World War One Named By Pessimists In 1915

Pessimists

At the time nobody understood why it was called World War One, and the reasons would not become entirely clear for twenty-five years.  It has been a mystery whether it was staggering pessimism or grandiose foresight.   The truth is far more terrifying.

It is true, there were skeptics to the “War to End All Wars” name.  Politicians, Army officers and newspaper writers in Europe and the United States¹ were doubtful the war would bring a ‘lasting peace’.  Most would not go so far as to say the the World War would not only fail to lay the ground work for a peace keeping global initiative, but set in motion the mechanism of a second world war².  Some of them thought so.

Eye wittness rendering of original envelope

Woodrow Wilson was wise enough to see punitive terms of a treaty would draw out the war and increase long term international bitterness.  This is what the League of Nations was all about, or would have been if it were not watered down by France and the United States Congress.

The most reliable explanation is an unnamed time traveler slipped-up and called the war by it’s common name.  However, the only source is from the one-time time travelers convention hosted by MIT in 2005.  Though the confession was found in a futuristic envelope on the floor after the convention, it checks out as authentic because the envelope was a living plant bio-engineered to function as an envelope.

The FBI has held the remainder of the envelope’s contents in the years since the convention, though the FBI denies it to this day.  They and only they know for certain what other secrets were revealed by the mysterious letter.

Notes:

¹But not in Canada.
²Modernly capitalized as a proper noun.