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The War That Came Early is a six-novel series byHarry Turtledove depicting analternate history ofWorld War II.^[1] As is typical of Turtledove's alternate histories, the narrative follows a large cast of both fictional and historical characters.

The series's initialpoint of divergence occurs whenSpanish Nationalist leaderJosé Sanjurjo avoids the plane crash that took his life in reality. While Sanjurjo's rule starts on a similar path to that ofFrancisco Franco, he later aligns Spain with theAxis powers and occupiesGibraltar (which Franco carefully avoided doing in actual history).

A second divergence occurs when British and Frenchappeasement at theMunich Conference leadsAdolf Hitler to decide that he should attack while his opponents are unprepared; he gets hiscasus belli whenKonrad Henlein is assassinated by a fictional Czech nationalist. As a result, World War II starts in 1938 with a Germaninvasion of Czechoslovakia rather than Poland, still drawing in Britain and France through treaty obligations, with both sides far less prepared for war than they were in 1939.

The first book in the series covers autumn 1938 to spring 1939.

After an initial tenacious resistance to the German army, subsequentPolish andHungarian invasions combined with aSlovak rebellion lead toCzechoslovakia's collapse. In theSpanish Civil War, Sanjurjo's decision to seizeGibraltar from Britain ties the Nationalist Spaniards to the Axis side. France starts offering some aid to the hard-pressed Spanish Republicans who were on the verge of collapse, in addition to the meager aid they got from the Soviet Union –just enough to keep them going, but not to gain victory. The Spanish Civil War thus settles into a stalemate as both sides' foreign allies turn their attention to the larger war.

When the anticommunist Polish government also decides to side with Germany, war erupts with the USSR; there is noNazi-Soviet Pact. Both the Germansand the Soviets immediately find themselves fightingtwo-front wars as the Soviets attack west and the Japaneseinvade Siberia (there are noBattles of Khalkhin Gol). Consequentially Germany launches theManstein Plan, its own westward offensive to knock France out of the war. The German forces are not as overwhelming as they would have been with another year of preparation, and some are also still tied down on the Eastern Front. Moreover, in this history theSkoda factory was destroyed during the fierce Czech resistance, rather than falling intact into German hands and starting to produce high-quality tanks for them. The final result is that the GermanBlitzkrieg is not as devastating as it would be in 1940, the British and French armies are able to hold the line outsideParis, and there is noFall of France –which makes for a strategically different war from theWWII we know, not least because there is noBattle of Britain orAttack on Pearl Harbor.

Discontent grows within the German army as theWestern Front is threatened and has achieved little strategically, whilst dissatisfaction with Hitler's rash decision in starting the war in the first place leads to a purge of the officer corps. At home, although noKristallnacht occurs, discrimination and persecution againstGerman Jews continues to grow.

The second book focuses on the stalemates that have developed all across Europe. In theRussian Far East, the Japanese are able to sever theTrans-Siberian Railway, but cold weather, mosquitoes, and bloody assaults cause high casualties on both sides. Tension mounts between American forces stationed in China and the Japanese Army. Germany is able togain ground in Scandinavia and introduces the newPanzer III tank, but the British, the French and the Soviets are able to mount major offensives that push toward the German border.

The third book's title refers to Britain and France joining Germany's side against the Soviet Union. AfterWinston Churchill dies in a car accident (widely suspected to have been a deliberate assassination),Rudolf Hess is able to convince the two allies to send their armies into the Soviet Union. The German Army withdraws from France; the Czechoslovak exiles, betrayed by the Allies, retreat toRepublican Spain, while the United States abandons itsLend Lease support for Britain and France. Soviet forces retreat into their own territory as the winter starts. Jews in the conquered lands are harshly oppressed, although those in Poland are exempt as their country is an ally of Germany –there is noHolocaust. Japan finally takesVladivostok and makes peace with the USSR. The United States enacts anembargo against Japan; in response, Japan attacks British, French, Dutch, and American targets across thePacific on January 12, 1941.

The fourth book covers a coup in Britain that turns the country away from their alliance with the Nazis, followed by the French (who did not need a change of government to do so). The Japanese gain ground throughout the Pacific and southeast Asia and bloody the AmericanPacific Fleet through air attacks, forcing them to retreat toPearl Harbor; the Americans learn the hard way that the age of big surface warships is over and that with the advent of air power the only warships which count are theaircraft carriers -in which the US Navy is woefully deficient in both numbers and training.

The fifth book spans from 1942 to early 1943. Having once again switched sides, the British and French have reopened the Western Front and are also fighting the Germans and Italians inNorth Africa. Because of the shift in German resources, the Red Army is finally able to break through and liberateBelarus andUkraine near the end of the book. In the Pacific theater, Japan attempts a biological attack on Hawaii. PresidentRoosevelt cuts government funding for theManhattan Project.

The last book takes place from late 1943 to 1944. After a coup in Germany takes Hitler's life, a new non-Nazi military dictatorship led by GeneralHeinz Guderian negotiates an end to the European war; the Allies allow Germany to retain Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union theBaltic states. With the Soviets remaining on the eastern margins of Europe and no American forces present in Europe at all, Germany remains the dominant military power of Europe, and unlike the interwar period, no limitations are placed on its armaments. Since the US abandoned its own nuclear program,Einstein is worried that Germany—no longer Nazi but still nationalist and militaristic—might be the first to gain nuclear arms. Britain is also under military rule, while Spain is united under the Republicans. The war against Japan is not over, however, and Stalin moves troops to the Far East while concluding an alliance with the United States.

• "Hitler's War".Random House. Retrieved2009-11-04.

• Alternate history book series
• American alternate history novels
• American historical novels
• American political novels
• Jewish American novels
• Alternate Nazi Germany novels
• Fiction set in 1938
• Fiction set in 1939
• Fiction set in 1940
• Fiction set in 1941
• Fiction set in 1942
• Fiction set in 1943
• Fiction set in 1944
• Novels set in the 1930s
• Novels set in the 1940s
• Cultural depictions of Gavrilo Princip
• Novels by Harry Turtledove

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