World War

The term "World War" was coined in the early 20th century, some years before the First World War broke out. It was recognised that the complex system of opposing alliances--Germany-Austria-Italy vs France-Russia-Britain-Serbia--was likely to lead to a global conflict in the event of war breaking out. The fact that the powers involved had large overseas empires virtually guaranteed that a conflict would be global, as the colonies' resources would be a crucial strategic factor. The same strategic considerations also ensured that the combatants would strike at each others' colonies, thus spreading the fighting far more widely than in the pre-colonial era.

While the First World War came to be described as a "world war" within days of its outbreak, it does not appear to have been called the First World War until the start of the 1920s. It was more commonly known as the Great War until the outbreak of the far greater Second World War made the distinction necessary.

The term "Second World War" was also coined in the 1920s. In 1928, US Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg advocated his treaty "for the renunciation of war" (known as the Kellogg-Briand Pact) as being a "practical guarantee against a second world war". The term came into widespread use as soon as the war began in 1939.

Other languages have also adopted the "World War" terminology; for instance, in French, the two World Wars are the Guerres Mondiales; in German, the erste und zweite Weltkrieg; in Russian the mirovye vojny; and so on.