Total Warfare and Compulsory Labor: A Study of the Military-Industrial Complex in Germany During World War I

ISBN-13: 9789401504348 / Angielski / Miękka / 1964 / 155 str.

Robert B. Armeson

Opis

During the latter half of the nineteenth century tremendous economic, technological, and scientific developments took place in Western Europe as states shifted from predominantly agricultural to pre dominantly industrial economies. As a result of these changes, the nature of warfare altered. The First World War was not simply a struggle between the armed forces of belligerent nations. It was a total war which Ultimately involved all the forces in the nations on a scale and with an intensity which mankind had never before experienced. Total warfare demanded the entire strength of the nation. In Germany the transition to total warfare began earliest and went furthest. Even there it was born not in the early days of the fighting, but only after the conflict extended beyond the period originally antici pated. By mid-I916, the struggle had turned essentially into a battle of material, and it became apparent that its economic and technical aspects were more important than the purely military. An ever greater production of war-essential goods became the paramount need. Germany's armed forces had grown to an unprecedented size, but each man in the military service represented at the same time an increase in the need for supplies and a decrease in the productive labor force. The crux of the problem was the manpower shortage."

Spis treści

I. Unforeseen Warfare.- Germany on the eve of 1914, The expected warfare. Barbed wire, trenches, and machine-guns. Industrialists versus traditionalist-minded generals. The battles of material. The military crisis of mid-.- II. Political Generals and Industrial Magnates.- Emergence of the political generals. Rude awakening: the Cambrai war council. Agrarians, industrialists, and the new Supreme Command. The military-industrialist alliance. Victory and the labor problem. Total warfare and compulsory labor. Forced labor from the occupied territories. Momentous decisions: the necessity for total warfare.- III. Opposition to Total Warfare.- Dangers inherent in the effort to militarize the entire life of the nation. Voluntary versus forced labor. Forced labor commences in the occupied territories. Deportations and international law. The Kingdom of Poland: political objections and military necessity. National Service: final solution to the labor problem.- IV. Emergence of the Concept of National Service.- General Groener and the War Office. National Service: the embodiment of total warfare. National Service: an expression of national unity. Labor’s fears and Groener’s promises. The government’s draft of the bill for National Service. Signs of discontent.- V. The Fragile Burgfrieden.- The government’s position: the necessity for mobilizing labor. Misgivings of the middle-class political parties. Socialist opposition. The ending of the Burgfrieden. Labor’s powerful bargaining position.- VI. Formation of the Future Weimar Coalition.- Military necessity versus political and social safeguards. The alliance of Majority Socialists, Center, and Progressive Parties. Public opinion and National Service: Dienstpflichtor patriotic socialism?.- VII. Consequences of National Service.- Unrestricted submarine warfare. National Service in operation. Groener, labor, and management. Social, economic, and constitutional effects of National Service.- VIII. Crisis, Reform, and National Service.- Social and economic unrest. Democracy and reaction. The July Crisis. The fall of Groener. Aftermath.- Epilogue.