THE WORLD ATLAS

Chapter · Interwar Period

The Road to War

The world in 1938

By 1938 the peace settlement of 1919 is falling apart and the world is drifting toward another great war. Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany since 1933, has rearmed the country, absorbed Austria in March, and at the Munich conference in September won the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia as Britain and France chose 'appeasement' over war.

In November, the Kristallnacht pogrom shows the violence of Nazi persecution of Jews. Mussolini's Italy has conquered Ethiopia, and General Franco, backed by both dictators, is winning Spain's civil war. In Asia, Japan has been at full-scale war with China since 1937, capturing Nanjing, Wuhan and Canton and forcing Chiang Kai-shek's government deep inland. Stalin's Great Purge is killing hundreds of thousands in the Soviet Union. The democracies, Britain, France and the United States, are still recovering from the Depression and reluctant to fight. Across Asia and Africa, colonial rule continues, but nationalist movements grow stronger.

Open the map in 1938

The great powers

Region by region

Southern Africa

South Africa is governed by J. B. M. Hertzog's United Party, with Jan Smuts as deputy, and the 1938 centenary of the Great Trek inflames Afrikaner nationalism. Britain rules the Rhodesias, Bechuanaland, Nyasaland and the Tanganyika mandate, which Nazi Germany demands back, while Belgium holds the Congo. Angola and Mozambique are ruled by Salazar's authoritarian Estado Novo in Portugal, and Madagascar is French.

Northern Africa

Italy conquered Ethiopia in 1935-1936 with poison gas and joined it with Eritrea and Somaliland as Italian East Africa, ruled from Addis Ababa by the Duke of Aosta, while Haile Selassie lives in exile in England. Italy also rules Libya under Governor Italo Balbo. Egypt, under young King Farouk, gained more independence by the 1936 treaty, though British forces guard Suez, and France rules Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and the great African federations. Spanish Morocco was the base from which Franco launched his rebellion.

Europe

Hitler's Germany annexed Austria (the Anschluss) in March 1938, and the Munich Agreement of 30 September, signed by Chamberlain, Daladier, Mussolini and Hitler, handed it Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland; Poland and Hungary then grabbed slices of Czechoslovakia too. Spain's civil war (1936-1939) rages, with Franco's Nationalists defeating the Republic at the Ebro. Britain (King George VI, PM Neville Chamberlain) and France (PM Edouard Daladier from April) begin rearming, while Stalin's purges devastate the Soviet officer corps.

Middle East & South Asia

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey, dies in November 1938 and is succeeded by Ismet Inonu. Reza Shah rules Iran, King Ghazi reigns in Iraq, and in Saudi Arabia, under King Ibn Saud, American engineers strike oil at Dammam in March 1938. Palestine is torn by the Arab Revolt (1936-1939) against British rule and Jewish immigration, and France holds Syria and Lebanon. In India, under Viceroy Lord Linlithgow, Congress governs most provinces after the 1937 elections, and Zahir Shah rules Afghanistan.

Northern & Central Asia

Soviet Central Asia now consists of five union republics, Kazakh, Uzbek, Turkmen, Kirghiz and Tajik, whose local Communist leaders are being executed in Stalin's purges. The Gulag camps of Siberia and Kolyma hold over a million prisoners, and Soviet and Japanese forces clash at Lake Khasan in the summer of 1938. Mongolia is a Soviet satellite dominated by the strongman Khorloogiin Choibalsan, and Xinjiang's warlord Sheng Shicai depends on Soviet support.

East Asia

The Second Sino-Japanese War has raged since July 1937: after the Nanjing Massacre, Japan captures Xuzhou, Wuhan and Canton in 1938, and Chiang Kai-shek moves his government to Chongqing, even breaching the Yellow River dikes to slow the enemy. Mao Zedong's Communists, based at Yan'an, are in an uneasy united front with the Nationalists. Japan, under Emperor Hirohito and Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro, rules Korea, Taiwan and the puppet state of Manchukuo under the last Qing emperor Puyi. Tibet is governed by a regent while the newly found 14th Dalai Lama is a small child.

Southeast Asia

The Philippines has been a self-governing Commonwealth under President Manuel Quezon since 1935, with independence promised for 1946. Burma was separated from India in 1937, Britain opened its great naval base at Singapore in February 1938, France rules Indochina, and the Dutch rule the East Indies. In Siam (renamed Thailand in 1939), the nationalist military strongman Plaek Phibunsongkhram becomes prime minister in December 1938 under the boy-king Ananda Mahidol.

Northern North America

Canada, under Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, supports appeasement but begins modest rearmament. Newfoundland, bankrupt in the Depression, has given up self-government to a British-appointed Commission (1934). Alaska is a US territory, and Greenland a Danish colony after an international court confirmed Danish sovereignty in 1933.

Southern North America

The United States, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, is still fighting the Depression with the New Deal and remains officially neutral, though Roosevelt warns about the dictators. In Mexico, President Lazaro Cardenas nationalises the foreign oil companies on 18 March 1938, creating PEMEX. Strongmen rule much of the Caribbean and Central America, including Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua and Fulgencio Batista behind the scenes in Cuba.

Northern South America

Getulio Vargas rules Brazil as dictator under his Estado Novo (New State) of 1937 and crushes a fascist Integralist putsch in May 1938. Bolivia, defeated by Paraguay in the Chaco War, is led by the military reformer German Busch, Peru by General Oscar Benavides, and Colombia elects Eduardo Santos. Venezuela is moving toward democracy under Eleazar Lopez Contreras after Gomez's death.

Southern Cone

Argentina is ruled by Roberto Ortiz, elected by fraud in the 'Infamous Decade', and Chile elects Pedro Aguirre Cerda of the Popular Front in October 1938. The Chaco Peace Treaty of July 1938 awards Paraguay most of the disputed Gran Chaco after its victory over Bolivia. Uruguay is led by Alfredo Baldomir from June 1938.

Australasia & Oceania

Australia, under Prime Minister Joseph Lyons, marks 150 years since British settlement, and Aboriginal activists hold a 'Day of Mourning' on 26 January 1938. New Zealand's Labour government under Michael Joseph Savage passes a pioneering Social Security Act. Australia rules Papua and the New Guinea mandate, and Japan has closed its mandated islands in Micronesia to outsiders, fuelling suspicion that it is fortifying them.

Events

  1. Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany
  2. Italy invades Ethiopia
  3. Spanish Civil War begins; Germany remilitarises the Rhineland; Rome-Berlin Axis formed
  4. Japan launches full-scale war on China; Nanjing Massacre
  5. Germany annexes Austria (Anschluss)
  6. Mexico nationalises its oil industry
  7. Munich Agreement gives the Sudetenland to Germany
  8. Kristallnacht pogrom against Jews in Germany and Austria

Moments of this period

Wars of this period

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Sources