Churchill believed that in order to guarantee the security of Czechoslovakia, Europe should have held Germany back and Britain and France should have worked together as an alliance. George F. Kennan, an American Secretary of State during the cold war also disagreed with the Munich Agreement. Kennan thought that Chamberlain and Daladier only agreed with Germany’s proposal only because they didn’t want to participate in war. Chamberlain and Daladier wanted to maintain the peace in Europe. (Document 6) As written in The Origins of the Second World War, by A.J.P.
When Keynes rejected the scale of reparations placed on Germany and resigned from his post at the Treasury, he lead the way for what many leading politicians were to understand later on. Keynes supported the approach of Lloyd George that for economic and political reasons, Europe needed a successful Germany, which would be seriously difficult to achieve whilst the excessive reparations were placed on them. Furthermore, his book The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919), was successful in influencing the view of Britain that a weak Germany would only make the recovery of Europe after the war, a lot more difficult. On the other hand, from taking this view, politicians were criticised for being 'too lenient' towards Germany. Even Lloyd George, who took a much tougher political approach towards the reparations, received criticism.
Conclusively, America entered the Great War because of a variety of reasons. They were partially influenced by the Germans to enter the war, although they were also influenced by the possibility of economic collapsed. America tried to follow Washington's advice when he said to stay out of war, but America would only be able to stay isolated for so long, and they were influenced enough to break away and enter world-wide relationships were
He frequently did not have a firm grasp on how things would turn out. One of the greatest Commonwealth defeats, at Tobruk, was a direct result of his interference. He felt that he could partially control Soviet actions by personal diplomacy with Stalin. In short, I don't consider Churchill's reactions as evidence that Pearl Harbor could reasonably be expected to bring the U.S. into the war against Germany. Second, why would a successful Japanese attack be more useful to Roosevelt than an unsuccessful one?
To avoid war in the years 1935 to 1938, Britain and France turned a blind eye to small acts of aggression and expansion, the United States went along with this policy. Even though Roosevelt knew of the threat the Fascist proposed he was still worried about the majority of the isolationist throughout the country. Testing the waters in 1937 he spoke about the democracies teaming up and trying to “quarantine” the problem. The public did not take to well on this idea, and he quickly dropped the subject. Even though that speech failed Roosevelt somehow managed to argue for neutrality but at the same time convince Congress to start building up the arms and increase the military and naval budget by nearly two-thirds in 1938.
During his reign Bismarck had practiced a very restrained continental policy and not heeded calls to acquire colonies for the German Empire. In 1896 however the Kaiser proclaimed that “nothing must henceforth be settled in the world without the intervention of Germany and the German Emperor” which signalled the beginning of the German Weltpolitik, or ‘world politics’ and which was formed to acquire colonies and achieve greater dominance for Germany. The unification between the old and emerging elites was to be achieved through a policy of protectionism and through the rallying of Germans through the following of a nationalist foreign policy. In reality however opportunities for colonial expansion under Bulow were actually very limited. Most territory had been seized by other European powers.
Mckinnon emphasizes that the unification of Germany was not an unavoidable outcome of economical forces. However, he does admit that Austrian exclusion from the Zolverein consequently cut them off from German economic life, which lead to important political consequences.Merriman agrees with this and adds that Bismarck was given great support from businessmen that believed they would be given significant economic benefits due to unification. These facts illustrate that although historians such as Keynes state “the German empire was not founded on blood and iron but on coal and iron.” Historians views still differ greatly today, Keynes articulately emphasizes upon how the economic union failed to have a huge impact on the unification of Germany nevertheless he claims that all the impact that the economy did have is easily traced back to Bismarck as the driving force behind it. Perhaps the most important economic factor
The loss of these lands was particularly daunting for Russia since they were of great economic importance. Thus, in comparison with the harsh terms of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, the Germans were in no position or right to complain about the consequences they had to face. The Treaty of Versailles was actually issued quite lenient punishments for the Germans when considering the damage wrought by the war. However, to charge Germany as being fully responsible for the Great War was also unfair and faulty. The assassination of the Archduke of Austria had prompted Austria-Hungary to retaliate by declaring war on Serbia, with the support of Germany.
This did not happen. New thinking was required, enter Keynes! 2. What did Keynes argue in his book The Economic Consequences of the Peace? He argued that reparations forced on Germany by the Allies after WW1 were far too severe and would cripple the German economy to such an extent and would lead to socio-political problems in the future which would not be in the interest of the Allies.
When Hitler became the chancellor of Germany, he issued conscription and also began to rearm his army and build up his army capacity in order to invade both countries such as Czechoslovakia and Poland. In conclusion , even though increased militarism was one of the reasons why the second world war started , it was not the main cause of it. I believed that Britain and France hadn’t followed the policy of Appeasement, Hitler would not have the confidence to implement his plans to take over Eastern Europe. By allowing Hitler to reoccupy the Rhineland (which was against the Treaty of Versailles) Britain and France gave the impression that they were weak, and this allow Hitler to rebuild his army to invade other countries. (Note: the title is from a gcse paper but the essay is