The Second World War was the most destructive conflict in human history. Years of international tension and aggressive expansion by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany culminated in the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939. Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later.
The decisions that led to war reflected the ambitions, rivalries, fears and anxieties that developed in the two decades that followed the end of the First World War. The European powers were willing to go to war to extend or protect what each nation saw - in dramatically different ways - as matters of vital interest, great power status, international prestige, and national survival.
The First World War and its subsequent peace settlements gave rise to new ambitions, rivalries and tensions. People had high expectations that the post-war peace settlement would create a new world order and ensure that the slaughter of the First World War was never repeated.
The Treaty of Versailles, signed in June 1919, created the League of Nations - an international body intended to promote peace and prevent war. However, the treaty was an uneasy compromise as each of the victorious Allies - Britain, America, France and Italy - looked to pursue their own interests. Germany was forced to surrender territory, disarm and pay for the war's damage. These divisive conditions were criticised as overly vindictive by many in Britain and America. The treaty's terms caused immediate outrage and lasting bitterness in Germany.
The sense of defeat, humiliation and injustice would have a significant impact on German foreign and domestic policies, and calls to revise the terms of the treaty became a major aspect of international politics in the 1920s and 1930s. The period between the two world wars was one of instability and insecurity. Political, economic and social unrest was made worse by the collapse of the international economy in 1929.
The instability and insecurity of the 1920s and 1930s gave rise to political extremism in many European countries. People looked to authoritarian leadership as a political alternative. Fascist leader Benito Mussolini came to power in Italy in 1922 and almost all aspects of Italian life came under state control.
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Adolf Hitler, flanked by the massed ranks of the Sturm Abteilung (SA), ascends the steps to the speaker's podium during the 1934 harvest festival celebration at Bückeburg.
In Germany, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor in 1933 and established a totalitarian one-party state under the Nazis. Political opposition was violently repressed. Hitler exploited the popular belief that Germany had been humiliated after the First World War. He promised economic recovery, national revival and that Germany would return to international prominence through a revision of the Treaty of Versailles.
Germany withdrew from the League of Nations in October 1933. In 1935, Hitler announced German rearmament and re-introduced conscription, which was prohibited under Versailles. The ultra-nationalist governments of both Italy and Germany each pursued aggressive foreign policies of territorial expansion that threatened to destroy the world order established by the post-war peace settlement.
On 3 October 1935, Italy invaded Abyssinia (present day Ethiopia). Both countries were members of the League of Nations, and Italy's aggression compelled the League to intervene. However, Britain and France struggled to coordinate an effective response. They imposed limited economic sanctions, which only pushed Italy away from Britain and France and into closer co-operation with Germany. Encouraged by the weak response to Italy's attack on Abyssinia, Hitler sent troops into the Rhineland on 7 March 1936. This demilitarised zone had been established under the Treaty of Versailles as a buffer between Germany and France. Britain did not see the occupation as a threat to its interests or overall security and did not respond militarily. France, already politically and militarily insecure, was left feeling isolated internationally and did little to resist the occupation. Hitler's success in the Rhineland encouraged him to pursue an even more aggressive foreign policy. Intervention in the Spanish Civil War, which broke out in July 1936, reinforced the divide between Italy and Germany on one side, and Britain and France on the other.
