Western Europe typically stops at Germany. Especially after Germany itself was divided into East and West.
and considering any number of non-World War wars the Russians crussing the Czechs and Hungary were small fry events. The Greeks and Turks, Italians and Turks, Bulgaria vs every neighbor, all had larger death tolls, and most Americans couldn't have told you about those events. heck most couldn't tell you anything about what happened to the Czechs or the Hungarians.
that's a far cry from the level of wars that Europe hosted previously. Even in Yugoslavia, the post 1991 wars were really just continuations of previous wars, and not some event that only could have happened because of NATO.
Ukraine is the first war to get to the level of a Franco-Prussian war, Crimean War, or any number of other wars that happened at least once a decade. Since NATO we are down to once a century for that type of war. I would definitely consider that far more peaceful.
There is a reason most NATO nations weren't meeting their spending requirements, it wasn't needed, because of all the peace.
Western Europe came synonymous with NATO in the 1950s and beyond. Before then, Western Europe would traditionally be France, Benelux, Iberia, and British Isles. Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, and Czechia would have been Central Europe (basically the HRE lands if you go back in time). Eastern Europe is traditionally associated with Poland-Lithuania, Hungary, Balkans, and Russia. Scandinavia was kind of its own thing (maybe Northern Europe) or would be tied to Central/Western Europe.
Ukraine is the biggest war in Europe since World War 2. It isn't close. I would say the Bosnian Conflict would be 2nd.
Now prior to World War 2 era, the Ukraine war would be a "minor" war in scale/scope. As you stated, Europe has had some massive wars. Then again, the entire world has had these type of wars.
You can find a list of wars here:
List of wars by death toll - Wikipedia
Some wars were large in scope but lighter in casualties (Seven Years War for example which is arguably a true World War as well, and often called World War 0).
I think in order of deaths, the top 5 are:
1. World War II - 80 Million dead
2. Mongol Conquests - 40 Million dead
3. World War I - 20 Million Dead
4. Taiping Revolt - Unknown but around 15 Million dead (could be higher than WW1)
5. Chinese Civil War - 12 Million dead
There are several other Chinese conflicts that could have more on the list like the Dungan Revolt, War of Three Kingdoms, etc. However, these are more a series of conflicts and the casualties are estimates. China had a lot of internal wars that were very bloody (partly due to the large population in the region). In fact, Chinese internal Civil Wars actually have more total deaths than all the Europe conflicts (minus WW2) combine.
World War II is BY FAR, the bloodiest conflict in human history. Nothing comes close to the scale of that war.
In the ancient Mediterranean, the Punic Wars were HUGE conflicts that saw far massive casualties than any previous war. Part of the reason was the heavy use of naval fleets in the first Punic War and the mass sinking of large fleets due to storms that saw thousands of deaths.
