World War II
Early Years
Aggressiveness and Allied
Appeasement
• Mussolini attacks Ethiopia
– Late 1800s Italy tried to establish Ethiopia as a
colony
• Ended in humiliating defeat for Italy
• Many Italians bitter about defeat and wanted revenge
– Italy conquered Ethiopia
– League of Nations response: nothing
• Why not?
Hitler Defies the Treaty of Versailles
• Rebuilds Army
• Rebuilds Navy with
British approval thanks
to the Anglo German
Naval Pact (June 18,
1935)
• Remilitarizes the
Rhineland (March 7,
1936)
US Reaction
• Isolationism –
avoid political
ties with
other nations
Great Britain and France’s Reaction
• Appeasement
– giving into an
aggressor
Hitler Continues Expansion and
Defiance of Treaty
• Anschluss – union
between Germany
and Austria
• (March 12, 1938)
Sudetenland
• Part of Czechoslovakia
with many German
speaking people
– Czechoslovakia turned to
Britain and France for
help
– At the Munich
Conference Great Britain
and France agreed to
give Hitler the
Sudetenland to avoid
war
• (example of
appeasement)
• September 30, 1938
‘Peace in our Time
5) 6 Months later Hitler took
all of Czechoslovakia and
Italy took Albania
Alliances
• Rome Berlin Axis –
Mussolini (Italy) and
Hitler (Germany)
– October 1936
• Nazi Soviet Nonaggression pact
– Germany agreed not to
attack Russia and give
Russia soon to be
conquered parts of
Eastern Europe
– Russia agreed to stay out
of Germany’s way
– August 1939
Hitler Demands Poland
• Hitler used Blitzkrieg
(lightening war) – massive
air and land strike
• Polis fought but not
match for German
military and technology
• Great Britain and France
declared war on
September 3, 1939 once
Hitler pushed into Poland
– Not enough time to
mobilize to save Poland
Phoney War
• Allied Strategy – wait for Hitler’s next move
• Period of inactivity
• Germany was planning how to attack France
and decided to go through the Ardennes
– Allies had massive troop levels to the north of the
Ardennes along the Belgium and French border
– French/German border protected by bunkers and
fortresses called the Maginot Line
– Allied forces did not have forces along the
Ardennes because the thought it would be too
treacherous for Germany to attack here – they
were WRONG
• Phoney War ended when Hitler took Denmark
and Norway to control seas
Hitler takes France
• May 1940 German
troops swept through
Netherlands and
Belgium
• While France’s attention
on the North, Hitler
sent troops through
Ardennes
– German troops able to
trap Allied forces in
Northern France
– Allies rescued at port
city of Dunkirk
• By June France had
surrendered
• German occupied
much of France
• The unoccupied part
of France was known
as Vichey France
– Vichey France was
ruled by officials
who obeyed Hitler
Charles DeGaulle
• French General
Charles DeGaulle
fled to Great Britain
to organize
resistance to Hitler
– He created the
Free French
military and
battled Hitler until
France’s liberation
Battle for Britain
• Hitler then focused his
attention on Great
Britain
• He used the Luftwaffe
to try and take out the
British Royal Air Force
• Hitler did not sense
easy victory so turned
sights to Eastern Europe
and Mediterranean
Axis Powers
• 1940 Japan
formed a military
alliance with
Germany and Italy
Balkans (Eastern Europe)
• Bulgaria, Romania,
and Hungary
joined Axis Powers
in 1941
• Yugoslavia and
Greece resisted so
Hitler invaded
Hitler Invades the Soviet Union
• Soviets unprepared for
attack due to NaziSoviet Non-aggression
Pact
– Not equipped or trained
despite warnings from
Allies that Hitler was
going East
• Germany reached 500
miles inside the Soviet
Union
– In September they
surrounded the city of
Leningrad
– 1 million died that
winter alone
– 800,000 civilians died
in the battle for
Leningrad
– Leningrad would not
surrender so Hitler
turned attention to
Moscow (capital)
• Germans advanced to
outskirts of Moscow
where they met
counterattack and
winter
– Germans retreated due
to being unprepared for
Russian winter
– Hitler ordered them to
not retreat so Germans
held the line 125 miles
outside the city