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All three of theprincipal AXIS countries (Germany, Italy, and Japan) were involved in military campaigns before World War II. Collective security through the League of Nations proved ineffective in confronting the aggressor nations. This was in part because the population of the democratic powers (Britain and France) had been so traumatized by World War I that they sought to appease the Fascists in Europe . The United States had refused to join the League of Nations and participate in collective security. under President Roosevelt, the United States never attempted to appease Hitler and the NAZIs, but the American people had come to think that involvement in World War I had been a grave mistake and wanted no part in another European war. The American public was more willing to confront the Japanese short of war. World War II only began with it became painfully obvious after the abandonment of Czechoslovakia (September 1937) that appeasement only strengthened the aggressor nations. The Soviets seeing opportunities to restore the Tsarist boundaries allied themselves with Hitler, makin it possible for Hitler to launch World War II (August 1939). After NAZI Germany invaded Poland, Britain and France declared war (September 1939).
NAZI Germany withdrew from the Laeague of Nations soon after Hiltler seized power in 1933, but the next few years were spent in supressing domestic oppositon and steadily excluding Jews from national life. The NAZIs renounced the provisions of the Versailles Treaty limiting arms production in 1935. The NAZIs remilitarized the Rhineland in 1936 and carried out the Anchluss with Austria in early 1938. These actions could be seen as domestic German matters. The next target was Czecheslovakia which had been created by thge Versilles Peace Treaty. Hitler in 1938 demanded the Sudetenland in Czecheslovakia which had a minority German population. The British and French gave in at talks held in Munich, but the NAZIs then seized the rest of the country in March 1939, areas without major German poulations. The Germans beginning in 1936 were also active in Spain helping Franco establish a Fascist regime. The defenseless Basque village of Guernica was the first European city to be destroyed by the Luftwaffe.
The Italians conducted a mercilless campaign in Libya to supress rebels, including the use of poison gas. This was generally seen as an internal colonial matter. This changed in 1935 when the invaded Ethiopia, using modern weapons, again including poison gas, to attack a largely unarmed country. The Ethiopins had defeated an Italian Army in 1896 and Mussoline was determined to redeem what he saw as a blot on the national honor. Marshal Pietro Badoglio commanded the Italian invasion force. He extensevly used poison gas. (The Allies in 1943 made a deal with Badoglio to overthrow Musolini.) The Italian Ministry of Defence did not admit until 1995 that poison gas had been used by the Italian Air Force. [Del Boca] The Italian invasion was widely condemned at the League of Nations more than 50 other countries. The invasion gave rise to world-wide indignation, but nor military support for Ethiopia. Criticism was especially heated in Britain which, still thinking about World War I, people were truly shocked by Italy's use of poison-gas as well as deliberate bombing of Red Cross hospitals and ambulances--especially the British Red Cross Unit. [Waley] The Brotish pushed for scantions. The French played lip service, but were more interested in Italaian support for their efforts to limit Hitler. An oil embargo which might have affected the Italian war effort was not approved, provably for that reason. [Davidson, p. 130.] The Italians were condenmed by the League of Nations and then walked out of the organization. Mussolinin was offened at this treatment. Hitler made it cleart that Germany sumphathized. The Italians beginning in 1936 made major contributions to Franco's rebellion against the Spanish Republic. Finally the Italians invaded Albania in 1939, their finally action before entering World War II in 1940.
The militarists who came to dominate Japan in the 1930s were not economists. They simply assumed that great powers needed and would benefit from colonies. And what beconed across the Yellow Sea was China which could provide both raw materials and a vast market for Japanese factories. Japan already had Korea. Colonizing China to many Japanese militarists was a simple solution to Japan's economic problems. Japan invaded Manchuria in 1932 and established a puppet regim, Manchuko, under the figurehead last Chinese Emperor, Pu Yi. The Japanese were condemned by the League of Nations and withdrew. The Japanese next invaded China itself in 1937. They correctly assessed that the Chinese Army was poorly equipped and organized. Japan drove deep into China with a series of battlefiekd victories. The Japanese expected the Chinese Nationalists to surrender or be destroyed as China splintered in a number of client sttes. This did not occur. After each defeat retired deeper and deeper into the interior whe it became difficult for the Japanese to get at them. The Nationalists received military assiastance from the Americans and British through Burma. Rather than obtaining a compliant colony which they could exploit, the Japanese found themselves involved in a hugely expensive, intractable war. In one of the most inexplicable decesions in modern history, the Japanese militarists decided that the solution to their inability to win the war against backward China was to attack a major industrial power. It is difficult to understand why military men who could not defeat miltarily weak China would want to attack the Soviet Union or Ameica. But that is just what the Japanese decided to do. They were unsure whether to attack north at the Soviets or south at the Americans or British. The importance of the War in China, however, was how it affected the war in Europe. Any basic strategic analaysis would have led the Japanese to join the NAZI asault on the Soviet Union, but there was no real effort by the Axis to coordinate strategy. A little known, but major engagement was fought with Soviets troops along the border. The Soviets wree commanded by Georgy Zukov and smashed the Japanese. This experience probably played a role in convincing the Japanese to strike America rather than the Soviets in 1941. Another factor was American diplomacy supporting China. This and the resources to be had to the south.
The World War II aggressor nations are commonly described as the Axis countries. The two, however, were not synonamous. The Soviets were not a memmber of the Axis, but joined in the agressions. The NAZI invasions in the West has been given the greatest attention, both the early aggressions before the invasion of Poland launching the War and afterwards. Much less noted werethe series of Soviet actins (1939-40) before the NAZI invasion dragged the Soviet Union into the War. Stalin stealtily waited until Hitler began the war to execute a series of agressions. The Soviets never joined the Axis which had an anti-Bolshevick ideological basis. Even so, Hitler and Stalin for almost 2 years worked as allies in a series of actions against democratic countries in Western and Eastern Europe. The Japanese who signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviets attempted to convince Hitler to make peace with Stalin. Had Hitler listen, the world might be a very different place today.
Davidson, Eugene. The Unmaking of Adolf Hitler (Univesity of Missouri: Columbia, 1996), 519p.
Del Boca, Angelo. I gas di Mussolini. Il fascismo e la guerra d'Etiopia.
Waley, Daniel. "British Public Opinion and the Abyssinian War 1935-6".
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