fun fact the people who lived through World War I called it the war to end all wars but like the first Terminator movie it turned out to be only a prequel to The much more explosive sequel namely World War II I'll be back so I reckon we ought to talk about the causes of World War II and if you're ready to get them brain cows milk let's get to it so as you may recall from the video on 7.3 World War I was officially ended by the Treaty of Versailles and that treaty was the Diplomatic equivalent of a turd sandwich the Victorious Powers especially Britain and France were real Saucy about the war and wrote the term of it with vengeance in their hearts which turned out to be real upsetting to both Italy and Germany and let's look at both so Italy was bitter after the war because they didn't receive the land that they were promised in Austria and the Ottoman Empire you see before the war broke out Italy was Allied with Germany but when the Allied Powers promised these land grants if Italy would join their side they broke the alliance and fought against Germany but as it turns out the Allied Powers almost immediately regretted this offer because Italy turned out to be about as useful as an inflatable dart board like they were always asking for more resources and they botch some of their most crucial engagements therefore in the peace settlements Britain and France decided to withhold all the land that was promised to Italy before the war and that's going to make at least one Italian uh real sassy oh and by the way if you want no guys to follow along with this video in all my videos check the link in the description anyway let's move on to Germany and see how the peace agreement sat with them and spoiler alert it was uh not good and there were three stipulations in particular that left Germany deeply disaffected First the treaty required Germany to pay reparations to the Victorious powers and if you remember from the last video that played a significant role in plunging Germany into hyperinflation and general economic disaster second the treaty mandated the demilitarization of Germany which left them unable to defend themselves against other militarized powers and third and sauciest of them all was the war guilt clause which settled the entire blame for the war on Germany alone and that Clause was engineered by the British and the French and really served only one purpose to humiliate Germany on the world stage and that's going to make at least one German uh real Angry okay now the second cause of World War II is rooted in continued imperialist aspirations around the world for example Japan got his big boy pants on and started expanding into China and various islands in the Pacific and that got the League of Nations all pouty but they really had no power to stop them and then Italy having been denied any territorial gains after World War I went ahead and started expanding its Empire on its own and to that end Italy invaded Ethiopia and conquered it and Consolidated all its other Colonial Holdings on the African continent into a formal Italian Empire and then Germany under the leadership of Adolf Hitler decided they were going to start expanding as well first by claiming lands taken from them in the Treaty of Versailles and then be so first Germany took back the Ryan land which the treaty set up as a buffer zone between them and France then they expanded into Czechoslovakia and Austria all in the name of getting a little laan SRAM which when being translated means living space and as Hitler has taken over the whole dang European continent with his aggressive militarism Britain and France weren't doing anything to stop him and you know I guess it's kind of understandable because you know they didn't want to start another stinking World War but this policy of appeasement just proved to Hitler that he could kind of do anything he wanted without any consequences from Western powers and the third cause of World War II was the profound found economic crisis during the inter War period now I already covered all that in detail in the video on 7.4 so here I'll just rehash the basics the Great Depression which started in the United States and then spread to much of the world meant that the populations in many countries were unemployed and hungry and so when people are in that sorry State they were plenty ripe to be swept away by authoritarian strong men who made promises to make everything better and that leads us nicely to our fourth cause of World War II namely the rise of fascists and totalitarian regimes and for this we'll take a little tour around the world our first stop is in the Soviet Union so remember that in 1917 the Russian Revolution successfully transformed Russia into a communist state namely the Soviet Union and after Vladimir Lenin died a brutal dictator named Joseph Stalin Rose to power now I already talked about Stalin's grade A turdness in a previous video but here you just need to understand why Stalin worried Western powers and it really came down to this like lenon before him Stalin's rhetoric and his actions proclaimed that he wasn't satisfied for communism to remain a Soviet reality no Stalin would not rest until the entire world was made in the image of Communism and that made Western Powers more than a little Twitchy and then came the birth of fascism in Italy Now by definition fascism is a political philosophy characterized by extreme nationalism authoritarian leadership and militaristic means to achieve its goals and as a result of their disaffect after World War I and their profound suffering during the Great Depression Bonito melini Rose to power and established a fascist state in Italy and so he organized all of Italy to serve his own vision for the state and while his policies did lower standards of living for many people he did provide state-funded Social Security and many public services and to people suffering the devastating effects of the depression this was a wel relief additionally musolini used his oratorical skills to deliver rousing nationalistic speeches glorifying the Italian people and the Italian culture and he organized massive nationalistic parades and used mass communication Technologies to effectively Rouse public support for his policies and make Italy great on the world State and then let's visit Germany the most fascist and Kurdish of them all so fascism took hold there under the influence of the Nazi party under the leadership of Adolf Hitler and like musolini Hitler was a spell-binding orator and used mass communication Technologies to spread his Ultra nationalistic messages of German greatness and in these speeches Hitler defined for the German people a common enemy that was the root of all their problems namely Socialist Communist and perhaps most notably Jews and look before the Nazi party became a synonym for Pure Evil their policies did improve standards of living for many Germans suffering the effects of unemployment and hunger and it was precisely Hitler's ability to put language to Germany's humiliation and suffering that made his cure so compelling and it essentially had four parts first Germany would cancel its reparations payment since that had sunk them into economic hardship second Hitler made plans to remilitarize Germany in violation of the Treaty of versa like Not only would this allow Germany to project strength again but it would solve their economic problems by focusing on war production third as I mentioned earlier Hitler aimed to get that sweet laan s for the German people and then fourth and darkest of them all Hitler made plans to eliminate all Races and all people deemed impure according to Hitler's racialist ideology and the group that suffered the worst under this effort was the Jews and all of that combined let us straight into World War II and I'll tell you about how that worked out in the next video Okay click here to keep reviewing for unit 7 and click here to grab my video note guides which will help you get all the contents of this course firmly crammed into your brain fold and I'll catch you on the flipflop I'm L out