What other ways could WWII have started?

We already know the standard 'Munich turns hot' and 'cliche'd-later-invasion-of Poland'. So, what are some other ways WWII could have gotten hot?
 
Have the Ethiopia thing go hot between the British (along with the French) and Italians. Not sure what Germany would do but that could start the fun in the Mediterranean and Africa.

The Soviets and Japanese came to blows in the late 1930s. Have that get real ugly and drag out. Again, not sure what the spin offs are but it may not stay local.

Could you develop some PODs around the Spanish Civil War?
 
But you always have to define "World War II". If confined to Germany-Britain/France, is it just the "Anglo/French-German War"? If everything in Europe goes as OTL but the Pacific stays...well, pacific...is it just "The Great European Clusterf--k"? Or, if everything stays cold war-ish in Europe but Japan gets into it with Britain, France and/or the Netherlands is it a world war or the "Euro/Japanese War"?

Is anything a "World War" without the combat involvement of the United States?
 
But you always have to define "World War II". If confined to Germany-Britain/France, is it just the "Anglo/French-German War"? If everything in Europe goes as OTL but the Pacific stays...well, pacific...is it just "The Great European Clusterf--k"? Or, if everything stays cold war-ish in Europe but Japan gets into it with Britain, France and/or the Netherlands is it a world war or the "Euro/Japanese War"?

Is anything a "World War" without the combat involvement of the United States?

The First World War is known as "The Great War", so maybe the term "World War" just doesn't come into common use, and The Second Great War becomes the most common name.
 
The Japanese invasion of China is also claimed to have been the start of the 'World War'

However it would have been very pessimistic to have called it 'World War I' (the 1914-18 one that is).

That would have proclaimed that there would be another one coming.

Ivan
 

shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
The Japanese invasion of China is also claimed to have been the start of the 'World War'

However it would have been very pessimistic to have called it 'World War I' (the 1914-18 one that is).

That would have proclaimed that there would be another one coming.

Ivan

Worth noting that World War One was named World War One before the Second, because historians feared people would forget it.

But for start the Second World War any other way? Tough. Of course the Japanese attacking British overseas is possible following the same logic they attacked Pearl Harbor for.

Anschluss goes hot and Italy plunges into war with Germany. France and Britain backs Italy, Germany suffers internal Coups, descending into Civil War. Russians get involved, world plunges into the shit.
 
Last edited:

shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
Really? Do you have a source?

I simple don't believe that someone would use the Name WWI before WWII.

I should be able to find it, I'll save this space and edit it in later

EDIT: Okay, it's from QI, but they I'll try and add another reference when I get a chance

Far from waiting until the Second World War had started, the First World War was rather pessimistically named as such in 1918.

British Officer Lieutenant-Colonel Charles à Court Repington recorded in his diary for 10 Sep 1918 that he met with a Major Johnstone of Harvard University to discuss what historians should call the war. Repington said it was then referred to as The War, 'but that this could not last'. They agreed that 'To call it The German War was too much flattery for the Boche.' Repington concludes: 'I suggested The World War as a shade better title, and finally we mutually agreed to call it The First World War in order to prevent the millennium folk from forgetting that the history of the world was the history of war.' Between the wars most people did refer to the war as the Great War, even though that had originally referred to the Napoleonic War. In the US, it was ‘The World War’.

Times article on Repington. He names his War Diaries 'The First World War'.
 
Last edited:
It is a bit of a tough one.

Let us try to divide it into 'spheres':

Europe:
The dictators Mussolini and Franco did not have the means to fight another war until sometime up in the late 30's. France being a late entrant.

Hitler was not a force until the mid 30's and in any event too realistic to start anything much earlier than Munich.

It brings us up to Munich as the most realistic start of anything in Europe.

Even with the Rhine militarised etc, it would not have been a war, rather a police action.

China-Japan
Maybe the real start of WWII.

IF US should intervene directly we might see a US-Japan war a bit earlier, but that could hardly drag Europe into it. In any event that would be 1936 and onwards.

Japan prior to 1930? Not feasible either.
In essence: when did US feel sufficiently threatened by Japan in the Pacific?

Japan vs Britain?
Maybe if we see a Japanese focus on the oil in the area?
However, Japan and Britain were allied in WWI

South America?

It does look like another historic stalemate. It would take time to create enough momentum to lead to war.

The only other thing can be a total fluke (like Sarajevo) which can cause enough animosity in the 20's or 30's.

... But even that is hard to find.

Ivan
 

TinyTartar

Banned
I know that this might be unlikely, but Stalin had his eyes on the Baltics for a while, and Germany taking Memel might have pushed him over the edge had he been thinking of annexation sooner.

Arguably, Memel was one of the more justifiable German annexations due to the fact that it truly was a German city, but still, it could have gotten bigger than it was, especially considering that it was post Munich, and must have infuriated Britain.
 
I want to imagine that Hitler is assassinated sometime in the 1920s and the Nazis never dominate Germany. Instead, their rivals, the communists come to power in Berlin and ally with the Soviet Union. Germany still reunites its old borders as Hitler did OTL under a communist mantra. Fascism will still rise to power in Italy. A communist revolution instead takes over Spain.

An arms race begins a fascist Italy which feels surrounded by communist rivals all around it. This escalates into a skirmish and ultimately into a war between communists and fascists in Europe in 1937.

Germany invades Switzerland and Yugoslavia in the hopes of being able to send troops into Italy. Spain seeks to aid its German allies by send troops through southern France because it can't send amphibious assault forces. Paris refuses, Germany and Spain invade France simultaneously in the hopes of gaining better ground access to invade Italy. They also hope to inspire communist revolution there as well. Britain declares war on Spain and Germany and sends troops to defend its ally from being toppled. Paris falls to communist forces. With the aid of Russian troops, Rome falls soon after and the Italian government becomes a communist puppet state as well.

American support from Lend Lease does what it can to prevent Britain from falling. Invasion plans which are better prepared than Operation Sealion are made and carried out by communist forces. Britain is invaded and surrenders within weeks. The royal family and British leadership flee to Canada and World War II in Europe ends in this way. In the post-war World communist governments will begin to appear in the colonies of Spain and France in Africa and the Middle East. Some British colonies such as in the Middle East are granted independence by their communist allies and spread their influence there.

Japan still takes advantage of the fall of France and Britain in the Pacific. It invades and controls Indochina in 1940. The enrages America under Roosevelt still to engage in the oil embargo with the country and which still prompts the attack on Pearl Harbor. America and Britain work together to reclaim their territories in the Pacific. Without German work into the splitting of the atom, there will be no Manhattan Project. Instead in late 1944, Japan is defeated after Allied forces blockade the Japanese home islands and starve them into unconditional surrender. American aid allows the nationalists to defeat communist forces in China. Democratic governments begin to appear in Southeast Asia as well after the end of the war.
 
Last edited:

There has been discussion posted before but the gist of it is that the chance of the communists coming to power without the Nazis is somewhere between zero and none. They have only a rather small minority of public support that will diminish as economic conditions improve, no control over the German army, and fanatical opposition from the right wing and other opposition groups. If you want the communists to come to power in 1930s Germany you're going to have to do quite a lot more than just kill Hitler. Most likely without Hitler Germany simply ends up with Ye Olde Drab Right Wing Authoritarian Regime as was common in Eastern Europe during the time period.

I also think that that extreme improbability asides this is rather unlikely, at least in Europe. A major reason for appeasement working (and I'm presuming they need some appeasement, they can hardly invade France with their main industrial belt in the Rhineland demilitarized and easy prey for invasion) as it did was the fear of confronting the "bulwark against communism". Here the Germans will not get any sympathy from France/Italy/UK - conversely they're absolutely terrified - and even the British, not always the brightest of people during the 1930s, can see how nightmarish Germany allied with the USSR as fellow communist states is to the balance of power, not even mentioning their opposition to the ideology itself.

Also the communists arriving in power on anything like the original schedule that Hitler did, ie. 1932/1933, is going to have them… ill positioned for war in 1937, regardless of what develops concerning foreign responses to them.
 
Top