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World War II, many historians have argued, was an unnecessary war. It was the consequence, so the argument goes, of short-sighted and pusillanimous policies followed, for different reasons, by the leaders of the two Great Powers of Europe who alone had the power to stop Hitler in his tracks. They did not do so because, in the final analysis, their nerve failed, because the specter of another world war, following the slaughter of 1914-18, was simply too horrible to contemplate. In the end, however, the policies of 1936-38, driven by these fears, made inexorable the very outcome which had been most dreaded. Whatever the cogency of these arguments, it still remains true that Germany was a first-class military and industrial power, and the policies of its rivals and opponents, however well-conceived and executed, might not have dissuaded a regime hellbent on expansion by aggression from pursuing adventurous courses.

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