1935
The Grand Western Alliance is formed by Britain and France. Canada, Australia, India, and New Zealand join the same year.
Ethiopia applies to join in October and its application is quickly approved. Ethiopia begins receiving Allied military aid in its war with Italy, which stalemates as a result.
The Saar is returned to Germany.
1936
Germany remilitarizes the Rhineland.
The Berlin-Rome Axis, a military alliance between Germany and Italy, is created.
South Africa and Egypt join the Grand Western Alliance.
Francisco Franco launches a coup d'état. The Spanish Civil War starts between the Franco's pro-Axis Nationalists and the pro-Allied Republicans. Both the Allies and the Axis send some military aid and advisors to the Republicans and Nationalists, respectively.
1937
Japan and its puppet in Manchukuo invade China. Inner Mongolia is occupied rapidly, as are large areas of eastern China. The Japanese declare the independence of Inner Mongolia as "Mengjiang". No one is fooled.
The Republic of China applies for membership in the Axis. It is quickly accepted; German military aid (including, most notably, Panzer Is and IIs and a set of blueprints for the Panzer III) and military advisors are arriving in the ROC by the end of the year.
The Spanish Nationalists surround Santander in a rapid "blitzkrieg" (lightning) campaign, taught by their German advisors, cutting the Republicans off from their garrison on the Atlantic and ultimately dooming the Republic. A subsequent Republican counterattack is repulsed with heavy losses. However, the Nationalists lose most of their armor in the attack, and are forced to wait until their Tanque forces, composed mostly of German Panzer Is and IIs and Spanish T-1s (based on the Panzer II, but with a 30mm conventional cannon replacing the Panzer II's 20mm autocannon), are replenished. The Republic joins the Grand Western Alliance.
1938
The war in China stalemates due to the German panzers and military advisors Chiang continues to receive.
In response, Japan declares the formation of the "Reformed National Government of the Republic of China", purporting to be a fully democratic state free of all the problems of Chiang's republic. No one is convinced.
Seeing the effectiveness of German weaponry in China, the US, wanting to get better designs for weapons and also to keep the ROC on their side, applies to join the Axis. Hitler, eager to have such a powerful and anti-communistic nation on his side, fast-tracks the application and the US is accepted into the Berlin-Rome-Nanjing-Washington Axis in June.
Argentina and Brazil also apply to join the Axis, after seeing that the United States is joining, both wanting better weaponry and wanting not to be conquered by the United States. Both are accepted.
In response to the expansion of the Axis in the New World, Mexico and the Central American and Caribbean nations declare their neutrality in a collective declaration on October 7, and Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay join the Grand Western Alliance.
Hitler annexes Austria in the so-called Anschluss, or Union. He then turns his sights to Czechoslovakia. He demands that the German-majority Sudetenland border areas be given to Germany, and Carpathian Ruthenia to Hungary, or else Germany and Hungary will invade. The Czechoslovaks are frightened into giving up the areas in the First Munich Award.
Norway and Poland, deeply alarmed by this turn of events, join the Grand Western Alliance.
The Allies withdraw their men from Spain after another Nationalist blitzkrieg manages to break through to the Mediterranean. The Panzers and Tanques then push north through Catalonia. Huge numbers of Republic forces are surrounded and surrender. The Republican capital, Barcelona, falls on September 30, and the government of the Republic flees into exile in Paris. They declare the formation of the Free Spanish Legion, composed of Spanish Republicans who fled from or were exiled by the Nationalists. Many join.