24.1 The Origins of World War Two in Europe

Prevailing attitudes

If there is a lasting lesson coming from the events that led to the outbreak of war in 1939, it was simple: appeasement does not prevent war. Appeasement means the conciliation of a potential aggressor by making concessions: basically, peace at any price. It’s the idea that in order to prevent being beaten up by the school-yard bully, one meets his demands and gives him one’s lunch money. In the 1930s appeasement was the policy whereby Britain and France attempted to avoid war by giving in to Hitler’s territorial demands. After all, Hitler always promised that once satisfied, he had no further territorial ambitions in Europe.

No one wanted another “Great War” (as World War I was known at the time). The war had seen the horrifying slaughter of millions of men in a stalemated war of attrition. Pacifist attitudes prevailed, particularly in the US and Britain. The war had been a mistake. It was not all Germany’s fault. Little or nothing had been gained by it. Peoples had been deceived by the propaganda of their governments. Wars benefited arms manufacturers. Versailles was too harsh. “Vigorous peoples” such as the Germans and Italians needed to expand. Democracy was not suited for all nations. Pacifism insisted on peace regardless of the consequences.

French pacifism stemmed in part from the experience of the war. France lost an entire generation of young men in the trenches. France’s economy had been ruined. Strategically, France turned to defense. In the event of a future war, France would be safe from invasion by a line of massive underground fortifications facing Germany across the Rhine. Not one square inch of land between France and Germany would be outside the range of the line’s guns. The French defensive barrier would be called the Maginot Line.[1]

In the early 1930s France had been hard hit by the Depression, resulting in long lasting and bitter social and political factionalism. Anti-republican rightist elements were sympathetic to the fascist concept of order. French leftists looked to socialism and the Soviet Union. The weak governments of the Third Republic were not up to the task of providing strong leadership.

In Britain pacifism had permeated the ranks of intellectuals. In a celebrated debate in 1933, Oxford University students approved a resolution whereby they pledged never to take up arms in defense of their country under any conditions. The British upper class was openly sympathetic to the fascist dictators. Some even saw Hitler as bulwark against Communism. The British government, led by the Liberal Party, undertook a foreign policy of appeasement. The Depression had severely crippled British industrial productivity and British ministries had made economic recovery their priority

The United States, disillusioned with the Treaty of Versailles, turned its back on Europe. The US never joined the League of Nations and retreated into neutralist isolation. A series of neutrality acts rejected American economic involvement in any foreign conflicts. The US was likewise devastated by the Depression and the new administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt directed its energies to American economic recovery.

Marxist ideological and Russian traditional interests directed Soviet foreign policy. Alarmed by the strengthening of the fascist dictatorships, the Soviet Union called for collective security and international action to curb fascist aggression. The Western democracies, however, opposed to Communism and horrified by the growing totalitarianism of the Stalinist regime, were suspicious of and resistant to Soviet overtures for cooperative action.

With the US keeping itself out of European affairs and the USSR shunned, there was little the British and French could do in the face of the increased threat to peace posed by Germany and Italy. They would endeavor to keep peace in the hope that the fascists’ hunger would be satiated before war was necessary. It would prove a costly illusion.

In response to the 1919 peace settlement, the major powers could be categorized in two camps: “revisionist” and “satisfied.” The revisionist powers wanted revisions of the peace and were willing to make war to secure the changes they wanted. They were Germany, Italy, Japan, and the Soviet Union. The satisfied powers were Britain, France, and the United States. While satisfied that the peace was initially sound, they were unwilling to risk war to enforce it. What follows is the progression of events that will lead Europe to war. They would begin in Asia.

The Japanese Conquest of Manchuria, 1931

The march of aggression that would lead to war would begin in East Asia. Its economy hurt by the Great Depression, Japan suddenly and without warning invaded and occupied Manchuria in northeast China. Rich in coal and iron, Manchuria would prove a valuable source of needed resources for the struggling Japanese economy. Because China was experiencing a civil war there was no resistance to the Japanese occupation. To legitimize its occupation, Japan reorganized Manchuria as the kingdom of Manchukuo. No other nations recognized the legitimacy of Manchukuo, which was in reality a puppet state of Japan. The League of Nations condemned Japan as an aggressor and ordered Japan to restore Manchuria to Chinese sovereignty but took no other action. In response Japan withdrew from the League. In its first significant test as a peace-keeping organization, the League had failed.

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And, in Europe

In October 1933, Hitler withdrew Germany from the League of Nations and the International Disarmament Conference. The provisions of the League’s Covenant did not suit Nazi foreign policy ambitions. The League, he reasoned, was an anachronistic part of the past, a meaningless debating society that served the interests of those who created the hated Versailles Diktat.

Hitler had long hoped to join Austria with Germany. To this end he had provided financial, organizational, and armed support to the Austrian Nazi Party. In July 1934 the Austrian Nazis launched a coup in which the Austrian Chancellor Englebert Dollfuss was shot to death. Following a night of fighting in the streets of the Vienna, Austrian authorities suppressed the coup and arrested its leaders, some of whom were later hanged. Britain and France condemned the coup and firmly asserted that Austria must remain independent. Even Mussolini’s Italy condemned the coup and mobilized units of its army along Italy’s border with Austria.

In March 1935 Hitler announced that Germany was no longer bound by the military provisions of the Treaty of Versailles and would begin to rearm. The British and French governments issued mild protests but took no further action. Their attention was on Italy.

The Italian Invasion of Ethiopia, 1935 - 1936

In March 1935 Mussolini ordered Italian armies stationed in Eritrea and Somaliland (Italian colonies) to invade the east African country of Ethiopia. Mussolini’s ambitious foreign policy called for an Italian empire and Ethiopia was a prime target. In 1896 Italy had attempted to conquer Ethiopia but had been humiliated in defeat. A successful conquest would avenge the earlier failure. This time the mechanized and well-armed Italian forces would have no difficulty defeating Ethiopian resistance.

The world was shocked. Both Ethiopia and Italy were members of the League of Nations and, as such, pledged to peace. The Ethiopian leader, Emperor Haile Selassie, went to Geneva and personally appealed to the Assembly for the League’s assistance. As he spoke, Italian journalists in the galleries heckled and booed him. The League condemned the Italian invasion and voted to impose sanctions prohibiting League members from selling arms and raw materials to Italy. Sales and shipments of oil, however, were not embargoed. Britain and France even allowed Italian warships and troop transports to pass through the Suez Canal. Neither Britain nor France was willing to risk a greater war with Italy. Without British and French resolve, the League was powerless. All it could do was condemn. The sanctions proved meaningless. In 1936 conquered Ethiopia was integrated into the Italian East African Empire. The League ended its sanctions against Italy.

The Reoccupation of the Rhineland, 1936

On March 7, 1936, Hitler ordered German troops into the Rhineland. Ordered demilitarized by the Treaty of Versailles, the Rhineland was to serve as a buffer between Germany and France. The region had been under German civil administration since 1920 and Allied occupation forces had been withdrawn in 1925. As they paraded across the Rhine bridges, the German soldiers were enthusiastically welcomed by the local population. Hitler had promised restoration of the Rhineland to full German sovereignty. He had now delivered. That night in a speech before the Reichstag, he boasted that German honor had been satisfied. He then tried to assure the Western Powers. “We have no territorial demands to make in Europe … Germany will never break the peace!”

It was a risky gamble. Concerned that the action might provoke France, Hitler ordered his generals to withdraw if the French took any military action. France did not act. There were several reasons why. The French government was experiencing a factional crisis and was unable to agree on a common course of action. The French high command, committed to a defensive strategy, moved troops up to the Maginot Line but expressed reluctance to cross into Germany. In consultation with London, France was informed that Britain would not support military action to keep German soldiers off German soil. The irony is that the French army was much more powerful than the German army at the time and could have easily have routed the Germans. France then appealed to the League of Nations to condemn Germany and demand German adherence to the Versailles and Locarno treaties. Without British sanction of a forceful response, the League took no action.

History is always 20 / 20 in its hindsight. But there were those who at the moment recognized the implications of the Rhineland gamble. Hitler, of course, was one. The way was open for him to plan and pursue further aggression. The Western Allies would not act to prevent it. Had the allies acted in 1936, Germany would have suffered a severe defeat and Hitler’s government would have been decisively discredited and possibly weakened to the point of collapse. In Britain, the Conservative MP Winston Churchill was another who understood the implications of the Rhineland. In a speech to the Commons Churchill warned that Germany would fortify the Rhineland as a bastion against western attack, thus negating any Western diplomatic pressure that might prevent Hitler’s future aggression in the East. Churchill stated that once the fortifications were constructed Germany would take Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the rest of Eastern Europe. He was absolutely right.

The Spanish Civil War, 1936 – 1939

In 1931 a new Spanish government deposed the king and proclaimed Spain to be a republic. When the new government began a program of widespread liberal reforms, Spanish conservatives formed a fascist opposition movement called the Falange Party. The Falange received its support from the Catholic Church, the wealthy landowners, and the army officers.

Fearing Spain's drift to the left, the Falangists, led by General Francisco Franco, and calling themselves the Nationalists, rebelled against the government in 1936. Spain soon found itself in a bitter civil war as the Nationalists battled the Republican forces (Loyalists) loyal to the government in Madrid. The Republican supporters were generally workers, peasants, intellectuals, liberal and moderate republicans, socialists, and communists.

In the civil war the Nationalists received direct and extensive military aid from both Italy and Germany. Mussolini sent Franco some 50,000 Italian troops equipped with tanks, artillery, and attack aircraft. Hitler sent 10,000 troops, largely tank and air forces. The Germans purposely took advantage of their presence in Spain to "test" new mobile (tank) warfare and bombing strategies. In one case, they purposely bombed the small city of Guernica, which had no military value, in order to see the effects of intensive bombing on a defenseless civilian population. The horror of this attack was vividly recorded in the dramatic painting "Guernica" by Pablo Picasso.

The Spanish Republican government received some foreign military assistance from some 40,000 volunteers from France, Britain, and the US organized as the "International Brigade." The governments of Britain and France were reluctant to intervene directly because they did not wish to risk a major international war over Spain.

In September 1936, on the recommendation of the French-sponsored 27 nation Non-Intervention Committee, many nations, including the United States, agreed to prevent the sending of supplies and additional volunteers to Spain. It was thought that this would keep the war a strictly Spanish internal affair. Only the Soviet Union provided direct military assistance to the Spanish Republicans but that was inconsequential compared to the assistance received by the Nationalists from Germany and Italy.

By the spring of 1939 the Nationalists were victorious in a war that had cost over 745,000 lives. Franco became the head of the Falange-controlled fascist dictatorship in control of Spain. As with such titles as Fuehrer (Hitler) and Il Duce (Mussolini), Franco elevated himself as El Caudillo, Leader. Franco's government would remain in control of Spain until his death in 1975.

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In October 1936 the Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano (Mussolini’s son-in-law) traveled to Berlin to join Italy with Germany in a special treaty relationship that would become known as the Rome - Berlin Axis. The agreement publicly bound the two countries in friendship and military alliance. In a private meeting with Ciano, Hitler praised Mussolini’s statesmanship and assured the Italian that together Germany and Italy could defeat both Bolshevism and Britain. It was Mussolini who later called the treaty the “axis” upon which all of Europe would turn.

In November 1936 Hitler signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan. Aimed against the Soviet Union, this treaty pledged Germany and Japan to defend civilization from international Communism. The Pact’s secret protocols committed both parties to act in mutual interest should either be attacked by the USSR. In 1937 Italy joined the Anti-Comintern Pact. Thus, Japan became part of the Axis.

(In 1937 Japan, without declaration of war, launched a massive invasion of China. In effect, this was the beginning of World War II in Asia. While initially successful, Japan’s war with China would stalemate and last until 1945. To obtain the natural resources it needed for war in China, Japan would later be compelled to greater aggression. Threatened were British, French, Dutch, and American colonial possessions in Asia. While the Western Powers were preoccupied with Fascist ambitions in Europe, Japan was relatively free of international pressure to pursue its war with China. Only the United States took an active interest in Japan and China.)

Austria: The Anschluss (Annexation) 1938

The Treaty of Versailles prohibited a future union of Germany and Austria. Hitler was determined to bring his homeland into the Third Reich and encouraged the Austrian Nazi Party to again pressure the Austrian government for Anschluss. Earlier in 1934 the Austrian Nazis had attempted to seize power in Vienna, but the government suppressed the revolt. While the Austrians themselves smarted under the Paris peace settlement, which had deprived them of their empire and much of their former resources, they were not yet receptive to the idea of Nazi control nor union with Germany.

In late 1937 / early 1938 Hitler launched an intensive propaganda campaign calling for the annexation of Austria. All Germans, he argued, should have the same right to self-determination the hated peace settlement gave to other European nationalities. If Austria did not willingly join the Third Reich, Germany would, he implied, use force to compel a union. The Austrian Chancellor, Kurt Schuschnigg, vowed that Austria would remain independent.

In February 1938 Hitler summoned Schuschnigg to Germany and, in a stormy meeting, browbeat the Austrian leader with insults and threats. The Austrian Nazis took to the streets in Vienna and attacked their opponents. Hitler presented the Austrian leader with an ultimatum demanding Austria’s assent to conditions that would have compromised Austrian sovereignty. Schuschnigg meekly accepted. A few weeks later in early March, Shuschnigg announced that there would be a plebiscite wherein the Austrian people would determine Austria’s future. Alarmed and angry by Schuschnigg’s “betrayal,” Hitler demanded postponement of the plebiscite and demanded the chancellor’s resignation. Refusal meant German invasion. To save his country from bloodshed, Schuschnigg resigned (March 11). Under German demand, the Austrian president appointed Artur Seyss-Inquart, leader of the Austrian Nazi Party, as the new Chancellor. Seyss-Inquart called for the opening of the border, and on March 12, German troops entered Austria. There was no resistance. On March 14, Hitler made a triumphant entry into Vienna. On April 10, all Germans and Austrians went to the polls for a new plebiscite on the question of annexing Austria to Germany. With “official” counts of 99% of the voters in both countries approving, Austria was absorbed into the Third Reich.

Sudetenland, Munich, and the Fate of Czechoslovakia

The 1938 Sudetenland crisis and resulting Munich Conference marked the high point of the Western appeasement of Hitler. Hitler demanded that Czechoslovakia cede to Germany the Sudetenland, a Czech region populated by Germans. The Sudeten Mountains formed a natural barrier separating the Czech heartland (Bohemia) from Germany and Austria. With the Anschluss, Hitler’s Third Reich now surrounded western Czechoslovakia on three sides. If Czechoslovakia did not turn the territory over to Germany, Hitler would take it by force. He set October 1 as the deadline for Czech compliance with his demand. As Britain, France, and the Soviet Union all had defensive arrangements with Czechoslovakia, a German invasion of the Sudetenland could cause a major war.

Hitler’s generals, knowing that Germany’s armed forces were still underdeveloped, were alarmed by the prospect of war. War with Britain and France, or even with the USSR, would be impossible to win. A German invasion of Czechoslovakia alone, they told Hitler, could not succeed: Czech defense would be too strong to overcome. The result would be certain and decisive defeat. Hitler assured the generals that Germany would not have to go to war. “I know our enemies,” he told them. “They are worms.” They would give the Sudetenland to Germany.

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (in office 1937 – 1940) acted to avoid war by seeking a diplomatic settlement of the crisis. The Germans, now militarily much stronger than had been the case in 1936, had, as Churchill had predicted, built a line of massive fortifications along the Rhineland border with France. War with Germany would mean unacceptable losses in manpower for both Britain and France. Chamberlain would save the peace. Twice in September he traveled to Germany to meet with Hitler. In these discussions, Chamberlain worked out a proposal whereby Czechoslovakia might be persuaded to cede some border territories to Germany, but Hitler was insistent that the whole of the Sudetenland must be turned over. A disappointed Chamberlain returned home convinced that war was imminent. In a speech broadcast to the world on September 26, Hitler stated that the Sudetenland was “absolutely” his “last territorial demand” in Europe.

Meanwhile, Czechoslovakian diplomatic efforts to secure France’s commitment to Czech defense were politely evaded. France, in turn, sought Britain’s guarantee that if France were to go to war to protect Czechoslovakia, Britain would go to war too. France saw Chamberlain’s effort to avoid war as a clear signal that Britain did not want war over the Sudetenland. By its treaty with Czechoslovakia, the USSR was obligated to defend Czechoslovakia only if France did! Czechoslovakia, virtually abandoned, began to mobilize its troops in anticipation of war with Germany.

On September 28 Hitler called for an international conference to resolve the crisis. Convinced that Chamberlain would be amenable to another effort to preserve peace, Hitler invited the British Prime Minister, French Premier Edouard Daladier, and Italy’s Mussolini to Munich. Representatives of the Czech government could wait outside of the conference room but would be allowed no participation or consultation. The conference met September 29th and into the early hours of the morning of the 30th. The conferees agreed that Czechoslovakia must cede the Sudetenland to Germany. There would be no war.

Chamberlain returned to London in triumph. He was met by a huge enthusiastic crowd at the airport where he waved a sheet of paper that had been signed by both himself and Hitler, affirming the desire of Britain and Germany “never go to war with one another again.” He had, it was said, brought, “peace in our time.” Appeasement had triumphed.

Munich troubled the Soviet leadership greatly. At Munich it was agreed that Czechoslovakia would cede the Sudetenland to Germany. Neither Britain nor France would act to defend Czechoslovakia should the Czechs refuse and resist the Germans. Abandoned, Czechoslovakia accepted the Munich decision. Stalin was outraged by both the betrayal of Czechoslovakia and the deliberate exclusion of the USSR from the negotiations. From Stalin’s perspective, the Western powers had shown their true colors. The USSR could not count on them as allies in the struggle against fascism.

Munich 1938: Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini, Ciano

The Dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, 1939

In March 1939 Hitler ordered German armies to occupy the Czech-speaking section of western Czechoslovakia (Bohemia and Moravia). There was no Czech resistance. The world was stunned by movie newsreels of German armies marching through the streets of Prague. Heretofore Hitler’s rationale for German policy regarding Austria and the Sudetenland was to rectify the injustice of Versailles and accommodate German self-determination. Now he had taken territory that was largely non-German. He justified this blatant aggression in part on historical grounds that Bohemia and Moravia had once been part of the Holy Roman Empire and German Confederation and were therefore within the German sphere of influence. Hitler proclaimed a German protectorate over all of the former Czechoslovakia, including Slovakia, which was then recognized by Berlin as an “independent” sovereign state. Remnants of the former Czech leadership, including former president Eduard Beneš, fled to the west where they would later (1940) found a Czech government-in-exile. On the background of the German take-over of Czechoslovakia, Hungary seized the former Czech territory of Ruthenia.

The British and French response to events in Czechoslovakia was to do nothing. Formal diplomatic protests were issued from London and Paris, but no action was taken otherwise. Chamberlain, however, did come to the realization that there could be no further accommodation with Hitler. He reaffirmed British support for Poland, Hitler’s next victim. France likewise assured Poland of its support should Hitler attack. Announcement of a formal British-French-Polish military alliance came at the end of March.

In April 1939 Mussolini ordered Italian armies to invade Albania. He again was acting in pursuit of territorial ambitions to create a wider Italian empire: Albania would serve as a strategic base for a future conquest of Greece or Yugoslavia. Albanian resistance was inconsequential. Without allies, Albania was easily conquered. The invasion was made with German approval. Berlin had been consulted beforehand. Britain and France offered assurances of protection to Romania and Greece.

Hitler and Poland

Immediately following Munich, Hitler began to put diplomatic pressure on Poland. The issues were: Danzig, the Polish Corridor, and Posen. These territories had been unjustly seized from Germany by Versailles and must be restored. Poland had initially resisted German arguments that these territories were German. After all, they had been taken from Poland by Prussia in the late 18^th century partitions. Following the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, Poland now found itself bordered on three sides by German-controlled territory. Also, at the same time that it took Czechoslovakia, Germany had successfully pressured Lithuania into ceding Memel. Poland was becoming increasingly isolated. Polish confidence was restored with the British and French alliance.

The Nazi-Soviet Pact, 1939

In the Soviet Union Stalin now faced a very troubling dilemma. In the spring of 1939 German armies had occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia. Lithuania had ceded Memel. The Western powers had reacted with indignation but again took no direct action. Hitler had now turned his attention to Poland. If Germany should invade and conquer Poland, the USSR would be dangerously vulnerable to further German aggression. With the recent purge of the Soviet army, the USSR did not have the means to defend itself unless it joined in alliance with the Western powers or sought some form of accommodation with Hitler.

Seeing a German attack on Poland as inevitable, Britain and France abandoned their appeasement policy and entered into defensive alliances with Poland. In April 1939, British and French emissaries were sent to Moscow to negotiate a similar alliance with Stalin. Stalin suspected the motives of the Western powers. Did they sincerely want a meaningful treaty with the USSR or did they merely want an arrangement whereby Soviet soldiers would fight their war against Hitler for them? The price of their treaty, Stalin resolved, would be heavy. Hitler, sensing a major war with Britain and France over Poland, wanted to avoid a repeat of Germany's experience in the First World War, fighting a war on two fronts. Secretly, German envoys were sent to Moscow in an effort to neutralize the Soviet Union. Stalin suddenly found himself in an enviable position. Both sides needed an arrangement with the USSR. He could now bargain to the Soviet advantage.

Through his new foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov (appointed in May 1939), Stalin looked for the best offer from both sides. In return for Soviet neutrality, the Germans secretly indicated that they were willing to allow the USSR territorial concessions in Eastern Europe. Knowing this, Molotov sounded out the Western powers. Would, in return for a Soviet alliance, Britain and France be willing to accept future Soviet "protection" of the Baltic states and recognize a Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe? Regardless of how advantageous a military treaty might be, the Western powers were not willing to base such an alliance on a future Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe, and the negotiations reached an impasse. The Germans now pressed their advantage.

In August 1939, Hitler sent his foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, to Moscow. On the morning of August 27, 1939, the world learned with amazement of a Treaty of Non-Aggression and Friendship between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Hitler had authorized von Ribbentrop to do whatever was necessary to secure Soviet neutrality in the event of war in Europe. After all, Hitler reasoned, the USSR was militarily weak and so internally demoralized by the demands of the economic plans and purges, that it would be easy prey for German armies sometime in the future. Stalin, knowing that the Soviet army was no match for the Nazi war machine, was willing to make arrangements with Germany in order to buy some time to prepare for the inevitable war with Germany. War between Germany and the Western powers would be to the Soviet advantage anyway as both sides would exhaust themselves undermining severely the capitalist-bourgeois base of both the fascist states and the democracies.

The Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact had both public and secret provisions. The world learned that both nations pledged themselves to a policy of mutual friendship and that in the event that one of them became involved in war the other would remain neutral. What the world was not told were the provisions of the treaty that divided Poland between them, allowed for a Soviet sphere of influence over Eastern Europe, and gave German sanction to a Soviet takeover of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and parts of Rumania. Soviet neutrality made Hitler's invasion of Poland possible and war inevitable.

War

With Soviet neutrality secured, Hitler was confident he could pursue his ambitions against Poland and still win a war against Britain and France. In the last days of August, German pressure on Poland was renewed. Hitler’s rhetoric called for retaliation against alleged atrocities committed by Poles against innocent Germans living in Polish territory. German air and land forces were ordered to prepare for immediate action. (The strategies for the attack on Poland had long been planned and prepared for.) Efforts by Sweden to mediate a settlement and avoid war led to frantic and desperate diplomatic activity wherein the Germans tried to win British acceptance of a German scheme whereby Britain would compel Poland to “discuss” the peaceable cession of the territories directly with Hitler. As a result Hitler was (erroneously) convinced that the British wanted to avoid war at all costs.

In the final hours Hitler preferred to avoid war with Britain and France if possible. He secretly ordered his military, that once the attack on Poland had been launched, not to take any offensive action against Britain and France. They were to hold and fight only if attacked. Hitler would wait and see what Poland’s allies would do. Would they really go to war to defend Poland?

At 9:00 PM on August 31 Hitler went on radio to inform the German people that Poland had failed to respond to all German efforts to preserve peace. At dawn on September 1, German armies smashed into Poland.

In his speech on September 1 announcing and justifying the invasion of Poland, Hitler reported that the night before units of the Polish army had attacked Germany.[2]

On September 3, Britain and France, honoring their treaties with Poland, declared war on Germany. The Second World War had begun.

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The Munich 1938 photo is from Wikipedia.

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Sources for the Origins of World War II in Europe

Churchill, Winston S. The Gathering Storm. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1948.

Jenkins, Roy. Churchill: A Biography. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2001.

Langer, William L. et al. Western Civilization. New York: American Heritage, 1968.

Palmer, Robert R. et al. A History of the Modern World. New York: McGraw Hill, 2002.

Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960.

[1] In 1931 a French army officer named Charles de Gaulle published a book called Towards the Army of the Future. In it, de Gaulle called upon France to adopt a mechanized offensive strategy using combined air, armored (tank), and infantry in rapid and sweeping advances against an enemy. The French high command rejected de Gaulle’s premise as unrealistic. German military strategists, however, read the book with interest. (In the spring of 1940, using a strategy based in part on de Gaulle’s book, the Germans invaded through the Netherlands and Belgium and defeated France in a six-week campaign. The Maginot Line never fired a shot.)

[2] At 8:00 PM on August 31 at Gleiwitz, a small town on the German side of the border with Poland, “Polish soldiers” (actually a group of armed SS men, dressed in Polish military uniforms) “attacked” and “seized” a German radio station. Thus it was that through this staged German attack that Poland had provoked war with Germany.