Why isn't the Seven Years' War considered the first World War?
>Spanned multiple continents
>Involved the great powers of Europe
>>299282
It wasnt done so by nation states.
>>299282
Didn't touch the whole world. The majority of Asia and Africa weren't involved, unlike in WW1 and WW2, where they were either massively involved (China, Japan, Ottoman Empire) or involved via colonial proxy (India, African colonies, Islamic world).
Am I remembering right that the Seven Years War was very important in that it caused or led to the American and thd French Revolutions? And rippling on to Napoleon, the new country USAs actions and so on.
>>299282
Well actually WWI was originally called the Great War since it was by far the largest in scale. But of course the next war was even larger so they has to rename the first one to something else. Since it really was a follow-up to the Great War, it it made sense to group them together and call them "The World Wars".
>>299282
It was considered as such until the First World War OP.
>>299292
The majority of Africa and Asia weren't involved in WW1 either.
It wasn't a total war, that's what makes the world wars special.
The Seven Years War was just a typical Baroque era war, most people didn't even notice it was happening, and it barely even affected the power balance.
>>299426
The only really important effect it had was increasing the power of Prussia. But that had already been the effect of the War of Austrian Succession.
>>299456
People had been talking about the possibility of a "World War" for many years before the war actually broke out.
The pieces that made a "world war" so, massive empires with oversea dominions, rapidly building up their armaments and entangled against each other in a series of mutual military agreements had been around for some time before the spark finally blew it up. That's partially why they had those Hague conferences to try and preempt the possibility of a future they could see themselves heading towards.
>>299552
In World War 1, most of Africa was colonized by the great powers and there were fronts in Africa. Also, their economy was directly affected since they supported their home country.
Asia less so, but there were Naval engagements all the same and India, Britain's prize jewel, was of course involved in many ways in the War. Not the least a rather larged planned uprising that the Germans supported (but which was crushed).
>>299565
The Seven Years War also included the French Indian War, which is very responsible for the actions that caused the American Revolution.
Not sure if it ties into the French Revolution any.
