World War II Forum: Versailles

Posted by: Stephen (Prussia1231@ThisIsToPreventSpam-978-RemoveThis.hotmail.com) on 28 Nov 2003 at 8:45:59 PM
In-Reply-To: why did WW2 start? posted by claire clannings on 7:05:09 PM 9 Sep 2003

The main cause for WWII can be found in the "Carthaginian Peace" following WWI. Germany lost it's colonies (including German East Africa which was still occupied by the German army at wars end) Germany also lost the mainly German region of Alsace-Lorraine (88% German in 1900 as well as being historically German) along with Upper Silesia (German from 1181), Memel (German from 1250) and Danzig. Also, the reparation payments of $33,000,000,000 dollars (6,800,000,000,000 in 2003), the destruction of the German monarchy and the sundering of the German army made a future war with France inevadible. As for Poland, there was the wish to re-gain West Prussia and Posen (historically Polish) and Upper Silesia (Historically German). Last but not least Germany was blamed for WWI, when the actual “guilty nation” was Serbia, Followed by Russia and Austria. In fact Germany asked France if it would remain neutral at the beginning of WWI and France refused, so everything that happened in France was, their own fault.

Now for Italy, there was the matter of not getting what was Promised at the end of WWI (Italy was promised part of the Ottoman Empire along with Dalmatia (costal Croatia)) which it never got. In the eyes of the Italians, 650,000 men died for nothing and they too desired revenge.

As for Austria and Hungary, both were sundered, with large numbers of Austrians in Slovenia and the modern Czech Rep. There were also Large numbers of Hungarians in Romania, Slovakia, and Yugoslavia. In the case of both Austria and Hungary, the lands with the minorities were historically theirs and they wanted them, or at least the parts with the most minorities back.

Japan is different. The Japanese were allowed to dominate Asia following WWI and this led to dreams of an empire. Also, Japan hated China and wanted it’s costal lands and started a war over them in 1933. Japan attacked the US because of aide given to China and because of Japan’s wish to control the Philippines.

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