Could World War II have been avoided?

Question

I remember learning in school that there was some sort of arrangement after World War I which meant that Germany had to disarm their military, and were not allowed to amass such a huge army again.
Why wasn't this agreement kept? Did nobody see it coming? Wasn't there anything anyone could have done to stop the Germans from creating the huge military force that they used in World War II?
Could such a massive loss of life been avoided?

Mandysbaby you are a ******* sick bastard!!! Get a life!

Sorry about that, you can all ignore the above comment now. The answer has been removed.

Answer 1

As my parents and grandparents tell it, no one really believed that mankind would be so stupid as to ever get into a war like "The Great War" (WW1) again. No side won and a lot of people died for essentially nothing.

So, when Hitler came along, he was first thought of as just a raving lunatic that would soon be pushed into political limbo and then disappear. By the time he consolidated power, it was too late to do anything but confront him militarily - and no nation wanted to do that. Chamberlain's negotiation over the Sudetenland proved that Hitler could not be trusted and that everyone was terribly naive about never getting into another war.

To answer your primary question ---- Sure, but the western US would now be bilingual Japanese-English and the eastern US would be bilingual German-English.

Answer 2

Germany didn't have a large army at the start of ww2. What they had was a well organized , highly mechanized, small army. The treaty never said anything about aircraft and Germany took advantage of that. Making a large air force to help the army. While other nations were still thinking trench warfare and using horse drawn carts , Germany's army used tanks and trunks to move it's army. Germany made the autobahn to move troops from one part of the country to another not just for cars. The ability to move troops quickly and support them with air power made Germany's army seem larger than they were. No one believed Germany could take on Poland or France and win. There army was just to small.
A fairer treaty at the end of ww1 might have helped , but hatred against the Jews was a constant in Europe. Germans felt hemmed in by the rest of Europe. Like the rest of Europe was ganging up on then. So when some one ( Hitler ) came along and said he could fix all that and make everyone sit up and take notice of Germany. Germans were willing to follow. So without a far fairer treaty at the end of WWI , one that would have helped avoid the depression , little could have stopped ww2 from happening.

Answer 3

Prime Minister Lloyd George at the treaty of Versailles actually said that this was a treaty to start a war in 20 years and how true he was.
In the 30's when the Nazi Party came to power, most of the world was in turmoil due to mass depression, unemployment and the memories of the Great War where still in the generation controlling the goverments. Appeasement was used, because no country could stand up to the demands of another, they needed assistance from a partner country or two.
Yes, the war could have been avoided if Finances had been tackled properly, if the markets had not slumped, if the League of Nations had teeth, if the threat of revoloution and communism had been crushed, if the armed forces of the democratic powers had been stronger, if the peace treaty of 1919 had not been so harsh and fair to all parties, if a number of revoloutionary leaders had been killed or arrested and deposed properly. Timelines and History could have changed, normally in a number of ways.

Answer 4

After WW1 there was a feeling in France and Germany that another war should be avoided at all costs so this gave Hitler plenty of scope to increase his forces and override the provisions of the Treaty of Versaillles
He built up the Luftwaffe by encouraging gliding and recreational flying. Many of the planes proved to be prototypes for the military aircraft
With the navy he was not allowed to build ships over a certain size so he produced pocket battleships which were more powerful than the larger ships.
Don't imagine that the politicians in France and Britain were all opposed the Hitler.
France had a right wing government and so did Britain and many of the ruling classes saw Germany as a buffer against the Soviet Union and shared Hitler's hatred of Communism.
One man who saw it coming was Churchill but he was unpopular in the 1930s

Answer 5

People have been answering one part of this question, the ETO. That part of WW2 is traced back to the end of WW1 and the Treaty of Versailles harsh treatment of Germany. Germans felt stabbed in the back by this treaty and loved anything and anyone who broke the treaty. WW1 didn't have a victor, not like the treaty states. These harsh conditions ruined what was left of Germany's economy allowing the rise of a dictator like Hitler.

Now for the other part, the PTO. Japan wanted an empire, like the European powers and the USA. It wanted an Asian sphere of influence in the Pacific. To this end they had engaged in wars with china and Russia around the beginning of the 20th century. After WW1 they began building a powerful navy, halted by the Washington naval conference, then expanding into China in the early 1930s. IMO only a united diplomatic effort by the European powers and the USA would have stopped the Pacific war.

Answer 6

The logical way to have avoided WW2 would have been to avoid WW1 and the crippling reparations inflicted on Germany as punishment.
Here's an interesting fact.......

The British royal family now have a succession which passes to the oldest child of the monarch regardless of sex. Back in the 19th century, the oldest male child succeeded the monarch. A female could only become monarch if there were no male children. Queen Victoria's oldest child was a girl, and was the mother of Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany. Therefore, if the oldest child, rather than the oldest male child (who became Edward VII) had succeeded, Britain and Germany would have had the same monarchy, and would have been unlikely to go to war with each other.
As King George of Britain, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, and Nikolas Tsar of all the Russias were cousins, WW1 could be seen as a family argument that got a bit out of hand !

Sorry, I went a bit off topic there.

Many governments and politicians (notably one Winston S. Churchill) saw war coming, but the prevailing policy at the time was one of appeasement - Britain and France, in particular, were terrified of a repeat of the carnage of WW1, and bent over backwards to avoid conflict with Mr Hitler's Germany. Much of the training and build-up were conducted in secret in the Soviet Union, under the protection of one J. Stalin. Which is fairly ironic, when you consider what happened to the Soviets in 1941!

Answer 7

Suggest you read Sir Arthur Bryant's brilliant book "Unfinished Victory" which shows how WWII was really just a continuation of WWI and how the reparations imposed on the Germans (largely at the insistence of the French) lead to a sense of injustice on the part of the Germans as a result of the economic hardship that followed from paying huge sums that Germany would never be able to afford. The Nazis exploited the feeling of ordinary Germans that the rest of the world was against them, and promoted the notion of a strong Germany. That notion eventually found its expression by invading neighbouring countries and hence the start of WWII

Answer 8

from what i remember of studying in world history ap, I know that the appeasement of hitler happened by the other nation leaders. They thought if they just let him get what he wanted i think it was moving the military into Rhineland and imposing on the Czechs. i think if they had stopped him this may have been avoided because they didnt want to get into another war but this happened anyways.The germans broke the agreement that was signed because they were angered, which is understandable, they had to pay a huge debt and take responsibility for the war, this wasnt right because many parties were part of it. they just wanted revenge, but if even hitler was stopped i'm pretty sure he wouldve found a way to war regardless. He was pretty clever.

Answer 9

Don't blame the German's for the cause of WWII, it was because of the previous war that lead to this war. First of all, when the first war ended, the treaty that was made blamed germany for starting the war, when it was another country (Austria I think). The treaty also caused Germany to fall ecomiomilly. Thus Germany was being bullied by everyone else, and when you cross the limit, a war starts.

Answer 10

Germany just ignored all warnings and carried on regardless of all criticism to stop them , Britain would have had to start a war much sooner plus Brittan had a pacifist prime minister Chamberlain who let the Germans get away with mass murder
so to avoid any confrontation