Just a friendly reminder:

Comments on /r/AskHistorians should not be based on conjecture and opinions. If you can back up your answer with sources, or provide an objective answer to OP's question about how things came about, please do so. If you just have a guess, please refrain from commenting.

"Where are all the comments?"

See above. They've been removed for being guesswork and conjecture. Please don't comment to point out that there are a lot of deleted comments, because then there will just be even more deleted comments.

Not to discourage further discussion, but there are several older threads in the FAQ here.

How do you define "international language"? Do you mean by raw number of speakers worldwide? Spanish and Mandarin boast more speakers. Do you mean by the number of nations that have English as an official language? Do you refer to the idea that English is the "language of trade"?