Let's discuss why is the concept of a World War reserved exclusively for a XX century, when there were in fact other major wars in the past that were fought on a global scale. For example, Seven Years' War.
>>444043
I can't find a picture with a nose big enough to explain why.
>>444043
7 years war and war of Austrian succession are kind of transition-points of military thought. Somewhere around the time war stopped being only about capturing fortresses and avoiding battles 99% of times and started being about destroying the enemy army(Napoleonic campaigns were basically 100% about it).
Also WW1 was at first called the great war and sure, 7 years war or 30 years war would be called word wars/great wars but it was way before we've had journalists looking for catchy title for their article.
The Seven Years' War was only on three continents. Both world wars were on six.
>>444043
I'd say the Mongol Conquests count as a World War. 3/5 continents and territory from Egypt and Poland in the West all the way to Japan in the East were involved.
>>444043
Because due to the technology not being advanced enough, the wars were confined to smaller locations.
An example would be most of the feudal warfare which was mostly about skirmishes and reached the pinnacle with the Crusades.
>>444043
Because the industrial revolution changed things forever. Wars, even local wars, got hugely bigger, as more arms could be supplied, more transportation infrastructure existed to get them to the conflict, and more food could be produced, enabling more people to be brought into the army without your economy falling apart.
The "World Wars" were what they were because they were the industrialized, large scale, worldwide conflicts.
Something like the 7 years war just doesn't compare, with relatively tiny armies, mostly comprised of mercenaries, leaving much smaller footprints in the areas they passed through and on the economies that supported them. Even if the geographic scale is similar, the social one isn't.
>b-but it shouldn't count as a world war because Argentina and Chile weren't involved
>>444553
Only using wiki-level scholarship here, so I might make a few errors, but at its height, the Grande Armee of Napoleon was 550,000 Frenchmen, out of a population of about 42,390,718, or about 1.2% of the population.
1914 saw France's population actually shrink to 39 million according to this http://www.151ril.com/content/history/french-army/2
And they mobilized 8.4 million people, for about 22% of the population.
As big as the Napoleonic wars were, they were nothing on the wars after the industrial revolution.
>>444043
Here's the list
>>444586
What does the light green for WW2 signify?
>>445110
Allied countries that entered the war after the attack on Pearl Harbor
>>444043
China and most of India wasn't involved
those are pretty big players to leave out m8
>>444701
It's interesting that the French Revolution/World War I are almost parallels like the Napoleonic Wars/World War II.
>>444407
They're not a single conflict, and even barely a series of conected conflicts. Not enough connected to each other to be considered a single war and most didn't happen at the same time.
>>444043
because you are obsessing about something that is merely a handy name for "a real big war like m8" and not some clearly defined concept with exact checkboxes a super secret council of historians goes through before naming things
>>444043
In Russia, Napoleons invasion is considered a world war and wwi not...
>>444043
Britain is such a fucking Jew for claiming most of the glory in that war.
>>448541
Gotta admit I never understood that
That war was basically Prussia standing to half Europe alone and miraculously achieving a draw.
All Britain did was heavily outnumber the French in America to steal their colony while they were fighting in Europe
This war was Prussia's glory, not Britain's
>>448585
The Brits fought in Westphalia-Hannover and in Portugal.
>>449885
Forgot pic lel.
>>444586
If we're going to measure localize impact, rather then total global reach, Seven Years war gets shreked even worse.
Compare the impact WW2 or even WW1 had on some peasant in Buryatia, or some asshole in California outside of battle, nevermind someone actually living in say, France, the Seven Years War, and how much that effected them.
