# What was WWI called before WWII?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wwi-called-before-wwii/248980
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [June 6, 2004, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wwi-called-before-wwii/248980 "2004-06-06T17:58:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2004, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wwi-called-before-wwii/248980/1 "2004-06-06T17:58:00Z")
I recall from history books that statesmen called it “the war to end all wars”. Of course, history books necessarily give Readers Digest versions of events. I’m wondering what ordinary grunts called WWI until the 40s. “The war to end all wars” just doesn’t seem to have the ring of what normal people would say in the course of everyday conversation.
---
### Author:  [@SandyHook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SandyHook)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2004, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wwi-called-before-wwii/248980/2 "2004-06-06T17:59:53Z")
“The Great War.”
At least in some circles, US, UK mostly.
---
### Author:  [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2004, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wwi-called-before-wwii/248980/3 "2004-06-06T18:00:51Z")
Commonest term I have read is “The Great War”.
---
### Author:  [@kellner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellner)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2004, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wwi-called-before-wwii/248980/4 "2004-06-06T18:18:20Z")
In Germany the term _Weltkrieg_ - “world war” was already used before WW2, but for obvious reasons it was just _the_ world war.
---
### Author:  [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2004, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wwi-called-before-wwii/248980/5 "2004-06-06T18:22:14Z")
I own several books on WWI that were written in the 1920’s.
They use the term “The Great War”.
---
### Author:  [@syncrolecyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/syncrolecyne)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2004, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wwi-called-before-wwii/248980/6 "2004-06-06T18:25:56Z")
I searched the UT library catalog. Looking at titles from before 1939, it seems that the “World War” and “Great War” were used interchangeably.
[http://utdirect.utexas.edu/lib/utnetcat/index2.WBX?search\_type=TB&search\_text="+Great+War+"](http://utdirect.utexas.edu/lib/utnetcat/index2.WBX?search_type=TB&search_text=%22+Great+War+%22)
[http://utdirect.utexas.edu/lib/utnetcat/index2.WBX?search\_type=TB&search\_text="+Great+War+"](http://utdirect.utexas.edu/lib/utnetcat/index2.WBX?search_type=TB&search_text=%22+Great+War+%22)
I suppose if someone had the time, they could serach several such catalogs and tally up which title is the most popular, or maybe just see what newpapers of the time tended to use.
---
### Author:  [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2004, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wwi-called-before-wwii/248980/7 "2004-06-06T19:02:34Z")
My parents have an encyclopedia published in the late 1940s which lists it as “War, European” which implies that some people called it “The European War”.
---
### Author:  [@UncleBill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBill)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2004, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wwi-called-before-wwii/248980/8 "2004-06-06T19:17:19Z")
I have heard of it called “The War to End All Wars”.
If only.
---
### Author:  [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2004, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wwi-called-before-wwii/248980/9 "2004-06-06T19:20:11Z")
I have seen a monument in Pennsylvania that referred to “the World War”. The monument dates from the 1920s. So the term was in use, but it doesn’t seem to have been common.
---
### Author:  [@cabdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cabdude)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2004, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wwi-called-before-wwii/248980/10 "2004-06-06T19:44:51Z")
Most War Memorials in Australia refer to it as ‘The Great War.’
---
### Author:  [@Roches](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roches)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2004, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wwi-called-before-wwii/248980/11 "2004-06-06T20:25:01Z")
Yes, it was ‘The Great War’. It was probably being called ‘World War One’ earlier than most people might expect – certainly well before 1945. I’ve seen newspaper articles from at least as far back as 1941 referring to ‘World War Two’, and I think the term may have been used even in 1939. Once WW2 was being called that, it follows that the 1914-1918 war would be called ‘World War One’.
Incidentally, does anyone remember what the Soviets called WW1? I know about ‘The Great Patriotic War’ but I forget what they called the Great War.
---
### Author:  [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2004, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wwi-called-before-wwii/248980/12 "2004-06-06T21:19:21Z")
For pre-WWII media, I have mostly seen the Great War. It is still called this, too.
---
### Author:  [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2004, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wwi-called-before-wwii/248980/13 "2004-06-06T22:41:12Z")
For a slight hijack, when did WWII _become_ WWII? After Russia got in it? After Japan and the US? Or some earlier time?
Presumably that would be the same time the “Great War” got renamed WWI, correct?
---
### Author:  [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2004, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wwi-called-before-wwii/248980/14 "2004-06-06T22:41:14Z")
many (most?) American writers called it The World War. British ones called it the Great War (although Colonel Repington’s book _The First World War_ was published in 1920).
To an earlier generation ‘the Great War’ meant the struggle against Napoleon a century earlier
---
### Author:  [@KP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KP)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2004, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wwi-called-before-wwii/248980/15 "2004-06-06T23:18:58Z")
I believe the Russian term translated to “The Great Patriotic War”
---
### Author:  [@brianmelendez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianmelendez)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2004, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wwi-called-before-wwii/248980/16 "2004-06-06T23:29:24Z")
Curiously, the 1914-18 war was referred to as the “First World War” long before what we now call World War II. Charles a Court Repington wrote a book published in 1920 (!) with the title _The First World War 1914-18_. The _Cassell Companion to Quotations_, edited by Nigel Rees (Cassell: London, 1997), contains this note about the book and its title:
> [@](#):
>
> Title of book (1920). Presumably this helped popularize the name for the war, ominously suggesting that it was merely the first of a series. Indeed, it was thought to be a shocking title because it presupposed another war.
>
> Known at first as the “European War,” the conflict became known quite rapidly as the “Great War.” By 10 September 1918, as he later described in his book, Repington was referring to it in his diary as the “First World War,” thus: “I saw Major Johnstone, the Harvard Professor who is here to lay the bases of an American History. We discussed the right name of the war. I said that we called it now _The War_, but that this could not last. The Napoleonic War was _The Great War_. To call it _The German War_ was too much flattery for the Boche. I suggested _The World War_ as a shade better title, and finally we mutually agreed to call it _The First World War_ in order to prevent the millennium folk from forgetting that the history of the world was the history of war.”
>
> The _OED2_ finds “Great War” in use by 1914 (though earlier in 1887), but does not find “First World War” until 1931.
At p. 453 (punctuation Americanized).
---
### Author:  [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2004, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wwi-called-before-wwii/248980/17 "2004-06-06T23:52:13Z")
> [@](#):
>
> For a slight hijack, when did WWII become WWII? After Russia got in it? After Japan and the US? Or some earlier time?
This came up in an earlier thread and at that time I asked my mother. IIRC, she remembered the term being used upon the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939.
---
### Author:  [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2004, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wwi-called-before-wwii/248980/18 "2004-06-07T00:08:43Z")
> [@KP](#):
>
> I believe the Russian term translated to “The Great Patriotic War”
That’s WW2 for the Russians.
‘The War to End all Wars’ was used to describe WWI. Somewhat inaccurately, I might add.
---
### Author:  [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2004, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wwi-called-before-wwii/248980/19 "2004-06-07T00:10:12Z")
Then again, if only I read _all_ of the preceding posts…
---
### Author:  [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2004, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wwi-called-before-wwii/248980/20 "2004-06-07T00:14:17Z")
> [@KP](#):
>
> I believe the Russian term translated to “The Great Patriotic War”
That was the Soviet term for WWII.
WWI melded right in the Revolution of 1917 (which was still being fought by some up to the early 20s) but I don’t know what the actual term was. Sorry. Dopers?
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wwi-called-before-wwii/248980.md?page=2)