Talk:World War II/Archive 13

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Topical Achive: This archive contains discussions of the start date of World War II.

When the war began

The Second World War began in 1937 with the Japanese invasion of China. To argue otherwise is entirely contradictory and logically unsustainable and the myopic eurocentrists can get over it.--Traolach 20:50, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As noted, there are some prior discussions and these should be reviewed.

These should provide interesting reading. I tend to agree with Traoloch that 1939 is limited to the European Theatre of Operations. --Habap 21:11, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

start date of world war 2

...at the risk of starting a small wiki war of my own; i made some minor revisions in the text of the opening of the article regarding the start date given for ww2; when i arrived @ this article the start date was given as 1937, which while arguably quite valid, is still not recognized by the majority of historians or the general public as the official beginning of the war (1939, usually, with national differences of opinion); i am quite open to moving the start date to include either the japanese invasion of china or even the italian invasion of ethiopia, but i am offering this text as a reasonable compromise solution, recognizing the validity of a number of possible dates (including 1941 as the year when the conflict truly became global as oposed to a loosely related series of large-scale regional conflicts). Perhaps it would be a good idea to include an article on wikipedia about the debate over the "offical" starting date of ww2? ...if one doesnt exist already; if it does would someone please include a link & revise the wording accordingly i'm not completely satisfied with the wording as it now stands & am open to suggestions for further improvements :)

....and when stared out i was just going to make some minor corrections on a few small spelling/grammatical/factual errors... (lol) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.93.100.179 (talk • contribs)

I appreciate the effort. However, although all these dates and qualifications might sound beautiful to our sophisticated ears, I am afraid someone who is learning about WWII for the first time might be a little put off by all the numbers and might miss the forest for the trees. We should strive for simplicity as much as possible, especially in a large overview article such as this.

Now my 2 cents. The war in 1937 was an Asian war, not a "world war". I like Asian history, and I'm eager to learn more as people offer it, but it isn't really helpful to quibble over a date when so much about the conflict has yet to be described well on Wikipedia. This viewpoint is not "Eurocentric"... it is world centric. Once the war covers the majority of continents and oceans, then I think it is fair to consider it a world war. The Sino-Japanese war in 1937-38 does not meet these criteria, and for the purposes of a quick and dirty intro we should just write 1939. Haber 19:41, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The same reasoning applies to 1939. You forget that there was hardly even any fighting in Europe for 6 months after the fall of Poland. The war didn't involve Africa at until 1940 and Oceania, Eastern Europe and the Americas didn't become properly involved until 1941. Moreover the fighting in Europe in the 1939-41 period was far from as brutal as the fighting in Asia since 1937. It is also rather strange to see the war in Asia as being separate from the Second World War for four years, and then sudddenly transforming itself from a regional war into another front of a massive global conflagration just because the "important people", namely the Americans and Europeans become involved. In my view, of the three possible start dates (1937,1939,1941), 1939 is the least legitimate. 1937 as a start date suggests the war began with the first fighting, quite sensible. 1941 claims that it only became "World War II" when it was truly global, which also has its merits. 1939 says the world war began when it began in Europe, which is blatantly biased and eurocentric.

Additionally, fighting between 1937 and 1939 resembled all the characteristics of a World War; aerial bombardment, mass murder of civilians etc. Most obviously of all,it wouldn't make sense to claim the war began in 1939 when we already have an section of the article documenting the events of the Sino-Japanese War. So I say we make it 1937.--Traolach 18:56, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I added that section to appease you crazy 1937'ers. I guess that didn't work. Haber 01:30, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

From what I can see, you added it while the date stood as 1937-45, while us "crazy 1937'ers" would have been in no need of appeasement. You contribrution suggest that you were in fact a "crazy 1937'er".--Nwe 17:40, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My opinion is that the "best" start date is September 1st 1939. My main point is exactly what Haber said: "The war in 1937 was an Asian war, not a "world war"", and this is what I have argued for in previous similar discussions. Regards, --Dna-Dennis^{talk - contribs} 20:42, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Compromise

The edit war over the war's start date (1937 or 1939) has gone on long enough. I think some sort of compromise is necessary, even at the cost of a few extra lines in the intro.--Nwe 14:07, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think a 'few extra lines' is too many. This is a big intro already, and we can't spend several lines discussing the start date. A few extra words might be OK.

Whatever we do, when we decide on it we should archive the decision under an easy to find name like Talk:World War II/Dates of the war so that we don't have the same argument every year. We also have to be very clear on something: there is no definitely right answer to this. We have to make a judgement. Let's also be very clear: almost all western sources give the dates as 1939-1945. To say anything else is to go against a huge body of reputable scholarly opinion.

Here are some reputable sources:

DJ Clayworth 14:21, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I definitely like the sub-topic talk idea. That would make it far easier to refer to prior discussions. --Habap 14:56, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent. Just excellent. Haber 22:36, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]