Why was the First World War termed as the first 'total' war in modern history?

Answer:

The First World War is called the first total war because it mobilised entire societies rather than armies alone. Economies, populations, science and opinion were all harnessed to the conflict, and the distinction between combatant and civilian was substantially erased.

Total mobilisation of manpower

• Mass conscription placed millions under arms across Europe.
• Britain introduced conscription in 1916, abandoning its voluntary tradition.
• Colonial troops from India, Africa and the dominions were drawn in.
• Women entered munitions factories and services in unprecedented numbers.

Total mobilisation of the economy

• Governments directed industry, allocated raw materials and set production targets.
• Britain's Ministry of Munitions and Germany's war raw materials department controlled supply.
• Rationing of food and fuel was imposed on civilian populations.
• War finance through loans and taxation absorbed national income.
• Germany's 'turnip winter' of 1916-17 showed the effect of blockade on civilians.

The civilian as target

• Naval blockade aimed deliberately at starving enemy populations.
• Unrestricted submarine warfare sank merchant and passenger shipping.
• Zeppelin and aircraft raids bombed cities for the first time.
• The Armenian massacres showed the war's capacity for mass civilian death.

Mobilisation of science and opinion

• Poison gas, tanks, aircraft and submarines were developed for war purposes.
• Propaganda ministries directed public opinion systematically.
• Censorship controlled the press and private correspondence.
• Dissent was suppressed under emergency powers such as the Defence of the Realm Act.

A qualification

• Earlier conflicts, notably the American Civil War, had anticipated some of these features.
• The Second World War would take totality further still, with genocide and atomic weapons.
• The scale and simultaneity of mobilisation in 1914-18 were nonetheless unprecedented.

Political consequences of totality

• State power over economy and society expanded permanently.
• Women's war work strengthened the case for the franchise, granted in 1918 in Britain.
• Four empires collapsed under the strain of total mobilisation.
• The war economy provided the model for later state planning.

The term total war is therefore justified for 1914-18. As historians emphasise, it was the first conflict in which whole societies, their industry, science, labour and opinion, were organised for war and in which civilians became legitimate objects of attack, setting the pattern for the still greater totality of 1939.