The end of the First World War

The First World War ended with an armistice on 11 November 1918. Germany had not been invaded, but it was exhausted, near-starving and blamed by the victors.

In 1919 the winning powers met at the Paris Peace Conference to decide how to treat the defeated nations. Their attitudes clashed:

• France had suffered most and wanted Germany crushed so it could never attack again.
• The USA wanted a fairer, lasting peace to avoid future wars.
• Britain sat somewhere in between — punish Germany, but keep it able to trade.

Key point: Germany was not allowed to take part in the negotiations. When the terms were handed over, Germans called it a "Diktat" — a dictated peace.

The "Big Three" and their aims

Three leaders dominated the Paris Peace Conference — but each wanted something different:

Because the three wanted such different things, the final treaty was a compromise that fully satisfied nobody — and left Germany bitter.

Whose aim?

The Treaty of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919. It dealt with Germany, and its terms are easy to remember with LAMB or BRAT:

• L — Land: Germany lost territory (see the next screen).
• A — Army: the army was cut to 100,000 men, with no tanks, no air force, no submarines and only 6 battleships.
• M — Money: reparations were set in 1921 at £6.6 billion.
• B — Blame: the War Guilt Clause (Article 231) forced Germany to accept full blame for the war.

Misconception alert: the reparations figure (£6.6 billion) was set in 1921, not in the treaty itself in 1919. The treaty established that Germany must pay; the exact sum came later.

Territory Germany lost

Germany lost land in Europe and all of its overseas colonies:

• Alsace-Lorraine returned to France.
• The Saar coalfield placed under League of Nations control for 15 years.
• The Polish Corridor gave Poland access to the sea, and Danzig became a "free city" run by the League.
• The Rhineland was demilitarised — no German troops allowed there.
• Germany's colonies became "mandates" run by the victors.
• Anschluss (union) with Austria was forbidden.

Germans were furious that self-determination applied to others but not to them — millions of German-speakers now lived under foreign rule, and union with Austria was banned.

Name the treaty

How Germans reacted

Germans across the political spectrum hated the Treaty of Versailles:

• They called it a "Diktat" — a dictated peace they had no say in.
• They attacked the politicians who signed it as the "November Criminals", blaming them for a "stab in the back".
• The War Guilt Clause felt deeply unfair; the reparations threatened to ruin the economy.

Why it matters: anger at Versailles was later used by Hitler to win support. Promising to overturn the treaty was central to his rise and his foreign policy.

Why "Diktat"?

The League of Nations

President Wilson's Fourteen Points had called for a League of Nations to keep the peace. The League was set up in 1920, based in Geneva, Switzerland.

Its aims were to:

• stop wars through collective security (aggressors face all members together);
• encourage disarmament;
• improve living and working conditions worldwide.

Fatal weakness: the USA never joined the League — the US Senate rejected it. Without the world's strongest power, the League was weak from the start, and it had no army of its own.

The League in the 1920s

In the 1920s the League had some successes — but also worrying failures:

The pattern was clear: the League could settle disputes between small countries, but it was powerless when a major power (like Italy at Corfu in 1923) chose to defy it.

The missing superpower

The Manchurian Crisis

The Great Depression (from 1929) made countries desperate and aggressive. In 1931 Japan invaded Manchuria, a region of China rich in resources.

• China appealed to the League. The League sent the Lytton Commission to investigate.
• The Lytton Report (1932) condemned Japan and told it to leave Manchuria; the League adopted it in 1933.
• Instead, Japan simply left the League in 1933 and kept Manchuria.

The League was far too slow and had no army to force Japan out. Manchuria showed the world that a strong, determined power could defy the League and get away with it.

The Abyssinian Crisis

In 1935 Mussolini's Italy invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia). This was the crisis that finally destroyed the League's credibility.

• The League imposed economic sanctions — but not on oil, and it did not close the Suez Canal, so they were weak.
• Behind the scenes, Britain and France made the Hoare–Laval Pact (1935), secretly offering Mussolini much of Abyssinia to keep him as an ally against Hitler.
• When the plan leaked there was outrage, but Italy conquered Abyssinia anyway in 1936.

Why it mattered: Britain and France put their own interests above collective security. After Abyssinia the League was seen as useless, and Mussolini drew closer to Hitler.

The crisis that broke the League

Hitler's foreign policy aims

Hitler became German Chancellor in 1933. His foreign policy had clear, linked aims:

• Overturn the Treaty of Versailles — undo the terms Germans hated.
• Rearm Germany — rebuild the armed forces.
• Unite all German-speakers into a Greater Germany (e.g. Austria, the Sudetenland).
• Win Lebensraum ("living space") in Eastern Europe for the German people.

Misconception alert: Hitler did not simply want to "restore" Germany. His aims — especially Lebensraum in the East — were expansionist and made a future war very likely.

Rearmament and the Saar

In 1935 Hitler openly began to break the Treaty of Versailles:

• The Saar plebiscite (Jan 1935) — a legal vote under the treaty — returned the Saar to Germany, boosting Hitler.
• Hitler announced rearmament and conscription, building an army far bigger than the 100,000 allowed.
• The Anglo-German Naval Agreement (1935) let Germany build a navy up to 35% of Britain's — Britain accepting German rearmament and undermining Versailles.

Britain signing the Naval Agreement was a form of early appeasement — accepting a broken treaty term in the hope of keeping the peace.

Remilitarising the Rhineland

In March 1936 Hitler took his boldest gamble yet: he sent German troops back into the demilitarised Rhineland, breaking both Versailles and the Locarno agreements.

• His generals were nervous — the German army was ordered to retreat if France resisted.
• But France did nothing, and Britain felt Germany was only marching "into its own back garden".

The Rhineland gamble paid off. Hitler learned that Britain and France would back down rather than fight — a lesson that encouraged his next moves.

When was the Rhineland remilitarised?

Hitler's new friends

As the League collapsed, Hitler found allies among the other aggressive powers:

• Rome–Berlin Axis (1936) — an alliance between Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy.
• Anti-Comintern Pact (1936) — Germany and Japan agreed to oppose communism; Italy joined in 1937.

The aggressor powers were now working together. Meanwhile Britain and France, weakened by the Depression and fear of another war, increasingly chose appeasement.

Event ↔ significance

Tap an event on the left, then tap its significance on the right.

The policy of appeasement

Appeasement meant giving in to some of Hitler's demands to avoid another war. It is linked above all to British PM Neville Chamberlain.

Reasons Britain and France appeased Hitler:

• Memories of the horror of WWI — people were desperate to avoid another war.
• Britain was not ready to fight and needed time to rearm.
• Some thought Versailles had been too harsh, so Hitler's demands seemed reasonable.
• Fear of communism — a strong Germany could block the USSR.

Misconception alert: appeasement was not simple cowardice — it seemed sensible at the time. The problem was that each concession encouraged Hitler to demand more.

Anschluss with Austria

Union (Anschluss) between Germany and Austria was banned by Versailles — but in March 1938 Hitler achieved it anyway.

• Hitler pressured the Austrian government, then sent in troops. A rigged vote claimed overwhelming support.
• Britain and France protested but did nothing — more appeasement.

Anschluss advanced Hitler's dream of a Greater Germany. Austria was gone — and Czechoslovakia, with its German-speaking Sudetenland, was now surrounded on three sides.

The Sudeten Crisis and Munich

Hitler next demanded the Sudetenland — the border area of Czechoslovakia where many German-speakers lived. This threatened war in 1938.

• At the Munich Conference (29–30 September 1938) — Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler and Mussolini — the powers gave Hitler the Sudetenland. Czechoslovakia was not invited.
• Chamberlain returned to Britain claiming he had secured "peace for our time".

Munich is the classic example of appeasement: peace was bought by sacrificing part of Czechoslovakia without the Czechs' consent.

What did Munich decide?

The end of appeasement

Hitler had promised at Munich that the Sudetenland was his last demand. He broke that promise:

• In March 1939 German troops occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia (Bohemia and Moravia).
• These lands were not German-speaking — this was naked conquest, not "uniting Germans".
• Appeasement was now discredited. Britain guaranteed Poland — promising to defend it if attacked.

The lesson learned: March 1939 proved Hitler could not be trusted. From now on Britain and France prepared to fight rather than appease.

The Nazi–Soviet Pact

Hitler now wanted Poland, but risked war on two fronts. His solution shocked the world:

• On 23 August 1939 Germany and the USSR signed the Nazi–Soviet Pact (also called the Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact) — a promise not to attack each other.
• A secret clause agreed to divide Poland between them.

Misconception alert: Hitler and Stalin were bitter enemies (Nazism vs communism). The pact was a cynical, temporary deal — each side buying time — not a genuine friendship. It freed Hitler to invade Poland.

Name the pact

The outbreak of war

With the USSR neutralised and Poland guaranteed by Britain, the crisis reached its climax:

• On 1 September 1939 Germany invaded Poland.
• Britain and France demanded Germany withdraw. Hitler refused.
• On 3 September 1939 Britain and France declared war on Germany — the Second World War in Europe had begun.

The failure of the peace was complete: the Versailles settlement, the League and appeasement had all failed to prevent exactly the war they were meant to stop.

Who was to blame for the war?

Historians still debate who was most responsible for the outbreak of war in 1939:

• Some blame Hitler — his aggression and expansionism made war inevitable.
• Some blame appeasement — Britain and France let Hitler grow too strong.
• Some blame the Treaty of Versailles — its harshness created the anger Hitler exploited.
• Some blame the weakness of the League — it failed to stop aggression in the 1930s.

Exam skill: a strong answer weighs several causes and reaches a judgement — not just "Hitler did it". Being aware that interpretations differ, and why, is exactly what the exam rewards.

Timeline: 1919 → 1939

Put the events in order

Tap the events in the correct time order, from earliest to latest.

Sources and interpretations

The AQA exam gives you sources to interpret. Two quick habits win marks:

• Ask who made it and why (provenance). A pro-appeasement British newspaper and an anti-Hitler cartoon about Munich will disagree — because each had a purpose.
• Use your own knowledge to judge it. Support or challenge a source with facts you know (dates, terms of Versailles, Hitler's actions).

Interpretations differ: in 1938 many people saw Chamberlain as a hero for saving peace; after 1939 many saw appeasement as a disastrous mistake. The same events can be judged very differently.

Thinking like a historian

Why did the peace break down?

No single cause — but a chain of pressures, driven above all by the anger at Versailles, the weakness of the League and Hitler's aggression:

Each concession encouraged Hitler; the Nazi–Soviet Pact removed his last obstacle. The invasion of Poland finally forced Britain and France to fight.

The essentials to remember

You've covered the whole AQA Conflict and tension: the inter-war years, 1918–1939 depth study. Press Finish to see your score.