Responses to Italian and German Expansion

List ineffective responses

• League of Nations sanctions

• Policy of appeasement

• Policy of isolationism

Describe the League of Nations’ sanctions

• The League of Nations imposed sanctions on Italy after Abyssinia

  • but excluded vital resources such as oil and steel.

• Britain also kept the Suez Canal open, allowing Italian supplies and troops to move freely.

Describe the policy of appeasement 

Britain and France pursued appeasement throughout the 1930s:

• the Anglo-German Naval Agreement (1935) accepted German naval expansion

• the Munich Agreement (1938) ceded the Sudetenland, legitimising Hitler’s gains.

Describe the policy of isolationism 

• The United States, bound by the Neutrality Acts of 1935–37

• adopted isolationism and refused to intervene in European affairs

• limiting collective pressure on aggressors.

List more effective responses

• abandonment of appeasement in defence of Poland

• Nazi Soviet Pact

Describe the abandonment of appeasement in defence of Poland

• After the occupation of Prague in March 1939, Britain and France abandoned appeasement

• issuing a guarantee to defend Poland if attacked.

Describe the Nazi Soviet Pact

• The Soviet Union acted pragmatically by signing the Nazi-Soviet Pact (August 1939)

• delaying war with Germany.

• While this cleared the way for Hitler’s invasion of Poland, it also limited Western influence in Eastern Europe.