The Start of WW2?

[bearoutwest]

http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=36255

This topic – in the Japanese and Allied Air Forces in the Far East section of the forum – titled “First American citizens killed in WW2” got me thinking.

Whereas I understand the point of the original question, which was to investigate the civilian aircraft shot down over Pearl Harbor on 7-December, I did ask the question of whether the USN sailors killed during the “unintentional” Japanese dive bombing attack on the USS Panay on the Yangtze River in 1937 also qualified as the first American citizens killed in WW2. I was recently reminded, that Robert Short – an American pilot demonstrating a Boeing fighter in Shanghai 1932, and subsequently short down and killed while intercepting a Japanese raid on the city, predated the USS Panay sailors.

So, in terms of a continuous timeline….what reasonably constitutes the start of WW2 hostilities?
- 1931 Manchuria?
- 1932 Shanghai?
- 1936 Spain? – perhaps not, as the end of conflict in Spain in 1939 did not continue into the greater world conflict.
- 1937 China?
- 1939 Poland?

Any thoughts?

Regards,
...geoff

[DAVEBRAD]

hi,
my granddaughter had this in her home-work and I gave her 11/11/18, because the treaty restrictions brought about the resentment that grew in the German officer class and allowed herr hitler to mesmerise the nation... and as they say " the rests history "

jack...

[Bill Walker]

Have to agree with Jack. It was sort of all one war, with a brief intermission. Even Japan's activity on the Asian mainland can be traced to fallout of the First World War. (But then, one could argue in all started in Sarajevo in 1914...)

[bearoutwest]

I agree that the basis of WW2 was the foundation laid from the Versaille Treaties and the breakup of the various "eastern" Empires (Austro-Hungarian, Russian, Ottoman, etc), but you could easily say that WW1 was due in part to the unequal peace accords of the Franco-Prussian War (loss of Alsace-Lorraine, etc) and hence it also had a direct effect on WW2.

However, what I'd like to explore thought on is the generally accepted "start" of WW2, being 1.Sep.1939 with the German invasion of Poland. If the generally accepted end of hostilities (overall) in August 1945 with the formal surrender of Japan, then from a continuous warfare perspective, is 7.7.1937 a more appropriate beginning of overall hostilities, with the Japanese attack on the Marco Polo Bridge in Beijing?

I'm ignoring (at present) the battles in Manchuria 1931, Shanghai 1932, Abyssinia 1936, Spain 1936-1939, as they either ended with a significant time lag before resuming, or in the case of Spain concluded without additional direct conflict.

What do other people think? Not trying to rewrite history - just trying to explore if any other seemingly unconnected conflicts in fact led directly into the greater world conflict.

Regards,
...geoff

[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.