THE EMERGENCE OF “TOTAL” WAR Carl von Clausewitz prophesied the emergence of “total war,” but most historians regard the First World War as the first “total war” for these four reasons:

1.Economic: industrial warfare by huge conscript armies demanded the reorganization of the whole economy.

2.Psychological: combat became utterly terrifying, with a killing zone over 5 miles deep; “shell shock” became a major source of casualties.

3.Social psychological: massive propaganda campaigns demonized the enemy in each country.

4.Ethical: hunger blockades, bombardments, and anti-partisan actions broke down the distinction between combatants & noncombatants.

In 1916 combat reached maximum intensity in the Battles of Verdun & the Somme, and the Brusilov Offensive….

“Dogfight between

German & French Aircraft near Reims”

(1914)

Lieutenant Warneford

shoots down a Zeppelin over

Brussels on June 7, 1915,

to earn the Victoria Cross

“British DH4 Biplanes Attacking German Fokker Triplanes”

Manfred von Richthofen,the “Red Baron,” cavalry

officer & top fighter ace of the Great War with 80

confirmed kills

Hermann Göring took

command after the Red Baron was

killed in April 1918

German soldiers wearing improvised gas masks, 1915:A dampened cloth could help with chlorine gas, but not

mustard

Improved gas masks for man and

beast, and the German army’s

new steel helmet, 1916

General Erich von Falkenhayn chose the fortress complex of Verdun as the battlefield on which to “bleed France

white” in February 1916

The Verdun complex before the battle

The Germans fired 80,000 heavy artillery shells at Fort Douaumont on February 21, 1916, but their initial

advance was on too narrow a front….

French machine gunners in Fort Vaux await the German assault

German troops in the lunar landscape before Fort Douaumont, spring 1916

The French “Sacred Road,”

Verdun, 8 April 1916

British troops cheer for the press photographer on June 28, 1916, as

Douglas Haig preparedto launch an offensive on the Somme

Haig resolved to attack on a very broad front on July 1 but did not have enough heavy artillery to cripple

German defenses.

The British lost lost 20,000 killed & 40,000 wounded on the first day of this bungled offensive but doggedly renewed their attacks until November.

Artist’s rendering of the German line on the Somme,July 1, 1916. The British bombardment destroyed

only a handful of the German dugouts….

John Nash, “Over the Top” (Cambrai, 1917): Of 80 men in Nash’s company, 68 were killed or wounded within 15 minutes.

French 400-mm railway gun, Battle of the

Somme, 1916

British Mark I tankin history’s first tank assault, Battle of the

Somme, September 15, 1916.

These early tanks only drove at 2-3 m.p.h.

A trench funeral, Verdun,

December 1916,administered by a soldier-priest

The French commander at Verdun & his protegé:Philippe Pétain (1856-1951) & Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970)

French troops recapture Fort Vaux, 2 November 1916:Each side lost well over 300,000 men killed at Verdun

DAVID LLOYD GEORGE (1863-1945), former Radical Liberal,

founded the Ministry of Munitions in 1915 and a new all-party

coalition government inDecember 1916

Arthur James Balfour,

Conservative Prime Minister,

1902-05, Foreign Secretary, 1916-

19

Kaiser Wilhelm II and the new heads of the Supreme Army Command, Hindenburg &

Ludendorff, 1916/17

The “Hindenburg Program” included labor conscription and unrestricted U-Boot warfare

Russia’s “Brusilov Offensive” (June-September 1916)

induced Romania to join the Allies

Russian soldiers inspect the Austrian dead: The Brusilov Offensive captured 400,000 enemy soldiers and inflicted one million casualties.

General Alexei Brusilov (1853-1926) later

accepteda commission in the Red

Army

--But the tsarist government failed to create an effective war economy

“Step Into Your Place,” Great Britain, 1915

Lord Kitchener,

“Your Country

Needs You”

E. Kealey, “Women of Britain Say – GO!” Great Britain, 1915

“Red Cross or Iron Cross,”

(Great Britain, 1914/15)

“The Kiss of the Alsatian”

(anonymous colorized postcard from 1914)

“German Atrocities”

(France, 1915)

“This will make room

for our colonists,”cartoon by

the Belgian, Louis

Raemaekers, 1914

Edwin Blashfield, (Untitled), USA, 1918

“Atrocities in Kalisch” (Russia, 1914)

“The Great European War:

The Great Battle of the Russian Hero with the

German Serpent,”

Russia, 1915/16

“The German Antichrist,”

Russia, 1914/15

“The German Barbarians”

in occupied Belgium(Germany, 1916)

“Any desire for vengeance against such innocent blood,Is far removed from this thoughts, his heart is so good.”

“’We Barbarians!’” (Germany, 1916):

German propaganda was

made by bureaucrats rather

than advertising executives and

featured statistics on Germany’s

literacy rate, social programs, and

spending on schools

Hindenburg:“Buy War Bonds: Times Are Hard,

but Victory Is Certain,”

Germany, 1917

“Destroy This Mad Brute”

(USA, 1917):A commentary on the

resort to unrestricted U-Boot warfare.

The spread of such hateful stereotypes helps to explain why proposals

to hold a peace conference by Pope

Benedict XV in 1915 and President Wilson in 1916

gained no serious consideration