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August 1914

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didn't destroy a world that was at its apex of civilization, but rather an arrangement that was already

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in trouble

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beset by anxieties

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plagued by rivalries between regimes

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plunged into the first truly global war in a century

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since the Napoleonic Wars into Russia and Egypt

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war went global for one fundamental reason

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1. it was a war between global empires

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2. a war of mass societies

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already organizations that implied that entire societies were going to be inducted into war, i.e. total war

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will have to mobilize riches from their colonies as well as from citizens at home

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the old world regimes would have to harness energy from new world resources

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sparked by a conflict in the Balkans

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where the struggles were most intense between rival European and Middle Eastern powers

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Hapsburg vs. Ottoman empire

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an archaic confrontation

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it was caused by ramped up imperial rivalry

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free-trade empires locked in rivalries with each other

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put more resources into defense structures

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spiraling upwards as fiscal military states

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the gap between expectations and what happened

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that people would see some initial decisive victory on the battlefield and that the war would be over by Christmas

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with mass communications being used, jingoism was whipped up to high levels

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combatants: 65 million

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Russia: 15 million

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Germany: 10.6 million

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France: 8 million

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Britain: 5.25 million

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it turned out to be a long, protracted war for three reasons

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1. the balance of forces were remarkably even

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had not calculated that the interlocking mechanism made quite equal adversaries

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by 1917 the war efforts had grounded to a stand still

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2. the nature of war had changed

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the old universe of calvary men clashing with each other, artilleries supporting set-piece battles from behind the lines leading to a one or two day battle that would end with victory for one side or the other

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what the combatants discovered was that heavy investment in military could halt even the most powerful army

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led to industrial-scale killing

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advent of barbed wire

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introduction of machine gunning

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the introduction of chemical weapons

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armies could get stopped or mowed down in the process of their attacks

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there was no more gentlemanly hand-to-hand combat

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one doesn't even see one's adversary

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3. the targeting of non-combatants

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1915 the sinking of the British Lusitania by a German submarine

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1915 Zeppelin bombing raids of London

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total war meant total destruction

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9 million casualties

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vast resources were being spent to choke economies

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submarines became a routine practice

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one reason the entry of the U.S. was significant was that it helped to form a more effective blockade of Axis powers

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all countries had problems with scarcities and inflation

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economic warfare was a financial war

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the country that had the most difficulties funding its war efforts was Russia