The Second World War was the second imperialist war fought between the axis powers, which comprised of German, Italy, Japan and Austria against the Allies or democratic forces which consisted of Britain, USA, Russia, France, Belgium and China. The war fought from 1939 to 1945. The Second World War was the complex, widespread and deadly war in history, because it involved a wide range of advanced scientific weapons, rockets, parachute, troops, sonar and suicide aeroplanes.
Background of Second World War
The WWII can be traced back by the development of dictatorship regime in Europe i.e Fascism and Nazism in Italy and German respectively. Nazism under Adolph Hitler, who wanted to unite all German-speaking people, dominates the whole Europe and the world at large. In order to implement his mission he involved himself in armament which was against Versailles peace treaty also he withdrew Germany from League of Nations and disarmament conference in 1934. This marked increasing hostility, suspicion and fear among the European powers.
Causes of the Second World War
There are number of factors that can be used to explain the occurrence of the great World War two in 1939. Those factors were;
1. Economic rivalry of the imperialist nations.
Imperialist nation struggled the raw materials, markets and colonies for the growing population. German was frustrated by the distribution of her territories after the First World War. It was these common economic factors that brought Germany, Italy and Japan together and embark upon the aggression which ultimately led to global war in 1939.
2. Weakness of Versailles Treaty
Under this treaty Germany lost all her colonies including Tanganyika which was given to Britain. Worse enough the important raw materials producing areas of Germany were awarded to Poland and France for exploitation. Thus without areas for exploitation Germany capitalism would collapse. Versailles Treaty therefore failed to understand that at the highest stage of capitalist countries engaged themselves in expansionism so as to get areas for raw materials, markets, cheap labour and areas for investment. There was therefore a need for Germany to demand for the lost colonies through the war, hence the outbreak of the Second World War.
3. Failure of the League of Nations.
The League of Nations had failed to maintain the World peace as its primary objective. The League failed to stop aggressions made by fascist states, for example it failed to prevent the Italian conquest of Ethiopia in 1935 and Japanese conquest of Manchuria also failed to stop German rearmament policy which made her violate world peace. All these situations cemented the conditions for the outbreak of Second World War.
4. The failure of the disarmament efforts.
The League of Nations failed to achieve the disarmament policy of the peace settlement 1919. The allied powers pledged themselves to apply the same measure to them. The refusal of the Allied power to disarm gave Hitler the opportunity to arouse the national sentiment of his country by asserting that rearmament was the only way back to power.
5. Hitler's aggressive policies
In the 1930's Hitler began his scheme of defying Versailles peace treaty terms one by one. Hitler withdrew Germany from the League of Nations in 1933. Also he denounced the disarmament program and started rearmament and militarization. Finally with military superiority he began his campaign to create close development scheme by annexing Austria Hungary in 1938. In September 3rd 1939 he occupied Czechoslovakia and Poland a phenomena which led to immediate outbreak of the Second World War.
6. Spanish civil war of 1939
The Second World War was also partly attributed by the Spanish civil war in which both Italy under Benito Mussolini and Germany under Adolph Hitler intervened by sending troops to assist General Franco who wanted to take power from Republicans while Russia sided with the Republicans. The war helped the fascist to test their new war equipment’s like air crafts and tankers and finally form an alliance called Rome Berlin axis between Germany and Italy in 1936. It also helped them to test hostility towards communist states especially USSR which was siding with Republicans.
7. Appeasement policy
This was the policy adopted by France and Britain towards Germany. The two countries gave in to Hitler's demands instead of opposing him. So, while Hitler’s invaded Poland in 1939, France and Britain found it difficult to allow Germany to annex Poland. Thus on 3rd September 1939, France and Britain declared war to Germany.
8. Effects of Great Economic Depression
The effects of the Great Economic Depression also contributed to the outbreak of WWII as during the depression, Japan, German and Italy considered they economically handicapped in trying to compete with other nations for markets, raw materials and colonies. When the economic problems increased Germany for example, could not pay for the war damages, also Britain and France could not pay the war debts to USA which caused mistrust and aggression among themselves.
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