December 7, 1941 is the day the attack on Pearl Harbor took place. A day later The United States and Great Britain declared war on Japan. World War two now had its two largest combatants fully engaged. The war would intensify as man’s inhumanity to man scaled new and scientific heights.
The United States had been assisting its old allies Britain and France with weapons and funds since the beginning of the war in 1939. So soon after the end of the Great War (914-1918), Britain was ill equipped to wage another campaign. The U.S. had declared itself neutral and Adolph Hitler had stated on several occasions he had no desire to go to war with the United States.
Less than half an hour after FDR finished his speech and he request for a declaration of war, Congress passed a resolution to enter a state of war with Japan. The vote was unanimous. A similar vote in the house had only one vote against. Before lunch on December 8, 1941 America was at war.
Many historians have often asked the question of whether or not World War II could have been avoided. Some scholars of military history point to the British led policy of appeasement that existed just before the war and culminated with the Munich Agreement on September 29, 1938, as one way in which the allies failed to realize the threat of Hitler’s regime.
Europe in the aftermath of the First World War was a place full of debt, indignation and upset. Many felt Germany had unfairly taken the blame for a global war; other countries were bankrupt having put everything into the four year war that had killed millions and millions of soldiers and civilians. Many countries, their leaders and their people were sick and tired of violence and death and wanted anything but more war.
Germany for its part was living under the economic pressures of paying for a war they did not start and frustrated at the outcome of the Versailles Treaty which included the payment of reparations, the demilitarization of the Rhineland and the clause that Germany could not build up her army for the foreseeable future.
Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933 and immediately set about reversing all the conditions of the Versailles Treaty. Neighboring nations complained but did not take military action against Hitler when he began to build the new German, remilitarize the Rhineland or even annex Austria (Anschluss) in March of 1938.
Every time the powers in Europe drew the line and told Hitler not to cross he ignored them and they ended up drawing a new line. This police became known as “appeasement” and was a way a continent financially weak and morally exhausted could avoid war. And anyway, Hitler promised he would not attack, invade or occupy any other countries. He wrote a friendly note to then British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain assuring him of his good intentions.
On September 29, 1938, Hitler met with British leader Neville Chamberlain and French leader Edouard Daladier. The meeting was mediated by Italian leader Benito Mussolini and ended in an agreement which Hitler drafted and the other leaders simply agreed to. The treaty stated that the German people of Czechoslovakia in an area known as the Sudetenland would be annexed to Germany in stages during October of the same year. This was in line with Hitler’s policy of Lebensraum and uniting all German peoples every where.
The treaty stated that Czechoslovakia would hand the land over to Hitler despite the fact that the Czech leader was not invited to the discussion and treaty signing but was told of their responsibilities by their allies. The land exchange would occur with Czechoslovakia’s help or they alone would be left to fight Hitler. They had little choice.
| Six months after the signing of the Munich Agreement, Hitler had taken the Sudetenland and divided Czechoslovakia between Germany, Poland and Hungary. The country had no strength to fight and within a year, Europe was at war once again. The Munich Agreement was the last stance in a failed appeasement policy and the nations of Europe would take six years to get Hitler’s Germany under control. |
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