The Causes of World War II: From Pearl Harbor to the Fall of Berlin (part I)

The tension-filled process we have traced step by step up to this point, economic depressions, collapsing peace treaties, and rising totalitarian regimes, has finally reached a point of no return; a new and profoundly dark curtain is now rising on the stage of history. The suffocating tension previously felt only at diplomatic tables and rally squares is about to be replaced by the roar of artillery on the front lines, ruined cities, and total destruction that will alter the fate of millions. If you are ready, we are embarking on a journey into the bloody trenches of World War II, the greatest catastrophe human history has ever witnessed, and the massive turning point that would change the world forever.

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The Causes of World War II: The Collapse of Peace

The fragile peace order established after World War I actually carried the very seeds of a new, much larger conflict within itself. The primary cause of this catastrophe, which dragged the world into total destruction, was Germany’s absolute desire to tear up the Treaty of Versailles and expand its borders under the objective of “Lebensraum” (Living Space). This was compounded by the aggressive policies of fascist Italy, frustrated by its lack of territorial gains despite being a WWI victor, and Japan’s imperialist ambition to expand its colonial territories and become the absolute power in the Pacific.

Meanwhile, as the new borders drawn at the Paris Peace Conference entirely ignored nationalism and ethnic realities, causing endless minority crises across Europe, the League of Nations, founded to protect global peace, turned into a mere paper tiger. The League stood by helplessly as Japan invaded Manchuria, Italy occupied Abyssinia, and Germany remilitarized the Rhineland. On top of all this tension, Germany and Italy's involvement in the Spanish Civil War, where they supported the fascist General Franco to ruthlessly test their new weapons on civilians just before the Great War, officially unleashed the inevitable and bloody storm of World War II.

The League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland (1930)

Germany’s Expansionist Moves

Hitler’s Germany completely tore up the military restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles and subsequently put into action his strategy of uniting all German-speaking populations under a single state. In line with this, Germany annexed Austria without firing a single shot on March 12, 1938, and immediately turned its sights toward Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland. Due to the concessive “policy of appeasement” pursued by Britain and France out of fear of a new war, the Sudetenland was practically handed to Germany on a silver platter through the Munich Agreement on September 29, 1938, a conference where Czechoslovakia was not even represented. Following these audacious moves, the German government began pressuring Poland over the Danzig region, the last remaining dispute, and ultimately secured its eastern flank before the great Western assault by signing a shocking Non-Aggression Pact with the Soviet Union on August 24, 1939, removing the final diplomatic obstacle to war.

Italy and the Formation of the Axis

Meanwhile, pursuing aggressive expansionism in the Mediterranean basin, Mussolini’s Italy completely abolished all democratic practices at home and enforced a policy of forced Italianization upon other ethnic groups. Directing its foreign policy entirely toward colonization and declaring the Mediterranean as “Our Sea” (Mare Nostrum), just as in Ancient Rome, Mussolini began to advance rapidly across North Africa and the Balkans. Moving closer to Germany through the shared ground of totalitarian and fascist ideology, Italy joined the Anti-Comintern Pact with an agreement signed in Rome on November 6, 1937. With Italy’s critical participation, the “Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis”, the most destructive and bloody alliance block in world history, was officially established, completing the military tripod of the approaching global catastrophe.

Benito Mussolini inspecting troops during the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935

Japan and the Anti-Comintern Pact

Having taken over Germany's colonies in Asia after WWI, Japan was in search of new territories and raw materials to feed its rapidly industrializing and growing economy. Setting its sights on China, Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and declared all-out war on China in 1937. Just as in Europe, the League of Nations failed to take any concrete steps against this bloody occupation in the Far East and merely acted as a bystander.

Japan's unstoppable rise in Asia profoundly disturbed the United States, which had interests in the region, and the Soviet Union, a border neighbour. Just as Germany felt squeezed between France and the USSR in Europe, Japan felt trapped under the pressure of the US and the USSR in the Pacific. Wishing to dismantle the current world order (status quo), these two nations found common ground by designating the “communist” threat as their mutual enemy. With the Anti-Comintern Pact signed in Berlin on November 25, 1936, the “Berlin-Tokyo Axis” was established, thereby uniting the expansionist powers of Asia and Europe on the same front.

Chinese soldiers battle the Imperial Japanese Army in Taierzhuang, 1938

Britain, France, and the “Policy of Appeasement”

Britain and France were experiencing an incredible diplomatic blindness. The British Prime Minister of the time, Neville Chamberlain, would go down in history as the “Policy of Appeasement.” Chamberlain believed that if minor concessions (such as the Sudetenland) were given to Hitler, he would stop and be satisfied with what he had. He even hoped that Germany could serve as a shield against the Soviet Union.

Although France had formed alliances with Czechoslovakia in 1924 and the Soviet Union in 1935, it did not dare to act alone without Britain. Therefore, France was forced to follow its ally Britain's lead and support this passive appeasement policy.

The pinnacle of this fatal policy was the Munich Agreement of September 29, 1938, where Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland was handed to Germany on a silver platter. However, the West’s hopes were soon to be buried in the rubble. On March 15, 1939, when Germany invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia, where not a single German lived, Chamberlain faced the bitter truth. Declaring the complete bankruptcy of the appeasement policy to the world, Britain urgently gave border guarantees to Poland and began serious war preparations. However, the price for those years wasted at the peace table trying to stop fascism would now be paid with millions of lives on the battlefield.

Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister, in 1941. Photograph by Karsh of Ottawa

The USSR

Hitler’s refusal to settle for the Munich Agreement, drove Western democracies into a panic. To stop this fascist advance, Britain and France sought a triple alliance with the Soviet Union (USSR). However, the ideological abyss and lack of trust between the West and the Soviets prevented this alliance from materializing.

While the West was wasting time at the table, Hitler had already made his move. On August 23, 1939, news broke that shocked the entire world: two sworn enemies, Germany and the Soviet Union, had signed a 10-year “Non-Aggression Pact.” The visible clauses of this pact were highly explicit:

• The two states would refrain from any aggressive actions against each other.
• If one party were attacked by a third state, the other would absolutely not support that third state.
• Neither would join any state grouping directed against the other, and they would remain in constant contact regarding mutual interests.

However, the true meaning of this pact was much darker: Germany had secured its eastern border (the neutrality of the USSR). Now, there were no diplomatic obstacles left for Hitler to crush Poland and officially start the war.

Pearl Harbor on October 30, 1941, a month prior to the attack, with Ford Island visible

The Awakening of the Sleeping Giant: The USA Enters the War

While Europe was in flames, the United States initially avoided entering the war directly. Instead, it took on the role of the “Arsenal of Democracy,” providing massive amounts of weapons and ammunition aid to France and, most notably, Britain.

However, the fate of the war was completely altered by an unexpected blow from the Pacific. Seeking to break the US oil embargo and remain unrivalled in the Pacific, Japan launched a devastating surprise attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941. This sudden and staggering assault broke the American public's resistance to war overnight, and the US officially entered the conflict with all its military and industrial might. With the world's largest industrial giant joining the Allies, the tide of the war changed fundamentally; Germany, which had only attacked and expanded until that day, was slowly forced into a defensive posture, trying merely to protect its existing borders. 

We will follow the war itself, the turning points, the fallen cities, and the decisions that would determine which world would emerge from the ruins. See you in the next part!

The Rise of Fascism, Nazism, and Militarism before WWII

In our previous posts, we talked about the world economy's collapse under the weight of Black Thursday, leaving millions desperate and governments powerless. But history has a cruel pattern: where poverty and humiliation take root, extremism finds fertile ground. The 1930s produced dictators; they produced several, and almost simultaneously, on opposite ends of the globe. In Italy, a former journalist transformed street violence into state power. In Germany, a failed artist rewrote the rules of democracy until there were no rules left. In Spain, a civil war became the world's dress rehearsal for the catastrophe ahead. And in the Far East, an island nation decided that the only answer to economic desperation was conquest.

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The Rise of Fascism in Italy: Il Duce and the Blackshirts

Despite being one of the victors of World War I, Italy was dominated by massive disappointment and an economic crisis because it could not get what it wanted at the peace table. This negative atmosphere in the country mostly benefited one man and his ideology: Benito Mussolini, known as “Il Duce” (The Leader), and his Fascist Party.

Following the 1921 elections, the radical ideas of the Fascist Party began to spread rapidly among the masses. Taking advantage of this momentum, Mussolini organized the famous March on Rome in 1922 with the “Blackshirts”, a violent group of volunteer fascist militias. After seizing power that same year following this massive show of force, Mussolini's very first action was to ruthlessly put an end to all democratic practices in the country, establishing his absolute dictatorship.

Having completely silenced the opposition at home, Mussolini turned his eyes to the Mediterranean basin for his foreign policy. Calling the Mediterranean “Our Sea” (Mare Nostrum), just like in Ancient Rome, Il Duce began to pursue an aggressive and expansionist colonial policy aimed at resurrecting the glory of the ancient Roman Empire.

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The Rise of Nazism in Germany: From Weimar to Dictatorship

The political and economic chaos during the early years of the German Republic, established by the Weimar Constitution in 1919, incredibly accelerated the rise of right-wing movements and Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi Party). To increase its power on the streets and violently intimidate its political rivals, the Nazi Party created its own paramilitary forces known as the SA (Storm Detachment) and the SS (Protection Squadron).

Entering the German parliament for the first time in the 1924 elections, the Nazi Party made very clear and radical promises to a desperate public: tearing up the humiliating conditions of the Treaty of Versailles, fighting a relentless battle against communism, and asserting the absolute superiority of the German (“Aryan”) race to the world.

After completely seizing power in the 1933 elections, the Nazi Party used the heavy pressure of these armed forces to ban all other political parties, establishing an absolute Nazi dictatorship in the country. The regime wanted to control the present as well as the future. It went so far as to place special propagandists in party schools and youth organizations established in 1934 to indoctrinate the younger generations. The party established the ruthless secret state police known as the Gestapo to silence opposition and strictly control all public activities.

Germans were developing industry in underground bunkers, defying the strict restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. Generated by AI

Hitler's Foreign Policy: Tearing Up Versailles and “Lebensraum”

Having completely consolidated his dictatorship at home, Adolf Hitler turned his eyes outward. During this period, the German foreign policy shaped by the Nazis was built on three main, aggressive objectives that would drag the world into a new catastrophe:

• Breaking the Chains of Versailles: To completely break free from all the heavy conditions and restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles, which strangled Germany militarily and economically and was seen as a massive humiliation by the public.
• One Nation, One State: To unite all ethnic Germans scattered across different regions of Europe (such as Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, etc.) under the roof of a single, massive state.
• Living Space (Lebensraum): This was the most dangerous principle of the regime. It aimed to conquer and annex the vast territories (especially in Eastern Europe) that the superior German (Aryan) race needed to live comfortably, multiply, and be agriculturally and industrially self-sufficient.

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The Spanish Civil War and the Franco Era: A Nation Divided

Another country affected by this totalitarian storm in Europe was Spain. The process, which began with the army seizing power in 1923, failed to solve the country’s socio-economic problems and pushed social polarization to its peak. This growing crisis dragged the nation into a bloody civil war in 1936.

The Spanish Civil War was fundamentally fought between two irreconcilable factions: the left-leaning Republicans, who formed a government in Valencia, and the right-wing Nationalists, led by General Francisco Franco.

Franco in a meeting of his government, 1939

This war remained solely an internal Spanish issue; it practically turned into an international rehearsal for the approaching World War II. While the Republicans received ideological support from France and military backing from the USSR, General Franco's Nationalist forces received massive weapons and air power support from the Nazi regime in Germany and the Fascist regime in Italy.

This bloody civil war, which lasted for three years and left the country in ruins, ended in 1939 when Franco's forces captured the capital, Madrid. Emerging victorious and seizing absolute power, Franco made a highly cunning move, even though he had come to power with the help of Germany and Italy. Knowing that his country could not survive another devastation, he did not enter Spain into World War II. This strategy of neutrality prevented him from being overthrown like Hitler and Mussolini, and Franco ruled Spain with an iron fist until his death in 1975.

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The Rise of Militarism in Japan: From Washington to the Great Depression

While totalitarian regimes were gaining power in Europe, a different kind of storm was brewing in the Far East. Japan’s aggressive and expansionist policy in Asia from the 1920s onwards drew massive backlash from Western powers (especially the US and Britain) who wanted to protect their interests in the region.

To halt this escalation, the Washington Naval Conference was held in 1922. The primary goal of the Western powers at this conference was to impose strict limits on Japan's rapidly growing naval forces, thereby preventing a potential attack on China.

However, these diplomatic efforts did not last long. The 1929 Great Depression struck Japan, a nation desperate for raw materials and new markets. The desperation caused by the economic crisis incredibly increased the military's power in politics. Seeing the conquest of new territories as the only way out of the crisis, Japan accelerated its expansionist policies and began to base its entire state policy heavily on military power (militarism). This shift would inevitably turn the Pacific into one of the bloodiest theatres of World War II.

The stage was set. The players were in position. Italy was dreaming of a new Roman Empire, Germany was rearming in the shadows, Spain had just emerged from a bloody rehearsal, and Japan was eyeing the vast territories of the Pacific. The world had seen the warning signs and ignored every single one of them.

In the next chapter, we arrive at the moment history had been building toward for two decades: World War II.

See you in the next part.