Was WWI and WWII really WWI and WWII?

[Lucky13]

Just wondering with all the combatants in the Napoleonic Wars....wasn't that a World War too?

Belligerents
Coalition forces:
Austria
Russia
Prussia
United Kingdom
Spain
Portugal
Sicily
Sardinia
Sweden
Hanover
United Netherlands
French Royalists(1815)

Vs..

French Empire and allies:
French Empire
Holland
Italy
Etruria
Naples
Duchy of Warsaw
Confederation of the Rhine
Bavaria
Saxony
Westphalia
Württemberg
Denmark-Norway

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I like to think of WW2 just a continuation of WW1 with a lengthy ceasefire in between.

 

[pbfoot]

Don't forget the US and natives of N America I'd include Canada but we were still with the UK

 

[Aussie1001]

Good point Adler, as soon as WW1 ended, the french and english treaties against the germans was just asking for trouble, and they got it all right.

 

[RabidAlien]

WW1 just had a 20-year intermission.

 

[Njaco]

I've wondered the same question but a little different. When did WWII start? To me the Japanese aggression in China in the '30s along with Italy and Spain I would include with the whole realm of WWII.

 

[Freebird]

Just wondering with all the combatants in the Napoleonic Wars....wasn't that a World War too?

Belligerents
Coalition forces:
Austria
Russia
Prussia
United Kingdom
Spain
Portugal
Sicily
Sardinia
Sweden
Hanover
United Netherlands
French Royalists(1815)

Vs..

French Empire and allies:
French Empire
Holland
Italy
Etruria
Naples
Duchy of Warsaw
Confederation of the Rhine
Bavaria
Saxony
Westphalia
Württemberg
Denmark-Norway

Wouldn't that be more like "European Continental War"?


{Those French British "Colonials" hardly counted! }

 

[Clave]

I have something that I'm working on relating to this, should be ready soon...

 

[timshatz]

Think WW2 was only a world war if you were one of the English speaking countries of the world (or relatively close allies). Otherwise, you were fighting the same guys you've been fighting for the last 2000 years (Germany/Huns Vs Soviets/Slavs, Japan V China).

But both WW1 and WW2 were inevitable in some form. WW1 was about the end of Monarchies. Between 1910 and 1920, something like 40% of the world's population lost their previous ruling govt. method (which they had for upwards of 5,000 years). Pasha Bey, Hollerhotzen, Romanoffs, and Austo-Hungarian Crowns all fell in a time period of a couple of years. Toss in the end of the Chinese (in 1910) and you're looking at a huge event. Most of those family rulers lost their crowns in the first world war (not much of a global war in terms of fighting but definitely global in terms of effect).

The Second World War was a combination of competition in ideologies (Nazi v Communist), centuries old grudges (Slavs, Huns, Franks, Anglo-Saxens), new players on the scene (North Americans, Austrialians, South Americans) and the final toll on the Monarchies that had escaped the first bloodletting that ended in 1920.

By the time WW2 was over, the Monarchy as an effective system of govt was essentially dead. Only in small, out of the way places did it survive as a form of govt (with the king/queen doing more than being a titular head). Communism and Democracy had arisen as the majority forms of govt in the world. Communism collapsed under the weight of it's own inequities.

Democracy, on the other hand, is still alive but evolving. It's future forms will be the question. Another question still unknown is will a modern democracy attack another democracy? In the modern era, it has never happened (happened in ancient Greece all the time, but that was their gig). It will be interesting to see where that idea goes when resources get scarce.

But anyhow, the First World War was about the death of kings. The Second was about the rise of the populist political systems.

IMHO.

 

[trackend]

Indirectly both wars had an effect on just about every other nation on the planet apart perhaps from the odd isolated native populations in the back of beyond

 

[JugBR]

why england and france declared war just against germany, if russia also invaded poland and other countries in 39 ?

 

[magnocain]

If Hitler had died in a car accident in 1932, there would have still been a great Asian war.

 

[timshatz]

If Hitler had died in a car accident in 1932, there would have still been a great Asian war.

Probably would've been a war in Europe too. Place was just unstable. Had two major conflicts between 1918 and 1939 (Russian-Polish War and the Spanish Civil War). Europe was up in the air during the 20s and 30s.

 

[Njaco]

Good post Tim. Never really looked at it that way.

 

[timshatz]

Good post Tim. Never really looked at it that way.

Thanks N, appreciate it. Haven't seen much written on it. Most writing that gets done about WW1 and WW2 is either revisionist (it wasn't all Hitler's/Imperial Japan's Fault) or standard stuff. Not many people have actually followed what happened to the royal houses of the world (I'm sure the Windor family noticed it but they don't write books about this stuff). I'm amazed there aren't more books written on the subject. It really was the defining event of the 20th century. The end of kings and the rise of the modern democracies. Figure this century is going to be the evolution of democracies into more socialist states.

There were a bunch of other things going on at the same time, industrialization was definitely the big push for both wars. It also put so much power in so many other hands that one guy (who claim to power was hereditary and could have the same amount of brain prowess as the average villiage idiot) who would be sorely pressed to handle a modern, functioning state. Add in the speed and numbers involved and these kings were essentially finished by the size and economic veracity of the nations they headed. A short proof of that are the Nicky-Willie Telegrams before WW1. These two saw the danger and tried to slow the march to war but it was already far ahead of them. It proved the time of kings and their power to change the world was over.

WW1 was a gas powered war, WW2 was an electric war. WW3 was supposed to be a nuclear war but it didn't happen (thank God for small favors). The next one will probably be a systems war.

 

[Clave]

I think you can go back earlier than Napoleonic times - How about the World Vs Mongolia? with the World coming off worse?

From Wiki:

In the chaos of the late twelfth century, a chieftain named Temüjin finally succeeded in uniting the Mongol tribes between Manchuria and the Altai Mountains. In 1206, he took the title Genghis Khan, and waged a series of military campaigns - renowned for their brutality and ferocity - sweeping through much of Asia, and forming the Mongol Empire, the largest contiguous land empire in world history. Under his successors it stretched from present-day Poland in the west to Korea in the east, and from Siberia in the north to the Gulf of Oman and Vietnam in the south, covering some 33,000,000 km² (12,741,000 sq mi),[6] (22% of Earth's total land area) and having a population of over 100 million people.

 

[timshatz]

Yeah, if the guy hadn't died, he probably would've made it to the English Channel. That was one ruthless (but very effective) invasion.