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"The World Wars" redirects here. For the 2014 miniseries, see The World Wars (miniseries).
For the conflict that was referred to as the World War before the start of the second war, see World War I.
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A world war is a large-scale war involving many of the countries of the world or many of the most powerful and populous ones. World wars span multiple countries on multiple continents, with battles fought in many theaters. While a variety of global conflicts have been subjectively deemed "world wars", such as the Cold War and the War on Terror, the term is widely and generally accepted only as it is retrospectively applied to two major international conflicts that occurred during the 20th century: World War I (1914–1918) and World War II (1939–1945).

Origin of the term

The Oxford English Dictionary cited the first known usage in the English language to a Scottish newspaper: the People's Journal in 1848: "A war among the great powers is now necessarily a world-war." The term "world war" had been used in 1850 by Karl Marx and his associate, Friedrich Engels,[1] in The Class Struggles in France. Rasmus B. Anderson in 1889 described an episode in Teutonic mythology as a “world war” (Swedish: världskrig), justifying this description by a line in an Old Norse epic poem, "Völuspá: folcvig fyrst i heimi" ("The first great war in the world".)[2] German writer August Wilhelm Otto Niemann had used the term "world war" in the title of his anti-British novel, Der Weltkrieg: Deutsche Träume (The World War: German Dreams) in 1904, published in English as The Coming Conquest of England.

In English, the term "First World War" had been used by Charles à Court Repington, as a title for his memoirs (published in 1920); he had noted his discussion on the matter with a Major Johnstone of Harvard University in his diary entry of September 10, 1918.[3]

The term "World War I" was coined by Time magazine on page 28b of its June 12, 1939 issue. In the same article, on page 32, 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.[4] One week earlier, on September 4, the day after France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany, the Danish newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad used the term on its front page, saying "The Second World War broke out yesterday at 11 a.m."[5]

Speculative fiction authors had been noting the concept of a Second World War in 1919 and 1920, when Milo Hastings wrote his dystopian novel, City of Endless Night. Other languages have also adopted the "world war" terminology, for example; in French: "world war" is translated as guerre mondiale, in German: Weltkrieg (which, prior to the war, had been used in the more abstract meaning of a global conflict), in Italian: guerra mondiale, in Spanish and Portuguese: guerra mundial, in Danish and Norwegian: verdenskrig, and in Russian: мировая война (mirovaya voyna.)

First World War

Main article: World War I

It occurred from 1914 to 1918 and in terms of human technological history, the scale of World War I was enabled by the technological advances of the second industrial revolution and the resulting globalization that allowed global power projection and mass production of military hardware. Wars on such a scale have not been repeated since the onset of the Atomic Age and the resulting danger of mutually-assured destruction. It had been recognized that the complex system of opposing alliances (the German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman Empires against the British, Russian, and French Empires) was likely to lead to a worldwide conflict if a war broke out. Due to this fact, a very minute conflict between two countries had the potential to set off a domino effect of alliances, triggering a world war. The fact that the powers involved had large overseas empires virtually guaranteed that such 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 wars far more widely than those of pre-Columbian times.

War crimes were perpetrated in World War I. Chemical weapons were used in the First World War despite the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 having outlawed the use of such weapons in warfare. The Ottoman Empire is claimed to be responsible for the Armenian genocide, the death of over one million Armenians during the First World War.

Second World War

Main article: World War II

The Second World War occurred from 1939 to 1945 and is the only conflict in which atomic bombs have been used. Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in Japan, were devastated by atomic bombs dropped by the United States. Nazi Germany was responsible for genocides, most notably the Holocaust, the killing of six million Jews. The United States, the Soviet Union, and Canada deported and interned minority groups within their own borders, and largely because of the conflict, many ethnic Germans were later expelled from Eastern Europe. Japan was responsible for attacking neutral nations without a declaration of war, such as the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It is also known for its brutal treatment and killing of Allied prisoners of war and the inhabitants of Asia. It also used Asians as forced laborers and was responsible for the Nanking massacre where 250,000 civilians in the city were brutally murdered by Japanese troops. Non-combatants suffered at least as badly as or worse than combatants, and the distinction between combatants and non-combatants was often blurred by belligerents of total war in both conflicts.[citation needed]

The outcome of World War II had a profound effect on the course of world history. The old European empires either collapsed or were dismantled as a direct result of the wars' crushing costs and, in some cases, their fall was due to the defeat of imperial powers. The United States became firmly established as the dominant global superpower, along with its ideological foe, the Soviet Union, in close competition. The two superpowers exerted political influence over most of the world's nation-states for decades after the end of the Second World War. The modern international security, economic, and diplomatic system was created in the aftermath of the wars.[citation needed]

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 had also greatly changed the course of daily life. Technologies developed during wartime had a profound effect on peacetime life as well, such as by advances in jet aircraft, penicillin, nuclear energy, and electronic computers.[citation needed]

Third World War

Main article: World War III

Since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War, there has been a widespread and prolonged fear of a potential Third World War between nuclear-armed powers. The Third World War is generally considered a successor to the Second World War and is often suggested to become a nuclear war, devastating in nature and likely much more violent than the First World War and the Second World War combined; in 1947, Albert Einstein commented that "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."[6][7] It has been anticipated and planned for by military and civil authorities and has been explored in fiction in many countries. Concepts have ranged from purely-conventional scenarios, to limited use of nuclear weapons, to the complete destruction of the planet's surface.

Other global conflicts

See also: American Revolutionary War, Cold War, War on Terror, Second Congo War, Syrian Civil War, Iraqi Civil War (2014–2017), and Cold War II

Various former government officials, politicians, authors, and military leaders (including the following people: James Woolsey[8] Alexandre de Marenches,[9] Eliot Cohen,[10] and Subcomandante Marcos[11]) have attempted to apply the labels of the “Third World War” and “Fourth World War” to various past and present global wars since the closing of the Second World War, for example, the Cold War and the War on Terror, respectively. Among these are former American, French, and Mexican government officials, military leaders, politicians, and authors: Despite their efforts, none of these wars are commonly deemed world wars.

Wars described by some historians as "World War Zero" include the Seven Years' War[12] and the onset of the Late Bronze Age collapse.[13]

The Second Congo War (1998–2003) involved nine nations and led to ongoing low-level warfare despite an official peace and the first democratic elections in 2006. It has often been referred to as "Africa's World War".[14] During the early-21st century the Syrian Civil War and the Iraqi Civil War and their worldwide spillovers are sometimes described as proxy wars waged between the United States and Russia,[15][16][17][18] which led some commentators to characterize the situation as a "proto-world war" with nearly a dozen countries embroiled in two overlapping conflicts.[19]

Wars with higher death tolls than the First World War

See also: List of wars by death toll and World War I casualties

The two world wars of the 20th century had caused unprecedented casualties and destruction across the theaters of conflict.[20] There have been several wars that occurred with as many or more deaths than in the First World War (16,563,868 — 40,000,000), including:

Estimated death tolls. Log. mean calculated using simple power law.
Event Lowest
estimate 		Highest
estimate 		Location From To Duration (years)
Three Kingdoms 36,000,000[21] 40,000,000[22] China 184 280 96
An Lushan Rebellion 13,000,000[23] 36,000,000[24] China 755 763 9
Mongol conquests 30,000,000[25] 40,000,000[23] Eurasia 1206 1324 118
Conquests of Timur 15,000,000[26] 20,000,000[26] Asia 1369 1405 37
Qing dynasty conquest of the Ming dynasty 25,000,000[27] 25,000,000 China 1616 1662 47
Taiping Rebellion 20,000,000[28] 100,000,000[29][30][31] China 1851 1864 14
World War II 40,000,000[32] 85,000,000[33] Global 1939 1945 6
Cold War 22,345,162 +94,000,000 Global 1947 1991 44

Wars spanning continents

'World War 0' redirects here.

There have been numerous wars spanning two or more continents throughout history, including:

Estimated death tolls. Log. mean calculated using simple power law.
Event Lowest
estimate 		Highest
estimate 		Location From To Duration (years)
Late Bronze Age collapse Egypt, Anatolia, Syria, Canaan, Cyprus, Greece, Mesopotamia 1200s BCE 1150s BCE 40-50
Greco-Persian Wars Greece, Thrace, Aegean Islands, Asia Minor, Cyprus, Egypt 499 BCE 449 BCE 50
Peloponnesian War Greece, Asia Minor, Sicily 431 BCE 404 BCE 27
Wars of Alexander the Great Thrace, Illyria, Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Babylonia, Persia, Sogdiana, India 335 BCE 323 BCE 12
Wars of the Diadochi Macedon, Greece, Thrace, Anatolia, Levant, Egypt, Babylonia, Persia 322 BCE 275 BCE 47
First Punic War 285,000
[citation needed] 		400,000[23] Mediterranean Sea, Sicily, Sardinia, North Africa 264 BCE 241 BCE 23
Second Punic War 616,000
[citation needed] 		770,000[23] Italy, Sicily, Hispania, Cisalpine Gaul, Transalpine Gaul, North Africa, Greece 218 BCE 201 BCE 17
Roman–Seleucid War Greece, Asia Minor 192 BCE 188 BCE 4
Roman–Persian Wars Mesopotamia, Syria, Levant, Egypt, Transcaucasus, Atropatene, Asia Minor, Balkans 92 BCE 629 CE 721
First Mithridatic War Asia Minor, Achaea, Aegean Sea 89 BCE 85 BCE 4
Great Roman Civil War Hispania, Italy, Greece, Illyria, Egypt, Africa 49 BCE 45 BCE 4
Byzantine–Sassanid wars Caucasus, Asia Minor, Egypt, Levant, Mesopotamia 502 CE 628 CE 126
Muslim conquests Mesopotamia, Caucasus, Persia, Levant, North Africa, Anatolia, Iberia, Gaul, Greater Khorasan 622 1258 636
Arab–Byzantine wars Levant, Syria, Egypt, North Africa, Anatolia, Crete, Sicily, Italy 629 1050 421
Crusades 1,000,000[34] 3,000,000[35] Iberian peninsula, Near East, Anatolia, the Levant, Egypt. 1095 1291 197
Mongol conquests 30,000,000[25] 40,000,000[23] Eurasia 1206 1324 118
Byzantine–Ottoman Wars Asia Minor, Balkans 1265 1479 214
European colonization of the Americas 2,000,000[36] 100,000,000[37] Americas 1492 1900 408
Ottoman–Habsburg wars Hungary, Mediterranean, Balkans, North Africa, Malta 1526 1791 265
First Anglo-Spanish War Atlantic Ocean, English Channel, Low Countries, Spain, Spanish Main, Portugal, Cornwall, Ireland, Americas, Azores, Canary islands 1585 1604 19
Dutch–Portuguese War Atlantic Ocean, Brazil, West Africa, Southern Africa, Indian Ocean, India, East Indies, Indochina, China 1602 1663 61
Thirty Years' War 3,000,000 11,500,000 Europe, mainly present-day Germany 1618 1648 30
Second Anglo-Spanish War Caribbean, Spain, Canary Islands, Spanish Netherlands 1654 1660 6
Nine Years' War Europe, Ireland, Scotland, North America, South America, Asia 1688 1697 9
WaroftheSpanishSuccession.png
War of the Spanish Succession 		Europe, North America, South America 1701 1714 13
War of the Quadruple Alliance Sicily, Sardinia, Spain, North America 1718 1720 2
Third Anglo-Spanish War Spain, Panama 1727 1729 2
WaroftheAustrianSuccession.png
War of the Austrian Succession 		Europe, North America, India 1740 1748 8
SevenYearsWar.png
Seven Years' War 		1,500,000[23] Europe, North America, South America, Africa, Asia 1754 1763 9
American Revolutionary War North America, Gibraltar, Balearic Islands, India, Africa, Caribbean Sea, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean 1775 1784 8
FrenchRevolutionaryWars.png
French Revolutionary Wars 		Europe, Egypt, Middle East, Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean, Indian Ocean 1792 1802 9
NapoleonicWars.png
Napoleonic Wars 		3,500,000
[citation needed] 		7,000,000[38] Europe, Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, North Sea, Río de la Plata, French Guiana, West Indies, Indian Ocean, North America, South Caucasus 1803 1815 13
Crimean War 255,000[39] 1,000,000[40] Sicily, Sardinia, Spain, North America, Southeastern Europe, Black Sea 1853 1856 3
WWI-re.png
World War I 		15,000,000[41] 65,000,000[42] Global 1914 1918 4
Map of participants in World War II.png
World War II 		40,000,000[32] 85,000,000[33] Global 1939 1945 6
Cold War Map 1980.svg
Cold War 		22,345,162 (casualties by all wars started in the Cold War with Gulf War, Vietnam War, Korean War, Algerian War , Iran–Iraq War, Nigerian Civil War or Soviet–Afghan War included)[43][better source needed] +94,000,000 ( 22 millions of people killed by all civil wars started in Asia, South America and Africa + number of people killed in Asia and Europe by the Communist governments, with casualties of Soviet famine of 1946–47, Cambodian genocide, Cultural Revolution, and Great Leap Forward included)[44][better source needed] Global 1947 1991 44
Battlefields in The Global War on Terror.svg
War on Terror 		272,000[45] 1,260,000
[45][46][47] 		Global 2001 present 16

See also

References

  1. ^ Engels, Frederick. "Introduction to Borkheim".
  2. ^ Rasmus Björn Anderson (translator: Viktor Rydberg), Teutonic Mythology, vol. 1, p. 139, London: S. Sonnenschein & Co., 1889 OCLC 626839.
  3. ^ The First World War Quite Interesting Ltd. Encyclopedia. Downloaded Feb. 11, 2017
  4. ^ "Grey Friday: TIME Reports on World War II Beginning". TIME. September 11, 1939. Retrieved 20 October 2014. World War II began last week at 5:20 a. m. (Polish time) Friday, September 1, when a German bombing plane dropped a projectile on Puck, fishing village and air base in the armpit of the Hel Peninsula.
  5. ^ "Den anden Verdenskrig udbrød i Gaar Middags Kl. 11", Kristeligt Dagblad, September 4, 1939.
  6. ^ Calaprice, Alice (2005). The new quotable Einstein. Princeton University Press. p. 173. ISBN 978-0-691-12075-1.
  7. ^ "The culture of Einstein". MSNBC. 2005-04-19. Retrieved 2012-08-24.
  8. ^ "World War IV". 2002. Retrieved 2010-02-04.Woolsey claims victory in WWIII, start of WWIV
  9. ^ The Fourth World War: Diplomacy and Espionage…. 1992. ASIN 0688092187. {{cite book}}: Check |asin= value (help)Book regarding alleged WWIV
  10. ^ "World War IV: Let's call this conflict what it is". 2001. Retrieved 2010-02-04.Why war on terrorism should be called WWIV
  11. ^ Subcomandante Marcos (2001). "The Fourth World War Has Begun". Nepantla: Views from South. 2 (3): 559–572. Retrieved 20 October 2014.
  12. ^ "Why the first world war wasn't really". The Economist. 2014-07-01.
  13. ^ "World War Zero brought down mystery civilisation of 'sea people'".
  14. ^ Prunier, Gerard (2014). Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe. Barnes & Noble. ISBN 9780195374209. Retrieved 20 October 2014.
  15. ^ "U.S. Weaponry Is Turning Syria Into Proxy War With Russia". The New York Times. 12 October 2015. Retrieved 14 October 2015.
  16. ^ "John McCain says US is engaged in proxy war with Russia in Syria". The Guardian. 4 October 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
  17. ^ "U.S., Russia escalate involvement in Syria". CNN. 13 October 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
  18. ^ ""The Russians have made a serious mistake": how Putin's Syria gambit will backfire". The VOA. 1 October 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
  19. ^ "Untangling the Overlapping Conflicts in the Syrian War". The New York Times. 18 October 2015. Retrieved 19 October 2015.
  20. ^ "Top 10 Causes of WWI". The Rich Ten. Retrieved 11 June 2014.
  21. ^ Robert B. Marks (2011). China: Its Environment and History (World Social Change). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 978-1442212756.
  22. ^ Caselli, Graziella (2005). Demography – Analysis and Synthesis: A Treatise in Population. Academic Press. ISBN 978-0127656601.
  23. ^ a b c d e f White, Matthew (2012). The Great Big Book of Horrible Things: The Definitive Chronicle of History's 100 Worst Atrocities. W. W. Norton. pp. 529–530. ISBN 978-0-393-08192-3.
  24. ^ "Death toll figures of recorded wars in human history".
  25. ^ a b The Cambridge History of China: Alien regimes and border states, 907–1368, 1994, p.622, cited by White
  26. ^ a b "Timur Lenk (1369–1405)". Users.erols.com. Retrieved 2013-08-23.
  27. ^ Macfarlane, Alan (1997-05-28). The Savage Wars of Peace: England, Japan and the Malthusian Trap. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-18117-0.
  28. ^ "Taiping Rebellion – Britannica Concise". Concise.britannica.com. Retrieved 2013-08-23.
  29. ^ "The Taiping Rebellion 1850–1871 Tai Ping Tian Guo". Taipingrebellion.com. Retrieved 2013-08-23.
  30. ^ Livre noir du Communisme: crimes, terreur, répression, page 468
  31. ^ By Train to Shanghai: A Journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway By William J. Gingles page 259
  32. ^ a b Wallechinsky, David (1996-09-01). David Wallechinskys 20th Century: History With the Boring Parts Left Out. Little Brown. ISBN 978-0-316-92056-8.
  33. ^ a b Fink, George: Stress of War, Conflict and Disaster
  34. ^ John Shertzer Hittell, "A Brief History of Culture" (1874) p.137: "In the two centuries of this warfare one million persons had been slain..." cited by White
  35. ^ Robertson, John M., "A Short History of Christianity" (1902) p.278. Cited by White
  36. ^ Rummel, R.J. Death by Government, Chapter 3: Pre-Twentieth Century Democide
  37. ^ Stannard, David E. (1993). American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 11. ISBN 978-0-19-508557-0. In the 1940s and 1950s conventional wisdom held that the population of the entire hemisphere in 1492 was little more than 8,000,000—with fewer than 1,000,000 people living in the region north of present-day Mexico. Today, few serious students of the subject would put the hemispheric figure at less than 75,000,000 to 100,000,000 (with approximately 8,000,000 to 12,000,000 north of Mexico).
  38. ^ Charles Esdaile "Napoleon's Wars: An International History".
  39. ^ Bodart, Gaston (1916). Westergaard, Harald (ed.). Losses of Life in Modern Wars: Austria-Hungary; France. Clarendon Press. p. 142.
  40. ^ Edgerton, Robert (1999). Death or Glory: The Legacy of the Crimean War. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. p. 5. ISBN 978-0-8133-3789-0.
  41. ^ Willmott 2003, p. 307
  42. ^ "Emerging Infectious Diseases journal - CDC". www.cdc.gov.
  43. ^ List of wars by death toll
  44. ^ The Black Book of Communism
  45. ^ a b "Human costs of war: Direct war death in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan October 2001 – February 2013" (PDF). Costs of War. February 2013. Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 April 2013. Retrieved 14 June 2013. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  46. ^ "Update on Iraqi Casualty Data" Archived 2008-02-01 at the Wayback Machine by Opinion Research Business. January 2008.
  47. ^ "Revised Casualty Analysis. New Analysis 'Confirms' 1 Million+ Iraq Casualties" Archived 2009-02-19 at the Wayback Machine. January 28, 2008. Opinion Research Business. Word Viewer for.doc files.
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