Discussion on answer by sempaiscuba: Why does Wikipedia list WW2 starting on September 1, 1939 and not July 7, 1937?

6:47 PM

A: Why does Wikipedia list WW2 starting on September 1, 1939 and not July 7, 1937?

Actually, good arguments can be put forward for both dates as the the 'start' of World War 2. In fact a number of other dates have also been suggested for the 'start' of World War 2, including: Japan seizing Manchuria from China in 1931. Italy’s invasion and defeat of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1...

Pieter Geerkens

The key element of the question is "Why?" - which you have not addressed at all.

pipe

@PieterGeerkens The last paragraph clearly explains why this particular date is chosen.

Belgabad

I've also heard the argument made that the war actually began on September 3rd, 1939, since that's the day Britain and France formally declared war

sempaiscuba

@PieterGeerkens I thought I had addressed the question of "why?" in the last paragraph. Why do you think that is unclear?

Pieter Geerkens

@sempaiscuba: You simply restate OP's original assertion. You give no reason or explanation as to why.

sempaiscuba

6:47 PM

@PieterGeerkens Ah, my bad. I thought "when the war became a truly global World War" was sufficiently clear. Apparently not.

Kerry L

@PieterGeerkens I interpreted his last paragraph as the "why" - maybe I was reading more into it?

sempaiscuba

@bornfromanegg because that's the date "when the war became a truly global World War"? As it says in the last paragraph. As I said to Pieter above, I thought that was sufficiently clear. Apparently I was wrong..

muru

@sempaiscuba maybe the problem is, how does one country invading another make it "a truly global World War"? On the face of it, this is no different from Japan invading China.

David Thornley

The first conflict that continued and was merged into a world war was the Sino-Japanese war. The second was the German invasion of Poland, which started as a war between two countries. It didn't become a world war until September 3, 1939, or maybe June 22, 1941, or December 11, 1941.

sempaiscuba

@muru You may be right. I've expanded that paragraph a bit, which may help to clarify the point.

@DavidThornley Yep, those dates could also be added to the list. However, the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 was the act that drew the European powers and their empires into the war. Those empires were global, and so it became a 'world war' as a direct result of that act.

jamesqf

6:47 PM

@David Thornley: Arguably, had the Japanese not attacked the US at Pearl Harbor, or various European possession in southeast Asia, they would never have been drawn into the wider conflict. The Sino-Japanese war would have been a local conflict, and WWII would have been a European (& Middle Eastern/North African) affair.

Pieter Geerkens

@jamesqf: That's incorrect. The u-boat war was fought all across the North and South Atlantic from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Uruguay and beyond.

jamesqf

@Pieter Geerkens: But it only involved shipping to/from those European countries...

Yakk

Germany (and no forces on their side) had no colonies in North or South America. And if you say "a power on either side", then any war the UK is in counts as a world war. A better measure than "on every inhabited continent" should be used. I suspect the big difference is that Germany was considered a Great Power, and China was not..

DJClayworth

This debate is pointless. Whether or not you disagree with Wikipedia's decision (which was arrived at by a much more thorough process than this conversation, and is agreed with by many scholarly works), this is the reason they chose. If you want to try to convince Wikipedia to change its mind, feel free (good luck with that - it took years to arrive at the consensus they have now - and for goodness sake don't just go there and edit the page without discussion).

2 hours later…

DJClayworth

8:41 PM

Since we are now in chat, making the debate fun, let's examine the arguments for the 1939-1941 period being considered a World war.

As was said, before Dec 1941 every inhabited continent included at least one combatant nation. There was fighting on (or in the territorial waters of) every inhabited continent bar one (Australasia being the exception). There were combatant nations from both sides in three of the six inhabited continents (and that's still true if we treat the Sino-Japanese war as an entirely separate entity).

sempaiscuba

9:11 PM

@DJClayworth No fighting in the territorial waters of Australia before 1941? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

@Yakk You may be right that a better measure should be used. But that wasn't the question.

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