The blame for World War I initially, though unfairly, fell solely on Germany.  As years passed and post-war passions cooled, the guilt was more equally distributed.  England's secret treaty with Belgium hadn't helped prevent WWI, nor had several of the secret Balkan agreements.  The outcome of the Second World War, however, yielded no such constructive criticism of the Allies, and now even today most people blame World War II squarely on Adolf Hitler.  In The Origins of the Second World War, A.J.P Taylor corrects this popular myth.  While Hitler was no doubt instrumental in starting the war, Taylor writes, he was only one of many causes, including gross mismanagement of the treaty system on the part of the European Allies and negligence to act on the part of the United States.
            Taylor may as well drop the term 'Second' from his title, as he makes the Second World War out to be an inevitable renewal of the First.  At the close of WWI, Germany was routed in the West, though this was a pyrrhic victory for the Allied forces.  Too exhausted to continue the War and believing themselves to have won, they called for an armistice.  1919's Treaty of Versailles was just that.  The treaty slashed Germany, burdening her with colossal reparations payments.  Moreover, the treaty, according to the Germans, failed to recognize the German victories in the East.  The Germans understood and even accepted the loss of Alsace and Lorraine to the French; but to forfeit the Polish Corridor, an area in which they were unquestionably victorious, struck them as an illegitimate demand, and one that was not soon forgotten.
            The Allied forces were in no place to make such a demand.  Their armies were in no shape to continue fighting, and the German  'surrender' saved them from almost certain defeat.  Without armies to force German observance of the Treaty of Versailles, the Allies had to rely on Germany's voluntary compliance.  The only force in Germany capable of performing such a feat was the German government that had united the states just prior to war.  In saddling that government with reparations payments, the Allies recognized and even applauded its legitimacy.  The Allies left the enforcement of the Treaty of Versailles up to the very same government it was meant to punish.
            They were reluctant to admit this.  Instead, US President Woodrow Wilson drafted a fantastic organization, the League of Nations, to prevent future aggression.  Germany was noticeably absent, its membership barred.  The United States, on the other hand, was free to join though, much to the dismay of Wilson, the Senate declined.  The League, that incredible 52-member super-state meant to check German aggression, was thus doomed from the start, losing the support of one of the world's only superpowers as it sank into twenty years of isolation. 
            Predictably, the reparations payments lagged.  Germany, either uncompelled or unable to complete them, tacitly threw money at the Allies on an occasional off-schedule basis.  This was particularly insulting to the French, who in 1923 occupied the Ruhr region of Germany in an attempt to coerce more payments.  Their occupation was ill-planned; the Ruhr was Germany's leading industrial area, and by shutting it down the French crippled the economy that they sought payment from.  The Ruhr occupation also raised anti-French sentiment in Germany. A young Adolf Hitler pounced on the national feelings when he took part in the unsuccessful Beer Haul Coup of 1923.  He was arrested and imprisoned, though he once again took advantage of the opportunity and wrote Mein Kampf while behind bars.  The two-year occupation ended with the Treaty of Locarno and an intervention from the United States.
            Taylor calls Locarno the, "turning point of years between the wars.  Its signature ended the first World War; its repudiation eleven years later marked the prelude to the second."  The treaty, signed in December 1925, established the Rhineland on the German-French border as a demilitarized zone, to be closely watched by England and Italy.  Additionally, France was allowed to maintain treaties with Poland and Czechoslovakia without alienating England, who had no desire to become entangled in the affairs of Eastern Europe.  Though it passed the ultimate treaty test by satisfying everyone, it was drafted assuming that Germany would continue its voluntary compliance.  Later, when Hitler ended this, Locarno was shown to be useless. 
For the time being, all was well in  Europe.  In 1925 Germany was admitted to the League of Nations, and the US came out of isolation to offer up the Dawes Plan.  Under the plan, the US lent money to Germany so that it might speed reparations that would ultimately end in Allied payments to the US.  It was revised shortly thereafter by the Young Plan, also American, which operated for a short time before succumbing to the Great Depression.
            The Depression, more than any inflammatory rhetoric or territorial demands, hastened the speed to the Second World War.  Germany struggled with the payments, though its economy no doubt sagged when these were combined with global depression.  President Hoover excused Germany from payments from 1931-2, and in 1932 a conference at Lausanne terminated them.  Germany, rather than rejoice, remained embittered at the Allies for the economy-crippling concessions.  The French, ever the proponent for reparations, felt cheated. 
           Meanwhile, trouble brewed on the other side of the world.  In 1931 Japan, member of the League of Nations, invaded Manchuria, a region that was previously and arguably under Chinese control.  The resulting crisis was resolved with ease, though the League members imposed sanctions on Japan.  Japan, offended, withdrew from the League, as did Germany in the following year after Hitler's appointment to chancellor.
            Far from 'seizing power' as some have claimed, Hitler was given the office well within the legal boundaries.  The German elections of 1932 failed to produce a majority.  In its place, German President Hindenburg asked the leader of the National Socialist Worker's Party, which had taken a 40% plurality, to assume the position of chancellor and run the government.  Hitler, as the leader of the National Socialists (Nazis), was delighted. 
The following year, the German Reichstag burned to the ground, the victim of a supposedly Jewish, communist arsonist.  The ensuing fervor resulted in the passage of the Enabling Act, which granted the chancellor full control over the economy as well as over the law.  Hitler, after being in office for only a year, legally became a dictator. (Additionally, it is now believed that the arsonist was Hitler?s associate Joseph Goebbels.) 
National fervor was both a cause and effect of Hitler's successes, though he was not content that it be only national.  He sent agents into Austria and Czechoslovakia for the purpose of stirring up German nationalist feelings and forming Nazi parties among the nations' large ethnic German populations.  His efforts were opposed by Mussolini, leader of fascist Italy.  Mussolini regularly intervened in Austrian affairs to ensure that the only buffer between him and Hitler was kept strong.
Mussolini had his own agenda, however.  In 1936, Italy invaded the Ethiopian-controlled Abyssinia, ostensibly to settle a grievance from the late 19th century.  Perhaps he was merely after a colony that would put Italy in the ranks of France and Great Britain; perhaps he realized that he would soon lose influence in Austria and took Abyssinia as a consolation.  In either case, his move was not warmly received in the League of Nations.  Having previously enacted sanctions against Japan, the League renewed them against Italy, as did the United States and Germany.  The sanctions were a controversial point for England, who sought to end Italy's aggression while at the same time keep it in the League for anti-German purposes.  This task fell upon the foreign secretary Samuel Hoare, who together with his French counterpart drafted the Hoare-Laval plan for Italian appeasement.  The plan, though reasonable, caused uproar in England when it was leaked to the papers in 1935.  It failed; Italy left the League and took all of Abyssinia. The League of Nations, having done nothing, was shown to be a useless debaters club.
Hitler realized this and reoccupied the Rhineland under contrived pretenses in 1936.  The French, though outraged, were politically paralyzed.   An invasion of the Rhineland would amount to French aggression, and it was both politically and militarily infeasible.  Hitler banked on this.  His open repudiation of the Treaty of Locarno set the way for appeasement.
Next, he turned his sight to Austria, where the Nazi party successfully stirred up pro-German feelings. The Austrian government slowly recognized this fact, legalizing the party and even trying to give it a voice in government.  But the Austrian Nazis had come too far, and only a dictatorship equitable to Hitler's would do.  Mussolini did nothing to stop Hitler; his attention was in the Spanish Civil War.  England, too, refrained.  Prime Minister Chamberlain?s pro-Germany views held that it was entitled to its "national aspirations."  Thus, Hitler was given free reign in Austria and in 1938 he exercised it, invading and annexing the Anchluss region. 
The Anchluss affair inspired neighboring Czechs in the Sudetenland, who soon clamored for annexation into Germany.  Rather than take it by force, Hitler simply  "announced that he was dissatisfied; and then waited for the concessions to fall into his lap."  This strategy proved effective, and in September 1938 Chamberlain traveled to Berlin to discuss Germany's interests in Czechoslovakia.  Excluded from the meeting was Edward Benes, the Czech President.  Convinced that Czechoslovakia was Hitler's last demand, Chamberlain acquiesced.  The Sudetenland became part of Germany. 
He was far from finished.  Having gained so much territory in so short amount of time and with such little effort, Hitler announced his interest in Danzig, a Free City in the Polish Corridor.  German public opinion held that the Depression was due to Danzig's status as a Free City, and that German ownership would right this.  England, angry at being deceived, entered into a defense treaty with Poland in case of German invasion.  The English were at last geared for war, though they expected to fight only Germany.  It was with great surprise to them and the rest of Europe when Hitler, the continent?s loudest anti-communist, entered into a treaty with the communist Russian dictator, Stalin. 
The treaty was, for the moment, in Stalin's best interests.  Russia could not hold its own against Germany, and the Allies had little to offer communist Russia.  Hitler drew Russian support when we offered a slice of Poland, which he suggested the two nations conquer together.  And so it was.  In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland.  Russia followed.  The Second World War began.
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