A History of the World From the 20th to the 21st Century

cut short in October 1934 when he met King Alexander in Marseilles. A Croat terrorist assassi- nated both Alexander and Barthou, ...

Austria’s internal problems were exacerbated by its more powerful neighbours. Germany posed a threat to its independence. But Mu ...

bomber force that could carry the war to the enemy. Deterrence was preferable to war. In the Far East, the construction of the S ...

Had he moved in the summer of 1935 he would almost certainly have got away with that too but the cautious streak in his make-up ...

The disunity of the ‘Stresa front’ made Hitler’s next move, the remilitarisation of the Rhineland, even less risky than it appea ...

To many contemporaries outside Spain the Spanish Civil War represented a great struggle between the totalitarian forces of the f ...

purely Spanish causes always lie just under the surface and explain why in 1936 Spain was split into two warring sides which inf ...

The second Republic was then established without violence or bloodshed. Its history was brief and filled with mounting political ...

justified their July 1936 rising on precisely these grounds. Attacked by those who should have sup- ported the Republic, the gov ...

Africa. On 13 July, the murder of a well-known anti-Republican politician by members of the Republican Guard provided a further ...

As the Nationalists captured Republican-held territory, prominent Republican leaders, civil and military, were murdered in their ...

tanks saved Madrid in November 1936. Britain and France, ostensibly with German, Soviet and Italian agreement, set up a Non-Inte ...

Responsibility is a portmanteau word covering many different meanings. All the nations in a complex international society are to ...

and the enslavement of ‘inferior’ races. For Hitler, then, the question of war and peace was a ques- tion of timing, of choosing ...

between two men, Hitler and Chamberlain. Hitler could not safely wage war without the assurance that rearmament had progressed s ...

Europe. France could not risk war with Germany without British support; Britain could not afford to contemplate war with Japan w ...

were not physically molested before November Nevertheless, the screw was being turned more tightly year by year. The notorious ...

‘Kristallnacht’, the night of shards of glass. Gangs of ruffians roamed the streets and entered Jewish apartments – it was a nig ...

Hitler was still telling the German people that he wanted peace and desired no more than to bring home to the Reich those German ...

minister were forced to resign early in 1938. Hitler assumed personal supreme control with his own military staff by replacing t ...