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Well, try telling someone WW2 started in 1937
Japan - China
Yeah, exactly that thought occured to me today, too. A few hours after having questioned 1941 and having thought, everybody knows it was 1939... with the immediate follow up thought: depends.

Having played China recently in DH...
 
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There are historians who maintain that the world war started in 1937. The whole Sino-Japanese war is pretty much ignored in western histories of the war. Which may lead to most thinking it started in 1939.

Then again, there are some who say the war started in 1914 with a cease fire of 21 years.....

But as @Nick3210 says, in Russia, the war was taught as starting in June 1941. It all depends on viewpoint, I think.
 
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Well, try telling someone WW2 started in 1937..... which is a view some hold.
1 500 000 people in Asia + Nick, ahahah :D

Although, there are actually two correct WW2 start dates.
The first WW2 shot - 1937.
The real beginning of real WW2 - 1941, December 7. (before, there was only two big, but separate regional wars)

But, everyone is forced to adhere to the generally accepted 1939.
Paradox! :D
 
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Same could be said for WW1. In France, only the French-German part of it is remembered. Other fronts (Italy, Russia, Balkans, Middle East) and countries involved there are generally overlooked. It's a matter of memory (in the political sense) rather than history, and also geographical and cultural proximity, I guess.
How very true. WW1 is the western front - in people's consciousness. Which is why a WW1 scenario in DH is eye opening.
 
But as @Nick3210 says, in Russia, the war was taught as starting in June 1941. It all depends on viewpoint, I think.
I cannot claim that in Russia, in the school history curriculum, the events preceding 1941 are completely ignored.
But that's exactly how it happened to me!
The only history lesson that I still vaguely remember is how a young, beautiful 23-year-old teacher showed us three fat black arrows on a large map - the Army Groups Center, South and North, and I looked at these black arrows and at her betiful legs.. :rolleyes:
I do not exclude that before this lesson, which I remember, there may have been previous lessons where she could tell us the events before 1941. But in that times I skipped school a lot and often - just my school friends showed me how to drink vodka - and so we often missed classes for this inportant reason. So all I really remembered from my school history lessons were only that three fat arrows and the Barbarossa.
 
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The real beginning of real WW2 - 1941, December 7. (before, there was only two big, but separate regional wars)
Well, it is difficult to call a war fought on 5 continents a regional one.
Since 1939 most of Europe, all Africa, big chunk of Asia, Australia and well, until then of America only Canada, some Caribean and South American.
While, yes, technically, one could call the 2nd Sino-Japanese war in 1937 a regional one (still a bit difficult if literally hundrets of millions of people are involved to call it regional... or rather only if shortly afterwards even billions get involved and it becomes easier to list the countries not at war than those at war).
 
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Well, it is difficult to call a war fought on 5 continents a regional one.
Since 1939 most of Europe, all Africa, big chunk of Asia, Australia and well, until then of America only Canada, some Caribean and South American.
While, yes, technically, one could call the 2nd Sino-Japanese war in 1937 a regional one (still a bit difficult if literally hundrets of millions of people are involved to call it regional... or rather only if shortly afterwards even billions get involved and it becomes easier to list the countries not at war than those at war).
Objectively, Hitler started a biggest regional war in Europe, but not a World War.
The British dominions and minor allies scattered all over the Planet, who sent their troops to Mediterranean, do not turn a regional European War into a World War, otherwise all wars involving the British Empire automatically = World Wars, which is absurd. (Would a hypothetical British - Irish war = World War, just because Nepal sent several battalions to help British Empire?)

The European battle theater in 1941 (From Narvik to Alexandria / from English Channel to Don) practically did not differ from the usual European battle theater since the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages - the Mediterranean, Britain, Germany, Scythia.

Even the Crimean War of 1863-1856 was much more a World War than War in Europe in 1941 (!)
Then in 1854 the French and British besieged not only Sevastopol, but also Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, located in the Pacific Ocean (!)
If the war in Europe in 1941 was a "World War", then in the history of Europe it is necessary to accept many other "World Wars" before it.

In 1941, all combat operations were limited to the usual European theater + ordinary corsair operations in the world ocean, without transferring the War to land in other parts of the World. (And in parallel there was another biggest regional War in Asia, since 1937, and these two biggest regional wars did not intersect with each other at all, before December 7)

It was Japan that turned two separate biggest regional wars into one common global World War, attacking Britain on December 7, 1941.

I do not seek to justify Hitler in starting terrible War in Europe, I just say, if to start from the facts and basic logic (and for one minute imagine that Europe is not the center of the Universe), then the real beginning of real global WW2 is December 7, 1941.

So, Hitler really didn't "start WW2", he started the European part of WW2, two years after the Japanese started the Asian part of WW2.
 
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Very interesting observations. From everyone.

When you start to inspect the pieces, it starts to get messy.

Just think of the nomenclature used in describing parts of the conflict.

  • European Theatre
  • North African Theatre
  • Pacific Theatre
  • Battle of the Atlantic (which incidentally is the longest battle of the entire conflict)
  • Eastern Front
  • Western Front
  • Italian Front
  • Burma-India-CHina
  • etc
And look at this rabbit hole I fell down:

The English word war derives from the 11th-century Old English words wyrre and werre, from Old French werre (also guerre as in modern French), in turn from the Frankish *werra, ultimately deriving from the Proto-Germanic *werzō 'mixture, confusion'. The word is related to the Old Saxon werran, Old High German werran, and the German verwirren, meaning "to confuse", "to perplex", and "to bring into confusion".

And this....
A world war is "a war engaged in by all or most of the principal nations of the world".[1] The term is usually reserved to two major international conflicts that occurred during the 20th century: World War I (1914–1918) and World War II (1939–1945). However, a variety of global conflicts have been subjectively deemed "world wars", such as the Cold War and the War on Terror.

by all or most of the principal nations of the world
So this would mean that until the USSR and USA joined, it wasn't a world war.
 
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There are historians who maintain that the world war started in 1937. The whole Sino-Japanese war is pretty much ignored in western histories of the war. Which may lead to most thinking it started in 1939.

Then again, there are some who say the war started in 1914 with a cease fire of 21 years.....

[...]
Dont worry. When i left the university some years ago the historical science started to call it the "2nd 30years war". So i think next generation wont separate both "world wars" :cool:

By the way:
Happy Birthday DH.

And a birthday celebration is always a good point to think about the past.
So i thought it could a good idea to talk about the "first" contact with DH.

For me everything started with HoI III. I played a lot of HoI II Arma with the NFM mod. So when HoI III was announced i was hyped. When HoI III was released i played it a lot - and i was disappointed. So i started with modding for HoI III. My first released project was picture and model names expansion for HoI III. Surprisingly a modder of the HoI II Arma TRP team saw the mod and asked me to join in. So because of HoI III i got into Arma TRP modding. And it was the former Arma TRP Dev - Kane - who got in contact with the DH team. So because of HoI II Arma TRP i got in contact with the DH expansion - and started to love it because they add everything i was hoping for back in the HoI III days: plenty of modding opportunities, cool new map, new, modern features.
So because of Modding and HoI III i got in contact with the superb Darkest Hour Game and i wont miss the time and fun with DH. It is still by far the best balanced "PDox HoI experiance" of all time.

So a big THX @the DH Dev team!
 
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They joined at different dates, though.
But it is very convenient that USSR and USA joined in the same year!
So if you hear as any random Russian is saying that WW2 started in 1941 - then don't laugh at him! He's absolutely right!
Just he means December 7, 1941, no doubt :rolleyes:, and therefore he is 100% correct! :D

##########################
WHEN WW2 BEGAN? TV-Game
##########################

If the Japanese did it a month later, today it would cause great inconvenience and confusions! :D
 
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Mmmh, after completly changing my post 3 times, then thinking about deleting it, it seems I really can't decide wether it is extremely fitting for DHs birthday thread to have a lenghty discussion about the definition and time scale of WW2... or wether we should rather open an own thread for it.
 
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