Personal Response on The Causes of World War Two

War is a very devastating event to have to live through and experience therefore, the chances are very high that people will go almost to drastic measures to ensure that another war doesn’t occur. There are a long list of ‘causes’ that can be argued to be ‘the’ cause of World War 2 (WW2), however, the treaty of Versailles seems to stand out as a ‘major’ cause of WW2 and the Failure of the League of Nations and appeasement help it do so..

The Treaty of Versailles also known as the ‘Peace Treaty’ was created just before the end of WW1 in order to end WW2 and have no more wars following this event. However the what was signed in the Treaty was that Germany had to pay for reparations of the war, had to have the land that was gained from WW1 and more taken from them, they were restricted to a military with only 100,000 men, all because they were put at fault for World War 1. It is obvious that any country would think that this ‘punishment’ was too harsh to possess themselves and of course, Germany felt that way. In the 1930’s, when the Great Depression struck, Germany was struggling to have enough money to pay for the reparations so the government under the command of Adolf Hitler, began to secretly create their own army breaching the treaty of Versailles. In 1938, Germany invaded Austria which claimed itself as a part of Germany. In 1939, Germany invaded Poland and as France and Britain had promised to declare war if Germany continued, war was declared shortly after. The Treaty of Versailles was a major cause of World War 2 because the treaty was so harsh on Germany, they felt that it hurt their pride seeing that the Treaty made the country so weak.

The failure of the League of Nations was another cause of WW2 because countries saw it as harmless and ignored it. The League of Nations was created shortly after the Treaty of Versailles was signed. The idea was to be able to settle disputes between countries through negotiations not through violence. This meant that the league didn’t have any military power. It was a good idea however it only worked for some disputes because countries began to see it as harmless because it imposed no military threat. Which is how it got its name, ‘the Toothless Tiger.’ During the great depression, the citizens of japan began to loose faith in their own government and began to turn towards their military for solutions. When Japan invaded china for their resources and gained from it, the league of nations condemned the attack however the condemnation was ignored making it evident that the league of nations cant do much. Germany seeing that japan ignored the league of nations, began to follow suit making the League of Nations a big failure. 

Appeasement was next stop for Britain and France to go to in order to try and keep peace globally seeing that the League of nations and the Treaty of Versailles was broken. The British and the French thought and hoped that if they appeased what Germany was doing, then maybe it wouldn’t progress however there wasn’t much stopping Germany although Hitler knew that the only country that was able to stop him was America however they hadn’t joined the league of nations so that means they would only declare war if someone attacked them. Germany continued to aggress and Britain and France promised that if it continued, then they would declare war. War was declared shortly after Germany invaded Poland in 1939.

In my opinion, if only the Treaty of Versailles wasn’t so harsh and the League of Nations imposed a threat, then it is probable that the second world war wouldn’t have started.