AHC: Both world wars start in Asia and not in Europe

WWI: the only relevant countries (I'm guess you're not gonna look kindly to the loophole of "most Major European powers have colonies in Asia" and having the spark there) are Japan & Russia during the early 1910s, and I don't think the former is too keen on round 2 of the Russo-Japan War, especially given that they haven't finished building their navy yet...

WWII: already did in OTL, depends on who you ask. Some historians have folded the Second Sino-Japan War into WWII.
 
Last edited:
Its technically impossible to say the world wars started in Europe. Either they weren't world wars yet or the cause for it to spread to the world are not rooted in Europe.

World War I is called so because it preceded World War II, though it was never a world war on a scale of WWII as there was only fighting on 2 continents instead of 3(or 4). Before World War II it was always called the great war.

You could however have a giant colonial war that starts in Asia and spreads to colonial powers clashing against eachother because of opportunism.
 
You could have an earlier war coming from 1901 or 1905 but I think that is tricky. The best scenario is avoiding the spark of 1914, pushing off a war to begin between Russia and Japan over China and the lasting humiliation of 1905. That could push out to 1930 when Russia has fully built its navy or might erupt over some incident or internal Chinese fallout drawing in Japan or Russia. The question is how to sink Europe (thus the "world") into such a war. Would the Franco-Russian alliance last that long? Would the UK remain allied to Russia as she moves up to a threatening naval posture? Will the Anglo-Japanese alliance remain in place?

Perhaps the scenario is Russian aggression in Asia after 1916 with high tensions in Europe as Russia presses for advantage in the Balkans, this might alienate Britain and lure the Ottomans into the Triple Alliance, holding Italy closer, France may remain for lack of options but cooling. Japan stays close to Britain and gets closer to Germany. Taking advantage of turmoil in A-H the Russians push Serbia to a showdown drawing Germany to the brink now overconfident of its military might. Some incident sparks war in China and it flashes to Europe as Germany and Russia go to blows, France hits Germany and Italy bows out, Britain is not at war but backs Japan and lets Germany have free reins to savage Russia. Otherwise keep the Entente intact and have Japan switch sides to Germany, Japan takes on Russia during her own revolution sometime post 1916 as other predict is "inevitable." Germany goes East to take out Russia and defeating her can't conquer her with France attacking the West and Britain weighing in as Italy falls out. The reality is that you should only get one global war but not two, Japan here either succeeds or is destroyed, same as Russia, by the time they recover technology makes global war less likely, i.e. the atomic bomb.
 
Top