Map of the World Before World War II June, 2014 | Page 2

World Scenario Pre-World War II
The First World War was a game changer for the Earth’s atlas. While the main powers of the
Globe, namely Germany, Hungary, Austria, and the Ottoman Empire were defeated, the
victorious names included France, Italy, Belgium, Romania and Greece. These countries had
also managed to conquer new territory while the losing states lost some of their regions.
Besides the complete destruction and devastation that resulted out of the war, the causalities
and the carnal losses caused many European states to become nationalists. Germany
meanwhile also had strong nationalism because of the losses that they had faced in the Treaty
of Versailles. From the treaty, Germany had lost 13% territory from its own land meanwhile
also losing the colonies that it had established in other countries. In addition to that, at the
same time, the Russian Civil War was also underway, which had resulted in the formation of the
Soviet Union.
The Germans were also going through the German Revolution during 1918 and a new
government called the Weimar Republic had formed. Facist movement by Benito Mussolini had
power in Italy who aimed at making Italy the new superpower of the world. He wanted to start
a new Roman Empire in that age. The new formed government was totalitarian and nationalist
and had a class collaborationist aim, which had finished democracy and suppressed the liberal
forces.
The Weimar Republic soon came down as the German Nazi Party gained power as a result of
the Great Depression of 1929. Adolf Hitler rose and was appointed as the Chancellor of
Germany.
The Kuomintang party from China had started a unification movement aiming to remove the
regional warlords from power but the plan soon backfired to turn into a civil war among its own
allies. The Japanese empire saw this as their best chance to eventually rule Asia. Hence, they
launched an invasion on China. Meanwhile, China was not strong enough to fight the war itself,
and hence sought help of the League of Nations.

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