@evan radical answer - there was no WW2, it was just a continuation of WW1 following a hiatus.
@evan I voted the Spanish civil war. From what little I know, the international community did not react very much to Italian expansionism in Africa, but the Spanish Civil War was a proxy war between fascism and republican values, people traveled from all over to fight that war.
@evan i would have voted invasion of austria, but i'm no historian.
I say invasion of Poland, because all these other conflicts were more isolated in character. The japanese invasion only became part of a world war after the allied reactions to the invasion of Poland.
The spanish civil war may have been a warm-up for the nazis and italian fascists, but Spain never became part of WW2, and the ethiopian theater was kinda over when world war broke out, and if I remember correctly, the italian army were mostly expelled by british african soldiers there
@amici yes, the first step in a world war is going to be isolated. That's because it's the first.
@evan I picked "Japanese Invasion of China" but slightly partial to 1931 instance as first major post-WWI invasion and end of League of Nations credibility.
But consensus (including this poll) of German invasion of Poland is pretty reasonable as point of no return in hindsight, and when term WWII began to be used at the time.
Tho also sympathetic to WWI never ended view. Synthesis: WWII began with the Russian Civil War (ideological component much more salient from that point on).
@mlinksva i like the Manchukuo invasion too, but it is not contiguous with the other fighting. Once Italy vs. Ethiopia starts, the Axis and Allied powers are constantly engaged in direct and indirect fighting until 1945. Many belligerents, many theaters.
Reasoning from a notion of "world order" as the status quo where the powers that be hold each other in balance and the world (relatively) at peace.. then the start of WWII should be the moment that the damage inflicted to the current world order became irrepairable.
That would not be the invasion in Poland, where the plans to smash and replace the world order were long on the planning table. The moment may be before each of the entries.
Some world order theory at work today to observe.
When is American empire so mortally wounded that it can no longer dictate world order, and other powers start to significantly position against it? And what's the risk that leads to another world war?
Think that first depends on whether we are witnessing madness or a cunning plan by the Trump cabal. Madness has a quick possible slide to WWIII.
Cunning plan options:
Take strategic risks, demolish democracy, reestablish hegemony asap. Wage some wars.
Kill the empire, global corporatism.
@evan I guess this really depends on one's view. Fun fact: Nazis were still shooting on the Soviet side until 1953.
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@evan @cast81 Arguably, October 1990
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Final_Settlement_with_Respect_to_Germany
@evan To be honest, there are two right answers.
For the people in Asia it started with the Japanese invasion of China, for us westerners with the German invasion of Poland.
Fun question. I'd say Italy-Ethiopia. That's when fighting between the many belligerents in WWII started. There were many other theaters that arose, and other belligerents that joined in, but war was continuous and amplifying after 1935.
@evan I would be interested to see what four potential starting points you would choose for the war of 1914-18! I could imagine options like the Russo-Japanese war (1905), the First Balkan War (1912), the Second Balkan War (1913), or the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-12, in addition to the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, Austria-Hungary's declaration of war on Serbia, or the German invasion of Belgium (1914).
One could say it hasn't completely ended.
"The positions of the two sides have not substantially changed since the 1956 Joint Declaration [regarding the Kuril Islands], and a permanent peace treaty between Japan and Russia has not been concluded."