DK - World War II Map by Map

28 THE SLIDE TO WAR 1918–1939

Gibraltar

Algiers

Barcelona

Rome

Naples

Taranto

Athens

Antalya

Trieste

Genoa

Marseille

Tunis

Tripoli

Benghazi

Alexandria Port Said

Cairo Suez

Aswan

Port Sudan

Suakin

Massawa

Assab Aden

Gonder

Addis Ababa

Dire Dawa

Asmara

Makale

Al Jawf

Zadar

Fiume

Hamburg

Berlin

Munich

Danzig

Prague

Vienna

Budapest

Warsaw

Teschen

The

Hague

Memel

Obbia

Khartoum

TRIPOLITANIA

ALBANIA

Malta

Corsica

Sardinia

Balearic

Islands

Sicily

SWEDEN

CYRENAICA

KUFRA

SAUDI

ARABIA

Adriatic Sea

SWITZERLAND

Dodecanese

Islands

Crete

Co

rf

u GREECE

ITALY

YUGOSLAVIA

AUSTRIA

ANGLO-EGYPTIAN

SUDAN

ALGERIA

TUNISIA

AOUZOU STRIP

KENYA

EGYPT

Nile

BELGIUM

LUXEMBOURG

Cypr

us

HUNGARY

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

Baltic Sea EAST

PRUSSIA

DENMARK

LATVIA

ITALIAN SOMALILAND

North

Sea

PORTUGALSPAIN

BRITISH

SOMALILAND

ETHIOPIA

FRENCH

SOMALILAND

ERITREA

Red Sea

U

N

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“It is not programs that are wanting for the salvation
of Italy but men and will power.”
BENITO MUSSOLINI, SPEECH MADE IN UDINE, 1920
△ Hitler in Austria, March 1938
Following the Anschluss, Hitler traveled in triumph through
Austria to Vienna, where he addressed 200,000 jubilant
German Austrians in the Heldenplatz (Heroes’ Square).
After World War I, Britain and France
reduced their military capacities, but
the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany
in 1933 forced a rethink. After 1936
Britain began to produce a new
generation of tanks and artillery pieces,
new aircraft carriers and battleships,
and to develop the Spitfire and Hawker
Hurricane fighter aircraft. France built
the defensive Maginot Line along its
eastern border with Germany and
modernized its air force, the biggest
in the world at the time.
Italian possessions
in Africa, 1910
Acquired 1911
Acquired 1919
Acquired 1925–1926
Acquired 1934
Acquired 1935
THE ITALIAN EMPIRE IN AFRICA 1911–1936
Italy had occupied Ottoman-run Libya in 1911 and
four times expanded its borders at its neighbors’
expense between 1919 and 1935. An agreement with
British-run Kenya ceded Jubaland to Italian Somaliland
in 1925. In November 1935 Italian forces attacked the
independent empire of Ethiopia, bombing villages,
using gas against local troops, and poisoning water
supplies. The League of Nations imposed weak
sanctions, but the Italians quickly conquered the
country, sending Emperor Haile Selassie into exile.
2
Italian territories
in Europe, 1910
Dodecanese Islands,
acquired 1912
Austrian territories, acquired 1919
Albania, acquired 1939
Temporary occupation
Annexed cities
ITALY’S LANDS IN EUROPE 1910–1939
Italy had taken the Dodecanese Islands from the
Ottoman Empire in 1912 and had gained some
territory from Austria after World War I. In 1919–
1921 it occupied part of southern Turkey, acquired the
Yugoslav port of Zadar, and eventually annexed the
long-disputed port of Fiume in 1924. A squabble with
Greece led to a brief Italian occupation of Corfu in

1923. In 1939 Italian troops annexed Albania.

1

ALLIED REARMAMENT

GERMANY AND

ITALY EXPAND

In the years following World War I, the governments of

Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany both pursued expansionist

policies aimed at enlarging their territories and overcoming

the terms of the 1919 Versailles Treaty. At the time, they met

with little opposition from other European nations.

Although Italy was on the winning

Allied side in World War I, it emerged

from the conflict with high casualties,

a crippled, indebted economy, and few

territorial gains. This fueled great

resentment at home, which was among

the many factors that propelled Benito

Mussolini’s National Fascist Party to

power in 1922.

Mussolini sought to bolster the

nation’s standing by expanding Italy’s

territories in the Mediterranean and

in Africa in an attempt to build a

second Roman Empire. The conquests

of Ethiopia (1935) and Albania (1939)

were successful parts of this process.

Hitler also had imperial ambitions,

believing that Germany required

Lebensraum (living space) to survive.

When he came to power in 1933,

he intended to avenge the Treaty of

Versailles and create a remilitarized,

pan-German state in central Europe. As

Germany began to rearm in defiance of

Versailles, the Saarland and Rhineland

returned to full German control in

1935–1936, Austria was united with

Germany in 1938, and Czechoslovakia

was occupied and divided in 1938–1939.

In response to these expansionist

policies, the European powers of

Britain and France did little to defend

Versailles, instead choosing to appease

the dictators in the hope that this would

keep the peace. However, the failure

of appeasement by the spring of 1939

forced both countries to prepare for the

inevitability of renewed war in Europe.

Germany before 1935

Saarland, acquired 1935

Rhineland, acquired 1936

GERMANY REGAINS LOST LANDS 1935–1936

Germany pledged to overthrow the Versailles peace

settlement in Europe, beginning with a program of

rearmament—announced in March 1935—that was

forbidden by the treaty. In the same year the people

of Saarland voted in a plebiscite to reunite with

Germany. The next year, German armed forces

reoccupied the demilitarized Rhineland.

3

A British Spitfire production line

US_028-029_Germany_Italy_expand.indd 28 19/03/19 5:38 PM