Ioulia Samouilovskaia.
26.09.05.
„For what reasons can it be argued that the Second World War was a „Total War“?”
Second World War was a horrifying event, which left an even deeper scarf in people’s lives than the First World War. It brought far more damage and deaths than the previous war. However in order to answer whether the Second World War was a Total War, we first have to define what is Total War. Total War is the war that affects all of society- not just the armed forces, and that uses all the resources available to be able to win it. It’s “the mobilization of the entire society and its resources for the war effort”. In this essay several aspects will be investigated, which would help us answer the question.
The first thing that comes to mind is the scale of war. It was tremendous. Almost every country participated in the Second World War. There were Europe, USA, USSR, Scandinavia, North Africa, Japan, China and Australia involved. And definitely there wasn’t even one country in the whole world that didn’t suffer from its effects. The war was fought on several fronts simultaneously, and thus the armies needed as many soldiers as possible. Volunteering was cancelled and conscription was introduced. From the start of the war, all men aged 18-41 had to register for war work- either to fight or to work. However, even despite the big number of people in the army, it wasn’t the soldiers who suffered the most. It was the civilians. In this war more civilians died than soldiers, they were “in the front line of attack”. Civilians were bombed, imprisoned, massacred, taken as slaves and starved to death. The most horrifying weapon of World War Two was the atomic bomb; it became typical at that time and brought horrific civilian casualties.
The other factor that shows us the totality of war is the scientific developments, this also includes new technology and war tactics. A complete new style of fighting was introduced. It involved more weapons, more machinery, more soldiers and thus obviously more damage and deaths. For example, a new tactic that became known as Blitzkrieg, or lightening war, was introduced. Blitzkrieg used shock tactics. The aim was to paralyze the enemy by devastating use of the most up-to-date technology and clever military tactics. Motorized vehicles, tanks and air power were co-ordinated by radio communications as they pushed deep into enemy territory. This tactic was first used at the “Battle of Britain”, it was when Germany’s aircraft went to London, it consisted of 348 German bombers and 317 fighters and it lasted for 57 days. New weapons were also used, e.g. aerial bomb. Railway stations and airfields were bombed as well as civilians. In the Blitz, Britain suffered more civilian than military casualties. In each week of September 1940, 40,000 to 50,000 people lost their homes. In November, 4500 people were killed and thousands more injured. In London alone, 12,500 died in December. People were so terrified that they fled the city each night, sleep1ing with relatives or in farmers’ barns or just camping in the open fields. Almost every country that participated in the war placed great faith in the power of the bombers as an offensive force against an enemy population. The two targets of this “strategic bombing” would be the enemy economy and civilian morale. Thus bombing was to be the primary agent of total war; the aircraft transformed land warfare and consigned the stalemate of trench warfare to history. Since the First World War science developed even further and allowed a higher mass destruction. There was a mass use of tanks, which by now were highly developed. Fire was one of the most common weapons, as it was hard to put it down, ex. Spitfire – it fired even through a propeller! Even firebombs were made. By the end of the war Germany produced a V1 plane-, which didn’t even need a pilot to get to a destination! Atomic bombs were invented; new tanks were made along with anti-tank guns, which were now more effective. Radio beams were introduced and minefields were used. Another example of a serious attack is the D-Day Operation in 1944. Its main objective was to liberate France from German troops, which had been there since 1940. The Overload began with a series of air attacks and decoy measures. Some 13,000 Allied aircraft pounded radar installations, rail links and bridges, and thus effectively cut off the German defenders in Normandy from reinforcement. About two thirds of the air attacks were actually away from the invasion area in order to confuse the defenders. Other measures such as false radio messages were also used to convince the Germans that attacks were taking place elsewhere. Casualties were only 11,000- remarkable in an operation that had brought 130,000 men across the channel by sea and 23, 000 by air. This example just once again proves us that new tactics and weapons were used in the attacks, which weren’t there in the previous war. Also the scale of the attacks, and the number of soldiers involved was much higher. And the last, but not least example that is good in demonstrating the devastation of the new scientific developments is the Hiroshima bombing. An atomic bomb, which was invented by the American scientists, was used in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. It was a payback from the Americans to the Japanese for the attack on Pearl Harbour (which was also the main reason to why America entered the war). The effects of it were disastrous. It took only 1 bomb and 1 plane to kill at least 75,000 people instantly. Tens of thousands more died from radiation poisons in the years that followed.
