World war

"World Wars" redirects here. For World War I and World War II specifically, see their section below or their respective pages.
For the possibility of a third world war, see World War III.
For the History Channel Miniseries, see The World Wars (miniseries).
For the series of novels by Harry Turtledove, see Worldwar.
Not to be confused with various works titled War of the Worlds.

All the participants of the First World War:
the Allies in green, the Central Powers in orange, and neutral countries in grey

All the participants of the Second World War:
the Allies in green, the Axis Powers in blue, and neutral countries in grey

A world war is a war affecting most of the world's most powerful and populous countries. World wars span multiple countries on multiple continents, with battles fought in multiple theaters.

The term is usually applied to the two conflicts that occurred during the 20th century:

• World War I (1914–1918)
• World War II (1939–1945)

However, it is also sometimes applied to earlier wars, the Cold War, or to a hypothetical future war.

Origins of the term

All the participants of the War of the Spanish Succession:
Bourbon France and Spain and their allies in green, the Habsburg empire and Spain and their allies in blue, and neutral countries in grey.

All the participants of the War of the Austrian Succession:
Prussia, Spain, France and their allies in green, Austria and its allies in blue, and neutral countries in grey.

All the participants of the Seven Years' War, which Winston Churchill called "the first world war":
France, Austria, Spain and their allies in green, Great Britain, Prussia, and their allies in blue, and neutral countries in grey.

All the participants of the French Revolutionary Wars:
France and Denmark in green, the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, Great Britain, and their allies in blue, and neutral countries in grey.

All the participants of the Napoleonic Wars c. 1803:
France and its clients and allies in green, the United Kingdom, Spain and its coalition in blue, and neutral countries in grey.

The term "World War" was coined speculatively in the early 20th century, some years before the First World War broke out, probably as a literal translation of the German word Weltkrieg. German writer August Wilhelm Otto Niemann had used the word in the title of his anti-British novel Der Weltkrieg: Deutsche Träume ("The World War: German Dreams") as early as 1904, published in English as The coming conquest of England. The Oxford English Dictionary cites the first known usage in the English language as being in April 1909, in the pages of the Westminster Gazette.

It was recognized that the complex system of opposing alliances–the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire vs. the French Third Republic, the Russian Empire, and the British Empire was likely to lead to a worldwide conflict in the event of war breaking out. The fact that the powers involved had large overseas empires virtually guaranteed that a war would be worldwide, as the colonies' resources would be a crucial strategic factor. The same strategic considerations also ensured that the combatants would strike at each other's colonies, thus spreading the fighting far more widely than in the pre-colonial era.

Other languages have also adopted the "World War" terminology. For instance, in French, the two World Wars are the Guerres mondiales; in German, the Erste und Zweite Weltkrieg (World War I was only known or commonly recognized in public as der Weltkrieg in Germany when it was over, while prior to the war that word had been used in the more abstract meaning of "a global conflict"); in Italian, the Guerra Mondiale; in Spanish, the Guerra Mundial; in Russian, the мировая война (mirovaya voyna); and so on.

Speculative fiction authors were noting the concept of a Second World War at least as early as 1919 and 1920, when Milo Hastings wrote his dystopian novel City of Endless Night. In English, the term "First World War" was used in the book The First World War: A Photographic History, edited by playwright and war veteran Laurence Stallings and published in 1933. The term "World War I" was invented by Time magazine in its issue of June 12, 1939. In that same issue, the term "World War II" was first used speculatively to describe the upcoming war. The first use for the actual war came in its issue of September 11, 1939; one week earlier, the Danish newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad used the term on its front page, saying "The second World War broke out yesterday at 11 a.m."

Large-scale wars before 1914

Before the 20th century, there were a number of wars spanning multiple continents, including:

• the Greco-Persian Wars (499–449 BC)
• the Wars of Alexander the Great (335–323 BC)
• the Wars of the Diadochi (322–275 BC)
• the First Punic War (264–241 BC)
• the Second Punic War (218–201 BC)
• the Roman–Syrian War (192–188 BC)
• the Roman–Persian Wars

(92 BC –AD 629)

• the First Mithridatic War (89–85 BC)
• the Byzantine–Sassanid wars (AD 502–628)
• the Muslim conquests (622–1258)
• the Arab–Byzantine wars (629–1050s)
• the First Crusade (1096–1099)
• the Second Crusade (1145–1149)
• the Mongol conquests (1206–1324)
• the Byzantine–Ottoman Wars (1265–1479)
• the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453)
• the Ottoman–Habsburg wars (1526–1791)
• the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648)
• the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604)
• the Dutch–Portuguese War (1602–1663)
• the 30 Years War (1618–1648))
• the Anglo-Spanish War (1625–1630)
• the Anglo-Spanish War (1654–1660)
• the Nine Years' War (1688–1697)
• the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714)
• the War of the Quadruple Alliance (1718–1720)
• the Anglo-Spanish War (1727–1729)
• the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748)
• the Seven Years' War (1754–1763)
• the Anglo-Spanish War (1761–1763)
• the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783)
• the French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802)
• the Anglo-Spanish War (1796–1808)
• the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815)

Before the late 19th century, the concept of a world war would be the result of military action caused by quarrels between European powers which took place in fairly limited, though sometimes far-flung, theaters of conflict.

World War I and World War II

Main articles: World War I and World War II

The World Wars of the 20th century involved almost every continent on Earth. Many of the states who fought in the First World War also fought in the Second, although not always on the same sides.

The two World Wars of the 20th century caused unprecedented casualties and destruction across the theaters of conflict, although there are at least three wars before the 20th century with as many or more casualties than the First World War. The numbers killed in both wars combined are estimated at between 60 and 100 million people. Non-combatants (mostly civilians) suffered as badly as or worse than combatants, and the distinction between combatants and non-combatants was often blurred as belligerents of both world wars mobilized for total war. Both world wars saw war crimes. Nazi Germany was responsible for multiple genocides during the Second World War, most notably the Holocaust. The Soviet Union, Canada, and United States deported and interned minority groups within their own borders, and largely due to this conflict later, many ethnic Germans were expelled in much of Eastern Europe. Imperial Japan during the Second World War was notorious for attacking neutral nations without a declaration of war, such as the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and its brutal treatment and killing of Allied prisoners of war and the inhabitants of Asia, most notably by using them for forced labor and the Rape of Nanking where 250,000 non-combatants in the city were brutally murdered by Japanese troops. The Ottoman Empire was responsible for the death of over one million Armenians during the First World War. Advances in technology were responsible for a large amount of casualties. The First World War saw major use of chemical weapons despite the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 outlawing the use of such weapons in warfare. The Second World War was also the first (and thus far, only) conflict in which nuclear weapons were used, devastating the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

	World War I	World War II
Dead	15–20M	75M
Injured	9–15M	20M
Conscripts	65M	90M
Battlefield size	3M km²	17M km²

The outcome of the World Wars had a profound effect on the course of world history. The old European empires collapsed or were dismantled as a direct result of the wars' crushing costs and in some cases the defeat of imperial powers. The United States was firmly established as the dominant global power, along with its ideological foe, the Soviet Union, in close competition. These two superpowers exerted political influence over most of the world's other states for decades after the end of the Second World War (ending in the late 1980s in the Soviet Union). The modern international security, economic and diplomatic system was created in the aftermath of the wars. Institutions such as the United Nations were established to collectivize international affairs, with the explicit goal of preventing another outbreak of general war. The wars also greatly changed the course of daily life. Technologies developed during wartime had a profound effect on peacetime life as well–for instance, jet aircraft, penicillin, nuclear energy, and electronic computers.

Since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War, there has been a widespread and prolonged fear of a Third World War between nuclear-armed powers.

Later world wars

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

Albert Einstein (1947)

Various former government officials, politicians and authors have attempted to apply the labels of WWIII, WWIV, and WWV to various military engagements and diplomatic stand-offs since the close of WWII, such as the Cold War or the War on Terror. Among these are former American and French government officials James Woolsey and Alexandre de Marenches, author Eliot Cohen and zapatist leader Subcomandante Marcos. Despite their efforts, none of these wars are commonly deemed world wars.

World War III is generally considered a hypothetical successor to World War II and is often suggested to be nuclear, devastating in nature and likely much more violent than both WWI and WWII. This war is anticipated and planned for by military and civil authorities, and explored in fiction in many countries. Concepts range from purely conventional scenarios or a limited use of nuclear weapons to the destruction of the planet. World War IV is sometimes mentioned as a hypothetical successor to World War III or as a plot element in books, movies or video games.

See also

• The Great Game (1813-1907)

External links

• This is the Fourth World War, an interview with philosopher Jean Baudrillard