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World war

World war is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand World war rather than just read about it. In short: A world war is an international conflict that involves most or all of the world's major powers. Conventionally, the term is reserved for the two major international conflicts that occurred during the first half of the 20th century: World War I (1914–1918) and World War II (1939–1945).

World war — main illustration
World war — illustration

Key takeaways

  • World war belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
  • Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
  • Connect World war to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
  • Reproduce the core statement of World war from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

A world war is an international conflict that involves most or all of the world's major powers. Conventionally, the term is reserved for the two major international conflicts that occurred during the first half of the 20th century: World War I (1914–1918) and World War II (1939–1945). Some historians have also characterized other global conflicts as world wars, such as the Seven Years' War, Cold War, and the war on terror.

Etymology The Oxford English Dictionary had 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" is used by Karl Marx and his associate, Friedrich Engels, in a series of articles published around 1850 called 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"). German writer August Wilhelm Otto Niemann 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. The term "first world war" was first used in September 1914 by German biologist and philosopher Ernst Haeckel, who claimed that "there is no doubt that the course and character of the feared 'European War' ... will become the first world war in the full sense of the word", citing a wire service report in the Indianapolis Star on 20 September 1914. In English, the term "First World War" was used by Lieutenant Colonel Charles à Court Repington as the title of his memoirs, published in 1920; he had previously noted his discussion on the matter with a Major Johnstone of Harvard University in his diary entry of September 10, 1918. The term "World War I" was coined by Time magazine on page 28 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. 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." 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; in Polish wojna światowa; in Russian, мировая война (mirovaya voyna); and in Finnish, maailmansota.

History

First World War

The First World War occurred from 1914 to 1918. 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. It had been recognized that the complex system of opposing military alliances (the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires against the British, Italian, Russian, and French Empires) was likely, if war broke out, to lead to a worldwide conflict. That caused a very minute conflict between two countries to have 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 war despite the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 having outlawed the use of such weapons in warfare. The Ottoman Empire was responsible for the Armenian genocide, during the First World War, as well as other war crimes.

Second World War

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

World war: United States Army infantry supported by a M18 tank destroyer advancing through a German-occupied Brest, France, during World War II
United States Army infantry supported by a M18 tank destroyer advancing through a German-occupied Brest, France, during World War II
World war illustration
World war: French Army soldiers holding a position in the ruins of a church during the Second Battle of the Marne, part of World War I
French Army soldiers holding a position in the ruins of a church during the Second Battle of the Marne, part of World War I
World war: A British Army Churchill tank passing a destroyed Wehrmacht Panzer IV tank during Operation Overlord, part of World War II
A British Army Churchill tank passing a destroyed Wehrmacht Panzer IV tank during Operation Overlord, part of World War II
World war: U.S. Army paratroopers landing in a field in West Germany during Exercise Reforger 1984, a Cold War-era NATO military exercise used to prepare for potential conventional warfare against the Warsaw Pact; such a conflict was expected to be World War III.
U.S. Army paratroopers landing in a field in West Germany during Exercise Reforger 1984, a Cold War-era NATO military exercise used to prepare for potential conventional warfare against the Warsaw Pact; such a conflict was expected to be World War III.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with World war

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what World war claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to World war before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about World war ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of World war

In research
World war appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry
Engineering practice reuses World war in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom
World war is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics War, Wars by type, World, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life
Look for World war outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study World war in 20 minutes

  1. Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
  2. Close the page and write down what World war means in your own words.
  3. Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
  4. Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
  5. Explain World war out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is World war in simple terms?

A world war is an international conflict that involves most or all of the world's major powers. Conventionally, the term is reserved for the two major international conflicts that occurred during the first half of the 20th century: World War I (1914–1918) and World War II (1939–1945).

Why does World war matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study World war?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on World war.

Tags

  • War
  • Wars by type
  • World
  • World wars

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