Transcript WWII Early Years ppt - Beavercreek City Schools

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
1. Rebuilds Army
2. Rebuilds Navy with
British approval thanks
to the Anglo German
Naval Pact (June 18,
1935)
3. 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
• “If you give a
mouse a
cookie…he’s
going to want a
glass of milk.”
Hitler Continues Expansion and
Defiance of Treaty
4. Anschluss –
union between
Germany and
Austria
• (March 12, 1938)
5) 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
6) 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
• Polish fought but no
match for German
military and technology
• Great Britain and France
declared war on Germany
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
• Refers to a 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 they 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
• Germany 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 faced a
Russian counterattack
and the most brutal of
all…the Russian 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