Editing Total war (section)

====World War II====
The [[Second World War]] was the quintessential total war of modernity.<ref name="Fink">{{Cite book |last=Fink |first=George |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rOq4XV94wLsC |title=Stress of War, Conflict and Disaster |date=2010 |publisher=Academic Press |isbn=978-0-12-381382-4 |pages=227 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Donn |first=Hill |date=15 April 2014 |title=Total Victory Through Total War |url=https://publications.armywarcollege.edu/publication-detail.cfm?publicationID=131 |journal=United States War College Publications |pages=3, 19 |via=USAWC}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rouhan |first=Michael |date=2022 |title=Did The Second World War, More So Than The First World War, Exemplify The Character Of 'Total War'? |url=https://www.mindef.gov.sg/oms/safti/pointer/documents/pdf/monthlyissue/oct2022.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240219054041/https://www.mindef.gov.sg/oms/safti/pointer/documents/pdf/monthlyissue/oct2022.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=19 February 2024 |journal=Journal of the Singapore Armed Forces }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Chun Hong |first=Kelvin Yap |date=2023 |title=DID THE SECOND WORLD WAR, MORE SO THAN THE FIRST WORLD WAR, EXEMPLIFY THE CHARACTER OF 'TOTAL WAR'? |url=https://www.mindef.gov.sg/oms/safti/pointer/documents/pdf/monthlyissue/jan2023.pdf |journal=Journal of the Singapore Armed Forces |access-date=1 March 2024 |archive-date=1 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240301061017/https://www.mindef.gov.sg/oms/safti/pointer/documents/pdf/monthlyissue/jan2023.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> The level of national mobilisation of resources on all sides of the conflict, the [[battlespace]] being contested, the scale of the [[army|armies]], [[navy|navies]], and [[air force]]s raised through [[conscription]], the active targeting of non-combatants (and non-combatant property), the general disregard for [[collateral damage]], and the unrestricted aims of the belligerents marked total war on an unprecedented and unsurpassed, multicontinental scale.<ref>[[Lizzie Collingham]], ''Taste of war: World War II and the battle for food'' (Penguin, 2012).</ref>

=====Imperial Japan=====
[[File:Founding Ceremony of the Hakko-Ichiu Monument.JPG|thumb|upright|Founding ceremony of the ''[[Hakkō ichiu]]'' Monument, promoting the unification of "the 8 corners of the world under one roof"]]

During the first part of the [[Shōwa era]], the government of [[Empire of Japan|Imperial Japan]] launched a string of policies to promote a total war effort [[Second Sino-Japanese War|against China]] and [[Pacific war|occidental powers]] and increase industrial production. Among these were the [[National Spiritual Mobilization Movement]] and the [[Taisei Yokusankai|Imperial Rule Assistance Association]].{{Citation needed|date=March 2021}}

The [[State General Mobilization Law]] had fifty clauses, which provided for government controls over civilian organisations (including [[labour union]]s), [[nationalisation]] of strategic industries, price controls and [[rationing]], and nationalised the [[news media]].<ref>Pauer, ''Japan's War Economy'', 1999 p. 13</ref> The laws gave the government the authority to use unlimited budgets to subsidise war production and to compensate manufacturers for losses caused by war-time mobilisation. Eighteen of the fifty articles outlined penalties for violators.{{Citation needed|date=March 2021}}

To improve its production, Imperial Japan used millions of [[slave labour]]ers<ref>Unidas, Naciones. ''World Economic And Social Survey 2004: International Migration'', p. 23</ref> and [[Slavery in Japan|pressed more than 18 million people]] in [[East Asia]] into forced labour.<ref>Zhifen Ju, "''Japan's atrocities of conscripting and abusing north China draftees after the outbreak of the Pacific war''", 2002, [http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+id0029) Library of Congress, 1992, "Indonesia: World War II and the Struggle For Independence, 1942–50; The Japanese Occupation, 1942–45"] Access date: 9 February 2007.</ref>

=====United Kingdom=====
{{main|United Kingdom home front during World War II}}
Before the onset of the Second World War, Great Britain drew on its First World War experience to prepare legislation that would allow immediate mobilisation of the economy for war, should future hostilities break out. Rationing of most goods and services was introduced, not only for consumers but also for manufacturers. This meant that factories manufacturing products that were irrelevant to the war effort had more appropriate tasks imposed. All artificial light was subject to legal [[Blackout (wartime)|blackouts]].<ref>Angus Calder, ''The People's War: Britain 1939–45'' (1969) [https://archive.org/details/peopleswarbritai00cald online]</ref>
{{Blockquote|..There is another more obvious difference from 1914. The whole of the warring nations are engaged, not only soldiers, but the entire population, men, women and children. The fronts are everywhere to be seen. The trenches are dug in the towns and streets. Every village is fortified. Every road is barred. The front line runs through the factories. The workmen are soldiers with different weapons but the same courage."
|source=[[Winston Churchill]] on the radio, June 18; and [[British House of Commons|House of Commons]] 20 August 1940:<ref>Winston Churchill ''[http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/speeches/speeches-of-winston-churchill/1940-finest-hour/113-the-few The Few] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140923061951/http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/speeches/speeches-of-winston-churchill/1940-finest-hour/113-the-few |date=23 September 2014 }}'' The Churchill Centre</ref>}}

Not only were men conscripted into the armed forces from the beginning of the war (something which had not happened until the middle of World War I), but women were also conscripted as [[Women's Land Army (World War II)|Land Girls]] to aid farmers and the [[Bevin Boys]] were conscripted to work down the coal mines.

Enormous casualties were expected in bombing raids, so [[Evacuations of civilians in Britain during the Second World War|children were evacuated from London and other cities en masse to the countryside]] for compulsory [[billet]]ing in households. In the long term this was one of the most profound and longer-lasting social consequences of the whole war for Britain.<ref name=bix>Brown, p. ix</ref> This is because it mixed up children with adults of other classes. Not only did the middle and upper classes become familiar with the urban squalor suffered by working class children from the [[slum]]s, but the children got a chance to see animals and the countryside, often for the first time, and experience rural life.<ref name=bix/>

The use of statistical analysis, by a branch of science which has become known as [[Operational Research]] to influence military tactics, was a departure from anything previously attempted. It was a very powerful tool but it further dehumanised war particularly when it suggested strategies that were counter-intuitive. Examples, where statistical analysis directly influenced tactics include the work done by [[Patrick Blackett]]'s team on the optimum size and speed of convoys and the introduction of [[bomber stream]]s, by the [[Royal Air Force]] to counter the night fighter defences of the [[Kammhuber Line]].

=====Nazi Germany=====
{{see also|Reich Plenipotentiary for Total War}}

In 1935 [[General Ludendorff]] in the book ''Der Totale Krieg'' gave life to the term "Total War" in the German lexicon.{{sfn|Eriksson|2013}} However, being followers of the [[stab-in-the-back myth]], military and Nazi leadership believed that Germany hadn't lost World War I on the battlefield but solely on the [[Home front during World War I|home front]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Overy |first1=Richard |title=War and Economy in the Third Reich |date=1994 |publisher=Clarendon Press |location=Oxford |pages=28–30|isbn=978-0198202905}}</ref>

Therefore, [[Germany]] started the war under the concept which was later named [[blitzkrieg]]. Officially, it did not accept that it was in a total war until [[Joseph Goebbels]]' [[Sportpalast speech]] of 18 February 1943—in which the crowd was told "''Totaler Krieg – Kürzester Krieg''" ("Total War – Shortest War”.)<ref>Statement from the banner in Sportpalast, 18 February 1943, Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-J05235 / Schwahn / CC-BY-SA 3.0</ref>

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-J05235, Berlin, Großkundgebung im Sportpalast.jpg|thumb|left|Nazi rally on 18 February 1943 at the [[Berlin Sportpalast]]; the sign says "{{lang|de|Totaler Krieg – Kürzester Krieg}}" ("Total War – Shortest War").]]

Goebbels and Hitler had spoken in March 1942 about Goebbels' idea to put the entire home front on a war footing. Hitler appeared to accept the concept, but took no action. Goebbels had the support of minister of armaments [[Albert Speer]], economics minister [[Walther Funk]] and [[Robert Ley]], head of the [[German Labour Front]], and they pressed Hitler in October 1942 to take action, but Hitler, while outwardly agreeing, continued to dither. Finally, after the holidays in 1942, Hitler sent his powerful personal secretary, [[Martin Bormann]], to discuss the question with Goebbels and [[Hans Lammers]], the head of the [[Reich Chancellery]].  As a result, Bormann told Goebbels to go ahead and draw up a draft of the necessary decree, to be signed in January 1943. Hitler signed the decree on 13 January, almost a year after Goebbels first discussed the concept with him. The decree set up a steering committee consisting of Bormann, Lammers, and General [[Wilhelm Keitel]] to oversee the effort, with Goebbels and Speer as advisors; Goebbels had expected to be one of the triumvirate.  Hitler remained aloof from the project, and it was Goebbels and [[Hermann Göring]] who gave the "total war" radio address from the Sportspalast the next month, on the 10th anniversary of the [[Nazi seizure of power|Nazi's "seizure of power"]].<ref>[[Ralf Georg Reuth|Reuth, Ralph Georg]] (1993) ''Goebbels'' Translated by Krishna Winston.  New York: Harcourt Brace. pp. 304, 309–313. {{isbn|0-15-136076-6}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|I ask you: Do you want total war? If necessary, do you want a war more total and radical than anything that we can even imagine today?|source=[[National Socialist|Nazi]] [[propaganda]] minister [[Joseph Goebbels]], 18 February 1943, in his [[Sportpalast speech]]}}

The commitment to the doctrine of the short war was a continuing handicap for the Germans; neither plans nor state of mind were adjusted to the idea of a long war until the failure of the [[Operation Barbarossa]]. A major strategic defeat in the [[Battle of Moscow]] forced Speer to nationalise German war production and eliminate the worst inefficiencies.<ref>A. S. Milward (1964) "The End of the Blitzkrieg". ''The Economic History Review'', New Series, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 499–518.</ref>

===== Canada =====
{{Main|Conscription Crisis of 1944}}
In Canada early use of the term concerned whether or not the country was committing enough to mobilising its resources, rather than whether or not to target civilians of the enemy countries.  During the early days of the Second World War, whether or not Canada was committed to a "total war effort" was point of partisan political debate between the governing [[Liberal Party of Canada|Liberals]] and the opposition [[Conservative Party of Canada (1867–1942)|Conservatives]].  The Conservatives elected as their national leader [[Arthur Meighen]], who had been the cabinet minister responsible for implementing [[Conscription Crisis of 1917|conscription during the First World War]], and advocated for conscription again.  Prime Minister [[W.L. Mackenzie King]] argued that Canada could still be said to have a "total war effort" without conscription, and delivered nationally broadcast speeches to this effect 1942.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Canada and the war : manpower and a total war effort : national selective service : broadcast by Right Hon. W.L. MacKenzie King, M.P. Prime Minister of Canada – City of Vancouver Archives |url=https://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/canada-and-war-manpower-and-total-war-effort-national-selctive-service-broadcast-by-right-hon-w-l-mackenzie-king-m-p-prime-minister-of-canada |access-date=13 February 2023 |website=searcharchives.vancouver.ca}}</ref>  Meighen failed to win his seat in by-election in 1942, and the issue subsided for a short time.  But eventually, national conscription was introduced in Canada in 1944, as well as dramatically increased taxation, another symbol of the "total war effort".

=====Soviet Union=====
[[File:RIAN archive 216 The Volkovo cemetery.jpg|thumb|Three men burying victims of [[siege of Leningrad|Leningrad's siege]], in which about 1 million civilians died]]

The Soviet Union (USSR) was a [[planned economy|command economy]] which already had an economic and legal system allowing the economy and society to be redirected into fighting a total war. The transportation of factories and whole labour forces east of the [[Urals]] as the Germans advanced across the USSR in 1941 was an impressive feat of planning. Only those factories which were useful for war production were moved because of the total war commitment of the Soviet government.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lieberman |first1=Sanford R. |title=The Evacuation of Industry in the Soviet Union during World War II |journal=Soviet Studies |date=1983 |volume=35 |issue=1 |pages=90–102 |doi=10.1080/09668138308411460 |jstor=151494 }}</ref>

The Eastern Front of the [[European Theatre of World War II]] encompassed the conflict in [[central Europe|central]] and [[eastern Europe]] from 22 June 1941, to 9 May 1945. It was the largest theatre of war in history in terms of numbers of soldiers, equipment and [[World War II casualties|casualties]] and was notorious for its unprecedented ferocity, destruction, and immense loss of life (see [[World War II casualties]]). The fighting involved millions of [[Nazi army|German]], Hungarian, Romanian and [[Red army|Soviet]] troops along a broad front hundreds of kilometres long. It was by far the deadliest single theatre of World War II. Scholars now believe that at most 27&nbsp;million Soviet citizens died during the war, including at least 8.7&nbsp;million soldiers who fell in battle against [[Hitler]]'s armies or died in [[POW]] camps. Millions of civilians died from [[starvation]], exposure, atrocities, and massacres.<ref>{{cite news |url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4530565.stm |work= BBC.co.uk |title= Leaders mourn Soviet wartime dead |access-date= 5 August 2015|date= 9 May 2005 }}</ref> The Axis lost over 5&nbsp;million soldiers in the east as well as many thousands of civilians.<ref>German losses according to: Rüdiger Overmans, ''Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg''. Oldenbourg 2000. {{ISBN|978-3-486-56531-7}}, pp. 265, 272</ref>

During the [[Battle of Stalingrad]], newly built [[T-34 tank]]s were driven—unpainted because of a paint shortage—from the factory floor straight to the front. <!-- World at War series not sure which programme number-->This came to symbolise the USSR's commitment to a policy of total war.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Beevor |first=Antony |title=Stalingrad |publisher=Penguin books |year=1999 |isbn=0-14-024985-0 |page=110}}</ref>{{dubious|date=September 2020}}

=====United States=====
{{Main|United States home front during World War II}}
The United States underwent an unprecedented mobilisation of national resources for the Second World War, creating a [[military-industrial complex]]. Although the United States was not in existential danger, the national sense after Pearl Harbor was to use all the nation's resources to defeat Germany and Japan. Most non-essential activities were rationed, prohibited or restrained, and most of the fit unmarried young men were drafted. There was little urgency before 1940, when the collapse of France ended the [[Phoney War]] and revealed urgent needs. Nevertheless, President Franklin Roosevelt moved to first solidify public opinion before acting. In 1940 the first peacetime draft was instituted, along with [[Lend-Lease]] programs to aid the British, and covert aid was passed to the Chinese as well.<ref>James MacGregor Burns, ''Roosevelt: The soldier of freedom (1940–1945). Vol. 2'' (1970) pp. 3–63. [https://archive.org/details/rooseveltsoldier0000burn online]</ref>
American [[public opinion]] was still opposed to involvement in the problems of Europe and Asia, however. In 1941, the Soviet Union became the latest nation to be invaded, and the U.S. gave its aid as well. American ships began defending aid convoys to the Allied nations against submarine attacks, and a total trade embargo against the [[Empire of Japan]] was instituted to deny its military the raw materials its factories and military forces required to continue its offensive actions in China.

In late 1941, Japan's [[Imperial Japanese Army|Army]]-dominated government decided to seize by military force the strategic resources of South-East Asia and Indonesia since the Western powers would not give Japan these goods by trade. Planning for this action included [[surprise attack]]s on American and British forces in Hong Kong, the Philippines, Malaya, and the U.S. naval base and warships at [[Pearl Harbor]]. In response to these attacks, the UK and U.S. declared war the next day. [[Nazi Germany]] declared war on the U.S. a few days later, along with [[Kingdom of Italy#Fascist regime (1922–1943)|Fascist Italy]]; the U.S. found itself fully involved in a second [[world war]].

As the United States began to gear up for a major war, information and propaganda efforts were set in motion. Civilians (including children) were encouraged to take part in fat, grease, and scrap metal collection drives. Many factories making non-essential goods retooled for war production. Levels of industrial productivity previously unheard of were attained during the war; multi-thousand-ton convoy ships were routinely built in a month and a half, and tanks poured out of the former automobile factories. Within a few years of the U.S. entry into the Second World War, nearly every man without children fit for service, between 18 and 30, was conscripted into the military "for the duration" of the conflict, and unprecedented numbers of women took up jobs previously held by them. Strict systems of rationing of consumer staples were introduced to redirect productive capacity to war needs.<ref>John Phillips Resch, and D'Ann Campbell eds. ''Americans at War: Society, Culture, and the Homefront'' (vol 3, 2004).</ref>

Previously untouched sections of the nation mobilised for the war effort. Academics became technocrats; home-makers became bomb-makers (massive numbers of women worked in industry during the war); union leaders and businessmen became commanders in the massive armies of production. The great scientific communities of the United States were mobilised as never before, and mathematicians, doctors, engineers, and chemists turned their minds to the problems ahead of them.<ref>Arthur Herman, ''Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II'' (Random House, 2012).</ref>

By the war's end, a multitude of advances had been made in medicine, physics, engineering, and the other sciences. This included the efforts of the [[theoretical physics|theoretical physicists]] working at the [[Los Alamos National Laboratory]] on the [[Manhattan Project]], which led to the [[Trinity (nuclear test)|Trinity nuclear test]] and thus brought about the [[Atomic Age]].

In the war, the United States lost 407,316 military personnel, but had managed to avoid the extensive level of damage to civilian and industrial infrastructure that other participants suffered. The U.S. emerged as one of the two [[superpower]]s after the war.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The world since 1945: a history of international relations|last=McWilliams|first=Wayne|publisher=Lynne Rienner Publishers|year=1990}}</ref>

=====Unconditional surrender=====
{{off topic|date=January 2020}}{{Main|Unconditional surrender}}
{{Blockquote|Actually [[Bombing of Dresden in World War II|Dresden]] was a mass of munitions works, an intact government centre, and a key transportation point to the East. It is now none of these things.|source=Air Chief Marshal [[Arthur Harris]], in a memo to the [[Air Ministry]] on 29 March 1945<ref>Longmate, Norman; ''The Bombers'', Hutchins & Co, (1983), {{ISBN|978-0-09-151580-5}} p. 346</ref>}}

After the United States entered World War II, [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] declared at [[Casablanca conference]] to the other Allies and the press that [[unconditional surrender]] was the objective of the war against the Axis Powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan.<ref name="SOSCasablanca">{{cite web|title=The Casablanca Conference, 1943|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/casablanca|website=Office of the Historian|publisher=United States Department of State|access-date=19 January 2017}}</ref> Prior to this declaration, the individual regimes of the Axis Powers could have negotiated an [[armistice]] similar to that at the end of World War I and then a conditional surrender when they perceived that the war was lost.

The unconditional surrender of the major Axis powers caused a legal problem at the post-war [[Nuremberg Trials]], because the trials appeared to be in conflict with Articles 63 and 64 of the [[Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War (1929)|Geneva Convention of 1929]]. Usually if such trials are held, they would be held under the auspices of the defeated power's own legal system as happened with some of the minor Axis powers, for example in the post World War II [[Romanian People's Tribunals]]. To circumvent this, the Allies argued that the major [[war criminals]] were captured after the end of the war, so they were not prisoners of war and the Geneva Conventions did not cover them. Further, the collapse of the Axis regimes created a legal condition of total defeat (''[[debellatio]]'') so the provisions of the [[Hague Convention of 1907|1907 Hague Convention]] over [[military occupation]] were not applicable.<ref>Ruth Wedgwood {{cite web |url=http://www.sais-jhu.edu/pubaffairs/SAISarticles04/Wedgwood_WSJ_111604.pdf |title=Judicial Overreach |access-date=29 May 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080308191908/http://www.sais-jhu.edu/pubaffairs/SAISarticles04/Wedgwood_WSJ_111604.pdf |archive-date=8 March 2008 }} [[The Wall Street Journal]] 16 November 2004</ref>