Total War Research Paper

Total War During The World Wars

The term total war came into realization during the first and second World War. President Franklin Roosevelt (2004) stated, “When our enemies challenged our country to stand up and fight, they challenged each and everyone of us. And each and every one of us has accepted the challenge” (pg. 86). Total war involved the commitment of an entire nation and to the extent of all the participating nations, almost the entire world. The World Wars were much greater than just the amount of casualties and the extend of the countries involved. Rather, it changed the entire attitudes toward the economy, society, technology and psychology that encompassed all aspects of daily life. Once a country entered the war,
2004) during WWI lead to mass casualties along the front line. Transportation and roads allowed a continuous replenishment of soldiers on both sides, which lead to a cycle of attack and counterattack with little progress and high casualties. Governments realized the importance of new weapons and machines that would strategically attack the enemies. Thus, the governments enlisted engineers and scientists in order to gain an advantage. WWII saw the emergence sophisticated airplanes, submarines, boats, tanks, long-ranged weapons, communication and the atomic bomb. General Eric von Leudendorf noted “warfare could no longer be confined to battlefields” (pg. 68). Instead, the war was more dispersed and cities were more involved in warfare. Therefore, the war evolved to a point where almost all civilians were in the cross-hairs,which exemplified total war. Technology during WWII reached its peak with the creation of the atomic bomb due to the collaboration of some of the greatest scientific minds, including Albert Einstein. The United States Strategic Bomb Survey in 1946 determined that the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed 100,000 people and destroyed over half the buildings (Wiesner ect. 2004), which again illustrated the idea of total war because all civilians were legitimate military
The World Wars created an everlasting effect that was felt by all. Lloyd George on the Battle of the Somme recollected the immense and irreplaceable losses at Somme. He mentioned that the battle was fought by volunteer armies and it contained the “choicest and best of our young manhood”and “the officers came mainly from our public schools and universities” (pg. 76). His memoir showed a saddened individual who had lost hope in warfare. In The Crisis of the Spirit, Paul Valery described the feelings after WWI as “our fears are infinitely more precise than our hopes; we admit that the best of life is behind us, that fullness is behind us, but disarray and doubt are in us and with us” (pg. 81). Iwao Nakamura explained in horrific detail the effects instances after atomic bomb in Hiroshima. He described “burned faces twitching and bloated like balloons” (pg. 93) “sea of flames” (pg. 94) and stepping over dead bodies. These images were certainly traumatizing. The psychological damages broadened the scope of total