Historical+Background

__Beginning of Anger__ In June 1919, the //Treaty of Versailles// was signed to end World War One. Germany was forced to pay reparations to Britain and France, relinquish it’s colonies, reduce its army, and accept blame for starting the war. These accusations of the treaty caused most of the German public anger and started to agree with a man named **Adolf Hitler**, the future leader of the Nazi party and the Third Reich Republic. On October 29, 1929, the //stock market crashed// in New York City. With the results from that event, the whole world went into an economic depression. Many people looked for a solution to the economic problem and this is how Hilter became popular. The German Republic had begun to fail and "call[ed] for new elections" (The). Hitler used this to gain political power for the Nazi party. Many thought of him as helping the economy: gave work to the unemployed, army expansion, and social harmony. Hitler's beleifs allowed many to not worry about the economic crisis (The).

__Breaking of the Treaty__

With the Army expansion, it led to the first act of breaking the Treaty of Versailles. Adolf Hitler ordered the Germany army to enter the Rhineland in 1936. The Rhineland was supposed to be a demilitarized zone in western Germany (Hitler). It was a risk for Hitler to go against the Treaty, but the British and French forces did nothing to stop the Nazi's and stayed appeased. Hitler thought he had more power to do anything, which lead to the //Anschluss,// the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany, in 1938 (Anschluss).

__Peace Agreements__

Prior to World War Two, **Joseph Stalin**, the leader of the Soviet Union, was planning a peace agreement with Poland. After Poland rejected the //non-aggression pact//, Hitler took the opportunity to plan a //German-Poland Pact// with Poland in 1934. Hitler wanted an alliance with Poland before France and Poland would make a military alliance against Germany. In the end however, Poland also rejected the peace agreement with Germany (Lightbody). With the idea of lebensraum, German word for living space, Hitler wanted to connect Germany with Prussia. He had to invade Poland in order to do so. The area that was between Prussia and Germany was called the Polish Corridor. The idea of war was the only way for Hitler to unify Germany, since the treaty between Poland and Germany was declined. The planning of the invasion of Poland started to take place.  __Feelings of War__

After the numerous treaties, Poland soon felt that there was a war coming, just not sure when. Before a meeting in France in early 1939, the Polish military had cracked the German secret code and found important information. They concluded that Germany could mobilize around “110 division-sized formations, of which 70 would be committed initially against Poland...” (Zaloga). With this information, Poland headed to the meeting. They did not know what to do exactly on how to defend the country. When the meeting was over, Poland had the impression that France would help Poland two weeks after the German attack. Then, on May 31, 1939, France decided to postpone the mobilization to Poland with the thought that Poland could hold Germany back for around three or four months. The problem was that Poland never heard this decision (Zaloga). In the summer of 1939, Poland’s army had only 50,000 men under the command of **Marshal Edward Rydz-Smilgy** and Poland only had 140 tanks against Germany's 2,600 tanks. This was also another factor that Poland had to face, there was not many men and war machines for mobilization if war was to break out (Zaloga).

Decision : Before the invasion of Poland, there were two plans that had to be chosen to defend the country. You and the military need to decide what plan to take.

To the decision = =