Total war
This article is about Total War. For the video game series, see Total War (video game series).
Total war is a 20th century term to describe a
war in which
countries or
nations use all of their
resources to destroy another organized country or nation's ability to engage in
war. The practice of total war has been in use for
centuries, but it was only in the middle to late nineteenth century that total war was recognized as a separate class of
warfare.
The concept of total war is often traced back to
Carl von Clausewitz, but Clausewitz was actually concerned with the related philosophical concept of
absolute war, a war free from any political constraints, which Clausewitz held was impossible. The two terms, absolute war and total war, are often confused. Christopher Bassford, professor of strategy at the
National War College, describes the difference, "It is also important to note that Clausewitz's concept of absolute war is quite distinct from the later concept of 'total war.' Total war was a prescription for the actual waging of war typified by the ideas of General
Erich von Ludendorff, who actually assumed control of the
German war effort during World War One. Total war in this sense involved the total subordination of politics to the war effort"an idea Clausewitz emphatically rejected"and the assumption that total victory or total defeat were the only options. Total war involved no suspension of the effects of time and space, as did Clausewitz's concept of the absolute"
[Christopher Bassford Clausewitz and his works (No page cited)]Indeed, it is General Erich von Ludendorff during the
World War I (and in his 1935 book "Total War") who first reversed the formula of Clausewitz, calling for total war - the complete mobilization of all resources, including policy and social systems, to the winning of war.
There are several reasons for changing concept and recognition of total war in the nineteenth century. The main reason is
industrialization. As countries' natural and capital resources grew, it became clear that some forms of
conflict demanded more resources than others. For example, if the
United States were to subdue a
Native American tribe in an extended campaign lasting years, it still took much fewer resources than waging a month of war during the
American Civil War. Consequently, the greater cost of warfare became evident. An industrialized nation could distinguish and then choose the intensity of warfare that it wished to engage in.
Additionally, this is the time when warfare was becoming more
mechanized. A
factory in a
city would have more to do with warfare than it did before. The factory itself would become a target, because it contributed to the war effort. It follows as well that the factory's workers would also be targets.
There is no single definition of total war, except that there is general agreement among historians that the
First World War and
Second World War were both examples. A large number of historians consider the
American Civil War to be the earliest example, some consider the wars of German unification the first, and others pick other starting points. Since the concept emerged gradually, however, there is no truly definite answer.
Thus, definitions do vary, but most hold to the spirit offered by Roger Chickering's definition
Total War: The German and American Experiences, 1871-1914: "Total war is distinguished by its unprecedented intensity and extent. Theaters of operations span the globe; the scale of battle is practically limitless. Total war is fought heedless of the restraints of morality, custom, or international law, for the combatants are inspired by hatreds born of modern ideologies. Total war requires the mobilization not only of armed forces but also of whole populations. The most crucial determinant of total war is the widespread, indiscriminate, and deliberate inclusion of civilians as legitimate military targets."
The most identifiable consequence of total war in modern times has been the inclusion of
civilians and civilian infrastructure as targets in destroying a country's ability to engage in war. The targeting of civilians developed from two distinct
theories. The first theory was that if enough civilians were killed, factories could not function. The second theory was that if civilians were killed, the country would be so demoralized that it would have no ability to wage further war.
Total war also resulted in the mobilization of the
home front.
Propaganda became a required component of total war in order to boost production and maintain
morale.
Rationing took place to provide more material for waging war.
Another consequence was the expansion of the peace time
military. A
navy could not be built overnight, and it had to be large enough to fight any potential enemy. This led to the
dreadnought arms race before
World War I. To justify the huge expenditure, populations had to become accustomed to thinking of the most likely potential enemy, as an enemy, which helped to foster war hysteria and
jingoism. Large standing
armies for countries with land borders close to a potential enemy and strong navies for maritime powers were the only way to prevent defeat before the economy could be mobilized.
Antiquity, Medieval, and Early Modern Times
Total war was widely practiced by the Greeks, as related in the
Illiad, by the
Romans, as in the destruction of
Carthage, and by the
Mongols. It was practiced in the
Hundred Years War as a matter of policy by the English in France. It sees mention in the
Old Testament numerous times and was a feature of several of
Timur's campaigns, and in the
Cromwellian conquest of
Ireland. It was also seen in
Xinjiang and
Gansu during the
Manchu supression of the 19th Century
Muslim Rebellion.
The French Revolution
The
French Revolution has introduced some of the concepts of total war. The fledgling republic found itself threatened by a powerful coalition of European nations. The only solution, in the eyes of the
Jacobin government was to pour the nation's entire resources into an unprecedented war effort - this was the advent of the
levée en masse. The following decree of the
National Convention on
August 23,
1793 clearly demonstrates the enormity of the French war effort:
"From this moment until such time as its enemies shall have been driven from the soil of the Republic all Frenchmen are in permanent requisition for the services of the armies. The young men shall fight; the married men shall forge arms and transport provisions; the women shall make tents and clothes and shall serve in the hospitals; the children shall turn linen into lint; the old men shall betake themselves to the public squares in order to arouse the courage of the warriors and preach
hatred of kings and the unity of the Republic."
American Civil War
US Army General
William Tecumseh Sherman's '
March to the Sea' during the
American Civil War destroyed the resources required for
the South to make war. He is considered one of the first military commanders to deliberately and consciously use total war as a military tactic.
American Indian Wars
Some historians consider the various American
Indian Wars fought after the civil war to be influenced by the 'Total War' style behavior of the Civil War leaders. The theory goes that the Union officers who devastated the South brought the same ideas to the West. This is not to say that the American populace was committed totally to the Indian war effort, but that the Indians' civilian population was considered a part of the enemy 'war machine' and therefore a legitimate target of Union soldiers.
In particular the destruction of the
American Bison was an attempt to destroy the food supply of many
Plains Indians such as the
Sioux and thus destroy their way of life. There were also wholesale slaughters of civilian populations such as at
Wounded Knee.
On the other hand slaughtering of Indian civilians had been going on a long time before the civil war, as far back as the
Pequot War,
King Philip's War, the
DeSoto expedition, and
Christopher Columbus.
Taiping Rebellion
During the
Taiping Rebellion (
1850-
1864) that followed the secession of the Tàipíng Tiānguó (太平天國, Wade-Giles T'ai-p'ing t'ien-kuo) (Heavenly Kingdom of Perfect Peace) from the
Qing empire the first instance of total war in modern China can be seen. Almost every citizen of the Tàipíng Tiānguó was given military training and conscripted into the army to fight against the imperial forces.
During this conflict both sides tried to deprive each other of the resources to continue the war and it became standard practice to destroy agricultural areas, butcher the population of cities and in general exact a brutal price from captured enemy lands in order to drastically weaken the opposition's war effort. This war truly was total in that civilians on both sides participated to a significant extent in the war effort and in that armies on both sides waged war on the civilian population as well as military forces. In total between 20 and 50 million died in the conflict making it bloodier than the
First World War and possibly bloodier than the
Second World War as well if the upper end figures are accurate.
World War I
Almost the whole of
Europe mobilized to conduct
World War I. Young men were removed from production jobs, and were replaced by women. Rationing occurred on the home fronts.
One of the features of Total War in Britain was the use of
propaganda posters to divert all attention to the War on the
home front. Posters were used to influence people's decision on what to eat, what occupations to take (Women were used as nurses and in munitions factories), and to change the attitude of support towards the war effort.
After the failure of the
Battle of Neuve Chapelle, the large British offensive in March
1915, the British Commander-in-Chief
Field Marshal Sir
John French claimed that it failed due to a lack of shells. This led to the
Shell Crisis of 1915 which brought down the
Liberal British government under the
Premiership of
H. H. Asquith. He formed a new coalition government dominated by Liberals and appointed
Lloyd George as
Minister of Munitions. It was a recognition that the whole economy would have to be geared for war if the Allies were to prevail on the Western Front.
As young men left the farms for the front, domestic food production in Britain and Germany fell. In Britain the response was to import more food, which was done despite the German introduction of unrestricted submarine warfare, and to introduce rationing. The Royal Navy's blockade of German ports prevented Germany from importing food, and the Germans failed to introduce food rationing. German capitulation was hastened in 1918 by the worsening food crises in Germany.
World War II
The United Kingdom
Before the onset of the
Second World War, the
United Kingdom drew on its
First World War experience to prepare legislation that would allow immediate mobilization of the economy for war, should future hostilities break out.
Rationing of most goods and services was introduced, not only for consumers but also for manufacturers. This meant that factories manufacturing products that were irrelevant to the war effort had more appropriate tasks imposed. All artificial light was subject to legal
Blackouts.
Not only were men and women conscripted into the armed forces from the beginning of the war (something which had not happened until the middle of World War I), but women were also conscripted as
Land Girls to aid farmers and the
Bevin Boys were conscripted to work down the coal mines.
Huge casualties were expected in bombing raids, so children were evacuated from London and other cities en masse to the countryside for compulsory
billeting in households. In the long term this was one of the most profound and longer lasting social consequences of the whole war for Britain. This is because it mixed up children with the adults of other classes. Not only did the middle and upper classes become familiar with the urban squalor suffered by working class children from the slums, but the children got a chance to see animals and the countryside for the first time and experience how the other half lived. Many went back to the cities with their social horizons broadened.
The use of statistical analysis, by a branch of science which has become known as
Operational Research to influence military tactics was a departure from anything previously attempted. It was a very powerful tool but it further dehumanised war particularly when it suggested strategies which were counter intuitive. Examples where statistical analysis directly influenced tactics was the work done by
Patrick Blackett's team on the optimum size and speed of convoys and the introduction of
bomber streams by the
RAF to counter the night fighter defences of the
Kammhuber Line.
Germany
In contrast
Germany started the war under the concept of
Blitzkrieg. It did not accept that it was in a total war until
Joseph Goebbels'
Sportpalast speech of
18 February 1943. For example, women were not conscripted into the armed forces.
The commitment to the doctrine of the short war was a continuing handicap for the Germans; neither plans nor state of mind were adjusted to the idea of a long war until it was too late to help win the war. Germany's armament minister
Albert Speer, who assumed office in early 1942, rationalized German war production and eliminated the worst inefficiencies. Under his direction a threefold increase in armament production occurred and did not reach its peak until late 1944. To do this during the damage caused by the growing strategic Allied bomber offensive, is an indication of the degree of industrial under-mobilization in the earlier years. It was because the German economy through most of the war was substantially undermobilized that it was resilient under air attack. Civilian consumption was high during the early years of the war and inventories both in industry and in consumers' possession were high. These helped cushion the economy from the effects of bombing. Plant and machinery were plentiful and incompletely used, thus it was comparatively easy to substitute unused or partly used machinery for that which was destroyed. Foreign labour (much of it slave labour) was used to augment German industrial labour which was under pressure by conscription into the
Wehrmacht (Armed Forces).
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union was a
command economy which already had an economic and legal system allowing the economy and society to be redirected into fighting a total war. The transportation of factories and whole labour forces east of the
Urals as the Germans advanced across the USSR in 1941 was an impressive feat of planning. Only those factories which were useful for war production were moved due to the total war commitment of the Soviet government.
During the
battle of Stalingrad, newly-built
T-34 tanks were driven - unpainted due to a paint shortage - from the factory floor straight to the front. This came to symbolise the USSR's commitment to the
Great Patriotic War and demonstrated the government's total war policy.
To encourage the Russian people to work harder, the
communist government encouraged the people's love of the
Motherland and even allowed the reopening of
Russian Orthodox Churches as it was thought this would help the war effort.
The ruthless movement of national groupings like the
Volga German and later the
Crimean Tatars (who Stalin thought might be sympathetic to the Germans) was a development of the conventional
scorched earth policy. This was a more extreme form of
internment, implemented by both the UK government (for
Axis aliens and British
Nazi sympathisers), and the US government (for
Japanese internment in the United States).
Descent into barbarism
The suspension of many of the
laws of war on the
Eastern Front during World War II coupled with an escalation in criminal actions caused human misery on a scale never seen before. Germany forced hundreds of thousands of Soviet prisoners into slave labor while large numbers of German prisoners taken at Stalingrad and elsewhere never saw home and simply disappeared. In addition Nazi Germany exterminated over eleven million innocent civilians, including the genocide of the Jews of Europe that killed approximately six million people (see
Holocaust). Many actions which violated the laws of war were initiated or at least condoned by the authorities on both sides. The retaliation of the advancing Soviet forces in 1944-1945 was equally brutal and vicious. It is estimated some two million German civilians were killed. Another two million German and other East European women were systematically
raped by the advancing Soviet forces, "to break their racial
self-esteem and will to exist" (
Ilya Ehrenburg). They argued that in such an extreme clash of ideology any methods which achieved victory over the enemy were justified.
The violation of many of the laws of war in the
Pacific and Asian Theatres of World War II particularly in the Sino-Japanese conflict, caused
wide-scale human misery. Approximately ten million Chinese civilians were killed. Many actions which ignored the laws of war were initiated or at least condoned by the Japanese authorities.
Strategic bombing
Britain and Germany made a distinct attempt to destroy the other's ability to produce war materials. They did this by the use of
strategic bombing campaigns upon each others' industrial centres and high areas of population. When the United States entered the war, it mounted similar campaigns against both Germany and Japan.
Historians and military tacticians are divided on the effectiveness of the strategic bombing campaigns. The campaigns were waged for two reasons: to "break the enemy's will" and to reduce the enemy's war
matériel. The British did not crumble under the German
Blitz and other
air raids early in the war. In Germany, morale collapsed in the face of a campaign far more extensive in effect, scope and duration than that endured by Great Britain. However, the Germans clearly differentiated between morale and conduct. Conduct was more or less unchanged – like in Japan, there were no riots demanding a German surrender, and the countries leadership were not deterred from continuing the war because of their enemies' strategic bombing campaigns. Although German war production continued to rise until late 1944, it is difficult to quantify by how much more it would have risen if the strategic bombing campaign had not occurred. In the case of Japan this analysis is further complicated by the effects of the American naval blockade on the home islands. However conventional strategic bombing was not the war winning strategy that its war time advocates, like
Bomber Harris, thought it would be. This was only achieved when atomic weapons were delivered by strategic bombers.
Unconditional surrender
After the United States entered World War II, President
Franklin D. Roosevelt declared at
Casablanca conference to the other Allies and the press that
unconditional surrender was the objective of the war against the Axis Powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan. Prior to this declaration, the individual regimes of the Axis Powers could have negotiated an armistice similar to that at the end of World War I and then a conditional surrender when they perceived that the war was lost. The allied war aim of unconditional surrender inevitably increased the determination and the ferocity of the defence of the Axis powers when they knew the war was lost.
The unconditional surrender of the major Axis powers caused a legal problem at the post war
Nuremberg Trials, because the trials appeared to be in conflict with Articles 63 and 64 of the
Geneva Convention of 1929. Usually if such trials are held, they would be held under the auspices of the defeated powers own legal system as happened with some of the minor Axis powers, for example in the post World War II
Romanian People's Tribunals. To circumvent this, the Allies argued that the major war criminals were captured after the end of the war, so they were not prisoners of war and the Geneva Conventions did not cover them. Further the collapse of the Axis regimes created a legal condition of total defeat (
debellatio) so the provisions of the 1907
Hague Conventions over military occupation were not applicable.
[Ruth Wedgwood Judicial Overreach(PDF) Wall Street Journal November 16, 2004]There has been a cessation of large decisive wars between industrialized nations since the end of
World War II, because their ability to wage war on each other had become so destructive that the potential damage more than offset the advantages of any victory. With nuclear weapons, the fighting of a war became something that instead of taking years, and the full mobilisation of a country's resources such as in World War II, would instead take hours and was developed and maintained with relatively modest peace time defence budgets. By the end of the
1950s, the super-power rivalry resulted in the development of
MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) in which a war could destroy civilization and would result in hundreds of millions of deaths in a world where, in the words of
Edward Heath,
"The dying will envy the dead".
As the tensions between industrialized nations have diminished, European continental powers have for the first time in 200 years started to question if conscription is still necessary. Many are moving back to the pre-Napoleonic ideas of having small professional armies. This is something which despite the experiences of the first and second world wars is a model which the English speaking nations had never abandoned during peace time, probably because they have never had a common border with a potential enemy with a large standing army. In Admiral
Jervis's famous phrase,
"I do not say, my Lords, that the French will not come. I say only they will not come by sea".
The cessation of total war has not led to the end of war involving industrial nations, but a shift back to the limited wars of the type fought between the competing European powers for much of the
19th century that could be summed up by the phrase
The Great Game. During the
Cold War, wars between industrialized nations were fought by
proxy over national
prestige, tactical strategic advantage or
colonial and
neocolonial resources. Examples include the
Korean War, the
Vietnam War and the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Since the end of the Cold War, some industrialised countries have been involved in a number of small wars with strictly limited strategic objectives which have motives closer to those of the colonial wars of the 19th century than those of total war; examples include the
Australian-led
UN intervention in
East Timor, the
NATO intervention in
Kosovo, the internal Russian conflict with
Chechnya, and the
American-led coalitions which invaded
Afghanistan and twice fought the
Iraqi regime of
Saddam Hussein.
Vietnam War
It is the topic of much debate - why did the United States fail to push back the Communist advance into Vietnam? How could a "superpower" such as the United States was at that time, with its overwhelming financial and military advantages, fail before a relatively small force of limited resources and technology?
In many respects, the discussion of "total war effort" is germaine from ideological and strategic vantages. The North Vietnamese had clearly committed nationally to the assimilation of the South, while the United States, an ocean away and juggling many of its own socio-political issues, was hardly bothered to commit to a swift and resolute defeat of its quasi-enemy; in fact, many would argue that the United States was not even officially "in a war" at all, but merely acting to assist the South Vietnamese, purporting to assume the role of global defender of freedom and protection from Communist advance. As such, one "side" was singularly focused on success, in spite of a competitive lack of a "war machine" while the other "side" was infinitely more capable, yet simply not motivated to succeed, no matter the cost.
First World Deindustrialization
The international capitalism and
globalization has seen the rapid
deindustrialization of the
First World countries. The industrial production escapes from the First world, where wages are high, into underdeveloped countries where labor costs are low. While this development makes perfect economical sense, it makes a disastrous effect on the First World ability to wage prolonged war and sustain the costs and consumption of total war. Deindustrialization means inevitably dire logistical problems as crucial materiel are no more produced in homeland. While the logistics are no problem during the peacetime, any international unrests will leave the First World countries in extremely precarious situation. Most First World countries do not have any more any strategic industry or own
fuel,
materiel or
weapon production. Any situation not solvable by quick use of force and leading in the
war of attrition will inevitably lead into economical catastrophe and complete collapse of the country. Any victory on such situation is likely to be a
Pyrrhic victory. Hence most of the First World countries have given up
conscription and instead stress on air power and well-trained all-volunteer force which has light logistics and which is easily mobilized to dampen the inevitable logistical problems.
*This is no ordinary war, but a struggle between nations for life and death. It raises passions between nations of the most terrible kind. It effaces the old landmarks and frontiers of our civilization. ''
Winston Churchill,
The Times,
1 November 1914*The Great War differed from all ancient wars in the immense power of the combatants and their fearful agencies of destruction, and from all modern wars in the utter ruthlessness with which it was fought. All the horrors of all the ages were brought together .... Every outrage against humanity or international law was repaid by reprisals often on a greater scale and of longer duration .... When all was over, Torture and Cannibalism were the only two expedients that the civilized, scientific, Christian States had been able to deny themselves: and these were of doubtful utility. ''
Winston Churchill,
The World Crisis 1923 *...everybody will be entrenched in the next war. It will be a great war of entrenchments. The spade will be as indispensable to a soldier as his rifle... At first there will be great slaughter - increased slaughter on so terrible a scale as to render it impossible to get troops to push the battle to a decisive issue. They will try to, thinking that they are fighting under the old conditions, and they will such a lesson that they will abandon the attempt for ever. Then, instead of a war fought out to the bitter end in a series of decisive battles, we shall have as a substitute a long period of continually increasing strain upon the resources of the combatants. The war, instead of being a hand-to-hand contest in which the combatants measure their physical and moral superiority, will become a kind of stalemate, in which, neither army being able to get at the other, both armies will be maintained in opposition to each other, threatening each other, but never able to deliver a final and decisive attack. ''
Jean de Bloch,
The Future of War,
1898*"This land here cost twenty lives a foot that summer...See that little streama whole empire walking very slowly, dying in front and pushing forward behind. And another empire walked very slowly backward a few inches a day, leaving the dead like a million bloody rugs. No European will ever do that again in this generation." ''"Dick Diver" in
F. Scott Fitzgerald Tender Is The Night,
1933, referring to the
Somme * "...There is another more obvious difference from 1914. The whole of the warring nations are engaged, not only soldiers, but the entire population, men, women and children. The fronts are everywhere. The trenches are dug in the towns and streets. Every village is fortified. Every road is barred. The front line runs through the factories. The workmen are soldiers with different weapons but the same courage...".
Winston Churchill on the Radio, June 18 ; and House of Commons 20 August, 1940.[Winston Churchill The Few The Churchill Centre]* "I ask you: Do you want total war? If necessary, do you want a war more total and radical than anything that we can even imagine today?"
Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels 18 February 1943 in his Sportpalast speech.* "Actually
Dresden was a mass of munitions works, an intact government centre, and a key transportation point to the East. It is now none of these things."
Written by Air Chief Marshal Harris in a memo to the Air Ministry on 29 March 1945.*
Chorus from a popular WWII British song: + ::It's a ticklish sort of job making a thing for a thing-ummy-bob ::Especially when you don't know what it's for::But it's the girl that makes the thing that drills the hole::that holds the spring that works the thing-ummy-bob ::that makes the engines roar.::And it's the girl that makes the thing that holds the oil ::that oils the ring that works the thing-ummy-bob::that's going to win the war.
*
Conscription*
Levée en masse
