State how each of the following factors were the causes of the Second World War:

(a) The failure of the League of Nations.

(b) The Aggressive Nationalism of Germany.

(c) The Policy of Appeasement.

(a) The League suffered an early blow when the USA did not join the League. Even those who joined the League were not interested in the principle of collective security.

1. The League of Nations succeeded in allaying the threat of war in cases where the parties were small nations.
2. The League did nothing when Poland, with the backing of France, seized a part of Lithuania in 1920.
3. In 1923, there was a threat of war between Italy and Greece.
4. Italy refused to submit to the League's intervention and the dispute was settled by direct mediation of Great Britain and France.
5. Thereafter, in every crisis, the League was either defied or ignored.
6. The authority of the League was flouted by Japan when it seized Manchuria; and by Italy when it conquered Ethiopia.
7. The coercive machinery of the League was not adequate to perform the task given to it.
8. The economic sanctions were of no use against a determined aggressor.
9. Moreover, the member states were not willing to apply economic sanctions as it affected their economy as well.
10. Besides, the League failed to maintain international peace and the countries of Europe lost faith in its usefulness.

(b) The humiliating terms of the Treaty of Versailles gave rise to the spirit of revenge and aggressive nationalism in Germany leading to the Second World War in the following ways:

1. Germany started looking for an opportunity to do away with the harsh treaty. But this was not possible without an aggressive policy and armaments.
2. In 1938, Hitler annexed Austria and dismembered Czechoslovakia.
3. On September 1, 1939, the German armies marched into Poland.
4. France and Britain gave an ultimatum to Germany.
5. In reply, Germany attacked France.
6. On September 3, Britain and France declared war on Germany.
7. The German armies completed the conquest of Poland in less than three weeks so as to ensure that no aid reached Poland.

(c) Appeasement meant accepting the hostile demands of an aggressive nation to gain peace.

1. Britain and France followed the policy of appeasement towards dictatorial countries like Germany and Italy because they felt that the dictators had a real cause of grievance due to the humiliating terms of the Treaty of Versailles and if their grievances were removed they would not disturb world peace.
2. Further, they wanted to check the rising tide of Communism and Russian Bolshevism.
3. Britain and France feared that Germany would divert towards Russian Bolshevism.
4. They, therefore, allowed Germany to rearm and to re-militarise the Rhineland and capture Austria and Czechoslovakia.
5. So without the Western countries' policy of appeasement, Fascism or Nazism could not have survived so long and would not have been able to unleash the Second World War.