When were the terms First World War and Second World War coined?

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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The most common term for WWI was "the Great War"

Was it ever called "the First World War" or "World War One" before WWII?

Did anyone call the war of WWII, "the Second World War" or "World War Two" before Pearl Harbor? Before Barbarossa? Was there any other distinctive name for the war between the German led coalition and the British led coalition between Sept 1939 and June 1941?
 
The most common term for WWI was "the Great War"

It was also quite frequently just called "the World War"--then and for a couple of decades afterwards.

"In English, the term "First World War" had been used by Charles à Court Repington as a title for his memoirs (published in 1920) having noted his discussion on the matter with a Major Johnstone of Harvard University in his diary entry of September 10, 1918.[3] The term "World War I" was coined by Time magazine in its issue of June 12, 1939. In the same article, 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.[4] 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."[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_war
 

raharris1973

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It was also quite frequently just called "the World War"--then and for a couple of decades afterwards.

"In English, the term "First World War" had been used by Charles à Court Repington as a title for his memoirs (published in 1920) having noted his discussion on the matter with a Major Johnstone of Harvard University in his diary entry of September 10, 1918.[3] The term "World War I" was coined by Time magazine in its issue of June 12, 1939. In the same article, 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.[4] 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."[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_war


My hunch was that Second World War was used pre-Pearl Harbor.

Yet at least two or three times I've seen people on the boards claim "it was just a European war, not a world war, until Japan attacked the US and spread the fight to the Pacific". That the claim was pedantic, and incorrect, hair-splitting is now confirmed.
 
My hunch was that Second World War was used pre-Pearl Harbor.

Yet at least two or three times I've seen people on the boards claim "it was just a European war, not a world war, until Japan attacked the US and spread the fight to the Pacific". That the claim was pedantic, and incorrect, hair-splitting is now confirmed.

I mean, it ignores that there was a war in Asia already; Pearl Harbor merely hastened the intertwining of the two.
 
I usually refer to First World War and Second World War. World War II sounds like a sequel. Maybe it's my British-born roots mixed with Canadianisms?
 
World War II sounds like a sequel.
In a way it was.

Alan Bennett wrote a play called The Madness of George The Third. Allegedly the film of the play was called the Madness of King George because Americans who saw the posters saying The Madness of George III thought it was a sequel. I must admit that if I hadn't known better I would have thought it was a horror movie.
 
I mean, it ignores that there was a war in Asia already; Pearl Harbor merely hastened the intertwining of the two.

But that was not why it was already called the Second World War before Pearl Harbor. The reason was simply that it seemed a replay of the First World War, and that even a war purely between the great European powers seemed to be a "world war" in that Eurocentric age (especially given the colonial holdings of many of the major European powers outside Europe),
 
Quite sure that Churchill called the Seven Years War the real First World War!:p

Given that there was fighting on almost every continent (Get out of here Australia and Antarctica) he was arguably right. Indeed by this logic WW1 was actually the fifth world war (AWI, French revolutionary/Napoleonic and Crimean IIRC being the other wars).
 
I know from research on other topics that in Ireland in the 1920s and 1930s it was often referred to as the European War in official documents.
 
In a way it was.

Alan Bennett wrote a play called The Madness of George The Third. Allegedly the film of the play was called the Madness of King George because Americans who saw the posters saying The Madness of George III thought it was a sequel. I must admit that if I hadn't known better I would have thought it was a horror movie.


That's like the one about the film producer who bought the rights for "Gandhi II; The Empire Strikes back".
 
That's like the one about the film producer who bought the rights for "Gandhi II; The Empire Strikes back".
Andy Hamilton (co writer of Outnumbered) had a superb series on Radio Four in the 1980s called the Million Pound Radio Show with Nick Revell.

Jasper Jacob as British Officer: Go away! You're not wanted here!

FX: Sound of machine gun fire.

Hamilton as Ghandi: The British Raj is a disease and I am the cure!

Revell as Bill Mitchell (British based American voiceover artist): Michael Winner directs... Ghandi Two... The Mahatma's back and this time he's getting mad...
 
But that was not why it was already called the Second World War before Pearl Harbor. The reason was simply that it seemed a replay of the First World War, and that even a war purely between the great European powers seemed to be a "world war" in that Eurocentric age (especially given the colonial holdings of many of the major European powers outside Europe),

But it is the reason people today want to deny it was a "World War" before 1941, no?
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
But it is the reason people today want to deny it was a "World War" before 1941, no?

It was already as much of a world war as the First World War had been. In the First World War, there had been massive fighting in Europe, along with heavy fighting in the Middle East, scattered fighting in Africa, and snippets in the Pacific. That's more or less the Second World War before 1941, even if you're not counting the Sino-Japanese War as part of the conflict.
 
It was already as much of a world war as the First World War had been. In the First World War, there had been massive fighting in Europe, along with heavy fighting in the Middle East, scattered fighting in Africa, and snippets in the Pacific. That's more or less the Second World War before 1941, even if you're not counting the Sino-Japanese War as part of the conflict.

Making their position even dumber, yes.
 

Anderman

Donor
In all articles, books a read in german about World War 1 it was always called the "Weltkrieg" (world war) never great war or such.
 
My dad had an Encyclopedia Britannica from about 1940 or so. I distinctly remember a photo of steaming ships labelled "European War 1939-". So clearly "World War II" took a while to gain traction.
 
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