| Source | Author | Quote |
|---|---|---|
| Imperial Japan's World War Two, 1931-1945 | Werner Gruhl | The case that Japan's 1931, (or 1937 at the latest) major resumption of imperial expansion was the true beginning of World War II can be made based on several factors. These invasions constituted the first major violations of the Washington Conference Treaties and the Kellog-Briand Pact. While Japan was condemned as an aggressor by the League of Nations and the United States, the West's reaction was restrained, due to post-World War I pacifism and the worldwide depression. The lack of a more forceful reaction likely contributed to Italy's decision to invade Abyssinia in 1935 and Germany's decision to attack Poland in 1939, thus expanding World War II from Asia to Europe and Africa. It is thus argued that 1939 was not the true beginning of World War II |
| Roscoe Pound and Karl Llewellyn: Searching for an American Jurisprudence | N. E. H. Hull | ...World War II would not begin in Europe, like the first, but in Africa and Asia, with Italy's invasion of Ethiopia and Japan's invesiture of China... |
| The Rise of Modern Japan | Linda K. Menton, Noren W. Lush, Eileen H. Tamura, Chance I. Gusukuma | The global conflict we call World War II was in fact 'many wars, occurring at different levels and in widely separated places'... For Americans, World War II began in 1941 with the explosive Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. But for the Japanese, the war began much earlier-in 1937. |
| A Companion to the Vietnam War | Marilyn Blatt Young, Robert Buzzanco | Japan invaded China in 1937, effectively beginning World War II in Asia. |
| American History the Easy Way | William O. Kellogg | What became World War II began in Asia in 1937 when Japan invaded China. Actions taken by Germany and Italy during the 1930s led to war in Europe in 1939. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the United States declared war on Germany and Japan linking the Asian and European wars in what is known as World War II. |
| Asia in Western and World History: A Guide for Teaching | Ainslie T. Embree, Carol Gluck | Aggression in Manchuria, 1931, followed by establishment of puppet state and Japan's withdrawal from the League of Nations, signals the beginning of the 'fifteen-year war.' The end of multi-lateral diplomacy as Japan decided to 'go it alone' as territorial imperialist in Asia; instigation of all-out war against China in 1937, with atrocities such as the Rape of Nanking and without victory-1937 as the beginning of World War II in Asia. |
| The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II | Iris Chang | Americans think of World War II as beginning on December 7, 1941... Europeans date it from September 1, 1939, and the blitzkrieg assault on Poland... Africans see an even earlier beginning, the invasion of Abyssinia by Mussolini in 1935. Yet Asians must trace the war's beginnings all the way back to Japan's first steps toward the military domination of East Asia — the occupation of Manchuria in 1931. |
| A World at Total War: Global Conflict and the Politics of Destruction, 1937-1945 | Roger Chickering, Stig Förster, Bernd Greiner | In 1937, when World War II started in the Pacific theater, both Japanese mobilization at home and warfare abroad headed in this direction. |
| Critical Perspectives on World War II | James W. Fiscus | World War II started in Europe in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. But World War II had been raging in Asia since 1937 when Japan invaded China. |
| War and Empire in the Twentieth Century | Imanuel Geiss, University of Aberdeen | The second Sino-Japanese war started in 1937, and it was really the beginning of World War II, because in the Far East it later merged with the Second World |
| Causes and Consequences of the Second World War | Stewart Ross | In contrast, the Second World War was much more complicated. Starting in the Far East in 1937, different conflicts started in different regions at different times. These gradually became absorbed into the global struggle. |
| The Library of Congress World War II Companion | Margaret E. Wagner, David M. Kennedy, Linda Barrett Osborne, Susan Reyburn | Some historians date the beginning of World War II to the Japanese incursion in Manchuria in 1931; others cite the full-scale Japanese invasion of the Chinese heartland in 1937 as the war's moment of origin. But Japan's military adventurism had as yet only regional implications. Arguably, Japan might have been appeased, and its provocations confined to one corner of Asia, by some recognition of its stake in China -- noxious as that might have been to recognized norms of international behavior, not to mention to the Chinese.But world war came only when Europe, too, plunged into the maelstrom with Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939. (emphasis mine) |
| The Dragon's War: Allied Operations and the Fate of China, 1937-1947 | Maochun Yu | On 7 July 1937, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident ingnited a full-scale war between China and Japan, which, in the opinion of many, marked the real beginning of World War II in Asia |
| The Origins of the Second World War | A. J. P. Taylor | Most wars begin raggedly. In the minds of Englishmen 4 August 1914 is unshakably fixed as the date when the first World war began; yet by then France and Germany had been at war for twenty-four hours, Russia and Germany for three days, Serbia and Austria-Hungary for almost a week. The second World war is vaguer still in its opening; the Russians date it from 22 June 1941, the Chinese from November 1937, the Abyssinians [or Ethiopians, as we now would say], I suppose, from October 1935, and the Americans from 7 December 1941. The American date is the most sensible. The war truly became world-wide — much more so than the first World war — only after Pearl Harbor. |
| The Changing World of Soviet Russia | David J. Dallin | According to Stalin, the first skirmishes of this second World War began in 1937-38. |
| Embracing defeat: Japan in the wake of World War II | John W. Dower | For Americans, World War II began in December 1941 and ended three years and eight months later. Japan's war, in contrast, began with the conquest of Manchuria in 1931 and expanded to all-out war against China in 1937 |
| China: Its History and Culture | William Scott Morton | The date of the outbreak of World War II varies ... Americans usually reckon it from December 7, 1941, the date of the attack on Pearl Harbor. But for Europeans the war began in 1939, and for the Chinese in 1937. |
| Research Guide to American Historical Biography | Robert Muccigrosso, Suzanne Niemeyer, Walton Beacham | In foreign policy he led the nation through the dangerous years of turmoil as the Second World War began in Asia in 1937 and in Europe in 1939 |
| The United States in the world arena: an essay in recent history | Walt Whitman Rostow | ...On this view, the Second World War began with the Japanese seizure of Manchuria in 1931... |
| Contemporary China: a reference digest | Trans-Pacific News Service | The second World War started in 1931 when Japan violated the sovereignty and the administrative and territorial integrity of China... |
| The Columbia Guide to Asian American History | Gary Y. Okihiro | World War II began for most Americans when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands. But for many Chinese Americans the war started a decade earlier, when Japan's armies marched into northwestern China in 1931 and into Shanghai the following year. |
| The long way to freedom | James Thomson Shotwell | ... a condition which grew worse instead of better until in September 1931 - the very time Japan started World War II in Manchuria... |
| Gateway to Asia: Sinkiang, Frontier of the Chinese Far West | Martin Richard Norins, Institute of Pacific Relations | Not until 1931, when Japan began World War II by her invasion of Manchuria, was this remote Sinkiang hinterland at last roughly awakened. |
| Writers & Company | Eleanor Wachtel | The Chinese call it World War II; they consider that World War II started in China and that the Chinese helped end the war. |
| The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge | The New York Times | Japan occupied Manchuria as a protectorate in 1931-1932 and invaded China in 1937—the start of World War II in Asia. ... With Hitler's invasion of Poland in September, World War II began in Europe. (The Asian phase of World War II had begun two years earlier.) |
| The War With Japan: The Period of Balance, May 1942-October 1943 | H. P. Willmott | Europeans date World War II from 1939 to 1945 and, with North Americans, date the Japanese part of the conflict from December 1941 to August 1945. The Japanese official histories date it from September 1931 and the start of the campaign in Manchuria; and, if such a date for the outbreak of the war would not command much sympathy in Western histories, there might well be more then a passing sympathy with any account that sought to establish July 1937, and the beginning of the China war, as the real start of the Second World War. |
| The Last European War, September 1939/December 1941 | John Lukacs | THE LAST EUROPEAN WAR began in September 1939. It became the Second World War in December 1941. |
| The Second World War: An Illustrated History | AJP Taylor | If a formal declaration of war marks the starting point, the Second World War began in April 1932 when Mao Tse- tung and Chou Teh declared war against Japan |
| Japanese Army in World War II: Conquest of the Pacific 1941-42 | Gordon L. Rottman, Duncan Anderson | Japan (Nippon) viewed World War II, which it called the Greater East Asia War (Dai Toa Senso Senkum) as a series of interrelated wars. It had occupied parts of North China in 1931, and the war in China (Shina Jihen) began in earnest in 1937, in which Japan continued its creeping expansion. Conflict with the Soviet Union had occurred on the Siberian border in 1938-1939 in Manchuria, Manchuko, where a puppet state had been established by Japan in 1932. ... |
| Flags of Our Fathers | James Bradley, Ron Powers | America went to war in 1941. The Europeans had been fighting since 1939. But for millions of Asians, World War II had begun a decade before, in 1931. |
| War in Our Time: A Comprehensive and Analytical History in Pictures and Text | Harry Brinton Henderson, Herman Charles Morris | World War II Began in Manchuria, 1931 |
| Paths to Peace | Victor H. Wallace | It has often been said, and with much truth, that World War II began in 1931, when Japan found the League powers unwilling to resist its aggression in Manchuria. |
| A History of the Modern World | Robert Roswell Palmer, Joel G. Colton | In a sense the Second World War began as early as 1931 with the Japanese seizure of Manchuria. |
| A War to be Won: Fighting the Second World War | Williamson Murray, Allan Reed Millett | Just when World War II began is a matter of interpretation. Western Europeans and Americans tend to ignore the Japanese incursion into China and to mark the war's beginning with the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939. For Austrians, Czechs, and Slovaks, the war also commenced two years earlier, when the Third Reich used military force to swallow up sovereign nations in Central Europe... |
| Japanese Economic History, 1930-1960 | Janet Hunter, Freda Utley, George Cyril Allen | ... If 1937 (when Japan's Second World War began) is taken as the base, ... |
| Foreign policies of the United States | Hollis W. Barber | It is by no means out of the realm of reason to state that World War II began in Manchuria in 1931. |
| Main Currents in American History | William Glover Fletcher, United States Army | Then the average American slowly began to understand that the second World War broke out in Asia in 1931 and that the Chinese, who refused to bow to the conqueror, had been fighting, for a decade, not only their own battles but those of the Republic of the West. |
| Encyclopedia of World War II: A Political, Social, and Military History | Spencer Tucker, Priscilla Mary Roberts | ...Japanese official histories of World War II begin in September 1931 with the start of the Manchurian Campaign. |
| When Men Lost Faith in Reason: Reflections on War and Society in the Twentieth Century | H. P. Willmott | We consider the Second World War in very narrow terms and with precise dates: 1939 and 1945. But Japanese official histories date the Second World War from September 1931 and the conquest of Manchuria. Even if one is inclined to regard July 1937 as a more reasonable starting line, one would not deny that the China Incident was nurtured in Manchuria: ... |
| The American Military Tradition: From Colonial Times to the Present | John Martin Carroll, Colin F. Baxter | For Europeans the Second World War is given very precise dates: it began in September 1939... For the United States, this conflict also has very precise dates, but the dates are different from those of Europeans. It began in December 1941... When this war began for Japan, and for China, is quite another matter. |
| The History of World War II - A Wall Chart | John Keegan | World War II has a simple story. It is that of the defeat of Nazi Germany and its allies by their enemies, eventually to be called the United Nations. The unfolding of the war, however, is by no means simple. It comprised several wars, at least one of which was already in progress when Adolf Hitler invaded Poland on September 1,1939, the date usually chosen to mark the war's beginning in the history books. That war was the one between China and Japan, which had opened in 1937 when Japan captured China's coastal cities; as early as 1931, however, Japan had violated Chinese sovereignty by seizing the northern territory of Manchuria.
Another of the wars comprising World War II stemmed from Italian aggression in Africa. In 1936 Mussolini annexed Ethiopia and then, after the outbreak of general war in Europe, invaded the British colonial territories on Ethiopia's borders. The first of Britain's victories of the Second World War were the defeat of those invasions, the liberation of Ethiopia and the rout of the Italian army in Libya. |
| British Strategy and Politics During the Phony War: Before the Balloon Went Up | Martin Kantor, Nick Smart | The German invasion of Poland began on 1 September 1939, and the British government did, along with the French, declare war on Germany two days later. But these events did not makr the start of the Second World War. That conflict began more than two years later in December 1941 when, four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and with Mussolini in tow, Hitler declared war on the United States of America. |