Outbreak of World War II and its Impact in Colonies the conquest of neighboring territories as a means of solving economic problems. Japan took the lead. In it reacted to the global economic crisis by seizing the Chinese northern region of Manchuria. In the face of decline of Japanese exports of raw silk and cotton cloth, Japanese militarists came up with this idea so that Manchuria could be a market.
(d) Aspirations of German Big Business and Grievances of German Patriots Britain, France, the US and the USSR each controlled vast areas as colonies across the world. Germany, the most powerful industrial country in continental Europe, had no colonies. This prompted German big business to campaign vigorously to break the restraints imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. It wanted to recover German territory lost to Poland, absorb the German-speaking Austrian state and Czech border land, the Sudetenland.
Under Nazi rule there was convergence between the requirements of big business and Nazi ideology. Powers like Great Britain, the United States, France and Russia had their empire extending over one fourth of land area of the earth. Germany, Italy and Japan seemed poor by comparison. German patriots openly articulated their grievance by stating that the average German citizen had only .
of square mile of living space at his disposal, whereas the average Briton could draw upon the wealth and economic opportunities of almost three square miles of imperial territory. (e) Mussolini’s Expansionist Policy Mussolini’s Italy sought to expand its colonial empire by grabbing Ethiopia to add to its colonial possessions such as Somaliland, Eritrea and Libya. It looked for an opportunity to seize Albania from Yugoslavia.The establishment of an economy based on military state capitalism encouraged the drive to armed expansion. The arms industries needed raw materials and the only way to obtain the resources required was to grab extra territory.
Mussolini and Hitler Britain and France condemned Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia and this helped Hitler to establish close relationship with Italy. This was the beginning of Rome–Berlin Axis (f) Japan’s Imperial Policy The