Roads+To+War+InNo+1+Maurice+Chiu

Road To Wars Part One

Awesome Stuff Original This is just a short cartoon of Hitler rearming the German army, which I made on toondo. Unoriginal This is a picture of Hitler holding a flag with a swastika, which is known as the Nazi sign. Source: http://3mpub.com/rhodes/images/hitler%20spy%20web.jpg

This is a picture of the Great Depression in the United States. Millions of men had no job and the economy collapsed. Source: http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/04/0426_dow/image/2_great_depression.jpg

An Uneasy Peace 1929-1935

The New Era: Hopes For Peace In 1929 · In 1929, a few years after World War 1, the world has gone into a peaceful state and many people thought that the peace would be for a very long time. · A reason for why people thought peace was going to last for a long time was because in 1925, leading European statesmen had a conference in Locarno. The men were there to end problems and feuds that still carried on after World War 1 and one of these included the hostility between the Germans and the French. · At the end of the conference, a group of agreements were made known as the Locarno Treaties. · One of the treaty agreements was that France, Germany, and Belgium would have to respect the country and Germany cannot attack Belgium and France while France and Belgium cannot force and bully Germany. This promptly caused what was thought of as a new era of peace.

Friendship Between Nations · While all countries in the world were going through a peaceful phase, the countries of Paraguay and Bolivia are still fighting. · Countries continued to sign peace treaties and one of the most important was the Kellog-Briand Pact. The agreement states that the United States, France, Kellog, and Briand are not to use war as a way of settling arguments. · Many other treaties were made such as USSR signing a Eastern Pact with six of the surrounding countries not to use war to settle arguments and many other pacts were made to ensure war is not used as a way to settle long-standing quarrels.

The League Of Nations · It was the tenth anniversary of the League Of Nations in 1929. · The collective security was an idea where if one member of the League attacks another member, all other members will help the member under attack. · To impose economic sanctions on an attacker is to stop trading with the attacker, thus causing an economic crisis. Also to impose military sanction would be to create a League army against the attacker. · The disarmament commission tries to persuade countries to reduce their weapon stop and to instead use collective security for their defenses. The world’s first disarmament conference met in 1932 with sixty nations attending.

The Limitations Of The League · Not every nation belonged to the League. United States was not part of the nation and released a “policy of isolation” and did not want to get involved with unnecessary affairs with Europe and foreign countries. · The USSR was not part of the League because the communist leaders saw the League as a capitalist country club that opposed communism. · Both USSR and United States were major world powers and the fact that they are not part of the League is a major drawback and weakness in the League. · Another problem with the League was that some members were not very enthusiastic with the League. An example is Germany, who views the League as a club of victors, and those who defeated them in World War 1. · Another problem was that the League’s ability to settle dispute over a war was never tested. While the league can control minor issues, it was never shown that the League and the Sanctions would be useful if a war broke out between two countries and that it would be able to stop the war. · Despite many problems the League has, many people still highly regarded the League and 400,000 British people even joined the League Of Nations Union to show their support.

The Great Depression

The Great Depression · In 1929 the great depression began and lasted till the 1933’s. The share prices on the wall street stock exchange in New York fell terribly and thousands of American firms went bankrupt with millions of shareholders ruined. · The great depression soon spread from the United States to other countries and everywhere it went, trade dwindled with profits falling and millions of people lost their jobs from factories and business closing down. · Protectionism was setup in many countries that was hit hardest by the great depression and its aim was to boost demand for goods made in their own country by simply keeping out foreign goods. · The policies of protectionism and self-suffiency were hurting international relations and the more self each country acted to help its own people, the more they forgot the ideas of world co-operation that was behind the League Of Nations. · Because of the poverty that spread throughout the world, and that many people were without, they begin to blame their countries in gave in to extreme political parties that promised to help people. In Japan and Germany this led to the end of the democratic government and anti-democratic governments were set up. But these parties acted aggressively towards other countries in an attempt to improve situations in their own countries.

The Problems Of Empires · Britain and France owned a large empire, and by owning large empires they were able to avoid the worst of the great depression and increase trades in their empire. · Italy, Germany, and Japan were all mad because Italy and Japan barely got any extra land from the war and Germany was angry because of how much was lost of the German empire during the war. These three countries thought adding colonies to their empires would help them from the great depression, even if it means stealing it from other countries. · Owning large empires was troublesome for Britain and France as they both faced resistance from the native people wanting independence.

Japan, Manchuria, and the League 1931-1933

The Attraction of Manchuria · Japan already owns four areas in and around China – Formosa, Korea, Liaodong, and Kiachow. But Manchuria was the land that Japan wanted the most. · Japan wanted Manchuria because the land was huge, three times as large as Japan’s empire, plus it was wealthy in forestry, minerals and agricultural products. By 1931 Japan owned and controlled most of Manchuria’s economy.

Japan Invades Manchuria · Acting against the orders of the Japanese government, officers of the Kwantung army plotted a plan to take over Manchuria and during the night of September 18 931, the Japanese soldiers blew up a section of the South Manchuria Railway in Shenyang. This way they can blame the explosion on the local Chinese and use it as an excuse to occupy Shenyang. · China immediately asked the League of Nations for help. The league ordered the Japanese government to withdraw their troops. The Japanese government agreed with the League of Nations but the Kwantung army continued to advance into Manchuria.

The League and Manchuria · In 1931-1932, no member of the League wanted to use sanction against Japan as the Great Depression has greatly damaged the economy and a economic sanction would make things worst. · The League sent the Commission of Enquiry to do a report in Manchuria and on October 1932 they produced a report that suggested that Japan should leave Manchuria along but Manchuria remains as a semi-independent country instead of Chinese rule. · Even though the report satisfied the Chinese and the Japanese, the Japanese resigned from the League of Nations and went on to occupy the Chinese province of Jehol. · The Manchuria affair has greatly damaged the reputation of the League of Nations. One of the leading members has left and attacked another member and the League could not stop it. By the end of the affair in 1933 the strongest of supporters began to doubt the League’s ability to maintain world peace.

The Revival of Germany 1933-1935

Hitler’s Foreign Policy Aim · The Nazi party was setup in 1919 right after the First World War. The party believed Germany’s army did not lose and that the government ministers were to be blamed for the defeat of Germany because of their cowardice. The Nazi party was extremely angry and only made angrier when Germany was forced to sign the treaty of Versailles. · When Hitler became chancellor he had three basic aims. The first was to tear apart the treaty of Versailles. Second he intended to unite all German-speaking people in one country. Third he wanted to give Germans “Lebensraum”, or living space, as Germany was overcrowded and there was not enough food and raw material. · Hitler aimed to get the lands east of Germany, particularly in USSR and Poland. · Hitler began rearming the country and secret increased the military size and train pilots and built aircrafts. Hitler withdrew from the League of Nations and the Geneva Disarmament Conference. · For the next two years the German armed forces re-armed in secret and eventually Hitler decide there would be no need for secrecy and made it compulsory for men to serve in the military in public.

Reactions to German Re-armament · When Hitler became chancellor, Germany was crippled by the great depression. Any major powers could have halted Germany’s re-armament by upholding the treaty of Versailles. But all the powers had problems of their own. Britain had problems with it’s empire, while France simply built the Maginot Line, a series of heavily armed concrete forts along the French and German borders. · Mussolini placed army units in positions on the border between Italy and Austria as a clear warning to Hitler that they will not allow Hitler to unite Austria with Germany. Hitler soon abandoned any plans to takeover Austria. · The Prime ministers of France, Britain and Italy met at Stresa in Italy and formed a Stresa Front. They protested against Hitler’s rearmament but took no action against it.

Summary: Hopes were high for peace starting in 1929. But the league of Nations has many problems and it was never tested if its methods of keeping peace at times of war would work. Japan leaves the League of Nations and attempts to occupy Manchuria. Hitler was elected Chancellor and began rearming Germany and had three aims in his policy. All the other countries could not do anything to stop Hitler's rearmament as every other country had to deal with the great depression and issues within their own country.

Questions: Why did the countries and supporters of the League Of Nations begin to doubt the League in 1931-1933 and what happened during those years? What were Hitler's three basic aims? What were the major setbacks or problems the League faced in 1929? Why did no country try to stop Germany's rearmament in 1933-1935? What did Japanese army officers do to give themselves an excuse to occupy Shenyang and how did the League of Nations respond to this and what did the Japanese government think?