The Origins of World War II November 9, 2017

Copyright © 2017                                                        John F. Oyler

November 9, 2017

The Origins of World War II

The October program meeting of the Bridgeville Area Historical Society was moved up a week this year to avoid a conflict with Halloween. The speaker was Glenn Flickinger; his subject, “The Origins of World War II”.

Mr. Flickinger is a highly successful business consultant who is a passionate history buff with the ability to share his knowledge and enthusiasm with the rest of us. World War II is his favorite topic, probably because numerous members of his family were directly involved in it. In fact, his mother was a nurse in Honolulu on December 7, 1941.

He very effectively traced the evolution of the root causes of the war by drawing three parallel timelines that intersected at the point where Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor.

The top line represented the Far East, and especially Japan. It began in 1853 when Commodore Matthew Perry’s fleet of United States Navy warships steamed into Tokyo Bay and presented a letter to officials of the Shogunate demanding trade negotiations to be conducted the next year.

In 1854 the fleet returned to Tokyo Bay and initiated a three week series of meetings culminating in the Convention of Kanagawa. Signed by Perry on behalf of the United States and Daigaku-no-kami Hayashi Akira on behalf of the Tokugawa Shogunate, it granted access for trade at two ports – Hakodate and Shimoda.

Perry’s mission was twofold – to initiate trade with Japan and to demonstrate to the world that the United States was well on the way to becoming a world power. In some respects it backfired. Once the medieval Japanese were introduced to western technology, they modernized at an unanticipated rate. As the old saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for”. A key date in that period is 1868 when the power of the shogunate was overcome and the Meiji Emperor restored in its place.

The Japanese proved to be adept students of their western teachers. They modelled their navy after the British navy and their army after ours. By1894 they began to expand by demonstrating their military power. They defeated a larger Chinese army in Korea and were granted dominion over Formosa (Taiwan).

In 1905 they ended the Russo-Japanese War with an impressive naval victory at Tsushima and claimed Korea as spoils. They astutely joined the Allied cause in World War I and were rewarded with the German Pacific Island colonies for their support.

In 1931 the Japanese Kwantung Army invaded Manchuria and overran it rapidly. It was renamed Manchuko and became an important source of raw materials for the growing Japanese heavy industries. In 1937 they began the second Sino-Japanese War and soon took control of the eastern part of China. The Nationalist Chinese retreated to the west and continued to fight fiercely for the next eight years.

The United States responded to the invasion of China by imposing severe economic sanctions upon Japan. This resulted in Japan’s signing the Tripartite Agreement with Germany and Italy. In 1941 they invaded French Indo-China, causing Great Britain, the Netherlands, and the United States to freeze all Japanese assets. The stage was set for an even bigger confrontation.

Mr. Flickinger began the United States timeline in 1898 with the Spanish-American War and our acquisition of possessions in the Pacific. One could make the argument that Perry’s intervention in Japan forty five years earlier might have been more appropriate. He then discussed our involvement in World War I and in the peacemaking process at its end.

He highlighted the unrest in this country following the Stock Market Crash in 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression. Although he did not imply that this gave us any incentive to go to war, he did acknowledge that the buildup of our manufacturing capability for planes, tanks, and naval vessels was the primary reason the Depression finally ended.

He began the European Timeline with the Franco-Prussian War and the consolidation of the numerous German-speaking principalities into one country, primarily under the control of Otto von Bismarck. The German victory in that conflict and their acquisition of the Alsace Loraine region initiated a feeling in the French people that made World War I almost inevitable.

By 1914 Europe was filled with countries eager to pick a fight and to acquire assets for their respective empires. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand was the spark that set off the resulting conflagration, an incredibly horrible war that ended with the complete destruction of four empires – the Austro-Hungarian (Hapsburg), the German (Hohenzollern), Ottoman, and Russian.

Many historians believe that the decisions made and implemented in the Versailles Treaty following World War I, the emergence of Communist Russia, and the Great Depression produced the root causes for the Second World War. Germany was punished so severely that its people were driven to extremes – either Communism or reactionary nationalism. The Nazis prevailed, barely, in the 1932 election and quickly took over and prepared to regain their nation’s position as a world power.

Economic stability was established by massive investment in infrastructure (the Autobahn system) and the manufacturing of armaments. In contradiction to provisions in the Versailles Treaty the German army, navy, and air force were re-established as major fighting forces.

In 1935 the residents of the Saarland, administered by the League of Nations since 1920, voted to rejoin Germany. The next year Germany moved troops into the Rhineland and returned it to their sovereignty.  The same year they signed agreements of cooperation with Italy and Japan.

In 1938 the Nazis took over Austria and Czechoslovakia by intimidation, moves wildly supported by German-speaking citizens of both countries.

The Communist experiment in Russia survived numerous crises before becoming strong enough to initiate its expansion agenda in the Baltic and in Eastern Europe. When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939 France and Great Britain declared that a state of war existed. Russia invaded from the east and within a few weeks Poland had been divided up between Germany and Russia.

England and France responded with economic sanctions and minor naval engagements. In April 1940 the Germans invaded and conquered Norway and Denmark. A month later they attacked France through the “Low Countries” and by June 20 France surrendered. The air war over Great Britain dominated the remainder of the year.

Early in 1941 the Germans sent troops to North Africa to support their Italian allies in Libya. They also invaded Yugoslavia and Greece, and then, inexplicably, Russia on June 22. The war in Russia would ultimately prove to be Hitler’s downfall.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States was drawn into war with them. Hitler’s declaration of war on the United States four days later, Mr. Flickinger believes, was the official beginning of World War II.

The consensus of opinion of the audience for this discussion was that World War II occurred because of the expansionist, nationalistic ambitions of all the major powers, exacerbated by the complications of the Great Depression world-wide. The speaker’s timelines tracing some of these developments were particularly effective in developing this conclusion.

The November program meeting for the Historical Society will feature Edd Hale, discussing “The U. S. Brig Niagara”. The meeting will be held at 7:30 pm, Tuesday, November 28, 2017, in the Chartiers Room of the Bridgeville Volunteer Fire Department, on Commercial Street. As always, the public is cordially invited.