Poll: When did WW2 begin?

[TheIronRuler]

oh and one thing: WW2 in Europe was just a continuation of WW1, just with major and minor power slightly rearranged around Germany/France and nobody being able to save the french from being overrun this time around. the military performance of french Armies after Napoleon is kinda embarrassing.

What, because they got defeated by the same military that chased the British back across the channel and took large bites out of the USSR? That's raising the bar a little high.

Also, they were winning against the Italians even while they were being defeated by the Germans.[/quote
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And what did they have to show for it? French Vichy? Man, look at the performance of Italian troops in the Barbarossa operation. Pathetic. Their weapons would freeze and break off.

 

[MammothBlade]

1914 is when the second thirty years war started and 1945 is when it ended. All the stuff in between has just been filler.

Exactly. Just one big unresolved war.

"This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years"- Ferdinand Foch

 

[TheIronRuler]

Nah man... one of the points of Nazi Germany was 'living space'. You conquer Poland, Ukraine, the Baltics, Yugoslavia... You starve the locals, turn them into idiots, kill all of the educated and trained people, then make them into slaves. Slowly but surely you start resettling areas with German population.

Same was done with Japan. Ever read about Japanese farmers immigrating to Japanese controlled Korea? Yeeeeeeep. The whole raping thing in china? Lets make some half-Japanese babies!
Sick... but effective.

I don't think you can compare the two by the same scale, but even as a german you can't disregard the shit done by the Japanese. They also worried about lacking living space and the food to support themselves. Y'Know, the whole Malthusian philosophy thingy.

i actually know next to nothing about the pacific war and kinda always assumed the Japanese were acting more along the lines of traditional(if unusually violent) Imperialism, with the rape just being your standard way to break the population, and less well organised and documented (seriously, other people may be more efficient or clever at genocide than us but nobody has ever kept such good records about it) genocide of everyone who was not "Aryan". I really should read up on the war in the pacific.

oh and one thing: WW2 in Europe was just a continuation of WW1, just with major and minor power slightly rearranged around Germany/France and nobody being able to save the french from being overrun this time around. the military performance of french Armies after Napoleon is kinda embarrassing.

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The French hadn't learned from WW1 and changed the composition and leadership of their armies. The Germans have, significantly. After the conquest of northern France you had Vichy France, lead by French "aristocrats" - rich and powerful antisemitic bastards who didn't have any qualms about helping the Nazis.

 

[hermes]

In my opinion, it became a "World War" when Poland was invaded and the rest of the European powers got involved. I tend to see the eastern front as a different conflict all together that got mixed up into WW2 because of globalization.

 

[RufusMcLaser]

The start of World War II is September 1 1939. Up until the invasion of Poland most world powers in some capacity believed that peace could still be achieved. The invasion of Poland was the final straw.

I concur, overall.* Up until this point none of the major world powers had casus belli against another major world power. Japan's overseas adventures certainly threw them into conflict with the Republic of China before this point, but I don't put them in the same class as the Western powers. The invasion of Poland brought about declarations of war by Britain and France and this constitutes the first serious opposition to Hitler's plans; therefore I believe it is rightfully considered the start of WWII.

*As an aside, the limp-wristedness of the Saar Offensive, and the entire Phony War are evidence that substantial factions of the Allies still held out for stopping short of full-scale war right up until 10 May 1940.

 

[LokiSuaveHP]

1914

I know it's a sort of a cop out answer, but there only really was one massive twentieth century war and it tripped off by a radical assassin and a German kaiser.

If I was to pick one of those dates, I have to pick 1939. By the time the betrayal of Czecks happens, things are getting close to the point of no return, but the official declaration that plunged Europe into war is in 1939, and it seems like the cleanest and neatest date to put there. Some radical scholars even argue against Churchill, calling him a war monger for declaring war on Germany, saying that if Germany had taken Poland, they would have been content and there wouldn't have been a war. When Great Britain and France got involved, that was the biggest escalation.

This question does introduce a wonderful point: There is a reason that World War II isn't called World War II in a lot of places.

 

[Glasgow]

1939, naturally. It's the date that had Europe plunge into the war.

 

[Me55enger]

My A level history teacher held the belief that WW1 and WW2 are the same war, they just spent some time inbetween breeding the next army.

I can see his point. Both wars were a reaction to "the german problem", in that a collection of independant states in central europe formed to create Germany, which then wanted an empire.

So I will go with the interesting idea that it started in 1914. Subjective, of course.

You could also argue that the EU is the current atempt to resolve the German Problem, which was not fixed by either war.

This is from a Marxist Historian standpoint.

 

[TheIronRuler]

My A level history teacher held the belief that WW1 and WW2 are the same war, they just spent some time inbetween breeding the next army.

I can see his point. Both wars were a reaction to "the german problem", in that a collection of independant states in central europe formed to create Germany, which then wanted an empire.

So I will go with the interesting idea that it started in 1914. Subjective, of course.

You could also argue that the EU is the current atempt to resolve the German Problem, which was not fixed by either war.

This is from a Marxist Historian standpoint.

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I can agree with that viewpoint to an extent. We really do need to re-evaluate how we view these two world wars.

 

[TheIronRuler]

I am inclined to go for the Marco Polo Bridge Incident July 7-9 1937. The Mukden incident presaged the coming conflict, but hostilities ended. Japan and China were major antagonists in WW2 and their war started in earnest with the Marco Polo Bridge incident. I am surprised however that the Spanish Civil War wasn't included as a potential date.

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The Spanish civil war was a conflict that did not have 'official' involvement of the world's nations, but volunteers, arms and monetary support flowed into the conflict from all sides. It was a contained conflict, one where Hitler also tested his newly produced weapons, among other things.

 

[TheIronRuler]

My A level history teacher held the belief that WW1 and WW2 are the same war, they just spent some time inbetween breeding the next army.

I can see his point. Both wars were a reaction to "the german problem", in that a collection of independant states in central europe formed to create Germany, which then wanted an empire.

So I will go with the interesting idea that it started in 1914. Subjective, of course.

You could also argue that the EU is the current atempt to resolve the German Problem, which was not fixed by either war.

This is from a Marxist Historian standpoint.

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I can agree with that viewpoint to an extent. We really do need to re-evaluate how we view these two world wars.

And I agree with your assessment. The idea isn't without merit, but I think a 21 year cessation of hostilities represents a sufficient break to suggest these are different wars, otherwise we could say that 1914 was merely a continuation of the 1870 Franco-Prussian war, which was a continuation of the Napoleonic War...

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1914 was definitely a response to the 1870 war, but it was mainly a response to the very founding of the German Empire as a powerhouse smack in the middle of Europe. Another reason for 1914 was the way the Ottomans were treated at the time and how it slowly but surely crumbled. From these ruins came Bulgaria, and Serbia backed by rising Pan-Slavisim in Russia wanting to reclaim Ottoman territory with native Serbian orthodox Christians (Such as Montenegro and Bosnia, even though there was a significant Muslim presence in the region). With the annexation of Bosnia by Austria (which it occupied since the Berlin conference on the fate of the Ottomans), rising nationalism and dissent gave way to the assassination of Austria's prince to the throne. It wasn't that much of a loss on the crown, but it gave way to an excuse to absorb Serbia from which the assassin came. Another reason is the "powder keg of Europe", i.e. the triple alliance between the German Empire, Austrian Empire and Italy, while after Bismark retired France and Russia allied themselves together against a German offensive, as fighting on both fronts could topple the emerging powerhouse.

Hell, 1870 was over a supposed telegram concerning the next dynastic ruler of Spain, which was an ally of France and subservient to it for years and the support of Prussia in their own candidate. This would have paved the way to Spain joining Prussia against France, thus forcing the French to fight on two fronts. With that I conclude that the 1914 conflict was not a continuation of the 1870 conflict, but of three issues - the emerging German Empire, the network of alliances in the region and the dying breaths of the Ottoman Empire with little people squabbling over territory (Oh lord how many wars were fought over border disputes in the former Ottoman Europe...).

 

[___________________]

The world war never really ended with WWI, there was only a break between the two major conflicts. So WWII began when WWI began.

 

[Strazdas]

japan invasion was a local small imporatance (to the world scale). Anexation of austrial wasnt technically military action.
1939 are the time real world war broke up, as Hitler started a war that lasted to the end of the war (technically Germany capitulated sooner but japan by that time being aprt of axis continued)

 

[TheIronRuler]

japan invasion was a local small imporatance (to the world scale). Anexation of austrial wasnt technically military action.
1939 are the time real world war broke up, as Hitler started a war that lasted to the end of the war (technically Germany capitulated sooner but japan by that time being aprt of axis continued)

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You're barely right about the Austrian annexation - German military forces marched into the country and the Austrian armies were ready to fight. The issue here is that the Austrian president ordered them to stand down and abdicated himself. Soon after that a national-socialist party in Austria which had very close ties with the NSDAP. Fast forward a few weeks later and Austria is officially absorbed into Germany. What the Austrian president did was to try and preserve the lives of his people since defeat against the German armies (at least so he thought, the German armies marching onto Austria were VERY disorganized) would spell death and destruction in Austria... not that it didn't stop allied and Comintern armies from tearing shit up there during the last stages of the war.

 

[Strazdas]

japan invasion was a local small imporatance (to the world scale). Anexation of austrial wasnt technically military action.
1939 are the time real world war broke up, as Hitler started a war that lasted to the end of the war (technically Germany capitulated sooner but japan by that time being aprt of axis continued)

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You're barely right about the Austrian annexation - German military forces marched into the country and the Austrian armies were ready to fight. The issue here is that the Austrian president ordered them to stand down and abdicated himself. Soon after that a national-socialist party in Austria which had very close ties with the NSDAP. Fast forward a few weeks later and Austria is officially absorbed into Germany. What the Austrian president did was to try and preserve the lives of his people since defeat against the German armies (at least so he thought, the German armies marching onto Austria were VERY disorganized) would spell death and destruction in Austria... not that it didn't stop allied and Comintern armies from tearing shit up there during the last stages of the war.

while its ture military pressure was applied, there was no real battle.

 

[TheIronRuler]

japan invasion was a local small imporatance (to the world scale). Anexation of austrial wasnt technically military action.
1939 are the time real world war broke up, as Hitler started a war that lasted to the end of the war (technically Germany capitulated sooner but japan by that time being aprt of axis continued)

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You're barely right about the Austrian annexation - German military forces marched into the country and the Austrian armies were ready to fight. The issue here is that the Austrian president ordered them to stand down and abdicated himself. Soon after that a national-socialist party in Austria which had very close ties with the NSDAP. Fast forward a few weeks later and Austria is officially absorbed into Germany. What the Austrian president did was to try and preserve the lives of his people since defeat against the German armies (at least so he thought, the German armies marching onto Austria were VERY disorganized) would spell death and destruction in Austria... not that it didn't stop allied and Comintern armies from tearing shit up there during the last stages of the war.

while its ture military pressure was applied, there was no real battle.

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It was very close to a conflict, which is why I gave the option in the thread.

 

[I'mANinja]

June 28, 1919, the signing of the treaty of Versailles when Germany got completely screwed over.