Unit Three > Origins of WWII poem

THE (R)ODE TO WAR  by James Duthie

 

In nineteen hundred and thirty one

Manchuria fell to the Japanese gun.

In nineteen hundred and thirty three

Hitler took over Germany.

 

In nineteen hundred and thirty four

Hindenburg died, and was no more,

So Chancellor Hitler took over his job

And called himself Fuhrer; what a snob!

 

In nineteen hundred and thirty five

The Nuremberg Laws, they did arrive.

Anti-semitic, they were blights

Which stripped the Jews of all their rights.

 

‘Twas  in thirtyfive that Mussolini

Took Abyssinia and got off scot-free

So Hitler, not dumb, decided that he

Could defy the League with impunity.

 

In nineteen hundred and thirty six

The Rhineland was garrisoned (using tricks),

In breach of Versailles and Locarno too,

A hint of what Hitler was going to do.

 

The very next year, having watched this with glee,

Japan attacked China confidently,

Knowing that no-one would come to its aid.

The price of appeasement by China was paid.

 

In nineteen hundred and thirty eight

Hitler’s aggressions came in a spate.

First, Anschluss with Austria, over by spring,

Encircling the Czechs in a Nazi ring,

 

Then wanting Sudetenland Germans to seize

Knowing the Allies were on their knees.

Hitler was willing the Treaty to flout,

Betting the Allies would sell the Czechs out.

 

Not once, not twice but three times in all

Chamberlain flew to Hitler’s hall,

Till on that black September day

The Sudetenland was given away

 

By the Munich Pact, a dirty deed,

Appeasement’s tribute to Hitler’s greed.

Chamberlain thought he had Hitler’s word,

But Churchill warned he’d not be deterred.

 

In nineteen hundred and thirty nine

Once again Hitler stepped over the line

Czechoslovakia, guaranteed free

Was taken by Hitler unscrupulously.

 

At this point the Allies stiffened their backs

And guaranteed Poland from Hitler’s attacks.

But when Russia called suggesting a pact

Both Britain and France were reluctant to act.

 

So Ribbentrop flew to the Soviet lair

And signed an alliance while he was there.

Which guaranteed each from the other’s attack

While carving up Poland behind the West’s back.

 

With Russia on side, Hitler felt free

To gobble up Poland, despite guarantee.

So Britain and France at last saw some sense

And rallied around to Poland’s defence.

 

Hitler ordered his panzers on Poland to roll

Assuming no Briton would die for a Pole,

But this time the British saw he’d gone too far,

And thus Hitler started the Second World War.