Hi Nadine Carroll; The Franco Prussian war wasn't much of a war. I wouldn't call it a great power war unless the party is hearty enough or they leave the lights on long enough for more than just two powers to get involved in it.
For example, in WW1 the great powers involved were Austria, Turkey, Germany, France, Britain, Russia, Italy, and the United States (and maybe Japan). WW2 had the USSR, US, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and China. The Napoleonic Wars involved Britain, France, the US, "Germany", Spain, Russia, Austria, Italy, Sweden, , the Netherlands and Denmark (if I recall correctly).
The two world wars had a sufficiently identical cast of characters, especially among the great powers, and were sufficiently close together that it makes sense to classify them as part of the same conflict. This is not something that can be said about the other wars.
Here's some total figures for KIA in various wars, this will make it clear why I don't include the Franco Prussian war among the great power wars:
1096-1270 Crusades: 1,500,000
1338-1453 Hundred Years War 185,250
1618-1648 Thirty Years War: 2,071,000
1701-1713 Spanish Succession: 400,000
1755-1763 Seven Years War: 140,000
1789-1815 Fr. Rev/Napoleonic Wars: 2,000,000
1870-1871 Franco Prussian War: 80,000
1914-1918 WW1 8,500,000
1937-1945 WW2 19,000,000
My figures are obtained from only the most cursory web search, and are probably wrong. But the Franco Prussian war and the 100 years wars weren't so bad because they mostly involved only two players. From the above, I think it's clear that the significant wars were WW1/2, the 1789-1815 stuff, the 30 years war, and the Crusades. These are not very frequent events. I see no reason why we should expect anything significant during this century.
-- Carl |
