Topic summary
First World War
Extracted from the Wikipedia article World War I.
Names
Before World War II, the events of 1914–1918 were commonly referred to as the Great War or simply the World War. In August 1914, The Independent stated of the conflict, "This is the Great War. It names itself." In the decade after its end, many hoped it would be "the war to end all wars," because of its unprecedented destructiveness and death toll. The earliest known use of the term First World War appeared in the Indianapolis Star on 20 September 1914, when German biologist and philosopher Ernst Haeckel wrote that the ongoing "European War" would become "the first world war in the full sense of the word."