How
did militarism contribute to war?
Militarism
has three facets:
1.
Build up of armed forces
 |
Between
1932 and 1939
Germany
increased the navy from 30 to 95 warships, the airforce from 36 to
8250 planes, and the army from 100,000 to almost a million soldiers.
(see also this article on
German remilitarisation) |
|
I
have not been able to find figures for
Japan
and
Italy
, but both built up huge armed forces so that, in 1939, even
Italy
(whose armed forces were small compared to
Germany
and
Japan
) had an army greater than that of the
United States
.
|
2.
Control of the government by the military
and
by the 'hawks' (people who want war)
|
In
Germany
, Hitler gave a key role to the army, and openly said that he was
going to go to war to gain lebensraum in the east.
|
|
Mussolini
boasted that he was going to rebuild the
Roman Empire
.
|
|
In
Japan
, the army established almost complete control over the government.
Political enemies were assassinated – on
26 February 1936
, about 1,500 soldiers went on a rampage of assassination against the
current and former prime ministers and other cabinet members, and even
members of the imperial court.
Navy and army officers soon occupied most of the important
offices, including the one of the prime minister.
The civilian government was powerless to stop them doing what
they wanted.
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3.
Aggressive foreign policy
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Germany
marched into the
Rhineland
(1936),
Austria
and the
Sudetenland
(1938) and
Czechoslovakia
and
Poland
(1939)
|
|
Italy
invaded
Abyssinia
(1935)
Albania
(1939) and
Libya
(1939), and attacked
Egypt
(1940)
|
|
Japan
invaded
Manchuria
(1931), Jehol (in
China
, 1933),
China
(1937) and attacked
Pearl Harbor
(1941) |
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