FACTS ABOUT WW2

1. The Versailles Treaty was one of the major causes of WWII since it was way too harsh on Germany. What with the heavy load of the reparations Germany had to pay and the consequences of the worlwide economic crisis such as inflation and unemployment, the 1918 victors were the ideal scapegoats (bouc émissaires) for Hitler and the likes of him.

2. Whatever the reasons for WWI were, you cannot humiliate a whole people the way the Allies humiliated Germany and not expect any comebacks. On top of that, the clauses stipulating that all military academies be abolished and the compulsory military service should be abolished in Germany plus the abolition of compulsory military service not to mention the restriction of the number of aircraft and pilots urged the Germans to take advantage of the situation to train experienced glider pilots (pilote de planneurs) from an early age, thus enabling the country to have a huge pool of excellent airmen who would be the spearhead of the German forces when needed.

Research was encouraged and fresh, modern strategies based on the use of new weapons like tanks or dive bombers (bombardiers en piqué) could be experimented in Spain during the Civil War ( Condor Legion)

3. Meanwhile, Europe was into the Roaring Thirties ( Les Années Folles ) , too busy seizing every opportunity to make the most of each day to pay attention to a handful of war specialists like Charles De Gaulle who warned everybody against Germany's rearmament policy. Everybody felt secure, protected as they thought they were by the Maginot Line, that the Germans will have no difficulty by-passing in May 1940.

4. Among the Allies, and mostly in France, the chain of command was in the hands of ageing WWI heroes whose vision of war ( war of position and trench warfare) had not changed an iota since the 19th-century and who would be caught unawares by Guderian's Panzerdivisionen's revolutionary war of maneuver.

5. The failure of the Policy of Appeasement.

Mostly a British policy, it took it for granted that heads of state were gentlemen and that by yielding to their demands, they would eventually calm down. But they overlooked the fact that men like Hitler, Mussolini and the like of them were not aristocrats educated in military academies but rogues who had learned their trade on the street.