World War Looms

Dictators Threaten World Peace

I. Nationalism Threatens Europe and Asia

A. “The seeds of World War II were sown at Versailles”

1. Germany was bitter over the treaty—especially the war guilt clause

2. Economies were wrecked and saddled with debt or reparations

B. New democracies in Germany, Austria, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and Greece were replaced by Dictators

C. Joseph Stalin transforms the Soviet Union

1. He tried to create a model Communist state bringing great suffering to his people

2. Through forced starvation and executions known as the Great Purge somewhere around 10 million of his own people were murdered

D. The rise of fascism in Italy

1. Benito Mussolini established the Fascist Party in 1921 and in 1922 took over the government

2. Fascism is an extreme nationalistic and militaristic system that believes in private property with strong

government controls

3. He crushed all opposition

and turned Italy into a

totalitarian state

E. The Nazis take over Germany

1. 1921—Adolph Hitler head of the Nazi Party

2. 1923—tried to overthrow the German government and thrown in jail

3. while in jail he wrote Mein Kamph (My Struggle)

4. Hitler promised to repeal the Treaty of Versailles and restore Germany’s military

5. He also promised to build a “Greater Germany”

F. Desperate Germans suffering from the Depression turned to Hitler and the Nazi’s in 1932

1. In January 1933 Hitler was made chancellor

2. Once in power he dismantled the German democracy and established the Third Reich

G. Militarists gain control in Japan

1. Eager for more land and resources the Japanese invaded the Chinese province of Manchuria in 1931

2. The world condemned the aggression but Japan ignored the protests

H. Aggression in Europe

1. Hitler builds up his military and invades the Rhineland in violation of the Versailles treaty

2. Mussolini invades Ethiopia

3. The world does nothing…

II. The United States Responds Cautiously

A. The United States was isolationist in the 1930s

B. FDR tried to reach out to the world

1. Officially recognized the Soviet Union in 1933

2. The Good Neighbor policy in Latin America

C. Congress passed the Neutrality Acts in 1935 to keep the US out of war

D. Neutrality breaks down

1. Spanish Civil War: dress rehearsal for WWII

2. FDR calls for the “quarantine” or isolation of aggressor nations

III. War in Europe

A. Austria and Czechoslovakia Fall

1. March 1938—Austria falls to the Nazis without a fight

2. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain agreed to give Hitler the Sudetenland (a German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia) in return for a guarantee from Hitler that he would not take any more territory at the Munich Conference

B. The German offensive begins

1. Hitler invades the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939

2. August 1939, Hitler and Stalin sign a nonaggression pact

3. September 1, 1939—Hitler invaded Poland and World War II began

C. Blitzkrieg in Poland—The “Lightning War” allowed Germany to defeat Poland in three weeks before England or France could respond

1. The Soviets took the eastern part of Poland

2. By the end of the month Poland ceased to exist

D. The phony war

1. During the next few months nothing happened as both sides regrouped

2. Then the Soviets invaded and took over Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Finland

3. By the end of May, the Nazis had overrun Denmark, Norway, the

Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg

E. France and Britain fight on1. France fell in June 19412. The Battle of Britain

a. Hitler tried to bomb England into submissionb. The RAF (Royal Air Force) fought backc. Winston Churchill pledged that the Brits would defend their island…”We shall fight on the landing grounds,

we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

IV. America Moves Toward War

A. America moves away from neutrality

1. “cash and carry” allowed countries to buy weapons from

the US as long as they paid cash and carried them home on their own

ships

2. Congress passed the Neutrality Act of 1939 which put “cash and carry” into effect

B. The Axis threat1. September 1940—Germany, Italy and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact— they

became known as the Axis powers2. FDR started a policy known as “lend-

lease” in 1941 where we sent war material to Britain in order to keep them alive

3. The US went from being neutral to non-belligerent 4. FDR was reelected in 19405. Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941

C. Planning for War

1. Atlantic Charter—Churchill and FDR met to discuss the reasons why WWII would be fought

2. After the August 1941 meeting the US was still not close to declaring

war

D. Japan attacks

1. The Japanese wanted to build an empire in the Pacific

2. They were successful in their invasion of China and the US stood in their way

3. When the US cut off the supply of oil to Japan in a trade embargo, Japan

decided to attack the US

E. On December 7th 1941 Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii

1. Much of the Pacific fleet was destroyed

2. 2400 Americans were killed

3. The president asked for a declaration of war on December 8th and the US entered WWII