# The Beginning of WWII



## Njaco (May 2, 2015)

Just wanted to let everyone know that we have a thread that has been chronicling the day-by-day history of the Second World War and a major event is upcoming next week. Don't miss all the action and drama as The Allies get outflanked and driven back until the daring sea rescue from the beaches of Dunkirk. Ok, maybe not that dramatic but I will be a bit narcissistic here and say that Parsifal and myself have been working hard to bring as accurate and objective an account of the daily diaries of WWII for everyone. I have searched the web for chronologies such as this and we (myself, parsifal and syscom for his earlier work) have the best, most concise and interesting daily diaries anywhere!

So, get some popcorn, put the kettle on, grab a pint and put Jan back in the closet and check it out!!!

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/ww2-general/day-war-europe-beginning-41546-50.html?highlight=

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## fubar57 (May 2, 2015)

Looks good Chris....



Geo


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## pbehn (May 2, 2015)

I will read and add no further comment apart from "likes" so I dont disturb the flow.

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## Crimea_River (May 2, 2015)

I'd been reading that fantastic thread regularly but got behind. I need to catch up but thanks for the great work guys.

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## Gnomey (May 4, 2015)

It really is a great piece of work! Keep it up guys, cracking reading.


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## soulezoo (May 6, 2015)

Awesome!

Thanks guys!

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## Westfield Charlie (May 6, 2015)

Wow! Wonderful stuff! Bravo!

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## TheMadPenguin (Feb 24, 2020)

Do you cover the war as the Chinese experienced? 
(1937 or earlier).


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## Snautzer01 (Feb 24, 2020)

Return of vd?


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## GrauGeist (Mar 5, 2020)

Snautzer01 said:


> Return of vd?


Naw, different person...


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## pbehn (Mar 5, 2020)

TheMadPenguin said:


> Do you cover the war as the Chinese experienced?
> (1937 or earlier).


I had a book that covered P-51 operations in China up to 1937, not a big seller.

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## TheMadPenguin (Mar 5, 2020)

pbehn said:


> I had a book that covered P-51 operations in China up to 1937, not a big seller.



I presume you're being humorous here.
*First flight * 26 October 1940
*Introduction * January 1942 (RAF)


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## Marcel (Mar 5, 2020)

TheMadPenguin said:


> I presume you're being humorous here.
> *First flight * 26 October 1940
> *Introduction * January 1942 (RAF)


Yeah, that’s the kind of humour you can expect here. 
i don’t think we have covered China before 1939. In the western world we usually take the German invasion as the start of WW2. Although one could argue that the Japanese invasion in China is also part of WW2.


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## TheMadPenguin (Mar 5, 2020)

Marcel said:


> Although one could argue that the Japanese invasion in China is also part of WW2.



I suspect the Chinese thought so.


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## Marcel (Mar 5, 2020)

TheMadPenguin said:


> I suspect the Chinese thought so.


I think you are right. By all means, I would applaud an effort to cover this.


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## GrauGeist (Mar 5, 2020)

So at what point does one consider the start of WWII in the east?
The invasion of Manchuria in 1931?


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## Kevin J (Mar 5, 2020)

GrauGeist said:


> So at what point does one consider the start of WWII in the east?
> The invasion of Manchuria in 1931?


Surely, WW1 is the Anglo-French war for global domination starting in 1756-63 and finishing with Napoleon. Britain then assumes the mantle of World's policeman. Surely WW2 is the Continuation War of the Great War? So WW2 really begins in 1919 with the Treaty of Versailles. Its about the desire of the Germans to first control Europe and then the World. The EEC was the Nazi economic plan for Europe.


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## GrauGeist (Mar 6, 2020)

Well, no.

And by that logic, WWII started in 201 BC when Rome defeated Carthage and started a conquest of the known world...

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## Kevin J (Mar 6, 2020)

GrauGeist said:


> Well, no.
> 
> And by that logic, WWII started in 201 BC when Rome defeated Carthage and started a conquest of the known world...


That would be KWW1. Also WW1 is actually the start of WWII not the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

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## GrauGeist (Mar 6, 2020)

Kevin J said:


> That would be KWW1. Also WW1 is actually the start of WWII not the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.


Thanks for the negative mark - I pointed out the obvious and you went full retard...be glad I don't go back and down vote every effin' post you've ever made.

WWI is NOT the start of WWII, it was the excuse used by the National Socialists and *IF* Britain and France had NOT crushed Germany with the war debt, causing the collapse of the German economy, chances are, the National Socialists would not have had a platform for their rise to power.

Europe had been in a transitional stage at the turn of the 20th century and Empires werw losing their hold: Ottoman, Prussian, Britain, Russian, France, Et Al - and in it's wake, was civil unrest.

So simply stating that WWII was started in 1919 is bullshit and out of context.


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## Kevin J (Mar 6, 2020)

GrauGeist said:


> Thanks for the negative mark - I pointed out the obvious and you went full retard...be glad I don't go back and down vote every effin' post you've ever made.
> 
> WWI is NOT the start of WWII, it was the excuse used by the National Socialists and *IF* Britain and France had NOT crushed Germany with the war debt, causing the collapse of the German economy, chances are, the National Socialists would not have had a platform for their rise to power.
> 
> ...


I changed the start date of WWII to 1914.

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## Kevin J (Mar 6, 2020)

Kevin J said:


> I changed the start date of WWII to 1914.


There really wasn't any excuse for what the Germans did under the Nazis. Maybe you'd like to ban me from all the forums permanently this time. LOL.


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## GrauGeist (Mar 11, 2020)

Kevin J said:


> There really wasn't any excuse for what the Germans did under the Nazis. Maybe you'd like to ban me from all the forums permanently this time. LOL.


There's no excuse to what the Japanese did under military rule, either. And the Japanese killed in the tens of millions.

In regards to the "start date" of WWII, Europe had been a powder keg waiting to go off and the Balkan war in 1912 almost triggered it, but the assination of Archduke Ferdinand two years later lit the fuse.

BUT the events leading up to WWI, reach back roughly a thousand years, when the Roman Empire fell, creating a territorial control vacuum that festered through the ages and came to a head in 1914 and was not resolved in 1918/1919 and actually made things worse when some nations were dissolved and others created.

So NO, WWII was not the result of WWI, it was a continuation of a condition that reached back millinea.

I understand that if one has an idea in their head about how things should be, it's often times difficult to show a different perspective, but this forum is about military history anf I have been studying it for half a century...so like I mentioned earlier, I'm not talking out my ass when I'm putting out a timeline on how things came about.

I am guilty of condensing things oftentimes, because I don't like writing 10,000 word dissertations

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## Kevin J (Mar 11, 2020)

GrauGeist said:


> There's no excuse to what the Japanese did under military rule, either. And the Japanese killed in the tens of millions.
> 
> In regards to the "start date" of WWII, Europe had been a powder keg waiting to go off and the Balkan war in 1912 almost triggered it, but the assination of Archduke Ferdinand two years later lit the fuse.
> 
> ...


If you wrote a 10,000 word dissertation, most would probably not read it. For me learning military history and religions are a hobby. There is a cyclic nature to history. What is noticeable to me, is that no one nation ever becomes too powerful on this planet before events conspire to destroy them. One such event WW1, the intervening years, then WW2, which spells the end of the British Empire and the rise of a new hegemon, the USA.


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## TheMadPenguin (Mar 12, 2020)

Wow ... what a hornet's nest *I* kicked here.

What started The War was a confluence between the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil on the one hand, and the love of evil in the hearts of dynamic energetic men on the other.

WWII: CBI 7 July 1937 
WWII: Europe 1 Sept 1939 
WWII: PTO 7 Dec 1941

"If you wrote a 10,000 word dissertation, most would probably not read it. "
Perhaps for a small value of 'most'? Please don't speak for me. I'm quite experienced at speaking for myself.


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## Kevin J (Mar 12, 2020)

TheMadPenguin said:


> Wow ... what a hornet's nest *I* kicked here.
> 
> What started The War was a confluence between the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil on the one hand, and the love of evil in the hearts of dynamic energetic men on the other.
> 
> ...


I don't think any of the major powers were really any good. Its just that the upstarts were seriously evil.


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## Kevin J (Mar 12, 2020)

TheMadPenguin said:


> Wow ... what a hornet's nest *I* kicked here.
> 
> What started The War was a confluence between the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil on the one hand, and the love of evil in the hearts of dynamic energetic men on the other.
> 
> ...


The Irish war of independence and Civil War?
The Turkish War of independence?
The intervention.in Russia, 1918 to 1925?
Mandatory Iraq wars, 1919 to 1932?
ETO, The Spanish Civil War, 1937?
Africa, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, 1935?
Manchuria, 1931?
Or maybe because there was an Armistice at the end of the Great War, then we're just looking at a continuation of it. So it's a 1914 to 1945 war, the second global war on the planet. The first being the Anglo-French wars from 1756 to 1815.


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## TheMadPenguin (Mar 12, 2020)

Kevin J said:


> ETO, The Spanish Civil War, 1937?


No, as it wasn't between Spain and any other country. It was exploited by other countries to test/improve military stuff (me 109).


Kevin J said:


> Africa, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, 1935?


 Maybe. Not much of a world war, as neither Italy nor Ethiopia had much effect on other nations.


Kevin J said:


> Manchuria, 1931?


 Probably 1937. 1931 was a coup more than a war.


Kevin J said:


> Or maybe because there was an Armistice at the end of the Great War, then we're just looking at a continuation of it. So it's a 1914 to 1945 war, the second global war on the planet. The first being the Anglo-French was from 1756 to 1815.


 Not in my opinion. Many players in WWI weren't in WWII. Empires fell, and the follow-on nations had different motives/objectives.


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## Kevin J (Mar 12, 2020)

TheMadPenguin said:


> No, as it wasn't between Spain and any other country. It was exploited by other countries to test/improve military stuff (me 109).
> Maybe. Not much of a world war, as neither Italy nor Ethiopia had much effect on other nations.
> Probably 1937. 1931 was a coup more than a war.
> Not in my opinion. Many players in WWI weren't in WWII. Empires fell, and the follow-on nations had different motives/objectives.


I updated it to add the wars in mandatory Iraq an the Russian intervention. 1918 to 1937 was certainly not peaceful.


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## Kevin J (Mar 12, 2020)

Kevin J said:


> I updated it to add the wars in mandatory Iraq an the Russian intervention. 1918 to 1937 was certainly not peaceful.


Wars were still going on around the world from 1918 to 1939, fall out wars from the Great War, the war to end all wars.


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## Zipper730 (Mar 13, 2020)

This can be taken to the extremes: You can argue the first battle of the Cold War was the Spanish Civil War.

It was a proxy war against fascist and communists.

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## Akuma (Jul 3, 2021)

TheMadPenguin said:


> No, as it wasn't between Spain and any other country. It was exploited by other countries to test/improve military stuff (me 109).
> Maybe. Not much of a world war, as neither Italy nor Ethiopia had much effect on other nations.
> Probably 1937. 1931 was a coup more than a war.
> Not in my opinion. Many players in WWI weren't in WWII. Empires fell, and the follow-on nations had different motives/objectives.


I would go with the Japanese invasion of Manchukuo since that is what led to the Japanese defeat at Khalkin Gol (Northern Advance) which in turn led to the IJN Southern Advance being adopted.

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## SaparotRob (Jul 3, 2021)

I kind of go with Akuma. I do wonder how the Peru Ecuador War fits in, if at all.


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## Akuma (Jul 3, 2021)

SaparotRob said:


> I kind of go with Akuma. I do wonder how the Peru Ecuador War fits in, if at all.


Actually it was Bolivia and Paraguay going to war over the Gran Chaco. Interesting aviation history on that.

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## Njaco (Aug 1, 2021)

If you read through the original thread, I did try to include what was happening in China 1939 onwards. But as everyone has pointed out, if you REALLY want find the beginning of this war or that war, try the Dawn of Man. That should settle everything.

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