Chapter 7.3 Total War
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Explain how new technology affected combat in World War I
- Describe the experience of the average soldier on the battlefield in World War I
- Discuss the role combatants’ colonies and colonial troops played in World War I
- Analyze the effect of racism on the actions of the major powers in World War I
World War I was a truly modern war. The combatants used then-new weaponry such as tanks, long-range artillery, and airplanes as well as machine guns and poison gas, making the soldiers’ experience unlike anything earlier generations had faced in battle. The massive numbers of troops and weapons meant that fighting and destruction regularly intruded on civilian life, often with devastating results. Some towns ceased to exist after the war due to their destruction. Thus, not only armies but entire nations had to do their part and bear the brunt of the war. The widespread use of colonial troops brought mass travel to the globe, and the interactions of many different peoples played out against the backdrop of combat. For all these reasons, and in recognition of its vast extent and destructiveness, World War I came to be called a total war, a war fought using all available resources, with no restrictions on weapons or their targets.
The Unending Horror of War
Military technology had changed greatly by the beginning of the twentieth century, and these changes were not often understood or appreciated by either soldiers or commanders when the war broke out. The recent spread of industrialization meant that more weapons with greater firepower could now be turned out of factories. Just as the guns of the naval arms race had quickly increased in scope and power, the introduction of machine guns, long-range artillery guns, aircraft, and submarines, and even primitive tanks revolutionized warfare in World War I.
Artillery was one clear example of the way warfare had changed. In the 1800s, cannons were moved by horses. In World War I, however, some long-range artillery could be moved only by rail, and in some cases, railroads even had to be specially built due to the weight of the guns. Artillery became a key tool for fighting the war. The German arms manufacturer Krupp unveiled new artillery throughout the war, each time offering greater firepower, but its “Big Bertha,” a 420-mm howitzer, was used extensively from the beginning of the war to its conclusion. In 1918, the Germans began using the so-called Paris Gun to shell the French capital. While its payload was not overly large, this piece of artillery could fire over a distance of eighty miles, propelling a missile into the stratosphere before it came back to earth. Most battlefield casualties in World War I were the result of artillery fire.
The power of machine guns, first seen at the turn of the century in the Boer War, also completely changed the battlefield experience in total war. Many of the machine guns of Wo