Road to War pt 2

Key individuals

Neville Chamberlain
Lord Halifax
Daladier
Beneš
Stalin

Key concepts and colligations

Hitler’s aims
Self-determination
Disarmament
Plebiscites
Appeasement

Key events

Manchurian Crisis
Abyssinian Crisis
Hitler announces conscription and existence of Luftwaffe (1935)
Franco-Soviet Pact (1935)
Anglo-German Naval Agreement (1935)
Re-militarisation of Rhineland (1936)
The Maginot Line; Maginot mentality
Rome-Berlin Axis (1936)
Spanish Civil War (1936-9)
Anschluss (1938)
Munich (1938)
Czechoslovokia (1939)
USSR-Nazi Pact (1939)
Poland (1939) and WWII

1. Hitler’s Three Key Aims:

- - Abolish Treaty of Versailles
  - Expand German territory (i.e. establish a Grossdeutschland, a Volksgemeinschaft and Lebensraum)
  - Defeat communism

Read:

- - Walsh, pp. 255-256.
  - See John D. Clare on Hitler’s aims.
  - See also gcsehistory.org.uk

2. Hitler’s actions

- - - Leaves the Disarmament Conference and the League (October 1933)
    - Secret re-armament 1933-34
    - SCRAMCUP:
      - SAAR Plebescite
      - Conscription announced/Open rearmament (1935)
      - Re-occupies the Rhineland (1936)
      - Anschluss (March 1938)
      - Munich – Hitler presses claims against Czechoslovakia (September 1938)
      - Czechoslovakia annexed completely – Hitler flouts Munich Agreement (March, 1939)
      - USSR-Germany 10 year non-aggression Pact
      - Poland invaded

Read/see:

- - - Walsh: pp. 257-263.
    - gcsehistory.org.uk
    - John D. Clare’s 8 Steps to War (Scramcup)

Hitler’s actions were influenced by the actions of others during this period including:

- - - Japanese occupation of Manchuria
    - the Italian occupation of Abyssinia (and the collapse of the Stresa Front);
    - the Anglo-German Naval Agreement (bilateral treaty rather than working through the League);
    - Italian participation in the the Rome-Berlin Axis from 1936;
    - the Spanish Civil War;
    - Italian and Japanese involvement in the The Anti-Comintern Pact.

3. Reasons for appeasement in the 1930s

- - - Walsh, pp. 264-265.
    - See GCSE History on Chamberlain’s reasons

Churchill was the most prominent critic of appeasement, as a politician at the time and as a historian (in his book The Gathering Storm). In 1940, under the name Cato, Chamberlain and the appeasers were called The Guilty Men.

4. The Sudetenland Crisis and the Munich Conference

- - - Walsh, pp. 266-269.
    - BBC Bitsize on Munich

5. Was Appeasement the Right Policy?

- - - Walsh, pp. 273.
    - See John D. Clare on this question.
    - BBC Bite Size on Appeasement is very clear and helpful.

See the John D. Clare section on the Road to World War II.

For the Road to War part 3, click here

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