I want to create a list of potential starting points for WW 2, with a POD of 1933, based on real history and nearly happened history that could have set off WW 2 earlier than 1939, around the same time and a little later.
The biggies,
1) No Munich conference, WW 2 starts in Sept 38, with Poland and Hungary in from the start on Germany's side vs Britain, France and Czechoslovakia.
2) Italian British war over Ethiopia leads to a general war in 35-36.
3) Spanish Civil war spread to world war. Here we might want some incident to get out of hand and spread, or maybe Franco's forces are about to lose and things escalate from there, with Germans and Italians desperate to shore him up.
4) British and French response to remilitarization of the Rhineland.
Some other ones.
Austria. I can think of a few intriguing cases. Germans had a contingency plan for an immediate invasion of Austria if the Austrian government invited the Hapsburgs back into power.
Also, if the coup against Dollfuss was a little more sucessful and resulted in a low level civil war, with Austrian Nazis taking Carinthia and Styria, for instance, and this leading to a German military involvement on some level.
A messier Anschluss. Say there had been no Schusnig attempt at a referendum in March 1938, and Germany decides an Anschluss at some later point in time, and it gets messy and faces armed Austrian opposition, against a Schusnigg regime which has appealed for support to the Austrian Social Democrats and has a broader base.
A Polish-Lithuanian war over the Vilnius region breaks out and Germany uses the opportunity to intervene and arbitrate (giving itself Danzig and much of the corridor as an arbitration fee).
In 1935, the German Sudeten Party under Henlein decides to forge a working majority in the parliament with Czech right wing forces, the Slovak and Hungarian nationalists and a new right wing regime emerges. This leads to political destablization and out of this emerges an earlier and grander German intervention, in 1936 or 1937 which escalates into war with France and Britain.
Italy gets protectorate fever and after annexing Albania, invades Yugoslavia in the late spring of 39 with the goal of setting up a Croatian protectorate. The ensuing Italian Yugoslav war gradually spreads.
At some point in the 1930's, maybe soon after Hungary has reannexed southern Slovakia, Regent Horthy decides to make a move for Transylvania, in early 1939, and this leads to and Rumanian Hungarian war that leads to a Soviet move, that in turn leads to a German intervention.
Anyway, those are a few ideas.
The biggies,
1) No Munich conference, WW 2 starts in Sept 38, with Poland and Hungary in from the start on Germany's side vs Britain, France and Czechoslovakia.
2) Italian British war over Ethiopia leads to a general war in 35-36.
3) Spanish Civil war spread to world war. Here we might want some incident to get out of hand and spread, or maybe Franco's forces are about to lose and things escalate from there, with Germans and Italians desperate to shore him up.
4) British and French response to remilitarization of the Rhineland.
Some other ones.
Austria. I can think of a few intriguing cases. Germans had a contingency plan for an immediate invasion of Austria if the Austrian government invited the Hapsburgs back into power.
Also, if the coup against Dollfuss was a little more sucessful and resulted in a low level civil war, with Austrian Nazis taking Carinthia and Styria, for instance, and this leading to a German military involvement on some level.
A messier Anschluss. Say there had been no Schusnig attempt at a referendum in March 1938, and Germany decides an Anschluss at some later point in time, and it gets messy and faces armed Austrian opposition, against a Schusnigg regime which has appealed for support to the Austrian Social Democrats and has a broader base.
A Polish-Lithuanian war over the Vilnius region breaks out and Germany uses the opportunity to intervene and arbitrate (giving itself Danzig and much of the corridor as an arbitration fee).
In 1935, the German Sudeten Party under Henlein decides to forge a working majority in the parliament with Czech right wing forces, the Slovak and Hungarian nationalists and a new right wing regime emerges. This leads to political destablization and out of this emerges an earlier and grander German intervention, in 1936 or 1937 which escalates into war with France and Britain.
Italy gets protectorate fever and after annexing Albania, invades Yugoslavia in the late spring of 39 with the goal of setting up a Croatian protectorate. The ensuing Italian Yugoslav war gradually spreads.
At some point in the 1930's, maybe soon after Hungary has reannexed southern Slovakia, Regent Horthy decides to make a move for Transylvania, in early 1939, and this leads to and Rumanian Hungarian war that leads to a Soviet move, that in turn leads to a German intervention.
Anyway, those are a few ideas.