A question some people asked
context: Some historians argue the Seven Years' War was actually the first world war. It spanned five continents, involved most of the great powers, and redrew the global map. Yet we still call it the Seven Years' War, which sounds more like a confusing board game than a global conflict. This meme pokes fun at that silly naming.
17 replies
Some historians also argue that the 30 year war was a world war, and that the antic Peloponnesian War can also be classified as a world war although tbh this categorisation is very eurocentric.
We could keep the numbering if we argued that World War I and World War II were actually the same war with a 22 year armistice in the middle
Or just index at Zero. World War 0, World War 1, World War 2
Every was happened on the world so every war is a world war
First world war wasn't named as such before the second one, and it wasn't characterized just by military action happening everywhere, but by absolute number of casualties and scale of it. Same with the second one.
7 years war took maybe a million lives, while battles for gallipolli, ypres, lviv, somme, etc. etc. took anywhere from 500k to 1.2m each.
There are written recording of the first world war being called the first from 1920, but yes it wasn't very common.
Interesting, did they call it world war 1 or just world war?
There is a book caller "The First World War 1914–1918. Personal Experiences" published 1920. So number included
Optimistic. Thanks, will look it up.
Eh, sure it encompassed the entire world, but it was a war between European states. The world wars encompassed states on different continents waging war on each other.
I didn't even hear of it until now
Did it at least last 7, and only 7, years?
As long as we ignore the parts which happened outside of Europe...
So world war 3 already happened? I mean that is good news for everybody, right? Right?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's numbers after 3, right?
:(
And how would you call it if there's first and second world war without sounding like French?