STRATEGIC BOMBING AND RESTRAINT IN ‘TOTAL WAR’, 1915–1918

2009 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 413-431
Author(s):  
ANDREW BARROS
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Home Front ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
World War ◽  
Total War ◽  
Strategic Bombing ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Military ◽  
Modern War ◽  
First World

ABSTRACTRecent studies of ‘total war’ depict a process of inexorable expansion leading to an often nebulous linkage of everything to war. This article takes the study of ‘total war’ in the opposite direction by studying a specific example of strategic restraint. It examines how the French bombing strategy that was developed over the course of the First World War went to considerable lengths to maintain a distinction between the civilian and the military. The article studies France's restraint by highlighting the strategic, geographical, institutional, and economic factors upon which it was built. It then goes on to examine the political pressures for an expansion of bombing which proved incapable of overturning this policy. Finally, it contrasts French restraint with that of its key ally, Great Britain. There, bombing developed into a strategic weapon designed to destroy the ‘home front’. This study of restraint underscores the importance of limits, and the attendant choices government has to make, in understanding the course and intensity of a country's mobilization for modern war.

Raising an ‘industrial army’: the policy of reservation in the First and Second World Wars

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliette Pattinson ◽  
Arthur Mcivor ◽  
Linsey Robb
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Home Front ◽  
Government Control ◽  
World War ◽  
Total War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Government ◽  
Armed Services ◽  
The Military ◽  
First World

This chapter provides an examination of the policy of reservation in the two world wars. In total war, industry was in direct competition with the military for a limited supply of men. The state needed to mobilise labour just as much as it did combatants to fill the ranks of the armed services. Both wars witnessed increased government control to direct manpower to where it was needed. Despite attempts to retain men with essential skills on the home front during the First World War, too many skilled men were able to enlist into the forces. Those men who remained on the home front were derided as shirkers and cowards. Civilian men therefore had to negotiate their relegation to the subordinate status of unmanly ‘other’. Whereas errors were made during the First World War, with the government lurching from one manpower crisis to another, a more systematic approach was adopted in the Second with a Schedule of Reserved Occupations. The raising of an ‘industrial army’, which was merely rhetoric in the First World War, became a reality in the Second.

The First World War as Totality

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Bessel
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Home Front ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Military ◽  
Modern War ◽  
First World

This article describes the totality of the First World War in many aspects. The word ‘total’ lies at the heart of different perceptions of the First World War. It was a war that involved total mobilization, socially and economically; a modern war, which required total commitment and support from the population, on the home front and on the battlefront; and a war that led to the total subordination of the economy and society to the needs of the military. Commitment to war had to be total. This was the apparent lesson of the First World War. Modern war could not be fought with half-measures. This combination – struggle beyond reason and war without end – became the agenda of fascism.

Societies at War, 1914–1918

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Goebel
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
Home Front ◽  
World War ◽  
Total War ◽  
Memory Culture ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Mass Entertainment ◽  
First World

This essay explores how Europeans experienced the First World War. Consent in wartime was generated from the bottom up rather than choreographed by the state. Civil society and commercial mass entertainment played a vital role in sustaining morale among civilians and the troops. Far from being alienated from each other, people in and out of uniform remained in constant communication. Moreover, the drive towards ‘total war’ broke down the barrier between military and non-military spheres and transformed enemy civilians into targets and one’s own civilians into an important resource. Atrocities were committed, people at the home front attacked from the air, civilians forced to flee their homes, soldiers brutalized and prisoners of war maltreated; and yet, the war cannot be described as an unmitigated demographic catastrophe. To be sure, it left a legacy of mass bereavement and a memory culture that endured long beyond the caesura of 1918.

From the history of the military past of composer and conductor Boris Galaev

2020 ◽  
pp. 39-44
Author(s):  
Felix S. Kireev
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Documentary Sources ◽  
Musical Activity ◽  
Russian State ◽  
The First World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Military ◽  
First Time ◽  
First World

Boris Alexandrovich Galaev is known as an outstanding composer, folklorist, conductor, educator, musical and public figure. He has a great merit in the development of musical culture in South Ossetia. All the musical activity of B.A. Galaev is studied and analyzed in detail. In most of the biographies of B.A. Galaev about his participation in the First World War, there is only one proposal that he served in the army and was a bandmaster. For the first time in historiography the participation of B.A. Galaev is analyzed, and it is found out what positions he held, what awards he received, in which battles he participated. Based on the identified documentary sources, for the first time in historiography, it occured that B.A. Galaev was an active participant in the First World War on the Caucasian Front. He went on attacks, both on foot and horse formation, was in reconnaissance, maintained communication between units, received military awards. During this period, he did not have time to study his favorite music, since, according to the documents, he was constantly at the front, in the battle formations of the advanced units. He had to forget all this heroic past and tried not to mention it ever after. Therefore, this period of his life was not studied by the researchers of his biography. For writing this work, the author uses the Highest Orders on the Ranks of the Military and the materials of the Russian State Military Historical Archive (RSMHA).

Desertie naar de vijand in het Belgische frontleger tijdens de Eerste Wereldoorlog. Deel 2

2013 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-175
Author(s):  
Jos Monballyu
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Causal Link ◽  
World War ◽  
Criminal Records ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Military Security ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Military ◽  
First World ◽  
Front Movement

Over de motieven waarom Belgische militairen tijdens de Eerste Wereldoorlog naar de Duitse vijand deserteerden is al veel geschreven. Volgens de Franstalige patriottische pers en literatuur van kort na de Eerste Wereldoorlog was die desertie uitsluitend te wijten aan de defaitistische ingesteldheid van de Vlaamse Frontbeweging en de talrijke aansporingen waarmee hun vier afgezanten naar de Duitsers (Jules Charpentier, Karel De Schaepdrijver, Vital Haesaert en Carlos Van Sante) de Vlaamse soldaten aan het IJzerfront bestookten. De Vlaamse historici probeerden die beschuldiging op allerlei manieren te weerleggen of schoven de verantwoordelijkheid voor die desertie in de schoenen van Antoon Pira en zijn Algemeen Vlaamsch Democratische Verbond. Geen enkele historicus ging daarbij na wat de deserteurs zelf over hun desertie naar de vijand te vertellen hadden. Dit deden zij nochtans uitvoerig tijdens de verschillende gerechtelijke ondervragingen waaraan zij na de oorlog werden onderworpen wanneer zij konden worden aangehouden. Het feit dat zij daarbij al strafbaar waren van zodra zij wetens en willens deserteerden ongeacht hun eigenlijke motief, liet hen daarbij toe om dit motief vrij complexloos mee te delen. Geen enkele van de overlopers van wie het strafdossier bewaard is, gaf echter toe dat hij omwille van de Vlaamse kwestie was overgelopen. Oorlogsmoeheid en de behoefte om zijn familieleden terug te zien waren, zoals in alle legers, de voornaamste motieven waarom zij naar de vijand deserteerden. Ook de Belgische Militaire Veiligheid en de krijgsauditeurs slaagden er trouwens niet in om een verband te leggen tussen de Vlaamse Frontbeweging en de Belgische deserties naar de vijand.________Desertion to the enemy in the Belgian front army during the First World War (part 2)Much has already been written about the reasons why Belgian soldiers deserted to the German enemy during the First World War. According to the French language patriotic press and literature dating from shortly after the First World War that desertion was exclusively due to the defeatist attitude of the Flemish Front Movement and the many exhortations with which their four representatives to the Germans (Jules Charpentier, Karel De Schaepdrijver, Vital Haesaert and Carlos Van Sante) bombarded the Flemish soldiers at the Yser Front. Flemish historians attempted in a variety of ways to refute that accusation or they shifted the responsibility for the desertion on to Antoon Pira and his Algemeen Vlaamsch Democratische Verbond (General Flemish Democratic Union). Not a single historian investigated what the deserters themselves had to say about their desertion to the enemy. However, the deserters gave extensive explanations during the detailed investigation that took place during the various judicial interrogations, to which they were submitted after the war if it was possible to arrest them. The fact that they were considered to have committed a criminal offence for having knowingly deserted whatever their actual motive, allowed them to communicate this motive without too many complexes. However, none of the defectors whose criminal records have been preserved admitted that he had defected for the sake of the Flemish Question.  As is the case in all armies, the main reasons for desertion to the enemy were war-weariness and the longing to see members of their family. The Belgian Military Security and the military auditors were not able either to establish a causal link between the Flemish Front Movement and the Belgian desertions to the enemy.

The Motif of Sacrifice in the Literature and Culture of the Second World War

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Rawlinson
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
First World War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Home Front ◽  
World War ◽  
War Poetry ◽  
Anglophone Literature ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Second World ◽  
First World

This chapter explores how Anglophone literature and culture envisioned and questioned an economy of sacrificial exchange, particularly its symbolic aspect, as driving the compulsions entangled in the Second World War. After considering how Elizabeth Bowen’s short stories cast light on the Home Front rhetorics of sacrifice and reconstruction, it looks at how poets Robert Graves, Keith Douglas, and Alun Lewis reflect on First World War poetry of sacrifice. With reference to René Girard’s and Carl von Clausewitz’s writings on war, I take up Elaine Cobley’s assertion about the differing valencies of the First and Second World Wars, arguing that the contrast is better seen in terms of sacrificial economy. I develop that argument with reference to examples from Second World War literature depicting sacrificial exchange (while often harking back to the First World War), including Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour Trilogy (1952–61), and William Wharton’s memoir Shrapnel (2012).

Blockade and the Civilian Population

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phillip Drew
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Gulf War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Maritime Trade ◽  
World War ◽  
Civilian Population ◽  
Strategic Bombing ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Second World ◽  
First World

Drawing on several examples through history, this chapter illustrates the devastating potential that maritime blockades can have when they are employed against modern societies that are dependent on maritime trade, and particularly on the importation of foodstuffs and agricutltural materials for the survival of their civilian populations. Revealing statistics that show that the blockade of Germany during the First World War caused more civilian deaths than did the allied strategic bombing campaign of the Second World War, and that the sanctions regime against Iraq killed far more people than did the 1991 Gulf War, it demonstrates that civilian casualties are often the true unseen cost of conducting blockade operations.

scholarly journals “Buried Alive”: Experience, Memory, and the Interwar Publishing of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in Postwar Britain, 1915-1939

2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 212-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Fantauzzo
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Home Front ◽  
Sinai Peninsula ◽  
World War ◽  
The Road ◽  
The Past ◽  
War Narrative ◽  
War Machine ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

Over 450,000 British soldiers fought as part of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force during the First World War. Between 1915-1918, they fought their way across the Sinai Peninsula, into southern Palestine, captured Jerusalem, and overran the Turkish Army, leading to the surrender of the Ottoman Empire in October 1918. Despite being the war’s most successful sideshow, the Egypt and Palestine campaign struggled to gain popular attention and has largely been excluded from First World War scholarship. This article argues that returning soldiers used war books to rehabilitate the campaign’s public profile and to renegotiate the meaning of wartime service in interwar Britain. The result of sporadic press attention and censorship during the war, the British public’s understanding of the campaign was poor. Periodic access to home front news meant that most soldiers likely learnt of their absence from Britain’s war narrative during the war years. Confronting the belief that the campaign, prior to the capture of Jerusalem, was an inactive theatre of war, British soldiers refashioned themselves as military labourers, paving the road to Jerusalem and building the British war machine. As offensive action intensified, soldiers could look to the past to provide meaning to the present. Allusions to the campaign as a crusade were frequently made and used to compete with the moral righteousness of the liberation of Belgium.

Germany 1914–1918. Total War as a Catalyst of Change

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Ziemann
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
First World War ◽  
European History ◽  
The Political ◽  
World War ◽  
Total War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

It is a commonplace to see the First World War as a major caesura in German and European history. This article records the war years from 1914–1918 in Germany. Not least, such an interpretation can rely on the perceptions of influential contemporary observers. In Germany, as in other belligerent countries, many artists, intellectuals, and academics experienced the outbreak of the war as a cathartic moment. While it is straightforward to see the mobilization for war and violence as a major caesura for any of the belligerent countries, it is much more complicated to account for causalities and for German peculiarities. Difficult methodological questions arise, which have not always been properly addressed. While Germany was facing a ‘world of enemies’, as a popular slogan suggested, the semantics of the political shifted to an articulation of emotions, excitements, and promises, contributing to a dramatized narrative centered around the notions of sacrifice and fate. The effect of World War I concludes the article.

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