Yes and no. That's actually come up a lot for debate recently. One of the theories is that if appeasement hadn't been followed initially, it might have turned out fairly similarly but with different casualty levels.
For a long time, it was agreed that appeasement was a horrible plan. It surfaced recently and now its a bit of major debate among WWII scholars. The argument now is that Chamberlain was a bit too soft in just giving the Sudetenland away, but a purist hard-line declaration of war in 1938 might actually have been worse.
There are 2 main theories concerning the causes of WW2. Until the 80s the commonly acceptedone was that Hitler had planned it all straight away since his rise to power in 1933. The second theory which has now taken over was that Hitler was a gambler and that with every bold descision in foreign policy that succeeded he grew stronger and stronger, and if the British and French had resisted him earlier then the war would have been much shorter or there would have been no war at all. This is the theory which i support as with hindsight when you look at the events and the evidence it is the one that makes most sense.
If Britain and France had gone to war earlier with Germany over the Sudetenland, or even back during the Anschluss would have begun a war that potentially made things worse
Many leading historians would siagree with you on this. There has been much evidence, primarily orders from the German Chiefs of Staff and Hitler himself during these years proving this to be false. For example the Rhineland in 1936 the same year as the Anchluss he ordered his troops to withdraw if the Brits/ French reacted with military force. This ws because at the time Germany had neither the supplies or reserves to sustain a long conflict.
In the years running up to WWII, the French Army was given more money than it asked for for improvements to the armed forces and despite that, didn't even spend the amount of money it had asked for in the first place
There were many reasons the French fell, primarily poor eadership and organisation and a lack of troop training and more focus on the air force but more on that in a moment.
Considering that in 1940, the French had the best fighter aircraft in the world, which were promptly eliminated due to poor tactical usage of them.
The french air force was defeated due to terrible leadership and organisation, much like the rest of their armed forces. An earlier war would have given them a massive tactical advantage as they would have had virtual air superiority, because the Luwtwaffe only became the force it was in early 1939 when they had trained enough pilots and manufactured enough planes. In 1936 Hitler was quoted to say how poor the German airforce was and he was right. They only had a few old Ju88s and no fighters in any significant numbers.
Britain had the best tanks in 1940, but again for tactical reasons, German armor outdid Britain.
We possibly may have had a better trained armoured corps but definitely not better equipped. The German Panzers and Tigers were logistically far superior to our tanks. Only in mid 1945 did we finally make the best tank of the war but it was too late for it to see real action. The only tanks that rivalled the Germans were the Russians. Their T54s were deadly and virtually indestructible and proved invaluable to the Russians on the Eastern Front.
Accordingly, actually fighting in 1938 wouldn't have benefited either of the major allies at the time.
Even this late we still would have fared much better against the Germans. As i said before the Luwtwaffe only really became a force in 1939 and statistically the Germans produced and trained most of their war time materials and persoannel during 1939 so it would have been much easier. Not only this but the French if they had been properly lead had a huge chance to end the war before it got going. When the Germans invaded Poland they left only 3 divisions to gaurd their French, German border. The French had 11 divisions ready to fight but the field commanders were too scared to leave the safety of their border forts when they could have easily crushed the German army and marched to Berlin before the vast majority of tthe German army could get back from Poland. So no this suggests otherwise. Starting the war earlier would have been a huge advantage for the allies.
Instead, The BEF would have been less trained and equipped, possibly resulting in more British casualties prior to evacuation(or none at all). France likely would have still fallen. Instead of the US coming in a year and a half after the fall of France, the US would have come in much later after the fall of France forcing Britain to fight by itself for longer.
The BEF didnt play a particularly decisive role in the war. They just slowed the German advance much like in WW1. It wouldnt have made that much of a difference considering how they were evacuated at Dunkirk before they could have make huge impact. The French with their badp lanning and leadership would have fell but i dont see why the US would have stayed out of the war. Despite the good political relationship between Churchill and Roosevelt they only came into the war because of Pearl Harbour which the Japanese who were the allies of Germany, due to the anti comintern pact, would still have probably attacked the US pacific fleet whilst still in port. So it would have happened earler making the US join sooner, but in proportion to the war starting earlier at around the same time.
It also might have tempted Hitler to launch the invasion of Russia sooner without the Siberian army being available to save Moscow or any of the modernization of the Western Russian Armies having occurred. Remember, the Siberian army was fighting the Japanese in 1939 during the border disputes. With the Siberian army tied up at Khalkhin Gol, Zhukov can't come to the rescue, Moscow falls. The Soviet Union signs a treaty ceding all European possessions of the USSR to Germany. Not long thereafter, Japan takes what it wants and leaves the USSR a burnt husk. The entire German army is now available for action on the Western Front.
This is an inetersting theory but majorly flawed in places. The main weakness is that Germany couldnt have possibly invaded the USSR beofre they did in real life because they hadnt the men. The German armies in Russia consisted of half a million men. They didnt have this number before 1939 and only when they invaded did they have a chance. Also dont place too much value on the Siberian army. Considering around 22 million Russians died in ww2, 10 million army (estimated), then they clearly had massive reserves to call on quickly. Within 2 months 2 million men were called to the front. Probably the same would have happened if your theory took place. Albeit the vast majority had no training at all they still managed to hold out. Not only this but the partisans harrassed the Germans all the way to Moscow and back in the war. They would have had an effect aswell.
we should not ignore the very plausible scenario of long ranged warfare.
Indeed. Most 4-5th generation jets now fire air to air missiles with ranges of 50- 70 miles. They also have the capacity to take out ships from over 100 miles. Long ranged warfare is becoming more prevalent. As for ICBMs and nukes I doubt they would be used, just because whoever does triggers armageddon. Not only this but the NATO missile outposts in Eastern Europe would be a detterent to any agrressors.
