
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Discussion
- Isolationism, League of the Nations Failure and Appeasement
- Nationalism, Collective Ideology, Fascism and Totalitarianism
- Expansionism
- Instability and Economic Depression
- Entangling Alliances
- The uprising of the Warsaw
- The Home Army's plans
- The entering of Warsaw by the Red Army
- Conclusion
- Related History essays
Introduction
The II world war was considered and is still considered to be the worst conflict between the militaries from different European states. This war lasted for a period of seven years. The involved states were the great powers and eventually they formed two opposing camps which fought for the rest of the remaining period. The two alliances of the military were Axis and the Allies. Allies are described as the states that combined their effort in opposing the powers of Axis. Among the Allies included who in this case were anti-German were Poland, UK and France. Later, the US , British empire and the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics assumed the control of the Allies power camp. Axis powers who were also known as Axis nations were those countries that were opposed to Allies in the course of the second world war. These constituted Germany, Italy and Japan. Later they managed to rule the territories dominated by large parts of the Africa, Asia and Europe. The second world war as it is known by the current generation was the most brutal ever as well as the largest war in the history of the mankind.
This has been a key area of study in institutions of higher learning such as military scholars as well as the historians. On the other hand, there exist a generation which has grown without having clue of what happened during the Second World War. This essay intends to discuss into details the causes of the second world war as well as the social, political and military implication of the war. Again the essay will discuss when and why the Warsaw Uprising began. Of essence today is that there is there is a lot of lessons that the current generation can learn from the second ward war II. This can range from arms professionalism, global strategy, preparedness of the military during the war just to mention but a few. It is worth noting that the II world war was triggered in 1938 when Hitler decided to unite all the people who were speaking Germany language. It is here that he demanded that Germany people be liberated in the Czechoslovakia. Before breaking out of the II world war, Neville went to Germany in an attempt to settle his people. It is after 1939 after the pact signed between Germany and Russia that war on Germany was declared by both France and Britain. The years that followed were dominated by wars which were engaged by various states until 1945 when Japan surrendered and her surrender was accepted by MacArthur. This is the year that the II world war was officially terminated.
Discussion
This essay has given an introduction regarding the period within which the II world war took place. Of essence is to make sure that the reader of this essay has got a solid understanding of the whole scenario. As mentioned in the introductory part. The discussion will primarily concentrate on the major events that took place on during the seven years that dominated the worst and major conflict between the two camps that were fighting each other. The essay now embarks on the discussion of what has been introduced in the previous chapter. In this section, the writer embarks or rather starts by unearthing what indeed was the root cause of the war in question before embarking on the other issues that follows.
The root cause of the II world war was four folds. This is because the battle that occurred in Europe was mainly triggered by the act of Poland suddenly being attacked by the Germany while the one that took place in Asia was started when China was being attacked by the Japanese. Other than these two there are other chain of events that are believed to have caused world war 2 and the efforts to find out how this tragedy could have been prevented has been done in vain. The immediate causes of the second world war are as follows:
- Invasion of Poland by Hitler hence bringing Great Britain and France in to war.
- Taking control of Manchuria by Japan hence triggering China into war.
- The attack of US fleet by Japan made US to be involved into war.
- The sudden attack of the USSR by German brought into war the Soviet Union.
Other than the above mentioned causes, the following discussion touches on the other possible root causes of the world war II.
Treaty versatility failures
The agreement which was signed post world war I was a total rejection by the Germany due to the fact that the agreement treated them ruthlessly. The reason why the German people claimed that they were being treated ruthlessly is three folds :
- Severe restriction of the size of the German’s military.
- German loosing its territories to the European states.
- The order of paying $33 billion for compensating the damage made during the war.
These are the reasons why the German people were left with grievances. Since this affected German to an extent that unemployment became unbearable, Hitler decided to breach the treaty that was signed initially. He did this by re-arming his nation and eventually threatening the neighboring states. This was a clear indication that he was ready fo war.
Isolationism, League of the Nations Failure and Appeasement
Treaty of adaptability was being considered as being unjust by those people from Germany who had their mind set that they had been defeated during the World War I. This idea was spread by Ludendorff and Field Marshals. However they are the ones who told the government to get a ceasefire. Although the agreement or rather the signed treaty didn’t prevent the II world war from happening, the great powers were not willing to uphold the provisions of the treaty. The flexibility of the agreement became null and void when the German announced that it had already started mobilizing its military to the size of France’s military. Eventually as a result II world war was initialized by West which since they did not understand the extent of the German’s military re-armament as well as Hitler’s aspiration.
The other thing is that some of the Western countries like Denmark had already surrendered their arm and therefore German had indentified this as a weakness and she would take the advantage to reach Norway.
When the I world war was ended, the nations which emerged as victorious formed a league which would be used as a tool for airing issues regarding aggression of a nation against another. During this period, the United States was not a member while the Soviet Union became a member in 1935. It is in the year 1933 that Hitler became the leader of the German. It is here that he started to go against the agreements made initially by reaming his country hence being ready for the second world war[6]. Again, the Mussolini who was an Italian dictator started to invade Ethiopia. The efforts to impose sanctions on the Italy by the League did not bear any fruits and Italy was therefore in a position to occupy Ethiopia in year 1936.
An alliance with USSR was formed by France due to the manner in which the rearmament of the Germany shocked them. On seeing this, Germany was re-militarized but this time round there was no war that was experienced. The two groups resolved to keep peace. Hitler was motivated by his success and as a result he continued to reinforce his country by re-militarizing and rearming them.
When both the French and the British scheduled a meeting with Mussolini and Hitler, Hitler was increasing load on the Czechs while at the same time the war looked looming. The fact that Germany reclaimed its Memel port from Lithuania was followed by the strain from Poland regarding Polish Corridor as well as Gdansk. After Hitler who was the leader of Germany realizing that he could only achieve his objectives by force, he decided to send his soldiers to the Polish border in 1939.
The policy of isolation as far as united state was concerned assumed that there were no conflict which could occur outside their borders and therefore remained isolated from the rest of the world.
Nationalism, Collective Ideology, Fascism and Totalitarianism
There was excess fear of Bolshevism which was intentionally encouraged by hardliners who were considered as nationalist such as Mussolini and Hitler. It is at this period that Hitler saw it necessary to do away with the Bolshevism as well as the Jews. Both Germany and Italy were motivated to involve themselves in war because they believed that war was acceptable to use it in achieving objectives. Germany also wanted to bring together the dominant race which was German.
Expansionism
It is believed that Italy, Germany and Japan to enslave after conquering new states and eventually eliminate those who lived there. The expansionist of Japanese, Hitler and Mussolini are believed to have been the root cause of the war.
Instability and Economic Depression
The economic depression in the year 1929 was a key factor in the cause of the war. This saw the economy of the Germany to its knees hence making the rate of unemployment in Germany to increase significantly. The people of Germany believed that their leader wanted to deliver them from the problems which they were currently experiencing. However, this was not the case. The motives of the Hitler were to dominate most of the European countries and in addition the entire world. Again, he also wanted to eliminate or rather bring to an end the agreement of Versailles. To realize all these motives , it was important for him to put Russia and France to their knees while still at the camp of both Britain and Italy.
The great depression created climate that allowed dictators such as Hitler to rise to the powerful positions. Since Japan has got no resources for its industries, it was necessary to attack states which at that time had resources which Japan was interested in.
Entangling Alliances
France and Britain’s treaty with Poland increased what could have been otherwise considered as a local war or something bigger than that. Had they decided to go against their agreement as far as the war in Europe was concerned, the end results would have been a serious war between Russia and Germany.
The uprising of the Warsaw
The infamous uprising of the Warsaw can be identified as the armed resistance during of World War II. This involved the liberation of the Warsaw from the rule of Germany and the rule of Nazi by the Polish Home Army. The period which it started is in August 1944 as a part of Operation Tempest. Another thing to consider here and is of great significance is that the Polish soldiers resisted the forces which were being led by Germans. This resistance continued for a period of two months which was until second October. Polish soldiers experienced a lot of looses which was executed by German soldiers inform of mass execution. This resulted in a lot of soldiers from tthe Polish side being killed and others being seriously wounded. As a result, the German soldiers who were acting on the orders given by the Hitler had destroyed the city to almost nothing during the urban combat.
The uprising of Warsaw started when the Soviet army approached Warsaw. The Soviet soldiers apparently were powerful since they were nearing the Vistula River after fierce fighting. However they were not in a position to go further in the line of uprising. This resulted in Stalin being accused that he was not for the success of the uprising. To this far, there were no facts to prove that the Home Soldiers were accomplice of the Soviet army.
The Home Army's plans
The initial plans of the Home Army of the uprising national which in this case would bring an association with the British power, was identified to have changed in 1943 when it emerged that the Red Army had plans to force Germans out of the Poland. The moment when Katyn massacre was discovered, the Polish –Soviet relationship was soured and it was a bit hard to reconcile. This saw the continuation of the plans despite the fact that there were doubts regarding the military intelligence regarding major uprising.
The scenario came to a head as Operation Bagration at that moment the Soviet offensive had reached the Polish border. This triggered the Poles to make a wise decision. They had two options; either not to involve themselves in the uprising and approach Soviet misinformation relating to Armia Krajowa as ineffective cowards and collaborator else risk the troubles with Soviet support by involving itself in the uprising in the current political scenario. This decision became more and more urgent after realization that if there were successful Soviet-polish cooperation in saving various towns, in most cases the Soviet elements who followed had to either shoot or send the officers who resisted to join the Soviet Army to the Gulag.
It was in 1944 that the planning which was being executed by the Germans which required that the Warsaw to be a key ingredient in serving the tough position of the area and to be held no matter what happed. Again, Germans had already set up their soldiers in the area. The failed plan to assassinate Hitler slowed down the process. However, by the end of 1944, the soldiers of the Germany had recovered. It is during the same year that Hans Frank who in this case was the general government governor announced that there would be a meeting of all the men who were between the age of 17 to 65 in various venues of Warsaw. This plan envisioned the Poles to construct defenses for Wehrmacht around the city. This move was viewed by the Home Army as a move planned towards reducing the effect of the underground forces. This led the underground forces asking the Warsaw to pay no attention to it.
Soviet official misinformation’s tried to depict that the Polish underground as not fighting the common enemy. When Soviet solders were approaching the Warsaw in 1944, the radio stations owned by the Soviet issued a harsh rule that demanded complete national uprising in Warsaw so as to demolish or rather interfere with the communication lines of the Germans which were still on the Vistula’s bank. In July 1944, the outskirts of Warsaw were reached by the first Soviet units. However, they were counterattacked by the German soldiers. This resistance had been eventually trampled on by Germany by August impacting almost 95 percent rate of casualty on the Soviet forces who had been encircled. Finally the Polish cabinet held in London approved the plan regarding the Warsaw uprising. What followed is that the Home Army forces were ordered to mobilize in Warsaw area on August of the same Year. This resulted due to the ignored order in support of the reinforcement construction.
This shows that the decision regarding mobilization resulted in key consequences for the relations as far as Soviet Union is concerned. The failure to consult Stalin in the uprising made him to suspect that a strategy was being deployed by his allies from Western. As a result, both Soviet and Polish Home Army were jockeying for alignment of regional politics. Polish Home Army were for a pro –Western Polish government while Soviet were to form a Polish Communist regime.
The entering of Warsaw by the Red Army
The efforts of the red Army was not in vain since they finally got a chance to cross Vistula River. This was in early 1945. After they managed to do this, of interest to them was to get the Festung Warschau ruins without any opposition from Germans. It is thereafter that the German’s units erected negligible conflict in the Warsaw. However, the forces of the Soviet overcame the German forces even without much effort. This move was aided when the High command of Germany decided to redeploy fourth SS Panzer soldiers from the area of the Warsaw to Budapest.
Stalin had particularly disowned the supply of planes right of entry to his airfield, effectively getting rid of assistance for those dying and fighting in the Warsaw. There has always been notion that the Soviet soldiers had a deliberate plan when they failed to advance to Warsaw and assist the Polish uprising which was made by Stalin so as to take the advantage or rather for opportunistic reasons. Again, the situation of the military in the Vistula had changed towards August.
Conclusion
This essay is very important to the reader as the writer has started by giving an introduction of the World War II. Of essence in this essay is those who were involved as well as those who initialized or rather triggered the war. In the discussion part the essay concentrated to what the causes of the world war II and how this is linked to the first world war. Here, the writer come out very clear that the in the second world war, there were two camps which involved themselves in the war as well as those who supported each side. Again, still in the discussion body, the writer has talked about both the Warsaw well as the Stalin.
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