When did the "Great War" become "World War 1"?
Upvote:1
I think Russell Borogove approach is correct. But the change of concept is sensitive for each country. While you look in english is natural that the change occurs during world war two, because for english speaking people both wars were important. I mean, when world war two becomes an important war as the first one, then the change happens in english.
But, for France the change is far later in time. In 1960 decade. Why? Because for France the first world war was more important than the second one, hence for them, first world war was still the "grande guerre" for a long time.
While if you look in a neutral language, like spanish (no spanish speaking country was affected by the war). The change is almost inmediate ("primera guerra" is "first world war"), during the second world war.
Upvote:5
The existing answers ignore the fact that the term "The World War" was used already during the war itself and even though maybe less commonly than "The Great War", it was not rare at all. In fact "The Great War" was used even before WW1 as a name for other conflicts.
The need to add a distinguishing "First" only emerged when the possibility of another world war was being discussed and especially when the second world war started out. However, the "The World War" name itself was quite common already during WW1.
You can read the "King's Complete History of the World War" (1922), or The 110th Infantry in the World War (1919).
The term was used also in other languages and in some of them it was much more popular than the equivalent of "The Great War". For example the famous "The Good Soldier Švejk", the title in full would actually be "The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War" ("... za světové války"). Published from 1921 to 1923.
And in German:
Upvote:11
According to Google ngrams, "first world war" started to overtake "great war" more or less right after the end of WW2. None of "world war 1/i", "world war 2/ii", "ww1", or "ww2" show up in significant numbers compared to these terms. Not all of the "great war" hits refer to WW1, as the numbers are substantial well before 1914!
Here are some plots (note 'English' versus 'British english' corpus):
Upvote:13
The first public use of the phrase "First World War" seems to have been in the title of memoirs published in 1920, and the first public use of the phrase "World War 1" is generally accepted to have been by Time Magazine in June 1939. However, this still doesn't quite answer the question. In 1920, and even in 1939, the term "The Great War" was still far more common in general use.
Interestingly, various people have done analyses to discover when the terms "First World War" and "World War 1" became more popular than "The Great War" in general use. I wasn't able to find one that would stand up to rigorous academic scrutiny (sources of potential bias in the data are obvious in every example I found), but this article does contain a nice interactive graph.
The suggestion is that use of "First World War" and "World War 1" overtook the phrase "The Great War" in general use in about 1941.
The first known use of the phrase "The First World War" in any context is actually in an officer's diary from 1918. The diary records a conversation between officers where they discussed what historians should call the war. Obviously, however, this was not a "public" document.
Another interesting point from that article is that, even as late as January 1959, the "Second World War" was often referred to as "The Second Great War".
More post
- 📝 Does Siquieros' Echo of a Scream resemble a known news photo from the Second Sino-Japanese War?
- 📝 Why was Britain willing to return Hong Kong but not Gibraltar?
- 📝 Is there an accurate "World History Timeline" for all geographic areas?
- 📝 After World War II, what happened to the Soviet industrial facilities that had been evacuated?
- 📝 What was the heaviest example of horse armor (barding) from 16th and 17th centuries?
- 📝 Why did classical works re-emerge during the Renaissance?
- 📝 When did the French Revolution end?
- 📝 How was life in the Iron Age different from life in the Middle Ages?
- 📝 Were children in Soviet Union commonly expected to thank Stalin for food, even when he was not present?
- 📝 What religions (other than Judaism) worshiped only one god?
- 📝 Why is this hat identified as the Byzantine Imperial kamelaukion?
- 📝 Exact date of Aquitania uprising over Charlemagne?
- 📝 How did close-knit and urban society function before the advent of daily bathing?
- 📝 Why were Muslims in Western Thrace and Christians in Constantinople excluded from the population exchange?
- 📝 When did Europeans stop writing the month with Roman numbers?
- 📝 Did the Soviet leadership ever address the American people on American TV?
- 📝 When did the modern visa system become widespread?
- 📝 Is there a relationship between Portugal and Spain being able to discover the New World and the Moor occupation?
- 📝 What were the conditions that Pieter Stuyvesant found when he arrived in America?
- 📝 In what ways did the rise of a true middle class in Europe during the late 19th century become apparent?
- 📝 What did the paper money of the Ilkhanate look like?
- 📝 How did the news of the reality Nazi concentration camps reach the United State's mainstream? What were the waves of awareness and when?
- 📝 When did worship of Baal cease to exist?
- 📝 The Great Compromise, is there analysis on the outcome?
- 📝 The act of Settlement 1701 and succession
- 📝 Who was a "gentleman" in USA in the times of Tom Sawyer?
- 📝 What percentage of US households had electricity and telephones in 1940?
- 📝 Is there a location to find the personnel roster of the No. 300 Polish Bomber Squadron during WW2?
- 📝 How did redenomination prevent the Weimar Republic from further decline?
- 📝 Was there actually a project by the Nazis to create supernatural monsters/weapons?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 When did the parole of prisoners of war become unacceptable?
- 📝 When did the "Great War" become "World War 1"?
- 📝 Why did Britain and France not declare war against the Soviet Union when it invaded Poland in WW2?
- 📝 When and how did the USA and the UK become allies?
- 📝 When and how did the Han ethnic group become by far the biggest ethnic group in China?
- 📝 When did books first become affordable to the general population?
- 📝 When did the acceptance of diversity become such an important social goal in Western countries?
- 📝 When did the American War of 1812 actually end?
- 📝 When did the British monarch become an emperor?
- 📝 When and why did smiling at strangers and in photos become customary in the United States?
- 📝 When did the First Barbary War start?
- 📝 When did the practice of formal declaration of war start?
- 📝 How did slavery become permissible in the French West Indies when it was forbidden in France?
- 📝 When did the Taxi become associated with the checkered pattern?
- 📝 When did monogamy become the norm in Ancient Greece?
- 📝 When did the tilt of the tower of Pisa become seen as a feature instead of a defect?
- 📝 When did dueling with weapons become socially unacceptable in the western world?
- 📝 When did "whites only" signs (racial segregation) become illegal in the USA?
- 📝 When did "Africa" become the name of the whole continent?
- 📝 When did furniture become common in the homes of most people in the British Isles?
- 📝 When did the Vietnam War start?
- 📝 When did French become the official language of France?
- 📝 When did the modern visa system become widespread?
- 📝 When did it become openly known that Wilson supported the Balfour Declaration?
- 📝 When and how did Thailand cease to be Siam and become the modern Thailand?
- 📝 When did it become customary to address the King/Queen of England as Majesty?
- 📝 When did prostitution become illegal in the United States and why?
- 📝 When did $10,000 banknotes become available to the public in the British colonies of South East Asia?
- 📝 When and how did David become the mascot of Florence?
- 📝 When did the spherical shape of the Earth become common knowledge?