European Imperialism Essay

Introduction
Throughout European history, nations and empires have risen and fallen. Much of the modern political world is the aftermath of the European colonial powers collapsing and their colonies declaring their independence. That being said, the Europeans had very different responses to wars of aggression waged on non-European, “uncivilized” nation-states compared to continental wars of aggression fought between two European powers. The 20th century was the climax of European imperialism and annexation of neighboring powers. The rise and fall of German Third Reich during the 1930’s and 40’s caused much turmoil in European politics and international relations. For the 20th century European powers, the annexation of territory from a fellow European sovereign nation demanded a response, but their reaction varied depending on the situation. The major nations of France and United Kingdom were crippled by the stalemate of WWI and both wanted to avoid fighting another

Chiefly, he wanted to avoid another large-scale continental war in Europe. Britain had suffered tremendous losses in World War 1 and the British psyche was scarred. The British military was weak and out of date in the mid 1930 's. The British economy and industry was shadow of its former self, and the British colonies were beginning to push away from their mother country. Britain was in debt to the US who kept insisting the British pay back while they hiked up tariffs. The idea of the dignity of the military and of the honor of war was destroyed by the horrors of World War 1. With these factors in mind, Chamberlain believed another war with Germany would be disastrous for the British Empire. The Conservative Party agreed with Chamberlain and supported his policy of Appeasement. Chamberlain believed in simply giving Hitler what he wanted, partially because Hitler 's demands didn 't seem unreasonable, but primarily to avoid another conflict with