Total War: Total War: Strategies, Tactics, and Technologies of Modern Conflict

By Fouad Sabry

What is Total War

Total war is a type of warfare that includes any and all civilian-associated resources and infrastructure as legitimate military targets, mobilises all of the resources of society to fight the war, and gives priority to warfare over non-combatant needs.

How you will benefit

(I) Insights, and validations about the following topics:

Chapter 1: Total war

Chapter 2: Joseph Goebbels

Chapter 3: World War II

Chapter 4: Strategic bombing

Chapter 5: Mobilization

Chapter 6: Eastern Front (World War II)

Chapter 7: War economy

Chapter 8: Home front

Chapter 9: War effort

Chapter 10: Home front during World War II

(II) Answering the public top questions about total war.

Who this book is for

Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of Total War.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Billion Knowledgeable
• Release date: May 26, 2024

Book preview

Chapter 1: Total war

Total war is a form of armed conflict that prioritizes fighting over non-combatants demands and treats any infrastructure and resources connected to the civilian population as acceptable military targets.

A war that is uncontrolled in terms of the weaponry employed, the territory or combatants involved, or the aims pursued, particularly one in which the laws of war are disregarded, is what is meant by this definition.

Scholars of conflict and war have researched the idea of total war in great detail.

One of the most notable contributions to this field of research is the work of Stig Förster, Someone has recognized the following four aspects of total war: overall objectives, total methods, total mobilisation, and complete command.

Tiziano Peccia has built upon Förster's work by adding a fifth dimension of total change. Peccia argues that total war not only has a profound impact on the outcome of the conflict but also produces significant changes in the political, cultural, economic, In social spheres after the conflict has ended.

As Peccia says, Total conflict is like an earthquake that hits the entire planet.

The four dimensions of total war identified by Förster are:

Overall objectives: Hegemonic visions and the pursuit of ongoing party power growth.

Total methods: Common and similar approaches used by nations seeking to expand their influence.

Total mobilization: Involvement of groups not typically involved in combat, such as women, children, or people who are not members of military forces.

Total control includes the multisectoral concentration of power in a small group of autocrats or oligarchs, the orchestration of international affairs, and cross-functional management of the economy, politics, media, and culture.

Peccia's concept of total change, which emphasizes the long-term repercussions of total war on society, strengthens this paradigm.

Total change: This involves adjustments to political institutions, social attitudes, cultural norms, and economic and technical advancements.

Total war, in Peccia's opinion, has long-lasting effects on society as a whole in addition to changing the military and political scene.

The following actions might define the total war concept from the post-19th century::

such as in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, strategic bombing (Operations Barrel Roll, Rolling Thunder and Linebacker II)

population centers can be blocked off or besieged, like during the First and Second World Wars' Allied blockade of Germany and the Siege of Leningrad.

Similar to the March to the Sea during the American Civil War and the Japanese Three Alls Policy during the Second Sino-Japanese War, scorched earth policy was implemented.

As with privateering, the German U-boat campaigns of the First and Second World Wars, and the United States submarine campaign against Japan during World War II, tonnage warfare, unrestricted submarine warfare, and commerce raiding are all forms of submarine warfare.

Collective punishment, pacification operations, and retaliation against groups that are considered hostile, similar to the murder and expulsion of Communards after the collapse of the Paris Commune in 1871 or the German policy of retaliation against resistance movements, insurgents, and Untermenschen, like those seen in France (e.g.

Maillé massacre) and Poland during World War II

Industrial warfare was present in World Wars I and II with all belligerents on their respective home fronts.

Employment of civilians and prisoners of war as forced labor for military operations, such as the widespread use of foreign forced laborers by Germany, the USSR, and Japan during World War II (see Slavery in Japan and forced labour under German rule during World War II)

Giving no quarter, as with Hitler's Commando Order during World War II, which means taking no prisoners

Der totale Krieg, a World War I memoir by German commander Erich Ludendorff, was published in 1935 and is where the term total war first appeared (The total war). Although Carl von Clausewitz did not use the term, some authors go so far as to refer to absolute war in his famous work On War; other authors interpret Clausewitz in a different way.

The Cengage Advantage Books: World History textbook, written by professors at Eastern Michigan University, asserts that although total war is typically identified with the two global wars of the twentieth century... it would seem that examples of total conflict predate the nineteenth century. They create writing:

The ancient Mongols, like the Nazis of today, waged total war against an adversary by organizing all available resources, such as military men, noncombatants, intelligence, transportation, money, and supplies.

Total warfare was demonstrated in the Sullivan Expedition in 1779. General George Washington instructed General John Sullivan with 4,000 soldiers to pursue the entire annihilation and ruin of their colonies in upstate New York as Native American and Loyalist forces butchered American farmers, killed animals, and burned structures in distant frontier areas. As the expedition destroyed 14 towns and most flourishing fields of maize, there was just one little combat. The British supplied the Native Americans as they fled to Canada, where they stayed after the war.

Some people believe that Sherman's March to the Sea, which took place during the American Civil Conflict and lasted from November 15 to December 21, 1864, is an example of total war; Sherman himself referred to it as hard war. Some historians dispute this classification because Sherman ordered his forces to spare civilian dwellings during his campaign, which largely attacked military facilities.

his book, Napoleon's Europe and the Beginning of Warfare as We Know It: The First Total War, D. A. Bell, According to a professor of French history at Princeton University, some of the first ideas of total war were introduced to continental Europe during the French Revolutionary Wars, for instance, mass conscription.

He claims that the new republic found itself threatened by a powerful coalition of European nations and used the entire nation's resources in an unprecedented war effort that included levée en masse (mass conscription).

by August 23, 1793, It was the first time in Western history that an army larger than a million had been mobilized. The French front line soldiers increased to about 800,000 with a total of 1.5 million across all services:

All Frenchmen are under permanent demand for the services of the armies from this point forward until its adversaries have been expelled from the territory of the Republic. The children will turn used lint into linen, the married men will forge weapons and transport supplies, the women will make tents and clothes and work in hospitals, the young men will engage in combat, and the married men will take to the public squares to incite the warriors' courage and preach the Republic's unity and hatred of kings.

The Russians skillfully hampered the French and deprived them of enough supplies during the Russian battle of 1812 by retreating while destroying infrastructure and crops. Two years later, during the Hundred Days, a French order called for the mobilization of almost 2.5 million soldiers overall, compared to the over one million Allied forces that were present in the German theater alone during the 1813 campaign (though at most a fifth of this was managed by the time of the French defeat at Waterloo). In addition to several hundred thousand Spanish, Portuguese, and British regulars, an enormous and persistent guerrilla insurgency kept about 300,000 French troops permanently occupied during the protracted Peninsular War from 1808 to 1814; ultimately, French deaths would total 300,000 in the Peninsular War alone.

The deployment of government propaganda posters to focus all attention on the war at home was one of the characteristics of total war in Britain. Posters were utilized to sway public opinion over what to eat, what jobs to accept, and how much support to give the war effort. With recruitment-focused propaganda songs, even the Music Hall was used for propaganda.

Field Marshal John French, the British Commander-in-Chief, attributed the defeat of the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, a significant British offensive in March 1915, to a lack of sufficient and high-quality artillery munitions. The Shell Crisis of 1915 resulted from this, toppling both the Liberal administration and H. H. Asquith's premiership. David Lloyd George was named the new coalition government's minister of munitions by the Liberal-dominated leader. It was a recognition that if the Allies were to win the war on the Western Front, the entire economy would need to be prepared for conflict.

Total war, according to Nazi enthusiast Carl Schmitt, meant total politics, or totalitarian domestic regulations that imposed strict control over the media and the economy. According to Schmitt, total war is preceded by the entire state, which fully directs the mobilization of all social and economic resources to war. The German state of World War I, which exercised complete control over the press and other elements of economic and social life as articulated in the proclamation of state ideology known as the Ideas of 1914, is seen to have planted the seeds of this comprehensive state notion.

In Britain and Germany, domestic food production decreased as young men left the farms for the war. Rationing was implemented in Britain in response, and more food was imported despite the German start of unrestricted submarine warfare. By preventing Germany from importing food, the Royal Navy's blockade of German ports expedited Germany's capitulation by causing a food crisis there.

Soldiers were mobilized from almost all of Europe and from several of the European colonial empires. Rationing was implemented at home. Bulgaria went so far as to mobilize 800,000 of its population, or a quarter, more than any other nation did during the conflict.

The Second World War served as the archetypal example of a modern total war.

During the first part of the Shōwa era, Imperial Japan's government implemented a number of measures to support a global war effort against China and other powers while boosting economic output.

Among them were the Imperial Rule Assistance Association and the National Spiritual Mobilization Movement.

The State General Mobilization Law contained fifty provisions, including nationalization of the media, price restrictions, rationing, nationalization of strategic industries, and government control over civilian organizations, including labor unions.

Before the start of the Second World War, Great Britain used lessons learned from the First World War to draft legislation allowing for the quick mobilization of the economy in the event of future hostilities. Rationing of the majority of products and services was implemented, affecting manufacturers as well as consumers. This meant that more suitable tasks were imposed on enterprises that were producing goods that were not necessary for the war effort. Legal blackouts applied to all artificial lighting.

Another, more glaring divergence from 1914 exists. The entire population of the combating countries is involved, including men, women, and children, in addition to the military. There are fronts