Sarah Paine

And the Germans start trying to solve this problem.

Initially, they're taking Austria, the Sudeten-German parts of Czechoslovakia in 38.

Then they take all of Czechoslovakia in 39.

And they've already dealt with the Rhineland, which is supposed to be demilitarized per the terms of the Versailles Treaty.

Well, they ignored that, remilitarized in 36.

And this is important because there are a lot of industrial problems

resources and factories and things there.

It turns out that Hitler's plans require, it's not optional, it requires the resources not only of the Rhineland, but also Czechoslovakia and Poland and Romania, which is going to have the oil for them.

So when you get to 1939, when Russia and Germany are dividing up Poland between them, this is the part of the history that Russians don't like to talk about, but it's exactly what they were doing.

This triggers World War II because the French and the British honor their alliance with the Poles to help deal with this.

All right, so 1940, Britain's in a world of hurt.

It faces this massive blue problem, and then there's this growing green disaster.

It's facing two continental powers, Germany and Russia, that both have these expansive empires they want to create.

They want to divide Europe and then the rest of the world.

Bad news for Britain.

But 1941, when Hitler decides he needs Russia too,

And then Russia decides, ah, the one that's attacking me is probably the major problem, not the other one.

So Stalin is gonna swap sides and he's gonna be coordinating with Britain.

So that's better from Britain's point of view than having two continental powers trying to deal with it.

So now it's down to one.