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War, Violence, Modernity: Faces of War. Lecture 1: Modernizing War --Industrializing war: toward total war -French Revolution/Napoleonic Wars -Clausewitz: ‘On War’ -American Civil War: technology, resources and ‘will’ --WWI: technological changes, total war mobilization, dehuminization
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War, Violence, Modernity: Faces of War Lecture 1: Modernizing War --Industrializing war: toward total war -French Revolution/Napoleonic Wars -Clausewitz: ‘On War’ -American Civil War: technology, resources and ‘will’ --WWI: technological changes, total war mobilization, dehuminization --WWII: The view from East Asia: War in China The Pacific War
The French Revolution/Napoleonic Wars • Subjects of the old regime become citizens of the new nation • Reconstitution of the military—development of a volunteer army drawn from the citizens militia of the revolution • Levee en masse of 1793 • Jourdan law of 1798: system of universal conscription
Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) • Highly influential military theorist • “On War” his opus on warfare, published after his death in 1832 • Concepts of absolute war (similar to total war), limited wars (wars with more narrowly defined objectives) • “War is a continuation of politics by other means” • The “fog” of war
The American Civil War, 1861-1865 • “Test of will”—two states at war over “way of life” • Rise of Industrial War—Railways, telegraph, machine guns • War of attrition—North has more people and Industrial resources • Over 600,000 Killed
World War I • Shocking violence—end of enlightenment hopes • A war in which technology changes rapidly • Trenches, stalemate—leads to bigger, deadlier guns, poison gas, tanks and planes • Total War: Home front mobilization, power of modern propaganda, strict censorship of the press to ensure one nation’s interpretations of the war and of “the enemy”
The Second World War: The View from East Asia • Japan’s Invasion of China: • Japan as imperialist power in East Asia • Invasion and war with China 1931-1945 • Civilian targets: the Nanjing Massacre, campaign of terror in the Chinese countryside • The Pacific War • Battle for supremacy of the Pacific between Japanese and American Empires • Race war, Resource war • Civilian targets: U.S. Bombing campaigns
Japanese Invasion of China • Starts in the early 1930s, formal war of invasion launched in 1937 • By 1945—20 million Chinese civilians dead, along with 2-3 million military deaths • Major atrocities committed by Japanese military against Chinese civilians: • the Nanjing massacre-December 1937 • ‘3-All’s campaign’—Kill all, burn all, loot all= mass death and pillage in the Chinese countryside
U.S. Strategic Bombing of Japan • Architect of the bombing campaign: General Curtis “Bombs Away” Lemay • Incendiary bombing of Tokyo: March 9-10, kills 80,000-100,000 civilians, 51 square miles of Tokyo destroyed • Dozens of Japanese cities systematically bombed • Nuclear bombs dropped on cities of Hiroshima and Nagasak—87 percent of the urban targets are residential areas as part of the bombing campaign
General Curits Lemay: ‘Killing Japanese didn't bother me very much at that time... I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal.’
“Ultimately, war is still an art, and like all artistic endeavours, human imagination will continue to drive inventive forms and executions of its subject. In a sense, the most basic of the principles of war is the need to constantly challenge, re-evaluate, and modernize all of them. The job is never done.” • ---Brigadier General Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., U.S. Air Force, 2006