Transcript The Road to War

Europe at the Eve of War
German Annexation of Austria
•in January 1938 Hitler puts pressure on the Austrian Chancellor, Kurt Schuschnigg,
to give more power to Nazis in Austria, threatening military action
• Schuschnigg scheduled a plebiscite on the independence of Austria for 13 March,
but Hitler tells him that he will not accept the results
• March 12, 1938 German troops enter Austria and are greeted enthusiastically
• the Anschluss was a clear violation of the Treaty of Versailles
Appeasement
• British P.M. Neville Chamberlain was
eager to avoid war and made an
agreement with Hitler at Munich
• Widespread belief that German
demands were reasonable and could be
satisfied
• Hitler, however, saw
this as a sign of
weakness and believed
that the United Kingdom
would never be willing
to fight
The Munich Pact
• In September 1938, Germany makes demands on Czechoslovakia,
which had a defensive alliance with France and the Soviet Union
• The British, French, and German leaders meet and come to an
agreement on September 29, giving Germany sections of
Czechoslovakia
• The state of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union were not even invited
to the conference
• March 15,1939: Germany takes over the rest of Czechoslovakia anyway,
and the French and British feel betrayed
Soviet-Nazi Non-Aggression
(the Molotov-Ribbentrop) Pact
• August 1939: Stalin and Hitler
agreed to not attack each
other and to divide Poland
between them
German ambassador Von Ribbentrop, Soviet Leader
Stalin, and Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov
• Now Hitler has a free hand to
attack Poland and then turn towards
the Western Allies
World War Two Begins
• Sept. 1, 1939: Germany
invaded Poland
• Britain and France declare
war on Germany
• Canada declared war on
Germany also on Sept. 10,
1939
German troops march into Poland
Blitzkrieg
• Blitzkrieg – lightning war
• Germany used air strikes, followed by tanks, then infantry
to rapidly attack and destroy defending forces
German Early Victories
• Germany defeats Poland by
the end of September, 1939
• April, 1940 - After a lull in
fighting over the winter,
known as the “phony war,”
Germany invades Denmark
and Norway, fighting is
finished by June
• May 10 Germany invades
Holland, Belgium,
Luxembourg and France
• June 25, 1940 France
officially surrenders to
Germany
Britain Stands Alone
• Following the German invasion of Western Europe,
Chamberlain resigns and is replaced as British P.M.
by Winston Churchill
• Between May 26 and June 4, 338 000 British and
French soldiers were evacuated from Dunkirk, but
the British army lost a lot of tanks and heavy
equipment
Canada Not Ready to go to War
• In 1938-1939, Canada’s military budget was only $35 million (remember
in WWI the military was spending $1 million every day)!
• Much of the Canadian equipment was out of date, rusted, left over from
the first war
• Quebec, German and Italian Canadians did not support the war
• King saw Canada’s role as mainly supply, not as a source of troops
• Because of the Depression, many Canadians felt that we had our own
problems without getting involved in a European war