Fifteen years after the end of the First World War sees Europe in an economic depression. Germany is hit particularly hard because it has to pay off its war reparations under the crushing weight of the economic crisis at home. The United States had given Germany loans to help pay off its war reparations but is now demanding its money back, on top of that, heavy inflation and unrest make Germany the breeding ground for extremist ideas such as communism.
France and Belgium are annoyed by Germany's delaying its war reparations, so they come up with a plan to occupy the Rhineland, a region in eastern Germany that is full of natural resources and industrial output. France and Belgium do this because they know that Germany cannot pay back its reparations in cash, so they take the raw goods and resources straight from Germany itself.
Meanwhile, in Italy, a certain Benito Mussolini has risen to power and made the country into a totalitarian dictatorship with himself at its center. Benito rallies the Italian populace by promising them prosperity, wealth, and glory. He promises to restore Italy to the legacy of the Roman Empire and creates an identity for Italy as the successor to the Roman Empire.
Back in Germany, the National Socialist / Nazi party, led by Adolf Hitler, rises to prominence. And after the death of the President, Paul von Hindenburg, and the burning of the German Parliamentary building, Adolf invokes Article 48. The article invokes the Enabling Act, which lets the president issue laws without the consent of the parliament during times of emergency. The problem was that the German Constitution did not explicitly outline what an emergency was, meaning that Hitler now had full control over Germany, he used this power to crush oppositional and ban basic freedoms.
Adolf starts building up a sizeable army and setting up airforce squadrons, both of which are strictly forbidden in the Treaty of Versailles, but neither France nor Britain do anything about it because they are too busy being poor. Adolf sends troops to retake the Rhineland from allied occupation. The troops have clear orders o retreat if French armies show up, but no French armies appear. Now feeling a little more confident, Adolf sends troops into neighboring Austria. Surprisingly, he is met with no resistance most likely because most of Austria is overwhelmingly German.
Italy had invaded Ethiopia during this time, Ethiopia was (and still is!) an independent African nation, which was rare at that time. The Italians used chemical weapons and superior weaponry to defeat the Ethiopians. This invasion resulted in Italy being ousted from the League of Nations (Think of the League of Nations as an older version of the United Nations today. Benito also wanted to control the entrance to the Adriatic sea, so he invaded Albania.
Germany wasn’t holding back on expanding either, it had demanded the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. The Sudetenland was a territory along the Czechoslovak-German border that was home to many ethnic Germans. Adolf wanted this because he was expanding under the pretext of German unity into one state. At this point, Britain and France were getting worried, so they held the Munich Conference with Germany and Italy. They decided to give Adolf what if wanted but only if he promised to not invade the rest of Czechoslovakia (weirdly enough, Czechoslovakia itself wasn’t invited to the meeting).
This diplomatic strategy used by France and Britain was called appeasement, in which a side would give one side all or most of what it wanted if they agreed to not be aggressive. This strategy was utterly useless which was proven by the fact that Adolf invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia about 5 seconds after he agreed to not invade Czechoslovakia.
Italy and Germany realize they have a lot in common. Both countries support the fascist regime in Spain, both are fascist dictatorships themselves, and both have the same goals to expand and create glory for their people. They also have the same enemies, which leads to them signing the Pact of Steel on May 22, 1939. This pact makes a strong alliance between Germany and Italy.
After this Germany turned its eyes toward Poland and the Polish Corridor. A piece of Poland that separated Germany’s territory in half. But France and Britain, now acutely aware the appeasement was not going to work, warned that an invasion of Poland would mean war. Adolf had initially wanted to continue his advance eastward into the Soviet Union but did not want to be stuck fighting a war on two fronts, so Adolf signed a non-aggression pact with The Soviet Union. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact ensured that the two countries would not attack each other and also secretly carved up Eastern Europe between themselves. The U.S.S.R. would get the Baltic states and Bessarabia while Poland would be split between the two.
With the threat of fighting a war on two fronts neutralized, Adolf demands the city of Danzig from Poland, which it firmly refuses, to which Adolf promptly invade on the first of September, 1939. In response, France and Britain declare war.
