1. No territorial changes without the consent of the people conceded.
2. The right of the people to choose the form of their government.
3. All states to enjoy on equal terms access to the trade and raw materials of the world.
4. Freedom to travel across the sea without hindrance
5. Disarmament of all nations that threaten aggression.

(i) The German approach was emulated in East Asia by Japan. It had already taken Taiwan and Korea as colonies, and controlled Manchuria.
(ii) The government that came up after a military coup in Japan (1936) began to cast its covetous eye over Dutch East Indies, the British colonies in Malaya and Singapore, the French colonies in Indochina and the US-controlled Philippines.

Munich Agreement:
(i) The mood in London was in favour of a war against Hitler.
(ii) But Chamberlain and his counterpart in France were bent on buying peace at any cost -a policy called 'appeasement'.
(iii) A conference was held at Munich where the British, French, German and Italian premiers agreed that the German army should occupy the Sudetenland, as demanded by Hitler, on 1 October and that parts of Czechoslovakia should go to Poland and Hungary.

On 10 May 1940 Germany invaded the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium and France, launching its blitzkrieg (the lightning strike).

(i) In the first few years of the War the German army seemed unstoppable.
(ii) Poland was easily defeated within two weeks and divided between Germany and the Soviet Union in a second agreement signed in Moscow in September 1939.
(iii) In April 1940 Germany occupied Norway. With this annexation, Hitler ensured the. protection of Germany's supply of iron ore from Sweden apart from obtaining naval and air bases with which to strike at Britain.