Transcript Dictators Threaten World Peace

Dictators Threaten World
Peace
Remember…
• The Treaty of Versailles caused anger and
resentment among Germany
– Saw nothing fair in being blamed for war
– Saw nothing fair in losing oversea colonies
and border territories
• The Weimer Republic (democracy set up
in Germany after WWI) could not handle
problems
– Tradition of democracy was weak
– People turned to totalitarian leaders to quickly
solve political and economic problems
Joseph Stalin
• Leader of the Soviet Union
• Focused on creating model communist state
• Established a totalitarian government that
maintained complete control over its citizens
• Abolished all privately owned farms
• Eliminated anyone who threatened his power
• Made agreement in 1939 to NOT go to war
against Germany
Benito Mussolini
• Established a totalitarian gov’t in Italy
• Powerful speaker
• Established the Fascist Party
– Stressed nationalism and placed interests of
the state over individuals
Mussolini’s Actions
• Invades Ethiopia (1935) – and League of
Nations is weak
– LoN puts on an economic boycott – which
turns out to be ineffective
• Ethiopia falls by 1936 – League does
nothing
• “It is us today. It will be you tomorrow.”
– Haile Selassie, ousted Ethiopian emperor
Adolf Hitler
• Nazism = German brand of fascism
– Based on extreme nationalism, racial
purification, national expansionism
• Established the Third Reich,
or Third German Empire
Hitler’s Actions
• Pulls out of League of Nations in 1933
• 1935 – begins military build-up (in violation
of Treaty of Versailles)
• Unified Austria and Germany (easy to do
since many Germans lived in Austria)
– The World does nothing
• Took the Sudetenland (German-speaking
area of Western Czechoslovakia)
– France and Britain agree to his demands to
avoid war – this is APPEASEMENT!!!
Nonaggression Pact
• Hitler and Stalin (Soviet Union) agree to
never attack each other on Aug. 23, 1939
• Secretly, Hitler and Stalin also agreed to
divide Poland between them
• Hitler now believed he would not face a 2front war like WWI
Japanese Militarists
• Believed in the need for more living space
for a growing population
• Seized control of Manchuria in 1931
• League of Nations set in – condemns
Japan – Japan quits the LoN
• Manchurian invasion puts militarists in
control of Japan’s govt
Francisco Franco:
Army leader who rebelled
against Spanish republic
• Spanish civil war begin in 1936
• Americans volunteered to fight – this was the
place to stop fascism
• Limited aid = not enough strength to stop
fascism
• Franco was backed by Mussolini and Hitler – as
well as Soviet Union
• This war brought the German and Italian
dictators close together
• Franco wins (1939)
Invasion of Poland
• September 1, 1939
• Blitzkrieg – lightening war (fast tanks and
powerful aircraft)
• This invasion forced Great Britain and
France to declare war on Germany since
they had an alliance with Poland
Kellogg-Briand Pact
• 1928 – U.S. signs the Kellogg-Briand Pact
– Treaty signed by 62 countries
– Declared that war would not be used “as an
instrument of national policy”
– No plan to deal with nations who broke pledge
• U.S. public wants to remain isolationist
How does the U.S. stay out of
war but still help its “friends”?
Neutrality Acts - 1935
–Idea: to keep U.S. out of war
–Outlawed the selling of arms or
loans to nations at war – including
civil war
Cash and Carry Provision
• 1939: FDR persuades Congress to pass
this – allowed warring nations to buy U.S.
weapons as long as they paid cash and
transported them with their own ships
– this was to help France and Britain beat Hitler
– Would still keep the U.S. out of fighting
Lend-lease policy
–lend or lease arms and other
supplies to “any country whose
defense was vital to the United
States”
–It’s like lending your garden hose to
a neighbor whose house is on fire