League of Nations

In the final years leading up to the Second World War, it became very apparent that most countries would do anything to stay out of the impending warfare. Up to this point, appeasing the hot headed aggressors was the accepted way to go about international business, even if it meant giving land to a tyrant in the hope it would cease hostilities. On the contrary, giving in only seemed to embolden the resolve of the aggressors. Across the ocean from the focal point, the United States preferred to play an extreme game of risk, keeping its power isolated while Europe continued it’s decent into chaos. The ideas of those with the most power to curb the emerging powers had failed, yet the chances to deter another war were still plentiful. It would only take a concentrated effort of those involved; perhaps they could come together for the greater good. In the final act of British appeasement policy, Hitler had asked for the annexation of the Sudetenland, which currently belonged to Czechoslovakia. The Scandinavian and Baltic states were a very touchy issue for the west to deal with. There was a good deal of pro-German feeling within that area; between 1933-1938, part of the Western Alliance was given very minor roles lest the growing Nazi influence made them feel insecure. As the Axis grew in power, the neutrality of that region was strained, and Britain knew it. To their credit, the British foreign government knew they stood little chance against the Axis, which is partly to explain why in 1938 the Munich agreement was signed by the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Germany. In the accord, Nazi Germany would gain control of the Sudetenland, which was a heavily fortified area for Czechoslovakia, and without it they stood little chance should Hitler want to breach the accord.[i] It was understood by the West at the time that Hitler simply wanted to reunify the German people who were scattered after the First World War, and this last attempt at pacification failed miserably. On 15 March 1939, Hitler began to seize the rest of Czechoslovakia which had been left mostly defenseless by the Munich agreement. Before the decade ended, the Germans had enveloped Czechoslovakia, and completely enveloped Poland. This is notable because in the 1930’s Hitler tried to prove he was only trying to reestablish his nations true borders, shattered as they were by the Versailles Treaty. This was the first time the Nazi war machine showed its hand, bringing non-German peoples underneath Hitler’s control.[ii] In the end, British appeasement made a huge mistake when paired against Hitler’s opportunism, yet it was a failure in another area that truly started the war. Germany’s attack on its neighbor country came as a shock to the world, especially those who thought appeasement had won the day. The effects were felt as far as Australia, where opinion of the situation shifted quickly. Nations who were looking to avoid war, now understood that no accommodation with Germany was possible.[iii] Just over a month later, it had already been decided that a peace alliance would be needed, a non-aggression pact that included all peaceful nations of Europe. This backed Britain and into a corner; they were not convinced that those they were allying with were up to the challenge of fending off the new Axis powers.[iv] The only exception seemed to be the Soviet Union, who sported a huge army and had an enormous supply of weapons. An alliance with the Soviet union also brought along serious questions as to whether the communist nation would make a good ally. Soviet leadership was considered questionable after Stalin had purged his officer corps of those he found unworthy of the post, leaving a vast army almost leaderless. Consequently, it was difficult to prove the Soviet forces could establish themselves on the field and be efficient war partners. There was no enthusiasm for an alliance with the Soviet Union, yet Hitler’s actions had forced Britain to entertain the idea of joining with the communist heartland.[v] There were a few stumbling blocks to a possible alliance between the two; first and foremost, Poland would not enter into an agreement with the Soviet Union, which was a necessity for the allied forces to thwart Germany if they were to invade. [vi] Poland was not alone in this, as other fiercely anti-communist countries might have also balked at a treaty with the Soviet Union. The common perception was that if the West went to war with the communist country, it would enable communism to penetrate the allies if victory was won.[vii]There were those who wondered if the inclusion of the Red Army was enough of a positive to negate the effects of other countries leaving the alliance. Other fears included that a sudden alliance would prompt Hitler into moving aggressively, using the guise that Germany’s enemies have now encircled the country. The final fear was that Stalin wasn’t a true in his offer for a Western alliance, as well of a fear that when the time came, the Soviet’s would abandon its comrades. [viii] The last concern turned out to be a right one, Stalin had been double dealing, working with the West in the daylight, and talking with the Axis at night.[ix] Stalin sought to avoid a war he came to see as unavoidable, and to him, dealing with the Nazi’s may have been the best way to stay out. Therefore, discussions of an Anglo-Soviet pact were unbearably slow, so much that it became almost too obvious that Stalin was waiting to see if Hitler would outbid the west.[x] Eventually, the talks with the West fell through, mostly because of Stalin’s hopes that with a non-aggression pact, the Soviet Union could stay clean of the impending bloodshed. Ironically, the Soviets did plan to use their influence through the Anglo pact to increase recognition of communism in the West,[xi] leaving it up to interpretation whether or not the fall through of the treaty did in fact have some good points. With the failure of the West to sign a treaty with the Soviet nation, and a non-aggression pact saving them from a two war front, Germany had little reason not to invade Poland shortly after the Nazi-Soviet pact was signed on August 24, 1939. If the Anglo-Soviet treaty would have prevailed, Hitler would not have been able to cross into Poland as easily, fearing the might of both of the strongest armies in the coalition. What should not be lost is the chance for territorial gain to the Soviet Union, a 3,000 kilometer tract of land they were to pick up from the destruction of Poland and the Baltic states. Even though it became a problem later due to the inability of the Soviets to fortify and militarize the land, the extra space was a nice prize at the time.[xii] After it became clear that the Soviets had aligned with the Nazi’s, the British government made it a point to announce that in no way did this new agreement hinder upon Britain’s commitment to Poland and its freedom.[xiii] This, while grandiose and possibly a last grasp at keeping the continent in check, was a huge folly. With that announcement came the realization that Germany was going to invade Poland, the Soviet Union was not going to stop them, and Britain would be at war, with no possible way to help its ally. In the Far East, different mechanisms were at work which would cause a third party to take part in the Second World War. Until now, Japanese aggressions had swallowed a good portion of China and again, very little on the world stage was done to stop it. The League of Nations was made to be seen as a fallacy, and with the whole of Europe tangled up with Hitler, Japan engaged in a war with China. After the Japanese overpowered Manchuria, The Chinese government contacted the United States in the hopes of gaining help and insight into building a proper Air Force. After Japan went to war with China, in the Second Sino-Japanese war, the United States’ isolationist ways hindered them again from playing any major role and imposed an arms embargo on the two nations. This forced China to look to the Soviet Union for help, in which it was only too happy to oblige, again, as a way to project there communism through alliances. For three years, the Soviet’s gave the Chinese aid in the form of airplanes and pilots, which aided the Chinese greatly. The United States, in perhaps the first form of the Cold War to come, led the United States to offer help to the Chinese, most likely to stave off Soviet influence in the area. After the United States agreed to offer aid again, Japan began to believe the U.S. had taken an unnecessary part in the war.[xiv] This may have been one of the bigger factors as to why the Japanese ambushed the United States during World War II. Soon however, the Nazi-Soviet pact fell completely apart; as soon as Germany forced a wedge between the Soviet Union and Western Europe, Germany turned the campaign into a two front war. After running through Eastern Europe rather easily, it was assumed that Britain had been isolated, which of course, it was. The next phase of the war hoped to keep Britain pinned down, use the might of the Nazi army to storm through the Soviet Union and use the newly formed Axis Pact in 1940to keep the United States neutralized through Japanese actions. Even though the sheer landscape of the two theaters kept the Germans and Japanese from coordinating any sort of movement[xv], the strategy at the time was very promising. Without getting too far into the War itself, this was the last string to play out when it comes to how horribly the world reacted to the rising powers before the Second World War.

The end result to all of this theater was of course a war with unbelievable staying power, not only due to the fighting which was done, but to those who were murdered in the process. While going over the history, it is easy to see why the Second World War came about, yet it is much easier to see how it could have been avoided. However, those of the 1920’s and 1930’s did not have the luxury of hindsight in which we do today, they were instead acting in what they thought were their best interests, and that may have been the problem. The First World War was so graphic, so shocking and brutal, that no one wanted to believe that another war could be coming. Those in power wanted to believe that the Versailles treaty was too tough, that all Nazi Germany wanted was its land back, its people and military back. The alliance of Nations called on to govern after the First World War wanted to make concessions to countries with empire building in mind, they didn’t want to pick the fight, they hoped that giving in would appease the dictators. By the time the first gunshot was heard in Poland, the main powers in Western Europe were proven wrong, aggression would have to be met with aggression, or at least a believable threat of it; if only they would have seen that sooner, perhaps history would be different.
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Endnotes

John T. Kirby, "Aristotle on Metaphor," American Journal of Philology 118, no. 4 (Winter 1997): 524, http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_journal_of_philology/v118/118.4.kirby.html (accessed June 25, 2009).

[i] M. Nurek, K Keplicz, “GREAT BRITAIN AND THE SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRIES BEFORE AND AFTER THE SIGNING OF THE MUNICH AGREEMENT,” Acta Poloniae Historica, ( March 1998): 109-127. Available from: Historical Abstracts, Ipswich, MA. (Accessed November 3, 2011).

[ii] C. Waters, “The Menzies Government and the Grand Alliance during 1939.” Australian Journal Of Politics & History, (December 2010):560-573. Available from: Historical Abstracts, Ipswich, MA. (Accessed November 3, 2011). P 562

[iii] Waters, P 562

[iv] Waters, P 563

[v] Waters, P 564

[vi] G. Roberts, “The alliance that failed: Moscow and the Triple Alliance negotiations, 1939,” European History Quarterly, (July 1996):383. Available from: Historical Abstracts, Ipswich, MA. (Accessed November 3, 2011). P 383

[vii] G. Strang, “John Bull in Search of a Suitable Russia: British Foreign Policy and the Failure of the Anglo-French-Soviet Alliance Negotiations, 1939,”Canadian Journal Of History, (Summer2006):47-84. Available from: Historical Abstracts, Ipswich, MA. Accessed November 10, 2011). P 49

[viii] Waters, P 565

[ix] Strang, P 49

[x]Waters, P 568

[xi] Strang, P 50

[xii] P. Michelson, “THE NAZI-SOVIET PACT AND THE OUTBREAK OF WORLD WAR II,” Revue Roumaine D 'histoire, (March 1992): 65-102. Available from: Historical Abstracts, Ipswich, MA. (Accessed November 8, 2011).

[xiii] Waters, P 571

[xiv] G. Xu, “THE ISSUE OF AIR ASSISTANCE TO CHINA IN THE U.S.-JAPANESE RELATIONS, 1931-1941,” Asian Profile, (February 1999): 11-27. Available from: Historical Abstracts, Ipswich, MA. (Accessed November 8, 2011). P 17

[xv] K. Drechsler , “GERMANY AND ITS ALLIES AND THE WAR AGAINST THE SOVIET UNION, 1940-42,” Soviet Union, (January 1991): 39-58. Available from: Historical Abstracts, Ipswich, MA. (Accessed November 3, 2011). P 44

Bibliography

Drechsler K. GERMANY AND ITS ALLIES AND THE WAR AGAINST THE SOVIET UNION, 1940-42. Soviet Union [serial online]. January 1991;18(1/3):39-58. Available from: Historical Abstracts, Ipswich, MA. Accessed November 3, 2011.

Michelson P. THE NAZI-SOVIET PACT AND THE OUTBREAK OF WORLD WAR II. Revue Roumaine D 'histoire [serial online]. March 1992;31(1/2):65-102. Available from: Historical Abstracts, Ipswich, MA. Accessed November 8, 2011.

Nurek M, Keplicz K. GREAT BRITAIN AND THE SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRIES BEFORE AND AFTER THE SIGNING OF THE MUNICH AGREEMENT. Acta Poloniae Historica [serial online]. March 1998;(59):109-127. Available from: Historical Abstracts, Ipswich, MA. Accessed November 3, 2011.

Roberts G. The alliance that failed: Moscow and the Triple Alliance negotiations, 1939. European History Quarterly [serial online]. July 1996;26(3):383. Available from: Historical Abstracts, Ipswich, MA. Accessed November 3, 2011. 383

Strang G. John Bull in Search of a Suitable Russia: British Foreign Policy and the Failure of the Anglo-French-Soviet Alliance Negotiations, 1939. Canadian Journal Of History [serial online]. Summer2006 2006;41(1):47-84. Available from: Historical Abstracts, Ipswich, MA. Accessed November 10, 2011.

Waters C. The Menzies Government and the Grand Alliance during 1939. Australian Journal Of Politics & History [serial online]. December 2010;56(4):560-573. Available from: Historical Abstracts, Ipswich, MA. Accessed November 3, 2011. 562

Xu G. THE ISSUE OF AIR ASSISTANCE TO CHINA IN THE U.S.-JAPANESE RELATIONS, 1931-1941. Asian Profile [serial online]. February 1999;27(1):11-27. Available from: Historical Abstracts, Ipswich, MA. Accessed November 8, 2011.

Bibliography: Drechsler K. GERMANY AND ITS ALLIES AND THE WAR AGAINST THE SOVIET UNION, 1940-42. Soviet Union [serial online]. January 1991;18(1/3):39-58. Available from: Historical Abstracts, Ipswich, MA. Accessed November 3, 2011. Accessed November 8, 2011. Roberts G. The alliance that failed: Moscow and the Triple Alliance negotiations, 1939. European History Quarterly [serial online]. July 1996;26(3):383. Available from: Historical Abstracts, Ipswich, MA. Accessed November 3, 2011. 383 Strang G Accessed November 3, 2011. 562 Xu G Accessed November 8, 2011.