World War

A world war is a war involving some of the world's most powerful and populous countries. World wars span multiple countries on multiple continents, with battles fought in multiple theaters.

The term is usually applied to the two conflicts that occurred during the 20th century:

• World War I (1914–1918)
• World War II (1939–1945)

However, it is also sometimes applied to earlier wars, the Cold War, the Cold War II, or to a hypothetical World War III.The term "World War" was coined speculatively in the early 20th century, some years before the First World War broke out, probably as a literal translation of the German word Weltkrieg. German writer August Wilhelm Otto Niemann had used the word in the title of his anti-British novel Der Weltkrieg: Deutsche Träume ("The World War: German Dreams") as early as 1904, published in English asThe coming conquest of England. Also, the term was used as early as 1850 by Karl Marx in The Class Struggles in France, as well as his associate Friedrich Engels. The Oxford English Dictionary cites the first known usage in the English language as being in April 1909, in the pages of the Westminster Gazette.

It was recognized that the complex system of opposing alliances–the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire vs.the French Third Republic, the Russian Empire, and the British Empire was likely to lead to a worldwide conflict in the event of war breaking out. Due to this fact, a very minute conflict between two countries has the potential to set off a domino effect of alliances, causing mass war. The fact that the powers involved had large overseas empires virtually guaranteed that 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 fighting far more widely than in the pre-colonial era.

Other languages have also adopted the "World War" terminology. For instance, 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, "World War" is translated as "Guerra Mondiale"; in Spanish, — Guerra Mundial, and in Russian, — Mировая Bойна (Mirovaya Voyna).

Speculative fiction authors were noting the concept of a Second World War at least as early as 1919 and 1920, when Milo Hastingswrote his dystopian novel City of Endless Night. In English, the term "First World War" was used by Charles à Court Repington as a title for his memoirs, published in 1920, having originally discussed the matter with a Major Johnstone of Harvard University in September 1918. The term "World War I" was invented by Time magazine in its issue of June 12, 1939.In that same article, the term "World War II" was first used speculatively to describe the upcoming warThe first use for the actual war came in its issue of September 11, 1939. One week earlier, the Danish newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad used the term on its front page, saying "The second World War broke out yesterday at 11 a.m

Before the 20th century, there were a number of wars with battles spanning two or more continents, including:

• the Greco-Persian Wars (499–449 BC)
• the Wars of Alexander the Great (335–323 BC)
• the Wars of the Diadochi (322–275 BC)
• the First Punic War (264–241 BC)
• the Second Punic War (218–201 BC)
• the Roman–Syrian War (192–188 BC)
• the Roman–Persian Wars (92 BC –AD 629)
• the First Mithridatic War (89–85 BC)
• the Great Roman Civil War (49-45 BC)
• the Byzantine–Sassanid wars (AD 502–628)
• the Muslim conquests (622–1258)
• the Arab–Byzantine wars (629–1050s)
• the First Crusade (1096–1099)
• the Second Crusade (1145–1149)
• the Mongol conquests (1206–1324)
• the Byzantine–Ottoman Wars (1265–1479)
• the Ottoman–Habsburg wars (1526–1791)
• the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648)
• the Anglo-Spanish War I (1585–1604)
• the Dutch–Portuguese War (1602–1663)
• the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648)
• the Anglo-Spanish War II (1625–1630)
• the Anglo-Spanish War III (1654–1660)
• the Nine Years' War (1688–1697)
• the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714)
• the War of the Quadruple Alliance (1718–1720)
• the Anglo-Spanish War IV (1727–1729)
• the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748)
• the Seven Years' War (1754–1763)
• the Anglo-Spanish War V (1761–1763)
• the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783)
• the French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802)
• the Anglo-Spanish War VI (1796–1808)
• the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815)
• the Crimean War (1853–1856)

Before the late 19th century, the concept of a world war would be the result of military action caused by quarrels between European powers which took place in fairly limited, though sometimes far-flung, theaters of conflict.