Causes_Leading_to_the_Great_War

Composition I THE CAUSES OF WORLD WAR II In the records of history the Second World War would be remembered as the greatest tragedy. It’s a shame that the quest for power has such a rule to defy human nature and drive mankind towards self-destruction. World war two bought the greatest destruction that the world has ever witnessed. Apart from the millions of soldiers from different countries who lost their lives, there were millions more of civilians who were put to death due to wartime destruction and religious and racial prejudice. The war was so intense that literally no part of the world was spared from the grave grasp. The war, which started in September 1st 1939, continued for six sorrowing years and ended in August, 1945 after the devastating atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which forced Japan to surrender. Here are the greatest reasons that led to the events and the outcome of the war. The leading cause for the Second World War was the unjust nature of the ‘treaty of Versailles’. Germany was severely punished and held responsible for the First World War when there were actually a long series of events that triggered the war. There was a huge war penalty imposed on Germany and her colonies. Territories were shared between her victors leaving them bitter and seeking vengeance for the injustice meted out to them. [Steven Schoenherr] Second, the League of Nations, which was formed in the aftermath of the First World War, had serious loopholes and provisions for nations to resign from the league. The provisions for disarmament were not properly utilized and the leagues strategy of enforcing economic sanctions against the imperialistic nations such as Japan, Germany and Italy did not prevent their imperialistic adventures. For example Japan continued with its colonizing policies and went on to occupy Manchuria in China in 1935. Similarly Italy occupied Abyssinia and Germany annexed Austria. [Peter Young, 33] The rise of the Nazi party in Germany and the Fascist party in Italy created the seeds for dictatorship and soon both these nations came under the control of Hitler and Mussolini respectively leaving the democratic nations in great danger. Furthermore the principle of disarmament as charted out in the Treaty of Versailles was never practically enforced as nations were scared of their security and were not willing to disarm themselves. Of all the reasons the most direct one for the breakout of the war was the Hitler’s aggressive colonizing policies. In violation of the treaty of Locarno [Ben John], Hitler invaded Rhineland in 1936. This was followed by the seizing of Sudetenland and Austria in 1938. Which in return Britain signed the Munich agreement with Germany to prevent further colonization, but Hitler again breached the agreement by invading Czechoslovakia in 1939. This was followed by Hitler’s demand for Danzig, which was rejected leading to the German invasion of Poland in September 1, 1939 and marking the beginning of the Second World War. Britain and France entered the war against Germany in conformation with the pact with Poland. Hitler conducted a lightening attack against Poland known as the Blitzkrieg. After very little resistance, the capital city of Poland came under German control. Meanwhile Russia sent its troops along the eastern front and occupied eastern Poland. This was followed by the Russian occupation of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Finland. On the western front Germany occupied Denmark, Belgium, Holland and Norway. Almost all of the European nations came under German control when Hitler attacked and occupied France in 1940. [Peter Young, 36] After the French occupation Hitler focused his attention on Britain. The German air force (luftaffe) was regarded as the best at that time and Hitler commissioned air attacks on Britain. The German air force continuously bombed London and other major industrial regions. The fighting across the channel was very intense with heavy loss of warplanes and battleships to both sides. The British Royal air force was equal to the task and inflicted heavy loss to the German Luftaffe. The British procured arm supplies from America and this was the first indirect involvement of the Americans who were till now neutral. On the whole Britain was successful in repulsing the German air raids and the Germans never managed to land their forces. Britain was also seriously working at breaking the Enigma coding machines of the Germans, which was fruitful later on in the war. [Ralph Erskine] Germany and Russia, which were allies at the beginning of the war, were soon confronted with a hostile situation regarding the Balkans. In 194,1 Hitler attacked Russia with a huge army and occupied Moscow, but the incursion proved to be a disaster for the Germans and they lost a huge section of their army to the hostile weather and the Russian army. [Churchill, 337] Finally, pushing the United States to join the allies against Germany was when president Roosevelt and Winston Churchill jointly declared the Atlantic Charter on August 12, 1941. American entry into the war created a new imbalance and immediately Japan targeted the nation with a devastating attack on the American naval forces in Pearl Harbor. This led America to declare a war against Japan and the other Axis powers. Japan continued to extend its occupation in the Asian region and even attacked India, which was under British regime. [Winston S. Churchill, 385] Allied forces undertook a joint mission to attack the Germans and the Italians in 1944 in an operation under the code name ‘DIADEM’. [Peter Young, 262]. The rest of the French forces who were hiding from the Germans also joined the mission and on June 13 1944 the allied forces entered Rome and Mussolini was killed in the operation. Germany too surrendered on May 7th, 1945 shortly after the death of Hitler. (30th April 1945) However the war not yet over as Japan refused to oblige with the Postdam declaration. [Robert H. Ferrell] Truman issued the authority to use the deadly atom bomb over the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to bring an end to the war. It was a fateful morning (August 6th, 1945) for the people of Hiroshima as the American B29 bomber “Enola Gay” dropped the deadly atomic bomb over the city leaving almost half of the cities population of 3,50,000 dead and more than 1,40,000 suffering from burns. George Caron, Staff Sergeant, who saw the bombing from above said, "The mushroom cloud itself was a spectacular sight, a bubbling mass of purple-gray smoke and you could see it had a red core in it and everything was burning inside. It looked like lava or molasses covering a whole city." [Jennifer Rosenberg] The end of the Second World War also marked the end of the dictatorship in Germany and Italy. Russia and America emerged as the new super powers of the world while Britain was relegated to a third rate power. Many Asian nations (India, Philippines, Burma, etc) got their freedom from their colonizers. The United Nations Charter was signed on June 1945 (San Francisco) as a world peace organization to supervise international security and promotion of human rights. We are still haunted by the legacy of the world war two and now that we are in the shadow of the war it is plainly obvious that it was one of the most foolish acts of mankind. (Self-destruction) In the history of the world the harrowing experiences of the Had Britain (as a super power) been a little more prudent and watchful over the developments in Germany the whole disaster could have been averted. (Strict enforcement of the disarmament and other provisions listed in Treaty of Versailles). World war will be indelibly etched out and continue to daunt generations of people as one of the greatest debacle and acts of stupidity. We can only hope that world will not forget the grave lessons learnt from the war and that the greed for political domination will not ruin humanity yet again. Bibliography 1) Designed by Steven Schoenherr, “The Versailles Treaty”, Accessed on September 9th, 2003, http://history.acusd.edu/gen/text/versaillestreaty/all440.html 2) Ben John, “The Treaty of Locarno”, Accessed on September 10th, 2003 http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~wausie/Locarno.html 3) Ralph Erskine, “Allied Breaking of the naval Enigma”, Accessed on September 10th, 2003, http://uboat.net/technical/enigma_breaking.htm 4) Jennifer Rosenberg, “Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Victims of the Atom Bomb”, Accessed on September 10th, 2003, http://history1900s.about.com/library/weekly/aa072700a.htm 5) Robert H. Ferrell, “Truman and the Bomb, a Documentary: The Postdam Declaration”, Accessed on September 9th, 2003, http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/ferrell_book/ferrell_book_chap7.htm 6) Peter Young, “The World Almanac Book of World War Two’, Published by World Almanac Publications, New York, 1981 7) Winston S. Churchill, “The Second World War: The Grand Alliance” Volume Three, Published by Cassel & Co ltd, London, Fifth Edition 1979