Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-42gr6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-20T02:18:35.673Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

11 - Home fronts

the mobilization of resources for total war

from Part II - The Era of Total War, 1914–1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2012

Roger Chickering
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
Dennis Showalter
Affiliation:
Colorado College
Hans van de Ven
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Get access

Summary

This chapter addresses the ways in which the dynamic of social mobilization in both world wars revealed the changing character of warfare itself. The totalizing logic of World War I blurred the boundaries between combatants and non-combatants, between soldier and civilian. Mass armies, supported by industrialized economies, demanded the commitment of the nation's material and technical resources. The defense of the nation was commonly articulated in communitarian terms, in the language of local, class, or religious solidarity. Defensive nationalism stood at the core of cultural mobilization during World War II. Military mobilization initially deprived the war industries of their most-needed workers. In both world wars, the mobilization of home fronts reflected the strategic positions of the belligerents, in particular their access to global markets for raw materials, capital, and labour. The globalized nature of warfare and the importance of combined resources were even more evident during World War II.
Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Strachan, Hew, “Total War in the Twentieth Century,” in Marwick, Arthur, ed., Total War and Historical Change: Europe, 1914–1955 (Buckingham and Philadelphia, 2001), 261Google Scholar
Chickering, Roger and Förster, Stig, eds., Great War, Total War: Combat and Mobilization on the Western Front, 1914–1918 (Cambridge, 2000), 8CrossRef
Becker, Jean-Jacques, “Retour sur la comparaison et réflexion sur les héritages,” in La Violence de guerre, 1914–1945 (Brussels, 2002), 336–37Google Scholar
Seyferth, Alexander, Die Heimatfront 1870/71: Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft im deutsch-französischen Krieg (Paderborn, 2007)Google Scholar
Gibelli, Antonio, La Grande Guerra degli italiani (Milan, 1998), 174Google Scholar
Becker, Jean-Jacques, 1914: Comment les Français sont entrés dans la guerre (Paris, 1977)Google Scholar
Verhey, Jeffrey, The Spirit of 1914: Militarism, Myth, and Mobilization in Germany (Cambridge, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horne, John, “Public Opinion and Politics,” in Horne, , ed., A Companion to the First World War (Oxford, 2010), 280CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanna, Martha, The Mobilization of Intellect: French Scholars and Writers during the Great War (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1996)Google Scholar
Zimmern, Alfred, “German Culture and the British Commonwealth,” in Seton-Watson, R. W. et al., The War and Democracy (London, 1915), 348Google Scholar
Audoin-Rouzeau, Stéphane and Becker, Annette, “Violence et consentement: La ‘Culture de guerre’ du premier conflit mondial,” in Rioux, Jean-Pierre and Sirinelli, Jean-François, eds., Pour une histoire culturelle (Paris, 1997), 112Google Scholar
Winter, Jay M., “Propaganda and the Mobilization of Consent,” in The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War (Oxford, 1998), 218Google Scholar
Purseigle, Pierre, Mobilisation, sacrifice, et citoyenneté: Angleterre and France, 1914–1918 (Paris, Forthcoming)
Aron, Raymond, The Century of Total War (Lanham, MD, 1985), 84Google Scholar
Purseigle, Pierre, “‘A Wave onto Our Shores’: Exile and Resettlement of Western Front Refugees, 1914–1918,” Contemporary European History 16 (2007): 427–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horne, John, “Social Identity in War: France, 1914–1918,” in Horne, , ed., Men, Women and War (Dublin, 1993), 119–35Google Scholar
Watson, Janet S. K., Fighting Different Wars: Experience, Memory, and the First World War in Britain (Cambridge, 2004)Google Scholar
Jeismann, Michael, La Patrie de l’ennemi: La notion d’ennemi national et la représentation de la nation en Allemagne et en France de 1792 à 1918 (Paris, 1992), 301Google Scholar
Prost, Antoine, “The Impact of War on French and German Political Cultures,” Historical Journal 37 (1994): 209–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawrence, Jon, “Forging a Peaceable Kingdom: War, Violence, and Fear of Brutalization in Post–First World War Britain,” Journal of Modern History 75 (2003): 557–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horne, John, ed., “Demobilisations culturelles après la Grande Guerre,” 14–18 Aujourd’hui, Today–Heute 5 (2002): 55–70Google Scholar
Prost, Antoine, Les Anciens Combattants et la société française (1914–1939), Vol. III (Paris, 1977)Google Scholar
Gerwarth, Robert, “The Central European Counter-Revolution: Paramilitary Violence in Germany, Austria and Hungary after the Great War,” Past & Present 200 (2008): 175–209CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fuller, J. F. C., The First of the League Wars: Its Lessons and Omens (London, 1936)Google Scholar
Yamamoto, Masahiro, Nanking: Anatomy of an Atrocity (Westport, CT, 2000), 189, n. 83Google Scholar
Noakes, Jeremy, “Hitler and the Nazi State: Leadership, Hierarchy, and Power,” in Caplan, Jane, ed., Nazi Germany (Oxford and New York, 2008), 74Google Scholar
Barkai, Avraham, Nazi Economics: Ideology, Theory, and Policy (New Haven, 1990)Google Scholar
Bloxham, Donald, The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians (Oxford, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartov, Omer, The Eastern Front, 1941–1945: German Troops and the Barbarization of Warfare (Basingstoke, 1985)Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, Eric, The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914–1991 (New York, 1994), 44Google Scholar
Clarke, Peter, Hope and Glory: Britain 1900–1990 (London, 1996), 136Google Scholar
Milward, Alan, The German Economy at War (London: Athlone Press, 1965), 1–28Google Scholar
Winter, Jay M., The Great War and the British People (London, 2003), 280Google Scholar
Chickering, Roger, Imperial Germany and the Great War, 1914–1918 (Cambridge, 1998), 146Google Scholar
Darrow, Margaret, French Women and the First World War: War Stories of the Home Front (Oxford, 2000), 185Google Scholar
Braybon, Gail, Women Workers in the First World War: The British Experience (London, 1981)Google Scholar
Strachan, Hew, “The First World War as a Global War,” First World War Studies 1 (2010): 3–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bock, Fabienne, “L’Exubérance de l’état en France de 1914 à 1918,” Vingtième Siècle: Revue d’Histoire, no. 3 (1984): 41–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roseman, Mark, “War and the People: The Social Impact of Total War,” in Townshend, Charles, ed., The Oxford Illustrated History of Modern War (Oxford and New York, 1997), 250Google Scholar
Adams, R. J. Q. and Poirier, Philip, The Conscription Controversy in Great Britain, 1900–18 (Basingstoke, 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gullace, Nicoletta F., “White Feathers and Wounded Men: Female Patriotism and the Memory of the Great War,” Journal of British Studies 36 (1997): 178–206CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horne, John, “‘L’impôt du sang’: Republican Rhetoric and Industrial Warfare in France, 1914–1918,” Social History 14 (1989): 201–23Google Scholar
Kershaw, Ian, “‘Working towards the Führer’: Reflections on the Nature of the Hitler Dictatorship,” Contemporary European History 2 (1993): 103–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petwaidic, Walter, Die autoritäre Anarchie (Hamburg, 1946)Google Scholar
Laborie, Pierre, Les Français des années troubles: De la Guerre d’Espagne à la Libération (Paris, 2001)Google Scholar
Baker, Keith M., “Introduction,” in Baker, , ed., The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture (Oxford and New York, 1987), xi–xxivGoogle Scholar
Keene, Jennifer D., “Protest and Disability: A New Look at African-American Soldiers during the First World War,” in Purseigle, , ed., Warfare and Belligerence, 177–203
Lewis, Michael, Rioters and Citizens: Mass Protest in Imperial Japan (Berkeley, 1990)Google Scholar
Halperin, Sandra, War and Social Change in Modern Europe: The Great Transformation Revisited (Cambridge and New York, 2004).Google Scholar
Horne, John, Labour at War: France and Britain 1914–1918 (Oxford, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geyer, Michael, “Gewalt und Gewalterfahrung im 20. Jahrhundert – Der Erste Weltkrieg,” in Spilker, Rolf and Ulrich, Bernd, eds., Der Tod als Maschinist: Der industrialisierte Krieg, 1914–1918 (Bramsche, 1998), 241–57.Google Scholar
Howard, Michael, “Total War in the Twentieth Century: Participation and Consensus in the Second World War,” in War and Society: A Yearbook of Military History (London: Croom Helm, 1977), 217Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×