[GuerraCivil]

Versailles treaty and too heavy demands of monetary compensation toward Germany laid the seeds of WW2. IIRC, the famous economist J.M. Keynes was far-sighted to predict that German people will follow any "semi-god" who promises to abolish the consequences of Versailles treaty. We know, who that "semi-god" was. I have seen also a English cartoon published in 1919 which represents European statesmen and a woman with a small baby (boy) weeping. When they ask why the woman is weeping despite the achieved peace, an angel answers that she is crying because her son has to go to war when 20 years had passed - you can hardly find more exact prediction!

Still I would consider the Inter-War period (1919-1939) as a peace time despite all the tensions. It was a peace that men like Chamberlain tried to preserve at any cost.

Was Germany really destined to launch a revenge war and did the German people really want that? Most Germans did not want a new war and the majority was also sceptical towards Hitler. Although Hitler gained power in Germany, his party got approximately 40 % share of votes in the last free elections before his coup de etat. This means that the majority of Germans voted against Hitler - if this majority would have had strong political leaders, Hitler would not have grabbed the power.

It should be also noted that such powerful Nazi figure as Göring was opposed to war against Poland, because he realized that the German-Polish war would not be a isolated incident. He did warn Hitler of that, but as we know Führer ignored him.

In Europe the second Great War started on 1.9.1939 - from the global perspective it was yet limited mainly to Europe. The Sino-Japanese war 1937-1945 has a clear link to WW2, so 1937 could be considered as a starting point in Asia, although up to 1941 the conflict was limited between China and Japan. But the Sino-Japanese war played a part in the deterioration in Japan-US relations, which in turn opened the way to Pearl Harbour. So I would put two dates for the beginning of WW2 - for the Europeans it is 1.9.1939 and for the Chinese/East Asia it is July 1937.

By the way, it would be interesting to know when the war started in Europe 1.9.1939 became officially known as WW2? On 1.9. 1939 it was officially just a start of (undeclared) war between Germany and Poland.