The World Wars

During the Industrial Revolution, Europe was comparatively peaceful for the most part. The 19th century started with the Napoleonic Wars when Industrialization was building up steam in England and afterwards there were a series of colonial conflicts and small to middling wars between the various industrial powers*. The Civil War was on the upper end of conflicts in this era but was limited to the US and saw about 600-750,000 people dead. The Franco Prussian war was won in six months. Things changed in 1914 when Arch Duke Ferdinand was assassinated, starting the Great War, also known as the First World War. This would be followed up by the Second World War in 1939-45. The World Wars Conflicts which would spread across the world and saw conflict and destruction.

There are two important factors in the World Wars: Technology and Nationalism. Technology is the easier of the two to understand, in the Napoleonic War the average soldier had a flintlock musket that could shoot 2-4 bullets a minute with an effective range of 100 meters, was supported by muzzle loading cannons that could shoot accurately to about 1km was supported by and steam engines were just beginning to propel boats and move loads of coal around mines. In 1914 the average soldier had a rifle that could shoot 15-30 bullets a minute (which could go through three men and still be deadly) at ranges of over a kilometer and was backed up by cannons that could fire shells six kilometers or more on ballistic courses which exploded in the air raining a spray of balls over a wide area and machine guns which could shoot 450 bullets a minute and airplanes. By the end of the Great War tanks, Sub Machine Guns and Poison Gas had been added to the arsenal. Tactics devised based on 19th century ideas of fighting were useless on this new battlefield and the book needed to be re-written from page one. Other technologies such as mass production, mechanized farming, railways and automobiles, mass education, telecommunications and modern bureaucracies meant that an Industrial Nation could turn more of it's population into soldiers than any medieval nation could ever hope to do (Rome was hard pressed to keep up a standing army of about 1% of it's population, Germany mobilized nearly 20% during the Great War).

Nationalism is more abstract but just as important. In the Middle Ages people generally identified themselves as being "a Christian Blacksmith from London" or "a Jewish Cobbler from Munich" and left it at that. If a Civil War happened and they ended up with a new noble house was put in charge, they would not care too much as long as the new lord upheld his feudal duties. There was a king and he ruled a bunch of land and tried to keep the peace, which was all good but it was not a fact which defined them. This began to change with the Protestant Reformation and had a bit of build up through the Age of Enlightenment as propaganda for the masses took form leading to the Birth of Nationalism with the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. People began to see their country as more than just where they lived and the guy in a funny hat they were ruled by, but rather as a community of people united by common ideas, languages, beliefs, customs, ideals and (often) ancestry. People that need to band together and set aside their differences and defend what's theirs against those stinking foreigners with their differentness. Public Education caught on during the Industrial Revolution, which made it possible to give these ideals to everyone from the richest businessman to the lowiest begger. When you have two nations which have nationalistic populations and governments and other groups fond of egging nationalism on together it does not take much to get them at each others throats.

• The Taiping Rebellion in china killed some 20-30 million people, but neither side in it was industrialized beyond buying some foreign weapons to equip some of their troops.

The Interwar

Near the end of the first World War, the world was thrown into yet another cataclyism. The Spanish Flu, named such because neutral Spain was the only place that paid much attention to it over the ongoing war, spread rapidly and killed many thanks to the conditions caused by the war (overcrowding, malnourishment ect.). The death toll was horrendous, with the minimum estimate of 50 million being over double the entire war's death toll. After this Europe spent decades to recover from the horrible destruction the war and flu had caused.

America however was having its best years ever. The so called "Roaring Twenties" saw a rapid increase in the standard of living. President Harding managed to do the impossible and eliminate the deficit, though some of his appointees trying to sell some government owned rock in the middle of nowhere marred his legacy (looking back historians realize there's a lack of evidence suggesting he had any knowledge or involvement). After Harding's death during the scandal his Vice President, Calvin Coolidge, took over. This was rather sudden and Coolidge was sworn in during the middle of the night by his father on the family Bible, with his first act was to pray to God to bless the American people and give him the strength to lead them. Unlike Harding, Coolidge proved wildly popular despite (or because of) his quiet nature. He was popular enough he was elected by a landside in an election he didn't campaign for (having his Vice President candidate do all the work). Coolidge continued Harding's deficit free budgets to the point the US was able to repay most of the national debt (even the debt from World War I!). Despite his wild popularity, Coolidge shocked the world with his announcement that "I do not choose to run" for reelection and, true to his nature, did not really explain why (He would later elaborate in his autobiography that he did not wish to break the (then unofficial) rule set by Washington of a max of two terms among other issues). He would be followed by Herbert Hoover, who largely road on his success. This would change in October of 1929 when the stock market crashed and ushered in the Great Depression.

While he was not responsible for it, Hoover's popularity was greatly crushed by his failure to fix it which lead to the reign of Franklin D. Roosevelt. FDR gave a great impression of fixing the economy, though it would last for well over a decade of his rule, with economists like his own treasury secretary agreeing he only made it worse. Some of his plans to fix the economy were to limit food production during the famine, burning anything above the limit (no really, this actually happened) and other massive expansions of government. This misery would last till World War II, when America controlled the only non-bombed factories in the world and the warring nations were forced to buy stuff from the US. FDR would continue to lead America during most of World War II. During the war he would commit one of the (if not the) worst atrocities in the history of American government, putting his own people in concentration camps and stealing their property. This was something he did purely on his own volition having spent the interwar writing columns about how his victims couldn't assimilate into America and mixed race children were "the most unfortunate result". Even the insane, paranoid, uber racist (even by contemporary standards), cross dresser of an FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (no relation to Herbert Hoover) said it was a bad idea

The appeal of The World Wars

These are the biggest armed conflicts of world history, rolling across continents.

The Great War is largely seen as a great tragedy. Because of some damn fool thing in the Balkans millions of good people in Germany, France, Austria, and England get riled up by the news and propaganda campagins that they were now at war. Men join the army one way or another, get cheered as they parade down the streets as being righteous heroes in the making going forth to defend hearth, home, family, friend and Nation and are shipped out to battlefields where they get torn apart by rifle fire, machine guns and artillery by the tens of thousands. The survivors dig in, make their trench lines, take pock shots at each other and live in dread of the hour when they'd be sent off on a suicidal charge across no mans land which will achieving nothing.

The Second World War is seen more in terms of Good vs Evil. The Nazis raised up an army and went about conquering Europe with plans on exterminating millions as a key objective while Imperial Japan was out conquering China and being really nasty themselves.

World War inspired Games, Factions and Settings

• A lot of stuff from the Imperium of Man, especially the Death Korps of Krieg.

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Historical Time Periods
Deep Time:	Prehistory
Premodern:	Stone Age - Bronze Age - Classical Period - Dark Age - High Middle Ages - Renaissance
Modern:	Age of Enlightenment - Industrial Revolution - The World Wars - The Cold War - Post-Cold War