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CAUSE AND EFFECT VERSAILLES TO POLAND AND THE PACT OF STEEL Events cease to be of our own time, and acquire the perspective of history, suddenly yet unobtrusively. To those who fought against, or suffered under the tyrannies of the Second World War, or who were brought up during those turbulent years, the transition happened quite recently - perhaps during the late Sixties or early Seventies. For those born since the greatest war man has yet known, images and recollections of the Second World War seem quaintly old-fashioned; as much a thread of the tapestry of time as the Black Death or the Spanish Armada. In either case, the sense of detachment that historical perspective provides makes it possible to view both the war itself, and the events that led to its outbreak, with a degree of balanced judgement and impartiality that would have been impossible when the War was still part of the world's immediate experience. Yet, although the Second World War has undeniably become part of the fabric of history, its effects and consequences shape the very structure of our lives and the politics of the governments under which we live. No previous conflict has had as great an influence upon subsequent events and thought. Most of the wars of history have resolved a dispute, asserted sovereignty, or suppressed rebellion without causing major long-term changes to the course of world history, culture or political thinking. The Second World War was the War that nobody wanted, that everybody expected, and from which only the USSR gained territorial advantage, albeit at huge cost. So how did it happen? There was no one cause, no one train of events, no single course of political thought that alone brought about the greatest single human tragedy the world has known. The causes of the Second World War are to be found in the combined and coincidental influences of three principal trains of events. The first of these is the political; the consequence of the Great Powers' failure after the First World War to take advantage of the opportunities offered for the creation of a new, stable order. By imposing upon the German people, who never considered that they had lost the war, unrealistic terms under the Treaty of Versailles, they ensured the political and military humiliation of Germany, which with the Weimar Republic's leaders responsibility for its acceptance, was the greatest single plank upon which Hitler built his popular support. The ambivalent attitude of public opinion in Britain and France to the justness of Versailles was, in turn, a powerful argument for inaction by those countries when Hitler's still embryonic army invaded the demilitarised Rhineland in 1936 - and the essentially flabby and indecisive nature of the League of Nations both stifled the individualism and decisiveness of its members, and strengthened the resolve of the Fascist powers to take what they coveted by force. The political structure created after the Great War in a spirit of peace by President Wilson, Clemenceau, Lloyd George and their successors was in fact a blueprint for conflict and disaster. Even worse, from a political standpoint, were the efforts of the British and French politicians of the mid-Thirties to uphold that structure and maintain the peace at all costs. Paradoxically, by 1938, the only cost at which peace could be maintained was the certainty of subsequent war, and it is clear, with hindsight, that the very weakness displayed by Britain's Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax at the time of the Munich Agreement in September 1938 was Hitler's most powerful incentive to march on Czechoslovakia in the Spring of 1939, and to plan the attack on Poland, first for August, then for September. Hitler believed that Britain and France would not go to war in defence of Poland, and that Poland could be defeated in isolation as Czechoslovakia and Austria had been before. The second stream of events to make a major contribution to the coming of the Second World War was the succession of economic crises of the Twenties and Thirties, and their aftermaths. The willingness of the Weimar government to print money to meet ever-growing demands on its resources caused devastating inflation that ravaged Germany throughout 1922 and 1923 and reduced the value of the mark catastrophically. In 1921, a reasonably stable currency had stood at 75 marks to the dollar. By January 1923, the mark was 18,000 to the dollar; by November one dollar was worth 4 billion marks. The savings and investments of a traditionally thrifty and comparatively wealthy German middle class became worthless. Not surprisingly, they blamed the Weimar government - and their disaffection provided a fertile seedbed for Hitler's later promises of a new German prosperity and industrial might.Perhaps an even greater economic contribution to the coming of war was made by the financial crisis and subsequent Great Depression of 1929 to 1933. Not only did the spectacle of the great powers writhing in economic disarray provide a credible background to Hitler's assertions of a viable National Socialist alternative in Germany, but the coming of Roosevelt and the New Deal, by galvanising a new self-assertiveness and confidence into American life, greatly increased the power of the American isolationist lobby. To Hitler, watching from afar a succession of Neutrality Acts pass through Congress, it seemed certain that America would never go to war in Europe, and he miscalculated accordingly. Those who campaign in Europe for unilateral nuclear disarmament might pause to consider the lessons in the workings of human nature offered by the Thirties. The third great course of events that drove the world inexorably to war was the growth of militant totalitarian nationalism. In Russia in 1917, first the February Revolution, which led to the government of Alexander Kerensky, then the Bolshevik October Revolution led by Vladimir Ulyanov, known as Lenin, swept the autocratic Tsarist monarchy from power and established the first of many oligarchic and undemocratic "democracies" in Europe. Under the Bolsheviks, Russia proselytised the principles of the International. Yet, under Lenin's successor, Josef Stalin, who became General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1922, and achieved supreme power after ousting Trotsky in 1927, Mother Russia became inward-looking, reeling under a scale of tyranny unknown since Torquemada as the Communist government consolidated its hold on the vast confederation of states later known as the USSR, before seeking to extend its horizons. The success of the Russian revolution in dispensing with the old order inspired Communist revolutionary movements in most of the countries of Western Europe, particularly Germany, Italy, France, Austria and Hungary. Indeed, Communist governments held power briefly in both Budapest and Bavaria after the First World War. It was in the backlash response to these revolutionary pressures that the extreme right-wing Fascist and Nationalist movements were born. The first was in Italy under Gabriele D'Annunzio, who, in 1919, marched on and took Fiume on the Adriatic, then claimed by Yugoslavia, to the universal approval of the Italian press and the qualified disapproval of the Italian Government. Public adoration of the "new Garibaldi" was such that another ex-servicemen's leader, Benito Mussolini, ever one to emulate the success of others, though not always with equal achievement, sought to give Italy the Nationalist government it seemed to want. In 1922, Mussolini "marched" on Rome at the head of his Fascist Party (in fact he travelled by train), and gained enough support from those in power to be appointed Prime Minister by King Victor Emmanuel.His success inspired the already active National Socialists in Bavaria, led by Adolf Hitler, to dream of a March on Berlin, an ideal that seemed possible in October 1923. The state government of Bavaria, led by Gustav von Kahr, had declared a State of Emergency in defiance of the Berlin government led by President Ebert and Chancellor Stresemann and seemed ready either to proclaim its independence of Germany, or to support a National Socialist coup in Berlin. Hitler, who in September 1923 had scored a major political triumph by being seen beside General Ludendorff, a disgruntled hero of the Great War, on the platform at a Bavarian rally of the Deutscher Kampfbund - the German Fighting Union - had led his followers to believe that the moment of power was at hand. When the situation between von Kahr and the Berlin government became less bellicose at the beginning of November, Hitler feared that von Kahr would opt for Bavarian independence rather than revolution against the central government. He believed that this would deprive the National Socialists of their chance of power, and him of his credibility with his party. The result was the ill-advised and poorly planned Munich beerhall putsch, which earned Hitler nine months of peace in Landsberg Prison to write Mein Kampf , gained him national fame for his sensationally effective oratory at his trial in April 1924, and conferred upon the National Socialist party five years of obscurity. By the end of 1933, the political scene was set for the rise to war and the devastation of Europe. Josef Stalin was subjugating the USSR and speculating on the possibility of expansion westward. Adolf Hitler had finally achieved the Chancellorship of Germany and absolute power, and was dreaming of his advance eastward. Mussolini was the dictator of Italy, nurturing territorial ambitions in Africa and the Balkans. Roosevelt had embarked upon his spectacular first Hundred Days, and had begun the process by which the USA would grow in economic strength and ability to arm, yet would seem to onlookers implacably neutral. In the Far East, Japan had invaded Manchuria, and was turning a baleful eye on China and South-East Asia. Sadly, Britain and France, who should have provided the balancing mechanism and the strength that alone could have averted eventual war, lacked the political direction and will necessary to bring lesser nations to their call and keep the dictators at bay. Thus began the succession of ever more daring adventures by the Nationalist leaders and by Japan, each countered by little more than admonition and a wish to compromise. In July 1934, Chancellor Dollfuss of Austria was brutally and callously murdered by Austrian Nazis. Mussolini, to his credit, or perhaps because it suited his political needs not to have Hitler baying at his borders, threatened military intervention, and the threat of Nazi takeover was temporarily averted. In March 1935, the German Luftwaffe was officially established in flagrant contravention of the Treaty of Versailles and Britain and France did nothing. On October 3rd 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia. The League of Nations attempted to impose economic sanctions, which were hopelessly ineffective, and in December the Hoare-Laval plan for exchanges of territory between Italy and Ethiopia without reference to the League was leaked, thus weakening forever such influence as the League had ever had, and causing Parliamentary and public outrage in Britain. In March 1936, Hitler took a massive gamble, and backed his hunch that the signatories to the Treaty of Versailles would do nothing that in any way endangered peace. With hopelessly ill-supported and poorly trained troops, he occupied the Rhineland, specifically declared a demilitarised zone by the Treaty, and awaited developments. None came. Hitler had gained as never before the measure of his opponents.Other nationalist movements had sprung up around Europe in response to the activities of militant Communist parties. Some, like Sir Oswald Mosley's blackshirts in Britain, very noisy yet ineffective, but, as the political stage was set in the Thirties for the rise to war, a third major Nationalist force arose in Spain under General Franco. In July 1936, Franco led an uprising to unseat the Republican government. Hearing after a performance of one of Wagner's operas at Bayreuth of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Hitler conferred hastily with Goering and von Blomberg, his War Minister, and decided almost on the spur of the moment to support Franco. Germany supplied aircraft, tanks, technicians and money valued at half a billion marks, and detached a large part of the emergent Luftwaffe for what amounted to training in active service. Known as the Condor Legion, this German air force killed hundreds of Spaniards when it bombed Guernica, and perfected in Spain the dive bombing and heavy bombing of civilian areas that were to be so significant a feature of later Blitzkrieg advances across Europe. After the Civil War, Germany had a corps of battle-trained airmen that no other Western nation possessed, a resource that was to prove of immense value in the training of the world's most powerful air force. Mussolini was committed to the Spanish Civil War to an even greater degree than Hitler, and, recognising this, one of Hitler's primary objectives in his support of Franco was to keep the war going, hoping thereby to maintain a state of enmity between Mussolini and the politicians of Britain and France. For Hitler knew that, whether or not there was to be war, he needed Mussolini on his side. In October, after a successful visit to Hitler in Berchtesgaden, Count Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law and Foreign Minister, signed a protocol that set out a common policy for Germany and Italy in the field of foreign affairs. This was the Berlin-Rome Axis, the beginning of the alliance that was to secure Mussolini's downfall. In the following month, Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact against the Communist International, and, in July 1937, as the Spanish Civil War raged on, the Japanese used the Marco Polo Bridge incident, a skirmish near Peking, as a pretext to invade China. Sensing the way things seemed to be going, Italy joined the Anti-Comintern Pact in November 1937, and the following month the Japanese killed some 150,000 people, mostly civilians, around Nanking. The following year was a fateful landmark in the progress towards war. On November 5th 1937, Goering and the service chiefs had been told by Hitler in committee that war was inevitable, but that it would come at a time of their choosing. As 1938 began, Hitler took steps to annex Austria, believing, correctly, that once again Britain and France would do nothing. The annexation - Anschluss - was completed in a matter of hours on March 13th. Threats against Czechoslovakia arising from Hitler's claim to the Sudetenland, an area of Czechoslovakia inhabited mainly by Germans, led Europe to believe during April and May that it was on the brink of war. After further threats, Hitler secured from Britain's Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and the French Premier Edouard Daladier at the Munich Conference in September complicity in forcing Czechoslovakia to cede the Sudetenland and some of her most valuable mineral resources to Germany. The willingness of Chamberlain to co-operate in Hitler's territorial ambitions when peace was threatened confirmed Hitler's belief that his military adventures would continue to go unchallenged. Only six months after guaranteeing in return for the Sudetenland that Czechoslovakia would not be attacked, Hitler's armies entered Prague on March 15th 1939 and annexed Memel, a city of Lithuania inhabited by ethnic Germans, on March 23rd. Once again, Britain and France did nothing, but, at last, Chamberlain spelt out clearly in Parliament British condemnation of Hitler's latest aggression and made it clear that an attack on Poland would not be tolerated. On 30th March, Chamberlain drafted the British guarantee of Poland's independence which was to become the pivot of war. This was accepted by Joseph Beck, Polish Foreign Minister, and consented to, after the event, by France. On April 26th, after Italy seized Albania, Britain reintroduced conscription, a clear indication that, at long last, the British policy of appeasement was being abandoned. Despite this, Hitler was firm in his belief that there would be no retaliation from Britain and France if he attacked Poland.On May 22nd, Mussolini finally decided to throw in Italy's lot militarily with Germany, and the Pact of Steel was signed, committing each nation to join the other at war. Hitler felt that he had tied up one more loose end, but he was anxious to be sure that Russia would not intervene if Germany attacked Poland. In 1938, the Soviet Union had stopped its aid to the Republicans in Spain, and had thereby secured Franco's victory. Hitler therefore had cause to believe that Stalin wanted no quarrel with Germany, but was concerned at the clear fact that Russia was engaged in protracted negotiations for a treaty with Britain and France. Something had to be done. In May, after a major speech from Hitler which lacked his usual attacks on "Bolshevik Jews", Stalin suddenly replaced Litvinov, the Western-orientated Russian Foreign Minister with the tough, uncompromising and seemingly indestructible Molotov. A few days later, a new Russian ambassador arrived in Berlin. Stalin, playing both sides against each other, gave Hitler hope of a treaty without breaking off negotiations with Britain and France, thereby hoping to obtain from Hitler concessions which would enable Russia to occupy the Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania without intervention from Germany. Early in August, the British and French military missions found themselves being delayed in their attempts to conduct talks with Marshal Voroshilov in Moscow, and on August 21st 1939, Stalin announced his intention of signing a Non-Aggression Pact with Germany. With the signing of this Pact on August 23rd, Hitler's way to Poland seemed open. But, on August 25th, the signing of the Anglo-Polish alliance was announced in London, and Hitler realised that his attempt to isolate Poland had failed. Less than twelve hours before the deadline, the planned German invasion of Poland on the 26th August was halted. On the 27th, Hitler, now less confident about the future of his enterprise, but committed to it, set a new date for the invasion of September 1st. On the 28th, Britain formally rejected Hitler's arrogant and bombastic offer of "protection" for the British Empire in return for non-intervention of Britain if Poland were attacked, thereby declining to take part in a re-enactment of the fiasco of Munich. But, because Britain also advised Germany that both Britain and Poland were prepared to meet to negotiate, Hitler believed he detected signs of weakness. He thought he saw evidence that Britain would not, after all, act if Poland were attacked. He therefore demanded that a Polish emissary be sent to Berlin with full powers to negotiate and settle. Knowing that this implied a Polish surrender, the Poles refused. Thus, on September 1st, the German tanks rolled, the guns roared, and the Wehrmacht moved forward into Poland. The Second World War was now virtually inevitable. Germany greeted the news with silent resignation; there was no rejoicing as there had been in 1914.At 9am on September 3rd, Britain's ambassador Sir Neville Henderson in Berlin delivered an ultimatum. Hitler's worst fears were confirmed; this time Chamberlain was not prepared to compromise. The ultimatum said that, unless satisfactory assurances of German action to call off the attack on Poland were received by 11am, a state of war would exist between Britain and Germany. Hitler had gone too far, was too arrogant, too aware of his own political vulnerability to retreat. He did not reply to the ultimatum. At 11.15am on September 3rd 1939, Neville Chamberlain announced to a hushed nation and an appalled world that Britain was at war with Germany. It was the beginning of the greatest conflict the world has yet seen.
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