MODERN TOTAL WAR
(War in the industrial age)

In the modern age, the definitions of war and revolution have become much alike.

What is "total war" or "war in the industrial age"?

  • The nature of armies. Everyone is potentially a combatant. "Soldier" and "civilian" are redefined. They are conflated with one another
  • The nature of "war front" changes. "War front" and "home front" become indistinguishable
  • Technical, mechanical, industrial quality of weapons and devices
  • Total mobilization of all national resources
  • Eradication of the distinction between war and peace. Nations on permanent war footing
  • The great German military leader (Prussian, of Polish descent) Karl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) came to maturity in the era of the Napoleon wars. In his famous (but never finished) book On War, he said war was diplomacy by other means. This implied that war served the diplomatic interests of the nation. His fuller meaning actually implied the reverse, as it became clear a century after his time, when his concept of total war could finally be realized. By the 20th century, international and domestic politics now became war by other means. Military and police virtues crowded out civilian virtues. Modern total war meant that military objectives were also total, as in the notion of "clash of civilizations" [EG]

Centuries prior to the 20th were demonstrably more "peaceful". Pitirim Sorokin, in vol. 3 of Social and Cultural Dynamics, came up with these statistics that show how remarkably "peaceful" the 19th century was =

*1701:1815; War casualties (killed, accidents, disease) = 8,829,000
*1815:1914; War casualties (killed, accidents, disease) = 2,217,000

Sorokin sought to create an index of bellicosity for each century. He measured number of wars, duration, size of armies, numbers killed and wounded, number of countries involved, and percent of population in uniform. He set the 15th century at the index number "100". Compared with that index, the 20th century UP TO WW2 (i.e., from 1900 to 1938) = "3000". In other words, the first third of the 20th century was 30 times more bellicose than the whole of the 15th century

Here is Sorokin's figures for average yearly death toll from war over the past several centuries =

1600-1699 =   33,000
1700-1799 =   52,000
1800-1899 =   55,000
1900-1936 = 700,000 | NB! 20th-c. figures covered only 1st 1/3 of the century, before WW2

 

World War One
Imperialist practice comes home

Ideas =

Norman Angell and others gave warning while yet others praised the heroic virtues of war
The Second International tried to buck the tide

Events =

*1912:1913; Balkan Wars [MAP] = The imperialist style turned back upon Europe itself
*1914:+; World War One [MAP of Eastern Front] = The fall of the four big European empires, Russia, Austria, Germany and Ottoman Turkey
*1917de:"Peace" on the Eastern Front
*1918no:One year later, Armistice on the Western Front
*1919ja:+; Treaties signed at Paris Peace Conference (especially the Versailles Treaty, settled on Germany) assured future conflicts

The WW1 10-hop battlefield LOOP up to the collapse of the Russian Empire

 

World War Two
Total War, round two

*1938:Austrian Anschluss and the Munich Accord followed by "Hitler-Stalin pact" [MAP]. Who would succeed in turning Hitler the other way?
*1939se:1945au; (lasting nearly 5 years) World War Two opened with Hitler Germany and USSR dividing Poland between them
*--Four phases =
(1)-- 1940my:je; (battle on the ground essentially over in 6 weeks) Hitler vs. Western Europe (1st brief Western Front) [MAP]
(2)-- 1941je:1945my; (lasting nearly 4 years) Hitler vs. USSR | Stalingrad.| Kursk
(2.5)- 1941au:1943; Notice the 2-year sub-phase in northern Africa which broke out just days after Hitler invaded the USSR
(3)-- 1941de:1945au; (over 3 1/2 years) The Pacific War [with its origins a century earlier (ID)] [MAP]
(4)-- 1944je:1945my; Second brief 11-month Western Front, this time far more successful for the Allies

The WW2 14-hop battlefield LOOP through each of the four phases

 

Cold War [hop]

 

 

 

MAPS

*1912:1913; Balkan wars

 

 

 

 

 

 

*1914:1918; WW1 Eastern Front

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*1939se01:European states

 

 

 

 

*1939:1945:European Theatre

 

 

 

 

*1930s:1945au; The Pacific War