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What role did the Treaty of Versailles have in causing World War II?
The punitive terms of the treaty that Germany was forced to accept at the end of World War I were designed humiliate the country and its people. Even though Germany never paid the bulk of the economic reparations that the treaty demanded, Hitler channeled the German people’s resentment to fuel his own plans. Although the victorious nations had good reason to angry with Germany in 1919, the exceedingly harsh terms they insisted on putting into the peace treaty ended up just inflicting more pain on everyone. Hence, a popular expression came about that “World War II was the last battle of World War I.”
Fortunately, this lesson wasn’t lost on the allies at the end of World War II, as they responded with support that included the Marshall Plan to help the defeated Germany change and recover rather than just meting out punishment as the Treaty of Versailles had attempted.
How did territorial ambitions and race drive Germany and Japan?
Both Germany and Japan engaged in large-scale territorial conquests combined with racist ideology in the lead up to World War II. Hitler and other Nazi officials in Germany clung to the concept of lebensraum, the natural “living space” required by what they considered the racially superior German people. Under this doctrine, Hitler claimed openly that German territory needed to be expanded through conquest of Central Europe and Eastern Europe.
Many of Japan’s leaders held racist beliefs too—in the superiority of the Japanese over the inhabitants of the Asian areas they invaded and occupied in the decade prior to World War II, including the Manchuria, Shanghai, and French Indochina, as well as Korea, which they had ruled since 1910. While an argument can be made that Japan’s conquests were more motivated by the desire to build an economic empire than by beliefs of racial superiority, the Japanese invasions and occupations were nonetheless marked by their brutally and cruelty towards those whose lands they had taken.
What arguments did German and Japanese use to defend their territorial conquests?
Defenders of Japanese territorial expansion and, especially, German lebensraum, claimed that they were merely following the practices of earlier empires who had pushed out from their base to address the economic needs of the home population, citing the Roman, British, and French empires—as well as the evoking of “Manifest Destiny” by the United States.
Germany also cited the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles as justification for their aggressive behavior. Japan, however, though a victor in World War I, also suffered after that conflict ended due to the United States and several European nations imposing high tariffs and blocking industrial imports. As a result, many Japanese people began to believe that whites were hostile to the idea of a developed non-white nation. Japan’s increasingly right-wing leaders asserted the superiority of their people and increased Japan’s colonial holdings itself, lest Japan risk becoming a vassal to the Western powers.
What did airplanes and aircraft carriers impact how World War II was conducted?
The airplane, which had debuted as a weapon of war during World War I, had advanced significantly technologically in the 20 years between the world wars, and it became a fundamental instrument of war and changed the way many battles were fought. The same can be said of a new weapon, the aircraft carrier, which became crucial to the United States after so many of its battleships were lost at Pearl Harbor.
As a result of these developments, the Battle of Britain in 1940 marked the first time in history when air power alone determined the course of a major battle, and the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942 was the first naval battle in history fought exclusively in the air, by carrier-based planes. Both sides also realized the effectiveness of radar as a way of warning against approaching enemy planes. Germany experimented with new missile technologies as well as both jet- and rocket-powered aircraft, but none of these projects was perfected in time to change the outcome of the war.
How did Germany’s invasion of the USSR impact the outcome of the war?
Most World War II historians agree that Hitler’s decision to invade the Soviet Union was a primary cause of Germany’s ultimate defeat. By invading, Germany made the same mistake that Japan made by expanding so far across the Pacific. The huge expanse of the Soviet Union and the vast distances between its major cities required a huge German invasion force. Despite this geographical challenge, Hitler had assumed that Operation Barbarossa would take only six months, expecting the USSR to capitulate rapidly after the shock of Germany’s initial, devastating attack. Instead, the German forces found themselves dispersed and poorly equipped to deal with the brutal Russian winter.
Russian soldiers and civilians, conversely, had plenty of room to retreat east, when necessary, which caused the pursuing Germans to extend their supply lines so far that they were unable to maintain them. It was under these conditions that the Germans had to fight the massive battles of Stalingrad and Kursk. After the Germans lost both battles, they were no longer capable of maintaining their position and were forced to retreat west. Within a months, the pursuing Red Army had pushed the Germans back through eastern Europe and toward a last stand on their home turf, which would lead to the end of the Nazi empire.
How was the development atomic weaponry a technological war within a war?
Although many new technologies had an effect on the war, they generally were created by one side in response to similar technologies being developed by the other side. While the side that managed to get a new weapon into service first could have a meaningful advantage for a time, the net effect of both sides focusing on competing development tended to even out the impact of new technologies overall. The notable exception was the atomic bomb, which the United States developed in secret from 1942 to 1945 in an operation called the Manhattan Project (as anyone who has seen the 2023 film Oppenheimer will know). German scientists were pursuing their own atomic weaponry, but the war in Europe ended before either side’s plans had come to fruition.
When the Manhattan Project was finally able to deliver able to deliver a weapon in 1945, Japan (who lacked the capacity of the US or Germany to pursue atomic weaponry) was in retreat and reeling from a string of defeats, but the war in the Pacific Theater was still raging with tremendous casualties being inflicted on both sides. President Truman made the difficult (some say indefensible) decision to engage in atomic warfare, forcing Japan to surrender just days after the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
