“War is the father of us all, King of all. Some it makes gods, some it makes men, some it makes slaves, some free.”
— Heraclitus
War stories are not quite as convention-laden as
The Western or
commedia dell'arte, but it is a near thing. And
The Army is frequently featured in such stories for some reason... Here are some things you may rely on.
Contrast
Peace Tropes
Settings:
Historical Wars
- The Trojan War (approx. 1194-1184 BC)
- Greco Persian Wars (499-450 BC)
- The Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC)
- Macedonian Succession Wars (323BC-275BC)
- Punic Wars (264-146 BC)
- Maccabean Revolt (166BC-129BC)
- Jewish Revolts (66-117)
- The Crusades (1095-1291)
- Turkish-European Wars (1071-1683)*
Starting with Manzikert, when the Turks started to really threaten the Byzantines, and ending with the Second Siege of Vienna, after which the Turks stopped being a real threat.
- Hundred Years War (1337-1453)
- Wars of the Roses (1455-1485)
- Italian Wars (1494-1559)
- Eighty Years War (1568-1648)
- Dutch Portuguese War (1602-1640)
- Thirty Years' War (1618-1648)
- English Civil War (1642-1649), a part of the Three Kingdoms Wars (1639-1653)
- Hanover Stuart Wars (Seventeenth and Eighteenth century).
- Anglo Dutch Wars (1652-1781)
- Great Northern War (1700-1721)
- War Of The Spanish Succession (1701-1714)
- War Of The Austrian Succession (1740-1748)
- Seven Years' War (1754-1763)
- The American Revolution (1775-1783)
- Napoleonic Wars (1789-1815)
- War Of 1812 (1812-1815)
- War Of The Confederation (1836-1839)
- Mexican-American War (1846-1848)
- Wars Of Italian Independence (1848-1866)
- Crimean War (1853-56)
- Sepoy Rebellion (1857)
- The American Civil War (1861-1865)
- Chincha Islands War (1864-1866)
- War Of The Triple Alliance (1864-1870)
- Austro Prussian War (1866)
- Franco Prussian War (1870-1871)
- Anglo Zulu War (January-July 1879)
- War Of The Pacific (1879-1883)
- First Sino Japanese War (1894-1895)
- The River War (1881-1898)
- Spanish American War (1898)
- Second Boer War (1899-1902)
- Russo Japanese War (1904-1905)
- Mexican Revolution (1910-1921)
- World War I (1914-1918)
- Russian Civil War (1917-1922)
- The Irish Revolution (War of Independence 1919-1921, Civil War 1922-1923)
- Chinese Civil War (Initial campaigns 1927-1936, intermittent fighting 1941-1945, full-scale war 1946-1949.)
- Chaco War (1932-1935)
- Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)
- Second Sino-Japanese War (1937 - 1945)
- World War II (1939-1945)
- The Cold War: (c.1945-c.1991. Historians disagree on the precise date it started)
- Arab Israeli Conflict (1948-)
- Indian Pakistani Wars
- The Troubles (1968-1998)
- The Football War (July 1969)
- Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), also known as the Gulf War.
- The Falklands War (or Malvinas War, to some) (2 April-20 June 1982)
- Sri Lankan Civil War (1983-2009)
- First Gulf War (1990-1991) also known as the Second Gulf War
- The Yugoslav Wars (1991-2001)
- Congo Wars (1996-2003)
- The War on Terror (2001-, includes Afghanistan and Iraq wars)
General
Individual characters (please, do not put entire military units here):
Armies and units:
Tropes:
Other:
