The debate continues over whether World War I can be called a total war. For many of the officers who had survived the war or been commissioned thereafter, however, this great conflict marked a watershed in the development of military theory, doctrine, and organization. The changes that the war had spawned needed to be taken into account as planners made decisions about national security and the defense of territorial integrity in the future. All these decisions were debated in the shadow of the Great War, which some thought at the time to have been a total war. Although no officer went as far as some socialist or pacifist politicians, who claimed that national defense by military means was no longer a viable option, they all tried to digest the manifold practical lessons of the war. Furthermore, they were under strong pressure from politicians and public opinion to avoid another war, or if this option were impossible, to win it with minimal costs in lives and property.

This chapter grows out of a research project on “Military Journals and the International Debate on Past and Future Warfare, 1918–1939,” which was based at the University of Bern. It examines how British and French officers met the challenges they faced, the answers and proposals they offered, and the responses they received from political and military authorities. It also examines the discussions that took place in military journals and other periodicals in which officers published their views, in order to analyze how new ideas arose and were received. The analysis rests on an investigation of military journals in Great Britain and France, as well as articles that officers published in other, nonmilitary periodicals in hopes of educating the broader public.