WW-II Inevitable even without Hitler?

No, it was not inevitable at all. Let's look at those elements of the peace settlement which Germany would not live with:

1) The reparations: These had already been greatly reduced by the time Hitler came to power and he repudiated them without this leading to war.
2) The military clauses, including demilitarization: Hitler walked all over them and the Brits and French accommodated him.
3) Anschluss: It happened and there was no war over it.
4) The Saar: Germany got it back.
5) Danzig and the Corridor: Had Hitler decided to demand these first and delay the Sudeten Crisis, appeasement would have allowed him to receive satisfaction from Poland.

Basically, a German leader (or succession of leaders) sharing Hitler's ability to exploit Western weakness but not his determination to eventually go to war could have overturned all those elements of Versailles that Germans were willing to fight for - without fighting for them. The only way war would have started under such a scenario would have been if Germany started demanding territory in the West (Alsace-Lorraine, Eupen-Malmedy, South Tyrol; there was too little appetite for this and Locarno signaled German abandonment of such ambitions in exchange for Western acquiescence in its Eastern ambitions), or if they went too far in the East (thus indirectly becoming an unstoppable threat to the West).

Alternatively, had the intent of Versailles been respected and Germany not been allowed to evade its economic and military restrictions, then it would not have started a war because it could not have started a war. Even in OTL it took some outstanding Western incompetence not to defeat Germany while most of the Wehrmacht was in Poland. A more prudent German leading a less powerful country would never have risked it.

It is nowhere written that international tensions lead to war. They may simply continue until they subside or new developments change the rules of the game. Many people expected the outcome of WWI to lead to WWII, but many people also expected the outcome of WWII to lead to WWIII. We remember the war hysteria that proved right and ignore the (arguably greater) one that proved wrong. Things are rarely inevitable, and after 20 years they pretty much cannot be inevitable; too much has happened for us to be able to say that any alternate sequence of events would have led to the same result.

Thus unless the Allies did not back up Poland, a war was immanent. Of course, there would have been no Holocaust and no Barbarossa as well.

Nonsense. Hitler had made up his mind on lebensraum and was pretty intent on getting revenge on France. As long as he's in power and unrestrained, war in the East is inevitable (this is one situation where the word is warranted) and war in the West is likely.

If it isn't Indochina--and without Germany conquering France, Japan probably won't mess around in French colonies--then something else, sooner or later, triggers an oil embargo.

Maybe another Nanking Massacre. Maybe another American gunboat gets hit by accident, or on purpose. Maybe Hollywood makes a really good anti-fascist movie about Japan (something like Casablanca, only set in Shanghai or Hong Kong or something) and the public gets riled up.

In any event, the long-term trend in US-Japanese relations was clearly downwards, regardless of what happened in Europe.

You're raising speculation to the rank of factual truth.

Keynes, who was the UK economic leader at the ToV, clearly stated the reparations could not be paid.

Keynes was wrong.

It had nothing to do with Germany. So removing Hitler doesn't necessarily change it. Unlike German foreign policy, which obviously changes quite a bit.

(I mean, yeah, there's always butterflies. Maybe Hitler not sneezing one day in 1932 ends up creating a terrible hurricane over Manchukuo in 1935 which wipes out all the generals of the Kwantung Army or something. But there's no direct reason that war, and the US sanctions in response, wouldn't happen the same way in No Hitler World.)

The question was whether or not a world war is inevitable even without Hitler. Not just without Hitler.
 
I do not believe I was raising speculation to the level of fact. Perhaps I should have hedged a bit with some "likelys" and "probablys". However, I do not believe that Hitler's policies had much effect on Japan's going to war with China.

(Perhaps, as mentioned above, they might have paid a little more attention to the League of Nations if there had not been European distractions. I had not thought of that. However, Japan was flouting the League before Germany was.)

Given Japanese aggression and brutality to China (and Japan's occupation policies had nothing to do with Hitler either), relations with the US will deteriorate (US sentiment for China had nothing to do with Hitler either). Even if there is no Nanking Massacre, I don't believe it is that much of a stretch to suppose that some incident or combination of incidents will eventually make the US angry enough to impose an oil embargo. And from there, Japanese economic needs and domestic politics (which--need I repeat this?--have nothing to do with Hitler) lead inexorably to war with the United States. Thus, even with no Hitler, none of the factors leading to the Pacific War in OTL have changed.

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I do not understand your distinction between world war being inevitable even without Hitler and just without Hitler. My point was that Hitler having little or nothing to do with the origin of WWII in the Pacific, his absence does little or nothing to change the probability of it happening.

I will add: a big distraction in Asia just might make some troublemaker in Europe decide to take an opportunity change the status quo over there. Even if whoever is in charge of Germany besides Hitler isn't inclined to--and that's a big if; Germany had other reasons to be upset than just Hitler's stirring them up--both Mussolini and Stalin have reasons to create mischief. (Stalin has a better chance of success, but is more cautious; Mussolini may be even more cocky if Germany isn't overshadowing Italy.)
 

Cook

Banned
It was believed in high circles. FM Foch said of the ToV. "It is not a peace treaty, it is a cease fire that will last 20 years." He was wrong by 65 days.
Foch made his remark because he considered the Treaty of Versailles to be too lenient; he believed that the Rhineland should have been annexed by France and the Rhine become the natural border between France and Germany.
Keynes, who was the UK economic leader at the ToV, clearly stated the reparations could not be paid.
Since the Germans never ended up paying anything near what was asked of them it is not significant.
 
Even with Hitler in power, WWII wasn't inevitable - a war of some sort, yes, but if Britain and France had stuck with collective action through the League of Nations (rather than going for appeasement and rearmament), then it would have been a limited conflict putting Germany back in its box after the invasion of Czechoslovakia, without Russian or American involvement. Given how nervous the German military was about the Western response to German expansion, then without Hitler (or a similarly able and ambitious dictator coming to power in Germany) forcing events along, I think WWII as we know it is virtually impossible.

Germany will still eventually remilitarise the Rhineland - a few years later than in OTL. But the Anschluss won't happen and I don't think a Weimar government of any stripe will ever work up the courage to go into the Sudetenland, let alone Poland. Germany will continue to plan for it and arm for it, everyone will be waiting for that other shoe to drop in the mid- and late-1940s - but the time will never be quite right for the military and as Germany rolls through the 1950s the political and popular will, will completely dissipate.

As for the Pacific theatre, there are butterflies in both directions. Without Hitler, Germany might not have been co-operating so closely with China industrialisation - which might make it easier for Japan to sweep aside all resistance and fully conquer China. On the other hand, no Nazis means the Soviets have less reason to be worried about their border with Europe and so less hesitant about supporting and arming China. I can see Russia attacking Manchuko from the north in early 1938, Japan is forced to divert some forces and the Chinese defensive line along the Yellow River holds. Tokyo's desire to bring the Imperial Army to heel and end the conflict will be massively intensified. Western policy will be focused on bringing Japan and China to the negotiating table and preventing either or both from falling under Soviet control. Assuming Chiang will never agree to Japan keeping Shanghai and Nanjing, war will drag on into 1939 until an isolated Japan is forced to retreat to the pre-1937 Manchuko borders, with the Western powers dissuading Russia and China from forcing Japan off the mainland altogether.

If the Japanese invasion of China proceeds as in OTL through 1938 and 1939, despite the changes in Europe, then things are still going to become impossible for Japan. British and French support for China will be greater and last longer. In the absence of a Nazi victory in Europe, Japan isn't going to rate the chances of taking British or French territory in the Pacific to cut off China's supply lines, or be willing to risk turning them from supporters of China to active participants against Japan (this in turn means that America will continue to supply both sides and there will be no Pearl Harbour). In those circumstances, Japan will concentrate on holding Shanghai and Nanjing, preparing for possible Soviet invasion, and trying to keep the Western powers out of it.
 
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