfortunately, Hitler had lied to Chamberlain. In March 1939, he invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia anyway, which was not covered by the Munich Agreement.

Despite the promise made to Chamberlain, no European country stepped in to stop Germany.

Therefore, Hitler came to believe that Europe was so afraid of war that he could continue to invade other countries and there would be no punishments.

However, the rest of Europe began to realise that fear of war was simply allowing one country to do whatever they wanted, and that something had to be done.

When information began circulating that Hitler was now preparing to invade Poland, a number of European countries realised that war might be a real option.

3. Hitler's invasion of Poland

Both Britain and France made a formal declaration to Hitler that if he invaded Poland, that they would declare war on him.

Chamberlain was convinced that the clear threat of war would be enough to scare Hitler.

Hitler, by contrast, was convinced that Britain and France were bluffing. He thought that his recent experience with these countries showed that they were too afraid of another world war to follow through on their threats. 

So, on the 1st of September 1939, German troops invaded Poland . Upon receiving word of this attack, Britain declared war on Germany and the Second World War began.

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World War II

By: History.com Editors

Updated: August 7, 2024 | Original: October 29, 2009

World War II, the largest and deadliest conflict in human history, involved more than 50 nations and was fought on land, sea and air in nearly every part of the world. Also known as the Second World War, it was caused in part by the economic crisis of the Great Depression and by political tensions left unresolved following the end of World War I.

The war began when Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939 and raged across the globe until 1945, when Japan surrendered to the United States after atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. By the end of World War II, an estimated 60 to 80 million people had died, including up to 55 million civilians, and numerous cities in Europe and Asia were reduced to rubble.

Among the people killed were 6 million Jews murdered in Nazi concentration camps as part of Hitler’s diabolical “Final Solution,” now known as the Holocaust. The legacy of the war included the creation of the United Nations as a peacekeeping force and geopolitical rivalries that resulted in the Cold War.

Leading up to World War II

The devastation of the Great War (as World War I was known at the time) had greatly destabilized Europe, and in many respects World War II grew out of issues left unresolved by that earlier conflict. In particular, political and economic instability in Germany, and lingering resentment over the harsh terms imposed by the Versailles Treaty, fueled the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and National Socialist German Workers’ Party, abbreviated as NSDAP in German and the Nazi Party in English..

Did you know? As early as 1923, in his memoir and propaganda tract "Mein Kampf" (My Struggle), Adolf Hitler had predicted a general European war that would result in "the extermination of the Jewish race in Germany."

After becoming Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Hitler swiftly consolidated power, anointing himself Führer (supreme leader) in 1934. Obsessed with the idea of the superiority of the “pure” German race, which he called “Aryan,” Hitler believed that war was the only way to gain the necessary “Lebensraum,” or living space, for the German race to expand. In the mid-1930s, he secretly began the rearmament of Germany, a violation of the Versailles Treaty. After signing alliances with Italy and Japan against the Soviet Union , Hitler sent troops to occupy Austria in 1938 and the following year annexed Czechoslovakia. Hitler’s open aggression went unchecked, as the United States and Soviet Union were concentrated on internal politics at the time, and neither France nor Britain (the two other nations most devastated by the Great War) were eager for confrontation.

Outbreak of World War II (1939)

In late August 1939, Hitler and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin signed the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact , which incited a frenzy of worry in London and Paris. Hitler had long planned an invasion of Poland, a nation to which Great Britain and France had guaranteed military support if it were attacked by Germany. The pact with Stalin meant that Hitler would not face a war on two fronts once he invaded Poland, and would have Soviet assistance in conquering and dividing the nation itself. On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland from the west; two days later, France and Britain declared war on Germany, beginning World War II.

On September 17, Soviet troops invaded Poland from the east. Under attack from both sides, Poland fell quickly, and by early 1940 Germany and the Soviet Union had divided control over the nation, according to a secret protocol appended to the Nonaggression Pact. Stalin’s forces then moved to occupy the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) and defeated a resistant Finland in the Russo-Finnish War. During the six months following the invasion of Poland, the lack of action on the part of Germany and the Allies in the west led to talk in the news media of a “phony war.” At sea, however, the British and German navies faced off in heated battle, and lethal German U-boat submarines struck at merchant shipping bound for Britain, sinking more than 100 vessels in the first four months of World War II.

World War II in the West (1940-41)

On April 9, 1940, Germany simultaneously invaded Norway and occupied Denmark, and the war began in earnest. On May 10, German forces swept through Belgium and the Netherlands in what became known as “blitzkrieg,” or lightning war. Three days later, Hitler’s troops crossed the Meuse River and struck French forces at Sedan, located at the northern end of the Maginot Line , an elaborate chain of fortifications constructed after World War I and considered an impenetrable defensive barrier. In fact, the Germans broke through the line with their tanks and planes and continued to the rear, rendering it useless. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was evacuated by sea from Dunkirk in late May, while in the south French forces mounted a doomed resistance. With France on the verge of collapse, Italy’s fascist dictator Benito Mussolini formed an alliance with Hitler, the Pact of Steel, and Italy declared war against France and Britain on June 10.

On June 14, German forces entered Paris; a new government formed by Marshal Philippe Petain (France’s hero of World War I) requested an armistice two nights later. France was subsequently divided into two zones, one under German military occupation and the other under Petain’s government, installed at Vichy France. Hitler now turned his attention to Britain, which had the defensive advantage of being separated from the Continent by the English Channel.

To pave the way for an amphibious invasion (dubbed Operation Sea Lion), German planes bombed Britain extensively beginning in September 1940 until May 1941, known as the Blitz , including night raids on London and other industrial centers that caused heavy civilian casualties and damage. The Royal Air Force (RAF) eventually defeated the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) in the Battle of Britain , and Hitler postponed his plans to invade. With Britain’s defensive resources pushed to the limit, Prime Minister Winston Churchill began receiving crucial aid from the U.S. under the Lend-Lease Act , passed by Congress in early 1941.

Black Americans Who Served in WWII Faced Segregation Abroad and at Home

Some 1.2 million Black men served in the U.S. military during the war, but they were often treated as second‑class citizens.

World War II Battles: Timeline

Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September 1939 drove Great Britain and France to declare war on Germany, marking the beginning of World War II. Over the next six years, the conflict took more lives and destroyed more land and property around the globe than any previous war.

How the Neutral Countries in World War II Weren’t So Neutral

Neutrality was often more complex than simply avoiding choosing sides.

Hitler vs. Stalin: Operation Barbarossa (1941-42)

By early 1941, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria had joined the Axis, and German troops overran Yugoslavia and Greece that April. Hitler’s conquest of the Balkans was a precursor for his real objective: an invasion of the Soviet Union, whose vast territory would give the German master race the “Lebensraum” it needed. The other half of Hitler’s strategy was the extermination of the Jews from throughout German-occupied Europe. Plans for the “Final Solution” were introduced around the time of the Soviet offensive, and over the next three years more than 4 million Jews would perish in the death camps established in occupied Poland.

On June 22, 1941, Hitler ordered the invasion of the Soviet Union, codenamed Operation Barbarossa . Though Soviet tanks and aircraft greatly outnumbered the Germans’, Russian aviation technology was largely obsolete, and the impact of the surprise invasion helped Germans get within 200 miles of Moscow by mid-July. Arguments between Hitler and his commanders delayed the next German advance until October, when it was stalled by a Soviet counteroffensive and the onset of harsh winter weather.

World War II in the Pacific (1941-43)

With Britain facing Germany in Europe, the United States was the only nation capable of combating Japanese aggression, which by late 1941 included an expansion of its ongoing war with China and the seizure of European colonial holdings in the Far East. On December 7, 1941, 360 Japanese aircraft attacked the major U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii , taking the Americans completely by surprise and claiming the lives of more than 2,300 troops. The attack on Pearl Harbor served to unify American public opinion in favor of entering World War II, and on December 8 Congress declared war on Japan with only one dissenting vote. Germany and the other Axis Powers promptly declared war on the United States.

After a long string of Japanese victories, the U.S. Pacific Fleet won the Battle of Midway in June 1942, which proved to be a turning point in the war. On Guadalcanal, one of the southern Solomon Islands, the Allies also had success against Japanese forces in a series of battles from August 1942 to February 1943, helping turn the tide further in the Pacific. In mid-1943, Allied naval forces began an aggressive counterattack against Japan, involving a series of amphibious assaults on key Japanese-held islands in the Pacific. This “island-hopping” strategy proved successful, and Allied forces moved closer to their ultimate goal of invading the mainland Japan.

Toward Allied Victory in World War II (1943-45)

In North Africa , British and American forces had defeated the Italians and Germans by 1943. An Allied invasion of Sicily and Italy followed, and Mussolini’s government fell in July 1943, though Allied fighting against the Germans in Italy would continue until 1945.

On the Eastern Front, a Soviet counteroffensive launched in November 1942 ended the bloody Battle of Stalingrad , which had seen some of the fiercest combat of World War II. The approach of winter, along with dwindling food and medical supplies, spelled the end for German troops there, and the last of them surrendered on January 31, 1943.

On June 6, 1944–celebrated as “D-Day” –the Allies began a massive invasion of Europe, landing 156,000 British, Canadian and American soldiers on the beaches of Normandy, France. In response, Hitler poured all the remaining strength of his army into Western Europe, ensuring Germany’s defeat in the east. Soviet troops soon advanced into Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania, while Hitler gathered his forces to drive the Americans and British back from Germany in the Battle of the Bulge (December 1944-January 1945), the last major German offensive of the war.

An intensive aerial bombardment in February 1945 preceded the Allied land invasion of Germany, and by the time Germany formally surrendered on May 8, Soviet forces had occupied much of the country. Hitler was already dead, having died by suicide on April 30 in his Berlin bunker.

World War II Ends (1945)

At the Potsdam Conference of July-August 1945, U.S. President Harry S. Truman (who had taken office after Roosevelt’s death in April), Churchill and Stalin discussed the ongoing war with Japan as well as the peace settlement with Germany. Post-war Germany would be divided into four occupation zones, to be controlled by the Soviet Union, Britain, the United States and France. On the divisive matter of Eastern Europe’s future, Churchill and Truman acquiesced to Stalin, as they needed Soviet cooperation in the war against Japan.

Heavy casualties sustained in the campaigns at Iwo Jima (February 1945) and Okinawa (April-June 1945), and fears of the even costlier land invasion of Japan led Truman to authorize the use of a new and devastating weapon. Developed during a top secret operation code-named The Manhattan Project, the atomic bomb was unleashed on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early August. On August 15, the Japanese government issued a statement declaring they would accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, and on September 2, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur accepted Japan’s formal surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

African American Servicemen Fight Two Wars

World War II exposed a glaring paradox within the United States Armed Forces. Although more than 1 million African Americans served in the war to defeat Nazism and fascism, they did so in segregated units. The same discriminatory Jim Crow policies that were rampant in American society were reinforced by the U.S. military. Black servicemen rarely saw combat and were largely relegated to labor and supply units that were commanded by white officers.

There were several African American units that proved essential in helping to win World War II, with the Tuskegee Airmen being among the most celebrated. But the Red Ball Express, the truck convoy of mostly Black drivers were responsible for delivering essential goods to General George S. Patton ’s troops on the front lines in France. The all-Black 761st Tank Battalion fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and the 92 Infantry Division, fought in fierce ground battles in Italy. Yet, despite their role in defeating fascism, the fight for equality continued for African American soldiers after the World War II ended. They remained in segregated units and lower-ranking positions, well into the Korean War , a few years after President Truman signed an executive order to desegregate the U.S. military in 1948.

World War II Casualties and Legacy

World War II proved to be the deadliest international conflict in history, taking the lives of 60 to 80 million people, including 6 million Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis during the Holocaust . Civilians made up an estimated 50-55 million deaths from the war, while military comprised 21 to 25 million of those lost during the war. Millions more were injured, and still more lost their homes and property. 

The legacy of the war would include the spread of communism from the Soviet Union into eastern Europe as well as its eventual triumph in China, and the global shift in power from Europe to two rival superpowers–the United States and the Soviet Union–that would soon face off against each other in the Cold War .

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Second World War (1939-1945): Causes and Consequences

Last updated on August 23, 2024 by Alex Andrews George

We have seen the causes and consequences of the  First World War in the last post. The First World War itself sowed the seeds for the Second World War, primarily because of the humiliating Treaty of Versailles. We shall see the causes and consequences of the Second World War (WWII) in this post.

The Second World War fundamentally reshaped the global order, setting the stage for the Cold War and dramatically altering the political, social, and economic landscapes of the 20th century.

Table of Contents

The Two Groups: Allies vs Axis Powers

Causes of Second World War(1939-1945)

(1) humiliation by the treaty of versailles.

The harsh terms imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, including significant territorial losses, reparations, and military restrictions, led to widespread resentment in Germany. This environment of humiliation and economic hardship paved the way for the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, who promised to restore Germany’s former glory.

• War indemnity.
• The provision for disarming Germany.
• Saar coal mine to France for 15 years.
• Polish corridor was given to Poland .
• City of Danzing was made free.

(2) Growth of Fascism and Nazism

The interwar period saw the rise of fascist and totalitarian regimes in countries like Italy, Germany, and Japan. Leaders such as Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, and the militaristic government of Japan pursued aggressive expansionist policies, seeking to overturn the post-World War I international order and establish dominance.

• Mussolini (Italy) and Hitler (Germany) strongly glorified war and violence.
• While the West was fighting communism, Germany and Italy started massive militarization.

(3) Rise of Japan

The League of Nations, established to maintain peace, was ineffective in preventing aggression by fascist powers. Its inability to enforce collective security, particularly in response to Japanese aggression in Manchuria (1931), the Italian invasion of Ethiopia (1935), and German reoccupation of the Rhineland (1936), emboldened these powers.

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• Imperialism.
• Rome-Berlin-Tokyo axis (1936).

(4) Neglect of minority interests

European powers, particularly Britain and France, pursued a policy of appeasement in the 1930s, allowing Hitler to annex Austria (Anschluss, 1938) and the Sudetenland (Munich Agreement, 1938) without significant opposition. This emboldened Hitler to continue his expansionist agenda, ultimately leading to the invasion of Poland.

• New countries like Poland, Czechoslovakia and Austria were formed after the First World War. While drawing boundaries the interests of minority groups in each of these countries were neglected.

(5) Military Alliance

• Allies  – Britain, France, USA, USSR and China vs  Axis Powers – Germany, Italy and Japan
• Leaders – Churchill (Britain), Roosevelt (USA), Stalin (USSR)

(6) Germany’s attack on Czechoslovakia

• Despite the Munich Pact between Germany and Britain (1938), Germany re-attacked and sized Czechoslovakia.

(7) Immediate Cause: Germany’s invasion of Poland (1st September 1939)

• Germany annexed the Polish Corridor and Danzig city. The sudden attack on Poland is known as Blitzkrieg (lightning war).
• Britain and France declared war on Germany.

Also read: Imperialism and its History

The course of the War

• World War II officially began on September 1, 1939.
• Germany conquered – Poland, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Holland and France.
• Battle of Britain – Germany vs Britain (air battle; German Air Force =Luftwaffe).
• Battle of Stalingrad – Germany vs USSR. (Operation of Barbarossa (1941 = Attack on Yugoslavia and Greece; Russia countered the attack on Moscow with Scorched Earth Policy).
• Atlantic Charter (August 1941) – Between Churchill (UK) and Roosevelt (USA).
• Pearl Harbor Attack (7th December 1941) – Japan on USA.
• Italy vs UK in Africa (1942) – Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, British Somaliland, Eritrea.
• France was conquered by Germany in 1940, but British and American troops liberated France in 1944.
• Atom bomb – Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Consequences of Second World War

• Human and Economic Cost: World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, resulting in an estimated 70-85 million deaths, including civilians and military personnel. The war caused widespread destruction, particularly in Europe and Asia, leading to massive economic and infrastructure devastation.
• Redrawing of National Borders: The war led to significant changes in national borders , especially in Europe. Germany was divided into four occupation zones controlled by the Allies (the U.S., the UK, France, and the Soviet Union), eventually leading to the creation of West Germany and East Germany.
• Rise of the United States and the Soviet Union as Superpowers: The United States and the Soviet Union emerged as the two dominant superpowers in the post-war world, leading to the Cold War. Their ideological conflict between capitalism and communism shaped global politics for the next several decades.
• Decolonization: The war weakened the colonial powers, particularly Britain and France, leading to a wave of decolonization in Asia, Africa , and the Middle East. Countries like India, Indonesia, and numerous African nations gained independence in the years following the war.
• Creation of the United Nations: In response to the failure of the League of Nations and the devastation of World War II, the United Nations was established in 1945 to promote international cooperation and prevent future conflicts. The UN played a central role in shaping the post-war international order.
• Cold War and Division of Europe: The ideological and political rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union led to the division of Europe, with Eastern Europe falling under Soviet influence and Western Europe aligning with the United States. This division was symbolized by the Iron Curtain and culminated in the fall of the Berlin Wall (1961-1989).
• Holocaust and Genocide Awareness: The Holocaust, in which six million Jews were murdered by Nazi Germany, highlighted the horrors of genocide. This led to increased global awareness of human rights and the establishment of conventions against genocide and crimes against humanity.
• Nuclear Arms Race: The use of atomic bombs by the United States on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 introduced nuclear weapons to the world, leading to an arms race during the Cold War. The threat of nuclear warfare became a central issue in international relations.

Related posts

• Treaty of Versailles
• First World War (1914-1918): Causes and Consequences

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The Causes of the Second World War

• ❖ From the moment the treaty was signed, many argued that it was too harsh. The severity of the terms caused long term bitterness amongst the German people. Hitler was able to manipulate this ill feeling for his foreign policy aims.
• ❖ It wasn't only Germany that felt the treaty was harsh, many world leaders shared this belief. So when Hitler began to act on his foreign policy , people were sympathetic to his actions (for example, the re-occupation of the Rhineland).
• ❖ One of the key terms of the treaty was the creation of Poland. This happened by taking territory from Germany and the USSR . This caused long term bitterness, and eventually led to the Nazi-Soviet pact .
• ❖ One of the consequences of the Treaty of Versailles was that many German-speaking people found themselves living in new nations such as Czechoslovakia and Poland. Hitler aimed to reunite all German-speaking people.
• ❖ The League had structural weaknesses. One way it could stop international conflict was with economic sanctions , but with the absence of the USA these measures were ineffective. This motivated dictators like Hitler and Mussolini.
• ❖ When the League did try to act nations such as Britain and France would undermine the League if it benefitted them, for example the Hoare-Laval Pact . This showed that the League was ineffective, and encouraged dictators like Hitler and Mussolini.
• ❖ As dictators like Hitler and Mussolini became more powerful , the League's continued failures only encouraged them further. The events in Manchuria and Abyssinia proved that the League was powerless to stop countries that broke the rules.
• ❖ The situation in nations created by the Great Depression made dictators like Hitler popular. People were suffering from poverty and high unemployment , and were promised solutions for this. One way to achieve this was through aggressive foreign policy.
• ❖ Leaders like Hitler's aggressive foreign policy came at a time when other nations were also suffering from the social and economic problems of the Depression, and were preoccupied with solving their own problems rather than getting involved with foreign affairs.
• ❖ Two of the measures that the League of Nations could use to manage international conflict were made especially difficult during the Depression. It could not impose economic sanctions as nations couldn't afford to harm trade. They also relied on member's armies as they didn't have one of their own, but members couldn't afford the cost of a war.
• ❖ The First World War left the people of Europe with mental scars from the horrors of war and they wanted to avoid another war at all costs. This meant that there were many missed opportunities to stop Hitler for example the reoccupation of the Rhineland.
• ❖ Appeasement was also followed due to a fear of communism and this soured the relationship between Britain and the USSR .
• ❖ A negative consequence of appeasement was that it eroded the little trust that Joseph Stalin had in Britain and France. The Munich Agreement was the trigger that led to Stalin signing the Nazi-Soviet pact with Hitler.
• ❖ Chamberlain was wrong to trust Hitler. Hitler had made many speeches since the 1920s about his intentions and Chamberlain's inaction enabled Hitler the time to get Germany ready for war.
• ❖ Hitler's foreign policy was very aggressive, and a short term cause of the Second World War:
• ❖ Hitler was very open about his ambitions from early in his career. He wrote in his book, Mein Kampf that the only way to restore German pride and strength was through violence, by overturning the Treaty of Versailles , and by reuniting all German-speaking people. These actions are what led to war.
• ❖ Hitler saw communism as an enemy and wanted to annihilate it. In order to achieve this aim he would have to invade the USSR .
• ❖ Hitler's foreign policy aim of Lebensraum could only be achieved by invading other countries.
• ❖ Stalin proposed alliances with Britain and France several times during the 1930s but these were rebuffed as European leaders often regarded the Soviets as worse, and were supportive of the idea of a strong Germany that could fight against communism.
• ❖ One of the key factors behind following the policy of appeasement which allowed Hitler and Germany's military to grow stronger was the fear of the spread of communism and therefore Hitler would be an important ally due to his hatred of communism.
• ❖ The fear of communism meant that the USSR was not consulted on a number of measures when dealing with Hitler. Stalin was not consulted about the Munich Agreement and he was furious about this and felt betrayed. It was this that led to the Nazi-Soviet pact which put Hitler in the position to invade Poland.
• ❖ Hitler's foreign policy aims meant that he would at some point invade the USSR . The pact with Stalin meant that he could focus on the west before turning his attention to the east. It meant he could avoid a war on two fronts.
• ❖ Britain and France had both committed to supporting Poland in the event of an invasion by Hitler. The Nazi-Soviet pact made this inevitable.
• ❖ America's lack of intervention in world politics in the 1930s meant Hitler became increasingly aggressive as he knew that due to the economic climate nations like Britain and France did not have the financial or military means to fight a war without the support of America.
• ❖ America's lack of intervention is partly why Britain and France followed the policy of appeasement as they needed time to rearm - without the resources of America they would have quickly lost a war against Hitler.

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World War 2 Consequences Cause and Effect Essay

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Causes of World War 2

The reason why the u.s. was involved in the war, why the allies in europe and the pacific won, consequences of the war.

The World War 2 began in 1939. This is when France and Britain declared war on Germany. This occurred when Germany invaded Poland and therefore, this is what triggered the outbreak of war. However, the causes of the war are more complex.

The major causes of this Great War were the unresolved issues that resulted from the World War 1. Another reason was due to the effects of the Great Depression. This occurred in the 1930s. Another reason is the interwar period in Europe. Several events accumulated and led to the outbreak of the war.

One of the events that contributed to the series of events includes the invasion that occurred in Poland in 1939. Soviet Russia and Germany were responsible for this invasion. Another event that had a great effect was the invasion into Republic of China. The Empire of Japan was responsible for this and this occurred in 1937.

Several European powers such as the United Kingdom, Russia and France expanded their territories using force and aggression. This is a process that was referred to as expansionism or imperialism. Germany and Italy were not as successful as the other nations when it came to gaining territory under colonial rule.

When Germany lost land to the other nations, it led to their relocation. This cause the Germans to get bitter and this interfered with their relations with their neighbors. This contributed to the feeling of revanchism. Under Nazism, Germany started a program that would lead to the restoration of the country’s rightful boundaries.

These were the boundaries that were in place before World War 1. This lead Rhineland to reoccupied. When Hitler saw the success of this action, he believed that he could further invade Russia and Poland without causing any major war.

Another leading cause is the failure of appeasement. The actions by Germany were thought to be reasonable since they thought that Germany had the right to re-arm herself in order to be ready to defend itself.

Therefore, the Munich Agreement was signed. This was between Germany, Italy, Britain and France. Czech was not invited and this made them feel betrayed.

However, Hitler went ahead to break the terms and conditions of the Munich Agreement. He invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia. It was evident that the policy of appeasement had failed. Another thing that led to the World War 2 was the failure of the League of Nations.

The United States had remained neutral in the war but they were provoked into it. This was when the Japanese bombed the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor. This made the Japanese official enemies of the United States.

The Japanese later bombed the U.S. fleet in the Philippines. This then agitated U.S., which decided to declare war on the Japanese. A few days later, Hitler decided to declare war against the United States. This led the U.S. to respond with fire. This then led to the full involvement of the United States in World War 2.

FDR also wanted the United States to be involved in the war. He made public statements about Germany’s attacks. The Germans had made three separate attacks on U.S. vessels that had carried civilians. The U.S. pressured the Japanese with embargoes and caused their economic fall.

It was after that when Hitler did what has been referred to as the ‘greatest military blunder in history’. This was when he declared war against the United States. He also wanted the Japanese to attack Russia on the eastern side. However, this did not happen.

Since the Japanese were not involved, Germany had to fight on both sides and this is the main reason why Germany did not succeed. Hitler tried to help the Japanese because he was not aware how badly off they were. He believed that Japan had an army that had not seen defeat for more than a century.

Since the Japanese were misguided, they made a mistake of attacking Pearl Harbor. This gave the Americans an incentive.

The reason why Japan attacked Pearl Harbor dates back to the time when the U.S. banned any form of trade with the Japanese. This was because the Japanese had been aggressive towards the Chinese. As the U.S. embarked fully in the war, it ended up spending 42 billion dollars towards the war.

The allies included the U.K., U.S., France, Soviet Union, Republic of China and Poland. The emperor of Japan had underestimated the abilities of the U.S. to make war in the Pacific. However, the Japanese army did not have sufficient resources to go ahead with the war.

The British, on the other hand, pushed the Japanese killing all those who appeared on their path. As a result, almost a half a million of them were killed. The U.S. also continued to capture the islands and drew closer to the Japanese territory. China, Russia and Britain then liberated the portions of China that had been occupied by the Japanese.

The attempts of the Italians and Germans to greedily capture and expand their empires were not successful. This was because they had bad strategy and morale. The Russians came in from the east and killed more than half of all the German soldiers. This led the allies to land in Normandy and they liberated France.

World War 2 had diverse effects throughout the world. The consequences included both positive and negative effects. Firstly, millions of lives were lost as a result of the war. Millions more were left homeless. Another consequence was the division of Germany.

It was divided into four and each was governed by the allied powers. These included the United Kingdom, United Nations, Soviet Union and France. These were the direct effects.

However, there were indirect effects and consequences of the war. One of the direct effects was that the war acted as a catalyst for various local, regional and global phenomena. This included the redrawing of the borders of Europe. U.K.’s welfare state was also born as a result of the war.

Another result of the war was the creation of Israel. Various organizations also rooted as a result of the world war. Such organizations include the World Bank, the United Nations, World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund.

The war also led to the emergence of new technologies. One of such technologies was nuclear fission. This was necessary for the nations to produce nuclear weapons in order to protect themselves from future attacks. Another technology was the invention of the jet engine and electronic computer.

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Home — Essay Samples — War — Aftermath of World War II — The Effects of World War Ii in the World

The Effects of World War Ii on The World

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