The Road to Global War

The economic crash intensified competition among the major powers and made external colonies more important than ever. Governments did not let up on the collection of taxes in the colonies. As Britain, France, and other imperial powers guarded their holdings, Hitler, Mussolini, and Japan’s military leaders believed that their nation’s destiny was to rule a far larger territory. At first, statesmen in Britain and France hoped that sanctions imposed by the League of Nations would stop these new aggressors. Other people, still traumatized by memories of the past war, wanted to turn a blind eye both to expansionism and to the fascist attack on the Spanish republic.