The Great European Civil War

The European Civil War is a concept meant to characterize a series of 19th- and 20th-century conflicts in Europe as segments of an overarching civil war within a supposed European society. The timeframes associated with this European Civil War vary among historians. Some descriptions range from 1914 to 1945, thus including World War I, World War II, and many lesser conflicts of the interwar period. Others argue that this period started in 1870 with the Franco-Prussian War, or in 1905. Sometimes, the notion also serves to explain the process of European integration, and the creation of the European Union as a peaceful solution to this conflict.

Arguments in favor of this description usually point towards the relative cultural homogeneity of the European continent, to the family relation of European monarchs at the beginning of World War I, or to the continuity of armed conflicts in Europe between the various time frames. Arguments against the notion point towards the strong distinctions in religions and political systems that existed between European nations at the beginning of the period which undermine the idea that Europe formed a united "civil society". Other stress the global, i.e. not strictly European, nature of both world wars, which the characterization sometimes fails to account for. Consensus among historians does not support the notion of a European Civil War.