The Interwar Years

Review from Previous Units/World History

  • Treaty of Versailles

    • No militarism
    • No imperialism
    • No alliances

  • USA rejected Treaty and League of Nations and returns to isolationism

  • Great Depression in Europe & the USA

  • League of Nations weak

1919: Treaty of Versailles

  • Ends WWI, but fails to enforce terms
  • League of Nations is very weak & unable to prevent war

America Returns to Isolationism

  • After WWI, the US returned to a foreign policy of isolation

Timeline

1922

  • Benito Mussolini “ll Duce” becomes the fascist leader of Italy

1924

  • Joseph Stalin takes control of the Soviet Union
    • USSR
  • Communist dictator
    • Total control

1925

  • German WWI veterans, Adolf Hitler, outlines his Nazi Plan in his book Mein Kampf
  • (My Struggle): Outlines his Nazi Plan
    • Wanted all German people to be united into one great German Empire
    • Blonde Hair/Blue Eyes

1931

  • Japan invades Manchuria (part of China) for its natural resources
  • League of Nations does nothing
  • Hitler closely watched the world’s inaction to Japan’s invasion

Stimson Doctrine

  • Policy by U.S. Secretary of State Harry L. Stimson declared that we would not recognize the taking over of Manchuria from China by the Japanese.

1933

  • Adolf Hitler becomes the leader of Germany
  • Nazi Germany
    • Depression, unemployment, and hard times led to a dramatic increase in voting for Hitler and the Nazi Party
  • Gets Germany out of the Great Depression by rebuilding Germany’s military
  • League of Nations does nothing

1935

  • Germany creates Nuremberg Race Laws targeting Jews
  • Italy invades Ethiopia (war occurs from 1935-36)
    • Mussolini will even use gas attacks on Ethiopian civilians
  • The League of Nations does nothing

Neutrality Acts

  • Banned the loan of money & sales of weapons to any country making war
  • Allowed to trade non-military items

1936

  • Germany invades the Rhineland
  • Area between Germany & France
    • Germans needed “living space”
    • Expanding the Fatherland
  • The League of Nations does nothing

Haile Selassie: Emperor of Ethiopia

  • Selassie pleads for help from the League of Nations, 1936

“Should it happen that a strong government finds it may with impunity destroy a weak people, then the hour strikes for that weak people to appeal to the League of Nations to give its judgement in all freedom.” - Haile Selassie

  • Spanish Civil War begins (1936-1939)
  • The 1936 Fascist Spanish Generals started a revolt against the Republican Government (Loyalists)
  • Both sides received help from foreign nations. Hitler and Mussolini supported the Fascists generals while the Soviet Union supported the Loyalists until 1938. Germany and Italy perfected the weapons and tactics they would later use in WW2.
  • Democratic response to the Spanish Civil War: USA, France, and Great Britain DID NOTHING to help the Democratic Spain govt. and it was defeated by the fascists in 1939.

Rome-Berlin Axis

  • Secret alliance between Italy & Germany

Nov. 1936

  • FDR re-elected President of USA
  • USA still deep in the Great Depression
    • Most of Europe was coming out of the Great Depression

1937

  • Japan full scale invasion of China
  • Practicing imperialism
  • Communists & Nationalists in China stop Civil War to fight the Japanese
  • League of Nations does nothing

Nanking Massacre

  • The Japanese troops reached Nanking on December 9, 1937, and for almost 2 months, they carried out a rampage that was filmed, photographed, and written about by the Japanese press and the generally unharmed European members of the city’s foreign community.
  • The campaign’s official estimated victim toll of 300,000 Chinese, about 60,000 of whom were civilians, included the following incomplete list of Japanese atrocities:
    • The rape of approximately 20,000 Chinese women, many of whom were killed or mutilated
    • The contest between two Japanese officers, Toshiaki Mukai and Tsuyoshi Noda, over who could first kill 100 Chinese with a sword. Mukai won the murder contest with total was 106 victims, one more than Tsuyoshi.
    • The burials of live civilians and prisoners of war, who were rounded up in groups of ten, tied by a rope, and then pushed into mass graves to be either covered with soil or burned
    • The disembowelment of captured Chinese soldiers and the eating of their roasted hearts and livers, the torching of one-third of the city, and widespread looting and theft.

Quarantine Speech

  • FDR asked other countries to get involved & quarantine (contain) aggressor nations
    • IE- “Europe! You need to control Hitler & Mussolini!”
  • FDR wants other countries to stop Germany & Japan…

Cash & Carry

  • Ends military trade embargo
  • USA can sell supplies to other countries, but they have to pay “cash & carry” the supplies on their own boats
  • We want to start helping England & France, but are still really, really nervous
    • Germany U-Boats “The Wolfpack”
    • Lend lease will replace this

1938

  • Nazis adopt official anti-antisemitism policy including Jewish identification cards.

  • Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass) occurs in November

    • Hitler begins his extermination campaign against the Jews

  • Hitler invades Austria

  • League of Nations does nothing

  • Munich Pact: England agrees to give Hitler the Sudetenland

    • Hitler said he would stop if he just had a little bit more land

  • Example of appeasement:

    • Give into an aggressor in hopes they will stop
    • Neville Chamberlain (British PM) gave Hitler land hoping he would stop invading

1939

March

  • Germany invades the rest of Czechoslovakia
  • Czechoslovakia ceased to exist!
  • League of Nations does nothing

August

  • Non-Aggression Pact: Hitler & Stalin agree not to invade each other & divide Poland
    • Hitler wanted to avoid fighting on two fronts at one time
  • League of Nations does nothing

Sept. 1

  • Germany invades Poland
  • WWII begins!!

WWII Timeline Before Pearl Harbor

  • German Invasion of Poland: Sept. 1- Oct. 6, 1939
    • Location: Poland
    • Germany wanted to regain lost territory and rule their neighbor to the east marked the beginning of WWII
  • Battle of the Atlantic: Sept. 3, 1939- May 8, 1945
    • Location: Northern region of Atlantic Ocean
    • Struggle of allied and German forces for control of Atlantic Ocean, U-Boats were used and Canada interfered. A really long battle and allied powers won
  • Fall of France: May 10-Jun. 25, 1940
    • Location: Low countries, France
    • Was the German invasion of France and the low countries. France declared war on Germany. Germany won and France’s fall led to Germany being free to attack the Soviet Union.
  • Battle of Britain: Jul. 10- Oct. 31, 1940
    • Location: U.K.
    • Was between Britain and Germany. Germany wanted to invade the UK but needed to defeat Great Britain royal air force. 1st battle ever fought in the air, Britain won.
  • German invasion of the Soviet Union: Jun. 22- Dec. 5, 1941
    • Location: Eastern Europe
    • Turning point in war. Germany wanted to invade the Soviet Union and this broke a pact that the 2 states had. Was the biggest German military operation of WWII.

Pre-Pearl Harbor WWII

1940

Destroyers for Bases

  • U-Boats wiped out most of England’s Navy and Churchill asked FDR for help
  • The US gave England old battleships in exchange for military bases
    • We gave England ships
    • England gave the US rights to build military bases on islands they owned
    • Bermuda, Bahamas…

Limited Aid to the Allies

  • After the German invasion of France and the rescue of Allied forces at Dunkirk, American public opinion changed to favor limited aid to the Allies.
  • The America First Committee opposed any American intervention of air to the Allies.
  • President Roosevelt ran for an unprecedented third term as president in the election of 1940. Both Roosevelt and the Republican candidate, Wendell Willkie, said they would keep the United States neutral but assist the Allied forces. Roosevelt won by a large margin.

Roosevelt’s Goal

  • In 1940 Roosevelt is re-elected for a 3rd term
  • Roosevelt’s primary goal was to help Britain and its allies defeat Germany.

Four Freedoms Speech

  • In an address to Congress on Jan. 6, 1941, President Roosevelt delivered one of the most famous speeches in American history.
  • The Four Freedoms speech was an expression of the president’s vision in which the American ideals of individual liberties were extended throughout a world already engaged in war.
  • Roosevelt ended the speech with a description of four essential human freedoms (speech, religion, freedom from want and fear)
  • Rockwell raised $130,000,000 for war bonds

Lend-Lease Plan

  • England out of money & can’t pay according to “Cash & Carry”
  • The US would “lend or lease” supplies to any nation vital to the defense of our country
    • Starts in March 1941
  • England had to return the supplies after the war or pay rent on them

“We Americans are vitally concerned in your defense of freedom. We are putting forth our energies, our resources, and our organizing powers to give you the strength to regain and maintain a free world. We shall send you in ever-increasing numbers, ships, planes, tanks, gun. That is our purpose and our pledge.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt

SS Robin Moor Sunk

  • May 21, 1941

  • The Robin Moor was clearly marked as a merchant vessel from the USA

  • July 1941: FDR made the decision for US war ships to convoy merchant ships to Iceland. Meant risk of war with Germany.

    • Convoys increased the merchants ships chances of surviving the ocean voyage.

  • On October 31, 1941, the USS Reuben James (destroyer) became the first US warship to be sunk by a German U-Boat.

Atlantic Charter

  • In August 1941, President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill agreed to the Atlantic Charter.

    • postwar world of democracy
    • non-aggression
    • free trade
    • economic advancement
    • freedom of the seas

  • Japan’s attempt to create an empire is conflicting with the U.S. goal of maintaining an open trade policy in Asia

  • By July 1941, Japanese aircraft posed a direct threat to the British Empire.

  • US responded by freezing all Japanese assets in the US and reducing the amount of oil and steel shipped to Japan

  • The Japanese decided to attack resource-rich British and Dutch colonies in Southeast Asia, seize the Philippines, and attack Pearl Harbor.

Teams…who’s fighting who?

  • The Axis
    • Germany
    • Japan
    • Italy
    • Soviet Union
    • Switch teams in 1941
  • The Allies
    • England
    • France
    • Soviet Union
    • Join in 1941 when invaded by Hitler
    • USA
    • Join Dec. 7, 1941
      • Why?
      • Pearl Harbor!!