Should the Seven Years War be seen as the 1st World War?

[Dorozhand]

In WW1, there were naval battles in the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. The naval bombardments of Madras and Penang come to mind. Additionally British colonial forces did engage those of the Germans in a 4 year struggle in Africa against the brilliant Von Lettow Vorbeck. The Middle East was also a massive theater as was Gallipoli. It's a world war not just because of the actors but also the locations.

We should then call it the Imperialist War. The rest of the world was not involved except as slaves to westerners under the imperial yoke, or as inconsequential players like China, whose participation in any petty war on the side of its oppressors and rapists is farcical.

 

[Dorozhand]

In WW1, there were naval battles in the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. The naval bombardments of Madras and Penang come to mind. Additionally British colonial forces did engage those of the Germans in a 4 year struggle in Africa against the brilliant Von Lettow Vorbeck. The Middle East was also a massive theater as was Gallipoli. It's a world war not just because of the actors but also the locations.

Also, I wouldn't judge it enough even including the Ottoman Empire and Africa. Lettow Vorbeck's forces were virtually the only German forces waging any meaningful resistance there, and the Ottoman Empire is only a small part of the rest of the world and is close to Europe.


More people live inside this circle than outside it

The Second World War was a true World Conflict by virtue of there being major fronts between independent Asian powers who were also embroiled in a Western war. That means that it involved much of human civilization.

 

[aktarian]

Calling the 1914 conflict the First World War is an enormous European conceit. Japan and China's involvement amounted to very little in the end. The Second World War involved non-European powers as major players, but the most common definition of the war almost sneeringly omits the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War and focuses on Poland.

One way to look at it. But point stands that this was first time non european powers fought conflict of such scale as independant powers*. You may disagree with this distinction and say that world wide theatres are enough for war to be called world war.

*though I guess there were wars fought in eastern Med between power in Europe and one in Asia that was fought in Africa as well. Maybe Alexander's campaign, early Arab expansion, Vandal migration... but that's splitting hairs since continents are so close together in that region and WW1 and 2 were fought on larger scale and on more widely separated theatres

 

[Emperor Palpatine]

One way to look at it. But point stands that this was first time non european powers fought conflict of such scale as independant powers*. You may disagree with this distinction and say that world wide theatres are enough for war to be called world war.

*though I guess there were wars fought in eastern Med between power in Europe and one in Asia that was fought in Africa as well. Maybe Alexander's campaign, early Arab expansion, Vandal migration... but that's splitting hairs since continents are so close together in that region and WW1 and 2 were fought on larger scale and on more widely separated theatres

The Mongols and Ottomans were more than a match for Europe.

 

[Anaxagoras]

We should then call it the Imperialist War. The rest of the world was not involved except as slaves to westerners under the imperial yoke, or as inconsequential players like China, whose participation in any petty war on the side of its oppressors and rapists is farcical.

You're committing the fallacy of presentism.

 

[aktarian]

The Mongols and Ottomans were more than a match for Europe.

Sure, and those conflicts involved two continents and theatres (relatively) clsoe together. And their expansion aren't really single campaign, though it may be considered as such.

 

[Dorozhand]

You're committing the fallacy of presentism.

Do you think national and class oppression was any less bitter a century ago? Slavery and subservience any less recognized by its victims? I think China was as fully aware as anyone of the way Europeans thought of the country, and eyed it greedily.

 

[Dorozhand]

Sure, and those conflicts involved two continents and theatres (relatively) clsoe together. And their expansion aren't really single campaign, though it may be considered as such.

From Japan to Poland, from Siberia to India, from Java to Egypt felt the searing fire of Mongol warmaking.

 

[Dorozhand]

But point stands that this was first time non european powers fought conflict of such scale as independant powers

What in the world am I reading? Even a cursory glance at the history of China will tell you otherwise. War on an incredible scale was being waged in East Asia while the European Peninsula was still an isolated backwater.

 

[Axis of Jedi]

A "World War" being 1. fought between the major powers of the time, 2. a war lasting at minimum several years, and 3. a large loss of military and civilian life, then the Thirty Years War would be WW1 IMO.

 

[tenthring]

The defining aspect of the Great War was it was the first time modern nation states engaged in Total War. That is they had the technological and political means to mobilize the entire population and resources of the nation for one purpose, and this continued until every last ounce of the nations strength was sapped.

Napoleon was on the cusp of this, but the technology wasn't there yet. The American Civil War shared some military aspects but was confined to one country. The thirty years war is somewhat close, but while it was total war in Germany it wasn't necessarily total war for the other participants.

Honestly, probably the closest I can think of to total war between two great powers that covered the entire "known world" as far as they knew would be Rome and Carthage, though perhaps there are examples in Asian and Middle Eastern history I don't know.

 

[aktarian]

From Japan to Poland, from Siberia to India, from Java to Egypt felt the searing fire of Mongol warmaking.

As I've said:
-two continents
-not a single campaign

If you want to go down that road you'd be better off with early Muslim expansion or some Byzantine war.

What in the world am I reading? Even a cursory glance at the history of China will tell you otherwise. War on an incredible scale was being waged in East Asia while the European Peninsula was still an isolated backwater.

Wouldn't that mean that Erope was not involved in these conflict and as such these conflicts are hardly world wars, being contained to one continent and all....

 

[Emperor Palpatine]

As I've said:
-two continents
-not a single campaign

If you want to go down that road you'd be better off with early Muslim expansion or some Byzantine war.



Wouldn't that mean that Erope was not involved in these conflict and as such these conflicts are hardly world wars, being contained to one continent and all....

Was WW2 one long campaign from Case White through Barbarossa to Overlord?

 

[aktarian]

Was WW2 one long campaign from Case White through Barbarossa to Overlord?

Well, it was shorter and it involved same players. More same than just "Germany" or "Mongolia". Two of those players were in it from start to finish.

Or you can make the case that ETO WW2 was about fighting Germany which you could describe as one long campaign.

And if you want to go into details you can say that UK DoWed Germany, got punched up a bit, pulled back and then returned. Sure, it lost one ally and got another one but it was always in the fight.

Anyway, it's much better case for single campaign than Mongols.

 

[Dorozhand]

As I've said:
-two continents
-not a single campaign

If you want to go down that road you'd be better off with early Muslim expansion or some Byzantine war.



Wouldn't that mean that Erope was not involved in these conflict and as such these conflicts are hardly world wars, being contained to one continent and all....

The Second World War wasn't a single campaign either. Would you regard the fighting in China as being part of the same campaign as the fighting in Europe? Contemporaneous, but not part of the same military theatre of events. Yet they were part of the same larger war. The same could be said of the Mongol conquests. Genghis Khan's campaign against the Jin was not directly part of the same conflict as that of his grandson against Song, but it was part of a general war between the Mongols and the Chinese fought over generations. If the German war against the USSR is to be counted as part of the same war as the Japanese war against China, then the Mongol war against China and their war against Iran and Rus are tied together with a general military thread.

Also, all of Asia and parts of Africa represent a very huge fraction of humanity at this time, as well as a large proportion of the world's land area. Europe, parts of Africa, West Asia and small or isolated actions in the rest of Asia represent a comparatively far smaller proportion of both.

Europe not being involved in a conflict doesn't make something not a world war in the same way that North and South America saw no direct military action during the First World War, yet we still call it one.

 

[Dorozhand]

Well, it was shorter and it involved same players. More same than just "Germany" or "Mongolia". Two of those players were in it from start to finish.

Or you can make the case that ETO WW2 was about fighting Germany which you could describe as one long campaign.

And if you want to go into details you can say that UK DoWed Germany, got punched up a bit, pulled back and then returned. Sure, it lost one ally and got another one but it was always in the fight.

Anyway, it's much better case for single campaign than Mongols.

I'm confused. You only seem to be looking at Western Europe here. A tiny little drop in the sea of humanity. Looking at it from affected population, the Second World War could be described as a primarily East Asian and Soviet affair.

 

[Dorozhand]

A "World War" being 1. fought between the major powers of the time, 2. a war lasting at minimum several years, and 3. a large loss of military and civilian life, then the Thirty Years War would be WW1 IMO.

The major powers at the time were the Ottoman Empire, the Mughal Empire, and the Ming Dynasty (at first at least). None of which were involved.

 

[Riain]

The reason I would consider WW1 as the first legitimate claim to a world war is because of the interconnectedness of global communications and transport which wasn't present in earlier world wide wars.

For example a sea battle in the South Pacific caused the despatch of a couple of Battle Cruisers to the South Atlantic which for a short period narrowed the margin of superiority of the GF in the North Sea to a dangerous level. Or the success of Lettow Vorbeck in Africa caused the deployment of troops and supplies that could have been used in Mesopotamia or Egypt/Palestine, which in turn freed up Turkish troops and their German Allies to fight against Russia, Italy or on the Western Front. And if these scenarios changed then high commands could be informed almost immediately and warships or troop trains/ships could rush to a trouble spot in enough time to effect the battle.

This ability for an action on one side of the world to affect and other a provoke a rapid response is what makes WW1 a 'world' war rather than how many countries or theatres or powers were involved.

 

[PhilippeO]

WWI and WWII is because they are important to modern people (and modern include present ). many institution that define modern world Communism, UN (and its precessor League of Nations), even formal confirmation of Nationalism in Fourteen Points, border of many European States, etc have been greatly influenced by WWI and WWII.

Seven Year War, Thirty Years War, etc feels "distant" to Modern People.

World War (or Great War) is like continent, there are no firm definition of it.

The only way to change name is to have another Great/World War. then WWI and WWII will probably be re-named.

 

[david_herdson]

A "World War" being 1. fought between the major powers of the time, 2. a war lasting at minimum several years, and 3. a large loss of military and civilian life, then the Thirty Years War would be WW1 IMO.

There's a good case for that, though more as part of the sequence of European internal conflict which progressed through the other 'world wars' than as a global conflict in its own right.

If we're going to require a genuinely global conflict to justify the use of the term then there's only been one, from 1941-5: the conflicts going on before 1941 were too independent to be called a single 'war' and certainly not a single 'world war', though as they merged later on I can see the case for defining it as 1937-45 out of convenience.