why did WW 2 start?

Question

DAMN I MEANT TO SAY THE WAR WITH THE ASIANS

Answer 1

WW1 and Hitler. For the second part of your question it was the sloppy peace after WW2 that brought us all your problems in Asia today.

The peace after WW1 was a bad one for Germany. The War Reparations were crushing the economy. The Rhine Valley was the industrial heart of Germany and it was demilitarized, the rest of Europe was pretty mad at Germany as well. As part of the peace treaty Germany was broken up into Austria, and Germany.

Germany came a little late to the Industrial Revolution and had to keep playing "catch up" ever since. The mighty nations of France and England were trying to cut Germany out of the nation building game. At the time England still had some of her colonies and was the primary power at sea. Germany was a threat to all that, and the Germans felt that England and France were trying to choke off her resources.

To gain the upper hand the various nations formed a wide range of alliances. This entanglement of alliances is what caused WW1, but the real issues weren’t settled very well. Germany was beaten and broken, but its desires for resources and nation building was still strong and it felt threatened by France and England.

After WW1 the Germany economy was so bad that people had to have wheelbarrow loads of money just to buy a loaf of bread. The public spirit was defeated and the regime of the Kaisers had fallen apart after the war. Into this power void Hitler and the Nazis came to control Germany. Hitler was a very charismatic, and powerful leader, with a genius for leading people. He also had some ruthless people serving with him (to enact his even more ruthless programs).

Hitler’s first goal was to rebuild the German economy and in the process he rebuilt the military production factories in the Rhine Valley and started to prepare for the coming war. Hitler was going to push the rest of the world as hard as he could right up and beyond warfare.

Next Hitler started his “Great Solution” against the Jews. He made the Jews scapegoats of all of Germany’s problems. He used this hatred to unify his people. Then he made them register themselves and their possessions, later he used this to build more power. He confined the Jews to small parts of the cities and then into the camps. He used the money and valuables stolen from the Jews to buy political support, he did the same with their lands and businesses they owned. People that didn’t support Hitler were bribed by the confiscated Jewish wealth to work with him.

Then Hitler started reunifying Germany. He took over Austria without firing a shot, claiming that they were separated Germanic people. He did this elsewhere and started to consolidate his power. Eventually Denmark, Finland and the other nations to the North of Germany also joined the axis powers (Sweden resisted, and Hitler just by passed Switzerland—it was too hard to conquer). When diplomacy and threats failed, he tried trickery, and then he would resort to diplomatic temper tantrums.

England has signed a mutual protection pact with Poland, and France was included. But, that didn’t stop Hitler he made a play of Poland, and he had to invade. When that happened England and France went to war. Hitler quickly took Poland and then turned west. He stomped all over the Netherlands (Holland), and crashed his way thorough Belgium into France. The French had built up a series of forts all along their border with Germany that was considered impregnable. The fort system didn’t cover the border between France and Belgium so when Germany crashed over the border Paris (the French capitol) was quickly taken. This rapid warfare used tanks, that were only invented at the end of WW1, and fast moving infantry; it was called blitzkrieg (a tactic invented by Hitler, and used by the US to win Desert Storm 1). Hitler was the first world leader to correctly use the tank in combat.

In response to Europe’s mutual protection pact Hitler forged the Axis Powers, with Japan and Italy. Italy was never a strong power, but it was the only European nation willing to ally itself with Hitler. Japan wanted to secure its own resources and they had little ties to Hitler and Germany. They too had come to the Industrial Revolution a little late and they wanted more land and more resources. Japan agreed to join the Axis powers so it could take over it’s little part of the world; including all of Southeast Asia. The division between North and South Korea and between North and South Vietnam were a direct consequence of this.

After taking France Hitler and the Italians went to Africa and started their campagin there, under Germany’s greatest tank commander Romwell. This tied down the British forces. England still controlled the ocean. The last major naval battle with Battleships in it was Jutland (in WW1). Where England managed to keep the German navy blockaded in its ports around Denmark, and so denied then access to the sea. Only a few German ships and the submarines (U-Boats) were able to escape the blockade. Hitler knew he didn’t have the naval forces strong enough to invade England so he attacked London. His African Campaign was to tie up the British Army so they couldn’t attack Germany or liberate France, meanwhile he bombed London.

England was now the sole European power in WW1. Hitler started attacking London, in the London Blitz. London is a huge city with most of the English population in and around it. The attacks made on London were random ones, terrorists style attacks, with the same goals of the Hezbollah Rocket attacks against Israel a few months ago. The V1 and the V2 missiles had only a primitive guidance system that got them into the London area. His bombers didn’t have the range to hang around England for long and they couldn’t go further north to attack more of England so they concentrated on London. The V1 was invented because, thanks to English Radar, the British were shooting down the German bombers. The V1 was more difficult to shoot down, and the V2 went too high into the atmosphere for any hope to stop it. Hitler used some dirty tactics during the London Blitz, he had two stage bombs developed. The first bomb exploded and created a lot of damage, then an hour later after all the rescue forces had arrived the second, larger, bomb exploded.

The US had been providing some help to London. The ocean liner the Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine off the coast of the US, because the Germans claimed it was carrying arms for England. Many people in the US wanted to get involved in the war on England’s side, but the large Germanic minority of the North Eastern US did not. When the Japanese made their sneak attack on Pearl Harbor the US joined WW2.

Hitler started WW2, in his diabolical scheme for world domination. He is the template used by every fictional character that wanted to take over the world in the 20th century, he even inspired Stalin. Germany was defeated at the end of WW1, but its problems were resolved, and thanks to the war reparations forced on Germany things were even worse. Hitler saw a chance to take power. He used the Jews as scapegoats to fuel his climb to power. He took over the German government and started preparing for WW2. After that his every action was to increase his power, take more land, and build up his military. When the European powers finally, put their foot down to stop Hitler, he invaded. Hitler invented a new tactic to use tanks properly, and he quickly took over Continental Europe. He had England on the ropes. Some estimates put England within two weeks of giving up. Then he made his mistake, a mistake that would destroy Nazi Germany; he invaded Russia. The US got involved in the war after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in a surprise raid.

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The wars in Southeast Asia were a direct result of WW2. After Germany was defeated all of their conquered lands, and Germany herself were put under ally rule. The Allies of WW2 (England, France, Russia, and the US) split Germany into 4 sectors. The Korean Peninsula, China, and Vietnam were also split up. The intent was to give over the land to democratic rule and let the nations fair for themselves after a demilitarization period, but Stalin (who ruled Russia) refused to give back any land that the Russians had taken. This started the Cold War.

The Communists controlled North Korea, North Vietnam, East Germany and East Berlin. Then Russia supported Mao who became the communist leader that took over China. The US developed a containment policy vs. Communism. They had to because Stalin said he wanted to turn the entire world communist. We are still facing those problems today.

North Korea was a communist nation and they invaded South Korea in an attempt to take over the entire nation. The US lead a UN force against the North and almost kicked them out of their own country. Then China sent forth millions of men to support the North. The US and UN forces were pushed back to the 38th parallel, and the stalemate still exists today. The 38th parallel was an arbitrary line to split up the areas of Ally control. It was never meant to be a border.

Vietnam was controlled by the French, and the Vietnamese people wanted to unite their nation and free themselves from French rule. After the US refused to help, they turned to China and Russian.

The Chinese Communists had a different idea of how communism should go than the Russian Communists and fought some skirmishes over it. Now days the border is strongly defended and the two nations are not friendly toward each other.

The problems in the Middle East also were a direct consequence of WW2, and the sloppy peace afterward. When faced with the horror of Hitler’s treatment of the Jews it was decided to give them their land back. So part of the Holy Land was carved out and made into the new nation of Israel. Oil hadn’t been found in the territory so a lot of the people were primitive, such as the Bedouin nomads. You can still that large parts of Iraq and Afghanistan are wooden and clay hovels that Jesus would have felt comfortable in. Since the people in the area were so poor no one cared when the Palestinians were kicked off the lands that their families had owned for over a century.

When oil was found in the region by the Americans, the English and the French. The region became the largest oil-producing region in the world. As the nations started to become industrialized they took over the oil wells, kicked out most of the foreign companies and started to become rich. Now the Moslems of the reach had the money to try and help the poor Palestinians. Hezbollah and Hamas are terrorists organizations that provide some services to their people, so they are popular with the public. The Palestinians are too weak to take on even Israel (a great customer for US arms), much less than the US, so they fight as terrorists.

Iraq, Syria, and Egypt had close ties to Russian and were buying Russian arms. As part of the Cold War the US needed all the allies in the region it could get, especially in the oil rich regions. Therefore the US supported the Shaw of Iran and Israel. The Shaw of Iran was a brutal dictator, like Sadam Hussian, they had to be brutal to stop the civil war we see starting in Iraq. The Shaw was very unpopular and eventually fled Iran. A religious ruler was the only ruler that could prevent the people from killing each other off. So they came to power in Iran, since the US supported the Shaw and since the Shaw was a brutal dictator the Iranians blame the US and are their enemies. The US support of Israel makes it only worse.

The Islamic Freedom Fighters were fighting against Russian control in Afghanistan. The War in Afghanistan was quickly turning into another Vietnam with the Russians on the losing end of the stick. The US supported the Northern Tribes and provided them with Stinger Missiles. This one weapon rendered the Russian HIND Helicopter (a flying tank, it is similar to the US Apache, but it has more armor) almost useless and threatened all Russian aircraft. US support, CIA support, and special training by US Special Forces helped the Northern Tribes finally kick Russia out of the nation. A few years later the Afghani government fell. The religious Talibin took over. The Northern Tribes returned to the North of Afghanistan and Iraq where they live and are the allies of the US today.

Osama Bin Laden was (is) a rich Saudi who gave to the Palestinians and supported the terrorist groups. He Okayed the attack on 9/11 on the World Trade Center in New York, which prompted the US to invade Afghanistan. Osama Bin Laden WANTED the US to invade. He thought that he could bog the US down in a long and bloody war. It didn’t work, so he retreated to the mountains in the north, and then fled into Pakistan (a US ally). The Northern tribes in Pakistan are barely controlled by the Pakistani Government so while they were willing to search their country, they weren’t willing to search in the north and possibly start a civil war.

Answer 2

After WW1 the Treaty of Versailles falsely laid the blame for the war on Germany and the Kaiser, the fall of the German government created a major power vacuum and a feeling of national resentment and humiliation that led to Hitler's coming to power. The U.S. refused to ratify the treaty because Woodrow Wilson said it would mean that we would have to fight the war all over again, as we did. Japan was following the lead of Western powers, essentially doing the same thing in Asia that Europe and America did a couple of decades earlier in the Middle East. War broke out because the Axis powers got too greedy, they could have quit while they were ahead and the war would have been avoided, leaving them in possession of all they had taken.

Answer 3

Japanese. Not Asians. Japan invaded Korea and China, for example. Anyway, the US got into the war when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, a Naval Base in Hawaii. And as they were part of the Axis [Germany, Italy, Japan], we declared war and joined the Allies.

The European part was started when Hitler invaded Poland.

Answer 4

Three antagonists, Germany, Italy, and Japan

The Japanese invaded China in 1931, Italy invaded Ethiopean in 1932, and Germany invaded Poland in 1939 (Germany and Italy allied themselves in 1939)

The invasion of Poland brought The United Kingdom and France into the war because of treaty obligation with Poland.

The actual REASONS ?? Well, Hitler used the economic depression of German (as a result of the Treaty of Versallies which ended WW I ) to get the Germans' anger.. then he used rearming to get the economy rolling again... then he decided they needed some 'Living-Room'...

I would have to research to find Italy's reasons... but they were similar to Germany's... economic depression, political tormoul, and a new leader (Moussoulilin) with Empireal ambitions.

Japan needed raw materials to fuel THEIR ambition of ruling Asia and the Western Pacific.

Answer 5

Well, the usual answer is Pearl harbor, but there was an oil embargo against the Japanese for their aggression in Asia. I think they attacked Pearl harbor because of that, and also it's believed the US wanted a way into the war in Europe. Hence Pearl Harbor as an excuse.

Answer 6

German aggression + Japanese aggression

Germany wanted to overcome the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles. There was a leader (Hitler) who was able to capture a sense of nationalism unrivaled in the modern era. He was too ambitious and megalomaniacal, however. He overextended his army and lost. He spent his resources on projects (like imprisoning Jews) that would have been better spent on the war.

Japan wanted to control all of Asia, from Korea and Japan to Australia. They wanted the Pacific for themselves. They had a good chance at it, too, but they made the mistake of "awakening the sleeping giant" that was the U.S. Also, the Japanese were very productive and innovative, but they failed to adapt to a changing war, and we were able to cut off their supplies of natural resources.

It was also a time when democracy was challenged by the new ideas of totalitarian governments. Many people thought democracy was a dead concept. Thanks to the U.S. of A. we know otherwise.

Answer 7

The Japanese agression in Manchuria prompted, among other reactions, an embargo on steel and other industrial goods.

This pissed the Japanese off.



So, as often happens when someone is pissed off, they struck out without really pausing to consider just WHO they were hitting or what would happen after that.

They did pretty well for a while, but the end result was inevitable.

Answer 8

Germany began bombing Poland in 1933.This was a signal to the world it was coming.Dec 7 1941 the Japaneese in a cowardly sneak attack bombed Pearl Harbour in Hawaii sinking a number of American ships.At the same time as the attack the Japaneese ambassador to the U S was having a peace meeting with Pres Roosevelt.

Answer 9

Well Japan invaded China. Then Japan decided to attack Pearl Harbor.. in return we dropped a tidy little package right in the heart of Japan

Answer 10

Japan made a preemptive strike on the US & Germans had a psycho running loose playing leader

Answer 11

Germany declared war on the U.S. after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor...thinking the U.S. would be helpless without most of it's Pacific fleet.
Then to prove his point he ordered U-boats to start targeting U.S ships....military and civilian.
The as you know by now.......we kicked butt.