I’ve always wondered this. The 7 Years war was fought on multiple continents and decided the world as we know it, just like both World Wars. I just don’t get why it wasn’t seen as a world war and I came here to ask why.
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A couple reasons I can think of:
By the time World War 1 was coined as a term, it was already the Seven Years War for over a century. Renaming it at that point doesn’t make sense.
Second, it’s completely disconnected from the World Wars – alliances have shifted dramatically, plenty of the actors that fought in it no longer exist, and a finale for the British-French Rivalry already exists in the Napoleonic Wars. It’s now the time for the British-German rivalry.
It’s absolutely a global conflict, as are it’s peers/cousins the War of Spanish Succession, the Revolutionary War, and the Napoleonic Wars. However, they have their own plot thread and pretty much very little in common with the World Wars.
Could the Mongolian expansion be considered a World War? How about Alexander the Great?
world wars I/II are just the names we gave 2 major GLOBAL CONFLICTS. There have been other wars that some historians consider global conflicts…….including the 7 years war.
Most of these conflicts happened so long ago that the population and mobility of the militaries involved with them simply made them not nearly as catastrophic as WWI/II
Many people, including Winston Churchill have described the Seven Years war as the true First World War, and they often describe the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars as the second. The term wasn’t coined at the time partly because at the time of the seven years war a general war involving all the powers of europe at once wasn’t considered to be that unusual- they’d just finished the wars of the Spanish and Austrian Successions less than a generation earlier. What elevated the Seven Years War (and arguably the War of Austrian Succession before it) to ‘World War’ status was the involvement of the British and French colonial empires in North America and India, but this wasn’t all that big a deal at the time for most european powers that didn’t have global colonial empires.
WW1 isn’t actually a “world” war. European historians just called it so and no one cared to contest.
They could also call the 7-year war a world War but they didn’t and it thus isn’t. There is no diagram or criteria that quality one as world War. It’s totally arbitrary.
I’ve read of the 7 Years War being referred to as a world war. For example, the French and Indian War was considered a theater (in North America) of the 7 Years War. It doesn’t have “world war” in the name attributed to it, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a “world” or “global” war.
The Seven Years’ War was like a big fight between countries long ago, happening in many places around the world. But people didn’t call it a “World War” because, back then, they didn’t think about wars the same way we do now. The world wasn’t as connected, and the fighting mostly stayed in certain areas. Later, when World War 1 and World War 2 happened, the fights were even bigger and involved almost everyone, so they needed a special name, “World War,” to show how huge and important these wars were.
Convention.
The ‘World Wars’ only became World Wars after the 2nd ended.
To be more useful both World Wars could be referred to as a Second Thirty Years’ War instead — which they have been by various people over the years.
e. Very important: “The Second Thirty Years War” is not in any way to say that the entire course of those thirty years was inevitable. Rather, it’s a way to invite context and analysis of the sequence of events from the outbreak of WW1 (honestly probably further back to the Balkan Wars or the Russo-Japanese War) until the conclusion of WW2 (again, you could extend this to the conclusion of the Chinese civil war).
The throughline tension of the first half of the 20th century is that of the new imperial powers and their place among the existing old power structures. In Europe, Germany and Italy, in Asia, Japan. Those tensions gave rise to the series of conflicts in that time period, but the course of history was *not* deterministic and the particular sequences of events that occurred were only one possible outcome of those central tensions.
In addition to other answers, if you were “Just some guy” in the 7 years war, the fighting is not likely to effect you or your family.
Meanwhile WW1 and WW2 had significant impacts on almost every human. Food shortages affected all nations in WW1. An entire generation was conscripted, and many died. The type of munitions also meant if they front moved to you, you were out of luck. The 7 years war you could just wave a white hankerchief out your window, give your food to the enemy troops and quarter them a bit, and most of the time that’d be the end of it.
WW1, your house, your town, its all gone. Destroyed. More than destroyed, it is now uninhabitable for years.
WW2 this becomes even starker with the strategic bombing campaigns, nuclear weaponry, and genocidal actions, as well as the ideological death struggle that underpins it.
WW1 had 6-13 million civilian casualties. Meanwhile the 7 years war was infrequent enough that you’ll struggle to even find a measurement of how many civilians died.
The armies of the world fought in the seven years war. But the *world* was at war in WW1 and WW2. It defined the lives of everyone who lived through it.
A 40 year old factory worker in the 7 years war:
“We’re at war with France.”
“Oh? Um. Okay.”
A 40 year old factory worker in WW1:
“We’re at war with Germany.”
“Oh? Um. Okay.”
“So there’s no bread this week.”
“…”
“And we’re taking your son.”
“… what the fu-”
A 40 year old factory worker in WW2.
“We’re at war with Germany. Again.”
“So no bread? And you’re taking my son?”
“Yes. Also… um… your house might explode. So you’re gonna need to do some military style drills on how to deal with that if it happens.”
“… what the fu-“.
After reading Wikipedia, I’m convinced the seven year war could have been called a World War!
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