page_title: Causes of World War II
section_title: Legacies of the First World War
hierarchical_section_title: Causes of World War II / Ultimate causes / Legacies of the First World War
caption_attribution_description: English: Council of Four at the WWI Paris peace conference, May 27, 1919 (candid photo) (L - R) Prime Minister David Lloyd George (Great Britain), Premier Vittorio Orlando (Italy), Premier Georges Clemenceau (France), President Woodrow Wilson (USA)
context_page_description: Historians from many countries have given considerable attention to studying and understanding the causes of World War II, a global war from 1939 to 1945 that was the deadliest conflict in human history. The immediate precipitating event was the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany on September 1, 1939, and the subsequent declarations of war on Germany made by Britain and France, but many other prior events have been suggested as ultimate causes. Primary themes in historical analysis of the war's origins include the political takeover of Germany in 1933 by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party; Japanese militarism against China; Italian aggression against Ethiopia; and Germany's initial success in negotiating a neutrality pact with the Soviet Union to divide territorial control of Eastern Europe between them.
  During the interwar period, deep anger arose in Weimar Germany regarding the conditions of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, which punished Germany for its role in the First World War with severe conditions and heavy financial reparations in order to prevent it from ever becoming a military power again.
context_section_description: By the end of World War I in late 1918, the world's social and geopolitical circumstances had fundamentally and irrevocably changed. The Allies had been victorious, but many of Europe's economies and infrastructures were devastated, including those of the victors. France, along with the other victor countries, was in a desperate situation regarding its economy, security, and morale, and understood that its position in 1918 was "artificial and transitory". Thus, Prime Minister of France Georges Clemenceau worked to gain French security via the Treaty of Versailles, and French security demands, such as reparations, coal payments, and a demilitarized Rhineland, took precedence at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919–1920, which designed the treaty. The war "must be someone's fault – and that's a very natural human reaction" analyzed historian Margaret MacMillan. Germany was charged with the sole responsibility of starting World War I, and the "War Guilt Clause" was the first step towards a satisfying revenge for the victor countries, namely France, against Germany. Ginsberg argues, "France was greatly weakened and, in its weakness and fear of a resurgent Germany, sought to isolate and punish Germany....French revenge would come back to haunt France during the Nazi invasion and occupation twenty years later."
  The two main provisions of the French security agenda were war reparations from Germany in the form of money and coal and a detached German Rhineland. The French government printed excess currency, which created inflation, to compensate for the lack of funds, in addition to borrowing money from the United States. Reparations from Germany were necessary to stabilize the French economy. France also demanded that Germany give France its coal supply from the Ruhr to compensate for the destruction of French coal mines during the war. The French demanded an amount of coal that was a "technical impossibility" for the Germans to pay back. France also insisted on the demilitarization of the German Rhineland in the hope of hindering any possibility of a future German attack. This gave France a physical security barrier between itself and Germany. The inordinate amount of reparations, coal payments, and the principle of a demilitarized Rhineland were largely viewed by the Germans as insulting and unreasonable. 
  The resulting Treaty of Versailles brought a formal end to the war but was judged by governments on all sides of the conflict: it was neither lenient enough to appease Germany, nor harsh enough to prevent it from becoming a dominant continental power again. The German people largely viewed the treaty as placing the blame, or "war guilt", on Germany and Austria-Hungary and punishing them for their "responsibility", rather than working out an agreement that would assure long-term peace. The treaty imposed harsh monetary reparations as well as demilitarization requirements and territorial dismemberment, and caused mass ethnic resettlement, separating millions of ethnic Germans into neighboring countries.
  In the effort to pay war reparations to Britain and France, the Weimar Republic printed trillions of marks, causing extremely high inflation. "No postwar German government believed it could accept such a burden on future generations and survive ...". Paying reparations to the victorious side was a traditional punishment with a long history of use, but in this instance it was the "extreme immoderation" that caused German resentment. Germany did not make its last World War I reparation payment until 3 October 2010, ninety-two years after the end of the war. Germany also fell behind in their coal payments because of a passive resistance movement against the French. In response, the French invaded the Ruhr and occupied it. By this point the majority of Germans were enraged with the French and placed the blame for their humiliation on the Weimar Republic. Adolf Hitler, a leader of the Nazi Party, attempted a coup d'état of the Republic in 1923 known as the Beer Hall Putsch, through which he intended to establish a Greater German Reic
caption: "The Big Four" made all the major decisions at the Paris Peace Conference (from left to right, David Lloyd George of Britain, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando of Italy, Georges Clemenceau of France, Woodrow Wilson of the U.S.)
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