What if the Pacific War began in 1937 and during the time of the Second Sino-Japanese War? How could the US (and potentially the Allies) get earlier involved in the Pacific and/or Asia against Japan?
While the world was fighting the effects of the Great Depression was it possible a Neatherlands or Australia would lead for a greater voice to stop Japan. What of the Soviets, they had reason to be more active in China.
What could happen if the Battle of Shanghai became a casus belli for other powers to join?The Battle of Shanghai could offer something - the Western powers were concerned about their economic holdings in the city, and attempted to broker a ceasefire. The Chinese accidentally bombed a US cruiser. China made its appeal to the League of Nations.
Maybe it's the Japanese who hit the Augusta and with their better bombing/tactics etc sink her? The appeal to the LoN would thus be about a city that the powers actually cared about and come after Japan had appeared to target their interests?
What could happen if the Battle of Shanghai became a casus belli for other powers to join?
What other effects would there be?The Chinese have a massive army somewhere nearby with Von Falkenhausen advising. Any decision to intervene militarily by a neutral is going to factor that in.
Usually wars start with an ultimatum so I guess in the first resort it would be to get the heck out of Shanghai, and withdraw to positions of such-and-such a date
In general, in the first instance it would have to be largely a naval response - and whatever naval aviation is nearby
Also, if anyone would go to war with Japan over China, it would not be a pacific war(*) but mostly a series of land battles fought in the Chinese inland and in the end, the war would not stop with the surrender and occupation of the Japanese islands, but with cinfining Japan to the islands proper and pushing it out of all its territories on the mainland.
For all I know, it might be called the Korean war as a good deal of it would involve Japan and -unnamed world power X- going to war over Korea and Manchuria as a side thought too.
And as for which -unnamed world power X- would step forward, I know it still will be 50 years before 'The Princess Bride' will be released, but no doubt every military adviser in the West already heard Vinzetti's final advice:
"Never get embroiled in a land war in Asia"
(*) of course, just like no one can tell what's so civil about a civil war, a pacific war is pretty much a contradiction in terms either. Not that this ever stopped us fighting both.
Very few people in the US were willing to go to war for China, not is it likely that any "incident" would draw the US into the war. The actual effect of the Panay incident in OTL was to strengthen isolationism in the US.
As David M. Kennedy writes in Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945, p. 402: "But the Panay was not to be a modern Maine, nor even a Lusitania. Its sinking produced a cry for withdrawal, not for war. 'We should learn that it is about time for us to mind our own business,' Texas Democrat Maury Maverick declared in the House. A few months later, a Fortune magazine poll showed that a majority of Americans favored getting the United States out of China altogether. When Japan tendered an official apology for the Panay incident and paid some $2 million in reparations, the crisis swiftly blew over.
"The principal residue of the Panay affair in Congress was not more bellicosity but more pacifism [citing the boost the incident gave to the proposed Ludlow Amendment]... https://books.google.com/books?id=UQlEq9GILRgC&pg=PR111
As for the UK and France, they had their hands full with combatting the Depression and deciding how to react to Hitler's rearmament and the war in Spain. The Far East was a very secondary concern.
1937 is an ideal time for the RN to face the IJN, with most IJN CVS either under construction or modernization.What if the Pacific War began in 1937 and during the time of the Second Sino-Japanese War? How could the US (and potentially the Allies) get earlier involved in the Pacific and/or Asia against Japan?
... with most IJN CVS either under construction or modernization.
Bearn and the Dewoitine D.370 fighter ( the first ever folding wing monoplane carrier fighter ) along with the French fleet will be in the fight too. Heck, the Italians may want to take a smack at Japan, since IIRC relations between Italy and Japan rapidly worsened when the latter essentially encircled the Italian colony of Tietsen.And the A5M 'Claude' the cutting edge naval fighter plane.
France didn't have the same problem with unemployment at that time as the US, from the manpower shortage thanks to WWI, between that, and Banks being far more Conservative in practices. So were among the least effected countriesAs for the UK and France, they had their hands full with combatting the Depression and deciding how to react to Hitler's rearmament and the war in Spain. The Far East was a very secondary concern.
As for the UK and France, they had their hands full with combatting the Depression and deciding how to react to Hitler's rearmament and the war in Spain. The Far East was a very secondary concern.
France didn't have the same problem with unemployment at that time as the US, from the manpower shortage thanks to WWI, between that, and Banks being far more Conservative in practices. So were among the least effected countries
Now they did have Laval's deflationary policy, that made things go nearly as bad, just as with Hoover. But they had far more trouble with Strikes in the latter part of the '30s, so the Depressions effects(though not severe) in France were delayed by 5 years or so, and had more Political changes than economic for France