The First World War had shocked the geopolitical scale of our entire world when it had concluded. The world had been changed at a scale that so vigorous, a catastrophic outcome was bound to happen. The 1920’s can be linked to the point where World War II began to brew.
Russia had united with several neighboring lands, thus establishing the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics (The USSR). In this same era, Stalin had rose to power establishing a totalitarian state. He had control over all soviet life, establishing youth organizations and discouraging religion. Stalin continued to gain strength and raise his power by eliminating all those who were opposed to his ideals. He mass produced statues of himself, had portraits created, and ruthlessly removed opposition.
Italy had faced a chaotic economy, and endured a corrupt government. In the year 1919, the National Fascist Party was founded by Mussolini. This party put the good of the nation above all, and ran Italy as an authoritarian state. Mussolini became the ruthless dictator of Italy. They begin to invade easy targets such as Ethiopia to establish themselves as a strong military. Mussolini had outlawed all opposition through threats, violence, and his political skills.
Spain suffered similar post-war situations as other countries, although they remained neutral throughout The First World War. The country became divided following the war, seeing the two sides of the Republicans and the Nationalists. An intense civil war broke out between these two opposing sides, and many historians refer to this civil war as the dress rehearsal for the Second World War. This was also dubbed as the ‘first media war’, as writers and journalists covered the war on the field. The USSR gave military support to the Republicans, while Germany and Italy supported the Nationalists.
Germany had been hit the absolute hardest from the conclusion of the First World War. There was soaring inflation, as their dollar became virtually worthless. This brought an intense depression to Germany, and gave the perfect conditions for an evil force to arise. The National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazis) was founded Adolf Hitler. In 1923, Hitler attempted to overthrow the government, but failed resulting in his jailing. Whilst in jail, he composed the book Mein Kampf. When he was released from jail, he organized the Nazi party once again. Hitler began to intensify his nationalist program, and he achieved full dictatorial power for four years. With his power, he altered Germany to become a full totalitarian state as he had control over all German life. Hitler had established a powerful secret police force, and rebuilt Germany’s military. Along with his full control of the state came his full control over radio, the press, and movies.
These four countries had Communist and Fascist dictators rising to power. Our class was assigned to make four alternative decisions that would help put an end to these dictatorial forces rising. Here were my four alternative decisions, from the point of view of the Allied forces, to stop these dictatorial forces.
What were the allied forces doing whilst all of these forces were growing. Why did they not fight early on? The allied forces were following a policy that is called appeasement. Appeasement is a policy in which the allied forces felt that war must be avoided at all possible costs, following the atrocities of the First World War. Historians refer to the two phases of appeasement being from the 1920’s – 1937, and then from 1937 – 1939. In the first phase, people felt that war must be avoided at all costs, and accordingly left the dictatorial forces to grow. This was until 1937, when the British Prime Minister attempted to reason with Hitler.
Our class had been assigned to fill in a document in which we made hypothesis’s about whether or not it was the right policy for Britain. Here was my hypothesis for appeasement.
Much of the world was not ready for war, as the were still recovering from the First Great War. Germany began invading places such as Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Rhineland. Hitler had promised at a conference that no additional claims in Europe would be made, as the British Prime Minister had strongly believed in “Peace in our time”. Although Hitler had made this promise, he continued to occupy the remained of Czechoslovakia. Hitler continued to break his promise in 1939 when he began to put pressure on Poland. France and Britain had promised Poland security, and Hitler proceeded to send forces into action against Poland. This was the end of appeasement.
Total war was in the midst. As soon as Germany had attacked Poland, Britain and France had declared war. This was the start of a very dark time. Our class was given ten different battles, and groups of two where assigned to chose one of these events. Within this group of two, we would present to the class why we believed the event we and chose was important to WWII as a whole. I studied the Battle of Atlantic with Michael Sutherland. Here is the document we used while presenting to the class.
Finally, we were assigned to describe total war before and after having learned about the Second World War. On the left side of this document is my description of total war before I had learned History 12’s course on WWII, and on the right side I used the knowledge of after having learned about total war. The two bottom sections of the chart are metaphors of total war. At the bottom, I connected the similarities and differences of my ideas between then and now.
