Immediate Causes Of World War II example essay topic

The immediate causes of World War II were some basic causes, which may be summarized as follows: (1) Aggressive nationalism and imperialism on the part of Germany, Italy, and Japan; (2) The development of new alliances; (3) The collapse of collective security; (4) Appeasement; (5) Fascism and its doctrines of national aggression, racism, violence and disregard of human rights by Mussolini; (6) The failure of the United States to enter actively into European affairs in the 1920's and 1930's, and to help stop aggression. The Axis powers included Germany, Hungary& Japan. The Allied powers consisted of the United States, Britain and France. After the outbreak of the war in 1939 the Nazis had a nearly unbroken string of victories. Poland was overrun in less than a month.

In 1940, following a period of inactivity after the conquest of Poland, the Nazis invaded and occupied Denmark, Norway, Holland and Belgium, without warning. France was attacked next. After Paris fell, France surrendered. Britain was attacked by air with devastating effects but the people under Winston Churchill did not give up and the Royal Air Force held off the "Luftwaffe" attack. A major turnaround took place when America joined the war in 1940 after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour. Bulgaria, Romania & Hungary joined Hitler and they overran Greece and Yugoslavia.

Russia was invaded despite the non-aggression agreement with Germany. Hitler needed the coal and oil they had to offer. Most of the world and Hitler felt that Russia had been defeated. That was Hitler's biggest mistake!! There were two important reasons for these early Axis victories. (1) The Allies were caught off guard by the war.

They were militarily unprepared. (2) The Nazis introduced a new type of "lightning" or "blitzkrieg warfare". It involved close coordination of land and air forces; the bombing of plants, airfields, transportation centers, troop concentrations, and civilians; the use of spies, propaganda and sympathizers behind enemy lines ("fifth columns"); the use of armored (tank) and mechanized divisions. The earliest Allied victories were in North Africa - Italian armies were defeated in 1940 in Egypt. The allied forces also won the battle of North Africa in 1941, that battle ended in October 1942. The allies looked forward to a better world after the war.

The four freedoms that people would have after the war according to Roosevelt were freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. The Atlantic Charter, in August, 1941 cited the following points: (a) no territorial seizures by Britain or the United States, (b) self-determination for all nations and restoration of freedom to conquered nations, (c) creation of lasting peace based upon freedom from fear and want, (d) freedom of the seas, (e) disarmament of aggressors, (f) international economic cooperation to raise standards of living, (g) peace based on collective security, (h) equal opportunities to all nations for trade and raw materials. It was truly a global war. More nations took part than in any previous war. All continents and oceans were scenes of military action. Revolutionary new weapons and devices were employed for the first time.

These included radar, guided missiles, and most important, the atomic bomb. The airplane (bombers and fighters) came into its own as a weapon of crucial importance. In total deaths and in economic and financial costs World War II was about five times as expensive as World War 1; in military deaths alone, it was almost twice as costly. It was estimated that the war cost over a trillion dollars, plus an immense sum in property damages which is impossible to estimate. Approximately 55 million people died because of the war.

Approximately 55 million because nobody knows the true and exact number. Such a massive figure is also difficult to grasp in any meaningful way - it is roughly the total population, men, women, and children, of Great Britain. The bombing of Japan marked the end of the war. The war resulted in Germany being divided into four parts, one each governed by U.S. A, Russia, Britain and France. This later resulted in the Berlin Wall, which divided Germany into two parts - east and west.

The country was stripped of all war gains, reduced in size, disarmed, and demilitarized.) Japan was occupied by American forces under the Supreme Allied Commander, General MacArthur. Japan lost all territories outside her home islands. The nations of Europe, victors and conquered alike, faced the problems of restoring shattered industries; rebuilding homes, schools, hospitals, churches, roads and other facilities; and restoring normal trade activities. Some countries, like Belgium and West Germany, recovered rapidly; others like France and Italy, recovered more slowly. The United States financed a large part of this postwar reconstruction. To eliminate the causes of war and to prevent future catastrophes, the statesmen of the world established a new international peace organization, the United Nations (UN), in 1945.

An attempt was made in designing the UN to avoid the fatal weakness of the League of Nations. Since its creation, the UN has played an important role in world affairs. There was a decline of colonial empires. The overall effect since the close of World War II has been the virtual liquidation of the major European colonial empires. The United States and the Soviet Union emerged from World War II as the two most powerful nations on earth and the tension that remained after the war resulted in the beginning of the cold war. The development of the atomic bomb during World War II ushered in the age of atomic energy many years earlier than it might have come without the wartime emergency.

Bibliography

Various websites and links on the Internet related to World War II's causes results and conclusions. The Military History Of World War 2: Volume 18 By - Col. Trevor Nevi tt Dupuy..