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UK foreign policy until 1935
key issues in the interwar era:
- maintenance of a balance of power
- more concern about 1. Communism 2. French hegemony than Hitler - Why?
- willing to allow Germany some territories to counterbalance France
- worry about the Italian claims in the Mediterranean and Africa -
France - foreign policy
principles in the interwar era:
- preparations for a war against Germany
- insisted on upholding all the harsh terms of the Versailes peace treaty
- campaigning for avoidance of a new war
- trying to establish a new security system - Eastern Locarno
- PM Barthou assassinated 1934 -
US foreign policy
Interwar era:
foreign policy principle: isolationism, non-interventionism - staying out of world affairs, not getting entangled in foreign conflicts
Give an example that proves it. (League of Nations?) -
Japanese invasion of Manchuria (China)
- military leaders won control over Japan (economic problems, Great Depression)
- solution for economic problems: to build a Pacific Empire
- 1927: PM Tanaka's plan for Japanese expansion (Manchuria, Mongolia, China, South and Central Asia)
- Japanese victory
- Japanese puppet state: Manchukuo
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Period: to
Policy of appeasement
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Germany left the League of Nations
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Japan withdrew from the League of Nations
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The Soviet Union joined the League of Nations
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US - Act of Neutrality
It forbade even the export of weapons and guns to countries at war. -
Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance
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Italy invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia)
- the Japanese invasion of China encouraged Mussolini
- Oct. 1935 - May 1936
- Ethiopian army - no match for the Italians
- The League of Nations suggested a plan to give part of Abyssinia to Italy. (policy of appeasement)
- Italian victory https://www.johndclare.net/league_of_nations6b.htm
- Haile Selassie's appeal to the League: "It is us today, it will be you tomorrow."
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Hitler introduced compulsory military service and started to develop the air force
With this Hitler violated the Treaty of Versailles. -
Referendum in the Saar region
- highly industrialised
- under the treaty of Versailles it was occupied and governed by the UK and France under a League of Nations mandate for fifteen years. Its coalfields were also to be ceded to France.
- Over 90% of voters opted for reunification with Germany, with 9% voting for the status quo as a League of Nations mandate territory, less than 0.5% opting for unification with France.
- Hitler announced that Germany "had no further territorial demands to make of France."
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France started to rearm.
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Rome-Berlin Axis
- France and Britain turned away from Italy
- Italy became isolated . Italy gave up its ambition to dominate Austria
- the forerunner of the wartime alliance
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Anti-Comintern Pact
- Germany + Japan
- against the Soviet Union (and the Communist International)
- 1937: Italy joined - the armed camp of Axis Powers is ready!
- 1939: Spain, Hungary joined
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Hitler reoccupied the Rhineland
- strategic buffer zone bw. Germany and Fr., Belgium, NL
- an area that was supposed to remain a demilitarized zone according to the Treaty of Versailles
- Fr-SU pact: Hitler considered it a threat, a hostile move against Germ. (excuse)
- also important for coal, steel, and iron production
- reoccupied
- re-militarised
- Fr., UK: did nothing substantial - didn't want to risk a war (Hitler was not ready for war)
- consequence? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpwmGIGEWmU
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Period: to
Civil War in Spain
- General Francisco Franco revolted against the legally elected government formed by the Spanish Popular Front = antifascist cooperation of communist, socialist, radical parties
- Western democracies remained neutral
- Franco was helped by Hitler and Mussolini
- Franco won - Fascist dictator (for more than 30 yrs)
- a precursor of WWII
- the bombardment of Guernica - killing hundreds of civilians
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2nd Sino-Japanese War
- a full scale war
- 1937-45
- often regarded as the beginning of World War II in Asia
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Italy joined the Anti-Comintern Pact
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Anschluss bw. Austria and Germany
- the Versailles Treaty prohibited it
- Austrian Chancellor wanted a plebiscite so that the Austrians could decide: joining Germ. or retaining independence
- Hitler sent an ultimatum, a Nazi government was formed
- it asked the Fuhrer to annex Austria
- Fr., UK - reaction?
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The annexation of the Sudetenland
- after Anschluss: Hitler focused on Czechoslovakia - to expand German Lebensraum
- 3 million German-speaking people lived in the Sudetenland
- Hitler encouraged them to demand political rights (autonomy)
- Hitler demanded Czechoslovakia to give up the Sudetenland and threatened with invasion
- Munich Conference!
- annexation - October
- Hitler: "the last territorial demand I have to make in Europe" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iacO4MUlw4
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The Munich Conference
29-30 October 1938
- the lowest point of British and French appeasement policy
- Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, French Premier Edouard Daladier, and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sign the Munich Pact, which seals the fate of Czechoslovakia, virtually handing it over to Germany in the name of peace. Upon return to Britain, Chamberlain would declare that the meeting had achieved "peace in our time."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SetNFqcayeA -
The partition of Czechoslovakia ended
- German troops marched into Prague
- the independent Czechoslovakia ceased to exist
- Hitler proclaimed the Czech-Moravian Protectorate of Germany