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Role of the US and the Soviet Union

US: after WWI Us followed the policies of Isolationism and neutrality. Most of the policies of the US made the two leaders of the LON (B+I) to feel like they were alone in their attempts to control Germany.

Soviet Union: after joining the LON the foreign policies of the Soviet Union changed. The Soviet Union became and ally to Britain and Italy. B+ I believed that their alliance with the Soviet Union meant they’ll be able to work with the USSR to block Germany. In 1939 the leadership in the Soviet Union changed which meant that it now followed a different and new diplomatic policy.

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Appeasement

It was a strategy to try and keep Germany from breaking into another war. Yet Germany still had horrible international relationships with other countries. Churchill thought that they could make anew anti-fascist alliance, the only European power strong enough to do it was the Soviet Union.

The appeasement was later thought of as a shameful combination of deliberate deception of British public opinion, incompetent leadership and diplomacy, and extremely poor military planning. (this was specially believed to apply to the Chamberlain who was thought of as a ‘guilty man’)

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Failure of the league of nations

A notorious fail of the league of nations was the lack of control they had over the members of the league of nations. This led them to become more of just a title and an actual active organization. Also the constant disagreement between the leaders Britain and Italy caused many problems in the general idea of what the goals of the LON were therefore causing confusion among the members.

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Collective security and the collapse of collective security

The collective Security was the idea that every country who was a member of the League of Nations would collaborate and try to keep the peace in the world and not create conflicts or wars. This led some countries such as Britain to think of it as being the “policemen of the world” and they didn’t want to do it.

The League of Nations did not have a strong enough military that they needed help from the members of the LON to create a collective military that’ll work together to prevent countries from breaking into wars and generally keeping peace. The issue with this was that the League of Nations wasn’t strong enough to force the countries to cooperate and work together so this military didn’t really have actual power.

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Four-year plan

*Re-armament and conscription

*In 1935, Germany announced it would expand its military; it would re-introduce conscriptions, make the army bigger, re-establish the navy and air force. This further weakened ties between Britain, France and Italy (Stresa Front).

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Spanish Civil War

*In 1936, a civil war erupted in Spain between democracy and Nationalists. Hitler also used this conflict to improve his military; there he tested air, land and naval tactics (such as Blitzkrieg) against his enemies.

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Growing German Expansionism in 1930s

*In 1936, Hitler made the risky (yet successful) move of taking back Rhineland.

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Nazi Soviet non-aggression pact

*Hitler signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of Non-Aggression, which was a non-aggression pact between Russia and Germany. In return for no hostile action, German "agreed" to split Poland with Russia.

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Crisis over Czechoslovakia

*Similarly, to its moves to take in Austria, Nazi Germany was determined to take Czechoslovakia. Instead, diplomacy took over, and Czech was forced to give Germany some of its land, and Germany would leave the rest of Czech alone. This was the Munich Agreement, and it was another example of Germany gaining more land without war. However, later in 1939, Germany was convinced that France and Britain would do nothing in response to German aggression against Czech.

*Hitler ordered his army to invade Czech in 1939. This went against the Munich Agreement, but little was done in response. After this invasion, Hitler turned his attention to Poland. However, Poland now had an alliance with Britain and France, so to invade Poland would mean to go to war with Britain and France. So, Germany proceeded to get closer ties to Italy, strengthen its own military, and sing a non-aggression pact with Russia.

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German and Austrian Anschluss

*Germany tries to annex Austria in 1934, but it failed.

*Germany makes another attempt to take in Austria in 1938. This time it was successful; Nazi Germany slowly gained more influence over Austria, caused a political crisis, and then further took control of its politics. Example of Germany violating the Treaty of Versailles

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Germany's challenges to post WW1 order

*The Treaties of Rapallo and Berlin; Germany treaty with USSR. Gives Germany tiny amounts of weapons; allowing limited re-arming of Germany.

*Germany leaves the Disarmament Conference AND the league of Nations in1933

*In 1935, Germany announced it would expand its military; it would re-introduce conscriptions, make the army bigger, re-establish the navy and air force. This further weakened ties between Britain, France and Italy (Stresa Front).