It did have a number of fronts and spanned more than one continent. But the geographical extent of the conflict still wasn't that great.
When was the first time a 'world war' was possible?
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It did have a number of fronts and spanned more than one continent. But the geographical extent of the conflict still wasn't that great.
Max Sinister
Banned
If you look at the WP map of WW1, at least three quarters of the land surface belonged to a country in the war.
if that's the condition, it gets difficult. Or would a hypothetical war between Alexander's empire and all of India/China count? Or China vs. a bigger Rome? I don't think so.
if that's the condition, it gets difficult. Or would a hypothetical war between Alexander's empire and all of India/China count? Or China vs. a bigger Rome? I don't think so.
I disagree - a "world war" is a war that involves fighting worldwide. The number of participants and their geographic distribution is irrelevant - I doubt the local population would care where the armies trashing their neighbourhood came from.
Well, you are entitled to your own opinion but for the conversation to be meaningful we would better use the generally-accepted interpretations.
Here is a definition from Miriam-Webster: " a war engaged in by all or most of the principal nations of the world"
Echoed by: "a war in which the major nations of the world are involved" https://www.definitions.net/definition/world+war
"a war that is fought between many countries from different parts of the world" https://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/world-war
Which pretty much fits my earlier points: global in scale/reach, involves at least one alliance of powers.
Well yes, that much is obvious, simply by the technological limitations of antiquity. I was acting more as a devil’s advocate than anything else, because ultimately, the specifics of the definition of a “world war” is going to be an arbitrary line. How many continents must it cover? How widely should the combatants be dispersed? How unified must the alliances on either side be? The ultimate answer depends on a lot of minutia
Of course. One if it is a situation of "all against one" and more if this is a clash of the alliances. And in both cases should involve a lot of the major powers (well, at least those from the European perspective).
Can world war 2 count with its separate European and eastern arenas- the mongol wars were completely separate arenas, that spanned the entirety of the Eurasian heartland and at various points you had coalitions on both sides, the only common thing being the alliance of Mongols in all arenas with the great Khan