The origin of the conflict and precedents; Italian invasion of Ethiopia, the spanish civil war and the munich agreement.

The origin of the conflict and precedents: The Second World War began because Hitler had broken the Munich Agreement, and attacked Poland. Neville Chamberlain realized that Hitler couldn’t be trusted, so his appeasement policy ended, making him having to give up Sudetenland and was banned from having armed forces.

The Italian invasion of Ethiopia began the 3^rd of October 1935 and ended in 1936. It was a very brief colonial war which was remembered as the Italo-Abyssinian war.

Mussolini had his eye set on neighbouring Ethiopia, because he wanted it as an Italian colony. Although the Italian military managed to occupy Ethiopia successfully. He tried to convince the Abyssinians that he only wanted it as a sunshine retreat, but the Abyssinians were not prepared to surrender so they fort for their country.

The Italian forces used for the first time mustard gas and phosgene as illegal weapons.  

The Spanish civil war was a military revolt against the Republican government of Spain, which raged in Spain from 1936 to 1939. It was an alliance led by General Franco. Him and his army overthrew the existing government and took over Spain. He had two kinds of supporters, the ones who were fighting for the government, who were the: socialists, communists and religionists (left wing). On the other hand he had: Falangists, conservatives, monarchists and Catholics (right wing). This war killed about 500,000 people.

As pressure grew between the left and right movement, Franco fired that the country would be taken over by communists, he was wrong, instead he was sent to the Canary Islands, where it was believed that he was too far away to start any revolt, again the left wing government was wrong. As pressure grew, the right wing movement started revolting. Franco was in touch constantly with the main land, his hunger for power growing by the second.

Franco went to Morocco, formed an alliance with the garrison army and promptly took them to Spain to invade it.  

H ruled Spain with military position, without any disregard as whatever for any of the parties. This move was classified as nothing short of brilliance.

The Munich agreement took place in Munich on the 29^th of September 1938, when, Adolf Hitler, Neville Chamberlain, Edouard Daladier and Benito Mussolini, signed the Munich Agreement transferring Sudetenland to Germany. Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union, Neville Chamberlain and Edourd Daladier agreed that Germany could have Sudetenland, but with one condition, that Hitler couldn’t make any more territorial demands in Europe.

This agreement is very well known in England as it prevented a war with Germany.