WHY DID WAR BREAK OUT IN EUROPE IN 1939?

Essay by asman0126A, April 2004

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Historians have suggested many reasons for the outbreak of the Second World War, yet there is no single reason why the war broke out.

One reason why the war broke out in 1929 is that the Treaty of Versailles solved nothing. Because Germany suffered huge reparations from the First World War and the loss of land simply helped to justify Hitler and the aggression which he showed. The Treaty was unjust and unfair on Germany. They were also angry at CLAUSE 231, the paragraph which blamed the war solely on Germany. The Germans were also angry about the reductions in their army. They claimed that they would be vulnerable against other countries. The loss of land added to resentment of the allied forces as Germany had lost a tenth of its land and because of this, many Germans now lived in foreign countries. The Treaty had disrupted Germany?s political and economic status.

Many people became very nationalistic and wanted revenge on the allied countries for forcing humiliation on Germany. Nationalists were more loyal to their country than to anything else. Many Germans felt degraded so they decided to support the Nazi party who wanted to abolish the Treaty of Versailles and to create a strong army. After World War One, a peace treaty was drawn up, the peace of Paris. This gave Italy less land than they thought they deserved so they said that they would take land when they got a chance. It also let Japan take German islands in the Pacific Ocean. But the Japanese were very upset about the peace of Paris because it didn?t say all races are equal.

Another explanation for the war is that the League of Nations failed. The League of Nations was an alliance of nations established in 1920 to promote...