February 24th, 2016
PDN: What is aggression?
Answer:
• Hostile or violent behavior or attitudes toward
another; readiness to attack or confront.
• Aggressive actions were met with verbal
protests and pleas for peace.
• Mussolini, Hitler, and Japanese viewed desire
for peace as a weakness and responded with
further acts of aggression.
Topic 9 World War II
OBJECTIVES
• Describe how the Western democracies
responded to aggression.
• Explain the significance of the Spanish Civil
War.
• Understand how German aggression led
Europe into World War II.
OPENING OBJECTIVE
• Identify how the Western
democracies responded to
aggression.
9.1 Aggression, Appeasement, and War
• 1931, Japan seizes Manchuria.
– League of Nations condemn aggression.
– Japanese withdrew from League of Nations.
• 1937, Japanese armies overran eastern China
– Met with western protest but nothing else.
Italy Invades Ethiopia
• 1935, Italy invades Ethiopia.
– Ethiopian King Haile Selassie asked League of Nations for
help.
– League voted sanctions against Italy for violating
international law.
– League members agreed to stop selling weapons or
other war materials to Italy but did not include
Petroleum.
– By 1936, Italy conquered
Ethiopia, League had
no power to enforce
Sanctions.
Hitler Violates the Treaty of Versailles
• Hitler also tested the League of Nations and found it
to be weak.
– First, he built up the Germany military, defying the
Treaty of Versailles.
– Then, he sent troops to demilitarized areas of Germany
(Rhineland) bordering France.
• Western democracies denounced Hitler’s moves but
took no real action.
– Adopted appeasement or giving in to the demands of an
aggressor in order to keep the peace.
Reasons for Appeasement
• France was demoralized (political division).
• British had no desire to take on Hitler.
• Both the French and British saw Hitler’s fascism as a
defense against a worst evil… Soviet communism.
• Great Depression weakened the energies of
Western democracies.
• Pacifism pushed governments to seek peace.
– Opposition to all war.
U.S. Remains Neutral
• Congress passed a series of Neutrality Acts while
all of this was going on.
– Forbade the sale of arms to any nation at war.
– Outlawed loans to warring nations.
– Prohibited Americans from traveling on ships of warring
powers.
Formation of the Axis Powers
• Germany, Italy, and Japan were encouraged by the
apparent weakness of the western democracies.
• Axis Powers agreed to fight Soviet communism.
• Agreed to not interfere with each other’s plans for
expansion.
OBJECTIVE REVIEW
• Identify how the Western
democracies responded to
aggression.
NEW OBJECTIVE
•Explain the
significance of the
Spanish Civil War.
The Spanish Civil War
• Early 1900s, Spain was a monarchy controlled by a
landowning upper class.
• Most Spaniards = poor peasants.
• 1931, unrest against old order forced the king to
leave Spain.
• Republic was set up with a new, more liberal
constitution.
Continued…
• Republican government passed a series of
controversial reforms.
– It took over some Church lands
– Redistributed some land to peasants
– Ended some privileges of the old ruling class.
Continued…
• Communists and liberals demanded more radical
reforms.
• Conservatives and the military rejected the
changes.
• 1936, Francisco Franco led a revolt that touched off
a bloody civil war.
– Franco’s Nationalists rallied conservatives to their side.
Other Countries Get Involved
• Hitler and Mussolini sent arms and forces to
support Franco.
• The Soviet Union sent soldiers to fight against
fascism alongside the Spanish loyalists.
– Britain, France and the US remained neutral, but
individuals from each nation fought alongside the
loyalists.
A Bloody War
• 500,000 deaths
• Innocent lives were taken as well.
– Guernica, April 1937
– Germans attacked during market day killing nearly 1,000
civilians.
Continued…
• To Nazi leaders, the attack on Guernica was an
experiment to identify what their new planes could
do.
• The Spanish Civil War was a “dress rehearsal” for
World War II because it allowed to new tactics and
weapons to be tested.
• By 1939, Franco had triumphed.
• Once in power he created a fascist dictatorship
similar to Hitler’s and Mussolini’s.
– Killed and jailed enemies and used terror to promote
order.
OBJECTIVE REVIEW
•WHAT IS THE
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE
SPANISH CIVIL WAR?
February 26th, 2016 PDN
• Describe the early acts of aggression of
Germany, Italy, and Japan.
NEW OBJECTIVE
• Understand how German aggression led
Europe into World War II.
German Aggression Continues
• Hitler took steps to gain “living space” in Eastern
Europe.
– “I have the right to remove millions of an inferior race
that breeds like vermin.”
– Also had economic and military reasons for going East.
– Wanted access to natural resources of Eastern Europe.
• Boost production of military equipment.
– New markets for German products
Germany Annexes Austria
• Anschluss – Union of Austria and Germany
– Violated Versailles Treaty
– War Scare, opposition was silenced.
– Western Democracies once again did nothing.
The Czech Crisis
• Germany next turned to Czechoslovakia.
• Hitler insisted that 3,000,000 Germans in
Sudetenland, a region in western Czechoslovakia,
be given autonomy.
– Britain and France refused to step in, chose
appeasement.
– Hitler increased his demands asking for Sudetenland to
be annexed to Germany.
• Assured French and British he had no further plans to expand
Germany.
The Munich Pact
• Returning from dealing away Sudetenland to Hitler
at the Munich Conference, British Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlain told cheering crowds that he
had achieved “peace for our time.”
– “Saved Czechoslovakia from destruction and Europe
from Armageddon.”
Continued…
• British politician Winston Churchill criticized the
Western Democracies appeasement approach.
• He warned of an oncoming World War but was
ignored.
World War II Begins
• In March 1939, Hitler broke his promise and
gobbled up the rest of Czechoslovakia.
– Appeasement had failed
– Democracies promised to protect Poland (Hitler’s next
target).
The Nazi Soviet Pact
• August 1939, Hitler stunned the world by
announcing a pact with his enemy, Joseph Stalin.
• Secretly agreed not to fight if the other went to war
and to divide up Poland and other parts of Eastern
Europe between them.
– Stalin tried to prevent the Soviet Union from fighting
against Germany.
Germany Invades Poland
• September 1, 1939 a week after the Nazi Soviet
Pact, German forces invaded Poland.
– Two days later Britain and France declared war on
Germany.
– World War II had begun.