I.
The Munich Agreement and
Appeasement
To conclude World War One, the Treaty of Versailles punished Germany, requiring it to demilitarize (especially in the area called the Rhineland), give up land, pay reparations, and sign a guilt clause.
In 1930s, Hitler and the Nazi
Party came to power in Germany. Violated treaty: moved army into Rhineland.
Took over Austria. Formed alliance with
Italy.
Wanted to annex part of
Czechoslovakia. Czech said to other European nations: Help! European leaders
met at Munich (city in Germany). French
and English permitted Hitler to annex Czech – with promise that he’ll expand no
more. This is what we call APPEASEMENT.
Hitler, of course, kept
going, violating the Munich Agreement. Invaded Poland in 1939, causing Britain
and France to declare war, and WWII
began. Next, Germany attacked Denmark,
Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, France. (Blitzkrieg: lightning war.) Also, Italy,
under the leadership of fascist Benito Mussolini, invaded France from the
south. France fell. Then the Germans
bombed the hell out of England in the Battle of Britain. Meanwhile, the Nazis were starting up their
concentration camps – purpose was to separate out “impure and anti-socials”
from “pure” Germans.
In 1941, Germany invaded
USSR. This caught the Soviets off guard
because they (more accurately, the Soviet leader Josef Stalin) had signed a
non-aggression pact with Hitler, dividing Poland among them. Once friends (sort of), they were now
enemies.
Took the U.S. a couple years
to enter. In the late 30s, public sentiment was largely against
involvement. In 30s, America was
isolationist, largely in reaction against what had gotten the country into
WWI. Yet as they watched events unfold
across the Atlantic, FDR and most Americans were clearly anti-Germany. Little by little, America became involved in
the European conflict and supported the Allies, including USSR. (won’t go into the details here)
Of course, what finally
brought the U.S. into the war was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Through 30s, Japan was expanding its empire
in the Pacific. Formed alliance with Germany & Italy. FDR warned Japan to stop its aggressive
actions. Roosevelt resorted to freezing Japanese assets in U.S. and cutting off
Japanese oil supply.
As part of a coordinated
attack all across islands in the Pacific, on December 7, 1941, the Japanese
launched a surprise attack on the U.S. military base of Pearl Harbor in
Hawaii. The attack unified American
people behind the war; America declared war on Japan, then Japan’s allies,
Germany & Italy, declared war on America.
Allies: America (FDR) Axis: Germany (Hitler)
Britain (Churchill) Italy (Mussolini
USSR (Stalin) Japan (Tojo)
[France- occupied by enemy]
Soviets were taking a beating at the hands of the Germans and were eager for the U.S. to attack Germany from the west, across the English channel, through France. Stalin needed his allies to launch a full-scale invasion of western Europe to divert German forces from the Eastern Front. In other words, he was in desperate need of a Second Front.
But in 1942 & 43, the U.S. and Britain concentrated their fighting against Germany & Italy in the Mediterranean and Middle East, mostly North Africa. These months spent in N. Africa allowed the U.S. time to mobilize and to learn hard tactical lessons. In 1943, U.S. troops finally came up through Italy, and though there was some success in that operation, it bogged down the Allies and soaked up Allied resources.
The Allies were assisting Soviets with supplies and $, but not troops. Meanwhile, Soviets were suffering millions of casualties and physical devastation of their land and infrastructure. Yet, the Soviets exhibited remarkable bravery and skilled fighting, all of which earned the admiration of their American allies. Still, the Allies delayed actual military assistance to the Soviets. Allied military leaders explained their tactical reasons for doing so, but a comment made by Vice-President Harry Truman in 1941 is revealing: “If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don’t want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances.” Soviets were very suspicious of their Allies for delaying the opening of the Second Front, certain that America wanted the Soviets and Germans to destroy each other.
Finally, western Allies opened
the Second Front. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, in a daring and risky operation, the
American troops invaded the coast of Normandy in northwestern France. (See film
Saving Private Ryan.) Over the
summer, the Allies slowly moved across France toward Germany – the largest U.S.
operation of the war.
Fast forward to collapse of
Nazi empire in spring of 1945. Soviets
had already occupied most of Eastern Europe, including the eastern part of
Germany, by that time.
Earlier in 1945, the Allies
sensed victory, so the Big Three (Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill) met in
February in the Soviet city of Yalta to plan for the postwar world.
Important issues:
1. Obtain Soviet commitment to join battle against
Japan. (Soviets did agree, and pledged to join the Pacific theater three months
after German surrender -- in return for occupation zones in Asia.)
2. Form United Nations.
3. The future of Eastern Europe:
For a couple of years, the
Red Army (Soviets) had been occupying and installing sympathetic regimes in
Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary. (These countries had helped the Germans.) Soviet armies also controlled Poland.
FDR
was concerned: he wanted free, democratic elections in these areas. Stalin made a vague pledge to allow
participation of noncommunists in coalition governments in eastern Europe. But,
importantly, the Yalta agreement didn’t set a timetable for this pledge. (Free elections didn’t occur in Poland for
over 40 years.)
4. The future of Germany:
Stalin
wanted Germany permanently weakened and its heavy industry & war-making
capabilities destroyed (or dismantled and given to the Soviets.)
FDR
wanted Germany reconstructed and reunited, under the careful supervision of the
Allies. (Think about why America would
want to strengthen its former enemy.)
A
compromise would finally be sought: US, France, England, USSR would each
control its own zone of occupation in Germany (zones to be determined by
position of troops at end of war.)
Berlin (the capital of Germany, located well inside the Soviet zone) was
also to be divided into 4 sectors. At
an unspecified date, Germany was to be reunited, but there was no agreement on
how reunification would occur.
5. Conclusion on Yalta
Compromises
on Germany & Eastern Europe were vague & unstable. Yalta Accords didn’t
really settle important postwar issues but sidestepped them. Soviet & American interpretations of the
Accords differed sharply. FDR hoped that the Soviets would be flexible, that
Stalin could be reasonable, and that the nations’ differences could be settled.
Although
FDR realized that the agreements were “elastic,” Congress and the American people
believed that the Accords represented a firm Soviet commitment. These differing interpretations would
present Harry Truman, very shortly to take office after Roosevelt’s death two
months after the Yalta conference, with a thorny diplomatic and political
predicament.
V. The Atomic Bomb and Hiroshima
In
late 1941, Roosevelt established the Manhattan Project, in which scientists
experimented with atomic energy.
Scientists tested the first atomic bomb in New Mexico on July 16, 1945,
and the explosion astonished even the physicists. As the war against Japan dragged on in the summer of 1945,
several of (new president) Truman’s advisors urged him to use the new
bomb. Lively, sometimes vicious debate,
still surrounds Truman’s decision to drop the bomb on the Japanese city of
Hiroshima on August 6 and on Nagasaki on August 9, a debate which is difficult
to summarize quickly here. Truman
claimed his reason for unleashing the devastation was to end the war quickly so
as to save American lives. Convincing evidence told him that the Japanese were
fanatical and would fight to the last man.
However, other evidence has persuaded some historians that the Japanese
were ready to negotiate and that dropping the bomb was not necessary to end the
war. Many argue that an additional
reason for Truman to use the bomb was to impress and intimidate the Soviets
with the new and awesome weapon of mass destruction. Therefore, dropping the
bomb was another contributing factor to the emergence of the Cold War.