As the strongest kid in the school is it your job to protect the other students on the playground from the “school bully”?
Part One; The problem of appeasement.
The good news- you have a box of 100 candy bars.
The bad news- the neighborhood bully wants some of the candy bars.
While you know you could probably defeat him, one hundred bars sounds like an awful lot and you have a date tonight and don’t want to show up with a black eye.
What is the harm in giving him 10 bars in an exchange for a promise he won’t want to take anymore?
Didn't we just finish fighting a World War?
Why is all of this happening again?
What is Appeasement?
According to Merriam-Webster- appeasement means to “buy off ‘an aggressor’ by concessions usually at the sacrifice of principles”
Remember that WW1 was a very difficult war for people to deal with-
Never before had they seen so many military and civilian deaths.
Never before had they seen such powerful weaponry and destruction.
Why would they want to go through all of it again?
| ww2_timeline-_causes.pdf |
Why was Germany able to start another war?
World War Two happened because no one was willing to “Stop the bullies” before they became too powerful. Maybe if someone had acted earlier than we wouldn’t be having this discussion…
People didn’t want to say anything because they did not want to start another war; they thought “appeasing” Germany/Japan/Italy, etc. would prevent such a thing from happening.
*However it is important for you to know that those countries were no just being wimps- appeasement was an official and highly thought of international policy.
They did not see it as being weak- instead they thought of it as “keeping the peace.”
Part Two
What laws did these "bullies" brake and how did they break the laws?
Appeasement Analysis.
What exactly did these “aggressors” do that was so bad? How did they violate people’s rights?
Germany, Italy, Japan and Spain all violated parts of international law according to the League of Nations and the Versailles Treaty. These events include;
-The invasion of Manchuria by the Japanese in 1931
-The Italian war against Ethiopia/Abbyssinia in 1935
-German announcement of rearmament, 1935
-The reoccupation of the Rhineland by Germany in March,1936
-The Spanish Civil War, which began in July, 1936
-The full-scale invasion of China by Japan as a result of the incident at the Marco Polo Bridge in 1937
-The annexation of Austria by Germany in March, 1938
the Czech Crisis which resulted in the Munich Agreement of September, 1938
-The invasion of Bohemia-Moravia, the Czech part of Czechoslovakia by Germany in March, 1939
What happened during these events you ask?
Lucky for you- You will have to find out on your own.
Each student will be assigned a certain event from the list above and then asked to research/analyze each of these events using the;
Aggression/Appeasement Committee Report worksheet provided below.
To help your “reflection,” copies of small segments from the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations Covenant have also been attached.
Do the research/reading/reporting on your own then we will come together as a class to share our findings.
| ww2_appeasement_aggression_committee_report.pdf |
| ww2_reflection_on_versailles.pdf |
| ww2_reflection_league_of_nations_excerpt.pdf |
Alternative Assignment (two paragraphs each)
1. Describe the German, Italian, and Japanese aggression that led to the outbreak of World War II.
2. How did the failure of the League of Nations lead to World War II. What might the League of Nations have done differently to avoid the outbreak of war?
3. What happened at Nanjing?
4. Describe appeasement and how this policy contributed to World War II. Would you have used appeasement in an attempt to avoid war? Why or why not?
5. Do you feel anything could have been done to stop German, Italian, and Japanese aggression that would have avoided World War II?
6. Describe how the United States became part of the Allied alliance.
