h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Bush probably believes that WW2 started with the attack on Pearl Harbour because of his porcine ignorance of anything not covered in the Old Testament.
Unlike the guy who wrote that articles' dear old mother I didn't lose friends, I lost family. Losing loved ones in the conflicts before WW2 began doesn't change the fact that is lazy and arbitary to say that WW2 began with Britain and France declaring war on Nazi Germany.
People have tried to accuse me with no supporting evidence that I was claiming that WW2 proper didn't begin until after Hitler and Japan had declared war on the USA, because I believed that "it ain't a World War without America!" This was BS. What I don't get is how these people can argued that it began on September 1st 1939, when Britain and France declared war on Nazi Germany. How is saying that it began with Britain entering the war any different from the position I was falsly accused of having?

Because Britain had an empire and Commonwealth that was worldwide. So people from 5 continents fought on 3 continents before the US joined in. That's how it's a world war.

RF

Which 3 continents would that be? Europe was the only continent that Britain and Commonwealth forces fought on from september 1939 'til September 1940.

Surely any date is arbitrary since there were several conflicts that eventually ran into one.

I admit your position is logical because you're basically saying it began when all the major players were involved.

However I feel RFs position is also logical since from 1939 world powers were involved, even if the conflict occured mainly in Europe.

I also feel a case could be made for it beginning with the 1st conflict involving major players that continued until 1945. In that case the war would begin with Japans invasion of China.

Aaaaggghhh!!!

Stealth - as I said above, technically, you clearly do have a point. As I've said earlier, I personally think there's some justification for arguing for it as the 1937-45 War, in line with what BC just said. When people refer to it as the 1939-45 war, there clearly is space to take issue with this on technical grounds - but most people in Europe do this out of custom and practice and with the weight of tradition behind them and those things do have validity, I think.

But I think the problem is that when American school textbooks call it the 1941-45 war, they actually aren't doing it with anything like the same reasoning as you are employing underlying it. As I've said before, this does privilege the American experience of war in a way that, even if it coincides with the logic, still can't be helpful.

There was fighting in Africa and Asia before the US joined the war. with Europe, I make that 3 continents.

RF

Indeed, I hope what have been saying hasn't been interpreted as support of what the USian textbook said, as I have no idea on what grounds they claim the war began then, simply that the date appears valid.

Yes, there was *some* fighting in North Africa before the US joined the war, but there wasn't any until more than year after Britain and France declared war on Nazi Germany, you were trying to claim that there was fighting on 3 continents from the start. Also the British and Commonwealth force didn't fight in Asia until after the US joined the war. And didn't even fight in Asia until 1945. So that is 2 continents before the US joined the war. And even then the real fighting in Africa didn't start until late '41/42.

No Stealth, I said there was fighting on 3 continents, with combatants from 5 continents, before the US joined in. It was a world war before the US was involved.

As one of the combatants was the British Empire, its soldiers from all its dominions and Commonwealth were involved from the start.

RF

And Syria was in Asia last time I looked.

RF

No it was two wars before the US was involved. Two wars which became one after the Hitler declared war on the US. And Britain and the commonwealth declared war on Japan.
And you implied that there was fighting on 3 continwent from the start which there patently was not.
You have failed time and time again to come up with a reason for calling 1st of September 1939 the start of the second world war, you keep changing your reasons as desaperately search for some excuse to remain under the delusion that your opinion is a fact rather than just that, an opinion. You have shown that you know less about the history of the period 1932 to 1945 than I do. I have brought facts to the debate you have brought nothing but hostility.
You still have failed to respond intelligently to post 204 or 207 and have failed to apologise for calling me an American.

Really, last time I loked it was between Iraq and Turkey. Those crazy Arabs moving their country about all the time.

Which puts it in Asia, but I doubt that the 1941 allied invasion of Syria is what you had in mind at first.

Iraq and Turkey are in Asia (ok a tiny bit of Turkey is in Europe) but most of it is in Asia Minor)

>> Also the British and Commonwealth force didn't fight in Asia until after the US joined the war. And didn't even fight in Asia until 1945. <<

You wouldnt like to check that would you Stealth. The first part is correct but the second sentance is way out. Look up Burmha, Singapore, Malaya, Hong Kong. Ask any Australian about the war in Asia. Japan got periously close to the mainland long before 1945.

Donald

The second part was a referance to Russia... Must remember to preview posts before posting.

all this is nitpicking, mates.

Real historians don't debate the actual date of the start of WWII. Even the terms WWII & WWI are post facto appelations coined to underline the link between the two, and in a manner of speaking, they're the same war. The first conflict, originally called "the great war", had bled the belligerents so white that fighting ended without a resolution to hostilities.

The treaty of Versailles was not a peace treaty, but was simply, to paraphrase von Clausewitz, the continuation of war by other means. As soon as a new generation of cannon fodder was raised, war started up again as naturally as poppies blooming in Flanders fields.

Sorry for calling you American, Stealth!

But yes, the fighting in the Near East as it was then known - when did it move to the Middle? was what I had in mind when I mentioned Asia.

RF

When you say it wasn't a 'World War' until the US got involved, by that arguement it was never a 'World War.' Simply because none of the South American nations got involved (as far as I can remember).

British and Commonwealth involvement in the War in the Pacific:
Prior to Pearl Harbour, the Japanese were very much at war with the Britain and the Commonwealth, and quite frankly the Japanese were 'whooping our asses,' many troops were captured and put to work in slave labour camps. They were forced to work till they dropped, building roads and railways. (see film Bridge over the River Kwai)

US involvement in Europe
Prior to Pearl Harbour, the US was involved to an extent in the War in Europe, most of this involved the selling of armaments and food, as well as many American pilots who volunteered to fight with the RAF.
This 'aid' came at great cost to the US due to activities of German U-boats sinking US supply ships on route to Britain.

Ged, that was 1943.