Military And Warfare Tropes - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): War Tropes; Military Tropes; The Army

It is well that war is so terrible — lest we should grow too fond of it.
—Robert E. Lee

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.

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Historical Wars

Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE)
Punic War (264-146 BCE)
Gallic Wars of Julius Caesar (58-50 BCE)
Battle Of Mons Badonicus (c. 500)
Spanish Reconquesta (718-1492)
The Crusades (1095-1291)
Hundred Years War (1337-1453)
The Wars Of The Roses (1455-1487)
American Indian Wars (1622-1898)
Thirty Years' War (1618–1648)
English Civil War (1642-1649), a part of the Three Kingdoms Wars (1639-1653)
War Of The Spanish Succession (1701-1714)
The American Revolution (1775-1783)
Napoleonic Wars (1789-1815)
- Warof1812 (1812-1815)
Crimean War (1853-56)
The American Civil War (1861-1865)
Franco Prussian War (1870-1871)
Anglo Zulu War (January-July 1879)
Spanish American War (April-August 1898)
Philippine American War (1899-1902)
Second Boer War (1899-1902)
World War One (1914-1919)
- The Poppy
Russian Civil War (1917-1922)
Chinese Civil War (Encirclement campaigns 1927-1936, intermittent fighting 1941-1945, full scale war 1946-1950. War declared over by Republic of China in 1991)
Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)
Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945. Sometimes counted as part of World War II)
World War II (1939-1945)
The Cold War: (c.1945-c.1991. Historians disagree on the precise date it started)
- The Korean War (1950-1953 for the main fighting, although technically still ongoing and best described as a high tension Cold War in East Asia)
- The Vietnam War (1959-1975)
- Bay Of Pigs Invasion (April 17-April 19 1961)
- Operation Urgent Fury (October-December 1983)
- Soviet Invasion Of Afghanistan (1979-1989)
The Kashmir Question (1947-)
Arab Israeli Conflict (1948-)
The Football War (1965)
The Troubles (1968-1998)
Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) also known as the Gulf War
The Falklands War (or Malvinas War, to some) (2 April-20 June 1982)
First Gulf War (1990-1991) also known as the Second Gulf War
The Yugoslav Wars (1991-2001)
The War On Terror (2001-, includes Afghanistan and Iraq wars)

General

Individual characters (please, do not put entire military units here):

Armies and units:

The Laws And Customs Of War:

Tropes:

Other:

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