Essay about hannahs files

Submitted By hannahbkart91
Words: 1025
Pages: 5

Hannah Burkart
Social Studies
Period 02
12/14/13

WWI was a war that happened for many reasons but started mainly from mistrust and jealousy. In the end Germany had been the one to blame for the entire war, and eventually led to WWII. How this started was that in the end of WWI, they held a meeting with America, France, Britain, and Italy. They were discussing who to put the blame on for the war and who would be facing the consequences. In the end, all of the countries at the conference decided to put the blame and consequences in the hands of Germany, a country that was not at the conference, so they didn’t have an opinion to give. This eventually led to the causes of WWII with the events that Germany faced, trying to make up from WWI. All in all, WWII had happened for numerous reasons which were the Failed Treaty of Versailles, Land grabs from Hitler, and the failed policy of Appeasement. As stated before earlier, one of the causes to WWII had been the Failed Treaty of Versailles. It started all the way back at the end of WWI when the League of Nations put all blame of the entire war on Germany, which was the War Guilt Clause. Germany didn’t have a say in who caused the war or how the damages would be fixed. Germany had to pay reparations of WWI, but yet, they could not afford the expenses. Even other leaders knew that, but they still decided to along with blame on Germany. The Allied Forces had written in the Treaty of Versailles was, “The Allied and Associated Governments recognize that the resources of Germany are not adequate… However, require, and Germany undertakes, that she will make compensation for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allied and Associated powers” (Document 3). As for easier understanding, what the Allied forces had written was that even though they knew that Germany couldn’t pay back, they had to do it anyways. In the end, they had to pay about 6.3 billion dollars and it wouldn’t have been paid off until the early 2000’s. Eventually, Germany cannot pay and France invades, trying to force them to pay. After this event, Germany goes on strike and the German Government printed more money. This led to hyperinflation. Hyperinflation occurs when a country experiences very high and usually accelerating rates of monetary and price inflation. Germany experienced this and when they kept printing money, it became worthless. Since hyperinflation spread through Germany, this made the people even angrier than they already were. In anger, the furious people turned towards Adolf Hitler. Hitler said he could solve the problems and hardships of Germany, and his first action was tearing up and throwing away the Treaty of Versailles. Each of these events were a chain of cause and effects that happened when the Treaty was out into action. In the end, the effect was not how they thought it would be. Now how the conflict that started with the Treaty of Versailles had begun with Hitler. Adolf Hitler jumped in and he took land, breaking the conditions of the treaty. First, he had started with the Rhineland. Britain and France didn’t really worry too much. They actually thought that if Germany got stronger, I would stop communism from spreading to the west, Hitler had ordered German troops into the Rhineland, even though that land was supposed to be demilitarized. In David Low’s art piece called Evening Standard, drawn on October 10, 1938 is a picture of a lady with a sack as she puts babies into it. The lady represents Germany stealing all of the countries, which is what the babies represent, being dropped into the sack that stands for the growth of Germany. Additionally, this drawing was created during the time Hitler had been invading a plethora of countries (Document 7). Secondly, German troops marched into Austria. The leader of Austria asked for help form Britain, France, and Italy, but they didn’t do