Causes of WWII paper 2

The failure of the League of Nation’s attempt at collective security was a significant cause of WWII, although it is hard to claim that it is the main cause. This is because there were so many other contributing factors which may have led up to WWII ultimately happening. In addition to the Failure of the League of Nations, I think it is important to recognize the problems in the peace conferences, especially the Treaty of Versailles, which contributed significantly to the outbreak of WWII.

The purpose of the League of Nations was to promote collective security. Collective security was a pact that many countries belonged to, where they agreed to basically hold up each other’s back in a time of crisis. It was a way of maintaining allies and security during times of crisis. However, the League of Nations failed at this idea of collective security for several reasons. The first problem was that the main world powers were never in the League of Nations at the same time. For instance, the United States never joined because they were reluctant to goto war. If they had joined, because of their wealth, the other countries that were part of the League of Nations would have had a better sense of security. Then, the other main powers sort of rotated the time frame of when they were members of the League, which posed problems because once again no one who could give the other countries a sense of security was a part of the League at the same time. Germany was in the League from 1926-1933, and then USSR didn’t join the League until 1934. Once USSR joins the League, Italy left a year later in 1935. It appears as though the League had huge problems at cooperation, which is concerning considering they were trying to obtain collective security. Considering the League of Nations couldn’t even keep peace within them, there is no question that these problems helped contribute to WWII.

Something else that should be looked at when examining the causes of WWII is the mistakes that were made in the peace conferences, especially when developing the Treaty of Versailles. These mistakes that were made can help to argue that WWI never ended, which is what could have led to WWII. The Treaty of Versailles was extremely harsh to Germany, which angered the German people. They felt as though they were excluded from the treaty, which was true in a sense. The Treaty focused on them having to pay extreme reparations, and it was as if they were the only ones targeted. Also, the Germans were forced to sign a War Guilt Clause, where they basically said that everything was their fault. This obviously enraged the German people into wanting to seek revenge, which could be argued that it contributed to WWII. The interpretation of the Treaty of Versailles in resulting in WWII could also be viewed in a different way. Because of the harshness of the Treaty of Versailles, it is said that WWI never actually ended. Usually in order for a war to end, peace is needed to be made between the countries fighting. However, because Germany was extremely excluded from the Treaty, historians say that WWI never ended because peace was never actually made. Therefore, this ongoing tension between countries, which resulted from the Treaty of Versailles, could have also resulted in World War Two. Also, because the Treaty of Versailles was so harsh, Germany refused to pay the reparations. This resulted in France becoming angry and invading the German Ruhr in 1923, which could have contributed significantly to WWII.

In conclusion, the failure of the League of Nations attempt at collective security was a contributing factor to the outbreak of World War Two. However, in addition to this, the harshness of the Treaty of Versailles created many negative things to happen, which all contributed to the outbreak of World War Two as well.