The war in EUROPE started on Sept. 1, 1939 [France and Great Britain declared war on Sept 3rd]. WORLD WAR II started in 1931, when Japan invaded Manchuria.
It really started 28 June 1919 when the forces of Modernism crafted the ill-fated Treaty of Lausanne and the Treaty of Versailles — both designed to create the “New World Order” that we currently struggle with.
You are correct, of course, as is, in a sense, narses.
But I would argue there never was a Second World War. There was only one world war in the 20th Century -- it began in 1914 and finally played out 75 years later, in 1989, with the collapse of the last great empire, the Soviet Union.
I would also argue the Versailles Treaty had NOTHING to do with the start of "World War II."
The reason is, it would not have mattered in the least what that treaty said. Germany did not feel defeated. They convinced themselves they had been betrayed and "stabbed in the back," and they were more that eager for Round Two.
So Versailles was not the REASON, it was only a convenient EXCUSE.