Way back in my high school history class, we had a discussion about the start of WWII, and 3 dates were of particular note.
The conventional date, when Germany incades Poland.
The much earlier date when Japan’s invasion of Manchuria turns into an all-out war, starting the Second Sino-Japanese War. This is, after all, the start of something declared a "war"which would eventually form part of WWII.
Pearl Harbour. This marks the beginning of the US’s direct involvement in the war, turning it from two separate localised wars into one global war.
Personally, I always found the conventional date the least convincing of the three. The arguments for the other two both make a lot more sense to me.
Germany invades Poland on 01.09.1939
France and UK declare war on Germany in response on 03.09.1939
Soviet Union invades Poland on 17.09.1939 as was planned between Hitler and Stalin.
As you noted China and Japan were already at war.
This means that within two and a half weeks of the “conventional” date all major global powers except for the United States were at war.
The conventional date is the most reasonable date to signify the start of a global war.
all major global powers except for the United States were at war
Yes, but they were effectively separate wars. The UK and France were not concerned with what Japan was doing (yet…that would come later, and admittedly for separate reasons than America’s even later involvement), and Japan was not concerned about Poland or France.
But there were also 8 months of “phony war” after that date, where Britain and France had declared on Germany, but weren’t actually shooting (much) yet.
A. End of the Molotov/Ribbentrop pact (any war with Russia is technically transcontinental)
B. British sinking of the Vichy fleet (happened in a lot of places right?)
Or paradigm adjustments to the two you suggested:
A. France/Britain declaring war in response to German invasion of Poland (committing their global empires to the conflict)
B. Japanese campaign in Malaysia and Indonesia adding that theatre to Japan's war and putting them at war with.... Ummm other empires.... I think British and dutch?
I wonder if future historians will join this series of disconnected (so far) conflicts under one umbrella of “World War 3” starting on 24.02.2022. Shit gets more and more global every day.
This post made me wonder about when WWII became an actual “World War”, which turned out to be a rather interesting topic:
This is an article about when the US started calling the conflicts it was fighting in “World War II”:
https://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2014/09/22/how-and-when-did-world-war-ii-officially-become-world-war-ii/
I only found that info of the topic after 2 min on Duckduckgo on my phone, still quite interesting.
Way back in my high school history class, we had a discussion about the start of WWII, and 3 dates were of particular note.
Personally, I always found the conventional date the least convincing of the three. The arguments for the other two both make a lot more sense to me.
Germany invades Poland on 01.09.1939
France and UK declare war on Germany in response on 03.09.1939
Soviet Union invades Poland on 17.09.1939 as was planned between Hitler and Stalin.
As you noted China and Japan were already at war.
This means that within two and a half weeks of the “conventional” date all major global powers except for the United States were at war.
The conventional date is the most reasonable date to signify the start of a global war.
Yes, but they were effectively separate wars. The UK and France were not concerned with what Japan was doing (yet…that would come later, and admittedly for separate reasons than America’s even later involvement), and Japan was not concerned about Poland or France.
But there were also 8 months of “phony war” after that date, where Britain and France had declared on Germany, but weren’t actually shooting (much) yet.
Two other options would be:
A. End of the Molotov/Ribbentrop pact (any war with Russia is technically transcontinental)
B. British sinking of the Vichy fleet (happened in a lot of places right?)
Or paradigm adjustments to the two you suggested:
Point 3 is the worst one by far, since both France and the UK had colonial holdings in very different parts of the world.
The only worse method is the Dutch system of “WW2 started when we got invaded”, which means it started on May 10th 1940.
That is interesting!
I wonder if future historians will join this series of disconnected (so far) conflicts under one umbrella of “World War 3” starting on 24.02.2022. Shit gets more and more global every day.
Definitely interesting. Thanks for the link!