Was World War I a total war?

[kop hooligan]

I have to write a paper discussing whether World War I was a "total" war effort for the nations involved. Figured it would be easier with some extra input.

 

[snowman6251]

"You've heard the expression 'total war'; it's pretty common throughout human history. Every generation or so, some gasbag likes to spout about how his people have declared 'total war' against an enemy, meaning that every man, woman and child within his nation was committing every second of their lives to victory. That is bullshit on two basic levels. First of all, no country or group is ever 100% committed to war; it's just not physically possible. You can have a high percentage, so many people working so hard for so long, but all of the people, all of the time? What about the malingerers, or the conscientious objectors? What about the sick, the injured, the very old, the very young? What about when you're sleeping, eating, taking a shower, or taking a dump? Is that a 'dump for victory'? That's the first reason total war is impossible for humans. The second is that all nations have their limits. There might be individuals within that group who are willing to sacrifice their lives; it might even be a relatively high number for the population, but that population as a whole will eventually reach its maximum emotional and physiological breaking point. The Japanese reached theirs with a couple of American atomic bombs. The Vietnamese might have reached theirs if we'd dropped a couple more, but, thank all holy Christ, our will broke before it came to that. That is the nature of human warfare, two sides trying to push the other past its limit of endurance, and no matter how much we like to talk about total war, that limit is always there...unless you're the living dead."

Brooks, Max. "Total War." World War Z: an Oral History of the Zombie War. New York: Three Rivers, 2006. Print.

You tell me?

 

[Death Prophet]

"You've heard the expression 'total war'; it's pretty common throughout human history. Every generation or so, some gasbag likes to spout about how his people have declared 'total war' against an enemy, meaning that every man, woman and child within his nation was committing every second of their lives to victory. That is bullshit on two basic levels. First of all, no country or group is ever 100% committed to war; it's just not physically possible. You can have a high percentage, so many people working so hard for so long, but all of the people, all of the time? What about the malingerers, or the conscientious objectors? What about the sick, the injured, the very old, the very young? What about when you're sleeping, eating, taking a shower, or taking a dump? Is that a 'dump for victory'? That's the first reason total war is impossible for humans. The second is that all nations have their limits. There might be individuals within that group who are willing to sacrifice their lives; it might even be a relatively high number for the population, but that population as a whole will eventually reach its maximum emotional and physiological breaking point. The Japanese reached theirs with a couple of American atomic bombs. The Vietnamese might have reached theirs if we'd dropped a couple more, but, thank all holy Christ, our will broke before it came to that. That is the nature of human warfare, two sides trying to push the other past its limit of endurance, and no matter how much we like to talk about total war, that limit is always there...unless you're the living dead."

Brooks, Max. "Total War." World War Z: an Oral History of the Zombie War. New York: Three Rivers, 2006. Print.

You tell me?

Uh might want to brush up on your definitions. Yes WW1 could be considered a "Total War" as the idea behind the term is that an entire nation, or entity, mobilizes all AVAILABLE resources and population(keyword there AVAILABLE) to dedicate to war. In WW1 this was the case for almost the entire European continent. Countries took the men from production and replaced them with women and spread war support propoganda throughout. Each and everyone of those countries dedicated all that they possibly could to victory, a prime example is pre-WW1 Austro-Hungarian Empire, it was massive, after WW1 it was broken into 6 different countries and now today is 13. They declared "total war" and in the end it cost them totally.

 

[Hop-along Nussbaum]

The term "total war" is bullsh*t. It's just some nifty post-modern stupid term that sounds cool enough to have a video game named after it. Whatever.

It was called a WORLD War for a reason. And trust me, if you had lived through it, you would agree that it qualified as a "total war". Ask your grandparents if WWI or WWII were "total wars". Yeah, I'm betting they'd say yes.

Nations completely restructured themselves to devote everything to the war effort. Maybe not so much for the US in WWI, but for all the European nations, it damn sure was. And it most certainly was for the US in WWII.

 

[snowman6251]

Uh might want to brush up on your definitions. Yes WW1 could be considered a "Total War" as the idea behind the term is that an entire nation, or entity, mobilizes all AVAILABLE resources and population(keyword there AVAILABLE) to dedicate to war. In WW1 this was the case for almost the entire European continent. Countries took the men from production and replaced them with women and spread war support propoganda throughout. Each and everyone of those countries dedicated all that they possibly could to victory, a prime example is pre-WW1 Austro-Hungarian Empire, it was massive, after WW1 it was broken into 6 different countries and now today is 13. They declared "total war" and in the end it cost them totally.

I'm quoting Max Brooks' book "World War Z". It's a novel about the Zombie war. He's basically saying that zombies do total war cause they never stop fighting whereas humans can't be 100% committed to something 100% of the time. It's really just a joke. I just remembered the passage about it when I saw the thread title and put it up. Regardless of whether he ignores the actual definition of the term however, he kind of makes a point. It's kind of a shitty term as it implies something not wholly true.

 

[Death Prophet]

Snip.

I'm quoting Max Brooks' book "World War Z". It's a novel about the Zombie war. He's basically saying that zombies do total war cause they never stop fighting whereas humans can't be 100% committed to something 100% of the time. It's really just a joke. I just remembered the passage about it when I saw the thread title and put it up. Regardless of whether he ignores the actual definition of the term however, he kind of makes a point. It's kind of a shitty term as it implies something not wholly true.

And what I am doing is responding to his term in historical fact not some silly nonsense about a non-existent universe.

He asked...

I have to write a paper discussing whether World War I was a "total" war effort for the nations involved. Figured it would be easier with some extra input.

Simple answer is yes. But I sited example as to why. As far as trying to deconstruct the definition of "Total War" based on fiction is just silly and ignorant.

 

[EMFCRACKSHOT]

That is the nature of human warfare, two sides trying to push the other past its limit of endurance

this little bit here is very Clausewitzian. "If we desire to defeat the enemy, we must proportion our efforts to his powers of resistance. This is expressed by the product of two factors which cannot be separated, namely, the sum of available means and the strength of the will. The sum of available means may be estimated in a measure, as it depends (although not entirely) in numbers; but the strength of volition is more difficult to determine, and can only be estimated to a certain extent by the strength of the motives. Granted we have obtained in this way an approximation to the strength of the power to be contended with, we can then take a review of our own means, and either increase them so as to obtain preponderance, or, in case we have not the resources to effect this,then do our best by increasing our means as far as possible. But the adversary does the same; therefore there is a new mutual enhancement, which in pure conception, must create a fresh effort towards an extreme.
Thus reasoning in the abstract, the mind cannot stop short of an extreme, because it has to deal with an extreme, with a conflict of forces left to themselves, and obeying no other but their own inner laws. If we should seek to deduce from the pure conception of war an absolute point for the aim which we shall propose and for the means which we shall apply, this constant reciprocal action would involve us in extremes, which would be nothing but a play of ideas produced by an almost invisible train of logical subtleties. If, adhering closely to the absolute, we try to avoid all difficulties by the stroke of a pen, and insist with logical strictness that in every case the extreme must be the object, and the utmost effort must be exerted in that direction, such a stroke of the pen would be a paper law, not by any means adapted to the real world".-From on war by carl von clausewitz.
In a later passage he writes "here it is sufficient to show that a complete concentration of all available means in a moment of time is contradictory to the nature of war".
"Whatever one belligerent omits from weakness, becomes to the other a real objective ground for limiting his own efforts, and thus again, through this reciprocal action, extreme tendencies are brought down to efforts on a limited scale".
My interpretation of book one in on war is that a total or absolute war is only possible in the theoretical ideal of war, and that constraints in reality prevent war from achieving this extreme.

 

[Amarok]

I'm not sure what level of education you're writing this paper for but let me advise you here and now that "www.escapistmagazine.com" does not look good on a bibliography.

And if you're not planning on including a bibliography you may get caught out for plagiarism if you borrow too many words from any history/political buffs here.

 

[EMFCRACKSHOT]

Oxford dictionary:

"a war which is unrestricted in terms of the weapons used , the territory or combatants involved, or the objectives pursued, especially one in which the accepted rules of war are disregarded. "

Read: WWI, WWII, Vietnam War (spilled over into Laos), among others.

Vietnam can be seen as a total involvement of effort for the vietamese but not for the americans, and as such it begs the question of whether or not it does in fact count as a total war as one of the principle participants was not engaging the entire effort available to them. The US role was severely limited and the whole US war machine never geared up to fight in vietnam.
WW1 and WW2 can be seen as total wars by the oxford definition, but this seems to me to ignore the clauswitzian theory of war in which such extremes can only exist in a theoretical ideal due to the constraints placed upon it in reality. This would form quite a good area for debate in your essay OP, if you are willing to put the effort into the reading.
edit:my intention in this isn't to start a debate with you urprobablyright, but merely to give the op some ideas to bounce around. if we get into a big debate about it we'll end up doimg his work for him xD

 

[jdun]

World War I destroy the old empires. Maps of the old world was redrawn when WWI finished. Old empires was destroy or servery weaken and later vanished. New countries, empire, and governments emerged from the ashes of WWI.

There were a total of 17 major empire and countries involved in WWI as well as many smaller counties that fought for both sides. Over 51 millions troops trying to kill each other. It lasted from July 28, 1914 to November 11, 1918 costing over 39 million casualties.

After WWII the USA never went into any conflict as close to WWI and WWII in term of manufacturing and Army Corps. In WWII the USA had 24 Army Corps. I do not know how many Army Corps was sent in WWI but almost 5 millions US troops fought in that war. Currently only 4 US Army Corps is active.

 

[jdun]

Simply put,

[HEADING=1]Yes.[/HEADING]

It is the definitive total war. This war involved absolutely every area of society; civilian life, science, communications, transport, medicine, you name it, the first world war is the prime example I would use for a "Total War" barring WWII.

I hereby give u permission to use my words.

The term "total war" is bullsh*t. It's just some nifty post-modern stupid term that sounds cool enough to have a video game named after it. Whatever.

"Total War" has bugger all to do with gaming and is not post modern at all. People have employed the term "Total War" since the 1800s you ponce.

Oxford dictionary:

"a war which is unrestricted in terms of the weapons used , the territory or combatants involved, or the objectives pursued, especially one in which the accepted rules of war are disregarded. "

Read: WWI, WWII, Vietnam War (spilled over into Laos), among others.

They declared "total war" and in the end it cost them totally.

Their outdated and stagnant war traditions are what cost them dearly. They only lasted as long as they did through sheer manpower, which is depressing. Hell, even Italians could advance against them.

Due to the advance in technology in WWI both side waged a stagnant war. WWII was different because each sides had studied WWI and they knew what worked and what did not. Also the weapon technology mature enough for all side to understand how to use it effectively.

 

[BlackStar42]

I have to write a paper discussing whether World War I was a "total" war effort for the nations involved. Figured it would be easier with some extra input.

Pretty much, at last in terms of manpower. Entire generations of young men were completely obliterated. EVERYTHING went into the war effort, and the Haber process was invented in part to supply Germany with fucktons of explosives.