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Hitler formally renounced the disarmament provisions of the Versailles treaty. He does this with the formation of a German air force and he also reinstated conscription. This aimed at an army of half a million men.
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France and Britain met with Mussolini to form the Stresa Front. They promised to use force to maintain the status quo in Europe. However this show of unity was short-lived.
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Mussolini attacked Ethiopia, using a border incident as an excuse. This attacked made the impotence of the League of Nations and the timidity of the Allies clear. Mussolini's purpose was to avenge a humiliating defeat that the Italians suffered in Ethiopia in 1896, to restore Roman imperical glory, and to distract Italian public opinion from domestic problems.
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The League of Nations condemned Italian aggression. It voted economic sanctions on Italy. It imposed an arms embargo that limited loans and credits to, and imports from, Italy.
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Elections in February 1936 brought to power a Spanish Popular Front government. This government ranged from republicans of the left to communists and anarchists. The losers, especially the Falangists, the Spanish fascists, would not accept defeat at the polls.
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The Ethiopian affair convinced Hitler that the Western powers were too timid to oppose him forcefully. So he took his greatest risk yet. He sent a small armed force into the demilitarized Rhineland.
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General Francisco Franco led an army from Spanish Morocco against the republic. The war lasted almost three years, cost hundreds of thousands of lives, and provided a training ground for World War II. The war made the new European alignment that found the Western democracies on one side and the fascist states on the other clearer.
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Coalition formed in 1936 between Italy and Germany. An agreement formulated by Italy’s foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano informally linking the two fascist countries was reached on October 25, 1936. Japan joined the Axis powers in the Anti-Comintern Pact, ostensibly drirected against international communism, but really a new and powerful diplomatic alliance.
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In 1938, the new diplomatic situation encouraged Hilter to try to annex Austira again. He sent his troops in again and to his relief, Mussolini did not object. Hitler rode to Vienna amid the cheers of his Austrian sympathizers.
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As pressure mounted, the Czechs grew nervous. In May 1938, they received false rumors of an imminent attack by Germany and mobilized their army. The French, British, and Russians all warned they would support the Czechs.
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On September 12, 1938, Hitler made a provacative speech at the Nuremburg Nazi Party rally. His rhetoric led to rioting in the Sudetenland. The Czechs then declared martial law.
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At Chamberlain's request, Mussolini proposed a conference of Germany, Italy, France, and Britain. It met on September 29 at Munich. Hitler received almost everything he had demanded. However the appeasement of Hitler was a failure.
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Hitler broke his promise and occupied Prague. This put an end to the Czech state. It also put an end to illusions that his only goal was to restore Germans to the Reich.
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Hitler's occupation of Prague discredited appeasement in Britain. In the summer of 1939, a Gallup Poll showed that three-quarters of the British public believed it was worth a war to stop Hitler. Though Chamberlain himself had not lost all faith in his policy, he felt he had to respond to public opinion, and he responded to excess.
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On August 23 1939, the world was shocked to learn of a Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact. The Russians feared that the Western powers meant them to bear the burden of the war against Germany. As a result, the opened negotiations with Hitler. The Nazi-Soviet pact sealed the fate of Poland, and the Franco-British commitment guarenteed a general war.
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The Germans invaded Poland. Two days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany. World War II had begun.
