The growth of European tensions 1935 to 1939, including the failure of the League and collective security, the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, the Spanish Civil War, the policy of appeasement, the Nazi-Soviet Pact, and the invasion of Poland

What this dot point is asking

NESA expects you to explain why European tensions grew between 1935 and 1939 to the point that general war became possible. Strong answers integrate the failure of the League and collective security, the dictator alliances (Axis, Anti-Comintern, Pact of Steel), the appeasement of Hitler from the Rhineland to Munich, the end of appeasement at Prague, and the Nazi-Soviet Pact as the immediate enabler of the war over Poland. The Taylor-Overy historiographical debate is the standard frame.

The answer

The failure of the League of Nations

The League of Nations had been founded in 1920 to provide collective security through arbitration and sanctions. It had limited successes in the 1920s (Aaland Islands 1921, Upper Silesia 1921) but no military force and no participation by the United States.

The Japanese invasion of Manchuria (18 September 1931) was the first major test. The League's Lytton Commission report (October 1932) condemned the invasion as aggression. Japan left the League in March 1933. No sanctions were imposed.

The Geneva Disarmament Conference (1932 to 1934) collapsed. Germany left the conference and the League on 14 October 1933. By the mid-1930s the League had no instrument capable of restraining a determined revisionist power.

The Italian invasion of Abyssinia (1935 to 1936)

Italian forces invaded Abyssinia from Eritrea and Somaliland on 3 October 1935. The campaign used aerial bombing and mustard gas. The League imposed limited sanctions on 18 November 1935 (arms and credits but not oil) which hurt Italy without stopping the war. Italian forces took Addis Ababa on 5 May 1936; Emperor Haile Selassie addressed the League at Geneva on 30 June 1936 with his famous warning, "It is us today; it will be you tomorrow."

The Hoare-Laval Pact (December 1935), a secret Anglo-French plan to partition Abyssinia in Italy's favour, leaked and forced Hoare's resignation. The cynicism of the great powers was visible. Italy left the League in December 1937.

The crisis ended the Stresa Front (Britain, France, Italy, 14 April 1935) and pushed Italy towards Germany. The Rome-Berlin Axis was announced by Mussolini on 1 November 1936.

Hitler's revisionism, 1935 to 1936

Germany announced rearmament publicly in March 1935: conscription (16 March), the Luftwaffe (9 March). The Anglo-German Naval Agreement (18 June 1935) authorised a German fleet of 35 per cent of British tonnage, with submarine parity, validating violation of Versailles.

German troops entered the demilitarised Rhineland on 7 March 1936 with orders to withdraw if France resisted. France did not. The Locarno Treaties were dead; the German General Staff was vindicated against its caution.

The Spanish Civil War (1936 to 1939)

The Spanish military rising began on 17 July 1936; the Civil War followed. Hitler and Mussolini backed General Franco's Nationalists; the USSR backed the Republican government; Britain and France ran the Non-Intervention Committee (September 1936) that produced no intervention.

German support: the Condor Legion (around 16,000 air and ground personnel, rotating), Junkers transports for the initial airlift of Moroccan troops, fighter and bomber tactical air support, the destruction of Guernica on 26 April 1937. Italian support: around 70,000 ground troops at the peak.

The war provided combat training for the Luftwaffe and showcased mechanised warfare. The dictators' alignment with each other was deepened; the democracies' irresolution was confirmed.

Anti-Comintern, Hossbach, and the army purge

The Anti-Comintern Pact between Germany and Japan (25 November 1936) was joined by Italy in November 1937. The Pact had limited operational content but signalled the diplomatic alignment of the three revisionist powers.

The Hossbach Memorandum (5 November 1937), Colonel Friedrich Hossbach's notes of a Reich Chancellery conference, recorded Hitler's intent to acquire Austria and Czechoslovakia and to wage a general war by 1943 to 1945. War Minister Blomberg and Army Commander Fritsch raised cautious objections.

Both were forced out in February 1938. Hitler took personal command of the Wehrmacht through the new OKW under General Wilhelm Keitel and replaced Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neurath with the more compliant Joachim von Ribbentrop. The Blomberg-Fritsch crisis cleared the way for the Anschluss.

Anschluss, Munich, Prague

Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg attempted to call a plebiscite on Austrian independence for 13 March 1938. Hitler issued an ultimatum on 11 March; Schuschnigg resigned. Austrian Nazi Arthur Seyss-Inquart "invited" the Wehrmacht in. Hitler entered Vienna on 14 March. The 10 April plebiscite endorsed union with Germany at 99.7 per cent.

Hitler then demanded the Sudetenland (the German-speaking border regions of Czechoslovakia, with 3.5 million ethnic Germans). Chamberlain flew to Germany three times in September 1938: Berchtesgaden (15 September), Bad Godesberg (22 September), and Munich (29 to 30 September). At Munich, Hitler, Chamberlain, Daladier, and Mussolini agreed to the German annexation of the Sudetenland. Czechoslovakia was not represented. Chamberlain returned with "peace for our time."

The Wehrmacht occupied rump Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939. Bohemia and Moravia became a German Protectorate; Slovakia became a Nazi client. Lithuania ceded Memel under German pressure on 23 March.

The end of appeasement

The Prague occupation ended British public support for appeasement. Chamberlain announced a unilateral British guarantee of Polish independence on 31 March 1939. France joined the guarantee. Romania and Greece received guarantees shortly after.

Hitler concluded that the western powers had decided to fight; he ordered the Wehrmacht to plan for war on Poland (Fall Weiss, 3 April 1939). The Pact of Steel with Italy was signed in Berlin on 22 May 1939; Mussolini privately added a note that Italy would not be ready until 1942.

Anglo-Franco-Soviet talks and their failure

Britain and France opened negotiations with the USSR in April 1939 for a three-power alliance against Germany. The talks dragged through the summer. The British and French delegations sent to Moscow in August lacked authority to commit; the Polish government refused to permit Red Army transit through Poland in the event of war. Stalin concluded that the western powers were not serious.

The Nazi-Soviet Pact

The German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact was signed in Moscow by Foreign Ministers Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov on 23 August 1939. The Pact:

• Pledged non-aggression between Germany and the USSR.
• Provided for arbitration of bilateral disputes.
• Included secret protocols dividing Eastern Europe into spheres of influence: Estonia, Latvia, Finland, eastern Poland, and Bessarabia to the USSR; western Poland and Lithuania to Germany.

The Pact stunned the world. From Hitler's side, it averted a two-front war over Poland. From Stalin's side, it bought time to rearm after the Purges and provided territorial gains. From the western view, it isolated Poland.

The invasion of Poland

A staged "Polish" attack on the Gleiwitz radio station (31 August 1939) gave Hitler his pretext. The Wehrmacht crossed the Polish frontier at 4.45 am on 1 September 1939. Britain and France issued ultimatums; on 3 September they declared war. The USSR invaded eastern Poland on 17 September. Poland fell within five weeks; Warsaw surrendered on 27 September.

Timeline of tensions

Historiography

Richard Overy (The Origins of the Second World War, 1987) is the modern consensus: war was driven by Hitler's ideology of Lebensraum and racial conquest.

A.J.P. Taylor (The Origins of the Second World War, 1961) treated Hitler as an opportunist German nationalist; war over Poland was contingent on the British guarantee. The view is largely rejected.

R.A.C. Parker (Chamberlain and Appeasement, 1993) argues alternatives to appeasement existed and were rejected for political rather than strategic reasons.

Donald Cameron Watt (How War Came, 1989) is the standard granular diplomatic study of 1938 to 1939.

Zara Steiner (The Triumph of the Dark, 2011) is the major recent study of the 1930s European international system.

How to read a source on this topic

Sources on the growth of European tensions commonly include the Hossbach Memorandum, David Low's "Stepping Stones to Glory" (8 July 1936), Haile Selassie's Geneva speech, photographs of Guernica, Chamberlain's "peace for our time" film, and the Nazi-Soviet Pact's secret protocols. Three reading habits.

First, fix the date precisely. Appeasement in October 1938 (Chamberlain at Heston) is a different mood from appeasement in March 1939 (Prague). Public opinion reversed in six months.

Second, weigh the Hossbach Memorandum (1937) against the public 1938 diplomacy. The Memorandum outlines war by 1943 to 1945. Sources from the Anschluss and Munich present Hitler's demands as the last territorial revision; the Memorandum reveals the public claims as tactical.

Third, note what is absent. Czechoslovakia was not at Munich; Stalin was not at Munich; Poland was not at the Anglo-Franco-Soviet talks of 1939. The omissions are part of the diplomatic evidence.

Common exam traps

Treating the League's failure as inevitable. The Abyssinian crisis was the test the League failed; before 1935 it retained some credibility. The Hoare-Laval Pact was a choice.

Forgetting the Spanish Civil War's significance. It aligned the dictators, divided them from the democracies, and prefigured tactics (terror bombing, mechanisation).

Misdating the Nazi-Soviet Pact. 23 August 1939, not 1 September.

Treating Taylor as the consensus view. He is the most famous revisionist, but Overy's intentionalist account is now dominant.

In one sentence

European tensions grew between 1935 and 1939 as the League failed over the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, the dictators aligned through the Axis (1 November 1936), the Anti-Comintern Pact (25 November 1936), and the Pact of Steel (22 May 1939), Hitler dismantled Versailles through the Rhineland (March 1936), the Anschluss (March 1938), and Munich (September 1938), appeasement collapsed at Prague (15 March 1939), and the Nazi-Soviet Pact (23 August 1939) cleared the eastern flank for the deliberate German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 that Overy treats as the product of Hitler's ideology rather than (against Taylor) contingent opportunism.