War, Peace, and International Relations. An Introduction to Strategic History

Hitler believed that they were preventing another great war, and could point to some
recent successes in that area, one must add.

Questions

1. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the thesis that 1914–45 comprised a
   second Thirty Years War?


2. Was the Versailles Settlement unjust to Germany?


3. Explain the basis for French security anxiety in the interwar years.


4. Was another great war inevitable in the 1930s?

Further reading

P. M. H. Bell The Origins of the Second World War in Europe, 2nd edn (London: Longman,
1997).
M. F. Boemke, G. D. Feldman and E. Glaser (eds) The Treaty of Versailles: A Reassessment after
75 years(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 199 8 ).
R. Boyce and J. A. Maiolo (eds) The Origins of World War Two: The Debate Continues
(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).
R. Chickering and S. Förster (eds) The Shadows of Total War: Europe, East Asia, and the United
States, 1919–1939(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
P. Finney (ed.) The Origins of the Second World War(London: Arnold, 1997).
M. Kitchen Europe between the Wars: A Political History(Harlow: Pearson Education, 2000).
M. Lamb and N. Tarling From Versailles to Pearl Harbor: The Origins of the Second World War
in Europe and Asia(Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001).

The twenty-year armistice, 1919–39 113

Key points

1. Another great war was only a distant possibility in the 1920s. In the 1930s, it
   was a certainty.


2. The two world wars were very distinctive in their origins and in the motivation
   of the belligerents. Therefore, the theory that the 1914–45 period constituted
   a second Thirty Years War is seriously flawed.


3. The Versailles Settlement reflected the political context of 1919. A completely
   different character of settlement was not politically feasible.


4. Great power conflict was largely absent from the 1920s, because the would-be
   revisionist states (Germany, Italy and Japan) were on the disadvantaged end of
   an imbalance of power.


5. The true character and most probable purpose of Hitler’s foreign policy was
   not fully revealed until March 1939, with the seizure of the remainder of
   Czechoslovakia.


6. Without the Great Depression there would have been no Nazi regime, and
   hence no World War II with the total character of that which occurred from
   1939 to 1945. Also, there would have been no Holocaust.