When did World War II Start? [Your Opinion]

A lot of [white] historians consider WW 2 to begin when the Germans invaded Poland, but what about Marco Polo incident with the Chinese Nationalists beginning the second Sino-Japanese War? The invasion of Ethiopia by Italy? What do you all think?

WHASSUP....... ....with lolis!

Armistice Day 1918 is the start of World War Two. That day and the way the blowhard British and French acted over World War One and wanting to practically ethnically cleanse Germany and return them to the Middle Ages assured there would be a second world war.

Or in the words of Marshall Foch: "This is not peace. It is an armistice for 20 years"

He was off by only 10 months.

"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."

And on an additional note, the run up to World War One began at the Council of Vienna in 1815, after the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

Keep Rolling On

I know the French cleansed out Alsace-Lorraine post-WWI but where did they try ethnically cleansing Germany proper? Most of the germans in the east were 'marooned' by the treaty or secessionist movements from Poland, Czechoslavakia etc.

EDIT: do you subscribe to the whole 'Pan-European' or 'Single Global War' theory that this was all part of one large conflagration? I like that idea more honestly and it makes sense.

edited 24th Jan '11 7:48:41 AM by BalloonFleet

WHASSUP....... ....with lolis!

I can't believe I'm saying this, but Major Tom is right. WWII would never have happened if France and Britain hadn't so thoroughly castigated Germany.

Technically, though, I'd say the fighting began in Asia in 1937 when Japan invaded China and in Europe in 1938 when Germany invaded the Sudetenland.

On paper it was one war because Germany and Japan were allied, but in practice, I think of it as two separate wars that America happened to be involved in both of.

edited 24th Jan '11 8:36:09 AM by Filby

Groovy.

In all honesty WW 2 was destined from the moment of German Unification, France's intense paranoia and Great Britain's foreign policy combined with both of their imperialist ambitions meant that a unified Germany, France and G.B were not going to get along. So naturally, one can argue that WW 2 started with the end of the Napoleonic wars/Vienna conference.

"The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our time" was a very astute comment made on the eve of WW 1, and if someone had said it after the Battle of Waterloo it would be very true indeed.

I think the point of inevitability of a war with Germany was on 30th January 1933, when Hitler became Chancellor of Germany.

I also think that the point in which a true total "world war" was unavoidable was when Heinz Guderian executed Erich von Manstein's plan and used blitzkrieg tactics to storm France and guarantee Germany total domination of Europe until 6th June 1944. If more conservative German military thinking had prevailed, matching the conservative military thinking on the part of France and Britain, I think that Germany would have become bogged down in a bloody land war with the French and British armies, in which German military victory would be neither decisive nor guaranteed. Once Hitler has mainland Europe quashed and his armies trained on the Soviet Union, I can't see any way out of the bloodiest war in history even disregarding the Pacific theatre.

edited 24th Jan '11 9:40:30 AM by pagad

With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.

World War II began the moment Poland was invaded.

There were many, many chances for it to be prevented up to that point but they were not taken.

Well it's more or less two wars. Japan and Germany weren't allies until later, originally the Nazis supported the Nationalist Chinese against the Japanese until they believed it was a hopeless war. However a lot of the original germans sent to help the Chinese stayed there and were instrumental in reporting and attempting to prevent Japanese war crimes (I think it might be called irony to see Nazis regarded as the heroes who tried to prevent Japanese atrocities).

If you want to be technical, 1931, if you include Japan, otherwise, I'd go with 1939. I know people like to say "if it weren't for..." but pre-events leading to war are merely causes, not the actual war itself.

Well, the war didn't begin until the invasion of Poland, but it was becoming more and more inevitable from the end of WW 1 and the Treaty of Versailles treating Germany so unfairly.

(opinion) Treaty of Versailles. They got a really raw deal. Of course, once you lose a war, you kind of expect to get a raw deal, but still.

Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.

True, True.

The pre-events do go back a long way however — half-jokingly, I've blamed it on the Fall of the Roman Empire before — anyway, to expand on above, the British had their fair bit of paranoia, despite controlling The British Empire.

There were numerous Invasion Scares, with one in the 1860's leading to the construction of the Palmerston Forts, and of course ''Invasion Fiction''. The British might have been the top power, but we were paranoid.

And well, from the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, a Major European War was on the Cards. Everyone could see it coming. It was just when, and how it would be sparked was the unknown factor.

Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if World War One was the longest-Foreshadowed war in History.

edited 24th Jan '11 1:35:20 PM by Greenmantle

Keep Rolling On

Bismarck said that World War I would be started by "some damned fool in the Balkans"

It is long been known that the Balkans is the state of instability and that Serbia is the key to whatever stability that region may have.

Well, yes, it was most the likely location for the spark to be lit — which is why I didn't include where.

Keep Rolling On

I misread when as where somehow :V

In the year 2268.

With the invention of time travel there was the inevitable attempt to travel back in time to prevent Hitler from ever coming into existence. Amazingly, it was successful, but the result changed history and led to the present becoming a bleak and dystopian world in which a merciless dictator murdered billions whilst using spacecraft to strip mine the earth of all its resources, after which it would be hurled into the sun while the dictator and his genetically engineered supermen would roam the galaxy, inflicting their violence on other peaceful alien races. Only a ragtag band of seven unlikely heroes holds the last time machine and can travel back in time to the 1930s to ensure that history goes according to plan and the bad future is averted. Even if that means causing one of the worst conflicts in human history. The way will not be smooth, and they will need to overcome the path of history... and their own fears and desires. Seven men and women exit the time machine in 1930s Germany. Only three will ever come back....

Er, no, wait. 1937 in Asia, 1939 in Europe. Sorry, common typo, the keys are like right next to each other....

I have devised a most marvelous signature, which this signature line is too narrow to contain.

France cleansed Alsace-Lorrained? Really? Please define cleanse for me and/or give me more informations about these events because I doubt it happened.

The Great Northern Threadkill.

Pretty much this. There have been lots of wars, but only two World Wars. The requirement for that seems to be the involvement of all or most of the world's Great Powers. China vs. Japan just doesn't qualify. British Empire and France vs. Germany (and later US, USSR, British Empire and France vs. Germany, Japan and Italy) definitely qualifies.

And I have always seen it as two separate wars. While WWI directly lead into WWII (because it gave Hitler the means to rise to power), the twenty-year armistice, while an interesting theory just doesn't hold up.

France occupied the Saar for years after the end of the war and there were occupation troops up to the Rhine (I think) for a while. Wouldn't be too hard to say "move into Germany and stay German, and stay here and become French." Though I really don't know too much about it.

/Too lazy to open Wikipedia

edited 24th Jan '11 9:53:12 PM by Medicus

It's not over. Not yet.

You asume that moving a whole lot of people was easy. Would you like to move from a house where your family has lived for generations?

I'm with the armistice. It didn't garantee the particular war but it sure didn't stabilize the situation in any way. They way they handled it could be vastly improved. I'm okay with reparations and all, but the unequal treatment of the losers wasn't the smartest thing to do.

World War II really became inevitable (in Europe) in September, 1938, with the invasion of Czechoslovakia.

In Asia, probably the 1930 elections that stacked the Imperial Diet with ultra-nationalists/expansionists.

"I didn't steal it; I'm borrowing it until I die."

@myrd: IF the occupation of Belgium in both wars is anything to go by, saying "Move or we'll shoot you" works well.

Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.

Actually, I think that's an argument not to do it. I'm sure nobody was happy about it. A Nd Belgium still has two languages, so it's not like it worked, right? :O

Well to go into detail.

1.) It did create a lot of fear. My great-grandmother (Who saw occupation in both wars) and grandmother (who served in a forced-labor camp in Germany and was accused of sabotage on one occasion) both shuddered whenever they heard someone speaking German. Especially if it was a German police-man. However, for example, when my grandmother/father got married, a German armored division entered the town in retreat and they explained how fearsome it was because they were known, or at least stories of, retreating Germans gunning down people in revenge because of resistance activity or simply because they were pissed off. The story that everyone remembers is when some SS came in to a house looking for Americans, since they believed they were hidden there, the owner came out and said no one was there. They quite literally tore the house apart. The owner was led into her house, a soldier put a gun to her head, and blew her brains out. Why? I don't know, its just what the SS did.

2.) In terms of percent of the population, we had the largest resistance movement. It was basically 50 percent worked for it. My grandfather did some things related to it but nothing major. But my town, Halle, was a fairly busy place for the resistance and there was a heavy Gestapo presence (my grandfather's place of work, a factory, was raided multiple times and the people taken simply never came back).

3.) There were attempts by the Gestapo to use local Belgians as informants, and some agreed to it, but they tended to die. And die brutally. The butcher (hahaha :V) of our town worked with the Gestapo and gave information on who worked in the resistance. The resistance found out, went to his store at night (he lived one floor above it) and hung him on a meat-rack with a note saying, "now one pig is with all the rest." There was also the case where some resistance members (my grandfather included) basically fought with a farmer because the guy had a large stockpile of food he was refusing to give away because he wouldn't make a profit (at this point the town was facing some pretty bad rationing) and they basically threatened to set him and his land on fire if he didn't work with them. It worked, but that is how it worked.

Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.

Actually, I think there's some blame to be had on the Sino-Russian comflict of 1905. The IJN took the experience of obliterating the Czar's navy and suddenly thought they were all that and a bag of chips. Not saying it's the root cause of Imperial Japan's agression, but it is a factor. If the '05 conflict had turned out not as overwhelmingly one-sided in favor of the Japanese, I can only assume that they would not have sought to expand as quickly as they tried to.

Or something like that, it's a nebulous thought bouncing around in my skull right now and it's evading attempts to articulate it in greater detail.

Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.

Evidently the Japanese took a massive loss, in kind, during World War II against the Russians which prompted them to hope for another decisive victory against the US at Midway.

Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.