The War That Came Early  The War That Came Early is a six-volume alternate history series by Harry Turtledove in which World War II begins in 1938 over Czechoslovakia. The first volume, "Hitler's War", was released in hardcover in 2009 without a series title. The paperback edition was later announced as "The War That Came Early: Hitler's War". The series is six volumes:   The series's initial point of divergence occurs on July 20, 1936, with Spanish Nationalist leader José Sanjurjo listens to his pilot's advice and change the conditions of his flight back to Spain, thus averting the crash that caused his death in our timeline. However, the next two years the course of the Spanish Civil War remains virtually the same as Sanjurjo makes the same military and political decisions that Francisco Franco did in real history; only the name of the Nationalist leader changes. However, in 1939, Sanjurjo makes a significantly-different decision, aiding the Axis conquest of Gibraltar. (In real history, Franco carefully maintained cordial relations with the British. That, however, comes after the series's main point of divergence.) The timeline again, far more significantly, diverges from history in September 1938. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier meet German "Führer" Adolf Hitler at Munich, ready to appease Hitler and to force Czechoslovakia to agree. However, their supine attitude and manifest wish to avoid war at any price arises Hitler's predatory instinct. While his generals want to gain time for further building up Germany's armed forces, Hitler feels that the time to strike is now while his opponents are so obviously unprepared. With the extensive British and French concessions, Hitler has no pretext to launch a war, but news of the assassination of Sudeten German leader Konrad Henlein by a Czech nationalist suddenly gives him a "casus belli" (in actual history, Henlein lived until 1945). Hitler jubilantly declares that there is no further room for negotiations and that his army will attack Czechoslovakia immediately. Chamberlain and Daladier erroneously believe that Hitler himself had Henlein assassinated and, much against their will, are forced to declare war and fulfill of their treaty obligations to Czechoslovakia. As a result, World War II starts in 1938 with a German attack on Czechoslovakia, rather than an invasion of Poland a year later. That makes both sides far less prepared for war than in real history.