Why are they called World Wars 1 and 2?

Question

The 2 great wars in the last century were known as world wars. This was because they literally involved every country on earth.

However, if we were to read history carefully, this were not the first time it happened. During the time of the Romans, the Romans swept across Europe, Africa and the Middle East as they set out to colonise them.

Likewise, Napolean also did the same thing during the 18 century, conquering Europe.

Alexander the Great also expanded his Empire, conquering lands as far away as India.

The Moguls, under Genghis Khan, also swept across the Middle East and Europe in their conquests.

Weren't these also world wars? So, why were the 2 great wars in the last century called World Wars1 and 2?

Answer 1

As you can see by the replies you ask a serious and very interesting question. The terms 1st and 2nd World War are as much an indication of the impression they made on contemporaries and their recent vintage as they are accurate descriptors. Among historians we often call the Seven Years War (part of which is called the French and Indian War in the United States) the first world war -- with lower case letters.

Answer 2

I have to disagree with what some people said about the world war.

In the First World 'War, it didn't involve every country. Countries in South America were literally not in the war. Likewise, in the east, countries in the east such as China and New Zealand were also not in it. Likewise contries in the Middle East bordering Russia were also not involved.

Yet, it is regarded as a world war.

So, yes, it is true. Why can't the conquest by Napolean and the Mogolians be considered world wars? Don't forget, the conquest by the Mogolians were swift. They advanced from Mogolia to the West rapidly, just like what Hitler and the Nazis had done when they went across Europe.

Answer 3

We only have two world wars to use as examples. Many people call the Cold War and War on Terror world wars, but history is very selective and discriminating. So what do the first world wars have in common? Some have stated it above: superpowers in opposite camps with the majority of the countries on one side or the other. Also the involvement of more than one continent and ocean. The Cold War falls short because it wasn't hot and the war on terror does not involve super powers in opposite camps....just a localized war among rumps states relegated to the heap of regional conflicts. The wars of ancient history don't come close to involving the Americas or Africa...true they were big, but not across ALL the continents or ALL the oceans...sorry.

Answer 4

Previous wars were "serial" wars : one battle after another, with the battle moving from one place to another, rarely more then two battles at the same time, usually limited to one continent (or two contiguous continents), and with the battles regulary being suspended during bad weather, winter or harvest time.

WW I was the first *parallel* war, with *several* long-time wars at the same time all over the globe, during all it's four years, affecting the majority of the world's major nations, on every continent on Earth save Antarctica, with unprecedented scale and slaughter. There was the Western Front - with the trenches stretching from the North Sea to Switzerland - , the Balkan Front, the Eastern Front, the Caucasus front, the Mesopotamian Campaigns, the Sinai and Palestine Campaign, the Gallipoli Campaign, the Aden Campaign, the Persia Campaign, the African Campaigns, the Campaigns in German Samoa and New Guinea, the Tsingtao Campaign, the Atlantic Front, and the War in the Air.

Not even the more recent "Cold War" and the so-called "War on (Some) Terror", although being *world-wide* conflicts, come up to the same scale to be able to be called World Wars. (Except for some rabid neo-cons, of course.)

Answer 5

Actually, I would argue that The Great War was not a world war at all. It certainly involved the bulk of Europe and its African colonies, as well as Ottoman provinces in the Near East. Japan was officially allied with Britain, but the Asian part of the war was restricted to Japan's gobbling up German-flag islands, which we had to take away 25 years later at great cost.

A number of 18th-century conflicts have a better claim to being "world" wars.

Answer 6

Actually most German soldiers weren't Nazis. You had to be a member of Hitler's political party to be a Nazi. German soldiers were called Krauts because most Germans ate sauer kraut or Jerry which probably comes from 'ger' of German or sometimes Fritz, a common German name like Joe as in GI Joe for American. Russian soldiers were called Ruskies or Commies, even though technically it was short for Communist and like Nazis most Russian soldiers were not members of the Communist party. I doubt 'Commie' was used in WWI though since the Revolution had just taken place.

Answer 7

Yeah, but did the Romans or Genghis Khan ever do battle with anyone from this contenent? Nope.
World War I, The Great War, or The War to end all wars, was the first to involve the entire planet. Number II, is, if you study your history, a direct result of the first. In fact, you could say they were both the same war with just a 20 year lull in between.

Answer 8

WW II was also called "The War to End all Wars," 135 countries took part in the war.
The reason I hear most often is that it was fought in every part of the world. Even that doesn't satisfy.
You are absolutely correct, the examples you cite are, indeed, what I would call world wars.
Seems historians, journalists, commentators, politicians all have a say in the naming of historical events....thus, we have the phrase World War.

Answer 9

yes but in the generation which we are living in they are refereed to as this, because they are the largest of there time, in the time of the romans and others like them the wars were probably refered to as the same

Answer 10

your examples are not world wars because 1 dominant power conquered the target countries & lands,,, the ones who resisted against it were not well organised and thus failed.
For WWI , WWII ,, there were 2 dominant groups fighting each other , whose army strength were nearly close ,,and this was a bit organised & planned