Editing Total war (section)

==Background==
The phrase "total war" seemingly originated amongst French writers during World War I and French writer [[Léon Daudet]] published a collection of essays called ''La Guerre Totale'' ("The total war") in 1918.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Mulligan |first1=William |title=Review Article: Total War |journal=War in History |date=April 2008 |volume=15 |issue=2 |pages=211–221 |doi=10.1177/0968344508091768 |jstor=26070766 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Controversy: Total War / 1.0 / handbook |url=https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/controversy-total-war/ |access-date=2024-09-22 |website=1914-1918-Online (WW1) Encyclopedia |language=en}}</ref> The phrase was popularised by the 1935 publication of German general [[Erich Ludendorff]]'s World War I memoir, ''Der totale Krieg'' ("The total war").<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ludendorff |first=Erich |url=https://archive.org/details/luden |title=The "total" war |date=1936 |publisher=London : Friends of Europe |others=Bellerophon5685}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Erich Ludendorff |url=https://archive.org/details/erich-ludendorff-der-totale-krieg-1935-130-s.-scan-fraktur |title=Erich Ludendorff Der Totale Krieg ( 1935, 130 S., Scan, Fraktur) |date=1935}}</ref> Some authors extend the concept back as far as classic work of [[Carl von Clausewitz]], ''[[On War]]'', as "absoluter Krieg" ([[absolute war]]), even though he did not use the term; others interpret Clausewitz differently.<ref name="StrachanHerberg-Rothe2007">{{cite book|author1=Hew Strachan|author2=Andreas Herberg-Rothe|title=Clausewitz in the twenty-first century|url=https://archive.org/details/clausewitztwenty00stra|url-access=limited|year=2007|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-923202-4|pages=[https://archive.org/details/clausewitztwenty00stra/page/n78 64]–66}}</ref>  Total war also describes the French "guerre à outrance" during the [[Franco-Prussian War]].<ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1017/CBO9781139052351 |title=The Shadows of Total War |date=2003 |isbn=978-0-521-81236-8 |editor-last1=Chickering |editor-last2=Forster |editor-first1=Roger |editor-first2=Stig |page=8 }}</ref><ref name="Taithe1999">{{cite book|author=Bertrand Taithe|title=Defeated flesh: welfare, warfare and the making of modern France|year=1999|publisher=Manchester University Press|isbn=978-0-7190-5621-5|page=35 and 73}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1017/CBO9781139052474 |title=On the Road to Total War |date=1997 |isbn=978-0-521-52119-2 |editor-last1=Förster |editor-last2=Nagler |editor-first1=Stig |editor-first2=Jorg |page=550 }}</ref>

In his 24 December 1864 letter to his [[chief of staff]] during the [[American Civil War]], Union general [[William Tecumseh Sherman]] wrote the Union was "not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war, as well as their organized armies," defending [[Sherman's March to the Sea]], the operation that inflicted widespread destruction of infrastructure in Georgia.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://cwnc.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/144|title=Letter of William T. Sherman to Henry Halleck, December 24, 1864 |date=24 December 1864 |publisher=Civil War Era NC|access-date=28 March 2020}}</ref>

[[United States Air Force]] General [[Curtis LeMay]] updated the concept for the [[nuclear age]]. In 1949, he first proposed that a total war in the nuclear age would consist of delivering the entire [[nuclear arsenal]] in a single overwhelming blow, going as far as "killing a nation".<ref>{{cite book|last=DeGroot|first=Gerard J.|title=The bomb: a life|year=2004|publisher=Harvard|location=Cambridge, Mass.|isbn=978-0-674-01724-5|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6VQCsAZpPrgC&q=the%20entire%20stockpile%20of%20atomic%20bombs%20in%20a%20single%20massive%20attack&pg=PA153|edition=1st Harvard University Press pbk.|page=153}}</ref>