Prelude To War - A World Divided

In 1936 Mussolini and Hitler formed the Rome-Berlin Axis

During the early decades of the 20th century the most powerful nations of the world began to divide into three main politcal camps. Firstly there were those nations that were democratic, where the citizens voted their own governments, including Britain, the United States, France and other European countries such as Belgium, Czechhoslovakia and Sweden .

Secondly there were fascist countries such as Germany, Italy Japan and Spain - one-party states ruled by dictators. Thirdly there was the mightly communist state of the Soviet Union, meant to be run by the workers but in reality ruled by the tyrannical authoritarian Josef Stalin. Conflicts between these ideological states concerning territory and economic wealth led to the 2nd world war which broke out in 1939.

The first fascist state in Europe emerged when Benito Mussolini came to power in Italy in 1922. By the 1930s there were fascist style governments in Spain, Portugal, Austria and Romania, but when Hitler's Nazi Party came to power in Germany in 1933 they took fascist ideas to their most extreme. A young Hitler had developed his ideas whilst in prison in 1924 where he wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle), a book which spelt out his theories that Germany needed strong leadership, a large army and economic self-sufficiency. In Mein Kampf Hitler also stated his more extreme ideas about supressing communism and exterminating the Jewish people.

When Hitler's National Socialist German Worker's Party (the Nazi Party) eventually came to power in 1933, he immediately began to build up the country's military strength and in 1936 he moved these troops into the Rhineland, an industrial area of Germany on the border with France and Belgium that had been designated a military-free zone after World War 1.

In 1938 Hitler expanded his dominion into parts of Austria and Czechoslovakia, thus breaking the Treaty of Versailles which had been signed in 1919 with the intention of preventing Germany from developing it's empire into neighbouring countries. Following these worrying developments along with the expansion of other fascist states, such as Italy's invasion of Ethiopea (Abyssinia) in 1935 and Japan's invasion of China in 1937, Britain and France formed a closer alliance - agreeing to help Poland, Romania and Greece should they be invaded by Germany or Italy.

In 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, a Birmingham MP, was welcomed by the German people to Munich where he signed the Munich Agreement, agreeing to let the Germans lay claim to the Sudeten region of Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain insisted that the Agreement would guarantee "peace in our time" and an end to further German expansion.

Six months later, Hitler took over the whole of Czechoslovakia and in 1939 his attentions turned to Poland.