Main Causes of World War II
Rina Zhang

“
We no longer demand anything, we want war.” This was a quote stated by Germany's foreign minister in August of 1939
. This statement itself speaks the thoughts of most people in Germany during the nineteen 1930s. World War II is known to be the most bloodiest conflict in history, it did not occur due to a problem built up overnight, in fact, problems slowly began to submerge during the twenty one years of peace in between the First World War and the starting of the Second World War. The League of Nations which was established under the intentions of achieving peace became a cause of the Second World War.
Imperialism and greed of invading countries also became an upsetting factor of the Second World War.
The policy of appeasement that Britain and France followed which allowed the Nazi’s to make progress without putting a stop to their actions was also an important factor of World War II. The three main causes of World War II are the failure of league of nations, imperialism, and the policy of appeasement.

The first cause of World War II was the failure of the League of Nations. The League of Nations was established intending to achieve world peace but ironically, it only caused peace to become much more of a struggle towards the world. The fact that the League of Nations had no military forces made it almost impossible for them to post much of a threat to any opposing countries. The League of Nations could only post Economic sanctions that were taken lightly by countries, often ignored, which left the League of
Nations with no form of resolution except for constant persuasion. The chances of persuasion working against on an opposing country that knew the League of Nations could not take any further steps was very

little. The lack of power of the League of Nations lead to them being unable to maintain world peace for long since it was no secret that the
League of Nations was not able to post threats when a country opposed. Militarism also contributed greatly to the start of World War II. Japan and Germany exhibited militarism characteristics before the starting of the war with both nation’s leaders having strong beliefs in military forces. The Nazi party in Germany were a militaristic party and their leader of the party, Hitler, had a strong belief in which that military force was a strong way of proving the superiority of Germans. During the time when Nazi’s were leading Germany, their nation had been ruled in military style. While in Japan, much like Germany, their entire society was formed around a military concept. The military was considered as a defender of the Japanese emperor and the country of Japan. Many boys in Japan were trained at a young age to become a warrior for their country since it was worshipped and glorified.
In both countries militarism was strongly practiced and it was seen as glorifying, but overtime the actions of both military forces became more aggressive.
The policy of appeasement was another cause to WWII. The policy of appeasement not only failed to maintain peace around the world, but it began to encourage Hitler’s aggression.