The Real Spark of the Second Great War

The starting roots of World War II began initially in the aftermath of World War I. After WWI was declared done and over with, the League of Nations went into peace talks and determined the terms of said peace and what would have to happen in order to achieve this by singing the Treaty of Versailles, which put Germany as the responsible party for everything that went on throughout the war. The reparations put into place over Germany started out as $200 billion to be paid to England and France to cover the costs of the war, as well as limiting Germany’s military and the government was to become a democracy- the Weimar Republic.

Despite the reparations to be paid being cut down to $132.5 billion, the rest of the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles greatly upset the German people that wanted to gain some sort of payback from their unfair treatment by the other world powers.

Though Germany was not the only country wronged during WWI by the major political powers- England, France, Russia, and the United States.

Italy and Japan were both promised land if they were to fight against Germany and Austria-Hungary, though neither country received anything for their efforts. Both countries felt betrayed and wanted to expand their territories at any cost. This need for expansion began with Japan invading Manchuria in 1931, in which the League of Nations was unable to do anything helpful in stopping Japan’s invasion. Knowing that the League of Nations was unable to do anything, Japan went on to invade China in 1937.

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In the meantime, Benito Mussolini- who took power of Italy in 1920- denounced the Treaty of Versailles and essentially went rouge with the Italian government. In 1935, Mussolini invaded Ethiopia, who went to the League of Nations for help, but similarly to their interactions with Japan, did absolutely nothing to help Ethiopia. Seeing that Japan and Italy were not being stopped by the League of Nations in their quest for land, Adolf Hitler- who created the National Socialist Party and the Third Reich of Germany in 1933 after the Reichstag allowed him to have full authoritarian power over the government- devised his plan to take Germany back to its former glory in his book Mein Kampf. With Japan being a stronger world power, Germany sign an Anti-Comitern pact with them in 1936 to aid in protecting Hitler’s plans if the rest of the world caught on and decided to start a fight to stop him.

When Hitler felt that it was his time to begin the invasion of Europe, he started by sending in troops through Austria to reach and seize the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. This seizure was mostly ignored by the major players of the League of Nations and was allowed to slide so Germany could begin to pay back reparations faster with their industrial land back. An agreement was made at the Munich Conference that Germany was allowed to keep this land under their control in exchange for the promise to not attempt to seize any more land. Hitler went back on this agreement, and went to speak with Joseph Stalin of Russia to get Poland and to sign a Non-Aggression Pact so Germany would leave Russia alone. Britain and France both decided to declare war on Germany if they were to invade Poland, which happened on September 1, 1939, starting the war on the European front.