WORLD WAR II RUMBLINGS

 This is the 2nd note on the 2nd World War which I wrote. 

Spain had a civil war when Fransisco Franco revolted against the Spanish government in 1936 with the help of Germany & Italy.

Hitler as already mentioned had a grand vision of the German empire. For realizing this he first wanted to unite all those countries wherever Germans are residing in good numbers. 

First he looked at Austria which is his birth place. The Nazi party was formed in Austria in 1938 January and it conspired against the government which in turn jailed them. With that as an excuse Hitler sent in his army into Austria in March 1938. Austria surrendered without a fight, The people welcomed Hitler with open arms., He then held a referendum in Austria asking whether the people would joining with Germany and 99% people voted in favour of it. 

The merging of Austria with Germany in March 1938 is known as the Anschluss. This was looked at with great disfavour by both Britain and France but they did nothing because their economies were then in great turmoil and kept quiet.

Then Hitler prepared for the next step, the annexation of Sudetenland lying within Czechoslovakia. 

Sudetenland had a German population of 4 million and they agitated against their government asking for a merger with Germany the government obviously could not keep quiet and took repressive measures. That gave Hitler the opportunity he needed. 

He sent a message to Czechoslovakia asking them to surrender Sudetenland or face the onslaught of his armies. Czechoslovakia got a shock and it appealed to Britain and France. For this purpose Britain, France, Germany, and Italy met at Munich and came to an arrangement that Britain and France would keep quiet if Germany stopped with Sudetenland and do not go against Czechoslovakia. 

This was treachery by both Britain and France to Czechoslovakia and they gave away a part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler without actually involving the Czech government in the Munich talks. Hitler like a good boy agreed to the arrangement because anyway again he had no intention of keeping it. Britain and France felt very happy at their achievement foolishly thinking they had stopped Hitler. .

The British PM Chamberlain vainly dreamt that the British would worship him for his diplomacy which saved the world from a World War by granting away a part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler. Then in March 1939, Hitler attacked Czechoslovakia, a news that stunned Chamberlain.   Czechoslovakia was no match for the German armies and was easily taken over by Germany.

Now Mussolini felt he was being left behind. In April 1939 he attacked Albania and took over the country.

In 1939 Hitler turned to his next target that is Poland. It had a minority German population which Hitler said that is being discriminated against and he felt he had to protect them. Now for this he used the port of Danzig as the key. 

Danzig was originally a German port that was taken over by the allies in the 1^st World war. This was declared a free port by the allies and the League of nations which was in the control of Britain and France. Poland is totally a landlocked country and requisitioned for using the port of Danzig from the allies for the purpose of trade and got the nod from them.

Now Danzig is right in the heart of Germany and certainly no country would accept a port within it being a free port, but Germany had no choice at Versailles. Now the very same Danzig was used as a ploy by Hitler to conquer Poland. He demanded Poland to hand over Danzig back to him. Over 90% of the population of Danzig was German. These Germans came onto the roads and demanded that Danzig be merged with Germany creating unrest. 

Immediately, like Czechoslovakia did before them, Poland too contacted Britain and France. Now Britain and France understood Hitler’s game. They assured Poland that in case if Hitler moved against Poland they would declare war against Germany. Seeing the support of Britain and France Poland became aggressive and warned Germany.

Britain and France now conferred with the Soviet Union headed by Stalin. Now the Soviet Union had a score to settle with Poland. Between 1919-21, a Soviet-Polish war took place. During this war in the battle of Warsaw Polish forces have roundly defeated the Soviet Union. 

Subsequently, a peace treaty was signed by both at Riga. In this treaty, the disputed territory was apportioned between the Soviet Union and Poland but in the process, Poland gained more territory. This was of course during Lenin’s time. Stalin was waiting for a chance to get back at Poland and now the chance presented itself to him. Stalin flatly refused to enter into any treaty with Britain and France on Poland.

But Britain and France were rest assured that Russia would protect Poland because if Poland falls into Hitler’s hands then the next target would be the Soviet Union itself.  They assumed that if Russia attacks Germany from the East and they from the West, then Germany would be decimated. So they assumed that Hitler would never dare to attack Danzig.

But they have grossly underestimated Hitler. Hitler is brilliant in scheming and clear minded in strategy. In August 1939 he sent his foreign minister to the Soviet Union to hold talks with his counterpart in the Soviet Union, Vatislav Molotov. The entire world knew the contempt Hitler had for communists, so when they were negotiating the world was watching surprised as to what was happening.  

Then came the shocking news both the countries entered into a nonaggression pact known as the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact. As per this pact if any country attacks one of them, the other country would be neutral and would not interfere and also it would never support any of the other country’s enemies.

This pact also had a secret side that was not revealed to anyone at that time. The Soviet Union would attack and keep the eastern portion of Poland as well as the Baltic states while Germany would attack and keep the western portion. So they have actually divided Poland between themselves.

Germany, Italy, and Japan wanted to enter into a pact of steel by which if any country declared war on any of them it would be deemed to be a war against the remaining 2 as well and they would defend that country. However, Japan was not willing to sign it so only Germany and Italy signed the pact of Steel. This happened before the nonaggression pact between Germany and Russia.

The pact between Germany and the Soviet Union was not liked by Japan and it distanced itself from the Axis powers.

Now Britain and France gave an ultimatum to Hitler that if he attacked Poland then they would declare war on Germany and he had to fight 3 countries.