Causes of the Second World War Essay Sample

After the treaty of versailles, germany was on the worst receiving end. Its territories in the east were lost to poland and other countries in eastern europe. The kingdom of italy was being duped of its promised territory, never receiving the trieste, southern tyrol, and the northern dalmatia coast, and japan, who had been on the side of the allies, was seen as an unequal in the eyes of the west. These results of the first world war brought discontent amongst these three nations making them have newfound ideologies that would seek to reverse the results of the first world war and destroy democracies but also how britain and france failed to stop these countries from causing a war that left 70 million people to perish. This essay is about how these three countries were affected by the treaty of versailles and how their discontent made them into these military powerhouses that set the world into another war.

Germany

The treaty of versailles left germany very weak with its territories in eastern europe, africa and the pacific lost to the allies, it's military being reduced to a hundred thousand, and the rhineland demilitarized, discouraging them to unite with austria and with them paying 226 billion reichsmarks to the allies, germany saw this as being harsh and unreasonable because it caused great economic hardships in the country with rising inflation. “the german government in 1913 had been 20.5 marks per resident but in 1925 it rose to over 60 marks” (daniel castillio) meaning that that government was spending way more than thirteen years ago,  also the german tax revenues from its income began to fall, in 1913, “ over fifty-three percent of its tax revenue came from its income from trade but in 1925, it dropped to twenty-eight percent  (daniel castillio). As a result of that, the government was depending on profits from city amenities and property tax to mitigate the economic downturn.  This action made little to no results as more spending and dependencies on property tax made inflation skyrocket. Germany would have paid the reparations quickly but they weren’t since there were tariffs imposed on their goods from britain and france which did not provide them with income to pay the reparations and due to that the goldmarks in the weimar republic were becoming more and more worthless. The economic downturn left germany in a very vulnerable state and far-right figures and organizations such as adolf hitler and the freikorps took advantage of the situation to rise to power.

Adolf hitler who was originally born in austria in 1889 to alois hitler sr an austrian civil servant in the 1890s took over germany in 1933. After serving the german empire’s army during the first world war, hitler came back to an inflation ridden germany, this made him furious with the outcome of the war and the treaty-making him join the national socialist german workers party (aka nazis) and joined them into spewing anti-semitic ideas and blaming jewish people for the outcome of the war and the economic crisis (since the numbers of wealthy in germany were disproportionately jewish). With intimidation and numerous assassinations, hitler took over the party in 1925 and eventually became the furher in 1933. With these newfound powers hitler decided to rearm the wehrmacht into a powerful military to pressure countries like austria to be annexed (anschluss), czechoslovakia to give up most of its territory that was filled with the majority speaking german population, and to intimidation of france and britain to appease hitler, he became emboldened by these events to conquer europe which he started by invading poland in 1st september 1939 causing the second world war.

Italy

Italy before the first world war was friendly to the central powers (austro-hungarian empire , german empire and the ottoman empire )  . Then on the 26th of april 1915 , italy ,britain and france concluded an agreement in which italy would receive some territory in austria- hungary and ottoman north africa after the war but the entente(treaty of versailles) failed on their promise and sidelined italy as a junior partner . The war left italy in an economic crisis as hunger began to spread in the country leaving the king and the old political parties of italy to be very unpopular . Nationalistic sentiments began to rise in italy especially within the middle class , because the crisis has hit them seriously. This gave  the far right wing elements such as mussolini a clear advantage to swoon people over with their newfound ideologies. Mussolini who was first a member of a socialist party in italy during the early 1900s was kicked out because he didnt share the same idea of how to approach war with his party , dissatisfied with this he went to into journalism where he got famous for using strong nationalistic rhetoric and advocating for italy to join the war . Like his german counterpart hitler , mussolini…