Sur la route de la guerre totale sur le front ouest : l’armement et ses utilisations entre 1914 et 1918

• Main Author: François Cochet
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Associação de Actividades Científicas 2014-11-01
• Series: Ler História
• Subjects: totalization; weapons; production; artillery; tanks; gas
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/lerhistoria/705

The Great War innovates in the production of instruments of war in a never before basis. Tactical blocking greatly influenced the Western front. Trenches, forming a completely closed system, that could only be overcome by surprise (gas and tanks) or through the disarticulation (increasingly powerful artillery). All these instruments required the industrial mobilization of the home fronts and rationalized and administered production, leading to a growing totalization of the Great War. The effects upon fighters are impressive, particular the destruction scale made possible by these means. But if the idea of totalization, although ranging in its timeline, can be admitted as such to the Great War, it is necessary to avoid any teleological scheme. Furthermore, it should be carefully distinguished the debates on war totalization, and “brutalization” of societies during and after the Great War.