Towards World War II: International Relations 1931-1939

I. Fascist Aggression in Asia, Africa and Europe

II. The Policy of AppeasementIII. Blitzkrieg: Europe at War (1939)

Fascism and the European Balance of Power

• 1931-1939-Fascist powers expand and challenge traditional balance of world power

• Fascism inherently militaristic, expansionist and imperial.

• 1931-Japan invades Manchuria.• 1935-Italy invades Ethiopia.• 1935-39-Germany expands in

central Europe.• 1936-Spanish Civil War-Fascists

(Nationalist) fight socialists (Republicans) in Spain.

Japanese Occupation of China

Execution of Chinese soldiers and civilians

Japan and World War II

• 1905 victory over Russians and part of allied victory in WWI.

• Authoritarian, militaristic government in power.

• Invades Manchuria and China in 1931 and occupies it until 1945.

• Attacks U.S. at Pearl Harbor in 1941 due to oil embargo and U.S. naval power in Pacific.

Map of China Under Japanese Occupation

Anti-Fascist Propaganda During Spanish Civil War (1936)

Fascist Spain

Nazi Ideology and Foreign Policy

• Ideology determines foreign policy.

• Ethnic Fundamentalism.• Reclaim the “German East”-

(Nazi Germany).• Ethnic Germany and Ethnic

Germans living in the east.

Definition: Anschluss

The conquest of German speaking territories by Nazi Germany

Racial Map of Europe, 1923

Europe in 1919

The Anschluss

• March, 1936: Annexation of the Rhineland• March 1938: Annexation of Austria• September, 1938: Conference in Munich

between Hitler and Allies

Hitler and Chamberlain at the Munich Conference, 1938

The Policy of Appeasement

1. Many believed Hitler’s claims were justified after Versailles.

2. Europeans feared another war after WWI.3. Capitalist nations feared that war would unleash

communist revolutions. 4. Economic depression weakened people’s faith in

democratic government.5. Most European nations unprepared for war.

Political Cartoon mocking the Allied policy of appeasement

Hitler, Time Magazine, Man of the Century1938

The Anschluss continued...

September, 1938-Annexation of the Sudetenland

March, 1939- Czechoslovakia

Europe in 1939

Nazi-Soviet Pact, August 1939

Nazi Invasion of PolandSeptember, 1939

World War II Map