When do you consider WW2 to have started?

When did WW2 start?


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I've wondered what people at the time thought of it... when Germany invaded Poland, did everyone say, "Oh look, World War 2 just started!"? Or did everyone just think of it as yet another European tribal war? Instead of giving a specific date for the start of WW2, I'll just say '1941", because we had both Russia and the USA getting dragged into the war, making it truly a world war...

People forget that the Soviets invaded Poland, too.......
 
Well, sure, to an extent, but there's a literal direct chain of events from Italy claiming Libya to the Balkan League nearly booting the Ottomans out of Europe at least in a territorial sense to the Balkan League falling out amongst itself to the Austro-Hungarian decision to launch a war with Serbia following the murder of Archduke Ferdinand. The Balkan Wars were also relatively quick and wars where logistics did not have time to ensure reality ensued, which is a crucial forgotten element in the view of why the masses at least expected 1914 to be short.



And if we include them we can't exclude the Italo-Turkish War as it was that war that led to the judiciously opportunistic alliance that mobbed the Ottomans when the great bulk of their army was tied up in Libya.

So...can some techno-computer/power-point presenting geek-wizard make up a flow chart showing (in multi-colored and varied fonts..with arrows and laser pointer) the flow of destiny towards the Great War of the Twentieth Century. You'd need to include wars in Europe, Africa and Asia..varied in size for importance to the cause of the outbreak of the Great One..Phase I..and anything during the interregnum..followed by Phase II..and the Cold War proxy fights that followed..that finally led to the end of the USSR. At the end, a note..(To be continued)...? Now the question...if there is a Third phase..is it a third phase..or a whole new war? If it is between the US and China..or the Chinese and India..or the US and Russia? Would that be a stretch?
 
So...can some techno-computer/power-point presenting geek-wizard make up a flow chart showing (in multi-colored and varied fonts..with arrows and laser pointer) the flow of destiny towards the Great War of the Twentieth Century. You'd need to include wars in Europe, Africa and Asia..varied in size for importance to the cause of the outbreak of the Great One..Phase I..and anything during the interregnum..followed by Phase II..and the Cold War proxy fights that followed..that finally led to the end of the USSR. At the end, a note..(To be continued)...? Now the question...if there is a Third phase..is it a third phase..or a whole new war? If it is between the US and China..or the Chinese and India..or the US and Russia? Would that be a stretch?

Well, the thing is that the wars in Asia had roots in the collapse of Qing China, which by chronological coincidence happened the same year that the immediate disaster dominoes that turned into WWI did. So instead of a single flow of destiny you have more of an interlocking chain of events from both continents flowing into each other and each spurring on the other, albeit not to the same degrees always. The historical roots of both begin differently, but with WWI they start to intersect and have a kind of backflow, beginning with the 21 Demands, the various arms limitations treaties following through, and then the 1930s pattern of escalating wars culminating in the Nazi invasion of the USSR and six months later Japan's shoot at 'em all invasion of the Pacific.
 
Yeah, but it was hardly a total war for them, it was a simply half-invasion of a country.

They weren't exactly looking for a total war in the first place with the M-R Pact looked at on its own terms. Had 1940 been horribly bungled by the Nazis, the Soviets would have succeeded brilliantly in expanding their sphere of influence in the East without risking so much as a hostile rifle fired at them.
 
Actually it's not, necessarily, silly. The causes of WWII in Europe and Asia were direct results of WWI. WWI for Japan marked the start of an era of militarization and left the misconception that military prowess could substitute for other weaknesses solidly intact, while doing nothing to impact the emergence of the Chinese Civil War. In Europe the outcome of the Russian Civil War was the emergence of the USSR, and almost immediately German-Soviet collaboration to undermine the new order, which in a sense the M-R Pact was a short-term resurrection of this.

WWI left a power vacuum in Europe by establishing a system where two of its most crucial components (Germany and the USSR) were neglected altogether, but in the era before WWII the USSR prepared for a modern war and Germany engaged in a bunch of successful Indy Ploys that took it to ultimately its 1941-2 peak. Likewise Japan sorely overestimated its strength in comparison to China and embarked on the disastrous Second Sino-Japanese War from misreading what happened in WWI as meaning one then when it meant something completely different.

Actually it is, because each war is generally the result of some earlier war or conflict, so as someone has pointed out, you could use that very arguement to go back to the stone age and then call every war in human existence the same war. World War 1 was the result of to varying degrees: the Balkan Wars, the Franco-Prussian War, the Russo-Japanese War and the Spanish American War. These in turn were the result of the Russo-Turkish War, Prussian-Austrian War, the USA's aggression towards Japan and the chaos of the Bakumatsu to name but a few. Many of these were in turn the result of the Napoleonic Wars, which was the result of the French Revolutionary wars, that were the result of the American Revolutionary War which came about thanks to British victory in the Seven Years War. The Seven Years' War was largely revenge for Prussian aggression in the Austrian War of Succession and so on until you have Ugg hit Ogg with a rock and stole his mammoth carcass. :rolleyes:

Only Andorra was at war with Germany for the entire interwar period, and that was one of many of the oversights of the Treaty of Versailles.
 
The German rearmament programme started by the Weimar and accelerated by Hitler made another war inevitable. In my opinion Foch was right the start of WWII was the botched end to WWI and the subsequent peace treaty.
 
Stormy: Your comment.."Actually it is, because each war is generally the result of some earlier war or conflict, so as someone has pointed out, you could use that very arguement to go back to the stone age and then call every war in human existence the same war" oversimplifies the situation.
Just because a war is a war and has some connection to some previous conflict and one coming does not mean it is the cause or the main result..there are levels of complexity you're ignoring. I tried to explain earlier that there are clusters of regional wars that led to the First World War in Europe (that also was fought in Asia and Africa, etc)..but those smaller wars, individually would not have brought on the larger conflict. And, yes, those regional conflicts have a connection to previous "Big Party Wars"..but not all of them, and some of them are so removed as to be generations removed.
It's an oversimplification to say, "All wars are connected all the way back..so World War II started on this date..and World War I was a totally seperate war.." Really, even though it was fought by the same nations, included many of the same people, and was caused by the peace treaty that "ended" the previous conflict?
I suggested earlier, take a step or two ( a few centuries) back and take a look at the period we're looking at, and then say that the wars of the twentieth century were two seperate wars, and not one large war seperated by a lull brought on by exaustion..and rekindled as soon as the defeated regained their strength..or the ones who didn't get what they wanted got a chance to grab what they wanted. History is a tower that allows that seperation..that allows us to get above the clutter of events and see the events for what they are.
 
Actually it is, because each war is generally the result of some earlier war or conflict, so as someone has pointed out, you could use that very arguement to go back to the stone age and then call every war in human existence the same war. World War 1 was the result of to varying degrees: the Balkan Wars, the Franco-Prussian War, the Russo-Japanese War and the Spanish American War. These in turn were the result of the Russo-Turkish War, Prussian-Austrian War, the USA's aggression towards Japan and the chaos of the Bakumatsu to name but a few. Many of these were in turn the result of the Napoleonic Wars, which was the result of the French Revolutionary wars, that were the result of the American Revolutionary War which came about thanks to British victory in the Seven Years War. The Seven Years' War was largely revenge for Prussian aggression in the Austrian War of Succession and so on until you have Ugg hit Ogg with a rock and stole his mammoth carcass. :rolleyes:

Only Andorra was at war with Germany for the entire interwar period, and that was one of many of the oversights of the Treaty of Versailles.

Not really. This is true only in a sense of all of history. In practical terms the chain leading to WWII in Europe and Asia begins in the immediate sense with the outbreak of the Italo-Turkish War in Europe and the Xinhai Revolution in Asia.
 
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