THE HOME FRONT AND WAR IN THE 

TWENTIETH CENTURY 

THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE IN 

COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE 

Proceedings of the 

Tenth Military History Symposium 

October 20-22. 1982 

Edited by 

James Titus 

United States Air Force Acdemy 

and 

Office of Air Force History 

Headquarters USAF 

1984 
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data 

Military History Symposium (U.S.) (10th : 1982) 

(United States Air Force Academy) 

The home front and war in the twentieth century 

Sponsored by: The Department of History and The Association of Graduates. 

Includes index. 

1. Military history, Modem-20th century-Congresses. 2. War and society-History-20th 

century4ongresses. 3. War--Economic aspects-Congresses. 4. War-Economic aspects-United 

States4ongresses. 5. United States-Social conditions-Congresses. I. Titus, James. 11. United 

States Air Force Academy. Dept. of History. 111. United States Air Force Academy. Assocation of 

Graduates. IV. Title. 

D431.M54 1982 303.6'6 83-600203 

ISBN 0-912799-01-3 

For sale by Superintendent of Documents, 

U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C. 20402 

11 
THE TENTH MILITARY HISTORY SYMPOSIUM 

October 20-22, 1982 

United States Air Force Academy 

Sponsored by 

The Department of History 

and 

The Association of Graduates 

******* 

Executive Director, 

Tenth Military History Symposium: Lieutenant Colonel James Titus 

Deputy Director, 

Tenth Military History Symposium: Major Sidney F. Baker, USA 

Professor and Head, 

Department of History: Colonel Carl W. Reddel 

President, 

Association of Graduates: Lieutenant Colonel Thomas J. Eller, 

USAF. Retired 

Symposium Committee Members: 

Captain John G. Albert 

Captain Mark L. Dues 

Captain Bernard E. Harvey 

Captain Vernon K. Lane 

Captain Robert C. Owen 

Captain Michael W. Paul 

Captain Christie C. Peacock 

Ms. Nellie Dykes 

... 

111 
United States Air Force 

Historical Advisory Committee 

(As of December 1, 1983) 

Lt. Gen. Charles G. Cleveland, USAF 

Commander, Air University, ATC 

Mr. DeWitt S. Cispp 

The National Volunteer Agency 

Dr. Philip A. Crow1 

Annapolis, Maryland 

Dr. Warren W. Hassler, Jr. 

Pennsylvania State University 

Brig. Gen. Harris B. Hull, 

USAF, Retired 

National Aeronautics and Space 

Administration 

Dr. Alfred F. Hurley 

Brig. Gen., USAF, Retired 

North Texas State University 

Mr. David E. Place, 

The General Counsel, USAF 

Gen. Bryce Poe 11, 

USAF. Retired 

Lt. Gen. Winfield W. Scott, Jr. 

Superintendent, USAF Academy 

Dr. David A. Shannon (Chairman) 

University of Virginia 

iv 
CONTENTS 

In Memoriam: Major Donald R. Backlund ..................... 

Preface .................................................. 

Introduction .............................................. 

James Titus 

TWENTY-FIFTH HARMON MEMORIAL LECTURE IN MILITARY 

HISTORY ................................................ 

“United Against: American Culture and Society During World War 11” 

John Morton Blum 

SESSION I: 

THE QUEST FOR NATIONAL UNITY IN THE GREAT WAR 

Chairman: David F. Trask 

Introductory Remarks by the Chairman ...................... 

“For King and Kaiser: British and German Mobilization in World War I” 

Dennis E. Showalter 

“Rallying Americans for War: 19 17- 19 1 8” ................... 

David M. Kennedy 

“The Collapse of the Central Powers in World War I: 

The Case of Austria-Hungary” ............................... 

Gunther E. Rothenberg 

Commentary .............................................. 

Allan M. Winkler 

Discussion and Comments .................................. 

David F. Trask (Moderator) 

Page 

xi 

... Xlll 

1 

17 

19 

24 

47 

57 

67 

71 

V 
SESSION 11: 

THE SINEWS OF WAR: 

ECONOMIC MOBILIZATION IN WORLD WAR I1 . . . . . . . . . . 

Chairman: Russell F. Weigley 

Introductory Remarks by the Chairman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

“Some Aspects of German Mobilization Under the National Socialist 

Regime” ................................................. 

Wilhelm Deist 

“Warfare and Power Relations in America: 

Mobilizing the World War I1 Economy” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Paul A. C. Koistinen 

Commentary ....................................... 

Robert D. Cuff 

Discussion and Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Russell F. Weigley (Moderator) 

BANQUET ADDRESS , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

“Hollywood Goes to War” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . David H. Culbert 

SESSION 111: 

SOCIAL EFFECTS OF TOTAL WAR . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Chairman: Richard H. Kohn 

Introductory Remarks by the Chairman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

“Total War and Social Change in Great Britain and Other European 

Countries” ............................................... 

Arthur Marwick 

“American Blaclks in World War 11: 

Rethinking the Militancy-Watershed Hypothesis” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Harvard Sitkofs 

“War is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things: 

Reflections on the Impact of Total War on Women” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Leila J. Rupp 

79 

81 

83 

91 

111 

119 

121 

123 

125 

127 

130 

147 

156 

vi 
Commentary .............................................. 

Richard Polenberg 

Discussion and Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Richard H. Kohn (Moderator) 

SESSION IV: 

LIMITED WAR AND THE PROBLEM OF HEARTS AND MINDS ON 

THE HOME FRONT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Chairman: Allan R. Millet 

Introductory Remarks by the Chairman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

‘‘Keeping Algeria French: The War on the Home Front” . . . . . . . . . . 

John E. Talbott 

“A Comment on the Vietnam Crisis in America: Tet 1968” . . . . . . . . 

Peter Braestrup 

Commentary ........................................... 

David Maclsaac 

Discussion and Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Allan R. Millett (Moderator) 

SUMMARY .............................................. 

Introductory Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Carl W. Reddel 

“Beyond the Battlefield” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Edward M. CofSman 

Notes ................................................... 

Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Index .................................................... 

170 

176 

183 

185 

187 

197 

202 

206 

213 

215 

216 

223 

25 1 

265 

vii 
AVAILABLE MILITARY HISTORY SYMPOSIUM PROCEEDINGS 

1st The proceedings of the first symposium were not published 

2nd Command and Commanders in Modern Warfare (2nd ed, 1971) 

Stock Number 0874-0003 

3rd Science, Technology, and Wa$are (1971) 

Stock Number 0874-0002 (out of print) 

Stock Number 0870-00335 

5th The Military and Society (1975) 

4th Soldiers and Statesmen (1973) 

Stock Number 008-070-00367-8 

6th The Military History of the American Revolution (1976) 

Stock Number 008-070-106109 

7th The American Military on the Frontier (1978) 

Stock Number 008-070-00432-2 

8th Air Power and Warjiare (1979) 

Stock Number 008-070-00441-1 

9th The American Military and the Far East (1980) 

Stock Number 008-070-00474-7 

... 

Vlll 
THE HOME FRONT AND WAR IN THE 

TWENTIETH CENTURY: 

THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE IN 

COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE 

Views or opinions expressed or implied in this publication are those of the authors 

and are not to be construed as carrying official sanction of the Department of the 

Air Force, the U.S. Air Force Academy, or the institutions with which the 

contributors are affiliated. 

IN MEMORIAM: MAJOR DONALD R. BACKLUND 

The Department of History gratefully acknowledges the generous support 

given the Tenth Military History Symposium by the Major Donald R. Backlund 

Memorial Fund. 

Major Donald R. Backlund, a member of the Air Force Academy Class of 

1971, was a man who possessed special qualities as a leader, a scholar, and a human 

being. As a second classman he wrote an original research paper which won an Air 

Force Historical Foundation prize and subsequently was published in Aerospace 

Historian. In his final year at the Academy he received the Outstanding Group 

Commander Award and was named the Outstanding Cadet in Military History. 

After graduation and commissioning, Major Backlund continued his formal 

education and received a Master’s degree in history from Indiana University in 

1972. During the next seven years he made his mark as a pilot in a series of 

demanding operational assignments. He won the Air Force Cross in 1975 for his 

part in the military operations undertaken at the time of theMayaguez incident. His 

heroism in that episode also resulted in his joining the small and very select group 

of Academy graduates who have won the Jabara Award for Airmanship. Major 

Backlund’s unbroken train of distinguished professional accomplishments led to 

his selection in 1978 for early promotion to the rank of Major. 

Major Backlund died in an aircraft accident in 1979. He left behind his 

parents, Dr. and Mrs. Donald F. Backlund, two sisters, and a host of devoted 

friends and admirers. 

xi 
THE MILITARY HISTORY SYMPOSIA SERIES 

OF THE: UNITED STATES AIR FORCE ACADEMY 

1. Current Concepts in Military History (May 1967) 

2. Command and Commanders in Modern Warfare (May 1968) 

3. Science, Technology, and Warfare (May 1969) 

4. Soldiers and Statesmen (October 1970) 

5. The Military and Society (October 1972) 

6. The Military History of the American Revolution (October 1974) 

7. The American Military on the Frontier (October 1976) 

8. Air Power and Warfare (October 1978) 

9. The American Military and the Far East (October 1980) 

10. The Home Front and War in the Twentieth Century (October 1982) 

xii 
PREFACE 

The essays and commentaries which form this volume originally were presented at the Tenth Military History Symposium which was held at the United 

States Air Force Academy on October 20-22, 1982. The Military History Symposium is a biennial event sponsored jointly by the Department of History and the 

Association of Graduates, United States Air Force Academy. The purpose of this 

series is to provide a forum in which scholars may present the results of their 

research in military affairs. We hope in this way to encourage interest in a vital 

subject among civilian and military scholars, members of the armed forces, and 

the cadets of the United States Air Force Academy. 

Any undertaking of the magnitude and scope of the Tenth Military History 

Symposium accumulates many debts. Primary thanks are owed to the superb group 

of scholars who gathered at the Academy to deliver papers, offer commentaries, 

and moderate the various sessions. Such value as this volume may possess is due 

entirely to their vigorous scholarship and willingness to share their erudition with 

the rest of us. 

Even historians iri uniform belong to a wider community of scholars whose 

members exchange ideas and information as they pursue a common objective of 

understanding the past. Many friends of the Department of History offered 

suggestions and critical insights which contributed significantly to the success of 

the Tenth Military History Symposium. In that regard, special thanks are owed to 

Dean C. Allard, Edward M. Coffman, Alfred Goldberg, Robin Higham, I. B. 

Holley, Jr., Michael Howard, Richard H. Kohn, Allan R. Millett, and Russell F. 

Weigley. 

Thanks are due as well to a number of individuals and organizations here at 

the Academy. The generous support of the Association of Graduates once again 

played a vital role in making the symposium possible. Major General Robert E. 

Kelley, the Superintendent of the Academy, and Brigadier General William A. 

Orth, the Dean of the Faculty, were constant sources of encouragement. Indeed, 

those who planned the tenth symposium received unfailing support from virtually 

the entire Academy community. The wide-ranging administrative and logistical 

requirements of the symposium exacted substantial demands on the time and 

organizational skills of the members of the Department of History. As always, their 

... Xlll 
performance surpiissed what their duty required. Ms. Nellie Dykes of the Department of History presided over the typing of the manuscript and much more. Mr. 

Lawrence J. Paszek of the Office of Air Force History oversaw the preparation of 

the printed volume. 

Any editorial blunders are mine alone. 

J. T. 

USAF Academy 

January 1983 

xiv 
INTRODUCTION 

James Titus 

The decision to organize a symposium around the theme of the home front 

and war was rooted in two reciprocal ideas: first, that the impact of armed force is 

not confined to the battlefield; and second, that few governments can hope to wage 

protracted war successfully without strong domestic support. Although the truth of 

both propositions seems borne out by the past century or so of warfare, their 

pertinence often is overlooked by scholars and military professionals alike, Reason enough, it seemed, to subject the interconnections between the home front and 

war to scholarly scrutiny in the Tenth Military History Symposium. 

This volume begins with the Twenty-Fifth Harmon Memorial Lecture which 

was delivered by Professor John Morton Blum of Yale University. As one of this 

country’s most respected and best known historians and, more specifically, as the 

author of the much admired V Was For Victory: Politics and American Culture 

During World War II, Professor Blum was uniquely qualified to keynote a symposium on the home front. In a lecture entitled “United Against: American Culture 

and Society During World War 11,” Professor Blum took issue with the conventional wisdom that the Second World War was a great source of cohesion 

among the people of the United States. On the contrary, by exacerbating prewar 

social divisions, the strains triggered by mobilization intensified racial and class 

conflict and encouraged a generally squalid brand of politics. The nation stood firm 

against the foreign foe, but Blum’s World War I1 America was internally discordant; its people were united against their foreign enemies, but they also were united 

against each other. 

At this point the writer of an introduction to a volume of symposium 

proceedings normally would turn to the chore of discussing the remainder of its 

contents in some detail. Happily, that task has been handled with perspicuity and 

grace in Professor Edward M. Coffman’s masterful summary analysis. What 

remains to be said here is that Professor Blum’s theme of discordance was taken up 

by a number of the speakers who followed him. Others saw the domestic consequences of war in terms that were less bleak, but shared a presumption that, for 

good or ill, war left a significant mark on home front society. Still other participants pursued a different tack and questioned the importance of war as a stimulus 

for social change. Whatever their individual points of view, all of the participants 

probably would agree that the domestic stresses produced by total war can be 

immense. 

1 
Precisely because they were predicated on mass mobilization of human and 

material resources for total war, the military strategies pursued by the major powers 

throughout most of the twentieth century were also fraught with enormous social 

implications. The papers presented in the first three sections of this volume deal 

with some of the problems and consequences of mobilization for total war: the task 

of forging national unity and mobilizing public opinion; the mobilization of men, 

money, and materiel; and the various social effects of total war. Most of the papers 

focus on the home front experience of the United States, but each section includes 

papers on the experience of other nations as well. A comparative approach was 

adopted in order to help us see the American experience in a new light, test 

traditional assumptions, and bring a wider perspective to the subject. 

The advent of nuclear weapons effectively undercut the strategy of mass 

mobilization as practiced in the two world wars. After 1945, the twin concerns of 

strategists turned Ion deterring general nuclear war and improving capabilities for 

fighting limited wars. There are obvious differences of scale between the total wars 

of the first half of the twentieth century and the limited wars of more recent years. 

Nevertheless, limited wars create significant tensions and difficulties of their own, 

especially when waged by democratic states. The interplay between limited war 

and domestic politics is the common theme of the papers which appear in the 

fourth section. 

Taken individually, the papers and commentaries that follow consider rather 

specific, and in slome cases even narrow, aspects of the complex nexus between 

home fronts and battle fronts in the twentieth century. When viewed collectively, 

however, the papers possess a certain thematic unity for each is addressing one or 

another aspect of the same basic question: the many-faceted relationship between 

war and society. 

Writing almost thirty years ago, the journalist-scholar Walter Millis argued 

that the study of military history properly includes an exploration of all the 

factors-social, political, economic, and ideological-that have influenced the 

existence, organization, and employment of military forces. This volume represents an affirmation of Millis' view and seeks to contribute its own mite towards 

advancing our understanding of the intricate web of relationships between military 

systems and the human societies of which they are a part. 

2 
TWElNTY-FIFTH HAMON MEMORIAL 

LECTURE 

IN 

MILITARY HISTORY 

UNITED AGAINST: 

AMERICAN CULTURE AND SOCIETY DURING WORLD 

WAR 11” 

John Morton Blum 

The United States fought the Second World War against ruthless and implacable enemies who had to be defeated and deserved to be defeated. Franklin D. 

Roosevelt felt just as did his countrymen when he condemned the Japanese attacks 

of December 7,1941, as dastardly and infamous, and later, as victory approached, 

when he wrote, with reference to Germany, of retribution. During the war the 

American people united against those enemies in a measure greater than they 

united for any other wartime or postwar purpose. That unity was never complete. 

Periodic exhortations to refresh it drew, as one cabinet officer put it, on “nothing 

inspirational ,” nothing “Wilsonian. ” Rather, the American people responded to 

their visceral hatreds. Wartime intensification of emotions on the home front in 

their impact at home ordinarily whetted rather than dampened antecedent divisions 

within American culture and society. In their ethnic rivalries, class conflict and 

political partisanship, Americans continually united against each other. To be sure, 

Churchill was right for Americans, too; war did demand blood and sweat and tears. 

Obviously in battle but also at home, the tribulations of war again and again called 

forth courage, sacrifice and selflessness. But war did not alter the human condition, and among Americans, as among other peoples, the war at once aroused 

and revealed the dark, the naked, and shivering nature of man. 

Commercial radio, in the observation of one analyst in 1942, ordinarily 

provided a twisted treatment of military news. “The war,” he wrote, “was handled 

as if it were a Big Ten football game, and we were hysterical spectators.” He should 

not have been surprised. All social units, nations included, ordinarily achieved 

cohesion largely by identifying a common enemy against whom all their members 

could unite. Sensitive to that phenomenon, Franklin D. Roosevelt, while an 

undergraduate at Harvard, had attempted to whip up school spirit for the Yale 

game. In the Ivy League as well as the Big Ten, the cohesion of each university 

community had long reached a peak during the annual contest with a traditional 

rival, a peak in which a sense of common identity in a common cause imbued not 

undergraduates only but also alumni and even faculty, dedicated though the last 

constituency theoretically was to an unemotional pursuit of truth. 

*This paper was delivered as the Twenty-fifth Harmon Memorial Lecture 

5 
Within the federal government, during the period before American entry into 

the war, the Office of Facts and Figures (OFF) had a large responsibility for 

achieving a similar national unity. In that time, Americans were divided about the 

war. A significant majority came to believe in helping to supply the victims of Axis 

aggression, but a considerable minority opposed that policy as needlessly inviting 

direct involvement in the war itself. The head of OFF, the talented poet and 

Librarian of Congress, Archibald MacLeish, attempted initially to let the facts tell 

the necessary story. That tactic failed. Several eminent authorities about public 

opinion advised, as one of them put it, that the agency would have to employ “a 

large element of fake,” the proven technique of American advertising. MacLeish 

continued to hope that the splendid goals embodied in the Atlantic Charter, from 

which he drew inspiration, would also inspire the public. After Pearl Harbor, that 

hope, already fading, surrendered to the banalities and hoopla of commercial 

practice. The resulting propaganda struck some veterans of Madison Avenue as 

unpersuasive. One of them called openly for a propaganda of hate. MacLeish 

balked. He stood, he declared, in accordance with the Christian doctrine of hating 

sin but forgiving the sinner, not for hatred of the enemy but for hatred of evil. That 

laudable distinction made few converts, and soon MacLeish resigned. 

MacLeish had overlooked a different distinction, one made by Walter Lippmann in his classic study of 1922, Public Opinion, a book hewn by its author’s 

experience with propaganda during the First World War. An understanding of “the 

furies of war and politics,” Lippmann wrote, depended upon the recognition that 

“almost the whole of each party believes absolutely in its picture of the opposition, 

that it takes as fact, not what is, but what it supposed to be fact.” Indeed the 

adjustment of people to the environment in which they lived occurred “through the 

medium of fictions.” The product of both acculturation and manipulation, those 

fictions served as facts, albeit counterfeit facts, and determined a large part of 

behavior. 

No counterfeit was required to bring together for a time the factions which for 

two years had confronted each other about the question of whether the United 

States should go to war. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor ended that debate, as 

did the ensuing declarations of war on the United States by Germany and Italy. 

“The suddenness of the . . . attack,” in the words of Isaiah Berlin, the British 

official in Washington charged with informing the Foreign Office about American 

conditions, “ . . . came as a great shock to the nation. . . . The immediate effect 

has been to make the country completely united in its determination to fight Japan 

to the end. . . .” Formerly dissident elements, he added a week later, recognized 

that the country was “in the war for good or ill, and that all should unite their efforts 

to bring about the defeat of the totalitarian powers. It is also gradually felt that 

Hitler is the ultimate enemy. . . .” Those were sound analyses, but as the initial 

trauma of the Japanese attack subsided, Americans at home yielded to habitual 

sentiments. In the United States the same observer later recalled, “political and 

economic life to a considerable degree continued as before, and . . . some of the 

pressures and internecine feuds between individuals and . . . blocs, inherited from 

6 
the New Deal and even earlier times, continued.” In the spring of 1942 surveys 

indicated that some seventeen million Americans “in one way or another” opposed 

the prosecution of the war. That summer, after a series of American defeats in the 

Pacific, public morale sagged. It would turn around, Isaiah Berlin predicted, only 

with the broad engagement of American troops in the fighting. 

That forecast contained a telling insight. As Gordon Allport, a master of the 

study of prejudice, later demonstrated, “the presence of a threatening common 

enemy” cemented the loyalties of aggregates of people. There was to be no attack 

on the United States, but when American troops in large numbers did meet the 

enemy, they united against their foe with less need for artificial stimulation than 

was the case with their countrymen at home. 

Whether or not there were atheists in American foxholes, there were few men 

in combat in any of the services who did not know danger and fear and a resulting 

hatred. Bill Mauldin, writing in Italy during the long campaign there, spoke to the 

essential condition of every front: “I read someplace that the American boy is not 

capable of hate . . . but you can’t have friends killed without hating the men who 

did it. . . . When our guys cringe under an SS barrage, you don’t hear them say 

‘Those dirty Nazis.’ You hear them say, ‘Those goddam Krauts.”’ So also in their 

expletives about the Japanese with the crews in P.T. boats in the Solomons, or the 

Marines on Iwo, or the airmen over New Guinea. 

The common cause each combat unit joined owed much to the shared danger 

of a group of men fighting side by side. As Ernie Pyle noted about the air corps, 

“basically it can be said that everything depended on teamwork. Sticking with the 

team and playing it all together was the only guarantee of safety for everybody.” In 

that respect the aviators were no different from the doggies. The GI fought at once 

against the enemy and for his buddies. Robert Sherrod phrased it well: “The 

Marines . . . didn’t know what to believe in . . . except the Marine Corps. The 

Marines fought . . . on esprit de corps.” The services deliberately inculcated a 

sense of unit--of platoon and company, of ship and task group, of pilot and crew 

and squadron. Training exercises in themselves required a quick responsiveness 

and spontaneous cooperation that fostered a needed togetherness. But danger 

provided the strongest cement. 

In the backwater of the fighting, behind the lines, esprit was therefore harder 

to sustain. Like the marines, most soldiers and sailors had little awareness of the 

Four Freedoms. They were young Americans prepared to defend their country but 

eager to get it over with and go home. For the supply service in the ChineseBurma-India theater or the garrison in Greenland, the enemy was far away. They 

found substitutes in their hatred of the natives, or the heat or cold or dirt, or the 

inescapable unfamiliarity of their stations. John Horne Bums described that 

phenomenon as it affected GIs in Naples, Italy; J. D. Salinger as it operated on 

Attu. In the tragi-comic novel, Mr. Roberts, the men of a ship assigned to dull 

errands in the South Pacific expressed their cohesion in their common detestation 

7 
of their irascible captain. The officer hero of the novel, who understood the crew, 

deliberately defied the captain before obtaining the release he wanted, assignment 

to a combat ship, on which he later was killed. That fiction was rooted in fact, in the 

coming together of real crews or platoons far from danger in their dislike, 

sometimes persecution, of a tough drill sergeant or CO, or of an outsider in their 

ranks, a teetotaler or a socialist, a black or Hispanic or Jew. 

American civilians behaved in much the same way. Few doubted that the war 

had to be won or that they should do their part in contributing to victory. But that 

commitment often flagged as individuals, impatient for the fruits of victory, 

shopped in the black markets for consumer goods the government was rationing. 

Others, tense because of the absence of a husband or brother, or because of long 

hours on the job or long lines awaiting cigarettes, spent that tension by blaming 

neighbors or politicians or even phantoms whom they had never liked. But civilian 

morale was much sustained in a vicarious battle, a hatred of the enemy informed, 

not without cause, by the malign characteristics attributed to the Germans and 

Japanese. American civilians characteristically described the Germans as warlike 

and cruel, though also misled and probably amenable to postwar cooperation. 

American racism, spurred perhaps by Japanese fanaticism in the field, produced a 

more negative picture of the Japanese, who were usually viewed as treacherous, sly 

and fierce, and probably a poor risk for postwar friendship. 

Those attributions of generalized national characteristics, those counterfeit 

facts, emerged, as in all wars, both from prior prejudice and from current 

propaganda, public and private. So it was that American blacks harbored less 

animosity toward Asians than did American whites. Yet even whites during the 

war had a benign opinion of the Chinese, the nation’s ally, though few Americans 

could easily differentiate on sight among different Asian peoples. Indeed at other 

times, earlier and later, as one authoritative study showed, the American image of 

the Chinese alternated between the villainous figure of Fu Man Chu and the 

amiable symbol of Charlie Chan. Time magazine endeavored to help its readers tell 

friend from foe. The Japanese, the journal asserted, with no basis in fact, were 

hairier than the Chinese; “the Chinese expression is likely to be more placid, 

kindly, open; the Japanese more positive, dogmatic, arrogant. . . . The Japanese 

are hesitant, nervous in conversation, laugh loudly at the wrong time. Japanese 

walk stiffly erect . . . Chinese more relaxed . . . sometimes shuffle.” Comic strips 

drew a similar picture, and even the War Production Board called for the extermination of the Japanese as rats. As did the Germans with the Jews, so did 

Americans with the Japanese, and to a lesser extent the Germans, enhance their 

own sense of unity by hating an outside group to which, in each case, they applied 

stereotypes sustained, as Allport wrote, “by selective perception and selective 

forgetting .” 

Though officially the federal government did not consider the United States a 

party to a racial war or a war of hatred and revenge, official rhetoric sometimes 

conveyed those feelings. The responsible spokesmen were genuinely angry and 

8 
more gravely concerned about spurring civilian participation in wartime programs. So it was that the Treasury Department, adopting a tactic which its analysts 

recommended after extensive study, endorsed advertisements for war savings 

bonds that depicted the Japanese as “ungodly, subhuman, beastly, sneaky, and 

treacherous,” in one case as “murderous little ape men.” 

So, too, the War Department in its preparations for the trials at Nuremberg 

pursued retribution at a large cost to Anglo-American law. The attorneys who 

worked out the trial procedures proposed from the first to charge the Nazi 

government, party and agencies with “conspiracy to commit murder, terrorism, 

and the destruction of peaceful populations in violation of the laws of war.” The 

conviction of individual Nazi leaders would implicate Nazi organizations that had 

furthered the conspiracy, and lesser German officials would then be convicted in 

turn if they had been associated with those agencies. That proposal, with its 

presumption of guilt by association, ran directly counter to the Anglo-American 

tradition of presuming innocence until guilt was proved. No such thing existed, 

moreover, as an “international crime of conspiracy to dominate by acts violative of 

the rules of war.” Indeed conspiracy law had no place at all in European practice. 

Recourse to the conspiracy doctrine made the Germans targets of an ex post facto 

proceeding, even a bill of attainder of a kind. The British Lord Chancellor, unlike 

the American Secretary of War, preferred to hew to the “Napoleonic precedent” 

which called for political rather than judicial action to resolve what was essentially 

a political rather than a legal problem. But the Americans prevailed even though, 

as one critic later wrote, “the whole of the war-crimes policy planning was shot 

through with excess . . . combined with . . . overmoralizing.” Those were precisely the qualities that marked wartime American reportage, fiction, propaganda 

and public opinion about the Germans. 

Those qualities also characterized the language and behavior of various 

groups within American society which, throughout the war, united against each 

other with venom and occasional ferocity. Like troops behind the lines, they found 

familiar targets close at hand for antagonisms that predated the war but drew new 

force, often with official sanction or indifference, from wartime developments. In 

the name of wartime necessity, racial prejudice sparked the most blatant official 

violation (except for chattel slavery) of civil liberties in American history-the 

confinement of Japanese-Americans, American citizens as well as immigrants, in 

barren camps in the interior western states. 

The Japanese-Americans, of whom the overwhelming majority were loyal to 

the United States, were innocent of any proven crime, but after the attack on Pearl 

Harbor, anti-Japanese sentiment, especially on the west coast, reached hysterical 

proportions. Within weeks the noxious counterfeits of the Native Sons and 

Daughters of the Golden West had become official doctrine. The congressional 

delegations from the Pacific slope and the Attorney General of California demanded the evacuation of the Japanese-Americans from the area, with internment 

the predictable sequential step. General John L. DeWitt, commanding general 

9 
there, announced that a “Jap is a Jap. . . . It makes no difference whether he is an 

American citizen or not.” Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson backed DeWitt. The 

“racial characteristics” of the Japanese, he held, bound them to an enemy nation 

and required their evacuation. The Attorney General of the United States, after 

some hesitation, supported Stimson, as also vigorously did President Roosevelt. 

Almost universally the American press endorsed the policy. The head of the War 

Relocation Authority, charged with administering the internment camps, attributed a few, rare protests to “liberals and kind-hearted people” who did not 

understand wartime necessity. 

That argument proved barren after the war when returning Japanese-American veterans met open hostility in Washington state and California. The whole 

policy disregarded the experience of Hawaii where Japanese-Americans, too 

numerous to be incarcerated, remained, with insignificant exceptions, exemplary 

citizens throughout the war. Yet even the Supreme Court in the Hirabeyashi case 

upheld the constitutionality of the evacuation on the ground that “residents having 

ethnic affiliations with an invading enemy may be a greater source of danger than 

those-of different ancestry,” though neither German nor Italian-Americans were 

locked up. Two later wartime cases resulted in only inadequate modifications of the 

ruling, which was effectively overturned only many years later. The court’s record, 

its disregard for the wholesale deprivation of liberty without due process of law, 

provoked just one contemporary rebuke from a distinguished member of the bar, 

the stinging retort of Eugene V. Rostow. The treatment of the Japanese-Americans, 

he wrote in 1945, “was in no way required orjustified by the circumstances. . . . It 

was calculated to produce individual injustice and deep-seated maladjustments. . . . (It) violated every democratic social value, yet has been approved by 

the Congress, the President and the Supreme Court.” 

The attack on Pearl Harbor afforded a partial explanation for the persecution 

of the Japanese-Americans but not for its counterpart, the “truculent anti-Negro 

statements” that “stimulated racial feeling,” as Isaiah Berlin observed, in the South 

and in northern cities. He also reported a less but growing anti-Semitism and 

mounting hostility, not least among servicemen, toward Hispanic-Americans. The 

movement of blacks into industrial areas to find employment in war industries, the 

shortage of housing, schooling and recreational facilities in those places, the 

resulting rivalry of whites and blacks for various kinds of space, those and other 

wartime conditions intensified historic prejudices and, just as Allport postulated, 

sparked episodes of violence. Major race riots occurred in Mobile, Alabama, in 

Los Angeles (where the victims were largely Chicanos), in Harlem and, most 

destructively, in Detroit. The motor city, as a Justice Department investigation 

disclosed in 1943, was a “swashbuckling community. . . . Negro equality . . . an 

issue which . . . very considerable segments of the white community” resisted. 

Among whites and blacks, truculence was growing. There had been open conflict 

in 1942 between Polish-Americans and blacks over access to a new federal housing 

project. There followed sporadic episodes of fighting, often involving alienated 

teenagers. In the deep heat of a June weekend in 1943 a clash between blacks and 

10 
whites in a park escalated into a riot that for two days rocked the city where thirtyfour people, mostly blacks, were killed. Federal troops, summoned by the Michigan governor, restored a superficial quiet, but blacks and whites remained united in 

their suspicions of each other. 

Predictably the press in Mississippi blamed the riot on the insolence of 

Detroit’s blacks and on Eleanor Roosevelt for proclaiming and practicing social 

equality. The NAACP pleaded for a statement from the President to arouse opinion 

against “deliberately plotted attacks.” Roosevelt did condemn mob violence in any 

form, but he ducked the racial issue as he did generally during the war. 

Those developments conformed to the pattern of that issue in that period. The 

South opposed any threat to segregation. The presumed threats arose from the 

continued efforts of American blacks, during a war directed in part against Nazi 

racism, to fight racism at home, too. The federal government moved reluctantly, 

when it moved at all, under political pressure from black leaders. Only the 

imminence of a protest march on Washington persuaded the President to establish 

the Fair Employment Practices Commission which thereafter made small and 

erratic progress toward its assigned goal. Blacks did obtain jobs in war industry but 

less because of federal action than because of a shortage of workers, and then 

usually in semi-skilled positions and as members of pro forma affiliates of 

segregated labor unions. Worse, no protest succeeded in stirring the armed forces 

to desegregate the services. Secretary of War Stimson supported segregation, as 

did Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall, partly because they would not, in 

Stimson’s words, use the army in wartime as a “sociological laboratory.” But 

Stimson also believed that blacks lacked courage, mechanical aptitude, and the 

capacity for leadership. Consequently, though Roosevelt now and then scolded the 

army, black troops served primarily under white officers and in service or supply 

assignments. There were token exceptions, such as a black fighter squadron, as 

also within the navy, where almost all blacks performed menial duties. Those 

policies gave the lie to the government propaganda showing happy black workers 

at lathes in model factories or contented black soldiers poised for combat. The 

persisting inequality and humiliation of blacks impelled their leaders to unite their 

fellows, along with some sympathetic whites, against bigotry and official indifference. The war years saw the founding of CORE and the first modem freedom 

rides and sit-ins, some of them successful, all portentous, all fraught with interracial tension. 

Like ethnic animosities, class conflict persisted during the war. In his reports 

about American morale, Berlin referred most often to industrial unrest. “Antilabour feeling,” he observed in November 1942, “has risen to a considerable 

height. Public indignation at . . . strikes in war industries . . . comparisons 

between industrial workers’ wages and those of soldiers and farmers, all continually whipped up by predominantly Republican and anti-labour press .” In June 

1943 he noted a “rising tide of anti-labour feeling among armed services . . .” 

stationed within the country. Several months later, as he wrote, that feeling reached 

11 
the top when General Marshall, during an off-the-record press conference, “struck 

the table and said with genuine anger that the behavior of the labour leaders . . . 

might easily prolong the war at a vast cost in . . . blood and treasure.” That 

outburst was not typical of Marshall, though the opinion may have been, as it 

surely was among almost all business managers, most Republicans and conservative Democrats, and many senior officials in the federal bureaus and agencies 

responsible for the conduct of the war, particularly those involved in production, 

manpower, and wage and price control. Their biases led them to exaggerate the 

satisfactions of working men and women and to resist and overestimate the power 

of the unions. 

The wartime growth of the economy did carry with it significant gains for 

industrial workers. Demand for labor pulled into the factories previously ostracized blacks, displaced rural workers, and unprecedented numbers of women. 

Real wages rose, full employment at last returned, and government fiscal policy 

under those conditions effected a considerable redistribution of income downwards. The War Labor Board’s adoption of its “maintenance of membership” 

policy assured a substantial growth in the unions. But workers nevertheless 

continually expressed their legitimate discontent. Only a part of rising wages 

reached weekly pay envelopes which were reduced by deductions for union dues, 

an unaccustomed charge for the recently unemployed; for the federal income tax, 

for the first time collected on a pay-as-you-go basis; and for war bonds, which 

social pressure induced almost everyone to purchase. In crowded industrial cities 

even rising wages could buy only squalid housing. Rationing limited the availability of choice foods. “To the workers it’s a Tantalus situation,” a Fortune 

reporter observed: “the luscious fruits of prosperity above their heads-receding 

as they try to pick them.” Other frustrations characterized the work place-the 

unfamiliar discipline of the assembly line, inequities in job classifications and, 

especially for women, in pay and in the extra burdens of domesticity. The resulting 

anxieties and alienation took the form of recurrent absenteeism, particularly 

among women, and of wildcat strikes, particularly in the automobile, steel and 

railroad industries. Yet those activities seemed like sabotage to business managers 

and harassed federal officials, few of whom had ever known the daily burdens of 

industrial life. 

That imperception, a manifestation of both a cultural difference and a latent 

hostility between social classes, informed angry editorials, provoked military 

table-pounding, and fostered repeated demands within Congress, among middleclass voters, and ironically, among communists in the labor movement, to discipline or to punish or even to conscript striking workers. Often labor union leaders 

were the objects of that animosity, though the workers in the troubled industries 

were usually more restless than were their representatives. Indeed, almost all the 

leaders had made a no-strike pledge in return for the maintenance of membership 

policy, and they had thereafter continually to strive to restrain the workers while 

they negotiated with responsible federal officers for increased wages to match the 

rising cost of living. In that mediating role they confronted the growing power 

12 
within government of captains of industry and finance who had been brought to 

Washington to staff the war agencies and the Navy and War Departments. Among 

those recruits labor had few friends. 

In the circumstances, most labor leaders moved with caution, but not John L. 

Lewis, the head of the United Mine Workers (UMW), whose militancy made him 

the despised symbol of establishment hostility. Lewis had never believed in the no 

strike pledge, disliked the President, and did not trust the government to effect a 

significant melioration of the still wretched conditions of work in the mines. Yet 

Lewis was no radical. He remained committed to business unionism, to the 

traditional objectives of collective bargaining. At least one cabinet member, 

Harold Ickes, who had a special responsibility for fuel, understood as much. 

Lewis seemed radical because his wartime tactics, often clumsy and usually 

strident, appeared to his opponents and were made to appear to most Americans, to 

be unpatriotic and unreasonable. 

During 1942 and 1943 Lewis orchestrated a series of strikes and wildcat 

strikes to advance his purpose, the unionization of all mines and the improvement 

of wages, benefits, and safety conditions. In considerable measure he succeeded. 

But his ventures, colliding with the intransigence of the mine owners, did threaten 

necessary coal supplies for industry and therefore inspired a temporary government take-over of the mines. They also made Lewis and the UMW the undesignated but identifiable targets of the Smith-Connally bill which Congress passed in 

1943. Roosevelt vetoed the measure because he recognized its ineffectuality, but 

immediately Congress overrode the veto. Essentially useless as a device to impose 

industrial stability, the act increased the President’s power to seize plants in war 

industries, made it a crime to encourage strikes in those plants, and outlawed union 

contributions to political campaigns, long an objective of Republicans and conservative Democrats. Its political influence challenged, organized labor could take 

no solace in Roosevelt’s veto message which recommended drafting workers who 

took part in strikes in plants in the possession of the government. In 1944, prodded 

by the War Department, the President went further and urged a national service law 

which, he said, would prevent strikes. Though Congress did not approve that 

expedient, Roosevelt’s recourse revealed how little influence labor had in Washington. Lewis had united his miners against the owners, but in the process, he 

galvanized opinion at home and among servicemen against himself. The actual and 

the emotional imperatives of war produced a retaliation potentially damaging to the 

entire labor movement. 

In 1944 the leadership of the CIO, eager to retrieve their losses, had no one to 

turn to but the President who still stood for most of the causes they embraced. The 

Republicans, in contrast, had a long record of hostility to unions and to progressive 

measures. Denied the ability to contribute union funds to the Democrats, Sidney 

Hillman and his associates formed the Political Action Committee to raise money 

from workers and their liberal friends, and to get out the vote. Even so, the 

influence they exerted was too small to effect the renomination of their most 

13 
outspoken champion in Washington, Vice President Henry A. Wallace. Indeed, 

the class and ethnic enmities of the war years underlay the rejection by the 

Democrats of Wallace, and by the Republicans of Wendell Willkie, his counterpart 

within the GOP. Both men had attacked business management for its narrowness of 

vision; both had endorsed the aspirations of American blacks. 

Divisive issues affected politics throughout the war years. A coalition of 

Republicans and southern Democrats rolled back the New Deal, opposed progressive taxation, forced Roosevelt to move to the right. Those developments had 

begun before the war and might well have occurred without it. But politics was 

never adjourned; political rhetoric was, as ever, intemperate; and both parties 

stooped to a contentious meanness during the campaign of 1944. Governor 

Thomas E. Dewey of New York, the Republican nominee, exercised a patriotic 

generosity in excluding from his campaign any reference to MAGIC, the American compromise of Japanese codes which, had he chosen to mention it, would 

have assisted the enemy and raised with refreshed force the question of the 

Administration’s culpability for the surprise at Pearl Harbor. Dewey also kept 

foreign policy out of the campaign in order to avoid premature controversy about 

the structure of the peace. Nevertheless, the Democrats gave him no quarter; 

identified him in spite of his record as governor, with the reactionaries in his party; 

mocked him for his small physique and little moustache. Early and late, the 

Republicans, including Dewey, identified the Democrats, often openly, with 

communism, and employed anti-Semitic innuendos to attack Hillman and through 

him, Roosevelt. Meanness often emerged in national campaigns. In 1944 the form 

it took again reflected class and ethnic issues. 

The war did not create those issues but neither did it subdue them. In one 

sense, the remoteness of the battle fronts permitted the expressions of divisiveness 

that might otherwise have militated against victory. In a larger sense, Americans 

behaved much as they always had and in a manner not markedly different from 

other peoples, even those exposed to immediate danger and defeat. Social and 

political factionalism crippled Italy and France where outright treason, as in 

Norway and the Netherlands, contributed to German victories. Even in Germany, 

apart from the victims of genocide, hundreds of decent men and women spent the 

war in concentration camps, dozens in clandestine subversion, and a group of 

disenchanted officers, good soldiers all, attempted to assassinate Hitler. In Great 

Britain the government interned German Jews, civilians grumbled far more than 

official propaganda admitted, and the Labour Party prepared to win the political 

triumph it enjoyed before the end of hostilities against Japan. The Soviet state 

imprisoned or killed many ethnic Germans and dissident Ukrainians, systematically murdered Polish soldiers who were allies but not communists, and 

stood aside while the Germans demolished the resistance in Warsaw. Thousands of 

Chinese collaborated with the Japanese, more thousands engaged in civil war, and 

factionalism vitiated the Kuomintang. 

In every warring nation, whatever the degree of its unity against the enemy, 

men and women also united against their fellows, often with the ferocity of 

14 
prejudice and hatred. In their dealings with each other, Americans at home 

exhibited a moderation at least equivalent to that of any other peoples. No inherent 

superiority of the national soul accounted for the difference. Rather, the intensity 

of internal strife within the belligerent nations correlated strongly with the proximity of attack, invasion and occupation. Defeat, or the close prospect of defeat, 

excited a search for scapegoats or a scramble for survival of an intensity Americans 

were spared. In the years after the war, when Americans first came to recognize 

their national vulnerability to devastating attack, they united against each other 

much in the patterns of the war years but more savagely and with more lasting 

damage. Then, as during the war and at other times, the city on the hill, to the 

sorrow of some of its residents, did not rise much above the plain. 

15 

SESSION I 

THE QUEST FOR NATIONAL UNITY 

IN THE GREAT WAR 

THE QUEST FOR NATIONAL UNITY IN THE 

GREAT WAR 

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 

David F. Trask 

The topic we are dealing with here generally, that is to say the home front in 

the twentieth century, falls within a larger chronology established earlier for us by 

Professor Ted Ropp in his stimulating essay entitled “War as a National Experience.” The broader chronological focus for our study has to be at least the 200 

years stretching from about 1789 to 1982. Let me now make three rather broad and 

rather unsurprising generalizations about that span of history. 

The first generalization or observation I would make is that we, of course, are 

dealing across that span of 200 years with a constantly escalating pattern of 

violence, one of greater and greater capability for destruction on the battlefield as a 

consequence of technology, indeed an unsurprising generalization. 

The second generalization I would make is that civilian populations showed 

unexpected and indeed remarkable durability or staunchness, even in the face of 

constantly expanding violence in periods of warfare. Now why was this? I would 

suggest that, as does Professor Ropp, that the explanation for these two phenomena 

reside in the same general study, namely, in the study of the impact of three great 

revolutions: the industrial revolution, the national revolution, and the democratic 

revolution. 

The nineteenth century developed the technological capability that undergirded the capacity to make war on hitherto unprecedented scales. In addition, 

political development across the nineteenth century strengthened the legitimacy of 

the nation state, giving the nation state standing with people that it had lacked 

before. On the other side of the coin, the modern nation state developed a 

tremendous power to coerce. For reasons both of attraction and coercion there was 

a potential for support of warfare, even of the most destructive sort, as the result of 

the larger forces operative in modern history. And yet, there is a third generalization, one that seems in the perspective of the 1980s a more logical one than we 

might have thought earlier. If at the outset of the 200 years with which we deal, 

there was a strong tendency to glorify war as a human enterprise, or at least to 

condone it as an extreme reaction, a practical and ethical reaction under certain 

circumstances, we note a constant and irreversible trend since then in the opposite 

19 
direction, one pointed out most notably, I suppose, by Bernard Brodie, a shift away 

from the glorification or condonation of warfare to a revulsion, an intellectual, 

ethical revulsion, that clearly runs parallel with that rising arc of violence. 

What I am trying to suggest is that while populations have responded in a 

remarkable way in support of modem warfare, there has been a parallel development that undermines such support. That’s where we are, I would suggest, today. 

Increasingly, the intellectual and ethical revulsion of mankind to violence challenges the elan of the modem nation in arms. 

This observation brings me to today’s concern, namely the First World War. 

That struggle stands as an especially portentous manifestation of the three generalizations that I have just covered. It exemplifies the extraordinary destruction that 

modem technology can bring about. It exemplifies amazing civil endurance in the 

face of unprecedented privation. It exemplifies burgeoning antiwar sentiment 

especially in its latter stages and in its aftermath. 

Let me dwell briefly on the latter subject, the role of the Great War in the 

history of burgeoning antiwar feeling. One of the most intriguing aspects of that 

struggle is that the most innovative theorists from both the political sector and the 

military sector began with comparable estimates of modem warfare. Both groups, 

especially in the aftermath, reacted strongly against the destructiveness of modern 

warfare. Both groups decided that its destructiveness was unacceptable. The war 

had been so devastating that it brought into question, as a central concern almost 

really for the first time, the question of whether triumph in modern warfare might 

be so crushing as to be as dangerous to the health of the victors as to the health of 

the vanquished, perhaps even more so. Many would argue that the First World War 

wrought more destruction among the victors than among the vanquished. This 

general insight of 1918 and after, that modern warfare might become so lethal as to 

outmode it as a means of settling great international questions, is what separates 

the experience of the First World War from prior conflicts that had occurred after 

1789. And yet the seeds of that insight are traceable across the entire nineteenth 

century. Now, let us look a bit further at the reactions of political and military 

thinkers in the wake of the great war, the lessons of that war as perceived at the 

time. 

The most innovative political thinkers of the time, the Wilsonians, drew from 

their contemplation of the destructive conflicts just passed, the presumption that 

warfare had become obsolete. For this reason, they concentrated on the creation of 

a just and lasting peace, that is, a reformed world order capable of resolving 

international conflicts and sponsoring international progress by means short of 

war. Here was indeed the apotheosis of the nineteenth century faith. National 

military forces would be reduced to a level required to insure domestic tranquillity. 

A permanent and universal peacekeeping institution, based on the premise of 

collective security, would exercise an international police power to control those 

who dared violate the terms of selective security covenants. 

20 
What about the other group, the military thinkers? The most innovative 

military thinkers of the age departed from exactly the same point, a stark vision of 

the unacceptable destruction that had just passed, but they reached a different 

conclusion. The conclusion they reached was that the war just past, although 

violent, would not have undermined the very foundations of civilization, if it had 

been possible to get it over with in reasonable time. The key then was the means of 

restoring decisiveness to modern warfare, bringing necessarily violent encounters 

to an end before they became unduly expensive of one’s own blood and treasure as 

well as the enemy’s resources. Theorists of air power and armored warfare, for 

example, acted on the assumption that civil populations could withstand the shock 

of modem warfare only for a limited period of time. How ironic then, that military 

theory during the interwar years rested in great part on an urgent desire to get wars 

over with promptly, the means of avoiding an untenable blow to civilization in 

general, a shock like the one of 1914-1918. 

Americans, including American historians, have been slow to grasp much of 

what I have said even if, in a somewhat different form, this analysis is common 

coin in Europe and elsewhere. We came late to the fray of 1914-1918 and we 

emerged Iargely unscathed by comparison to the apocalypse that overwhelmed 

Europe. What Europeans deemed a catastrophe was to most Americans a disturbing but transient experience, The national relaxation during the 1920s reflected not 

only a certain weariness from both the domestic and foreign exertions of the past 

generations, but a perception of success, of a job well done, something no 

intelligent European could muster. 

American historians managed largely to bypass the war itself; rather, they 

concentrated on the before and the after. Why had the United States entered the war 

in 1917? What had caused the failure of the peace settlement? Many scholars do not 

realize that they cannot hope to find answers to either of these questions unless they 

hearken to the information now available to them concerning the waging of the war, 

the clash of arms itself. Even my friend, Russ Weigley now understands that 

interesting point, if I read the preface to his latest book correctly. What I am trying 

to suggest is that the failure to recognize the central importance of the First World 

War in the subsequent history of this century, by far the most violent and barbaric 

century in the history of humankind, flaws many American perceptions of events at 

home and abroad since 1918. For those who adopt a European, or better, a global 

perspective, the Second World War, which loomed so large in American consciousness, however destructive, appears as a logical, expectable extension of the 

earlier struggle, a second phase in a long, modem, fierce war. 

What then, to move on, is the significance of the Second World War in terms 

of the comments 1 made earlier concerning that triad of trends across modernitydestructive warfare, civilian sturdiness, antiwar sentiment? The struggle of 

1939-1945 resolved certain doubts that survived the hecatomb of 1914-1918. In the 

aftermath of the Second World War, consensus emerged among both political 

thinkers and military thinkers concerning the future of general warfare. Note, I say 

21 
general warfare on a global, total scale, presumably a nuclear war. The advent of 

nuclear warfare, not only the latest development in destructiveness but also a truly 

climactic one, led to a broadly shared conclusion. Peaceful methods must be found 

to preclude further passages at arms on a scale comparable to that of the thirty 

years’ war just past. After 1945, creative political thinkers returned to the search 

for viable means of resolving fundamental international controversies by means 

short of war. After 1945, creative military thinkers concentrated on the search for a 

credible deterrent to nuclear war, a means deemed the only practical and ethical 

course for military establishments given their vision of a nuclear battlefield. This 

outcome did not mean that military establishments would never fight. There 

remained a rational if constrained area for warfare, namely, the controlled conflict 

for limited stakes as against the general conflict aimed at total victory. The new 

problem was not simply how to wage and win such contests but how to prevent 

them from escalating into unacceptable general nuclear warfare. Even limited 

modes of warfare might encounter increasing resistance on the part of home fronts, 

given the destructive nature of even the most carefully controlled non-nuclear war. 

We therefore arrive at one, at least, of the critical items on the existing agenda 

of those who study war and most particularly the home front. The prior presumption that there would be strong national support for international wars has come 

increasingly into question across the 200 years or so since the beginning of the 

Napoleonic Wars. Most of this reaction, however, has taken place at a rapidly 

accelerating pace from the time of the First World War. This circumstance has 

played no mean role in drawing the attention of a small band of American 

historians to the First World War, especially to the waging of the war as against its 

origins and consequences. If we hope to comprehend the evolution of attitudes on 

the home front, as these attitudes stand today, and as they may evolve in the future, 

we have no recourse but to return, at least, to the First World War, if we wish to 

understand where we have been, so that we might exercise some modicum of 

control over where we shall go. 

Chairman Trask’s Introduction of Professor Showalter 

Let us now turn to the first of the papers to be delivered this morning. I feel 

bound to say immediately that this paper does not appear to fit very well into the 

theme of this conference or into the subject of this session. This paper is a 

contribution to the enduring question of what caused the First World War rather 

than directly to the study of the home front during 1914-1918. This is hardly 

unsurprising either. How many conferences can boast of another outcome? I might 

worry more than I do about these circumstances were this paper not a very 

stimulating and useful effort. The author explains at the outset the reasons why he 

shifted from the study of belligerency to the study of prewar developments. 

Perhaps later during the discussion he could be prevailed upon to draw connections 

between his study of causation and developments on the home front as the war ran 

its course. Professor Dennis E. Showalter received his doctorate in history at the 

University of Minnesota in 1969. He then joined the faculty of The Colorado 

22 
College, located in Colorado Springs, where he still serves as associate professor 

of history. He has been the recipient of important scholarly honors, among them a 

Fulbright fellowship and a Humbolt fellowship. He takes an active part in the 

organizational life of the profession, presently serving as a trustee of the American 

Military Institute. The author of numerous scholarly articles and essays, he has 

among his major publications a book entitled Railroads and Rges: Soldiers, 

Technology and the Unijication of Germany, published in 1975. Professor Showalter’s presentation is entitled “For King and Kaiser: British and German Mobilization In World War One.” 

23 
FOR KING AND KAISER: 

BRITISH AND GERMAN MOBILIZATION IN WORLD 

WAR I 

Dennis E. Showalter 

Three-quarters of a century after the fact, World War I continues to engage 

intellects and emotions alike. A continent which bestrode the earth turned on itself 

with a berserker’s fury. With the opening rounds of the guns of August, things were 

indeed changed4hanged utterly. But few would agree that a terrible beauty was 

thereby born. The young were tom to pieces; the old died of typhus. Women made 

shells as malnutrition crippled their babies. Tolstoy’s Pierre Bezukhov, set down 

anywhere in Europe between 1914 and 1918, might well have cried out “Surely they 

will stop it. Surely now they will see what they have done and make peace.” Yet the 

carnage continued. Societies described as on the verge of collapse by pre-war 

critics withstood suffering and deprivation on a scale that paralyzed imaginations. 

Endurance under stress is not in itself a remarkable phenomenon. From 

Thebes and Carthage to Hitler’s Germany and Ho’s Vietnam, people and their 

governments have demonstrated incredible powers of resistance when motivated 

by ideology or faced with a worse alternative. But Europe rushed into Armageddon 

in 1914 for reasons that hindsight presents as obscenely frivolous relative to the 

results. It is in particular the gap between cause and effect that inspires the study of 

World War 1’s home fronts. We ask ourselves not merely how they endured, but 

why. 

In this context the transition from war to peace is particularly important. 

Events once initiated-ven wars-tend to develop their own momentum, especially when sustained by a modem administrative apparatus. Initially I proposed 

to examine the details of this transition, the process of mobilization in Britain and 

Germany. The two countries seemed ideal for a comparative case study. Both 

clearly belonged to the European mainstream. Generalizations about social structures and climates of opinion need not be modified out of existence to be applied, as 

is often the case with Russia or Austria-Hungary. On the other hand, few obvious 

points of comparison between the Germany of William I1 and the England of 

George V suggest themselves. Any underlying religious, ethnic, or cultural ties 

had been significantly weakened by economic and ideological competition. By 

1914, it is the contrasts that come to mind: authoritarianism versus parliamentarism, land power versus sea power, have-not versus status quo.’ 

24 
A reasonable subject and a useful working model: thus far, so good. Then the 

paper assumed a life of its own. Students of 1914 speak almost universally of a will 

to war, a climate of belligerence at all levels of European society. I expected to 

make the same point in two or three paragraphs. But in doing the preliminary 

research for those paragraphs, I was impressed by the deep ambivalence towards 

the issue of war in Britain and Germany alike. The same men who spoke of its 

inevitability spoke at other times and places of its impossibility. Until the actual 

declarations were exchanged, no one seemed to believe that the worst would 

happen. Sir Edward Grey’s visions of lamps going out all over Europe were 

matched by Bethmann-Hollweg’s gloomy references to Germany’s leap in the 

dark. Similar inconsistencies appeared wherever I looked. Generals and admirals, 

journalists and politicians, said “yes” and “no” with equal intensity. Even Alfred 

von Tirpitz, that epitome of the fire-eating navalist, did his best at the crisis point to 

persuade William I1 that he was fighting the wrong war at the wrong time against 

the wrong combination of enemies.* 

The pattern seemed too general, too deeply rooted, to dismiss in an introduction. What became increasingly significant about the home fronts of Germany and 

Britain was not their mutual rush to arms in August, nor even their respective 

adjustments to the demands of a long war. It was rather the ambivalence, the 

dissonance, which dominated and conditioned attitudes and behavior. The Western 

mind seeks coherence. More than any intellectual subgroup except perhaps 

clergymen, academicians are conditioned to explain away contradictions. The 

historian in particular sees his task as structuring information, establishing the 

connections and relationships that make history more than one damn thing after 

another. Thus the events of 1914 are packaged, footnoted, and presented in terms of 

a Long Fuse, a Third Balkan War, or even a Galloping Gertie effect-but always as 

a process with at least an underlying order, if not always one clear to the 

participants. 

Today the historian who begins his work without establishing a model runs 

the risk of dismissal as a professional anachronism. In the process we tend towards 

the uncritical use of more theoretical disciplines, borrowing and applying their 

concepts almost at random. Yet despite the caveats implied in the above statements, psychological theory offers a useful alternate framework for interpreting 

the outbreak of World War I. Cognitive dissonance involves a perceived gap 

between beliefs and behavior, between what one thinks and what one does. 

Dissonance generates discomfort. Individuals in turn seek to reduce that discomfort. They may alter one of the poles, modifying either their thoughts or their 

deeds. They are far likelier to develop patterns of rationalization, avoidance, and 

denial which reduce ongoing discomfort without eliminating the dissonance which 

is its underlying cause. A person, for example, concerned with the amount he 

drinks might reduce his intake. He might also decide that he is somehow better off 

at his present rate of consumption. Or he might argue that a few drinks before 

dinner never hurt anyone, that beer is not the same thing as hard liquor, and that he 

is driven to drink by job stress.’ 

25 
This essay contends that the governments and societies of Britain and Germany faced the challenge of 1914 in a state of what amounted to cognitive 

dissonance. Positive images of war were balanced by fears of its consequences to 

an extent that planning and decision-making were inhibited. Instead of either 

preparing for war or seeking peace in a consequent manner, both countries drifted 

from crisis to crisis, and ultimately into disaster. 

The argument is made in three sections. The first is a general survey of the rise 

and the simultaneous inhibiting of the martial spirit in Britain and Germany. The 

second focuses on Germany to describe the influence of this dissonance on the 

general development of foreign policy. The third section moves to the lesser world, 

using the evolution of Great Britain’s German policy as a case study in inability to 

draw conclusions and act on them. 

Conference papers fall into two general categories. The first, laden with 

archival references and focusing on a limited topic, is an exercise in scholarly 

virtuosity. It is intended to be understood by a relatively small proportion of the 

audience, and correspondingly designed to impress everyone else. The second 

kind of paper deals in hypotheses and generalizations. It encourages its auditors to 

pick it apart, to find the loopholes, the faulty reasoning, the weak connectionsand hopefully to reconsider their own assumptions about a broad scholarly issue. 

This conference in particular, with its mixture and overlap of uniforms and 

business suits, classrooms and flight lines, is an ideal forum for presenting an 

alternate interpretation of the intellectual and emotional structures underlying the 

home fronts of Britain and Germany in 1914. 

As the nineteenth century progressed, Germany and Britain alike seemed 

dominated by the martial spirit. In both countries preindustrial attitudes remained 

influential. The European bourgeoisie was never as triumphant as its supporters 

believed; the European aristocracies proved far more resilient than their critics 

expected. Arno Mayer eloquently describes the persistence of a traditional elite, a 

nobility of land and service, continuing to dominate politics and administration by 

its skill in co-opting the middle class. This establishment in the years before 1914 

was actually working to enhance its political control, and ultimately was willing to 

risk and wage a war rather than sacrifice jot or tittle of its power. The traditional 

value systems of the European upper class, with their theoretical emphasis on the 

heroic and the warlike, had been revitalized by the challenges of the French and 

Industrial Revolutions. In the process they had become more open-at least in 

image. As in societies whose very flexibility generated and exacerbated status 

anxieties, a certain degree of militarization came to be seen not as selling out, but 

as buying in. The industrialist and the academic sealed their membership in the 

new synthesis by putting sons in uniform. It was, hopefully at least, less expensive 

than buying a country estate. It took less time than acquiring a title. And-a point 

not to be overlooked-it was a far more acceptable subject for boasting, a symbol 

of social integration, of patriotism, and of conspicuous consumption that could be 

openly discussed without risking condemnation for ~ulgarity.~ 

26 
British schoolboys absorbed the vocabulary of militarism while their 

respectable elders donned volunteer uniforms. German businessmen dressed their 

children in sailor suits; German professors flaunted reserve commissions. The 

army was the Second Empire’s most visible and most popular institutional symbol, 

while the Imperial navy seemed to incorporate the essence of a dynamic world 

power. Britain looked to the Royal Navy for visual as well as diplomatic confirmation of the island empire’s strength. And if Queen Victoria’s common soldiers 

remained outcasts in practice, Tommy Atkins in the abstract was cheered in the 

music halls, copied by toymakers, and fictionalized in many a bestsellets 

The martial spirit of the nineteenth century was also fostered by anxiety. In 

Britain, invasion by a continental power taking advantage of railroads, steamships, 

and an easily mobilized conscript army was a recurrent bogy. Publicized in popular 

fiction from Sir George Chesney’s The Battle ofDorking to William Le Quex’s The 

Invasion $1910, it was given a serious dimension by politicians seeking office 

through rattling sabers and by generals challenging the navy’s share of the defense 

budget.6 Germany for its part had found no peace since its emergence as a great 

power. Bismarck’s perception of the implacable hostility of a France deprived of 

Alsace and Lorraine was reinforced by growing anxiety over the Slavic threat 

spearheaded by and embodied in Tsarist Russia. The Austrian connection, the 

oldest and firmest diplomatic alliance in Europe, came increasingly to be perceived as much a liability as an asset. Measures taken to increase Germany’s 

security produced their counter-effects; the construction of a battle fleet generated 

a Copenhagen complex, the rough equivalent of English fears of a bolt from the 

blue. ’ 

Tension encouraged serious, long-term considerations of the nature of war on 

intellectual and technical levels. On both sides of the channel, however, the process 

involved accepting violence as an instrument of international relations. War was 

the continuation of politics by other means to many German and English decisionmakers to whom Clausewitz was little more than a name.8 Imperialism, with its 

images of cheap victories over lesser breeds without the law, contributed to 

positive evaluation of the role of force as an arbiter of diplomacy. Experience closer 

to home further reinforced the connection. The conflicts of the mid-nineteenth 

century in Italy and the Crimea, Bohemia and France, were almost universally 

regarded as cost-effective. Their results, for the victors, at least, were considered 

acceptable relative to the human and material outlays. American experience from 

1861 to 1865 could be discounted as an aspect of a society as yet too undeveloped to 

conduct its wars in an efficient, modern fa~hion.~ 

Intellectual developments also affected thoughts on war and peace. Darwinism should not be too directly equated with militarism. Nevertheless, the radicalization and vulgarization of Darwin’s ideas did provide an academically respectable underpinning for the theory that war was man’s natural state, and seeking its 

abolition was fruitless. Treitschke’s argument that force expressed a nation’s will to 

life found echoes on the other side of the channel in such works as J. A. Cramb’s 

27 
Germany and England, which described these “sons of Odin” as eventually fated 

to clash for world mastery. Economists contributed to the process; Werner Sombart was not the first to assert structural links between war and capitalism, or war 

and modernization. And one deduction from those links was that war could be 

beneficial to society, a major force for economic and moral growth. The “natural” 

struggle for existence ultimately meant progress and happiness for all those 

engaged in it, even the vanquished-who would benefit by their exposure to the 

higher civilization of their “superior” enemies. lo 

Rhetoric contributed its share to a climate of belligerence. The language of 

diplomacy became increasingly hostile as the nineteenth century gave way to the 

twentieth. In part this reflected the growth of a self-conscious, influential public 

opinion. Ever since Napoleon 111, statesmen perceived a need to play to galleries of 

elected representatives, journalists, and intellectuals, seen as demanding public 

shows of assertiveness.” This tendency, while owing much to conservative distrust 

of the masses and their spokesmen, did not entirely reflect vivid imaginations. 

Nationalism was a major force of integration at a time of drastic and rapid change. 

In the process it provided a rooting interest whose vocabulary and attitudes, 

particularly in Britain, were directly borrowed from the world of sport.” Britain 

and Germany had the highest proportions of literate, conscientious citizens of any 

European countries. On both sides of the channel, grass-roots pressure groups, 

often in tacit or overt alliance with sections of the popular press, could create 

impressions of strength often at sharp variance with reality, but difficult to test at a 

time when opinion analysis was a discipline in its infancy.13 

The debasing of diplomatic intercourse also owed much to changes within the 

craft itself. The emergence of constitutional states, whether de jure or de facto, 

limited the personal element that historically had tended to modify tones, if not 

always substances. Individuals might be cordial; the governments they served were 

institutional. The diffusion of power endemic in the modem state meant corresponding diffusion of responsibility. Statesmen tended increasingly to see themselves as the captives of policies they implemented rather than made. Here again, 

perceptions were more important than postfacto analyses of realities. It is much 

easier for historians to determine where the buck stopped than it seemed to the men 

actually involved in the 

A personal element was added by the legacy of Otto von Bismarck, who 

combined his skills with a willingness to use a much broader spectrum of 

instruments and techniques than were familiar or congenial to his rivals and 

contemporaries. Bismarck was the first master of crisis management, designing 

and controlling diplomatic controversies, encouraging public anxieties or mollifying them, partly to test his own virtuosity, partly to demonstrate his indispensability to the system he both served and mastered. l5 There may have been only one 

Bismarck. There were many imitators--not the least being William 11, whose 

mugger’s approach to foreign policy owed much to Bismarck’s model. 

28 
The martial spirit was focused by the growth of military professionalism. 

After 1871 planning replaced improvisation throughout military Europe-even 

Britain. One result was the systematic consideration of neighbors as enemies. This 

in turn generated institutional momentum difficult to refocus or adjust. The 

development of short-service conscript armies on the continent played a specific 

role in the process. However fierce might be the patriotic rhetoric about the abstract 

concept of one’s homeland, rank and file enthusiasm was best sustained by 

describing tangible enemies. As early as 1869, the Prussian army suffered some 

embarrassment when a party of French officers visiting an artillery range discovered that the targets had been unofficially repainted with red trousers, blue 

coats, and pointed beards.I6 

Such attitudes were by no means confined to enlisted draftees. Eighteenth 

century concepts of the freemasonry of arms faded before the growth of nationalism. Sir John Fisher was by no means the only British admiral who dreamed of 

destroying Germany’s navy by surprise. Sir Henry Wilson placed a map of the 

BEF’s projected concentration area as an offering at the base of a French memorial 

to the Franco-Prussian war.” Such mind-sets were not likely to change at the behest 

of diplomatic developments. No more were German generals likely to challenge 

the presumptions of the Schlieffen Plan, or German admirals to modify operational 

doctrines and construction programs focused on a North Sea Armageddon. Instead, military planning generated its own momentum. The uniformed experts, in 

turn, exercised an increasing influence over civilian statesmen whose understanding of the data and hypotheses so blithely presented at planning conferences was at 

best limited. Ignorance, or unwillingness to admit it, often played a far greater role 

than conscious warmongering.’* 

The image thus far presented is of a Europe ready to tear itself apart at the 

slightest provocation. Yet considered more closely, significant contradictions 

emerge. Scholars conditioned by the twentieth century are prone to take an earlier 

era’s homicidal rhodomontade at something very near its face value-to establish a 

cause-effect relationship. This tendency is enhanced by another result of two world 

wars and a host of minor ones: the development of a rhetoric of benevolence. Since 

1918, few statesmen have felt comfortable loosing the dogs of war without the 

accompaniment of whipped-cream phrases justifying their action in terms of pure 

and altruistic humanitarianism. This pattern has become so familiar, and its 

contradictions so obvious, that it has generated a universal cynicism, a tendency to 

seek the self-interest, the hypocrisy, underlying the fustian. It is one of the great 

ironies of the twentieth century that the motives of states and statesmen for going to 

war have become not merely automatically suspect, but automatically subject to 

worst-case interpretations. To do otherwise is to risk branding as a naif.” 

Prior to 1914, however, it seems reasonable to assert the existence of a reverse 

pattern. The militarization of societies and diplomacy involved more sound and 

posturing than substance. The belligerence of pre-1914 Europe was a set of 

gestures, a playing both to public opinion and personal self-images. At bottom, it 

29 
was a belligerence of the drawing-room. The aristocracy which set so much of its 

tone had long since ceased to be anything resembling a true warrior caste in its 

attitudes and behavior. The typical German Junker, a symbol of rampant militarism 

in so many scholarly works, might pass through a cadet school in lieu of a more 

expensive educational institution. He might spend his early twenties as a subaltern 

in a socially suitable regiment. But rather than risk negotiating the choppy waters at 

the major’s corner, he was far more likely to resign his commission and assume 

management of lands inherited, or purchased with a dowry lured by the uniform. 

And for those aristocrats who sought a career in state service, the civil service 

proved increasingly attractive as the nineteenth century progressed. Uniforms 

might be desirable or even necessary on certain social occasions. Fewer and fewer 

noblemen wanted to wear one for a living.’” 

The warlike posturings of the bourgeoisie tended to fade even more quickly 

when translated into money or lives. It is significant that the music hall ditty which 

gave jingoism its name was sung and shouted during a war scare that ultimately 

failed to materialize. From Afghanistan to South Africa, Britain’s imperialists 

demanded victory on the cheap. The longer and costlier became a given campaign, 

the sharper grew the questions in press and parliament, the more could principled 

anti-imperialists count on support from the pragmatists.” Germany’s colonial 

ventures were even less popular once the bills began to come in. A large part of 

conservative support for the government’s policies in Southwest Africa in 1906-07 

reflected a desire to thwart domestic political foes-Catholics, socialists, and 

progressives-rather than positive affirmation of a forward policy in the Kalahari 

Desert.22 

Reluctance to translate rhetoric into action was pronounced when relations 

between the European powers were seriously and directly threatened. During such 

crises newspaper headlines and parliamentary speeches in Britain and Germany 

resemble a fever chart. Initial stirrings of anxiety zigzag to a peak of martial 

enthusiasm-then comes a sudden drop in belligerence when the war hysteria 

seems on the point of explosion. Peace feelers are featured on front pages. Second 

thoughts arise from back benches. Nationalism gives way to panic. Theoreical 

arguments that the state must sustain its interests in arms if necessary begin 

emphasizing “necessary” instead of “arms.” The fatalism so often described as 

characteristic of European society before 1914 was also a form of camouflage-an 

acceptable means of papering over the wide gaps between rhetoric and anxiety. In 

practice, moreover, this fatalism was accompanied by a commitment to a kind of 

brinkmanship. If one’s own state stood up and asserted itself, so the argument ran, 

opponents would back down rather than risk actually going to war, and the cause of 

peace would ultimately be ~erved.’~ 

The popular enthusiasm so often described as a factor in the outbreak of 

World War I was in fact a post facto phenomenon, surprising not a few who 

anticipated, like Sir Robert Walpole, that the ringing of bells would soon be 

succeeded by the wringing of hands.24 But while public opinion may be important 

30 
in preparing wars, and is arguably decisive in sustaining them, the actual process 

of initiation requires governments. Gunpowder proved, however, an even more 

complete antidote to chauvinism among the policy-makers than among the gun 

fodder. And nowhere was this pattern more obvious than in Germany. 

This assertion seems almost perverse in the context of massive evidence that 

the Second Empire’s international policy represented at worst a deliberate thrust 

for world power, at best a random antagonizing of her neighbors. Inconsistencies in 

this approach are usually explained either in terms of tactical conflicts within a 

policy-making elite, or more generally as manifestations of an intrinsic structural 

anomaly between aggressive posturing on a world stage and an even deeper 

commitment to European stability.25 What the argument lacks, however, is the 

smoking gun of planning. The most diligent efforts of Fritz Fischer, Adolf Gasser, 

Immanuel Geiss, and a score of other scholars have failed to turn up significant 

planning and preparation for a Hegemonialkrieg. What they present instead is a 

pattern of advance and retreat, bluster and back-down, whose principal internal 

consistency is a profound and deliberate refusal to begin the war for which 

everyone has just been clamoring.26 

The Moroccan Crisis of 1905 has been frequently described as illustrating the 

worst features of a mindlessly bellicose German diplomacy, with Chief of Staff 

Alfred von Schlieffen championing preventive war, Friedrich von Holstein of the 

Foreign Office seeking to incite it by diplomatic maneuverings, and the plot failing 

only because of Chancellor Bernhard von Bulow’s inability to understand its 

nature.” The most recent reconstructions of German reactions to the crisis, 

however, show that when it came to the crunch, neither the government nor any 

other identifiable interest group was particularly anxious to translate words into 

deeds. Diplomats suddenly decided the time was not right. Generals suddenly 

discovered that they needed more men and equipment. Journalists discovered their 

readers’ response to the rhetoric of violence did not extend to a willingness to get 

themselves shot. The few fire-eaters willing to draw consequences from conclusions found themselves suddenly leading one-man parades to nowhere.2X 

Seven years later, on December 8, 1912, William I1 summoned his military 

advisors to a Crown Council. This meeting has achieved semi-mythical status as 

the occasion when Germany finally decided to go to war, only delaying the 

outbreak for tactical reasons.29 But while it is clear that the option of a preventive 

war was seriously discussed, and vehemently advocated by Chief of Staff Helmuth 

von Moltke, the concrete results of the council were minimal. An army bill, which 

had been in preparation well before December in response to French and Russian 

developments, was accelerated. But Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, who had not even been at the meeting-and how seriously can a council of 

war be taken if it excludes the head of the civil government and the Foreign 

Secretary, even Hitler invited Neurath to the Hossbach Conference--quickly 

choked off such effusions as a navy bill and a propaganda offensive.’’ 

31 
Nor can the 1912 Crown Council be shown to have significant secondary 

results. Consultation between the government on one hand, and the captains of 

industry and agriculture on the other, remained minimal. Cooperation among 

public and private agencies involved little more than vague debates about the best 

ways of storing forage, or how Germany might best be fed in case of a British naval 

blockade. Administrative routine dominated the discussions. Memoranda were 

passed from bureaucrat to bureaucrat and office to office with no particular 

urgency. The army itself seemed hardly in the process of preparing for an ultimate 

struggle for world mastery. In 1912 the General Staff and the War Ministry finally 

responded to the massive consumption of material in the Russo-Japanese War by 

instituting an expanded program of shell production. Two years later, business as 

usual had left the program still unfulfilled. Even at calculated consumption rates, 

Germany had an average stock of raw materials sufficient for no more than six 

months. Supplies, the argument ran, would be replenished through conquest. I‘ 

Was this an ultimate expression of predatory capitalism, the insouciance of a shortwar illusion, or perhaps a manifestation of something else-like an inability to 

think beyond the first few weeks? 

Illustrations might be multiplied; the point remains the same. For a state 

dominated by the rhetoric of belligerence, a state constantly in diplomatic conflict 

with her neighbors, Germany was surprisingly unready to prepare or implement 

the ultimate contingency of a major war. There are, to be sure, intellectual risks in 

demanding excessive documentation of events with complex causations. Yet the 

lack of such evidence has generated some startling intellectual gymnastics. In the 

words of one sympathetic doctoral student, the absence of plans for war, as 

opposed to war plans, is explained by critics “searching for logical continuities in 

actions, regardless of the words which were used to cloak them. They subject the 

written evidence to minute scrutiny which translates code words into their real 

meanings. Or they focus attention upon the silences, the things not menti~ned.”~’ 

Without denying the importance of reasoned inference to historical research, 

similar comments written on the margins of an undergraduate paper would have 

quite different implications. A weak argument may be camouflaged by multiplying 

footnotes. But this approach is at best an invitation to an historian’s theory of 

epicycles: when a simple answer does not support a complex general theory, 

explain away the inconvenient points in eight or nine hundred learned pages. At 

worst, it opens the door to analyses based on preconceived realities, a variation of 

the conspiracy theory of history. Emperors and generals, Junkers and industrialists, bourgeoisie and aristocrats, must behave in ways ultimately determined by 

their relationship to the means of production. If they do not seem to behave 

appropriately, the scholar’s task is to strip away their camouflage. When this 

process brings no obvious results, that only proves the cleverness of the 

conspiracy. 

Golo Mann, Gerhard Ritter, and Egmont Zechlin are only the most familiar 

scholars who have used the absence of planning as an offensive weapon to defend 

32 
the Second Empire against what they regard as irresponsible charges of warmongering.33 This essay, however, does not deny the existence of dangerous 

warlike tendencies in German society before 1914. It does not deny the irresponsible expression of those tendencies at the highest levels of government. Nor does it 

deny the strength of an official will to extend Germany’s influence by force of 

arms. It only suggests that all of these were checked, if not balanced, at policyimplementing levels by an emotion: fear. It was neither the rational anxiety 

accompanying the decision-making process in the mind of any responsible statesman, nor the kind of moral concerns Shakespeare puts in the mouth of Henry V on 

the eve of Agincourt. It was rather a soul-wrenching panic generated by perceptions of consequences. 

German chancellors since Bismarck had made sharp, pragmatic distinctions 

between rattling the saber and drawing the sword. More than any of his predecessors, however, Bethmann-Hollweg argued in and out of season that the scope 

and the horror of a future conflict would be immeasurable. Even threats of war 

were “criminal” unless Germany’s honor, security, and future were involved. 

Conflict undertaken without the most urgent reasons set crown and country alike at 

peril. In June 1914, Bethmann suggested that resorting to arms might set Germany 

back to the Thirty Years’ War, and, once the conflict began, made significant 

efforts to restrict its parameters.34 

William 11’s career offers an even clearer example of a pattern of belligerence 

suddenly stifled, then reasserting itself once the flash point was safely past. His 

current biographers portray a man significantly emotionally disturbed, seeking to 

hide his basic weakness behind martial posturings, repeatedly insisting that “this 

time” he would not “fold up” in whatever crisis he had helped provoke.35 In this 

context it is worth recalling the colloquial definition of a neurotic as someone who 

knows two and two are four, but is terrified by the fact. William’s instability was 

checked, if not always balanced, by flashes of perception. He saw more clearly 

than he understood the perils of a general war. By constantly drawing back from its 

brink, he exposed himself more completely to charges of indecisiveness. But he 

also postponed a general crisis he lacked the ability to avert. 

To dismiss these attitudes as reflections of incompetence or mendacity involves reducing German foreign policy to the level of a Mack Sennett comedy. The 

Kaiser and his advisors, for all their grotesqueries, were not quite the historical 

counterpart of “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.” Their anxieties were in 

fact generated and reinforced by a most frightening source: the professional 

soldiers. Germany’s mainstream military theorists had moved a long way from 

Alfred von Waldersee’s ebullient advocacy of preventive war. By the turn of the 

century they were extremely pessimistic about their country’s prospects in a future 

war. 

This pessimism reflected to some extent Germany’s increasingly unfavorable 

diplomatic situation-the Einkreisung German diplomats had done so much to 

33 
generate. But it also reflected growing concern about the changing nature of war 

itself. Often derided for their shortsightedness in failing to predict a war of 

attrition, the generals were if anything even less correct in evaluating the pace of 

destruction in modern war. Far from being technological illiterates, the soldiers 

were well aware of what modern weapons-the rapid-firing field gun, the machine 

gun, the magazine rifle-could do in theory. The admirals had calculated the 

destructive potential of heavy guns against armor plate down to centimeters. What 

they were expecting was not a gentleman’s war, not a repetition of 1866 or 1870, but 

an Armageddon in quick time, events at best proceeding at the outer limits of 

comprehension and control. I. S. Bloch’s La guerre future was not only discounted 

because of its pessimistic predictions of indecisive mass war-more and more 

experts agreed that the rates of loss under modern conditions made a war of attrition 

a contradiction in Similarly, the emphasis on heroic vitalism in infantry 

training which engaged the scorn of so many later critics was not based on 

ignorance of the nature of modern war. It had proved difficult enough a half-century 

earlier to keep presumably highly motivated Prussian troops under control on the 

battlefields of Bohemia and France. The Kaiser’s army anticipated S. L. A. 

Marshall in considering and evaluating problems of straggling, of failure to fire in 

combat. Tactical theorists increasingly made proposals based on the implication 

that the wastage in future battles would be so high, the destruction so horrible, that 

only iron discipline combined with artificial emotional exaltation could sustain the 

individual combatant until he too was put out of action.37 

It is commonly asserted that military planners underestimated the resilience 

of their war machines and the societies sustaining them. What they did rather was 

to overestimate the rates at which men would be killed and machines destroyed. 

They saw vulnerabilities more clearly than durabilities-and it was the latter which 

gave Europe time to adjust to the initial casualty rates of 1914-15. Given the nature 

of prewar anticipations, it by no means indicated lack of faith in one’s people to 

assume that countries facing such a catastrophe might collapse from psychic shock 

and physical stress. Schlieffen was by no means alone in his assertion that the 

armed forces available to modern nations could be maintained for any length of 

time only at the expense of the economic, social and political institutions they were 

supposed to serve.3x Financiers and politicians, diplomats and industrialists were 

similarly pessimistic. 

Thus a dichotomy emerged: belligerence inhibited by widely-circulated 

expert opinions on the results of translating it into decisive action. A Nietzchean 

breaking of the sword, a search for new patterns of international order, was hardly 

likely to recommend itself to the statesmen of a country priding itself on its 

realism. Pacifism was weaker in Germany than anywhere else in Europe, its 

principles more hedged with ifs and may be^.^^ Fatalism, an acceptance of what 

Wolfgang Mommsen calls the tops of inevitable war, was an increasinglyimportant rhetorical flourish among Germany policy- maker^.^" Yet in retrospect it 

emerges as less a faith than an attitude-a mixture of Weltschmerz andfin de sigcle 

despair. It might be fashionable alike in diaries and drawing rooms. It might be 

34 
given an extra edge through postwar hindsight. It hardly dominated the working 

days of men who remained too completely the children of an age of progress to wait 

for disaster. Instead they did their best to avert the worst. 

This approach could be illustrated by Bethmann’s constant efforts to limit and 

localize both prospective conflicts and the actual war which began in 1914. But it 

can be applied even more usefully to the short-war illusion: the assumption, not to 

say the faith, that a future European war could be limited at least temporarily to an 

extent making victory meaningf~l.~’ 

The concept usually is interpreted in terms of caste. The aristocratic establishment which incompletely dominated Germany was unwilling to risk losing its 

special place by relinquishing its control of the armed forces. Twentieth-century 

war, this argument runs, demanded rationalized administration. It demanded the 

positive integration of all elements of the nation behind the military structure. It 

demanded, in short, the increasing radicalization of a militarism which had spent 

decades sustaining itself as part of a traditional, autocratic state structure. Faced 

with this choice, the military establishment preferred to place its faith in a short, 

decisive struggle whose structure prefigured the Blitzkrieg and whose results 

would hark back to the cabinet wars of earlier centurie~.~’ 

In fact, the German army was attempting to lead from strength. At the risk of 

defying conventional wisdom on the subject, the Kaiser’s generals were not 

bloodthirsty savages delighting in wholesale butchery for its own sake-r even 

for the sake of caste pride.43 As professional soldiers, they reasoned that the best 

way to preserve the social and political position of the military class was to win any 

future wars as decisively and as cheaply as possible. War, moveover might be the 

province of chance, but it was the responsibility of professional soldiers to 

diminish its incalculable elements. Through the nineteenth century Prussian and 

German military theorists had been essentially concerned with retaming Bellona, 

with avoiding the unlimited wars of the Revolutionary-Napoleonic era-not least 

because they had ultimately proved so indecisive, so costly relative to their 

results .44 

This search for control influenced force structures as well as attitudes. 

Scholars conditioned to seek class interest as a motive, particularly where generals 

and similar moral lepers are concerned, are fond of citing the War Ministry’s 

periodic reluctance to sanction the army’s expansion on the grounds that it could 

not find officers of suitably conservative background and ideology to staff the new 

units. Professional, technical arguments against numerical expansion are dismissed as window-dre~sing.~~ But an alternate reading of available evidence 

suggests that the issue of quality over numbers was in fact important. Germany’s 

military budget was not infinitely expansible, and the General Staff‘s constant 

protests of weakness tended to translate into demands for more of everything. In 

establishing priorities, however, a strong opposing case could be made for technical, material improvements as more necessary than simple increases in troop 

35 
strength, particularly since Germany had no hope of matching her prospective 

continental rivals in sheer mass. The professionals of the Empire wanted a rapier, 

not a bludgeon. The problem lay in justifying this position to the army’s conservative social and political supporters in an era when military strength was 

measured by counting bodies in uniform. What were better, more defensible 

grounds than questioning the reliability of the new officers needed to command the 

prospective new army corps? It is not necessary to invert accepted wisdom to 

suggest that efficiency was vital for an army attempting to transform worst-case 

expectations into best-case p~ssibilities.~~ 

The unpleasant ultimate consequences of military planning also influenced 

doctrines. The essence of strategy is the calculating of relationships between ends 

and means. Let calculation obscure relationships, let means become more important than ends, and the result is not bad strategy, but no ~trategy.~’ The German 

army in the years before 1914 became increasingly concerned with processes, with 

methods and techniques. Arguably, Schlieffen’s essential flaw as a strategist was 

his acceptance of Germany’s international position as defined by civilian political 

authority. He responded to it by a desperation move representing a turn away from 

Russia as much as a turn towards France. His grand plan was a staff college tour de 

force, but a military myth requiring everything to go impossibly right to have a 

chance of succeeding. “Everything” included political and diplomatic factors, 

which between 1902 and 1914 were increasingly subordinated to this gambler’s 

gambit. 48 

The Schlieffen Plan, however, had one supreme psychological virtue. It 

offered hope through diligence. Lf everyone did his bit and played his part, the 

Empire might have a chance. The plan’s rapid evolution into dogma certainly owed 

much to the increasingly narrow perspective of German military thinking. But that 

development in turn represented in large part a response to a paradox. The imperial 

army was given-and accepted-the task of planning for a war which its own 

calculations suggested would be so destructive as to be unpredictable, uncontrollable, and ultimately unwinnable. In this context, a withdrawal into procedures, a 

concentration on mobilization schedules and corps-level tactics, was natural if not 

exactly inevitable. The Schlieffen Plan was a sophisticated security blanket. Had it 

not existed, its equivalent would almost certainly have been designed. 

The professionals, at least, did not entirely deceive themselves. Schlieffen’s 

prognostications grew darker year by year after his retirement. Erich von 

Falkenhayn, Prussian War Minister from 1912 to 1914, was convinced long before 

becoming Chief of Staff that Germany’s diplomatic situation was not to be solved 

by military measures, and instead advocated seeking first a rapprochement, then a 

separate peace with But the best example of official anxiety remains 

Schlieffen’s successor as Chief of Staff, Helmuth von Moltke the Younger. He has 

become the principal villain in the Fritz Fischer school of historical melodrama. In 

monograph after monograph he emerges as a consistent force for war, a German 

Cat0 repeating his call to battle at every likely and unlikely opportunity. Gentler 

36 
critics describe a sensitive man, a cello-playing dabbler in the occult, whose 

intellect enabled him to see at least four sides of every three-sided question but who 

lacked the force of character either to stop a war or prepare for it properly.” Yet 

even from the limited sources available, Moltke’s gloom emerges as in large part 

the result of sober, careful reflection. He was deeply concerned with what he 

perceived as the coming struggle for Europe between Germans and Slavs. He was 

deeply disturbed by what he perceived as the growing and uncheckable strength of 

Germany’s rivals. But his advocacy of war was negative, not positive. Germany 

must fight in order to prevent worse things from happening to her. His case for a 

prompt war in the December 1912 Crown Council, for example, was based on a 

mixture of anxiety and desperation, and certainly not followed by any behavior 

designed to strengthen the German army for all-out aggression against its neighbor~.~’ Like his master William 11, Moltke seemed paralyzed by conflicting 

visions. The coming war was necessary, indeed inevitable. Yet the accompanying 

destruction and dislocation made systemic planning a case of thinking about the 

unthinkable. 

Imperial Germany, aggressive yet afraid, conducted its foreign policy like 

Wilkins Micawber approached his life-hoping that something would turn up. The 

anxieties which pulled the German government back from brink after brink in 1914 

were theoretical. Their basis was prediction and expectation, not experience. They 

were strong enough to modify attitudes and behavior, but not to change them. The 

concrete results promised by belligerent rhetoric, and belligerent behavior just 

short of war, consistently overrode the uncomfortable process of drawing logical 

conclusions and acting on them. Accepting the position of a sated, status quo 

power was as unacceptable as wholeheartedly preparing for the war risked by 

Germany’s behavior. Not until the summer of 1914 was this uneasy status quo 

destroyed. Even then it gave way not to a tangible reality, but to a fear that finally 

outweighed the fear of war. The Habsburg Empire’s malaise had long been plain in 

Germany and Europe. Her decline had in fact been assisted by an entente 

insouciantly indifferent to the consequences of Austria’s disappearance from the 

map.’* Germany’s concern, however, remained rhetorical-until Austria decided 

against going quietly. Her decision to maintain what was left of her position by 

force confronted Germany with an emotional as well as a diplomatic challenge. 

The German response was not an implementation of policy, but aflucht nach 

vorne . 

Britain’s eventual mobilization against Germany similarly reflected significant patterns of inconsistency. Diplomatic historians are increasingly concerned 

with the apparent weakness of concrete points of friction between the two countries. Colonial rivalries had always involved more rhetoric than substance. After 

1900 they had faded into the background. By 1912, indeed, the bitter imperial rivals 

proved well able to collaborate on a proposal to divide Portugal’s African empire.53 

As for economic hostility, Germany’s burgeoning productive and marketing 

capacities disturbed the repose of British businessmen from Manchester to Buenos 

Aires. Yet oratorical flourishes about unfair competition were juxtaposed to and 

37 
undermined by a growing acceptance of the idea that an imperialized globe offered 

ample opportunities for both industrial giants, and growing recognition of the fact 

that the bulk of Germany’s export trade was with her continental neighbors. Trade 

and flag might still be profitably linked, but the bumptiousness of a Cecil Rhodes 

was bad business in the context of 1914: the pith helmet was giving way to the 

briefcase. 54 

What of the naval race? Germany’s fleet programs may have had domestic 

implications. There is no question that they were also designed to coerce and 

challenge Great Britain by creating a fleet whose strategic position and internal 

efficiency would give it a good chance to overcome any numerical weakness. Nor 

is there any question that the German navy ultimately posed a threat at once 

perceived and real to British security, if for no other reason than Germany’s rapid 

and triumphant industrialization, which bestowed a corresponding theoretical 

capacity to match, and perhaps exceed, British constructi~n.~~ The naval question 

needed to be resolved as a condition for any long-term rapprochement between the 

two powers. Yet at the same time, among the plethora of military, diplomatic, and 

political problems facing the declining British Empire, the German naval challenge was the only one that British policy-makers were confident they could match. 

Even in the limited terms of naval strategy, Japan in the Far East, the United States 

in the Atlantic and the Caribbean, created problems insoluble except at a price in 

ship and base construction that made diplomacy the only feasible response. 

Germany, on the other hand, was seen as a danger to be met within familiar and 

acceptable parameters. Redeployment, better ships, institutional improvements in 

gunnery, staff work, or training-these would enable the Royal Navy to deal quite 

nicely with the German upstart. Indeed in certain particularly salty circles, the 

Germans were welcomed as the kind of worthy opponent any champion needed to 

preserve “the eye of the tiger,” the kind of foe regrettably absent on British horizons 

since the French navy’s abandonment of the contest during the 1890’~.~~ 

The discrepancy between demonstrable points of conflict and the increasing 

depth of hostility between Britain and Germany is frequently presented in psychological and ideological terms. Germany’s exhuberant and comprehensive challenge to the status quo in Europe and the world was seen by many Englishmen as an 

insult to the natural order-an insult compounded by German ill manners. Whatever William I1 might be to historians, to his British contemporaries, he was a mere 

bounder. His countrymen appeared similarly lacking in grace, tact, and a sense of 

their proper place in the German xenophobia, while arguably even more 

vitriolic, tended to be diffused by the nature of Germany’s political situation. 

England might inspire the rage of rejected admiration; France and Russia generated direct fear. In England, on the other hand, fear and dislike became increasingly focused on the same target: Germany. The anxiety sold books and 

newspapers. It furnished election issues. It provided a means of arousing enthusiasm in schoolboys. Eventually it overrode the many links, ethnic, cultural, and 

dynastic, between the two societies to the point where right-thinking Englishmen 

38 
from the highest to the lowest orders rushed to arms against the perfidious Hun as 

though going to a festival. 

Here again, as so often when evaluating the origins of World War I, the 

problem of finding a smoking gun remains unsolved. A strong case can be made 

that in Britain even more than in Germany, ideological hostility remained abstract 

and theoretical. Jingoism was likely to be strong in an island with an independent 

competitive popular press, defended by the world’s most powerful navy. Yet it is 

also true that states, not citizens, declare wars. The genesis of the Crimean War 

stands as proof that British governments were not immune to popular pressure. 

Many another patrioteering outburst found, however, no significant echo in the 

Cabinet or the Foreign Office. War scare after war scare came and went in the 

headlines. But Britain’s foreign policy, arguably more than any other aspect of her 

government, remained dominated by a small elite and was kept isolated from 

popular pressure. From Salisbury to Grey, successive Foreign Secretaries might 

seek to justify their policies in terms of the public will, but the process remained a 

sophisticated form of window-dre~sing.~~ 

This in turn leads to the thesis that domestic crises generated a will to war. By 

1914, so the argument runs, “Liberal England” faced three interrelated crises that 

its existing political and social framework could not overcome. In Ireland, guns 

were beginning to supplant rhetoric. The Ulster Unionists were openly arming and 

drilling, proclaiming in and out of season their readiness to fight rather than accept 

Home Rule. Leaders of His Majesty’s loyal opposition appeared to be overtly 

sanctioning this armed resistance; even the political reliability of the officer corps 

was questionable for the first time since the Glorious Revolution. At home, 

bourgeois fears of organized labor and red revolution had been sharpened by the 

newly-formed alliance of miners, railroaders, and transport workers. Long-voiced 

threats of a general strike which would permanently shift the balance of power in 

Britain appeared for the first time to have substance. Finally, the British male 

establishment was facing a significant psychological attack from within. The 

suffragette movement challenged long-held, often unconscious assumptions about 

the appropriate structure of the family, about the very nature of men and women. 

With the movement’s cutting edge provided by women of the middle and upper 

classes, an English gentleman could feel safe neither in his drawing room nor in his 

bedroom. Everywhere civility was giving way to bellicosity; the first shots fired by 

the guns of august simply provided an opportunity for Britons to direct their pentup frustrations against a target on which all could agree, however, ternp~rarily.’~ 

Seen in this context, the Anglo-German rivalry becomes essentially an aspect 

of domestic conflict projected outwards, whether accidentally or by design. But 

this line of argument is vulnerable on three levels. One is structural. It interprets 

the industrial revolution as beginning early enough and progressing slowly enough 

for Britain to be able to develop a political and social system strong enough to 

postpone or resolve internal conflicts without violence. Almost by definition, 

39 
tension was endemic in the structures but the tension was at the same time an 

ultimate guarantee of stability.” 

A second critique of the internal-crisis thesis turns it on its head. If Britain’s 

traditional elites were being challenged, they were also expanding, incorporating 

new groups, appealing to new men-and even women. The sense of desperation so 

often described in German society was simply not present across the channel. 

Prophets of domestically-generated doom found audiences only with difficulty. 

With Ireland as a possible exception, no significant interest or pressure group in 

British society threatened the existing order enough to generate more than frissons-the kind of cheap thrills that might send good citizens home with a shudder, 

but hardly inspired fears of displacement strong enough to inspire consequent 

action. Certainly diligent research has failed to show any causal connection 

between domestic tensions and the British cabinet’s decision for war in 1914.6’ 

The third approach to the assertion that England’s role in 1914 was inspired, 

consciously or unconsciously, by internal anxieties demonstrates that British 

policy-makers, rather than seeking war as a solution to domestic problems, 

regarded its predictable consequences as potentially disastrous. Such economic 

planning as occurred in Britain in the decade before war’s outbreak was dominated 

by fear: fear of blockade, fear of commerce-raiders, fear of invasion. The military 

results of these contingencies were seen as far less important than their social 

implications. A future war, even of short duration, might well be lost on the home 

front while the armed forces were winning it on the battlefield. Planners and 

policy-makers might not fear revolution and entropy within existing frameworks. 

But let shipowners refuse to risk their property on the high seas, let food supplies 

be disrupted, let business close for lack of markets, and the situation could change 

rapidly. In the summer of 1911 a relatively minor series of strikes had threatened the 

country’s distribution system. High prices, unemployment, and anxiety were an 

unstable mixture, particularly in large cities with their polyglot, transient populations. Far from counting on public enthusiasm once the trumpets sounded, defense 

planners prior to 1914 were wondering what to do if the projected side effects of a 

major war triggered a social explosion. “Business as usual” was less a strategy than 

the absence of one. It represented not a principled addiction to laissez-faire 

economics and the liberties of Englishmen, but a response to two articles of belief. 

First, if it came to a war, France and Russia would do most of the fighting on land. 

Second, Britain’s role in the entente was as an economic prop, supplying material 

assistance to the continental powers. This in turn put maintaining economic 

stability at the top of wartime requirements.62 

Let us overlook the obvious discrepancy between Britain’s self-designated 

mission as an arsenal of democracy and the general expectation that the coming 

war would be won or lost with supplies on hand. The assumption that continental 

allies would carry the burden of a land war might have been valid had Britain’s antiGerman policies represented a commitment to sustain a threatened balance of 

power. In such circumstances, since the days of Louis XIV her coalition partners 

40 
had normally been desperate enough to take whatever the island kingdom offered. 

In fact, as the relative weaknesses of the substantive antagonisms between the 

powers indicated, Britain’s anti-German position was sustained by a different set of 

impulses. 

By 1900 the world’s foremost economic, imperial, and naval power was 

principally concerned with meeting threats to her own frontiers. Far from initiating 

challenges, Great Britain essentially sought to keep what she had from rivals 

whose relative increases in strength were internal, and correspondingly unsusceptible to British checks. This in turn explains the halfhearted nature and the ultimate 

failure of Britain’s attempts to achieve an understanding with Germany at the turn 

of the century. If the two powers had nothing to fight about, neither did they have 

anything to bring them together.63 Germany’s navy was insignificant. The British 

army might have been in theory an effective instrument for projecting Britain’s 

influence on the continent. But Britain no more than Germany was interested in a 

holocaust whose prize would be hegemony over a rubbish heap. Logically, 

therefore, she increasingly pursued policies of retrenchment and rapprochement. 

And equally logically, she pursued them relative not to the enemy of her enemies, 

but to her primary direct rivals, France and Russia. 

The Boer War and its aftermath demonstrated that even in a narrowly military 

sense the British Empire was vulnerable to an external challenge from a major 

power. A Britain unwilling, arguably unable, to arm to meet such a challenge 

directly sought cooperation instead. And the ultimate price of that cooperation, of 

the ententes with France and Russia, was support4irect and indirect, diplomatic 

and moral-for their ongoing disputes with Germany and Austria.@ 

This did not make Britain a catspaw. Her new relationships might have been 

generated by imperial considerations but were also intended to prevent war, not 

provoke it. British statesmen in the years before 1914 counselled restraint on her 

partners in and out of season. Ententes, moreover, were not alliances, and Britain 

was at pains to emphasize the difference. Britain’s final acceptance of the FrancoRussian connection was neither automatic nor based on moral factors. The decision to go to war in 1914 rested on political and strategic grounds.6s But the 

unceasing tendency to perceive Britain’s vital interests as requiring preserving and 

strengthening her ties with France and Russia both increased the entente’s cost and 

structured the nature of its payment. France and Russia perceived England’s needs 

far too clearly to be fobbed off with ships and shells. 

To maintain the diplomatic relationships she required, Britain had to do more 

than commit herself against Germany. She had to justify that commitment and its 

implications in view of the absence of issues directly worth fighting over-and in 

view of the Royal Navy’s continued hostility to a continental war. On one level, this 

requirement encouraged a form of mind reading. Concrete antagonisms focus 

hostilities. Germanophobia in France was based not so much on hatred of the 

Boche as Boche, but as the violator of Alsace-Lorraine, the military menace which 

41 
had beaten France twice in a century.66 Without equivalent foci, the hostility 

originally institutionalized as part of a policy of imperial rapprochement tended to 

become abstracted and universalized. Britain before 1914 was less and less 

inclined to mirror image perceptions of Germany. 

Since the Congress of Vienna, Europe’s great powers had regarded each other 

as pursuing similar general ends by similar general rules. Napoleon 111’s France or 

Bismarck’s hssia might stress the system, might even distort it, but were 

nevertheless considered part of it by their rivals. In Britain, arguably more than 

anywhere else in Europe, policy-makers had by 1914 come to regard Germany as 

“not-like,’’ as essentially different from the diplomatic game’s other players. A 

familiar illustration of this attitude is Sir Eyre Crowe’s 1907 memorandum. 

Germany, he argued, was pursuing a policy of European and world hegemony. 

Whether this approach was conscious or unsconscious was less important than the 

fact of its existence. Germany was ultimately a revolutionary state in its desire to 

create a new international order. This made her an irreconcilable threat to Britain’s 

vital interests-a threat ultimately impossible to conciliate. The only possible 

response was “the most unbending determination to uphold Britain’s rights and 

interests in every part of the globe.67 

These were not entirely counsels of paranoia. Germany’s erratic pursuit of an 

ill-defined Weltpolitik often cast her in the role of ants at a picnic: always there, 

always demanding compensation and consideration for merely existing, or to avert 

what she might do if she only decided to do it. At bottom, however this was more 

irritant than vital threat. And paradoxically the relative weakness of concrete 

Anglo-German conflicts generated a corresponding optimism in Whitehall. For all 

the gloomy predictions of war as an abstract inevitability, it appeared a practical 

improbability-not from any positive will to peace, but from a lack of definite 

motives for a final grapple. 

This survival from the days of cabinet diplomacy significantly inhibited 

planning for, or even reacting to, the logical conclusion to be drawn from the nature 

of Britain’s ententes with France and Russia: war with Germany, on terms largely 

determined by the friends Britain perceived herself as needing. Until recently, 

general histories of the British army described the years before 1914 in terms of a 

systematic overhauling of equipment, doctrine, and organization in order to fit the 

army into Britain’s new diplomatic patterns. From a collection of draft-finding 

regiments and battalions emerged six superbly trained regular divisions, poised for 

immediate service against Germany.6x 

Reality is less tidy. The British army’s structure of linked battalions was 

reasonably suited for imperial commitments. It provided for no functional higher 

organizations and meant that most units stationed in Britain itself were essentially 

training formations. Nevertheless, for a quarter-century, worst-case expectations 

that Britain might have to face a major military opponent on the continent, in the 

empire, or even on her own soil gave way before the day-to-day realities of imperial 

42 
policing. Then the Boer War conclusively demonstrated Britain’s inability to field 

a significant expeditionary force without stripping empire and home islands alike. 

Secretaries of State for War St. John Brodrick and H. 0. Arnold-Forster 

sought to create a stable field force while at the same time sustaining an effective 

imperial presence. The purpose of such a force, however, remained debatable. 

Advocates of the Indian connection argued that Britain’s essential military responsibility was to secure the defense of the subcontinent. Other critics argued for the 

“British way” of war-attacking colonies, ports, bases, and any other targets 

vulnerable to relatively small forces transported by sea. 

Both approaches presented problems. The first was essentially passive-and 

Britain was too weak militarily to afford the luxury of passivity. The second might 

be theoretically effective against France, but France was an increasingly unlikely 

enemy after 1904. Germany and Russia were virtually invulnerable to it, particularly if the next general war was as short as the experts predicted. Operationally, moreover, imperialism’s palmy days were over; the buffer zones were 

gone. Future conflicts anywhere were likely to be against great powers: perhaps in 

the Far East against Japan, perhaps in Canada against the United States. No longer 

could improvised task forces be dispatched around the globe with the vague sense 

of all coming right on the night as long as the navy was there. Imperial security 

would from now on require the ability to deploy large forces in a wide variety of 

operational environments. 

This fact was the genesis of the Haldane reforms. It is, indeed, more 

appropriate to speak of the Haldane rearrangements. The units stationed in Britain 

were formed into six divisions, with supporting troops-but not to implement that 

continental commitment which was more and more at the logical center of British 

diplomacy. Instead, they were planned as general-purpose forces, able to apply 

efficiently-structured military power anywhere in the world that British interests 

might require it, from Central Africa to China. They represented at least as much of 

a warning to Britain’s new allies as to Germany. 

The rationalization of Britain’s home forces was long overdue, but unaccompanied by the deeper changes which might have given point to foreign policy. 

National service remained politically unthinkable despite the rhetoric of Field 

Marshall Roberts and Rudyard Kipling. The Territorial Force remained a home 

guard of Saturday-night soldiers, dismissed by the professionals as dog-shooters. 

Batteries and battalions on home service were still essentially training units, 

depending on reservists in order to take the field, with no systematic provision for 

replacing the ruinous casualties everyone expected. To be sure, the experts 

predicted a short war. But those same experts calculated that a continental expeditionary force of 100,000 men would lose over half its men in the first seven weeks. 

And since most of the casualties would be suffered by the combat arms, the 

infantry and artillery, a British army in Europe was likely to prove not merely a 

wasting, but a disappearing, asset.69 

43 
The army’s development of continental strategy had not been an institutional 

response to a change in national policy. It began in part as a turn away from 

imperial commitments-specifically the defense of India against a major Russian 

invasion-impossible to fulfill with existing or projected force structures. Germany was at least an adversary which could be war-gamed, and the historical 

limitations on the British army’s size and responsibilities made British planners 

less influenced than their German counterparts by the apocalyptic possibilities of a 

future general war.70 

Attitudes also played a significant role. The British army had never accepted 

the argument that it was essentially an imperial police force. It may have done most 

of its fighting on the Northwest Frontier and its equivalents, but it did so with an 

eye on broader spheres and a greater game. The repeated fiascoes of the Boer War 

had been humiliating enough to act as a catalyst. The British army of the twentieth 

century was increasingly institutionally committed to achieving first-line status. 

Drills and maneuvers in the empire’s far-flung garrisons were oriented as far as 

possible toward la grunde guerre. The Indian army began changing from an 

instrument of internal and regional security to a force with projected European 

responsibilities. And since no matter where a British army might fight in the 

future, it could reckon with up-to-date opposition, continental models were also 

important because they set the standards copied elsewhere. 

The British army rapidly overtook and outstripped its teachers. Only the 

British in 1914 used trucks as the principal means of transportation between 

railheads and divisional supply columns. Only the British had both a first-rate 

modem field gun and light howitzer. Only the British stressed both rifle markmanship and automatic fire-power. Military Britain’s interest in machine guns had been 

noted by foreign observers as early as 1905: the often-cited Blimpish admonition to 

“take the damned things to a flank and hide them” is actually sound tactical advice 

for a weapon most effective in concealed enfilade position^.^' But these internal 

improvements were not a response to the continental commitment. They were 

rather a parallel development, one which encouraged Britain to pursue a forward 

policy for which she was ultimately unprepared, against an enemy whose role in 

British diplomacy was instrumental, a means to an end rather than a strategic end in 

itself. 

This process was further encouraged by Britain’s growing institutional and 

personal connections with the French army. Inter-service rivalry and professional 

calculation blended to convince the General Staff that the only feasible European 

deployment of the newly-formed field force was in northern France. Any other 

targets were too risky, and made the army too much an auxiliary of the navy, which 

would deliver, supply, and probably evacuate it. Deployed on the French left flank, 

however, the BEF could have a decisive impact on any future This 

viewpoint was encouraged by the growing readiness of French soldiers to give 

first-team status to their British counterparts, at least for yrposes of public 

consumption. To a France historically suspicious of perfidious Albion, and heavily 

44 
outnumbered by her more populous neighbor, a concrete British commitment 

would be worth any amount of honeyed words.73 Sir Henry Wilson, Director of 

Military Operations after 1910, was a political soldier, the kind of careerist whose 

highly-charged emotional commitment to France and its cause seems sharply out 

of character, particularly in view of the consistent reluctance to keep him informed 

of French strategic intentions. To what extent was it fostered by the close personal 

contacts in the French army which Wilson found so flattering?74 

At the cutting edge of Britain’s continental commitment, planning tended to 

determine, as opposed to merely influence, policy. A general purpose expeditionary force evolved into a single-mission instrument. But this was not a reflection of 

the army’s political strength. It was rather a manifestation of fundamental confusion. The B.E.F. became for Britain what the Schlieffen Plan was for Germany: 

a means of rationalizing dissonances. Questions of its role and its value were 

constantly raised-but the answers were too uncomfortable to be heard. It grew 

even easier to become absorbed in “conflict-as-a-game.’’ The fact that no one at 

policy-making levels challenged effectively the military assumptions of a continental commitment cannot be ascribed entirely to the secret nature of AngloFrench conferences, or the ability of Machiavellian staff officers to manipulate the 

information they supplied.75 Haldane’s six divisions protected British statesmen 

from making ultimate decisions about their country’s relationship with Germany 

on one hand, and France and Russia on the other. 

The hysterical enthusiasm accompanying the outbreak of war in 1914 is 

usually explained either positively or negatively. On the one hand, it becomes a 

manifestation of collective and individual relief from overwhelming tension, or a 

response to the boring routines of everyday life. On the other, it is presented in 

terms of a generation “taught to howl” for war, or of a virtuous proletariat 

temporarily led astray by its class The material consulted for this paper 

suggests, however, that the war fever of July and August 1914, was a manifestation 

of the dichotomies underlying the issue of a general war. Doubts and certainties, 

affirmations and negations, were so closely balanced in Britain and Germany that 

they inhibited preparation for the war regarded as inevitable. As the specific 

stresses of the July Crisis overloaded more and more of the diplomatic system’s 

safety mechanisms, everyone worked correspondingly hard to suppress ambivalences, to resolve the dissonances at least enough to present a firm public face. 

The adaptive value of such behavior for generals or statesmen is obvious. But it is 

hardly coincidence that mobilization was enthusiastically supported by intellectuals and the young-the social groups which would probably be most likely to be 

reluctant to admit their mouths had bought more than their hands could pick up. 

The challenge for the warring states would be harnessing, institutionalizing, and 

sustaining a zeal with such ultimately shaky foundations. 

45 
Chairman Trask’s Introduction of Professor Kennedy 

Professor David M., Kennedy received his doctorate in American Studies at 

Yale University in 1968. He joined the faculty of Stanford University in 1967 

where he attained the rank of full professor in 1980. He has been awarded a number 

of honors, among them fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the 

American Council of Learned Societies. His book entitled Birth Control In 

America: The Career ofMargaret Sanger, published in 1970, received the Bancroft 

Prize. In 1980 he published a book directly related to his appearance here. It is 

entitled Over Here: The First World War and American Society. His paper today is 

styled: “Rallying Americans For War, 1917-1918”. 

46 
RALLYING AMERICANS FOR WAR, 1917-1918 

David M. Kennedy 

Stanford University 

The Great War exploded with terrible vastness over Europe in the summer of 

1914. Within a few frenzied weeks all the great powers had become belligerents, 

and millions of men were under arms. A serpentine battle perimeter soon girdled 

Europe, from the Adriatic in the south to Flanders in the west and Russia in the 

East. As the weeks stretched to months and to seemingly endless years, and as the 

death toll climbed into many millions, there was scarcely a corner of Europe not 

washed by this colossal bloodletting. 

Contrast, now, the situation of the United States. The journalist Mark Sullivan 

aptly described it some years later: 

The war did not come to America as it came to Europe. No Oregon rancher working in 

his field of a peaceful afternoon was disturbed by an odd whirring in the sunny air, and 

looked over Mount Hood to see an airplane spitting fire upon his neighboring village. In 

no New England town did children huddle in the windows and peer at exultant Uhlans 

prancing down the maple-shaded street. No Maryland farmer from his hilltop field saw a 

thing that sent him hurrying to the house to gather his children into his cart and take to 

the road in fear. No city of ours walked for days in anxiety, listening to the rise and fall of 

a fateful cannonade. . . . It was not in the shape of violence of any sort that the war. . . 

came to us. Its coming took a form hardly physical at all; it came as newspaper 

despatches from far away, far away in distance and even farther away in spirit.’ 

Sullivan concluded that “the most accurate and comprehending reflection of 

the American attitude” toward the outbreak of the war was voiced by the Wabash, 

Indiana Plain Dealer, which editorialized: “We never appreciated so keenly as now 

the foresight exercised by our forefathers in emigrating from Europe.”2 

“Far away in distance and even farther away in spirit. . . .” Sullivan properly 

emphasized these simple truths about the conflict that Americans persisted in 

calling the “European” War. Its destruction never directly touched America; it 

made no demands on American resources comparable to the exactions it levied 

upon the treasuries of the Old World powers; and the reflexive response of most 

Americans, at least in 1914, was simply to regard the war as none of their business. 

These homely facts help to explain much about America’s role in the Great War of 

1914-1918: the long-enjoyed luxury of neutrality; the confusion surrounding President Wilson’s request for a declaration of belligerency in April 1917; the singular 

47 
methods the United States employed to place the economy on a war footing; and, 

not least, the techniques adopted by the Wilson administration to rally public 

support for the war effort. 

Woodrow Wilson’s war address to Congress on April 2, 1917, vividly illustrated America’s peculiar relation to the war she was about to enter. Perhaps the 

most significant fact to be noted about that address was the date of its deliverymore than two and one-half years after the fighting had erupted on the old 

continent, two years after the sinking of the Lusituniu (which many bellicose 

Americans had regarded as a more than adequate cusus belli), and two full months 

after the German announcement of unrestricted submarine warfare. 

Wilson cited the submarine campaign as the fundamental reason for America’s belligerency. But the President, perhaps seeking to deflect criticism of his 

belated response to the U-boat challenge, also attempted to make a broader case for 

American entry into the war. He proclaimed that America must enter the fray 

because “the world must be made safe for democracy.” Wilson here revealed both 

his own reservations about the adequacy of the submarine attacks as a justification 

for the abandonment of neutrality, and his effort, sometimes desperate, never fully 

successful, to make the waging of war purposeful to his largely indifferent, even 

militantly isolationist, people. The President instinctively emphasized ideas about 

democracy and self-determination. Those ideas always held sacred meaning for 

Americans. They had particular power in the atmosphere of 1917, charged by two 

decades of Populist and Progressive preachment of precisely those principles. But 

their concrete application to the war that Wilson now urged his countrymen to 

embrace remained obscure. 

“I am not voting for war in the name of democracy,” declared Ohio Senator 

Warren G. Harding during the Congressional debate on the war resolution. “I am 

voting for war tonight for the maintenance of just American right^."^ Wilson 

himself contributed to the confusion when in his war address he maintained that 

“We have no selfish ends to serve. . . . We are but one of the champions of the 

rights of mankind. We seek nothing for ourselves . . . ,” but then declined to ask 

for a declaration of war against Germany’s ally, Austria-Hungary, because “We 

enter this war only where we are clearly forced into it because there are no other 

means of defending our rights .”4 Were America’s purposes disinterested or selfinterested, universalist or nationalist? Wilson’s listeners had no agreed answer at 

the time, and history has not settled the question. 

Wilson further revealed the problem attendant on American entry into the war 

when in his war address he frankly raised the question of “disloyalty” and 

threatened that “it will be dealt with with a firm hand of stem repression.” Almost 

simultaneously with his request for a declaration of war, the President caused to be 

introduced in Congress bills empowering the federal government to control the 

expression of opinion about the war (the so-called “espionage” bill) and providing 

for forced military conscription. Both the President’s warning and the proposed 

48 
legislation suggested the degree of doubt in Wilson’s mind that a united American 

people would follow him willingly into the distant European conflict. The espionage bill and the conscription bill, Wisconsin Senator Robert LaFollette pointedly noted, furnished “the complete proof that those responsible for this war fear 

that it has no popular support. . . . ”’ 

So Woodrow Wilson took the country to war-uncertain of public commitment to the enterprise, appearing confused even in his own pronouncements about 

the rationale for his action. During the nineteen months of America’s belligerency, 

Wilson continued to insist on the necessity of American intervention on the side of 

the allies. Yet many aspects of his administration’s diplomatic, military, and 

mobilization policies indicated a persistent tentativeness in the American war 

effort. The United States fought as an “associate” of the allies, deliberately 

signifying its political distance from them, and particularly its refusal to be 

implicated in their various plans for organizing the post-war international economic order. Despite the passionate importunings of British and French military men, 

the Americans rejected all proposals to amalgamate American troops into Allied 

units. That decision deprived the Allies for many months of the benefit of 

American manpower in the fighting line; and men were second only to money on 

the list of assets that the Europeans needed from the United States. 

But it was with respect to domestic mobilization, both economic and psychological, that the qualified character of American belligerency was most tellingly 

revealed. Again, timing is significant. Only in late 1915 did Wilson openly 

advocate a program of limited “preparedness,” to be directed by a toothless 

agency, the Council of National Defense. On paper, the Council elaborated a 

complex administrative apparatus whose utter disutility was instantly demonstrated when it was called upon to perform in April 1917. The Council’s record of 

almost unrelieved irrelevancy constitutes perhaps the best evidence that the administration genuinely sought, until the last minute, to avoid American involvement in 

the war. Yet even when involvement eventually came, and the Council’s plans for 

economic mobilization proved grossly inappropriate, the administration did not 

move decisively to put new mobilization machinery in place. (Agricultural mobilization was a partial exception; Wilson named Herbert Hoover to head the Food 

Administration in the month following the American declaration of war.) Yet even 

that agency had sound statutory authority only after passage of the Lever Act in 

August 1917. The administration undertook its boldest measure of economic 

mobilization, nationalization of the railroads, in December 1917, nearly at the midpoint of American belligerency. And the War Industries Board, the supposed 

centerpiece of economic mobilization, did not emerge until mid-summer 1917. It 

limped along without strong direction from two successive chairmen through the 

following autumn and winter, and finally assumed a modicum of effectiveness (and 

congressionally defined authority) only when Bernard Baruch took over the 

chairmanship in March 1918, just eight months before the war’s end. 

Even at the height of its influence, the War Industries Board never attempted 

to place the American economy fully on a war footing. Though some major 

49 
economic sectors were declared “non-essential,” most notably the young but 

already booming passenger automobile industry, they were not absolutely curtailed or totally redirected to production for military use. In large part, the 

explanation for this partial mobilization lay outside the United States. America was 

permitted the unique privilege of such a policy because Allied productive facilities 

remained substantially intact, even after several years of war. The paramount needs 

of the Allies were troops and credits, not materiel. The American Expeditionary 

Force ultimately purchased more of its supplies in Europe, including artillery 

pieces and aircraft, than it shipped from the United States. 

The policy of less than total economic mobilization was also purposeful, a 

deliberate course of action that served some of the Wilson administration’s highest 

political objectives. Prominent among these was the opportunity, glimpsed in 1914 

and fixed firmly during the years of neutrality in the vision of men like Treasury 

Secretary William Gibbs McAdoo and Shipping Board Chairman Edward N. 

Hurley, to improve America’s international economic position while the Europeans were wholly absorbed in war. Accusations flew between British and American representatives on the Allied Maritime Transport Council that one side or the 

other was holding back, for commercial use, precious ships needed for war 

service. When the United States Department of Commerce finally commissioned a 

study of the issue, it concluded, with some mortification, that it was not the British 

but the Americans who should have felt themselves “in an embarrassing position 

before the British because of the relatively uninterrupted service of our merchant 

marine to the West Indies and Central America.”6 By war’s end, the British 

merchant fleet had shrunk nearly 15 percent from its pre-war strength, while the 

American merchant marine had grown some 60 percent. This was but one of the 

several entirely anticipated results of America’s peripheral engagement in the “war 

to end all wars.” 

No less purposeful, and still more indicative of the somewhat tenuous 

character of American belligerency, were the methods employed by the War 

Industries Board, and cognate bodies like the Food Administration, to accomplish 

their goals. One word summarily describes the techniques of virtually all the 

American mobilization agencies: voluntarism. American war managers shunned 

the exercise of formal power. In part they made a virtue of necessity, as Congress 

and the President withheld from them the kind of sweeping authority that their 

European counterparts wielded. But to a greater extent, as Robert Cuff has 

cogently argued, Wilson’s war mobilizers were guided by a conscious, articulate 

ideology. That ideology comported well with the official rhetoric describing the 

war as a struggle between autocracy and democracy, an antinomy popularly 

conflated with the folk tradition that contrasted Europe with America. Europe 

represented the political culture of authoritarian regimes; America the opposing 

principles of individualism and free choice. American war organizers repeatedly 

invoked that familiar polarity when they described their preferred methods. “The 

food administrations of Europe,” Herbert Hoover explained, “are of the nature of 

dictatorship,” but he intended that American policy should be “based on an entirely 

50 
different conception from that of Europe. . . . Our conception is that we should 

assemble the voluntary effort of the people. . . . We propose to mobilize the spirit 

of self-denial and self-sacrifice in this ~ountry.”~ Similarly, George Creel, head of 

the American war propaganda agency, the Committee on Public Information, 

sneered at his European counterparts, panoplied with heavy authority to censor 

and punish. “We had no authority,” Creel later declared in a typically American 

boast. “Yet the American idea worked. And it worked better than any European 

law.”* 

Hoover was as good as his word. To stimulate increased agricultural output, 

his Food Administration set no production quotas, but instead relied on high 

prices, partly supported by the American government, partly squeezed out of 

hungry (and resentful) Allies, to induce American farmers to do their duty. To 

dampen domestic consumption, he rejected any suggestion of food rationing, by 

then a long-familiar practice in the European belligerent countries. He chose 

instead to launch a massive publicity campaign, aimed at persuading American 

housewives voluntarily to introduce “wheatless” and “meatless” days into their 

families’ diets. The Food Administration, one of its official pamphlets explained, 

relied upon “cooperation rather than coercion, upon the compelling force of 

patriotic sentiment as a means to be tried before resort to threats and 

prosecutions .”9 

Analogous techniques characterized the operations of the War Industries 

Board, even after it came under Bernard Baruch’s energetic leadership in March 

1918. Despite the sweep of the Board’s mandate-nothing less than the harmonious 

orchestration of all war-related industrial production-its formal powers were few. 

It possessed no legal authority to set prices, nor even to enter into binding purchase 

agreements with suppliers. The Board’s most potent instrument, one observer 

concluded, was Baruch’s personality. He flattered, exhorted, occasionally intimidated-but avoided the threat of legal sanctions that he had not the power to 

invoke. The Board’s official historian, though sensitive to charges of illegitimate 

wartime collusion between government and industry, nevertheless conceded that 

the Board’s price setting procedures “always took the form of negotiations, and the 

results were, strictly speaking, agreed rather than decreed prices.” All the Board’s 

operations, the same observer concluded, proceeded “by request rather than by 

mandate. . . . Compliance was based as much upon the compulsion of reasonableness and the pressure of opinion as upon fear of governmental power.” In one 

notable application of the pressure of opinion, Baruch warned a balky lumber 

supplier that failure to honor the Board’s requests would make him “such an object 

of contempt and scorn in your home town that you will not dare to show your face 

there. If you should, your fellow citizens would call you a slacker, the boys would 

hoot at you, and the draft men would likely run you out of town.”” 

Even the most frankly coercive measure that the Wilson administration 

adopted-the military draft-was wrapped in the rhetoric of voluntarism, as when 

the President declared that the draft simply constituted a mechanism of “selection 

51 
from a nation which has volunteered in mass.”” The officials responsible for 

administering the draft in fact believed no such thing, and even feared riots on the 

initial registration day, June 5, 1917. Characteristically, they sought to avert that 

unwanted development by appealing to the force of public opinion, urging citizens 

to ensure that their draft-age male neighbors were cajoled or shamed into compliance with the registration procedures, endeavoring, as Secretary of War Newton 

D. Baker put it, “to make the day of registration a festival and patriotic occasion.”’* 

Most ingeniously, Baker and Provost Marshall General Enoch H. Crowder placed 

the day-to-day administration of the draft in the hands of some 5000 local draft 

boards. They thus strengthened the image of local control and voluntary service 

that the President had tried to summon up when he spoke of the nation volunteering 

in mass.” The local boards also served, as Crowder noted, to divert and ground 

“at 5000 local points . . . the disturbance that might have been caused by the 

concentrated total of dissatisfaction” focussing upon a single, centralized, administrative organ.I3 

‘” 

Several threads run commonly through these various aspects of American 

mobilization in World War I. Together, they weave a fabric of discernible pattern 

that marks the distinctiveness of America’s way of war-making in 1917-18. That 

pattern repeatedly reveals the uncertain, attenuated degree of American commitment to the Allied cause; the undismissable anxiety that public support for 

American participation in the war might not be sufficiently forthcoming; the 

strenuous, even occasionally contorting, efforts to refrain from nakedly applying 

the power of the state to the tasks at hand; and the consequent reliance on appeals to 

patriotism, on “public relations” campaigns, and on propaganda, to get the job 

done. 

The principal agency for propagandizing the American public, of course, 

was George Creel’s Committee on Public Information. Though officially dedicated 

only to providing factual information about the war, the CPI rapidly evolved into a 

remarkably effective instrument for playing upon a wide range of public emotions. 

In speech and in print, in posters and in music, in dramatizations and even films, its 

basic themes were three: that the war constituted a struggle between democracy 

and autocracy; that loyalty to America must be unalloyed; and that “Huns” were 

bestial sub-humans (one of the CPI’s most notorious films was entitled “The 

Kaiser: The Beast of Berlin.”). 

Responsive to the President’s expressed concerns as well as to the sometimes 

seething fears of old-stock Americans, the CPI gave a high priority to guaranteeing 

the loyalty of America’s abundant foreign-born residents (15 percent of the American population in the census of 1910, and, with their children, nearly 40 percent of 

the total). The CPI’s Division of Work with the Foreign Born organized “Loyalty 

Leagues” in ethnic communities, fed war news to foreign-language newspapers, 

and promoted gigantic rallies and pageants around the theme of “100 percent 

Americanism.” Overall, the CPI distributed 75 million copies of more than thirty 

pamphlets in several languages, explaining America’s role in the war. It deployed 

52 
some 75,000 “Four-Minute Men” as a kind of human broadcasting network, 

primarily to urge cooperation with the draft. It flooded the news services with press 

releases, and sponsored travelling war expositions attended by an estimated 10 

million people. 

In short, the CPI had a more pervasive effect than virtually any other 

American agency spawned by the war. Its techniques of publicity, persuasion, and 

propaganda were duplicated, to be sure, in the Food Administration, the War 

Industries Board, the Selective Service Administration, and even in the Treasury 

Department’s bond-selling campaigns. But the CPI was the pure, undiluted article, 

and may be taken as the summary example of the style that characterized American 

mobilization: the appeal not to the majesty of the laws nor even to the concrete 

discipline of felt necessity, but to high abstractions like “democracy” and “loyalty” 

and to the base emotions of hatred and fear. The consequences of invoking those 

abstractions and emotions are infamously documented in the record of anti-radical 

hysteria, vigilantism, and violence that stained the history of World War I 

America. 

Less well documented is the linkage that connects those sorry domestic 

effects of America’s belligerency to their causes in the over-all context of mobilization, and in the still larger context of early twentieth-century American political 

culture. American mobilization in the First World War illustrates what is perhaps a 

general principle about the domestic implications of war-making. Where popular 

consensus about the necessity of a war crisis is broad and deep, governments may 

apply with impunity measures that are intrinsically coercive-precisely because 

compliance need not be forced. Food rationing in World War I1 provides an 

example. But where such a consensus is absent, as it assuredly was from World 

War I America, then governments must employ the methods of indirection. They 

must somehow stimulate voluntary alignment with policies they dare not formally 

enforce. 

This is perhaps an overly complicated way of stating the obvious. But the 

point merits emphasis that an inverse relationship exists between the exercise of 

sovereign political authority and the resort to propaganda. Unwillingness or 

incapacity to pursue the former strongly compels the latter. Seen in this light, the 

hyperagitated atmosphere of American society in World War I did not derive from 

the spontaneous enthusiasm of the people for the war. It was, rather, in significant 

measure a direct function of the administration’s willful avoidance of formal 

instrumentalities to effect its mobilization program. 

From what sources did that distaste for such instrumentalities proceed? It 

derived, first, of course, from the President’s original inability to make a coherent, 

concrete case for the necessity of American involvement. Woodrow Wilson 

understandably hesitated to make more than minimal demands on a people that he 

justifiably feared were not entirely convinced of the wisdom of his course. And the 

53 
brevity and relative marginality of American involvement permitted that approach 

to persist substantially unmodified until the Armistice. 

Yet in no smaller degree the pattern of American war mobilization was woven 

from strands that ran back in time well before the declaration of war, deep into the 

fabric of peacetime society. Despite the expectation, even the hope, of many 

Americans in 1917 that the war might instantly transform American culture, and 

despite the tendency of historians to emphasize the mutating power of dramatic 

events, the prosaic truth remains that the basic structures of any society have a deep 

durability, even in the face of massive disruptions like war. The best clues as to 

what drove mobilization, then, are surely to be found outside the confines of the 

period of belligerency itself. 

Two features of American society in the years immediately before 1917 must 

figure prominently in any effort to explain wartime behavior. First was the 

unusually active debate, focussed especially sharply in the presidential election 

campaign of 1912, about the proper relationship between government and business. This issue dominated the agenda of a generation of reformers, known as 

progressives, and they were themselves sharply divided over it. Some, like 

Theodore Roosevelt, favored active government intervention in the workings of the 

market, with the state exercising continuous micro-economic controls over business. Others, most notably Woodrow Wilson, advocated a far more limited 

program of government intervention, with state power confined to a few macroeconomic matters such as regulation of the money supply and the general configuration of discrete but broadly defined markets through anti-trust legislation. 

Both progressive camps represented challenges, of a sort, to the American 

religion of laissez faire, which was regnant economic doctrine in early twentieth 

century America, and has uniquely persisted in this country, almost alone among 

industrialized nations, down to the present day. Yet also common to both schools of 

progressive political economy was a willingness to settle for what Richard 

Hofstadter once called “ceremonial solutions’’-morally comforting but substantively empty reforms of a capitalist system that was sufficiently functional, and 

powerful, to discourage attempts at radical restructuring. 

Wilson clearly stood with that wing of progressives who preferred a minimal 

expansion of state economic power, a preference powerfully reinforced by the 

predilections of his constituents in the Democratic party, still heavily a regional 

party in that era, suffused with the states’ rights, anti-federal ideology of the South. 

It is still more important to recognize the comparatively attenuated character of the 

entire progressive challenge to the tenets of laissez faire. Again, almost uniquely 

among modem states, the United States had no history of strong centralized 

government, and progressivism represented but the most modest of challenges to 

that tradition. It followed naturally, therefore, that in wartime, especially under 

Woodrow Wilson’s direction. the United States would hesitate to embrace statism. 

54 
It moved in that direction, and then only grudgingly, only as far as necessity 

compelled. 

The second notable feature of prewar society was, in significant ways, a 

corollary of the first. Unwilling to tamper drastically with the institutional structure of their society, yet disturbed by its manifest ills, progressives sought 

remedies in publicity-in the muckraking expose, and in the appeal to people’s 

better selves, to their consciences, as the keys to social change. These techniques 

received encouragement from the presumption prevalent in turn-of-the-century 

American culture that men and women were, in the main, rational beings who 

would behave predictably and reasonably when presented with “the facts.” That 

kind of thinking informed much of the progressive educational movement, with its 

emphasis on the child’s innate capacity for logical thought and moral growth, 

rather than his or her need for rote instruction and discipline imposed by others. It 

also, not incidentally, informed the Wilson administration’s approach to war 

mobilization, depending as it did more on the cultivation of right thinking that on 

the compulsion of naked government power. It was scarcely accidental that the 

Committee on Public Information drew many of its key personnel from the ranks of 

the pre-war muckrakers. 

Thus in many ways the shape of prewar America determined the contours of 

wartime policy. To cite one final but revealing example: the CPI undertook almost 

no propaganda work among American farmers, though they were concentrated 

heavily in those regions, especially in the Midwest, that were presumably most 

isolationist and therefore most in need of convincing about the war’s purpose. The 

CPI focused its concern, rather, on nurturing the loyalty of urban immigrants 

whose alienness had been at issue long before 1917. No strict logic of the war’s 

necessities dictated that policy emphasis. Quite the contrary. It can be explained 

only by recognizing that the society’s prewar agenda persisted tenaciously beyond 

the declaration of war. 

Permitting that persistence, of course, was the deeply underlying fact of 

America’s far removal, in distance and in spirit, from the European battlefront. 

The unique dispensations of geography and history inoculated Americans, perhaps 

for the last time, against the afflictions that modem warfare brought to other 

peoples. 

When Woodrow Wilson shattered ancient precedent and led his countrymen 

into a European war, they went about it in a typically American way, a way charted 

over three centuries of insulated experience that had molded the character of the 

republic. In the last analysis, they could do no other. 

Chairman Trask’s Introduction of Professor Rothenberg 

Professor Gunther E. Rothenberg received his doctorate in 1958 at the 

University of Illinois. He taught at Illinois State University, Southern Illinois 

55 
University, and the University of New Mexico before joining the faculty of Purdue 

University in 1973, a wise choice given its technological affluence, where he is 

now professor of military history. A recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, he is 

well known for extensive’studies of European military history. Among his most 

recent works are The Army of Francis Joseph, in 1976, The Art of Warfare in the 

Age of Napoleon, 1977, and most recently, Napoleon’s Great Adversaries: The 

Archduke Charles and the Austrian Army, published in this very year. His subject 

today is “The Collapse of the Central Powers in World War I: The Case of AustriaHungary.” 

56 
THE COLLAPSE OF THE CENTRAL POWERS IN WORLD 

WAR I: 

THE CASE OF AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 

Gunther E. Rothenberg 

When, in November 1918, revolutions toppled the governments of AustriaHungary and Germany, their armies still held lines deep in enemy territory. 

Therefore a few historians, numerous politicians, and many senior officers have 

charged that “treason” and not military defeat were the real causes of collapse. This 

view, albeit one stressing national revolution, was promoted by many writers in the 

succession states, notably in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, in order to show the 

effectiveness of their resistance to Habsburg rule. Yet, these claims are, at best, 

only partially true. There was a close correlation between the military events and, 

especially in Austria-Hungary, the cohesion of the empire. Morale and loyalty 

were reasonably high until 1916. After that date, when victory no longer seemed 

likely, these feelings declined and finally plummeted in the early summer of 1918 

when, after the failure of the final offensives, the Central Powers no longer had 

offensive capabilities or reserves to block enemy thrusts. Only when the war was 

lost, and both the German and the Austro-Hungarian high commands demanded 

an immediate end to the fighting, did revolutions erupt to end the rule of the 

Hohenzollern and the Habsburg. 

This does not mean that internal difficulties and dissensions had not contributed to the ultimate defeat. There were, however, very significant differences 

between Germany and Austria-Hungary. The populations of both empires suffered 

extremely high casualties, hunger, and deprivation. Social-political discontent also 

existed in both empires. But in Austria-Hungary the additional critical factor was 

the existence of separatist national movements. In fact, nationalism had already 

weakened, fatally in the opinion of some observers, the Habsburg Empire before 

the war. At that time, curiously, the major difficulties had been with the Magyars, 

one of the two dominant nationalities. 

The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary combined two sovereign statesAustria, “those lands and provinces represented in the Vienna Reichsrat,” and 

Hungary, “lands of the Crown of St. Stephen” with a government and parliament in 

Budapest-in a personal union under a common ruler, Emperor of Austria and 

King of Hungary. As additional links there existed certain “joint” ministries-war, 

foreign affairs, and finance-all dependent on appropriations from the two parlia57 
ments. The basic formula for the joint budget had to be renegotiated every ten 

years. ‘ 

This arrangement, the Ausgleich of 1867, had conceded much to Hungary, 

but there remained dissatisfaction with the joint military establishment. Adoption 

of universal conscription in 1867-69 required that the masses of the people accept 

the essential legitimacy of the governments; to achieve this, the emperor had made 

military concessions to Hungary in 1868.* But these had not sufficed, and from 

1886 to 1906 a bitter fight ensued in which the Magyars demanded both a larger 

national army as well as more control over the joint army (i.e., the imperial-royal 

army) considered vital to preserve the national and social structure of the kingdom. 

Although this dispute was eventually settled by another compromise, the Right 

starved the military budget and weakened the army.3 In 1914 the Austro-Hungarian 

army was prepared for a “campaign against Serbia, but not for a major European 

war,”4 and this situation, one historian charged, was largely owing to the “intransigence of politicians in Hungary.”’ 

Moreover, Hungary’s success in obtaining the rudiments of a national army 

fanned the aspirations of other national groups. And because the joint army 

accurately reflected the multi-national composition of the empire, including, for 

every 1,000 men, 267 Germans, 223 Magyars, 135 Czechs, 85 Poles, 81 Ruthenes, 

67 Croats and Serbs, 64 Rumanians, 38 Slovaks, 26 Slovenes, and 14 Italians, 

Hungary’s incipient national army caused great concern among senior officials, 

both military and civilian .‘j Many authorities believed that national conflicts made 

it impossible for Austria-Hungary to fight a major war. In 1895, Count Kasimir 

Badeni, Prime Minister of Austria, asserted that a “multi-national state cannot 

make war without endangering its existence.”’ In 1911, Conrad von Hotzendorf, 

Chief of the Imperial and Royal General Staff, wrote that “all preparations for war 

are in vain as long as our internal problems are not resolved.”* 

In particular, there were worries that national antagonisms would disrupt 

swift and orderly mobilization and that socialist workers might sabotage industry 

and communications. However, to the surprise of Austria’s enemies and the relief 

of the Habsburg authorities, mobilization in July 1914 went without a hitch. Fears 

that the Magyars would rebel, a nightmare that had haunted senior officers, did not 

materialize.’ On the contrary, Magyar regiments remained loyal to the end. 

Unsuspected reservoirs of dynastic loyalty emerged, even among the Czechs and 

Serbs. “The army,” one scholar concluded, “on the whole remained an effective 

instrument until the summer of 1918.”” And the same was true of the socialists. 

Until 1918, there were no strikes or sabotage, and while the limited industrial 

capacity of the empire could never furnish the range or quantity of weapons 

available to the major belligerents, it managed to reequip the army and provide for 

some twenty-five new divisions.“ 

But all this apparent cohesion could not conceal the major problems of the 

empire. which were so great that many historians, albeit in retrospect, believe that 

58 
even victory would not have saved the Dual Monarchy.” The gravest problem was 

nationalism; the need for a fundamental revision of the Ausgleich to give greater 

voice to the various nationalities in both Austria and Hungary. Here, the mechanics 

of dualism did not make the outlook very hopeful. Hungary repeatedly used its 

leverage to block concessions to the other nationalities, and even during the war, 

Budapest, jealously guarding its status as a sovereign state, frequently pursued 

policies at odds with Vienna and the military high command, the Armee Oberkommando or AOK. The existence of two separate governments with different and 

often opposed policies constituted a complication unknown in Germany or, for that 

matter, in any of the other belligerent nations. 

Any discussion of Austria-Hungary during World War I falls rather neatly 

into two periods-from 1914 to the death of Emperor Francis Joseph in November 

1916; and from November 1916 to November 1918. The first period, which 

coincided with hopes for victory or a compromise peace, was relatively quiet on 

the home front. During the second period, however, hopes of victory and peace 

receded, contributing to greater unrest, strikes, small-scale revolts, and finally, 

revolution. Efforts at conciliation made by the new emperor, Charles I, can be 

regarded as well-meaning, but too late. 

The outbreak of war gave greater powers to the military leadership. As with 

every continental power, the Austro-Hungarian constitutions provided for an 

extraordinary expansion of executive controls in the event of war. These laws 

culminated in the War Service Act of 1912, passed after stormy debates in the 

Reichsrat; similar legislation was enacted by the Budapest parliament. The War 

Service Act provided for the conscription of manpower and materials to be 

enforced by military courts if necessary-and for censorship and supervision of 

suspected subversive elements as well. Procedures for the actual implementation 

of these measures were worked out in a number of conferences between the 

military and concerned civilian authorities .I3 

With mobilization, the AOK (with Archduke Friedrich as titular head and 

Chief of Staff Conrad as actual decision maker) assumed command and control, 

and implemented the War Services Act. As a first step, the AOK established the 

Kriegsuberwachungsamt, the War Supervisory Office, headed by a senior general 

and including officers as well as officials from the interior, commerce, justice, and 

finance ministries. l4 There was no parliamentary opposition in Austria because in 

1913 Prime Minister Count Stiirgkh, facing obstruction mainly from a combination 

of Czech and socialist deputies, had prorogued parliament. In Hungary, where 

parliament continued to sit, Prime Minister Stephen Tisza refused to recognize the 

competence of the War Supervisory Office, though legislation for limited cooperation with the military in such matters as treason, and subversion was passed.” 

In contrast to the situation in Germany, the Austrian military never eclipsed 

civilian government; indeed, the enforcement of war emergency powers led to 

conflicts with the Austrian civilian authorities. During the opening phases of the 

59 
war, the army had introduced martial law within the zone of operations; that is, in 

Bukovina and Galicia, and in the fall of 1914, the AOK attempted to extend a 

modified form of military jurisdiction to Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, and Croatia. 

At issue was not only authority, but also two conflicting philosophies regarding the 

treatment of civilian dissent. The soldiers favored a harsh line, whereas the 

civilians were more tolerant toward the political opposition. The civil governor of 

Bohemia, Baron Thun, stood firm against military incursions, supported in this 

stance by Sturgkh.I6 For that matter, some of the traditionalist senior officers did 

not like the idea of the army’s entering politics; even General Bolfras, the head of 

the emperor’s military chancery, grumbled that the AOK was overstepping its 

competence.” Therefore, when Conrad took his complaints directly to Francis 

Joseph, he had but limited success. Thun, considered too soft, was replaced by 

Count Coudenhove in March 1915, but there would be no military government in 

Bohemia.18 As for Croatia, part of the Crown of St. Stephen, Tisza refused to listen 

to Conrad, and though he shared Conrad’s aversion to Slavs, Tisza brutally 

repressed any political agitation there with Hungarian police.” 

In May 1915, the exasperated military took the law into its own hands and 

arrested two leading Czech opposition politicans, Kramar and Scheiner. The 

military justified this action by pointing to the mass defection of the 28th Infantry, 

a regiment that in its home garrison in Prague had been the target of much socialist 

and nationalist agitation, and by the clear intention of Italy to enter the war against 

Austria-Hungary.’” The emperor tolerated the arrests but refused to sanction 

military rule. Early that summer, however, a German-assisted offensive cleared the 

Russians out of Galicia and Bukovina, and a general was appointed to govern the 

liberated territories; but, even as the Italians were held in the southwest, Kramar 

and Scheiner remained in jail, despite repeated protests by Sturgh. Basically, 

however, the AOK had failed to supersede civilian government in Austria.2’ 

Even so, the AOK had forced both the Austrian and the Hungarian governments to adopt a heavy-handed attitude, one certainly no worse than measures 

adopted in other states at war, but not likely to be taken as an argument for the good 

wili of the Habsburg rulers. Yet during that first two years of the war, there was little 

evidence that even the most radical of the anti-Habsburg movements were seriously at work to disrupt the monarchy. The Magyars, though obstreperously 

insisting on further concessions, provided excellent troops; the pro-Russian movements among the Ruthenes in the Bukovina had not survived the Russian invasion, 

and the population had turned to the Ukrainian independence movement sponsored 

by Vienna and Berlin. The Croats were loyal, the Serbs cowed, and most Poles still 

looked to the Central Powers for a restoration of their state. The Rumanians, 

Slovenes, Slovaks, and Italians either still hoped for improvements under 

Habsburg rule or were too weak to count for much. As for the Czechs, they were 

most active abroad. At home, despite the many post-war claims and the rather 

misleading picture of the “good soldier Schwejk,” the population cooperated with 

the authorities.22 The all-important Skoda works and the rifle factories at Brunn 

(Brno) and elsewhere continued to turn out substantial quantities of war materiel. 

60 
To be sure, the Czechs were sullen, but they also were cautious: they were waiting 

for a clear signal about how the war would end. Abroad, Thomas Masaryk and his 

Czech National Council in @-is prepared for the contingency of an allied victory; 

at home, the Czechs were making plans based on cooperation with the authorities 

and eventual demands for Bohemian state rights.23 

Thus, military events and the retention of the loyalties, or at least the 

acquiescence of the peoples to Habsburg rule, were closely related. By 1916 the 

military horizon was clouded. On the Isonzo, the front held firm against the 

Italians although a grandiose offensive from the Tyrol had failed. Serbia had been 

conquered and Rumania, which entered the war in August 1916, was soon overrun. 

The picture was worse on the Russian front where in June 1916, the Brusilov 

offensive had broken the Austro-Hungarian lines and reached the Carpathians. As 

for the German ally, there now was a bloody stalemate on the western front, but 

adequate forces were still available for future operations. In short, by 1916 defeat 

was by no means certain, but victory seemed equally elusive. And so was peace. 

The failure of the peace initiative by the Central Powers as well as through the 

mediation efforts of President Wilson had been bitter disappointments; moreover, 

in both Austria and Hungary the enormous casualty lists had shaken public morale. 

Food and fuel had become critically short on the home front; even the army was on 

short rations. Although the Entente had not yet made the break-up of the Habsburg 

Empire an official war aim, the unresolved conflicts both between the nations and 

between the nations and the crown, muted for two years, were becoming more 

pron~unced.’~ 

It was at this point that Emperor Francis Joseph died on 21 November 1916, in 

his eighty-seventh year of life and the sixty-eighth year of his reign. His death 

removed an important cohesive element and loosened national restraints. Even the 

Austrian socialists, long derided as “His Majesty’s imperial and royal Socialists,” 

became more militant. “Every class and every nationality,” observed C. A. 

Macartney and A. W. Palmer, “was preparing for a struggle to enforce change or to 

resist it.”25 

The old emperor’s successor was his nephew, Charles I, a well-meaning 

young man, twenty-nine years old, with humanitarian inclinations, but lacking 

experience and unable to stick with his decisions. Even worse, his outlook and that 

of his main advisors, aristocrats and some aging liberal professors, was unrealistic; 

he still believed, for instance, that some academic schemes of internal reconciliation would halt the disintegration of the Dual Monarchy.26 From the outset, such 

hopes were limited by the Magyars who feared that Charles I might try to appease 

the Slavs at the expense of the dualistic system and the Kingdom of St. Stephen. To 

prevent such an occurrence, Tisza rushed to Vienna to assure the young monarch 

of Hungary’s continued allegiance, and in return obtained the promise of an early 

coronation in Budapest, a promise which committed Charles to uphold dualism.27 

Thus from the outset, Hungary forestalled any change from above in the structure 

of the Dual Monarchy. 

61 
But the emperor’s most urgent objective was to make peace. To this end he 

personally assumed command of the army, removed Conrad, and brought the AOK 

from its headquarters in Silesia back to the outskirts of Vienna. At the same time, 

between February and April 1917, he attempted to negotiate directly with the 

French government, using his brother-in-law, Prince Sixtus of Parma, then a 

Belgian officer, as intermediary. The attempt failed. Nothing Charles could offer 

would have been acceptable to Italy; major territorial concessions, a confession of 

military defeat, would have been opposed by the Germans in the Reichsrat and a 

majority in the Hungarian parliament. Such a move, moreover, could not remain 

hidden from Germany, but would eventually force the Habsburg Empire into even 

greater dependence on its powerful ally.28 On the home front, Charles faced three 

interlocking problems: the food situation, Hungarian demands, and the evergrowing militancy of the nationalists. The food problem was the most pressing and 

immediate. 

Since the 1880s Austria had to import a considerable portion of its food 

supply, ordinarily from Hungary, but, when the harvest there was poor, from 

Russia and Rumania. The Austrian grain harvest of 1914 had been below average, 

and the Russian invasion of Galicia had cut off one of the major sources of supply. 

Lack of manpower, draft animals, and fertilizers aggravated the situation; the 

harvests of 1915 and 1916 were even worse than that of 1914. By 1916 the situation in 

the Austrian urban and industrial centers, as well as in the less fertile areas such as 

Istria, Dalmatia, Moravia, and other places, had become difficult, even desperate. 

Bread rations were down to 200 grams a day; meat, milk, and fats were almost 

unobtainable. Hopes that the conquest of Rumania would alleviate shortages did 

not materialize. 

It had been expected that with the existence of the Dual Monarchy at stake 

Hungary would do its best to help Austria, but nothing of the sort happened. On the 

contrary, in April 1915, Hungary closed its borders to the export of grain and would 

make deliveries only in return for Austrian goods or political concession~.~~ 

In this near catastrophic situation, Emperor Charles appointed General Ottokar Landwehr to head a joint Austro-Hungarian food commission in the spring of 

1917. But with negotiations for a revision of the Ausgleich in Hungary’s favor then 

underway, the commission spent most of its time in bureaucratic squabbles-and 

very little additional food reached Austria.3o To complicate the difficulty, the 

internal Austrian machinery was also unequal to the pressures of wartime. Rationing had been introduced in 1915, and when Hungary later closed its borders, the 

authorities took over the entire process of marketing, milling, baking, and distribution. But the critical food situation hardly improved. There was not enough food, 

and in Austria, as in other countries under pressure, the sense of civic duty and 

cooperation vanished. There was much profiteering and black market activityand little effective action to halt it.3’ The AOK repeatedly urged draconic penalties, 

pointing out that a well functioning food supply was vital for the war effort. 

Military courts, it was urged, should try offenders. But the emperor would not 

62 
listen. On the contrary, he relaxed military controls and granted amnesty to 

political offenders, including Kramar and others. The gesture had little effect, and 

some observers considered it counterprod~ctive.~~ Thehardships in Vienna, by far 

the largest city, had become so great by the fall of 1917 that one Geman journalist 

reported that for “the Viennese the war is finished.”33 

That fall a German-Austrian offensive defeated the Italians at Caporetto and 

revolution swept away the Russian government. The outlook for the Central 

Powers temporarily appeared much improved. But the entry of the United States 

into the war had changed the real balance of power beyond repair. President 

Wilson’s Fourteen Points, published on January 8,1918, called for the dismemberment of the Habsburg Empire and encouraged the nationalities to seek independence instead of the federal solution they might have accepted earlier. But negotiations with the new Bolshevik rulers of Russia at Brest-Litovsk dragged on. An 

AOK memorandum on the “Possibilities of our lasting through the Winter of 

1917118” recognized the critical situation. Replacements and weapons might last 

until spring, but, the writer of the memorandum declared, increased rations for 

industrial workers would be 

Finally, in October 1917, Austria established an agency dealing with all 

aspects, civil as well as military, of food supply-the Kriegsernahrungsamt. In 

January 1918, this agency found it necessary to reduce the bread ration in Austria to 

165 grams a day. A few days before, the Brest Litovsk negotiations had broken 

down, leaving the impression that Berlin, abetted by Vienna, had sabotaged an 

opportunity for peace. The Austrian socialists, including the Czechs, had become 

more militant since the death of Francis Joseph, and under their leadership strikes 

involving over half a million workers broke out in and around Vienna and soon 

spread to Styria and Bohemia. The Vienna garrison appeared unreliable, the police 

powerless. The AOK had to respond with operations Mogul and Revolver, rushing 

seven reliable divisions from the front.35 

In the end the strikes were broken by a mixture of coercion and political 

concessions-including the reopening of the negotiations with Russia. When these 

talks failed in February 1918, Austro-Hungarian forces participated in a limited 

offensive designed to occupy the Ukraine. “The most important task,” Charles 

wired the commander, “is seizure and shipment of food, not only for the army but 

even more importantly, to alleviate distress at home.”36 Again, results were 

disappointing, and the episode merely served to estrange the Poles from the 

Habsburg state. Indeed, in the early months of 1918 there was considerable 

political activity-though little to comfort the emperor. There was a tentative 

renewal of the Ausgleich with Hungary, though on terms that would have made the 

kingdom completely independent. At the same time, a radical anti-Habsburg 

swing occurred among the Czechs and the South Slavs. Finally, there were 

politically motivated mutinies in the armed forces-a large-scale naval mutiny at 

Cattaro (Kotor) and minor, if worrisome, outbreaks among the army units. The 

63 
authorities believed that some of the mutinies were led by indoctrinated POW’S 

returned from Russia. but were unable to isolate these men.37 

Against this background there was political maneuvering in Vienna, 

Budapest, Zagreb, Prague, and many other provincial capitals. In Vienna, Charles 

had reconvened the Reichsrat early in 1917. Few of its members wanted the 

dissolution of the monarchy, though the Czechs and South Slav delegates, uniting 

in national committees and parliamentary unions, demanded during May and June 

the reorganization of the empire along federal lines.38 But this restructuring was 

blocked again by the Magyars. During the preliminary negotiations for a renewal 

of the Ausgleich, the Magyar ruling class in Hungary, which governed with a very 

limited franchise, remained adamantly opposed to Austria’s having any voice 

regarding the future status of the nationalities in the kingdom. On this stand all 

Hungarian parties, including the opposition radicals led by Count Mihaly Karolyi, 

were united. Talks were suspended at the end of 1916 but resumed in February 1917. 

By this time Charles had undercut Tisza’s position by opening negotiations with 

the opposition, and Tisza was forced to resign in the spring of 1917. His successor, 

Alexander Wejerle, was willing to make limited reforms in the franchise but tried 

to bolster his position by reopening the army issue. With the balance tilting against 

the Central Powers, Magyar politicians of all shades were determined to safeguard 

the future of the kingdom by a separate military e~tablishment.~~ 

Senior military officers opposed such proposals, but in the end a compromise 

was cobbled together. Hungary’s share of the joint expenses was reduced, and its 

armed forces were to be completely separate and independent. In return, the 

agreement was to run for twenty years. When terms of the deal leaked out, an 

uproar arose in Vienna and Budapest. Habsburg loyalists objected because the 

agreement left the monarchy no more than a personal union, and Hungarian 

champions of independence were dissatisfied with the twenty-year term. In 

November 1917, the two prime ministers agreed not to seek ratification of the 

agreement but to allow the existing Compromise of 1907 to remain in force until 

the end of 1919.40 

Taking their cue from the Magyars, the other nationalities became bolder in 

their demands. While still recognizing the monarchy, the Czechs called for a 

greater Bohemia, a Czecho-Slovak state including Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia; 

the South Slavs called for the unification of the Ukraine. All these schemes, of 

course, were totally contrary to the wishes of the Magyars, who let it be known that 

any such developments would be countered by a total food embargo. Neither 

would the Germans, the largest national group, but not a majority, accept these 

proposals. So the situation deadlocked early in 1918.4‘ 

Of course, much of this controversy was a charade played out while the real 

decisions were made on the battlefield and in the allied capitals of the West. After 

considerable wavering, Italy and France committed themselves to national independence for the Czechs and South Slavs, a move that for the first time gained the 

64 
self-exiled politicians a mass following at home. These commitments, however, 

were made in the wake of the last German offensive in the West and were primarily 

based on military rather than on political consideration^.^^ 

The Central Powers played their last military card in the summer offensives of 

1918 and failed. Austria-Hungary opened an ill-conceived offensive across the 

Piave on June 6 that managed to gain a shallow bridgehead, but her troops were 

contained by superior forces and withdrew with heavy losses two weeks later.43 

Following the Piave offensive, the AOK, short on reserves, no longer possessed 

offensive capabilities. A few weeks later, the German drive in the West petered out; 

on August 8, British and French tank-supported forces tore a great hole in the 

German front. The German Oberste Heeresleitung , having assumed control over 

the entire conduct of the war in 1917, then decided that it had to be ended, and by 

September 1918, called on a hastily reconstituted civilian leadership to negotiate 

for an immediate armistice. The much maligned, belittled, and basically less 

effective Austro-Hungarian army and state had managed to hold on just as long as 

its more powerful ally. 

But the end had come for the Habsburg. In Vienna, Emperor Charles made 

desperate attempts to save his inheritance. An appeal for peace on September 14 

had gone unanswered; a second appeal on October 4 asked for an armistice on the 

basis of Wilson’s Fourteen Points. That day Hungary unilaterally accepted Wilson’s program, in effect endorsing the dissolution of the Dual Monarchy in an 

effort to safeguard the kingdom. But it was too late for that. On September 3,1918, 

the United States had recognized Masaryk and his National Council as the de fucto 

government of Czecho-Slovakia, the Serbs were making contact with figures in 

Laibach (Lubljana) and Agram (Zagreb), and in Cracow there was talk of a Polish 

state guaranteed by the Allies. National Councils, no longer looking toward 

autonomy but toward independence, were forming in the various provincial 

capitals. In a last-ditch effort to preserve a role for his dynasty, the emperor issued 

a manifesto on October 16 promising to reorganize Austria into a federal state. Of 

course, the manifesto did not apply to the South Slavs-even now Hungary refused 

to permit this; in fact, the manifesto promised not to “touch the integrity of the 

lands of the Crown of St. Stephen.” It also was far too late to satisfy either the 

Czechs or the Poles.4;‘ 

The manifesto did destroy the remaining legitimacy of the Habsburg Empire, 

absolving soldiers and civil servants from their oaths. When Wilson announced on 

October 21 that he no longer could accept mere autonomy, he merely recognized an 

established fact. By the end of October, in city after city-in Prague, Zagreb, 

Ljubljana, Budapest, Cracow, and even Vienna-the nations of the empire had 

abandoned the Habsburg and established functioning governments of their own. A 

few local commanders contemplated resistance, but Charles refused to sanction it. 

The Dual Monarchy had already disintegrated, but the Habsburg army continued 

to fight on Italian territ~ry.~~ On October 24 a British-French-Italian offensive, 

Italy’s much celebrated victory at Vittorio Veneto, opened. The Austro-Hungarian 

65 
troops already had taken oaths of allegiance to their new governments, but 

resistance, nonetheless, continued until on November 3 an armistice was signed 

near Padua. At that, the last units, a corps in Albania, did not cease fighting until 

three days later.46 

All that remained of the ancient monarchy was the emperor and his cabinet of 

elderly civil servants-a few rooms full of ghosts and papers. On November 11, 

1918, Charles renounced all share in the government of Austria; two days later he 

did the same for Hungary, though he would not formally abdicate. He left Vienna 

for a retreat in the countryside and within weeks went into exile in S~itzerland.~~ 

There is, after all, no clear answer about the causes for the disintegration and 

defeat of the Dual Monarchy. Clearly the problems of the home front, antedating 

the war by many years, played a major role. At the same time, only military defeat 

could rally the opposition into a determined action. The most remarkable thing, 

however, was that an ancient empire, shackled by a complicated and unsteady 

political and social structure, had held out so long against a combination of internal 

tensions and a superior foreign enemy. In the end, a multi-national empire lacking 

strong central controls could not maintain itself in the world of the twentieth 

century. Whether its ultimate dissolution really brought advantages to the various 

nations and peoples may, in retrospect, be doubted. 

Chairman Trask’s Introduction of Professor Winkler 

I now turn to our commentator. Professor Allan M. Winkler received his 

doctorate from Yale University in 1974. I might have said 1984 because he looks 

ten years younger than he really is. At any event, after receiving his degree he 

taught at Yale University and more recently joined the faculty at the University of 

Oregon. Like his colleagues he is full of honors for one so young, having received 

a Mellon fellowship and having served as a visiting professor at the University of 

Helsinki. The author of a series of articles on the problem of “demon rum” in the 

mid-nineteenth century, he went on to a work that qualifies him for his commentary 

this morning, namely a book in 1978 entitled The Politics of Propaganda: The 

Ofice of War Information, 1940-1945. 

66 
COMMENTARY 

Allan M. Winkler 

I’d like to follow Professor Rothenberg’s lead and be suggestive rather than 

exhaustive and open the way up to you, the audience, for commentary on the 

papers and the issues that have been raised. I would like to single out a number of 

themes which have come through in the three papers we’ve heard this morning, to 

grapple with a number of points presented in those papers and then to tie up the 

session very briefly. First, a comment about the general theme of the symposium 

and this session in particular. I’d simply like to underscore from my perspective the 

absolute importance of studying the interplay between internal and external events, 

the impact of war on home front society, and its corollary, of course, the impact of 

society on what happens in terms of the outcome of the war. Some scholars have 

noted that time and again. Richard Ullman and Arno Mayer are among the most 

perceptive historians confronting that issue, but others have dealt with it too. I 

think the papers given today contribute towards an understanding of that vitally 

important theme and that’s a step in favor for all of them. All three of the papers 

we’ve seen deal with that interplay to different degrees, arguing in different ways 

about how the interplay occurred. 

Let me begin by talking about the connections raised by Dennis Showalter in 

the first paper dealing with British and German preparation for World War I. In a 

paper that Professor Showalter acknowledges assumed a life of its own, he focuses 

on “dichotomies” and “dissonances,” as he terms them. He talks about militarism 

in both English and German society. He talks about the rhetoric of preparedness. 

He talks about a variety of forces impelling both of those nations toward ultimate 

intervention and involvement in a war when it occurred. On the other hand, in spite 

of the rhetoric, in spite of the militarism, in spite of those positive forces, he talks 

about a corollary negative force, fear of the war that might come, a hesitation to 

become totally involved, and he tries to understand how ultimate involvement in 

the war finally took place. I think it’s important for me to raise a notion that he 

argues more aggressively in the written version of the paper that I received, one 

which he didn’t deal with in as great detail in the spoken version, because 1 think it 

provides a kind of coherence to the argument. 

The term “dissonance” arose a number of times in the presentation this 

morning. In the written version, Professor Showalter speaks much more specifically about the psychological term, “cognitive dissonance,” as his analytical 

67 
framework, and uses it to pull the different strands together. That, I think, was his 

justification for making a bold and conceptual leap into an area that other historians 

might have left alone. Very briefly, he declares “cognitive dissonance” to mean “a 

perceived gap between beliefs and behavior, between what one thinks and what one 

does,” and argues that people need to make accommodations to reconcile the 

different and sometimes contradictory notions which they may embrace. This, he 

argues, is what was going on in both Germany and Britain on the eve of World War 

I. My question, very briefly, is how useful is that construct, how important is it? 

What does it give us in terms of trying to understand the themes that have been 

raised. He has dealt a good deal with the problem of ambivalence in those two 

societies. Yet I must confess to an ambivalence of my own with regard to 

psychological model building. I studied psycho-history as a graduate student and 

I’ve read a good deal in the field. I firmly believe that William Langer was right 

when he urged historians to consider that area. And yet, I’d simply like to voice to 

you my questions about whether one can effectively apply micro-psychological 

notions, if they can be so called, to a broader field, a broader discipline, the study 

of society as a whole. I think I’ll leave it at that. I simply would like to voice a 

skepticism that perhaps the audience can follow through on, as we move into the 

discussion in a few moments. 

David Kennedy, in his paper “Rallying Americans for the War: 1917-1918,” 

speaks of a different kind of ambivalence as he explores American society during 

its involvement in the war itself. He argues, on the one hand, that while there was 

an inexorable movement of the United States toward war, as indeed there was after 

1914, there was firm resistance to that on the part of most other Americans at the 

same time, and he contends that the same ambivalence persisted and continued 

after the United States became involved in the war in April of 1917. I think he does 

an admirable job of describing the qualified character of American belligerency, of 

showing the limitation of the American war effort, and of helping us understand 

why the nation therefore had to resort to propaganda to draw Americans better into 

the fold. What do we make of this? It seems to me that in his argument Professor 

Kennedy is at his very best in his assessment and analysis of the tentativeness and 

ambivalence that was inherent in the American response to war. He is persuasive in 

showing the constraints of the American past, particularly as he focuses on the 

legacy of progressivism and the limits imposed on a real embracing of the notion of 

statism during the war years. That framework helps us understand the implications 

of that ambivalence for the larger effort in the war, for the larger external 

involvement of the United States, once it had chosen to join the struggle. 

Gunther Rothenberg’s presentation moves us beyond the period of mobilization into the war years themselves, particularly with regard to the Austro-Hungarian empire. Once again, questions of national unity, questions of national 

sentiment, and questions of ambivalence are present as well-perhaps to an even 

greater degree given the fragmented nature of Austria-Hungary during the First 

World War. In a crisp and well argued paper and presentation, as given off the cuff, 

Professor Rothenberg argues that mobilization at first went very easily. Despite the 

68 
incredible centrifugal forces that might have been expected to have tom the empire 

apart in 1914, a cohesion was maintained until the war began to go more poorly, 

until after the death of the emperor. It was this conjunction of factors-the war 

itself, as well as the internal fragmentary forces-which ultimately culminated in 

the empire’s falling apart. I think the real importance of this paper, and what I’d 

like to draw out of it most specifically, is that sense again of the crucial interplay of 

internal and external forces. We can follow the development of national aspirations, not in a vacuum but as they pertained to the question of unity, our theme for 

this morning, during the course of the war. We can explore the developments, 

parallel and often involving one another, as internal forces had an external effect, 

and vice versa, throughout the years of the war. That tension between the different 

nationalities is, in a way, very similar to a tension within American society, and a 

tension within British and German society at the same time. All of which leads us 

again to underscore the importance of dealing with all areas in the study of World 

War I. 

The papers taken together give us a comparative focus on important questions 

in the First World War. One could and should pursue the notion of comparative 

study. At the very outset of his very brief essay in C. Vann Woodward’s Comparative Approach to American History, Arno Mayer observes that not simply were 

there severe internal tensions in Britain and Germany, but in France and Italy as 

well. One simply needs to glance at the example of the Russian empire and the 

Soviet experiment that began in the war years to be aware of the same kind of 

tension there. By looking at several different kinds of societies, as we have this 

morning, we can begin to understand the broader dynamics of the war, the 

similarities and connections between events in different lands, as a monumental 

military struggle unfolded. 

I’d like to close this morning by exploring one last theme, by providing one 

more perspective, particularly with regard to American involvement in World War 

I. I would like to offer a chronological perspective, to compare events of this time 

to those of the Second World War, to tie into some of the themes that John Blum 

spoke about so well last night, to give us a sense, again, of that interplay between 

internal and external forces and how we can assess it. A short while ago, David 

Kennedy spoke about the tensions in American society. There was hesitation over 

involvement in World War I, even though there was at the same time, of course, a 

mobilization on behalf of the struggle. Songs like “Over There” provide one small 

bit of evidence of that exuberance that some Americans felt. But the fragmentary 

forces were far more important. During World War I1 much the same thing was 

true. The nation was unified after the attack on Pearl Harbor. But as John Blum 

indicated last night, there were certainly severe fragmentary forces that were at 

work for the duration of the war. David Kennedy argued that propaganda in a 

society where there isn’t a firm commitment or a firm consensus behind the issues 

and aims of the war is often necessary. And one can argue that much the same kind 

of thing held true in the second major war of the century, precisely because of the 

centrifugal forces that did exist then too. A propaganda network arose during the 

69 
Second World War, as the Office of War Information became the successor to the 

Committee on Public Information. One sees many of the same forces at work. One 

sees the same issues being developed. There were disagreements about the nature 

of the war, troubles and tensions at home. And all contributed to the same kind of 

effect in World War I1 that there was in World War I. 

Very briefly, by way of conclusion, what do we make of all of this? I think one 

can argue that in the twentieth century, particularly in the last fifty years, total war, 

modem war, is absolutely impossible to consider without regard to the question of 

national unity. A society that hopes to wage war as it was waged in World War I and 

then in World War I1 and in the aftermath as well, has to be concerned with 

questions of national unity. That throws us once again to the question of the 

interplay of internal forces with foreign and military affairs, a question that I think 

we need to continue discussing, both this morning and for the duration of the 

conference as well. 

70 
DISCUSSION AND COMMENTS 

David F. Trask (Moderator) 

Robert J. Watson (Historical Division, Joint Chiefs of Staff): I would like to 

ask Professor Kennedy, you contrast the American approach to relying largely on 

propaganda with the European approach of relying on the authority of the state. 

But is it possible to show that the European governments thereby relied less on 

propaganda? My impression is that they drove the propaganda in just as hard as we 

did, while at the same time using state power. Is that correct? 

Kennedy: The question is excellent. I wish I could give a proportionately 

excellent answer. What I think is clear is that in European belligerent states, 

coercive measures such as food rationing and so on were resorted to early on, or 

relatively early on, while they were willfully avoided in the United States. One 

could easily sustain the argument that there was a greater degree of centralization 

of state power, in the European belligerent governments. Whether or not there was, 

therefore, a proportionately lesser degree of reliance on propaganda in those 

European belligerent governments, I don’t know. I would call upon some of our 

colleagues here with greater knowledge of those developments to comment on 

that. 

Showalter: A useful reference in this context for the German experience 

certainly would be the two volume edition of Militar und lnnenpolitik by Professor 

Wilhelm Deist who’s up this afternoon. The thing that struck me working through 

that, and working through other literature on German military censorship in World 

War I, was the tremendous concern which the German army had for propaganda, 

both affirmative and negative. By that I mean that their concern with censoring 

Munich pacifist groups, for example, would match just about anything that you 

saw coming out of Bernard Baruch’s office. I was struck more by the parallels 

between at least the German experience and some of the things that David Kennedy 

cited in his paper. Certainly the authority was there in the European states, but 1 

think even the most Prussian of Prussian officers tended to remember Tallyrand’s 

axiom that one can do everything with bayonets except sit on them. I mean they 

much preferred coercion and affirmation to a simple use of blind force, although 

there were, of course, some very serious debates between hard and soft liners. This 

is not something I’ve looked into in depth, but as far as Germany is concerned, I 

am impressed by the willingness of leaders there to use propaganda and to favor 

propaganda as opposed to simple force. 

71 
Kennedy: I think Arthur Marwick is here someplace. Maybe he would like to 

comment on activities in England. 

Marwick: The problem in addressing this question to me is that I basically 

disagree with the whole thesis that David Kennedy was putting forward. However, 

he’s right to get me to speak about Britain because that is where this polarity 

between America and Europe falls down since Britain, in fact, comes somewhere 

in between. The same reluctance in Britain to abandon laissez faire that David 

Kennedy was talking about in regards to the United States, was not inspired by a 

lack of enthusiasm of the war. It was simply that laissez faire principles were 

thought to be good principles and something which you could defend at the same 

time as, in the early stages, rather ineffectually waging war against Germany. 

What I find striking is the similarity between what happened in America and what 

happened in Britain. You simply went through the same processes a bit later than 

we did. I have to say David Kennedy, I think you’re wrong to use your point about 

American propaganda having to be “hepped up” as an argument to demonstrate 

both a lack of enthusiasm for the war, and the war’s limited impact on American 

society. If the war had gone on longer what would have happened in American 

society? I don’t want to anticipate my own oration tomorrow morning, but what I 

will be arguing for is the tremendous similarity of the war’s impact on all of the 

societies involved in it, regardless of whether they won or lost. It seems to me that 

the similarities are more important. I had LO say all that to explain why I’m not 

answering the question which David Kennedy has put to me as directly as he would 

wish. I think the answer is that in Britain and the other European countries the 

propaganda effort was just as strong as it was in the United States. In Britain it was 

characterized by the extent to which, for a long period of the war, it was very much 

in the hands of voluntary agencies, very much the same sort of thing that was 

happening in the States. Well, perhaps there was some difference in that regard 

since there was no need in Britain for the government to force propaganda on 

people because the intellectuals, the newspaper editors, were all enthusiastic for 

the war anyway. At any rate, it only became necessary for the British government 

to step in in a big way in 1917 when food shortages began to affect the country. I 

would like to say to Professor Rothenberg that okay, it was worse in AustriaHungary, but you also had the same kind of discontent there as in Britain in 1917, 

and that’s when propaganda has to take over. I’m sorry for taking so much time, but 

in my view the answer to your question is that the propaganda effort in all of the 

European countries, including Great Britain, was just as strong as it was in the 

United States. 

Kennedy: Can I add just one quick coda to that? I think we are not engaging 

the question properly if we just compare relative strengths to propaganda efforts. I 

think a closer examination would have to look at the content of the propaganda and 

the internal audiences to whom it was particularly directed. Part of my argument 

earlier this morning was that American propaganda showed a very strong coloration of items that were on the prewar agenda and had only marginal relationship to 

the war itself. 

72 
Robert Buchanan (Adams State College): Regarding the question which the 

commentator raised about Professor Showalter’s analytical framework of cognitive 

dissonance, there is actual documentary evidence to support this argument. 

Between 1888 and 1914, Germany was not yet, really, a unified nation state. 

Various opposing groups, rooted in the new industrial technology, were competing 

with one another to establish a central government in Germany with a popular base 

of support. I have worked primarily with the naval interests in this struggle, and 

they were using war scares, armaments and armaments races to win domestic 

political battles. Domestic victories were often far more important than foreign 

war. If you move over to the other side, to the foreign office and the Kreuzzeitung 

working with Army interests, they were also doing this. So I think there is factual 

basis to support the argument set forth in Professor Showalter’s paper. 

Ron Cole (Center of Military History): I think Professor Kennedy made a 

very interesting case that the geographic and psychological distance between the 

United States and Europe made it necessary, after the war began, for Wilson, 

Baker, and Creel to drum up support for the war effort. But I have a couple of 

problems with this thesis. First of all, I think the widespread fear of radical labor 

and political movements in the United States stemmed in large part from what was 

going on in Europe, fear of Marxism and syndicalism to be specific. And this fear, 

which was quite extant in the American West in the period 1917-1918, led to 

extralegal, if not occasionally illegal, suppression of aliens and dissenters and the 

IWW [International Workers of the World], the subject which I am now researching. Such suppression, it seems to me, could only have been made possible 

because of a widespread public fear of European radicalism, and great concern that 

it might take root over here. That’s my concern with your thesis. I would also like 

to know, if you can answer this, how President Wilson and George Creel reconciled a war for democratic principles abroad while they were so vigorously 

suppressing peaceful strikers at home? 

Kennedy: I’m not sure I take the point of your first observation. But let me try 

to answer the second part of your statement. You are, of course, echoing a 

proposition that was certainly part of public discourse in 1917 and 1918: the 

apparent hypocrisy of a war to make the world safe for democracy in the face of 

egregiously anti- democratic procedures at home. I think I can do no better than to 

agree: it was hypocritical. I don’t know if it was all together 100 percent consciously so, but certainly in practice there was a highly objectionable degree of 

contradiction between stated policy goals and actual behavior at home, no doubt 

about it. 

Cole: I will be glad to clarify that first part of the comment. You made a big 

case of the fact that the separation of the United States from events three thousand 

miles away made people in the midwest, for example, feel as though they were not 

part of what was going on over there and why should they get involved. Yet, my 

study of the radicals and the use of federal military forces in the 1880s, 1890s, and 

1900s shows that there was a very real concern, even in the midwest, as isolated as 

73 
it was, for what was going on in Europe. So I maintain that there was very much 

concern about European matters, and that that had a great deal to do with the rise of 

a need to repress radicals in order to get economic solidarity or labor solidarity, in 

full support of the war effort. 

Kennedy: If your point is that, as part of the attack on radical labor groups in 

the United States, the charge was made that they were somehow connected with, or 

took their inspiration from, European radical movements, yes, I agree. But I’m not 

sure how that could have translated directly into some kind of conscious notion that 

the war in Europe interested anti-labor groups in the United States. The war was 

just a very distant affair. For people in in the American West, where the greatest 

labor difficulties were experienced, the relationship to the European conflict was 

especially distant and tenuous. Smearing radical labor organizations with all kinds 

of charges, including one of being directed by the Second International and so on, 

was a very common tactic. But I think it was a rhetorical ploy more than it was 

something translated into a concrete sense of connection with the European war. It 

was only in the aftermath of the war that the issue of radicalism, as one of the war’s 

products, really became focused as a conscious issue. There, I think, in the case of 

the Red Scare in 1919 and 1920, your point is much more cogent because there was 

a quite conscious idea that this Red wave that had washed up over the ruins of 

Europe was about to wash all the way across the Atlantic to the United States. But 

during the war itself, I don’t think there is much evidence to support the existence 

of a fear of war-inspired radicalism. 

Cole: I have seen some documentation to the effect that, at the beginning of 

the war, the connection made with Europe was that the IWW was really working 

somehow in connection with the Kaiser or the Austro-Hungarian empire. 

Paul Koistinen (California State University, Northridge): I think we can tie in 

both what Professor Kennedy was saying and the comments made here about the 

IWW. First, quite clearly in terms of “establishment orientation,” I think more than 

European radicalism, it was the war effort at home that was used as a “convenient” 

means “to get” the IWW. It is a pre-war condition that is involved. Second, the AF 

of L was in on the “getting” of the IWW. Again, a pre-war trend. So both the points 

that are being made, I think, have validity. 

Dick Hallion (Air Force Flight Test Center): I’d just like to address a remark 

made by one of our commentators concerning mobilization activities in the field of 

industry and business, and by implication, in the field of science and technology, in 

the years prior to the First World War. I think if we take a look at the application of 

science and technology to military affairs in the years prior to the First World War, 

we see many times that the champions of these developments were less concerned 

with saving or restructuring their governments and more concerned with bringing 

an increased awareness to government of the potential of the new technologies. 

This is especially true in the case of hydrodynamics, which has direct application 

to naval architecture, and aerodynamics, which was becoming of increasing 

74 
importance as the various European nations and the United States recognized the 

potential of the airplane. Particularly if we take a look at Germany and the activities 

at Gottingen University under the direction of Felix Klein in the years prior to the 

First World War, we see what one historian of science, Paul Hanle at the Smithsonian Institution, has referred to as the beginning of what we now commonly accept 

as the military-industrial complex. In Klein’s championing of the work of such 

individuals as Ludwig Prandtl in the field of hydrodynamics, and Prandtl’s disciple, Theodore von Karman who, of course, developed a very special and significant relationship after the First World War with the U.S. Army Air Corps, we 

really see the reshaping of a military approach to technology. It is also very 

interesting to note the way in which professional military engineers and members 

of the academic community in the United States, during the years prior to the First 

World War, started championing the cause of developing aeronautical research 

laboratories. As early as 1909 they pointed to the work in European laboratoriesfirst, to the National Physical Laboratory in Great Britain and then to Prandtl’s 

work in Germany-as having the potential to contribute meaningfully to the 

capabilities of the American military. This resulted in the emergence of the 

National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1915. Dr. Alex Roland of Duke 

University is doing a very excellent job in researching early NACA history. I think 

in questions involving the mobilization spirit of various societies in the years prior 

to the First World War, we must consider these aspects, the aspects of science and 

technology, and also that they reflected largely social concerns. For example, in 

the United States, the drive for a National Aeronautical Laboratory system was 

directly connected to the ongoing progressive request for economy and efficiency. 

These, in fact, were the terms that were used over and over in congressional 

debates. 

Rask: A very interesting comment. 

Robin Higham (Kansas State University): I’d just like to make two quick 

comments. It seems to me one thing that nobody has looked at, although you have 

mentioned comparative history here, is that the United States before the First 

World War was really almost a multi-national society. This was the period right 

after our great immigration. That is something somebody might like to comment 

on. The other thing that people might like to comment on would be the impact of air 

attack on civil populations. Air attacks in World War I were just beginning to reach 

over the battlefield and get at the population on the homefront. It certainly had 

some rather dramatic effects in England with long-term consequences. There also 

were attacks on Germany, and, 1 believe, some attacks on Austria. 

Kennedy: I’ll just comment very briefly on the first point. I absolutely agree 

with you. I tried to allude briefly to the fact that the percentage of foreign-born in 

the American population at the time of World War I was in the 15 percent range, the 

highest it has ever been historically. And I think it is quite plausible, conceptually, 

to think of the United States as a multi-national society, more so than ever at that 

stage of its development. I would go further and say that is but one aspect of the 

75 
general character of American society in the early twentieth century, something 

which was rapidly and rather painfully discovered as mobilization started to get 

under way. American society was just terribly disarticulated, it was not organized, 

it was not “centralizab1e;”-if I can coin that word-in a way that I think some 

people rather naively expected it to be. When the economic mobilizers went out 

and tried to find, for example, basic production figures, how many automobile 

manufacturers there were and so on, they found that basic statistical data like that 

just did not exist. Trade organizations didn’t exist. The mechanisms by which 

impulse is put into a system from a central administrative point and through which 

it might travel efficiently to the periphery, weren’t there. 

Showalter: Relative to air attacks, certainly a lot of popular fiction, H.G. 

Wells’, War in the Air and a lot of the material discussed by I.F. Clarke in Voices 

Prophesying War, projected the impact of air power. There is a book in the 

Colorado State University library up at Fort Collins that discusses battleships 

being sunk or crippled by aircraft which operated very much like the Harrier, 

aircraft that were able to take-off from ordinary converted merchantmen. The title 

escapes me, but the book was written in 1906. However, I think these sorts of 

apocalyptic concerns were of less importance to at least the German planners than 

what we might call the straight line projections they could make based on the 

destructive potential of weapons that they actually had at hand. They were less 

concerned with what was likely to happen because of aircraft or Zeppelins 

dropping bombs than they were with what was going to happen in the front lines. 

For example, a good deal of the heroic vitalism that characterized German infantry 

training before 1914 reflected the conviction that the ordinary rifleman was going to 

need every resource he had if he was going to make any kind of contribution in the 

few minutes before he was knocked out. They were expecting a massive casualty 

rate, a very high rate of destruction, and they could manage to accomplish that 

quite well without bringing in the potential of destruction from the air. There is a 

gap here, perhaps I might say a dissonance, between the writings of popular 

authors and the expectations of military planners, at least in Germany. I think 

England was about the same, although there are people here who are better 

equipped to speak to that. 

76 
CONCLUDING REMARKS 

David F. Trask 

May I now, in the interest of having a happy ending, bring this session to a 

conclusion with a very few brief remarks I’ve been asked to make that might help 

us understand where we are now and where we might go this afternoon. Here again 

I begin with another unsurprising generalization: historians, in dealing with past 

processes, concern themselves with two grand categories. One of those categories 

is change. The other is continuity. I now turn to the study of twentieth century 

American history by American historians. There is a great dichotomy in that study. 

There is a group of historians whose work is confined largely to the study of 

domestic events. They represent by far the larger group. They have concentrated 

primarily on the study of peacetime America. Only recently have people from this 

group began to give serious attention, for reasons I think are quite evident, to the 

war period of American history in the twentieth century. This group, then, is drawn 

to continuity. David Kennedy’s study here is only the latest example of the strong, 

dominating tendency of people who approach the American twentieth century 

from the domestic point of view to emphasize elements of continuity. The other 

side of the treatment of American history by American historians in the twentieth 

century is that which comes from those studying military and international 

questions. That group, highly concerned with warfare as such, emphasizes 

change. That is to say, what alters as against what continues. This is, I think, where 

we are now in terms of historiographical approaches to this field. It is clear that a 

whole new agenda of concern with regard to home fronts has arisen, and that it is 

going to be a most important subject for the rest of the twentieth century. David 

Kennedy, for example, is going to attempt in his next work to cope with this 

question once more. What I’m trying to suggest here is an endorsement of the 

statement Professor Winkler made, that we must think both in terms of continuity 

and change, and must approach these questions both from an internal, or domestic, 

and an external, or international, point of view. We must realize that this is indeed a 

great and important question. And that’s why this conference is so much needed 

and why it can be so helpful in sorting out the future. Let me give one example of a 

recent study which, in fact, approaches questions of the sort we are talking about 

from this dual point of view. I refer to Colonel James Abrahamson’s book, America 

Arms For a New Century, which, if you are looking for a beginning guidebook on 

how to do it, I strongly recommend. 

77 

SESSION I1 

THE SINEWS OF WAR: 

ECONOMIC MOBILIZATION IN 

WORLD WAR I1 

THE SINEWS OF WAR: ECONOMIC MOBILIZATION IN 

WORLD WAR I1 

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 

Russell F. Weigley 

As my friend David Trask reminded us this morning, some of us old timer 

military historians have difficulty learning new things. But the Air Force Academy 

tries to help us out through its military history symposia which have explored one 

after another aspect of the “new” military history, the military history that seeks to 

place the history of armed forces in its social and political setting. But even the Air 

Force Academy has been somewhat chary of taking up the economic dimensions of 

military history. This afternoon’s program on economic mobilization in Germany 

and the United States seeks to remedy that deficiency so that again, the Air Force 

Academy, through these symposia, is educating all of us. 

I suspect that one of the reasons why even the new socially broad military 

history has been slow to explore the economic relationships of military history is 

because economic history is so specialized a subject with such specialized problems. Probably economic history is even more isolated from the main stream of the 

historical profession than military history, which is saying a great deal, As we will 

find out, though, from this afternoon’s papers, the slowness of military historians 

to deal with the economic dimensions of their subject is somewhat mitigated by the 

fact that before and during the Second World War, in Germany and the United 

States at least,, the armed forces themselves were slow to relate their military needs 

and even their industrial mobilization needs to the economies of their countries at 

large. Instead, the military both in Germany and the United States were content for 

a long time with ad hoc, short run, sorts of expedient relationships with business 

and the economy, hoping that such ad hoc relationships would suffice. We are 

going to find that not only in that way, but in another respect as well, the German 

and American economic mobilization experiences in the Second World War were 

similar to each other. Both Germany and the United States were slow to invoke all 

their economic strength for the waging of the Second World War. But although both 

were slow to do so at the outset of the war, we shall find that the two experiences 

diverged, and our two papers this afternoon will diverge, in that Germany much 

more than the United States eventually did enlist its economy in the war effort. 

This despite the fact that we Americans have been inclined since the Second World 

War to take pride in so-called miracles of productivity that we’ve come to imagine 

81 
our economy accomplished during the Second World War. One of our papers this 

afternoon will show how much those miracles of productivity were a myth. The 

other paper, on Germany, will show something of a contrast. 

Even though, as I stated a few minutes ago, military historians may have a 

kind of excuse for a relative neglect of the economic dimensions of our study, I 

think we’ll find too as the afternoon goes on that the excuse is not adequate, that 

linking economic and military history offers a means to illuminate all sorts of 

problems of military history. Not only that, but I think we’ll find this afternoon that 

linking economic and military history offers us some illuminating insights into the 

whole history of great powers in the modern world and particularly into the present 

economic predicaments of the United States that perhaps even threaten its superpower status in the modern world. 

(Chairman Weigley’s Introduction of Wilhelm Deist 

With those general observations, let me proceed to introduce the first of this 

afternoon’s speakers. Wilhelm Deist is a member of the Militargeschichtliches 

Forschungsaml. in Freiburg, the Federal Republic of Germany. He studied at the 

University of Tubingen and received his Ph.D. from the University of Freiburg. He 

is co-editor of the Militar-Geschichtliche Miteilungen and the War and Society 

Newsletter. His publications are numerous. They include a work that was referred 

to in the discussions this morning on the First World War, Militar und Innenpolitik 

im Weltkrieg, 1914-1918. He is also the author of Flotten Politik und Flotten 

Propaganda, a book which concerns the German Naval Information Office from 

1897 to 1914. In English he has written The Wehrmacht and German Rearmament. 

I’m happy to introduce and to welcome to the United States, Wilhelm Deist. 

82 
SOME ASPECTS OF GERMAN MOBILIZATION UNDER 

THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST REGIME 

Wilhelm Deist 

On the morning of September 1, 1939, as Hitler made his way from the 

Reichskanzlei to the Reichstag, he heard virtually no applause from the onlookers 

gathered behind the closed rows of SA men. The correspondent of the Neue 

Ziiricher Zeitung observed only a small row of spectators who, according to the 

Swedish businessman, Birger Dahlerus, watched the events without expression. 

This scene in Berlin mirrored the reaction of great parts of the German population 

to news that war had begun. The many reports describing popular feeling in those 

days suggest a frame of mind ranging from apprehension and depressed silence to 

gloom and uneasiness. In any case, this reaction stands in clear contrast to the 

overwhelming national enthusiasm with which Germans of almost all classes had 

greeted the declaration of war in August 1914. On the other hand, one must note 

that-again in contrast to events during the First World War-domestic unrest, 

industrial actions, and mutinies comparable to those of 1917-1918 did not occur 

during the course of the Second World War, despite its much greater psychological 

impact on the German population. However sharply popular feelings in September 

1939 contrasted with those of August 1914, there were parallels in Germany’s 

economic situation at the outset of both World Wars I and 11. Consider the 

comparative analysis contained in an Army High Command (OKH) report of April 

1939: 

The present situation resulting from steel shortages is to a certain extent comparable 

with that prior to the World War. At that time the three army corps which would have 

helped decide the war quickly in its first year did not exist because of parliament’s refusal 

to grant funds. Today, the army is refused the quantities of steel needed to equip it with 

modem offensive weapons. The results could be comparable to that of 1914. 

General Georg Thomas, Chief of the Wehrmacht’s economic section, shared these 

views and criticized both Hitler and the regime’s most powerful political and 

military representatives for refusing to implement more than an “improvised 

economic mobilization.” It was largely because of this improvisation, reinforced 

in its negative effects by the inefficiency of the bureaucratic steering system, that 

the Wehrmacht faced an ammunition shortage in late autumn 1939-exactly as had 

occurred in the First World War. The parallels between crises in the war economy 

in the first stages of both wars are even more striking when one takes into account 

the military literature of the inter-war years. This literature had stressed-as a 

83 
result of the First World War-the decisive importance of economic factors in 

modem industrialized warfare. 

A comparison of a few aspects of the early mobilization periods in both wars 

is especially inleresting, because in many respects the so-called “lessons” of the 

First World War determined German rearmament from 1928 onwards. The first 

industrialized war on European soil had added new dimensions to the concept of 

“war.” Mobilization of the economy and of public opinion had become major 

factors in armed conflict. It thus was not surprising that leading Reichswehr 

officers, men who had studied the problems of national defense intensively, came 

to realize that a comprehensive mobilization of Germany’s material, human, and 

moral resource!; had to be the basis of any future war. Furthermore, these officers 

realized that one must plan and prepare in the greatest detail in peacetime if one 

wished to achieve a total mobilization early in any war. But the Versailles Treaty, 

which had been incorporated into German law, and which determined the size and 

structure of the Reichswehr down to the details of equipment, prohibited any 

preparation for mobilization. 

Historical research on the Reichswehr until now has stressed the veiled and 

illegal connections of the Reichswehr leadership to right-wing paramilitary organizations in the Weimar Republic and the political importance of those connections. 

In my opinion, one must also note as equally or even more important the first steps 

taken in 1927 towards an initially modest but systematically planned, comprehensive rearmament program. Such a rearmament program could only be implemented with the cooperation of industry and the republican government itself. The 

connections between industry and the military had never been completely severed. 

Those connections took on even greater economic significance during the years of 

the Great Depression and were highly valued by German industrialists, the very 

limited financial resources of the Reichswehr notwithstanding. As rearmament 

depended on regular government financial support, the vital question was whether 

the Reichswehr leadership could succeed in obtaining the governmental approval 

for this illegal program. In October 1928 the cabinet of Reich Chancellor Hermann 

Muller, a Soci.al Democrat, expressed its approval. Henceforth the Reichstag’s 

constitutional right to control the budget was by-passed by means of executive 

decrees. Not surprisingly, since it had to put up with only minimal formal 

supervision, the Reichswehr expressed a general willingness to cooperate with the 

civilian executiive. What Carsten has called a jump to the Left by the Reichswehr 

was, in fact, only an unpremeditated by-product of the Reichswehr’s rearmament 

policy. * 

In its rearmament programs for the periods 1928-1932 and 1933-1938, the 

Reichswehr sought to modernize and modestly increase its weaponry and equipment. More important, the programs also were aimed at facilitating a switch to 

*Ed note: The author is referring to the conclusions reached by Professor F. L. Carsten in hi5 The 

Rric hJwehr and Politics, 19/8-1933 (Oxford, 1966). 

84 
mass-production of weapons and equipment in case of war. This led to a variety of 

measures and demands which in some portions of industry introduced state 

intervention in peacetime. Included in this respect were certain precautionary 

measures to assure the supply of raw materials, and the placement of orders which 

influenced the infrastructure of both the state and the national economy. These 

were areas that required careful attention and detailed planning in peacetime in 

order to lay a basis for efficient mobilization during the first decisive weeks of a 

future war. 

Thus the lessons of the First World War strengthened tendencies towards 

mobilization of important sections of the nation’s industrial base. These tendencies 

existed not only in the economic field. In 1926 the Minister of Transport, Dr. 

Rudolf Krohne, a member of Gustav Stresemann’s Deutsche Volkspartei categorically stated in a memorandum: “There is no field, which is not to be used by the 

state for the preparation and implementation of a future war.” In fact, under the 

influence of General Kurt von Schleicher as Chancellor and Reichswehr Minister, 

Germany was slowly evolving towards a military state even before the end of the 

Weimar Republic. 

In one field the Reichswehr nevertheless ran into nearly insurmountable 

barriers. All the military, organizational, economic, and technical measures and 

plans for a gradual rearmament designed to restore Germany’s European position 

would be decisively hampered if the integration of the entire population into this 

military and political program foundered. The traumatic experience of the 1918 

breakdown and collapse of the Kaiser’s army was an ever disquieting warning to 

the Reichswehr. A memorandum of March 1924 discussing the “psychological 

preparation of the people for war” is an indication of the importance of this issue to 

the Reichswehr. Citing the supposed failure of republican governments and parties 

to provide support, the memorandum demanded that the Reichswehr, with the help 

of the right wing paramilitary organizations, institute a program of systematic 

propaganda to strengthen the popular will to arm. In spite of various initiatives and 

some successes, until January 1933 the Reichswehr never received much sympathy 

from the Left which, during the pre-Hitler years, formed a sizeable percentage of 

the political spectrum. With Hitler’s appointment as Reich Chancellor and the 

seizure of power by the National Socialists, the basic political premises changed in 

favour of an effective Reichswehr propaganda campaign to strengthen the will to 

arm, while at the same time the Reichswehr’s position within the state and society 

received a new definition. 

This change was underlined to the generals on February 3, 1933 when Hitler 

spoke to them in the home of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army about the 

fundamental pattern of his future policy. At the outset Hitler announced that 

“regaining political power” was his sole aim, and that this depended upon a 

complete change of existing domestic political circumstances. More especially, he 

emphasized ii “strengthening of the will to arm” employing all possible means. 

Using several dramatic examples, Hitler enlarged on his plans for “rearming,” and 

85 
promised that he would overcome the politically motivated opposition to the 

organization of national defense, opposition which the Reichswehr previously had 

been unable to overcome. He asserted that the Reichswehr, as it then existed, was 

“the most important institution in the State.” Both this statement and his program 

of “rearming” provided a firm basis of cooperation between the Reichswehr and 

Hitler’s National Socialist movement. For the first time the opportunity seemed 

ripe for organizing Germany’s material and human resources to meet military 

needs and thus 10 create-in accordance with the perceived lessons of the First 

World War-the decisive preconditions for an effective national defence. Hitler 

expressed this iiicisively when he argued that success at the disarmament conference in Geneva would be “pointless . . . if a nation (did not) possess the will to 

arm.” From the generals’ viewpoint, the fact that the Reichswehr would be more 

firmly anchored in the population under the new regime and that conscription 

would expand the small professional army was of decisive importance. An atmosphere of optimism now emerged. The early February 1933 dictum of Colonel 

Walter von Reichenau which held that the Wehrmacht had “never before” been “so 

identical with the State,” was in fact wishful thinking, but it nevertheless described 

the exact goal that the army hoped its alliance with the new regime would achieve. 

The program to strengthen the will to arm was pushed forward by the National 

Socialist state and the Wehrmacht with all possible means and considerable 

success. After the elimination of the political opposition and the Gleichschaltung 

[i.e., “coordinalion”] of all public and private organizations, the new Propaganda 

Minister, Josef Goebbels’, and the OKW made every effort to enhance the relationship between the German people and the Wehrmacht. The tactics of Goebbels’ 

propaganda machine are well known, and they were all fully employed in this case. 

The aim and content of the propaganda appeared as early as Hitler’s speech on 

February 3, 1933: “Strengthening of the will to arm employing all possible 

means. . . . Youth, the population as a whole, to be recruited to the belief that only 

a struggle can save us and that everything must be subordinated to this belief. . . . 

Strict authoritarian government. Removal of the cancer of democracy.” The 

propaganda, of course, resulted from Hitler’s social Darwinistic ideology which 

extolled military virtues and emphasized pride in German military traditions. 

Slowly but surely the growing power of the new Wehrmacht became the basic 

theme of propaganda, with Goering’s Luftwaffe especially highlighted. The 

Wehrmacht’s march into the Rhineland in 1936, its maneuvers in 1937, and above 

all, the army’s occupation of Austria in 1938, were successful tools to rally popular 

sentiment to the Wehrmacht. In comparison with the Reichswehr, the Wehrmacht 

thus gained a brload and solid basis of public support during the peacetime period of 

rearmament. 

Nevertheless, Hitler and his propaganda chief faced a dilemma. Hitler’s 

social Darwinistic conviction that a continuing struggle for survival determined 

not only the life of individuals, but also the development of nations, was a basic 

axiom of his pollicy, which thus is to be understood as a policy of preparing for war. 

In his speech to the Reichswehr’s generals in 1933, Hitler expressed this viewpoint 

86 
explicitly. Yet he also added that the period of the Wehrmacht’s build-up would be 

extremely dangerous because of the external risks. This phase, he added, would 

show whether France really possessed “statesmen.” If this were the case then it was 

to be expected that France would regard German rearmament as a reason for 

“attacking us (probably with [the help of] their allies in the east).” But Hitler was 

correctly convinced that in the first phase of rearmament, the risks of isolation or of 

sanctions, whether political or economic in nature, could be circumvented by 

skillful diplomacy. Hitler avoided direct confrontation with France and Great 

Britain in favour of a policy of deception as outlined in his “Peace Speech” of May 

17, 1933. 

In general Hitler succeeded in deceiving foreign powers with the help of a 

skillfully presented peace propaganda, but these tactics had highly undesirable 

domestic consequences. During the Czech crisis in 1938 there was virtually no 

enthusiasm among the German population for a military adventure. The opposite 

was true. Himmler’s SS (Security Headquarters) described popular feelings and 

attitudes with words like “depressed” and “in a psychosis.” The peaceful solution 

of the crisis at Munich in late September 1938 was greeted not only with relief but 

enthusiastic approval. Hitler naturally was aware that such sentiments were inconsistent with his political and military aims and thus he mounted a major effort to 

influence popular attitudes. On November 10, 1938 he declared to approximately 

400 German journalists and publishers: 

Circumstances have forced me to talk for ten years only about peace. . , . It is obvious 

that such peace-propaganda employed in the recent past has had a pernicious impact. It 

can easily make the people think that today’s regime has identified itself with a decision 

and will to preserve peace under all circumstances. . . . It was therefore necessary to 

transform the German people psychologically and to make clear that there are policies 

and national goals that can only be achieved through force. To effect this change we must 

not only propagate power as such, but to explain events in foreign policy to the German 

population in a way that our people’s inward conception makes them long for force and 

power. 

In the course of this secret speech Hitler spoke of the “pacifistical record” which 

now had to be “scrapped.” Propaganda directions and strategy, of course, could be 

altered easily and quickly, but in the summer of 1939 Hitler was to learn that it was 

not so easy to achieve the desired results. The national enthusiasm of August 1914 

could not be recreated even with the aid of Goebbels’ propaganda machine. 

The regime had doubtlessly succeeded in organizing the population into a 

militarized community (Vilksgemeinschuft) and in inculcating the population 

more or less with a very heterogeneous National Socialist ideology. The regime 

had made the masses pliable, sometimes by intimidation, and if necessary, by 

terror. However, in spite of enthusiastic approval of Hitler’s performance in foreign 

policy, and for his success in overcoming the severe economic crisis, he could not 

succeed in creating enthusiasm for war. Thus the propaganda mobilization, the 

“psychological preparation of the people for war,” failed. For many Germans the 

87 
misery and the horror of the First World War were too recent a memory, and the 

danger to their imodest living standards too obvious, to allow them to follow 

Hitler’s war policy with enthusiasm. 

In spite of this relative failure of the regime’s propaganda, one can assert that 

the Wehrmacht, with the help of the National Socialist movement, had broken free 

of its isolation and was, as a result, regarded with sympathy by nearly the whole 

population. What a difference from the situation in the winter of 1932-33. 

In regard t’o economic preparation for war, the Reichswehr had thought 

through the basic: premises of mobilization even before the seizure of power by the 

National Socialists. Accordingly, one would expect that rearmament would be 

executed in the way the Reichswehr had already begun; i.e., by comprehensive 

rearmament programs that tried to balance military and economic factors, and 

attempted to adjust demands by the Wehrmacht’s three services. In a cabinet 

meeting of February 8, 1933, Hitler demanded that all measures concerned with 

creating employment-the most important political task considering six million 

unemployed-should be closely coordinated with the idea of “rearming” the 

nation, i.e., withi rearmament itself. Hitler held firmly to this principle throughout 

the following years and did in fact regard the economy purely as an instrument for 

creating the military forces necessary for his expanded policy. A consequence of 

Hitler’s decision was a marked acceleration in the implementation of the Reichswehr’s Second Armaments Program. The program, which originally was targeted 

for completion on March 31, 1938, in fact was accomplished by the end of 1934. 

The officers who had been working on the rearmament program since 1927 

believed that what was important for the Wehrmacht’s “operational readiness” was 

not the number of weapons available by a particular date, but rather the availability 

of raw materials and the capacity of industry to reach a wartime level of production 

in the shortest possible time. In particular, General Thomas, later the head of the 

War Economic Staff, endeavored to use the opportunity created by Hitler’s basic 

policy decisions to propose comprehensive economic preparation for war. Given 

the complexity of economic affairs and the technical problems of industrial 

production, the economic program devised by Thomas was a very ambitious one. 

Thomas initially received support from the Reich Defense Minister Werner von 

Blomberg, especially on questions of organization. Ironically, it was not the 

intrinsic economic problems involved which were responsible for the failure 40 

organize the economy and armaments production according to “defense economy” 

criteria. The failure turned instead on the refusal of the services themselves to 

subordinate their own armament programs to the authority and direction of a single 

Wehrmacht administrative department. Thus from the outset Thomas never managed to exert a decisive influence on essential decisions regarding armaments. 

Severe opposition to unified direction of rearmament came in particular from 

the newly founded Luftwaffe. Secretary of State for Air Erhard Milch worked in 

close cooperation with the President of the Reichsbank, Hjalmar Schacht, on 

88 
creating a financial basis for air force armament and also on the successful 

expansion of the industrial base for aircraft production. But Milch, with the 

backing of the number two man in the Nazi regime, Goering, energetically 

opposed all attempts by the Wehrmacht and the army leadership to guide air force 

armament into a comprehensive program. In fact, Milch succeeded in further 

extending his own sphere of autonomy by having his long-term armament program 

of July 1934 approved by Hitler personally. In contrast, the Commander-in-Chief 

of the Wehrmacht, Blomberg, played a much more subordinate role. 

The Navy, like the Luftwaffe, sailed on unimpeded in the lee of these 

disagreements. It also insisted on the right to carry out its own armament measures 

independently. From the outset, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder sought to establish 

personal contact with Hitler in the interests of his own armament plans. At the end 

of June 1934, by completely by-passing the Wehrmacht’s Commander-in-Chief, 

Raeder extracted Hitler’s approval for considerable changes in the planning of ship 

construction. The result of this state of affairs was that Blomberg’s attempt to 

organize a unified build-up and expansion of the armed forces had failed utterly by 

as early as the fall of 1934. The individual chaotic expansion of the services thus 

not only resulted from unresolved organizational problems, but was also a consequence of the military’s incapacity to take due account of the relationship 

between the economy and rearmament, a relationship which had radically altered 

since the €irst World War. 

Since rearmament held absolute priority within the framework of Hitler’s 

policy, one might imagine that the Fiiehrer himself would have coordinated 

Wehrmacht rearmament. Apart from occasional and very general comments, 

Hitler, as far as is known, never issued any directive dealing with overall 

Wehrmacht rearmament prior to the war. Nor, it seems, did he suggest that there 

were limits beyond which the economy could not go, a stance which would have 

forced at least a loose coordination of armaments measures between the individual 

services. Rather, decisions on armament programs seem to have been reached with 

reference only to those aspects relevant to the individual service concerned. 

Moreover, Hitler considerably increased inter-service competition for resources by 

demanding that armament be accelerated and by continually establishing new 

institutions with responsibilities in the field of armament. The fact that this 

approach to deciding armament questions continued unchanged after Hitler assumed supreme command of the Wehrmacht early in February 1938, shows how 

little the expansion of the individual services was influenced by problems in the 

structure of the Wehrmacht command. 

Thus the extent and structure of German rearmament was defined solely by 

the armament programs of the individual services. The only factors that limited 

this otherwise unrestricted process were the marked shortage of raw materials that 

first appeared in the second half of 1936, the more general economic problems 

evident from 1937 onwards, and finally the growing financial crisis after the end of 

the Mefo-Bills early in 1938. In short, from 1936-1937 onwards even the concept of 

89 
“armament in breadth” (as opposed to “armament in depth’) had reached the limits 

of economic possibility. The most acceptable solution to the problem thereafter 

seemed to be short predatory wars for the benefit of the armaments economy. The 

reversal of the rdationship of means to ends was almost total. It was no longer only 

necessary to rearm in order to wage war but also necessary to have war in order to 

continue rearming. 

In sum, German rearmament was not, as some still believe, a comprehensively planned, systematically organized, and centrally directed process, Moreover, Hitler had not, as he claimed in his speech to the Reichstag of September l, 

1939, worked for six years “to build-up the German Wehrmacht.” On the contrary, 

as Reich Chancellor and Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht, he had neglected 

the idea of a unified Wehrmacht and promoted the uncoordinated expansion of the 

separate services. Thus, General Thomas, who always had favored armament in 

depth, was quite correct when he stated there was only an improvised economic 

mobilization at the beginning of the war. The process of mobilization in the 

German Reich--economic as well as psychological mobilization-had started as 

early as 1933. Ironically, by 1939 it had developed to such an extent along the lines 

described above as to preclude a total mobilization corresponding to the so-called 

“lessons” of the First World War. Total mobilization was attempted under vastly 

changed premises and conditions only in 1942-1943 when defeat loomed as a real 

possibility. 

Chairman Weigley ’s Introduction of Professor Koistinen 

Our next speaker is Professor Paul Koistinen, professor of history at California State University at Northridge. Professor Koistinen is probably our leading 

authority on the: twentieth century origins of the military-industrial complex in the 

United States and on this country’s military-economic mobilization for the world 

wars. His Berkeley dissertation was published in 1979 under the title, The Hammer 

and the Sword: Labor, the Military, and Industrial Mobilization, 1920-1945. He 

has also published numerous articles in many journals; a number of these were 

brought together under the title, The Military-Industrial Complex: A Historical 

Perspective, published in 1980. I should add too that, unfortunately, until the 

proceedings of this symposium are published, you will miss one of the strongest 

parts of Profesisor Koistinen’s paper: his footnotes. Professor Koistinen himself, 

early in his footnotes, describes his citations and references as comprising a sort of 

subpaper. They are indeed extremely rich. By all means, buy the proceedings 

volume when it is published in order to share in the bibliographical references and 

the general wealth of information in the notes which accompany this paper. 

90 
WARFARE AND POWER RELATIONS IN AMERICA: 

MOBILIZING THE WORLD WAR I1 ECONOMY 

Paul A. C. Koistinen 

I 

Scholars are increasingly turning to a form of determinism in order to explain 

economic mobilization for World War 11. “Necessitarian” conditions-a term 

coined or made prominent by John Morton Blum-it is claimed, shaped the 

wartime effort. The nation’s leadership, the fighting forces, and the general 

population all gave primacy to winning the war as quickly as possible and favored 

the most practical means for achieving that goal. 

Necessity dictated that “available institutions” be used in order to harness the 

economy for hostilities. Those institutions ultimately produced a rough sort of 

equilibrium through the countervailing power of big government, big business, big 

labor, and big agriculture. In looking to the postwar world, modest, not grandiose, 

views prevailed. Security against more wars abroad and more depressions at home 

was what counted. Throughout the war years, leaders and led alike believed that 

for the interim, reform-the New Deal’s quest for a better, more just, and a more 

equitable society at home-had to be shelved in order to achieve most effectively 

and efficiently the primary goals of victory and security. But not a great deal of 

choice at any level actually existed. “The managers of the war did not use the war 

. . . to achieve set purposes,” Blum observes. “The war used them. They accepted 

the necessities that then prevailed.”’ 

The necessity concept is inadequate for explaining wartime economic mobilization for two basic reasons. First, it provides ready-made explanations about 

exceptionally complex events. Why events occurred is already known. Scholars 

need only relate what has taken place. Second, the necessity interpretation 

assumes that agreement on ends produced agreement on means. No doubt the vast 

majority of Americans accepted victory and security as primary goals during the 

war. But they divided acrimoniously along interest group and class lines about how 

those aims could best be achieved. 

When the focus is kept on means, not ends, much of the necessity thesis 

appears questionable. At the root of the intense and ongoing conflict of the Second 

World War were matters of power. Elitist, not pluralist, modes of economic 

91 
mobilization emerged in which a collection of awkward, makeshift agencies made 

decisions in an often haphazard fashion. A more rational form of full-scale 

planning was practically impossible to achieve under elitist power patterns because 

too many interest groups were excluded. The clumsy mobilization structure got the 

job done, but only adequately, not exceptionally, so. What that system could not do 

was satisfy the population’s almost desperate quest for security by preparing the 

economy satisfactorily for the risky transition from war to peace. 

What occurred during World War I1 was neither inevitable nor purposeless. 

The President and his chief assistants, by selecting the wartime managers and by 

making certain decisions and not others, set the general outlines for economic 

mobilization. From the outset of war, they had real options. The most important 

involved the military. Practically overnight it was transformed from a relatively 

weak institution into a power center of enormous strength. If so inclined, Roosevelt 

could have used the armed services as vehicles for facilitating significant change. 

Instead, he proceeded in a way which ensured that the military acted as an agent for 

supporting the nation’s power elite. 

The following pages will explore the themes briefly outlined above. First, the 

evolution of the mobilization system from 1940 to 1945 will be traced. The 

dominant trend was the constant narrowing of the decision-making base until by 

1943 the giant corporations and the military services were fully in control of the 

mobilization apparatus. Second, America’s economic performance during the war 

will be compared with its prewar potential and with the accomplishments of other 

belligerents in order to point out that what occurred at home was not extraordinary. 

Third, the possibilities of comprehensive planning under a war council, including 

the now powerful armed services, will be examined. Finally, in the conclusion, 

Roosevelt will be characterized as a leader who deliberately obscured the extremely sensitive matters of power in a corporate capitalist system, instead of 

simply as a sloppy administrator or as an executive intent upon keeping control in 

his own hands by consistently dividing responsibility and authority among his 

subordinates. 

I1 

The process of mobilizing the economy for war went through roughly three 

phases. First, between 1940 and 1942, weak mobilization agencies and a recalcitrant corporate community forced the President to rely upon New Dealers, 

labor representatives, and others to prod the civilian structure to perform. The 

armed services played an ambiguous role of both advancing and retarding the 

economic mobilization process. Then, with war declared, economic mobilization 

began in earnest with a potentially strong civilian agency, but a weak leader at the 

top. Eighteen months of extended and bitter bureaucratic battle ensued before 

control over production became centered in the civilian mobilization administration through an alliance of corporate leaders and the military. Last, a virtual 

92 
assistant president for domestic events was appointed in mid-1943 to hold a shaky 

mobilization apparatus together until the war’s end.2 

Economic mobilization got off to a slow and divisive start in the first phase. 

The National Defense Advisory Commission (NDAC) and the Office of Production 

Management (OPM), created in May and December 1940, respectively, proved to 

be ineffective. The two agencies made little head-way in converting industry to 

munitions production. Until after the nation entered the war, most defense output 

was accomplished in addition to normal civilian production and through new or 

enlarged facilities. The basic industries like steel, aluminum, and magnesium, 

however, were not expanded. Desiring to exploit growing civilian markets, fearful 

of creating excess capacity or disturbing intra-industry power patterns, and doubtful or distrustful of the President’s foreign and domestic policies, industrial 

America set the terms for cooperating with the Roosevelt Administration. That was 

possible because the NDAC and OPM, despite a facade of broad interest-group 

representation, were actually dominated by industry. Officials from the large 

corporations and trade associations, serving for a dollar-a-year or without compensation, filled key executive positions and staffed the crucially important Industry 

Advisory Committees. They made decisions which reflected the attitude of their 

firms and organizations. 

The mobilization agencies also failed to exercise any real control over 

military procurement despite being granted the right to do so. Contracts, including 

the burgeoning facilities program, were let without any effective review and the 

armed services were even allowed to administer their own priorities system. The 

consequences for the future were grave. Invariably, the Army and Navy turned to 

the nation’s largest corporations, whose plants were located principally in the 

Northeast, for meeting their munitions needs. Since what began before the war 

continued after the nation entered hostilities, a relatively few urban areas became 

overloaded with contracts far beyond the capacity to produce in terms of facilities, 

power, labor force, and the like. Moreover, unreviewed military procurement 

placed the overwhelming percentage of defense and war contracts in the hands of 

the nation’s giant corporations. 

The NDAC and OPM did manage to get the Army and Navy to raise 

somewhat their extremely low demand, or requirements, figures for dealing with 

various defense and wartime threats. But those calculations still remained inconsistent and unreliable. The armed services operated on the assumption that the 

economy could meet any level of demand, making accuracy on their part 

unnecessary. 

The defense years witnessed the growth of strange and contradictory alliances. Insisting upon the urgent need for greatly strengthened civilian mobilization agencies and chafing under the refusal of industry to covert or expand facilities 

for defense purposes, the War and Navy Departments still lined up with corporate 

America and its representatives on almost every major issue. For example, in late 

93 
1940 as the Roosevelt Administration was hammering out a legislative program on 

the economics of munitions production, the War Department carried industry’s 

banner for the most generous terms possible on plant amortization, profit limitations, and excess profits taxes. It also led in the drive to end anti-trust action. 

Curiously, the armed forces sided with industry on what turned out to be very low 

projections of the economy’s manufacturing potential and the percentage of 

existing capacity convertible to arms output. Industrialists and their representatives in the NDAC and OPM, who were resisting the drive for greater munitions 

production and strong mobilization agencies, still looked with favor upon the 

military services. Big business was willing to encourage the military services to 

adopt more realistic procurement goals but unwilling to press the armed services at 

any point or overtly oppose the policies they advocated. 

In terms of issues alone, the natural allies of the military would have been the 

so-called “all-outers ,” who included New Dealers like Leon Henderson, labor 

spokesmen like Sidney Hillman, and small business and consumer advocates. 

Considerations of ideology and power as perceived by the military services, 

however, made this group an adversary. While favoring maximum preparation for 

economic mobilizaton, the “all-outers” believed that that goal could best be 

achieved through careful, widely representative planning in which defense contracts would be distributed systematically throughout the nation. Additionally, 

existing plants, including those of small business, would be utilized fully before 

new facilities were built, less essential civilian production would be concentrated 

in a few facilities within an industry as curtailment of those industries became 

necessary, and so forth. Such policies, according to the War and Navy Departments, inhibited rather than facilitated mobilization because they alienated and 

antagonized corporate and financial America. Hence, those proposals and their 

advocates were to be opposed. 

With industry and the military supporting each other but, in effect, pulling in 

different directions, stalemate constantly threatened the prewar economic defense 

effort. Some momentum was maintained by the President’s creating new agencies 

in which the “all-outers” had more influence and by the military continuing to 

build its own mobilization systems. The overall result was movement but with 

increasing fragmentation, instead of concentration, of mobilization authority and 

activity. 

In April 1941 the President established the Office of Price Administration and 

Civilian Supply (OPACS). It was headed by Henderson and staffed primarily by 

civil servants, attorneys, and academicians. This agency was intended to begin 

working for price stabilization as inflationary forces mounted and to ensure that 

civilian needs were protected as military requirements grew and industrial conversion accelerated. Whether priorities over civilian production would be exercised by the OPM or the OPACS was not settled, and this produced a long and bitter 

feud between the two agencies which highlighted the differences between the 

industrialists and the “all-outers” who staffed the competing agencies. The conflict 

94 
came to a head during July and August 1941, when the OPACS, exasperated by the 

OPM’s solicitude for the corporate elite, took the initiative by ordering drastic 

cutbacks in future production schedules for automobiles and other consumer 

producer goods which were lavishly consuming steel and other basic supplies as 

well as delaying the conversion to munitions production. This action generated so 

much controversy that in late August 1941, the Office of Price Administration was 

separated from Civilian Supply and the latter absorbed by the OPM. The authority 

of the OPM, however, was curbed by placing it under a new coordinating body, the 

Supply Priorities and Allocation Board (SPAB) which, while including the top 

members of the OPM, was weighted in favor of “all-outers” by awarding seats to 

Henderson, Harry Hopkins, Donald M. Nelson, and, the chair, Vice President 

Henry A. Wallace. Although an administrative nightmare in terms of lines of 

authority, the SPAB managed to make some headway in terms of requirements, 

priority and allocation systems, means for protecting the civilian economy against 

overbearing military demands, curtailment of less essential civilian production, 

and the expansion of basic industries like steel. 

While the OPACS and the SPAB pushed the mobilization forward from a 

liberal civilian direction, the Army-Navy Munitions Board (ANMB) exerted 

pressure from the conservative military side. The board, created in 1922 as part of 

the War Department’s attempt to include the Navy in its interwar industrial 

mobilization planning, began to be reorganized late in 1941, and was ultimately 

placed under the chairmanship of Ferdinand Eberstadt, a prominent Wall Street 

investment banker. Eberstadt was well known to Under Secretary of the Navy 

James V. Forrestal and had the confidence of Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson 

and his Under Secretary, Robert P. Patterson. Unable to get the type of civilian 

mobilization administration they favored, the armed services gradually began 

building up the ANMB which partly paralleled and competed with the civilian 

mobilization agencies. It was through the board that the armed services started to 

coordinate their procurement operations, including the granting of priorities, the 

distribution of contracts, the construction and financing of facilities, and the like. 

America’s entry into World War 11 forced Roosevelt to try centralizing control 

over the badly fragmented economic mobilization structure by creating the War 

Production Board (WPB) in Janurary 1942. In retrospect, the President acted halfheartedly. James F. Byrnes, a close political ally, had warned Roosevelt that the 

success of any new mobilization chief depended upon the full confidence and 

support of the White House. Yet, Donald M. Nelson, who was picked for the post, 

was neither well known to the President nor viewed as a strong leader. He appears 

to have been selected for his availability: most of the interest groups vying to shape 

the industrial mobilization program did not oppose him. Three immediate tests 

faced Nelson if he were to establish WPB dominance over the wartime economy. 

First, he had to get tough with the industrialists who were coming over from the 

OPM and who had looked to the mobilization agency more to protect industry’s 

interests than to harness the economy for war. Second, he had to bend the military, 

which had grown powerful and practically independent, to the board’s will. Last, 

95 
he had to give labor, New Dealers, and small business a meaningful voice in 

mobilization matters so that the WPB involved broad-based, not simply big 

business, planning, and thus, tapped the nation’s full economic potential. 

Before the year was out, Nelson had failed all three tests and, consequently, 

had begun to lose control of the WPB and the mobilization program. Throughout 

1942 and into 1943, decisions were made less by orderly process than by infighting, machinations, confrontations, and explosions. Nelson could not manage the 

big industrial elements dominating the board. Some continued to resist converting 

facilities to war as late as March 1942. Only dramatic resignations, accusatory 

headlines, and an inquiry by the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the 

National Defense Program (the Truman Committee) got the economy on the way to 

full conversion by June 1942. The chairman of the WPB was even less successful 

with the armed services. In March and April 1942 the War and Navy Departments 

persuaded the well intentioned Nelson to sign agreements on spheres of operations 

that left the military largely free of WPB authority. Finally, in case after case 

involving economic mobilization, interest groups other than the corporate structure were ignored, shoved to the periphery, or isolated within the WPB. The World 

War I1 mobilization program went forward much like the prewar effort but with the 

industrial and military communities now preparing to cooperate fully in order to 

attain shared and mutually beneficial goals. 

Before the economy could be mobilized effectively, however, Nelson had to 

modify his March and April agreements with the armed services. Between August 

1942 and March 1943, as a result of a series of intensely acrimonious struggles 

which had actually begun in late 1940, the military was gradually integrated into 

the board’s structure. The first step in that direction grew out of the requirements 

muddle, in what has come to be called the “Feasibility Dispute.” When the nation 

entered the war, the armed services suddenly dumped over $100 billion dollars of 

new contracts into the economy and maintained that their needs, not the economy’s 

potential, had to be the gauge for future requirements. The WPB’s Planning 

CommitteeAomposed of Robert R. Nathan and Thomas C. Blaisdell, Jr., scholar-civil servants, and Fred Searls, Jr., a construction engineer, and assisted by the 

eminent economist-statistician Simon Kuznets and his staff-had been arguing for 

months that unless military requirements were set and contracting carried out 

within a framework of feasibility, the entire economic mobilization program and 

economy could be disastrously dislocated. To facilitate balance, the Planning 

Committee recommended the creation of a supreme war production council, a 

broadly representative body superior to all departments and agencies, for establishing, monitoring, and enforcing military, production, social, and political 

strategies. Late in 1942, after months of virtual bare-knuckle brawling, the 

services finally agreed to allow the WPB to set the maximum limits for their 

requirements. The Planning Committee’s larger goal of a war council went without 

high-level support within the Roosevelt Administration and, therefore, never stood 

a chance, since it threatened power relations in the wartime economy. Many 

industrialists, for complex reasons, were as antagonistic to economic mobilization 

96 
based on feasibility as was the military. Facing hostility from all sides for its 

unpopular advocacy, the Planning Committee was soon downgraded to a position 

of insignificance within the board. 

Feasible requirements were only a start in devising a workable mobilization 

program. Next was the need for alloting materials so that contracts could be 

completed in their order of importance; then, production had to be scheduled to 

synchronize the flow of components and end items for balanced programs. The 

first goal began to be achieved in September 1942 when Eberstadt moved over from 

the ANMB to the WPB as the Program Vice Chairman in charge of materials and 

requirements. His appointment was also intended to placate the armed services as 

the WPB reclaimed some of its functions and power. Eberstadt’s principal task was 

to replace a cumbersome and failing priority-allocation system with a new allocation approach labeled the Controlled Materials Plan (CMP) in which basic materials like steel, aluminum, and copper would follow contracting and force all other 

inputs of production into the same channel. Block grants of materials were made to 

the procurement agencies which distributed them to their contractors, the contractors to the subcontractors, and so forth. Since the armed services were the main 

claimants on the economy and relatively few corporations controlled the lion’s 

share of prime contracts, the CMP served to increase the hold of the military and 

the corporate giants on the WPB and the economy. 

The CMP could work only if production was properly scheduled. Consequently, in September 1942, Nelson also brought in Charles E. Wilson, president 

of the General Electric Company, and a leading production expert, to serve as the 

Board’s Production Vice Chairman and to head a Production Executive Committee 

(PEC) composed principally of representatives from the procurement agencies. 

Wilson’s appointment was partly intended to offset that of Eberstadt, who was 

identified with the military. The two executives almost inevitably became rivals. 

Eberstadt directed the Industry Division and control groups in charge of facilities, 

tools, shipbuilding, aircraft, and the like. These were the principal subdivisions of 

the Board which Eberstadt needed to solve problems of material shortages. With 

the CMP beginning to work well, such shortages became less urgent. Now Wilson 

required the Industry and Material Divisions and other staff bureaus to fulfill his 

production responsibilities. Nelson, accordingly, began transferring the divisions 

and bureaus to Wilson’s domain in late 1942 and early 1943. This alarmed the 

military. Wilson, after an almost three-month battle, had just succeeded in having 

the resistive and suspicious med services recognize the existence and authority of 

the PEC. Nelson’s act of shifting the centers of power within the WPB from 

Eberstadt to Wilson was looked upon as an attempt to undermine further military 

influence within the Board. Therefore, the War and Navy Departments combined 

their political power with that of Byrnes, Director of Economic Stabilization, to 

persuade Roosevelt to replace Nelson with Bernard M. Baruch, whom they viewed 

as sympathetic to their cause. Nelson saved his job in February 1943 by uncharacteristically attacking instead of retreating. He quickly fired Eberstadt and elevated 

97 
Wilson, a strong executive whom he still trusted, to Executive Vice Chairman with 

practically full control over the WPB ’s operations. 

By early 1943, the WPB had fairly well taken on its final shape. Nelson 

remained as chairman, but Wilson had the real power. He commanded the Industry 

and Material Divisions and other subdivisions which represented the corporate 

muscle of the nation’s economy. Wilson also directed the PEC in which all 

claimant agencies were represented, but with the military dominant. Gradually, he 

dispelled the latter’s suspicion of the Board and won the full cooperation and 

respect of the armed forces. Through Wilson’s office the industry-military production team which dominated the WPB and the economy began to grow. 

Despite many false starts and intense controversy, the Roosevelt Administration had eventually managed to center wartime production controls in one agency. 

That was not the case with financial management; it remained the one area of the 

wartime economy without a governmental body responsible for its execution. 

Ideally, one administration should have determined policy for wartime revenue 

(taxation and borrowing), price and wage controls, rationing, and like policies. All 

were closely related and interacted to shape economic conditions during the war 

years. The Office of Price Administration (OPA) controlled price and rationing 

programs, the War Labor Board (WLB) wage determination, but no administration 

set revenue policy. That was left to internecine struggles between the Treasury 

Department, the Bureau of the Budget, and various Roosevelt advisers, with the 

President often acting as final arbiter. Consequently, policy-making and execution, 

especially as it involved relations with Congress, was awkward, chaotic, and illadvised. Despite these conditions, the administration’s revenue policies compared 

favorably with the record of past American wars but unfavorably with the achievements of the nation’s allies such as Great Britain.3 Nonetheless, this was too vital 

an area for casual policy-formulation and remained the major omission in the 

economic mobilization apparatus. 

The closest the administration came to having a body to devise and administer 

general economic policy was the Office of Economic Stabilization (OES) created 

in October 1942 by an Executive Order based on the Economic Stabilization Act of 

the same month. Roosevelt chose Byrnes to head the new office. His princiQa1 

assignment was to control inflationary pressures. While Byrnes had some voice in 

revenue measures, he faced stiff competition from Secretary of the Treasury Henry 

Morgenthau, Jr. and Director of the Bureau of the Budget Harold D. Smith. 

Bymes’ impressive knowledge of and ability to work with Congress on revenue 

matters, regrettably, was never exploited to the fullest. He fared much better in the 

area of price, wage, and rationing controls. According to the figures of the Bureau 

of Labor Statistics, which were probably low, the cost of living had risen by 24.3 

percent between January 1941 and April 1943. The President’s Hold-the-Line 

Order of April 1943, however, effectively capped further increases with only an 

additional 4.8 percent rise registered at the war’s end. 

98 
Wartime stabilization clearly was accomplished principally by squeezing 

mass purchasing power. Although the working population experienced a substantial growth in income, that came more from full employment and overtime work 

than from increased wages. The farmer and corporate America did much better. 

Supposedly, the agricultural population experienced the greatest increase in income, but that is questionable. When calculation of corporate gains includes the 

extensive plant acquired at the government’s expense, industrial America unquestionably benefitted more than any other interest group in the economic system. 

Again, however, this proposition holds principally for the giant corporations, 

whose grip on the economy increased during the war years, not the small-tomedium sized firms. The former received the lion’s share of all war production 

benefits including contracts, plants, subcontracts, research and development 

funds, and the like. Also, the nation will never fully know corporate America’s 

wartime gains because the industrial establishment, in significant areas like the 

operation of government-built plants, largely ran, audited, and policed itself 

during the war years. There are now and will always be better figures on the income 

and assets of the working population and the farmer than on corporate Ameri~a.~ 

From the outset, Byrnes became involved in much more than economic 

stabilization. As separate administrations were set up for manpower, rubber, 

petroleum, and food, conflict inevitably grew and added to the power struggles 

which continued to wrack the WPB and other agencies. With less time and energy 

to devote to domestic matters, Roosevelt turned more and more to Byrnes to 

mediate, coordinate, and direct the mobilization effort even though his office was 

not intended for that role. Byrnes’ authority came much closer to matching his 

growing responsibility when, in May 1943, Roosevelt by Executive Order created 

the Office of War Mobilization (OWM) to oversee the home front and made the 

South Carolinian its director. The President had acted in 1943 to head off legislation in Congress designed to bring order to the increasingly chaotic mobilization 

scene. In October 1944, Congress expanded the scope of Byrnes’ office, now 

called the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion (OWMR), to quell the 

growing discord over reconversion policies. 

Heading the OWM-OWMR, Byrnes came as close as any individual to being 

the assistant president for domestic affairs, He had been tapped for the OES in 

1942 and the OWM in 1943 because he had the President’s confidence in a close 

political relationship reaching back to World War I. Between 1939 and 1942, first 

as an influential senator and then, after June 1941, even as a member of the 

Supreme Court, Byrnes had advised and acted as a trouble-shooter for Roosevelt 

on war mobilization matters. As a broker of power and as a Southern conservative, 

Byrnes, with the obvious approval and most likely the encouragement of the 

President, devoted himself to making the existing mobilization system work. 

Byrnes’ most important task became that of guarding the industry-military 

production team that had come to dominate the WPB. This protective role was 

clearly evident in two areas: the mobilization of manpower and the controversy 

99 
over reconversion. By mid-1943, manpower, no longer materials or facilities, 

became the principal limiting factor for production. This situation could have 

placed the War Manpower Commission (WMC), created in April 1942, in a key 

position for shaping the mobilization program. Industry and the military had no 

intention of allowing a manpower agency, and particularly one in which organized 

labor had a strong voice, to play such a part. During the infighting that ensued in 

mid-1943 and continued practically until V-J Day over meeting manpower problems, Bymes used his authority to ensure that control over labor supply was 

determined largely by the WPB’s Production Executive Committee and the procurement agencies and to minimize the WMC’s influence over the raising of 

military forces.s 

Bymes also played an instrumental role in shaping plans and preparations for 

peace in ways acceptable to the industry-military production team. Between late 

1943 and mid-1944, Nelson initiated WPB preparations for reconverting the 

economy and began to take modest steps toward easing the transition from a war to 

peacetime footing as war orders began to be cut back. By then, Nelson’s base of 

support within the WPB was indeed weak. It consisted principally of his own staff, 

the labor and small business offices, and the Office of Civilian Requirements. The 

big industrial interests and the military vehemently opposed Nelson’s position: the 

former because they wanted to protect postwar market positions by holding civilian 

production to a minimum until all firms could resume peacetime pursuits simultaneously; the latter because they feared that any increase in civilian production 

could set off a stampede detrimental to munitions output. 

At crucial points between July and December 1944, Byrnes used his power 

first to delay and later to halt the implementation of Nelson’s very limited and 

cautious program. This turned out to be Nelson’s last battle. Because of it, he was 

finally driven from office. The federal government approached peace ready to 

terminate and settle contracts quickly and dismantle the mobilization structure 

once hostilities were over; it was not prepared to handle a crisis. As a result, 

although the postwar depression anticipated by many did not materialize, accelerating and destabilizing inflation did, a situation which contributed to a very 

tumultuous labor scene and a generally disillusioned and divided nation.6 

Nelson and the interests he represented in the WPB had constant support from 

the Truman Committee and the Senate Special Committee to Study and Survey the 

Problems of American Small Business (Murray Committee) and the House Select 

Committee Investigating National Defense Migration (Tolan Committee). These 

Congressional committees consistently advocated centralized, broad-based, and 

progressive planning by drafting and/or backing legislation for incorporating all 

mobilization functions, including production and procurement, in one agency 

staffed by civil servants and advised by a board made up of representatives from 

industry, labor, agriculture, and the public. With such a mobilization structure, 

committee members argued, conflicts of interest would be reduced substantially 

and the contribution of all interest groups maximized. While the proposed legisla100 
tion never even approached passage, Truman and his Congressional colleagues 

played an instrumental role in forcing the Roosevelt Administration to coordinate 

the mobilization program better through the OWM-OWMR. 

The Truman, Tolan, and Murray Committees, and especially the first, won 

the respect and trust of Congress and the nation because of their responsible, 

reliable, and reasonably objective investigations, findings, and recommendations. 

The alternate mobilization scheme they favored was intended to further the cause 

of efficiency rather than reform. But the two ends, after all, are not antithetical. 

The widespread support the committees enjoyed indicated, at a minimum, general 

discontent with how the economy was being mobilized for war. Nonetheless, the 

Roosevelt Administration never encouraged the committees’ work or attempted to 

use their popularity to counter the conservative opposition. When the President 

chose to challenge effectively a recalcitrant Congress on an issue which had 

popular appeal, the nation’s legislators usually backed down. Such was the case 

with the Economic Stabilization Act of October 1942 which led to the creation of 

the Office of Economic Stabilization. The Roosevelt Administration’s methods for 

mobilizing the economy appear to have helped strengthen the conservative elements in Congress as much or more than those elements shaped the mobilization 

programs. 

I11 

Viewed in gross figures and in isolation, the American production effort 

during World War I1 appears impressive. The GNP in 1939 dollars grew by 52 

percent between 1939 and 1944; 124 percent in unadjusted dollars. Munitions 

production went from about 10 to 40 percent of total output between 1940 and 

1943-1944. Manufacturing industries trebled their output from the period 1939 to 

1944. All of that was accomplished while consumer expenditures in 1944 were 12 

perctnt above the 1939 mark. Going from national to international calculations, 

the United States in 1944 produced in excess of 40 percent of total world munitions 

output and around 50 percent more than either all of its allies or all of its enemies 

combined.8 

From these or similar figures has grown the notion of wartime “miracles of 

production ,” “prodigious production,” and like characterizations .9 Such observations hold up only if the nation’s prewar production potential and the achievements 

of other belligerents arc ignored. To approach the World War I1 record from such a 

narrow perspective not only limits understanding of the event greatly, but also 

strengthens the concept of American Exceptionalism-a mode of thought that 

encourages parochialism on the part of both the general public and the scholar. 

When placed in the proper context, the American production record appears 

neither exceptional, miraculous, nor prodigious, unless such characterizations 

apply equally to all other belligerent nations. Gauged by the “Percentage Distribu101 
tion of the World’s Manufacturing Production” for the period 1926-1929, the 

United States in the peak year 1944 was producing munitions at almost exactly the 

level it should have been. Great Britain is modestly high; Canada low; Germany 

high; Japan very high; and the Soviet Union spectacularly high. If the 1936-1938 

period is taken instead, the United States and Great Britain are reasonably high; 

and Canada is still low; Germany and Japan are both high; but the Soviet Union is 

now somewhat low.” 

Of course, these measures are crude. But they are corroborated by Raymond 

W. Goldsmith in what is the best available study on the general topic. Goldsmith 

served as an economist on the WPB’s Planning Committee with an assignment 

which included analyzing worldwide munitions output. His principal conclusion is 

as follows: 

The munitions production of the major billigerents at full mobilization was roughly 

proportional to the size of their prewar industrial labor force combined with the prewar 

level of productivity in industry. This is hardly an astonishing result, but one which 

confirms the belief that basic economic factors rather than accidental developments or 

sudden changes in elementary economic relationships-more familiar under the names 

of “secret weapons” and “miracles of production”-have determined the course of 

munitions production.” 

Goldsmith also found that about two years were required to convert fully from 

peace to wartime production even if a nation started from scratch. Finally, he 

observed that in 1944, all belligerents except for the United States, and perhaps 

Canada, had stretched themselves to the ultimate with a drop off imminent for both 

Great Britain and Germany. For the United States, full mobilization had not been 

achieved, and an additional 10 to 20 percent increase of munitions production 

could have been implemented within a short period of time and without excessive 

strain “through some curtailment of civilian consumption even if only down to the 

prewar level, through a labor draft, and through a tighter control over the efficiency 

of munitions production.”” 

What Goldsmith did not state, although he at times implied it, is that the United 

States economic mobilization program was carried out under ideal circumstances 

compared with all other major belligerents except Canada. Great Britain, the 

USSR, Germany, and Japan all met, exceeded, or came close to their prewar 

production potential even with the homeland being attacked, the population in 

every way under much greater strain, fewer resources available, and, Britain apart, 

extremely volatile political circumstances. If the spectator of the World War I1 

munitions scene insists upon the awesome, he would be advised to look past the 

United States to Germany upping its productivity by 25 percent between 1943 and 

1944; to the Soviet Union steadily increasing output while transferring its industrial plant eastward to the Urals and Siberia; to Japan grinding out more products 

each year despite growing calamity everywhere; and to Great Britain making 

annually more munitions while subject to the physical and psychological trauma of 

new and heinous weapons of war. In spite of, perhaps because of, such extreme 

102 
adversity, other belligerents, as noted earlier, achieved a better record than the 

United States in financing'the war out of current income. A close examination of 

other critical statistics and information might make the United States war production effort appear more modest by c~mparison.'~ All of this is intended to make a 

simple, though important point: When viewed in terms of prewar potential and 

when compared with other belligerents, America's World War I1 munitions production effort was not outstanding. 

IV 

The performance of the economy during the Second World War is not simply 

an academic matter. Assuming prodigious production, scholars and other analysts 

have maintained either that the endless conflict of the war years was part of the 

price of progress, or they have viewed it as unimportant.14 If the record was not 

exceptional, then the negative aspects of economic mobilization take on greater 

significance and among other matters raise the question of whether there were 

meaningful alternatives for mobilizing the World War I1 economy. 

Another and attainable way did exist and it relates to the Roosevelt Administration's methods of commanding the armed services. During the war years the 

services emerged as the new power group of great significance, and how they were 

managed would have an enormous impact upon any program of economic mobilization. A fairly good guide to military thinking about that subject on the eve of 

World War I1 is available in the Industrial Mobilization Plans, written by the Office 

of the Assistant Secretary of War in the 1920s and 1930s. Those plans, and the 

planning, are loaded with ambiguity. Nonetheless, after a long and intense controversy within the War Department, the Industrial Mobilization Plans also proposed 

the careful distribution of contracts to maintain economic balance, the utilization 

of most existing facilities, including those of small business, before new or 

expanded plants and equipment were built, the efficient use of manpower, the 

proper allocation of resources to ensure the health of the civilian economy and 

adequate community facilites, and the preparation of programs for reconversion. 

This approach resembles that which was constantly proposed and pursued by the 

Truman, Tolan, and Murray Committees, and among Nelson's advisers. Like 

those advocates, the army planners were not supporting reforms, but rather were 

seeking effective and practical programs for mobilizing the economy for war. 

In order to marshal the military's strength in behalf of rational economic 

planning for war, the United States required something comparable to the British 

War Cabinet with its secretariat for directing overall wartime policy. Such a 

council or staff would have included, at a minimum, the Secretaries of State, War, 

and Navy, the military chiefs, and the directors of the wartime economy. The idea 

of a war council is not idle speculation. Throughout the twentieth century various 

civilian and military leaders had favored a similar agency under the title of a 

Council of National Defense; the Industrial Mobilization Plans provided for an 

Advisory War Council; and, before and after the nation entered the war, support for 

103 
such a body came from Congress, members of the Roosevelt Administration, and 

other sources. l5 

From 1939 through 1942, Roosevelt had several excellent opportunities for 

establishing a war council. Indeed, for a time he appeared to be heading in that 

direction. In July 1939, by military order, Roosevelt placed the Joint Board, 

created in 1903 to coordinate military strategy between the Army and Navy, and the 

Army-Navy Munitions Board, which by this time issued the Industrial Mobilization Plans under its imprimatur, directly under his authority. Here was a skeletal 

structure for establishing and coordinating military strategy and supply. With the 

organization of the War Resources Board in August 1939, the President appeared to 

be seeking a civilian counterpart to the emerging military coordinating system in 

order to have a balanced overall mobilization structure. For complex reasons, this 

particular administrative approach did not work, with the result that thereafter 

defense policy was formulated in a confused, unclear, and often contradictory 

fashion, and the economic mobilization bureaucracy became fragmented. 

Roosevelt never again came as close to organizing a war council as he 

appeared to be in mid-to-late 1939, despite new opportunities and strong pressure 

on him to act. Instead, the President proceeded in a way that undermined coherent 

direction of the war effort. In June 1940, Roosevelt selected Stimson and Frank 

Knox as Secretaries of War and Navy respectively, and shortly thereafter Patterson 

and Forrestal were chosen as Under Secretaries for those departments. While in the 

short run the appointments may have been politically expedient, in the long run 

they had several negative consequences. First, much of the benefit of the interwar 

economic mobilization planning was simply lost, at least at the top echelons of the 

departments, and especially so for the War Department, the principal planning 

agency. New Secretaries brought in new staffs who ignored most of the past 

planning or considered it to be irrelevant. This helps to explain, along with other 

developments, why the War Department, which went through such agony in the 

1920s and 1930s learning the hard lesson of the indispensable need for feasible 

requirements to protect the economic base which supplied it, resisted ardently the 

concept of feasibility from 1940 onward. 

Second, numerous representatives from corporate and financial America, 

serving both in and out of uniform, entered the armed services’ procurement and 

economic mobilization structures. The War Department at times did not even know 

the economic affiliations of the executives it took on. With changed staffing, the 

orientation and attitudes of the military services had a different character after 1940 

than it had before. For example, the Army planners had harbored a certain reserve 

about, if not suspicion of, corporate America prior to 1940. After that date, such 

doubts simply vanished or were no longer evident. Last, and most important, the 

new Secretaries and Under Secretaries left much to be desired. Stimson was a 

narrow, zealously class-conscious conservative dedicated to military, even martial, values. He acted more as chief lobbyist and aggressive advocate for the Army 

than as a strong leader viewing the department he headed as part of a larger war 

104 
mobilization whole. Patterson responded similarly. Knox was largely inconsequential. Of all four, Forrestal came closest to being a true statesman, but Navy 

Department politics, a subordinate position, and certain personality traits prevented him from exercising fully his leadership abilities.16 

The creation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in February 1942, complicated 

even further economic mobilization matters. Roosevelt began using that body to 

plan and manage the war abroad. This placed the JCS in a unique position. It had 

continuous and direct access to the Commander-in-Chief. The civilian secretaries 

of the military departments, along with representatives from the economic mobilization structure, were excluded from all deliberations. Yet, the JCS’s decisions 

involving strategy set the overall military requirements which vitally effected the 

WPB and other agencies. By example the President encouraged the JCS to act 

arbitrarily in determining its material needs. With the nation’s entry into the war, 

the President, in a very casual way, publicly announced production goals which 

were most unrealistic. Following Roosevelt’s lead, the JCS, with no check upon it 

from the civilian secretaries and lower echelon officers, set requirements in an 

equally capricious manner. Out of these circumstances grew the “Feasibility 

Dispute” of mid-to-late 1942. Only the WPB’s Planning Committee forced the 

nation’s power structure to face reality. l7 The JCS and Roosevelt’s relationship with 

it, constituted a war council of sorts, but one that was truncated, that added to the 

fragmentation of the war effort, and that created confusion and antagonism 

throughout the fractured war mobilization system. 

Actually, about the time the JCS was organized, Roosevelt had another 

opportunity for creating a war council, had he been so disposed. With Pearl Harbor 

silencing practically all Administration critics, the President had virtually a free 

hand in putting together the governmental system he wanted for directing the war. 

Additionally, within a few months between late 1941 and early 1942, almost every 

major agency for conducting the war effort was either established or was reorganized. The WPB was created in January 1942 and the JCS in February; in 

March both the Army and Navy completed streamlining their systems of command 

and administration;” and in February the armed services put the finishing touches 

on the rebuilding of the ANMB. Here were all of the administrative parts for a war 

council. The need for such a council was emphasized in January and February 

1942, when the United States and Great Britain put together organizations designed to advance planning and execution of the war effort on an Allied basis. 

These included the Combined Chiefs of Staff, the Munitions Assignment Board, 

the Combined Raw Materials Board, and, in June 1942, the Combined Production 

and Resources Board, along with other combined agencies. The Combined Chiefs 

of Staff worked reasonably well, but the combined economic boards never really 

got off the ground. 

The President passed up the opportunity within the nation and between it and 

Great Britain for rationalizing the mobilization programs. That greatly exacerbated 

the problems plaguing the WPB. As head of the Board, Nelson lacked the JCS’s 

105 
direct access to the President, and he was not a ruthless bureaucratic infighter like 

Stinison and Patterson. Yet, early in 1942, Nelson and his aides concluded that they 

required close collaboration with the JCS on miltary requirements in order to fulfill 

their job adequately. This led to the proposal of the Planning Committee for a 

supreme war production council and, when that was rejected, other more modest 

proposals for cooperation between the WPB and JCS. With even these efforts 

failing, Nelson rather desperately looked to the Allied combined boards as a way of 

achieving indirectly what he could not get directly from the recalcitrant military. 

Of especial importance were the Combined Production and Resources Board and 

the Munitions Assignment Board. The first consisted primarily of Nelson and his 

British counterpart, who were expected to work with the Combined Chiefs of Staff 

for integrating economic mobilization programs so that they were consistent with 

Allied strategic and production requirements; the second, chaired by Harry 

Hopkins, who was also a member of the WPB and the President’s chief assistant, 

had the responsibility for assigning munitions output to various nations according 

to need and priority. Since these boards never worked well, they did not serve to 

strengthen Nelson’s hand as he had hoped would be the case. 

If the President did not want a war council, then a coordinated war effort 

through collaboration between the WPB and the JCS could have been attained. 

This would have avoided the institutional upheavals advocated by the Planning 

Committee and supported throughout the war years by the Truman and other 

Congressional committees. Nelson and his assistants did not stand alone in their 

drive for a cooperative approach with the military heads. They were supported by 

such highly placed officials as Hopkins and his assistant, Isador Lubin, who was 

also Commissioner of Labor Statistics, Leon Henderson, OPA price administrator, 

and others. The President failed to be moved, and without prodding from him, the 

JCS had no reason to share its access to the principal seat of political power. The 

most the Joint Chiefs agreed to do in October 1942, was to appoint officers to keep 

the WPB informed of the military’s material and manpower needs. But that was 

more a gesture than a serious proposal for solving a real pr~blem.’~ 

Collaboration between the civilian and military mobilization systems was 

ultimately resolved when, for all intents and purposes, the WPB came under the 

domination of Wilson, and industry and the armed forces synchronized their 

efforts largely through the Production Executive Committee. Once that pattern 

was underway in 1943, the mobilization struggles that wracked the economy were 

no longer essentially civilian versus military; instead they involved interest groups: 

giant corporations and the armed services as opposed to New Dealers, academicians and civil servants, labor, and small business. Byrnes, in his various posts, did 

not restore “civilian” balance to the home front, but rather served to protect the 

decision-making of the industry-military production team. 

While no one can be certain of how a war council would have functioned, the 

subject is worth some examination. To have worked well, strong executives, 

capable of focusing upon the entire war effort, would have been essential for the 

106 
military departments and the major mobilization agencies. Among the first and 

ongoing tasks of such a body would have been setting and adjusting military 

requirements. Practically every major conflict that shook the Washington establishment just before and during the Second World War either directly or indirectly 

involved the armed forces’ demand for munitions and manpower. With requirements set at the highest levels of government and under conditions of broad, 

informed, and responsible review, the major source of contention could have been 

settled with authority and finality and not left as a matter of continuing rancor and 

dispute. 

Under the right conditions and leadership, a war council established at the 

outset of hostilities would most likely have been acceptable to the armed services. 

The idea of careful, broadly conceived planning had become part of the military 

ethos largely as a result of the twenty years of procurement and industrial 

mobilization planning conducted by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of War. 

From that effort came the Industrial Mobilization Plans, which resulted in the 

Army, and to a degree the Navy, adapting its war plans in the 1930s to the nation’s 

industrial potential. 

Unquestionably, the greatest obstacle to a war council would have been the 

corporate community, not the military. Industry was not opposed to planning per 

se. The indirect planning of the Republican Administrations in the 1920s, although 

it turned out disastrously after 1929, had the enthusiastic support of the business 

community. The more direct planning by an enlarged state in the 1930s, which 

corporate America did not fully control, and proposals for the same in the defense 

and war years are what created suspicion and opposition on industry’s part.’” 

Nonetheless, industrial statesmen like Charles E. Wilson, who were also strong 

executives, could have been selected from the outset for top leadership positions in 

the defense and war mobilization systems not only to lead forcefully, but also to try 

and persuade industry to rise above its parochial concerns. As it turned out, the 

civilian mobilization agencies became dominated by industrial representatives 

who too often narrowly concentrated upon short-run corporate interests instead of 

the long-run benefits of the business community and the nation. 

The structure of power within the WPB meant that when the military services 

faced the necessity of integrating their procurement system into the board in late 

1942 and early 1943, they allied themselves with big business out of self-interest. 

Hence, the World War I1 industry-military production team was probable under 

existing circumstances, but not inevitable. Indeed, the armed services participation in World War I economic mobilization and their interwar procurement and 

industrial mobilization planning indicate a strong measure of doubt about close 

relations with industry and a concern on the part of some officers that such 

conditions could undermine military professionalism. 

A properly organized and managed war council had many possibilities. It 

could have offered the military the opportunity to work with industry without 

107 
becoming involved in an alliance which served the long-run interests of neither. 

Certainly a war council could have devised a mobilization program which incorporated in a meaningful way more interest groups than was the case during the 

Second World War. Ideally, such a council could have served to elevate the sights 

and the aspirations of the business community. Surely a rational mobilization 

program, formulated by a high level council and defended in the name of military 

and strategic necessity, would have put the more short-sighted members of the 

business community and the obstructionist conservatives in and outside of Congress on the defensive. At the least, mobilization by a war council could not have 

been worse than that which evolved during World War 11; at the most, such an 

approach could have served orderly, reasonable, and even progressive ends, 

instead of haphazard, careless, and conservative-to-reactionary goals.*’ 

Enough historical evidence now exists to indicate that the general population 

was deeply disturbed about the nature of the economic mobilization program. That 

disturbance may have caused or contributed significantly to the serious Democratic 

setback in the mid-term election of 1942 which served to embolden the growing 

conservative Democratic-Republican Congressional coalition.22 If that was the 

case, Roosevelt helped to create the very conservatism that supposedly trapped 

him.23 Whatever the case, the impact of the misguided means for harnessing the 

economy reached far beyond the election of 1942. Polls point up the fact that public 

opinion appeared not only confused and contradictory during the war, but also 

manifested a callous, selfish, and uncaring streak.” Such attitudes are not surprising. War was catapulting the nation from a decade of depression into quite sudden 

and robust prosperity. Such a transition-leaving aside the need for raising the 

perspective of the people from the national to the international level-would be 

difficult under the best of circumstances. That it occurred at a time of inattentive 

and ineffective domestic leadership could only bewilder and bring out in many 

people their worst, not their best, instinct^.'^ The New Deal as symbol and reality 

had offered Americans more than recovery; it had pledged a more just, equitable, 

and humane society. For the President to tell the masses in December 1943 that 

“Dr. New Deal” had to give way to “Dr. Win-the-War” was to imply that New Deal 

promises stood in the way of military victory or were inconsistent with it. If such 

was the case, then something was lacking either in the New Deal or in the war 

effort. The public was left with a riddle bound to cause worry and generate 

resentment. 

V 

Economic mobilization for World War I1 demonstrated Roosevelt’s genius for 

mastering the intricacies of power in American society. Political success depended 

upon handling an elitist reality within the context of a populist ideology. The 

President constantly finessed that blatant contradiction with great skill. His penchant for decision-making through conflict and competition stemmed less from an 

animus towards clear lines of authority and planning, and more from an instinctive 

108 
and/or calculated tactic of obfuscating the elitist contours of power in America 

which he both accepted and supported. 

A pattern existed beneath the surface confusion of economic mobilization for 

war. Conventional knowledge notwithstanding, the President was willing to delegate authority over domestic events, and recognized the need to do so. But before 

that could take place, two crucial conditions had to be met: first, the mobilization 

apparatus had to reflect the true power patterns of the social system; and second, a 

leader capable of protecting that apparatus had to be groomed. 

Before Pearl Harbor, the nation was too divided over foreign and domestic 

policy to create effective agencies for harnessing the economy. Organizations like 

the NDAC and OPM had the advantage of appearing to balance interest groups and 

placing the talented advocates of economic preparedness in a position to push the 

reluctant corporate community and the confused military in the right direction. 

With war declared, the time was right for a strong agency, but not a strongman. 

Nelson was perfect. He genuinely believed in and articulated the prewar idea of 

broad-based, interest-group planning without in any way demonstrating the determination to implement it. By consistently dodging the tough decisions and 

avoiding confrontation, Nelson allowed power in the WPB to pass gradually to the 

large corporations working with the military. By late 1942-early 1943, with the 

board in elitist hands, Roosevelt could safely appoint a general director and 

coordinator for the home front so that he could concentrate on events abroad. 

Byrnes was first tested in the position of economic stabilizer. Once he had proven 

his executive abilities, his responsibility and authority were expanded to include 

the entire mobilization and reconversion process. Unlike Nelson, Byrnes made the 

hard choices. They were almost always on the conservative side, but with Byrnes 

rather than the President now held responsible for what was done. 

Contrary to the analysis of the necessity school and the interpretation of other 

scholars, economic mobilization for the Second World War grew out of, rather than 

varied from, the basic patterns of the New Deal. Recovery was always the 

Roosevelt Administration’s primary objective during the Great Depression, with 

relief and reform used to buy time and make the minimal changes necessary to 

keep the system going. The first major effort for ending the depression came with 

the National Recovery Administration (NRA). When that experiment failed and the 

restive masses threatened to get out of hand, only then did the President switch to 

the more liberal tactics of the so-called Second New Deal. With defense and war 

production from 1940 onward bringing about full recovery and requiring some 

form of planning, the Roosevelt Administration gradually and logically returned to 

the NRA, in effect, the World War I approach.26 

Roosevelt’s consumate ability to manipulate the realities and images of power 

in America was both his greatest strenght and weakness. During the Great 

Depression, his leadership was instrumental in guarding the system against its 

gravest threat since the Civil War. With the Second World War he managed to rally 

109 
a very divided people behind a common cause. While substantial, those accomplishments met immediate crises without resolving deep-seated and fundamental 

national problems. The crash of the economy in 1929 and the ensuing depression 

laid bare the severe limitations, even bankruptcy, of the nation’s elite leadership. To 

secure the nation’s future, restructuring the operations of power was essential. That 

did not mean socialism or a huge and permanent bureaucratic planning apparatus, 

but rather broadened and rationalized economic decision-making along the lines of 

the indicative planning practiced by every major modified capitalist country today 

with the exception of the United States. 

Since the opportunity created by the crisis of the depression and the planning 

of the war was not seized upon to implement coherent economic policies, the 

chances for doing so in the postwar years were practically nil. Prosperity gave the 

illusion of security. Actually, the nation began drifting towards trouble. It turned to 

military Keynesianism as an easy means for stimulating the economy and in doing 

so aided the growth of the Military-Industrial Complex. Those were only the most 

blatant signs of spreading difficulty. More subtly, the nation gradually became 

uncompetitive internationally as most other nations of consequence adopted some 

form of economic planning. Blatant or subtle, the results of an economic system 

only haphazardly directed have produced the current comprehensive crisis engulfing the nation.27 

Although the Roosevelt Administration did not cause the manifold problems 

of today, it also did not help create the institutions for avoiding or solving them. 

Purposefully manipulating power to handle emergencies in the short run is no 

substitute for restructuring power to produce more effective policies in the long 

run. The war, not the New Deal, ended the depression; mobilizing the economy for 

hostilities was patterned after the NRA, the New Deal’s most glaring failure. 

Increasingly, the perspective of time reveals the weaknesses rather than the 

strengths of the Roosevelt leadership. 

Chairman Weigley’s Introduction of Professor Cuff 

Our commentator this afternoon is Robert Cuff, a professor of history at York 

University in Toronto. Professor Cuff has also taught at Princeton and Rochester. 

His publications include American Dollars, Canadian Prosperity: CanadianAmerican Economic Relations, 1945-1950. By way of background for his commentary this afternoon, and also for linkage of this afternoon’s session with that of 

this morning, he is also the author of The War Industries Board: BusinessGovernment Relations During World War I. 

110 
COMMENTARY 

Robert D. Cuff 

In these remarks I want to focus primarily on Professor Koistinen’s paper, 

since it is closest to my own interests. I will refer to Professor Deist’s work for 

comparative perspective on the American case. 

Let me begin with a summary of Professor Koistinen’s paper. 

Professor Koistinen judges American economic mobilization during the war 

as a chaotically administered, poorly organized, and less than optimal production 

performance. He also finds it anti-democratic in its political and economic implications. Top policy-makers functioned essentially-and intentionally-to preserve private corporate capitalist power. 

Franklin Roosevelt is held chiefly responsible for these negative outcomes. 

According to Koistinen, Roosevelt took a casual approach to economic policy 

making; he deliberately refused to push powerful military institutions toward 

fundamental structural change; and, most significantly of all, he failed to challenge 

patterns of private corporate power. To that end Roosevelt purposely obscured 

institutional power relations so as to diffuse and confuse political potential for 

democratic challenge. The war, then, like the New Deal before it, Koistinen 

argues, is best understood as an episode in America’s long-term decline, as an 

opportunity missed, for example, to institute the kinds of comprehensive planning 

mechanisms the country currently requires, in his view, to combat deepening 

economic crisis. 

Professor Koistinen offers here, of course, a decidedly revisionist analysis. 

Fascinated with the question of what-might-have-been, he implies as a counterfactual proposition that the United States could have, and should have, fundamentally 

restructured economic power relations during the war, and that the White House 

could have, and should have, laid the basis for postwar national economic 

planning. 

In the context of American historiography, the paper reminds me of the 

provocative perspective that Gabriel Kolko took to the Progressive Era some years 

ago in The Triumph of Conservatism. He too speculated on what might have been, 

and he too found that a synthesis of corporate capitalism and executive branch 

111 
politics short-circuited progressive social and economic change. One thinks too of 

Barton Bernstein’s earlier analysis of the New Deal in peace and war. There the 

task was also to account for the limited consequences-the weaknesses rather than 

the strengths-f Rooseveltian policies. In each instance the author directs us to 

important and difficult questions about power, class, and institutional relations. 

These are among the major contributions of critical history to recent American 

historiography. 

In trying to come to grips with Professor Koistinen’s particular variation on a 

revisionist theme, I want to do three things. I want first, to qualify a number of his 

specific historical judgments; second, to take up the issue of Roosevelt’s motivation, which is central to his overall thesis; and third, to outline three structural 

conditions that I believe we need to consider in understanding both FDR’s behavior 

and the overall form of American industrial and economic mobilization. 

On the first point, I want to replace Professor Koistinen’s critical point of view 

with a less morally-charged, less-demanding perspective and have another look at 

several issues. First of all, it is worth noting that the United States was not unique in 

bureaucratic confusion. All belligerents passed through administrative experimentation on the road to total war. Professor Deist reminds us, for example, that Hitler 

also practiced the arts of economic improvisation; that a comprehensively planned 

and centrally-directed economic program also failed to emerge in early German 

mobilization. 

Furthermore, it can be argued that the American output of munitions and 

troops is perhaps even more impressive in the light of the confusing, ad hoc central 

administration that Professor Koistinen describes. The United States did, after all, 

supply 60 percent of all combat munitions of the Allies in 1944. At home, 

economic and social gains did reach less privileged groups swept up in industrial 

mobilization, and organized interests among agricultural producers and industrial 

workers consolidated the gains they had made during the 1930s in relation to 

central state administration and to the Democratic Party. Their representatives did 

enter war administration and they did influence the shape of mobilization policies. 

Both farm and labor groups played a role in the politics of manpower mobilization, 

for example. So a variety of interests influenced industrial and economic policies 

to their benefit, even if they did not offset major business corporations in general 

economic power and administrative influence. 

And finally, within the narrower realm of industrial-military administration, a 

war council did not emerge, it is true, but the war experience did provide an 

important source of administrative knowledge, and participants later sought to 

remedy the institutional weaknesses of wartime when they drafted the National 

Security Act of 1947, the administrative charter of postwar defense organization. 

For example, under that Act, a National Security Resources Board (NSRB) was 

established and charged with the coordination of military, industrial and civilian 

mobilization, and its chairman, in order to coordinate more effectively economics 

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and strategy, acquired a seat in the National Security Council. Which is not to say 

that serious problems did not remain; but only to suggest that managers did try to 

learn from their wartime experiences. In sum, then, we can make a more positive 

evaluation of a number of specific outcomes that Professor Koistinen cites negatively in his paper. 

This is especially the case when we consider the limiting circumstances, 

especially political constraints, outside and inside the Roosevelt administration, as 

well as the complicated nature of the problems requiring a solution. Professor 

Polenberg shows in his work, for example, how in the realm of finance executive 

initiatives for steeper tax and revenue policies ran afoul of Congressional politics, 

how the Farm Bloc fought price controls, how national service legislation went 

down to defeat, and how an anti-New Deal political coalition lunged after New 

Deal symbols such as the National Resources Planning Board. The wartime fate of 

NSRB is a telling example of the obstacles in the path of national economic 

planning, since it was the closest the administration ever came to sponsoring a 

comprehensive planning approach to national economic problems. Within the 

administration itself, vested bureaucratic interests, both civilian and military, 

obstructed central political discipline. And again, Washington was not unique in 

this. Professor Deist shows that bureaucratic rivalries also plagued German rearmament. These then are some of the counterjudgements one can make of American economic mobilization from a different-and obviously more charitableevaluative perspective. 

I realize, however, there are difficulties with this kind of response to a 

revisionist challenge. For one thing, the polemical tone of the revisionist critique 

frequently throws the respondent on the defensive-+specially the moral defensive-and Professor Koistinen’s paper is no exception. One can end up sounding 

like an apologist for the Roosevelt administration-or for capitalist elites, or for 

capitalism-and unsympathetic to social democratic aspirations. These are not my 

intentions. More seriously, one can also fall into a philosophical trapand that is 

of yielding up the realm of freedom in history for the realm of necessity; of saying 

that what happened had to happen; that in this case wartime events defied the 

control of even powerful corporate elites and the White House. Professor Koistinen 

criticizes Professor Blum and others, and I think rather ungenerously, on just this 

point. 

Moreover, the response so far does not come to grips with Professor 

Koistinen’s central claim: that the situation, even granting limited achievements 

and political constraints, could still have been very different-better administered 

and organized certainly, probably more democratic as well-if only FDR had 

acted differently. For example, he argues that conservative attacks on liberal 

economic initiatives succeeded in part because Roosevelt refused to fight persistently against them. Roosevelt embraced “Dr.-Win-The-War” too willingly. 

113 
Perhaps this is true. Perhaps FDR could have done more for social democratic 

change in wartime. To support Professor Koistinen’s point we could speculate on 

the situation in later 1945 had Henry Wallace succeeded to the presidency. In that 

case, there probably would have been more White House support for the policies 

Professor Koistinen favors. Washington observers in the British Embassy would 

have agreed, for example. They believed that Wallace entertained a “view of the 

New Deal as the New Islam.” 

The person in the White House obviously makes a difference. Moreover, 

Koistinen shows that FDR did consider, if only to reject, real options in mobilization management. There was some freedom of choice, in other words. For 

example, in 1939 Roosevelt scuttled the Industrial Mobilization Plan (IMP) that 

military and business representatives had fashioned during the 1930s, only to be 

driven back to its essential form by 1943 after years of wasted administrative 

motion. Similarly, he rejected proposals for closer collaboration between military 

and civilian planning systems. Professor Koistinen obviously has a significant 

point here. 

But why did Roosevelt do these things-r fail to do other things? On this 

point I find Professor Koistinen surprisingly vague, beyond his attribution to 

Roosevelt of an underlying motive to protect the status quo in power relations. I say 

“surprising” because so much of the paper’s argument turns on Roosevelt’s behavior. In general, Professor Koistinen measures the Roosevelt performance 

against two criteria: coherent economic planning and the transformation of power 

relations, and Roosevelt naturally fares badly on both counts because he never gave 

high priority to either. But injustice, I think we can add a third criterion-and one 

closer to Roosevelt’s intentions- and that is the criterion of rallying and sustaining 

a New Deal political coalition for reelection and a nation for a united world war 

effort. In this context it becomes common sense and not deviousness to avoid, 

where possible, confrontation with major power groups, both inside and outside of 

Washington. 

As Professor Koistinen illustrates in his own writing, Roosevelt rejected the 

IMP in part because he could not afford politically to be seen to support a plan that 

organized labor and agricultural spokesmen and influential New Dealers opposed, 

even if he had wanted it himself. The Plan included the representatives of none of 

these groups so central to his political base. It is important to note too that we have 

here an example of FDR obstructing, not appeasing, corporate spokesmen, insofar 

as we can identify them as supporters of IMP. So if a key question rests on 

Roosevelt’s motives for action or inaction in economic mobilization, there is far 

more to consider than his relation to military and business leaders. Industrial and 

economic policies were fashioned in relation to concerns for national morale and 

for partisan political consequences. 

Moreover, it would be difficult to prove in every instance that altered planning 

structures would have improved economic mobilization. For example, it might 

114 
have been the case that a disruption occasioned by a major reorganization at any 

one point-such as elimination of procurement authority from the military services-would have brought more costs than benefits. Woodrow Wilson accepted 

this argument against a Munitions Ministry in World War I, for example. He gave 

authority to Bernard Baruch in the War Industries Board partly to avoid that more 

radical institutional option. Nor is it necessarily the case that more systematic 

economic planning would have solved the problem- if it is a problem--of 

concentrating munitions production in large-scale enterprise. Nor, finally, was 

Roosevelt unique among American war presidents in failing to establish a single, 

administrative center of economic and industrial control. Wilson and Truman 

established competing authorities in their respective mobilizations. Perhaps the 

issue is less the president than a structure of government that compels him to 

husband his personal power and protect his personal autonomy in a competitive 

political and bureaucratic environment. Thus the fear of yielding to superagencies. 

But let us suppose that FDR had been motivated to transform the American 

economic power structure and to institute permanent forms of democratic national 

planning. It seems to me there are three structural contexts we need to consider in 

judging the potential for this change before subscribing to Professor Koistinen’s 

harsh judgment of Roosevelt’s failure to bring it about. 

The first of these, and one that Koistinen himself has done much to inform us 

about in previous work, is the power of private corporate decision-makers in 

industrial mobilization. Private business decision-makers in the United States had 

already demonstrated unparalled ability to retain prerogatives notwithstanding 

economic and wartime crises. And they continued to exact a price for their private 

performances. Charles Lindblom has speculated on the contemporary implications 

of this continuing phenomenon in his Politics and Markets, and Secretary of War 

Henry L. Stimson caught the essence of it in the early stages of American war 

mobilization: “If you are going to try to go to war or to prepare for war in a 

capitalist country, you’ve got to let business make money out of the process or 

business won’t work.” Roosevelt in the so-called defense period had to adapt to the 

reluctance of producers to convert to munitions production. Continued production 

of private aircraft in the face of rising military demand annoyed military circles, 

including Stimson. Yet Washington’s obvious dependency on the cooperation of 

private power-holders remained. Washington had to bargain, and bargaining 

means joint decisionmaking and shared power. 

In addition, those with governmental authority did not possess relevant 

knowledge and control in technical matters, while those with technical knowledge 

and industrial control did not possess governmental authority. The goal, in a crisis, 

was to bind them together, not drive them apart, and yet to do this in a nation 

divided on the very issue of war itself. And here policy middlemen-investment 

bankers and corporate lawyers-men like Ferdinand Eberstadt played important 

roles. A similar pattern of gradual rapprochment had occurred with the Wilson 

administration in World War I, and Bernard Baruch played shrewdly the role of 

115 
policy middleman between private and public powerholders. For Stimson, Patterson, and the rest the issue was how to overcome economic and political obstacles to 

cooperation both in government and in the economy. Private managers occupied 

strategic bargaining positions in the process. And not only because of their ultimate 

control over the production means and familiarity with technical processes, but 

also because of their influential positions as policy-makers in emergency agencies. 

The probable implications of business influence and bargaining within emergency 

political administration in wartime was already evident in the NRA experience, 

and in the War Industries Board experience before that. 

The second fundamental structural condition a president devoted to national 

planning would have had to confront in the 1940s was the comparative underdevelopment of the administrative capacity of the central state, including the 

absence of a permanent higher civil service at the heart of government. This is a 

dimension that Professor Koistinen does not comment upon but one that is central 

to American mobilization dilemmas. It is true that the scope of federal government 

increased immeasurably in the 1930s. It is unnecessary to subscribe to James 

Burnham’s managerial revolution thesis to acknowledge the growth of the regulatory apparatus, the creation of TVA, the Budget Bureau, the Executive Office of 

the President and so on. Public administrators regarded the war mobilization as a 

brilliant opportunity to vindicate their New Deal accomplishments. Some even 

hoped to go forward with essentially New Deal agencies and personnel. This, I 

suspect, was a restraining force on cooperation between the President and various 

business interests in early mobilization as the rejection of IMP suggests. 

Yet the legacy of the thirties in administrative personnel and central coordinating machinery was rudimentary at best, as Otis Graham and others have pointed 

out, and a cadre of political appointments loyal to the President is not the same as a 

higher civil service. Economic mobilization demanded far more, and so Washington turned to private organizations and to private managerial elites-to academics, scientists, lawyers and other professionals, as well as businessmen-for 

personnel and administrative support, much as it had done in World War I. 

Professor Funigiello describes how in the area of federal-state relations, for 

example, the absence of a federal bureaucratic appartus made reliance upon local 

officials likely even if there had been enthusiasm for an alternative. A central war 

administration that relied heavily upon private voluntary personnel did not provide 

a stable basis for presidential control or for coherent administration. Wartime 

Washington was awash with competing centers of administrative decision-making. 

Lester Pearson, the Canadian Ambassador, observed one of the consequences: 

“Commitments to other governments made on one level in Washington were not or 

could not be fully implemented on another. This is not due to bad faith, but to the 

lack of coordination of the activity and authority of so many unrelated decisionmakers .” 

Some commentators tried to put the best face on these developments by 

suggesting that in the United States bureaucracy itself was representative, just as in 

116 
Washington “czars” were democratic. In the United States, it was believed, hoped, 

that democracy and efficiency combined in exceptional ways. Private groups were 

admitted to the administrative game in areas that concerned them, so the argument 

ran: agricultural groups in farm policy; labor groups in manpower and labor policy; 

industrialists in industrial mobilization policy; scientists in scientific policy; 

military in military policy, and so on-a variant of pluralist theory, and a promise 

of intense jurisdictional conflicts. Such a view, of course, is simply making a virtue 

of necessity from the perspective of a coherent national administration and a 

permanent higher civil service, even when it is not misleading as a complete 

picture of political reality. Some liberal critics hoped to find in an expanded 

managerial presidency a source for administrative coherence and control; others, 

like James Forrestal, longed for a cabinet form of government and for the British 

civil service tradition. 

The point here is that political structures can help to explain how patterns of 

conflict were likely to develop in war administration, as diverse groups struggled 

for position and power, irrespective of a particular president’s intent. And it is also 

to caution against trying to explain what was in effect a collective institutional 

enterprise in terms of a single individual’s behavior. 

The third structure to consider in estimating the potential for national planning to emerge from the war is a structure of ideas-a political culture or set of 

cultural norms-in which the administration of economic mobilization and demobilization was embedded. Professor Koistinen makes the important point in his 

paper that Roosevelt had to negotiate a tension between an elitist reality and a 

populist ideology. He concentrates on the elitist realities, but we should not 

overlook the populist or democratic ideology. This is not easy to characterize. 

However, I think we can say that under the press of wartime crisis and the cultural 

pressure to distinguish American democracy from its fascist, Nazi, and eventually 

its Communist counterparts, that this democratic ideology did not promise support 

for departures in peacetime national planning. 

In American social life, this cultural pressure seems to have strengthened the 

hold of possessive individualism on middle class life, a major theme of Professor 

Blum’s book. With its enthusiasm for images of market success, and its compulsion for competitive emulation, this set of private-orientated values held little 

promise for those who hoped for more collectivist efforts toward democratic 

planning. If the populist ideology Professor Koistinen mentions feared aggregations of economic power, it is also feared aggregations of state power, despite the 

New Deal, indeed in some circles because of the New Deal. It was an ideology as 

well that remained suspicious of the very forms of close cooperation between 

private interests and the state that the haphazard, ad hoc American form of 

interventionism required in the absence of a coherent national bureaucracy. There 

were contradictions between elitism and democratic ideology in American economic mobilization and demobilization, but there were contradictions in the 

ideology itself. 

117 
These then are three structural patterns-in political economy, politics and 

culture-that wove their way through American industrial and economic mobilization. And they are institutional patterns in which a president encountered both 

freedom and necessity. Recognition of these patterns does not automatically 

answer the difficult questions that Professor Koistinen poses: why did certain 

changes not occur; what motivated Roosevelt? But I do believe they are worth 

considering in trying to comprehend the institutional field in which Roosevelt and 

corporate elites pursued their converging and diverging goals. Ultimately, of 

course, a more definitive answer to such difficult questions will gain from a 

comparative institutional perspective that a reading of Professor Deist’s work 

encourages us to consider. 

118 
DISCUSSION AND COMMENTS 

Russell F. Weigley (Moderator) 

Weigley: We’re really up against the clock. I’m going to give Professor 

Koistinen an opportunity to respond if he wishes to Professor Cuff‘s remarks 

because those remarks have so much focused on his paper. I know that the few 

minutes I can offer Professor Koistinen won’t be adequate. I also regret that we 

must defer any kind of participation on the part of the audience until the summary 

session tomorrow. Paul do you want to say anything? 

Koistinen: Yes, I would like to say a few words. I don’t want to take up Cuff‘s 

three points specifically, but I do want to make a comment which I think embraces 

all three. 

In a sense, what we have encountered in the twentieth century is the corporate 

community attempting to work out a system in which it will deal with modem 

industrialization in a way that does not violate America’s individualistic, and in a 

sense, even populistic, ideology. It has done that through various organizations, 

starting around the turn-of-the-century with the National Civic Federation. It 

pursued that quest in the 1920s with the associational activities promoted by 

Herbert Hoover. The search continued in the 1930s with the organization of the 

Business Advisory Council and the National Planning Association, and in the 

1940s with the Council of Economic Development and the like. Together with 

other major interest groups, particularly labor, and to some degree the consumer 

and the government, these institutions attempted to work out a system capable of 

operating a modern industrial state. We reached some point of fruition in this effort 

with World War I. 

The First World War presented a situation in which a planned economy was 

needed, and a sort of system was created in which one couldn’t tell where private 

started and public stopped and vice versa. There was some effort immediately after 

the war years to perpetrate this system. That attempt failed. But the planning effort 

did continue through things like the associational activities and trade associations. 

What was encountered during World War I, however, was a very recalcitrant 

military. The military obstructed. In effect, the military was not ready to integrate 

itself into, and participate in, the twentieth century. In contrast, what we had 

during World War I1 were ideal circumstances for change. We had ideal circumstances in that the military was no longer the obstructionist element. You don’t 

119 
need what Cuff is speaking about in terms of the civil service if what the so-called 

business liberals had been preaching since the turn of the century was true: that 

business can be responsible, that it will work out relationships with labor, that it 

will be responsible to the larger commonwealth, that it will work with consumer 

groups. Business liberals had their golden opportunity during World War 11. But 

yet when we look at some of the major representatives of this very business 

liberalism we see men like Donald Nelson. Nelson would not confront, he 

retreated. Another case in point is William Batt* who sided continually with the 

more traditional elements such as the National Association of Manufacturers and 

the Chamber of Commerce. In effect, it wasn’t just Roosevelt who failed. What I 

am speaking of is the corporate community. The corporate community has promised something throughout the twentieth century and has not delivered. What I am 

saying is that since the corporate community had failed, the Roosevelt Administration had a new opportunity: it could have employed the military, a very new power 

group, to force the corporate community to live up to its promises. Roosevelt 

demonstrated what very few American commanders-in-chief have demonstrated: 

he would use his powers as commander-in-chief. Accordingly, he could have used 

the military to persuade corporate America to assume greater responsibility than it 

did. 

Weigley: Thank you. I am sorry that I must cut off this lively debate. 

*Ed note: Among his other wartime posts, William L. Batt was Vice Chairman of the War Production Board 

120 
BANQUET ADDRESS 

BANQUET ADDRESS 

Hollywood Goes to War 

David H. Culbert 

The banquet address at the Tenth Military History Symposium took the form 

of a visual analysis of selected World War I1 propaganda films. The banquet 

speaker, Professor David H. Culbert, assembled and edited clips from a variety of 

motion pictures ranging from Walt Disney cartoons to Army information films. 

Much of the footage was rare; all of it was very interesting. Professor Culbert 

introduced and commented on the film clips and shared his ideas on the use of 

motion pictures as instruments of propaganda in war. 

123 

SESSION 111 

SOCIAL EFFECTS OF TOTAL WAR 

SOCIAL EFFECTS OF TOTAL WAR 

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 

Richard H. Kohn 

Yesterday we studied in broad essentials the heart of the home front in war: 

mobilizing the human and material resources to prosecute conflict, a problem that 

has increasingly expanded as war has expanded in the nineteenth and twentieth 

centuries. The stress and strain produced in society is often immense, as John 

Blum persuaded us. He questioned the conventional interpretation, which I still 

perceive as current in American society if not among scholars, that the United 

States was truly unified in World War 11. David Culbert showed us one of the key 

mechanisms by which the state, itself a product, in many respects, of the expansion 

of war-making in western society, attempted to dampen dissent and unify and 

motivate the population, at heart, the fundamental precondition for prosecuting a 

War. 

Today, we study the results: first, by probing some of the social effects of war; 

then by looking for contrast, and I think in some ways for a very enlightening 

contrast, at two limited wars, since we have spent virtually all of the conference to 

this point studying the home front in total war. 

These effects of total war at home on societies have long been felt by 

historians to be immense. However, we have usually assumed, rather than concluded, that there was change, in part because change seemed to make such sense. 

Over fifty years ago, for example, J. Franklin Jamison, in a little book called The 

American Revolution Considered as a Social and Economic Movement, focused on 

various effects of the Revolution, and in the process, of course, confused the 

Revolution with the war. One single aspect, such as the confiscation of Tory 

estates, set in motion processes that led downstream to immense social, political, 

or economic change. Later, R. R. Palmer compared the effects of revolution on 

French and American society by comparing the number of refugees that each 

movement created. And as recently as the last ten years, John Shy has looked 

specifically at the War of American Independence and at the effects that mobilization and service had on individuals and groups. This approach has continued. We 

have looked at war after war in broad context and simply posited the fact that there 

was change: in World Wars I and 11, the movement of people, the effect on the 

black population of service in France in World War 1, and the acceleration of the 

127 
great migration from the South; the movement of people in World War 11, 

stimulation of science and technology, the introduction of atomic power, the 

introduction of far greater numbers of women into the labor force in non-traditional 

roles; even one single facet, the GI Bill of Rights, and how education might have 

transformed American society. 

Thus there are problems in exploring this topic. When we deal with the effects 

of total war, we are dealing blindly with an elephant, feeling the sides of it. We 

know that it is immense, but we don’t really quite know how to deal with it. If you 

were to take the Soviet Union alone, in World War 11, and step back using some of 

Arthur Marwick’s organizing ideas about the effect of the disruption, the destruction, the participation of individuals, the psychological experience of it-if you 

look at the Soviet Union in World War 11, you say, “What must have happened?’ 

Here was a huge nation. About half of its inhabited areas were occupied. Vast 

armies traversed it for four years. Perhaps 1,700 towns and 70,000 villages were 

leveled, cities reduced to rubble, perhaps 20 million people died, and another 25 

million rendered homeless. A vast guerrilla war was fought behind the lines. Three 

million Russians, Byelorussians, and Ukrainians went to Germany as slave labor. 

What indeed must have been the social effects? How do we probe this? How do we 

deal with this problem? 

One way is to produce microscopic studies, as was thought in World War I, at 

the time when the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace commissioned 

many studies, some 144 volumes of them. But we have trouble philosophically 

dealing with these issues, with showing the linkage of change and war, and 

avoiding the post-hoc fallacy. Are these direct or are these indirect effects? How 

much time must pass before factors other than war, other than the disruptions and 

destructions and the psychological effects, can be said to have caused change? 

Historians are only beginning to come to grips with many of these questions 

in a systematic way. Arthur Marwick, Harvard Sitkoff, and Leila Rupp will deal 

with these questions this morning. They are themselves questioning much of the 

conventional wisdom on what war created or how much change war caused. I see 

another problem in this scholarly effort. Two of our speakers this morning come at 

the problem from the continuity of the study of particular groups in American 

society, and one of our speakers comes at it directly from the standpoint of 

assessing war’s effect. The results are, I think, rather interesting, and I think will 

stimulate you to consider one of the major questions in dealing with war and the 

social history of any society. 

Chairman Kohn’s Introduction of Dr. Arthur Marwick 

Our first speaker is Arthur Marwick, who studied at Balliol College, Oxford, 

and Edinburgh University, from which he received the Doctor of Letters degree. 

He was appointed the first professor of history at the pioneering Open University 

when it was founded in 1969, and he has been Dean of Arts there since 1978. I 

128 
counted on his resume some eleven books authored or edited, many of them 

centered on the question of the effects of war and the social history of society at 

war. Three of his books alone have focused on Britain, war and social change; 

another of his works has examined women at war from 1914 to 1918. But I think for 

our session this morning, he is probably best known for his War andSocial Change 

in the Twentieth Century: A Comparative Study of Britain, France, Germany, 

Russia and the United States. He will speak to us this morning on “Total War and 

Social Change in Great Britain and Other European Countries.” 

129 
TOTAL WAR AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN GREAT BRITAIN 

AND OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES 

Arthur Marwick 

Recently British historians have been saying some arresting things about the 

First World War, Ross McKibbin has insisted that the transformation of the Labour 

Party as between the Edwardian era and the 1920s had nothing to do with the war; 

the basic factor was the reform of the franchise in 1918.’ Briefly allowing himself a 

more generous glance round British society, McKibbin further argued that there 

had been little change in the structure of Britain as a result of the war: “The towns 

were no larger than they had been; there were few new industries; there was no 

increase in the mobility of the population; despite fashionable forms of social 

dissent there was little of that political disorientation so noticeable on the Continent.”’ In this contention, McKibbin was joined by Paul Thompson, respected 

author of an excellent work on The Edwardians, who ventured sufficiently far out 

of his time to deny any significance to the war in bringing about social ~hange.~ On 

the much discussed subject of women’s suffrage, Martin Pugh has claimed that 

there is no evidence that women’s war work materially affected the issue, and that, 

indeed, women gained less in 1918 than they would have done had there been no 

war.4 Feminist writers, too, have maintained that, since women are still downtrodden today, they could not possibly have made any real gains during the First World 

Wac5 It is, of course, traditional to stress the negative effects of war. W. J. Reader, 

in his history of Imperial Chemical Industries, writes, with perhaps more cleverness than illumination: “The Great War, in the world of the chemical industry as in 

the world at large, shattered the old order, set a great many questions about what 

would replace it, and provided answers to none of them.”6 Philippe Bernard’s 

volume in the most up-to-date general history of modern France is called La Fin 

dun Monde 1914-1929.’ Marxists have had problems, wanting to see the war as 

fostering revolutionary tendencies, yet having to admit that it often seemed to 

create national solidarity.’ The German historian Gerd H. Hardach has preferred to 

stress the continuities across the war period, and has joined with the distinguished 

French historian Marc Ferro in pointing to the Russian Revolution as the single 

most significant consequence of the wac9 However, there have also been some 

more complex attempts to situate the war within the general development of 

twentieth century society. Keith Middlemas in Britain has seen it as marking a 

critical stage in the reallocation of power as between government and unions and 

employers, taking society a long way towards, as he sees it, the corporatist 

society.’O Similar arguments have been presented by the Americans, Gerald 

Feldman and Charles Maier, and Feldman, concentrating on Germany, has seen the 

130 
war as prologue to the first era in which statesmen had to wrestle with the very 

contemporary economic problems of inflation, and the balance between government and private spending. ” 

Perhaps, even in the most complex and subtle analyses, there is a too ready 

tendency to look in a direct, one-to-one way, for war’s “effects” or “consequences”-aften, of course, for the very purpose of denying their existence. We do 

not really have war as one independent variable to be added to another, society, to 

produce “consequences.” What we really have is a complex interrelationshipbest pinned down by the phrase “society at war”-wherein there are many 

reactions, interactions, and mechanisms of both destruction and change, that 

change being of many different orders. Thus, I prefer to speak of “war and social 

change.” Social change, of course, is taking place anyway. It may, indeed, help to 

bring about a war; it will certainly determine the means by which the war is waged. 

It is with such considerations in mind, that I offer my own form of analysis of the 

relationship between war and social change. I do not offer a set of common 

generalizations about war and social change, but rather a means towards exploring 

particular relationships in different wars and in different societies. In the last few 

weeks I have examined a University of Malta thesis in which the method was 

successfully applied to the experience of Malta during the First World War; and the 

method was also effectively used in the well-known book by Neil Wynn, The AfroAmerican and the Second World War. History is, of course, very much concerned 

with the particular and unique. In any study we must be careful to establish the 

nature of the society we are examining, and the forms and extent of change already 

taking place in that society. We must make an assessment of the social “size” of the 

war: how total? how limited? And, thirdly, we must be clear about the degree of 

physical impingement of the war: invasion of all, or part, of a country’s territory? 

Heavy civilian bombardment, or considerable geographical isolation from actual 

theatres of war?-all this, naturally, is finally bound in with the question of 

whether the nation is on the winning or the losing in turn, is by no means as simple 

as it sounds. These matters taken care of, the intricate relationship between war and 

social change can then best, my argument is, be teased out by taking in turn the 

four “dimensions” within which war interacts with society. These are: the destructive and disruptive dimension; the “test” dimension; the participation dimension; 

and the psychological dimension. 

When I speak of destruction-disruption I am referring to the most obvious 

aspect, the catastrophic face of war, and in working out its implications I have 

drawn both upon historical observation of what has actually happened in wars and 

upon the disaster studies of social scientists. The destruction of war can certainly, 

as many liberal commentators have stressed, put a stop to peacetime social 

progress. In looking at any particular society in any particular war it is necessary to 

see first whether the total destructive effect outweighs any positive results accruing 

from the destruction. Because positive results there often are. Again and again-in 

face of natural disaster as well as in face of war-we see the desire within human 

societies to rebuild, and to rebuild better than before. That apart, the disruption of 

131 
war forces people into new life-styles and patterns of living and behaviour and 

offers new opportunities; it is necessary, of course, to scrutinize these very 

carefully to see whether they are long-lasting or merely temporary. 

To talk of the “test” dimension of war is perhaps to stray too far into the realm 

of common wisdom, or even cliche. Certainly studies of war of all types are full of 

references, overt or covert, to the way in which war tests social organizations, 

institutions, ideas, as well as personal qualities. In my view there is validity in this 

idea of “test”-provided we handle it with very great care-and my argument is 

that through the test of war, ideas, institutions and so on are destroyed, or 

reinforced or altered, but that anyway there is social change, whether backwards, 

forwards or downwards. The trouble with the word “test” is that it seems to imply a 

kind of value judgment (perhaps conjuring up a vision of the hard-working little 

swot who passes his examinations), and perhaps even suggests that it is an 

important function of social organization to be prepared for war-that wellprepared societies are reinforced and perhaps in some cases moderately and 

beneficially altered, while ill-prepared societies collapse. This is not the argument 

at all. The word test should be taken to include also the connotations of stress and 

strain (perhaps I should coin a new word “strest”). The argument is not that it is 

good that societies from time to time should be submitted to the “challenge” (for 

there is an element of challenge in this too) of war but that, historically, it has in fact 

been in the nature of human society that wars do occur. These wars submit social 

institutions to a combination ot test, stress, strain and challenge, in turn producing 

changes which may well seem to be highly undesirable-such as the creation of 

autocracy or a secret police. But, my argument runs, such is the irony of human 

events, and such the power of greater complexes of social and human circumstances over the mere aspirations of individual humans, that often the changes are 

in a direction which many would hold to be beneficial-as, for instance, in the 

democratization of institutions, or the abandonment of purely laissez-faire 

doctrines. 

The idea that there is some correlation between the extent to which different 

groups in society participate in a war and the social gains which these groups make 

is also, as all the best ideas are, fairly obvious. It was first fully developed in 

Stanislav Andreski’s famous and seminal work Military Organisation and Society 

(1954), and elements of this idea have appeared implicitly or explicitly ever since in 

various different works. Andreski actually coined the term “MPR’ (Military 

Participation Ratio). I prefer to stick simply to “participation” since it is participation in civilian employment in time of war which often seems to be the more potent 

force for social change than actual participation in the armed forces. And this 

brings me to the point that in using this concept one has to analyze very carefully 

the nature and extent of the participation involved. I have no quantitiative tools for 

doing this but it seems clear, both in nature and in consequence, that there is a 

qualitative difference between, say, the participation of the black American conscript in the Vietnam War, and the participation of women volunteers in the 

Women’s Land Army in Britain during the First World War. Here, as with all of the 

132 
first three of my dimensions, we begin to overlap with the fourth dimension, the 

psychological; at any rate, among other relevant issues, it is of importance to know 

something of the extent to which the individual himselffeels that he is a participant. But in broad outline participation has two major aspects. First, it can involve 

the conscious decision of the ruling elements in society that since underprivileged 

elements have participated in the national effort they should be directly rewarded. 

However, the second and more important aspect is that, irrespective of the wishes 

and actions of the country’s leaders, participation directly touches off mechanisms 

of social change and levelling, through, in particular, the operation of supply and 

demand within the market, and through the prestige and status accumulated by the 

participants in the war effort. In my view, historians who persist in seeing social 

change as something done by “us” (the upper and middle class) to “them” (the 

lower classes) have gone sadly wrong in concentrating on, and then usually 

dismissing, the first aspect. Thus, many years ago now, Philip Abrams was able to 

write about “The Failure of Social Reform: 1918-1920”12 because he was looking 

solely for guided, conscious reform brought about by the government to reward the 

working classes; he ignored totally changes brought about irrespective of the direct 

actions of government. More recently Henry Pelling, in discussing World War 11, 

has fallen into the same error, phrasing the theory exclusively in the following 

fashion: “Modern wars have called for an increasingly large participation by the 

people as a whole, and as a price for their support the people in one way or another 

secured compensation in the form of increased social welfare.” Pelling then 

continued: “Unfortunately for the supporters of the theory of the military participation ratio, in neither of these two periods [the two world wars] was it assumed by 

the government that war if it came, would require the active participation of the 

bulk of the p~pulation.”’~ Actually, it is not a question of what governments 

assumed but of what actually happened when thousands of individuals found 

themselves in possession of new economic and political strength and heightened 

social prestige. Dr. Pelling then goes on to misrepresent the arguments of Professor 

R. C. 0. Mathews in developing his case that participation in the Second World 

War was not relevant to the change from a mass unemployment economy to a full 

employment economy. In fact, Professor Mathews very properly indicates the 

effects working-class participation had had in bringing about a significant “change 

in entrepreneurial attitudes”-in other words an end to the “hire ‘em fire ‘em” 

attitudes of the thirties. (A major part of Mathews’ explanation of full employment 

falls under what I would call the test dimension of war-the war giving the 

economy “a once-for-all hoist upward^.")'^ 

To talk simply of the psychological dimension of war is both to seem to beg 

many questions, and (as already noted) to overlap with points touched on in regard 

to the other three dimensions. Again, there is a distinction to be made between the 

responses triggered off in various parts of the community irrespective of government action, and the deliberate moves of the government to maintain morale. Once 

more it is my view that historians, in keeping with the traditional rather overpersonalized view of historical processes, have put too much emphasis on the latter 

to the exclusion of the former. The “unguided” psychological responses can be 

133 
fairly precisely designated under two main headings. First there is the intensification of “in-group’’ feelings and a heightening of hostility to “out-groups,” which 

can mean a great loyalty to one’s nation, and a canalizing of hostility towards 

enemy nations, but can also mean an intensification of loyalty to one’s immediate 

community or social class, with an intensification of hostility towards other social 

classes, or minority and immigrant groups within the society. The second aspect is 

the way in which war produces an expectation of, and therefore demand for 

change. This is in part related to the disruption of war which projects people into 

new roles and provides them with new reference groups, and that, in turn, is partly 

related back to government attempts to maintain morale. 

As I have most unwisely undertaken to deal not only with two wars, but with 

several countries, I shall fairly briefly outline my main conclusions in regard to 

British society in the First World War, taking each of my dimensions in turn, 

before, with even greater brevity, pointing up some comparisons and contrasts 

from the experience of one or two other European countries. I shall then repeat the 

same cavalier treatment with World War 11. 

In Britain the ironic twist to the disruptive effect of war shows itself most 

obviously in education and in housing. Liberal plans for further educational 

reform were in fact halted by the war and in the course of the war educational 

standards for the bulk of the country’s children worsened considerably as influential local employers and farmers maneuvered to have children released from school 

to work “in the national interest”-i.e., in the interests of the local employers and 

farmers. All normal developments in house building were brought to a stop, and by 

the end of the war it was quite clear that private enterprise could no longer provide 

houses at rents the working classes could afford; there was in any case now an 

appalling short-fall of houses. These immense, and highly visible, gaps in the 

country’s social provision helped (in combination, of course, with the other 

dimensions of war) to create the political will to pass the Fisher Education Act and 

the Addison Housing Act at the end of the war. Now, it is of course true that these 

acts achieved much less in practice than they promised on paper (a point seized on 

by Philip Abrams in regard to the Addison Housing Act). But, while it is certainly a 

serious, and very traditional error to write history as if every act of parliament was 

in itself a concrete social change, it is also an error to underestimate the role of 

parliamentary legislation in setting new norms for a society. The (completely new) 

idea of central government subsidies for working-class house building was now the 

new basic norm in housing policy, and one realized with some success after 1924. 

Where governments fell behind there was now a legislative standard against which 

to measure their failings: much of the history of social policy in the inter-war years 

is the history of the struggles of Labour local authorities to carry out declared 

(often Conservative) national policies. The importance of the disruptive effects of 

war in altering working-class reference groups, and therefore creating a continuing 

demand for further social change, has been well summed up by W. G. Runciman in 

his standard work Relative Deprivation and Social Justice. ‘5 

134 
The leisure pursuits of both rich and poor were seriously interrupted by the 

war, but since the various sporting activities were resumed unchanged after the 

armistice, the long-term effects on British society of these various minor disruptions can be discounted. On the other hand the new tensions and excitements of war 

undoubtedly gave rise to new leisure patterns in which dancing and nightclubs 

played a prominent part, creating that hedonistic subculture more often associated 

with the 1920s. The introduction in 1916 of military conscription was of profound 

social significance. Conscription meant that first-hand experience of war was 

brought, not merely to two million volunteers and professionals, but, willy-nilly, 

to twice as many ordinary unadventurous citizens-ane in three of the adult male 

population. 

The test of war is to be seen most obviously in the change in social and 

economic ideologies and institutions: in the change, crudely from laissez-faire and 

piecemeal social policy to a situation in which, for example, the state assumed full 

responsibility for war pensions, and went on to extend the rudimentary unemployment insurance provision of 1911 to the working class as a whole. Certainly the 

British Government made a pretty determined attempt to put the clock back in the 

early twenties but it could not succeed everywhere, and it, and the nation at large, 

always had before it “The Analogue of War”-when the going got tough, the 

automatic question tended to be “what did we do in the war?”“ Some institutions, 

and many people, were beyond the reach of government. The Left, for instance, 

had no wish to put the clock back; in J. M. Winter’s study of Socialism and the 

Challenge of War (1974) the notion of the test dimension of war is very central. 

Writing of Sidney and Beatrice Webb, R. H. Tawney, and G. D. H. Cole, Winter 

declares: “The ideas of each of these thinkers were severely tested during the war” 

(my italics), and he shows how in their different ways they pushed towards 

developing the new ideological consensus which effectively underlay much Labour Party policy in the inter-war years.I7 The extension, particularly in the last 

years of the war, of state control over major industries, and almost all imports, is 

well-known. More interesting, is the way in which war tested Britain’s woeful 

inadequacies in the exploitation of science and technology. A white paper issued in 

July 1915 outlined a form of “permanent organisation for the promotion of 

industrial and scientific research.”18 After an interim existence as a committee of 

the Privy Council, a separate government department, the Department of Scientific 

and Industrial Research (DSIR) emerged, and soon took over the running of the 

National Physical Laboratory. The Medical Research Committee has its origins in 

the 1911 National Insurance Act, but it really only achieved significance in 

response to the necessities of war. Through the Medical Research Committee vital 

work was carried out on dysentery, typhoid, cerebro-spinal fever, and new antiseptics. Permanence was assured with the change of title in April 1920 to Medical 

Research Council. In responding to the needs of war, Britain found itself by the 

war’s end equipped for the first time with a motorcar industry, a nascent film 

industry, a nascent radio industry, and with its electrical generating power doubled.19 Ross McKibbin has made much of the absence of any striking quantitative 

135 
change in the structure of British industry: the point is that, though relatively small 

in size, these new industries had enormous potency for further social change. 

The obvious areas in which participation involved social change are those 

concerning the working class as a whole, and women. In the first place there is the 

simple question of strengthened market position. Men were required to fill the vast 

armies in the front line; beyond that they were required to man the factories upon 

which the entire war effort depended. As men were sucked into the trenches they 

had to be replaced by up-grading unskilled labor, and by bringing women into jobs 

which women had never done before. Because there was a demand for labor, 

workers, women and men, were able to exact higher wages, It was simply not 

worthwhile for the government to allow strikes to take place; better to offer war 

bonuses than to permit the country’s entire war effort to collapse. That labor was in 

fact willing to use its strengthened bargaining position is clearly seen from the 

large number of strikes which took place in Britain, particularly in 1917. It is true 

that the cost of living tended to rise faster than actual wage rates; but family 

earnings, on the whole, kept ahead of rises in the cost of living, because of the 

increased number of wage-earners per family, and because of the longer hours of 

work available to anyone willing to put them in. Overall there was a very clear gain 

to the working class: they had the chance to purchase goods previously denied to 

them. And this taste for new standards of affluence was to remain with them as a 

continuing spur towards demanding further rises in their standard of living. The 

strengthened market position can also be seen in the growth of trade union 

membership, which rose from four million in 1914 to eight million in 1920. 

Stronger trade unions led (in combination with the desire of the government to 

reward labor for its efforts) to a reduction in the working week, from fifty hours at 

the beginning of the war to forty-eight in the early 1920s. Without doubt, the 

economic depression, itself largely a product of the disruptions of war, severely 

curtailed the gains made by the working class. The labor troubles of the early 1920s 

were part of the struggle of the workers to maintain the gains which they had made 

during the war against attempts to return them to pre-war standards. 

A second way in which wartime conditions could be turned to the advantage 

of members of the working class was through their direct participation in government. When the coalition government was formed in May 1915, a post was 

allocated to the Secretary of the Labour Party, Arthur Henderson, whose general 

brief was to watch over the interests of labor and to maintain labor support for the 

government. When the small war cabinet was formed in December 1916, Henderson joined the select few, while a number of other Labour men were given 

important posts. These representatives of the Labour Party, then, were able to 

pressure governments into giving special attention to the social issues which were 

of particular interest to the working class. In the long term, the fact that Labour 

men were in government and were seen to work efficiently in government, greatly 

enhanced the claims of the Labour Party to be accepted as a possible party of 

government. Too much is sometimes made of the point (which is, nonetheless, 

extremely important) that the government felt it necessary, as it were, to buy the 

136 
support of labor; that it deliberately sought, through social welfare measures, to 

maintain working-class morale and support for the war effort. The twin notions of 

boosting morale and of conceding rewards to the working class were an important 

element behind the major social reforms which took place at the end of the war. 

The question of what gains, if any, women made from their participation in 

the war effort has been subject to much more controversy. While, after a slow start 

and against much resistance, there was a great expansion in female employment 

from the middle of the war onwards (a total increase of about one-and-a-quarter 

million). By the early 1920s there were only about 200,000 more women in 

employment than there had been immediately before the war. Great stress has been 

laid by feminist historians on the hostility to women’s employment in the first years 

of peace, and to the way in which women were forced out of their wartime 

occupations, Again, quantities can be misleading: there were permanent gains in 

the professions, and in commerce, though these gains make little showing in the 

statistics. There is general agreement among feminists that women’s wartime 

experience gave them a new self-confidence and a new willingness to assert 

themselves.2” In fact, there is plenty of evidence to show that although many 

women had to go back into the old occupations as domestic servants or shop 

assistants, they were now willing and able to resist successfully the imposition of 

the humiliations which these occupations had connoted in Edwardian times. 21 

Changes in women’s employment opportunities during the war were very closely 

related to the changing circumstances of men, particularly the imposition of 

military conscription. The question of votes for women, too, is very closely related 

to the male experience. Britain before the war was very far from being a democracy: two-fifths of all adult males did not have the vote. The major voting 

qualification was that of residence; thus many soldiers, and munitions workers, 

who had formerly had the vote, actually lost it because of their war service. In 

addition to this, many war heroes came from social groups which had never had the 

vote in the first place. David H. Colse, in a brilliant article whose title is itself 

extremely revealing, has cut through Ross McKibbin’s absurd efforts to treat the 

franchise reform of 1918 in artificial isolation from the circumstances of the war: 

The war quickly made a vast expansion of the franchise inevitable, by establishing the 

claim to vote of new categories of people-apecially servicemen and women-and by 

making intolerable the old difficulties of access to the electoral register, particularly the 

twelvemonth qualifying period. 22 

In detail, when the advocates of women’s suffrage, who had curtailed their 

agitation in the interests of national unity, realized that reform of male suffrage was 

in the air, they reasserted the claims of women. Now, with the example of women’s 

contribution to the national effort clearly apparent, they were pushing on an 

opening door (Colse deals effectively with Pugh’s contentions in this matter). 23 In 

the new Representation of the People Act of 1918, which gave the vote to all men 

over twenty-one (except-and it is a significant point in regard to the participation 

thesis-conscientious objectors), the vote was conceded only to women over 

137 
thirty, and a small property qualification was also insisted upon. Nonetheless, 

Mrs. Millicent Garrett Fawcett, leader of the Suffragist Movement, recognized this 

as a triumph, and recognized also what it owed to the war ex~erience.’~ Mrs. 

Fawcett saw the restrictions upon women’s franchise as temporary tactical concessions-there were convinced supporters of the principle of women’s enfranchisement who had reservations about the possibility of women actually being in a 

majority in the electorate: but once the principle had been accepted, it was easy in 

1928 to introduce voting for women on exactly the same basis as that for men. 

Winning the vote was important, but it should not divert attention from the 

(qualified) social and economic emancipation also gained. Undoubtedly the 

changes for women remained within the framework of a traditional conception of 

women’s role in the family and in society. But we should beware of applying the 

standards of the later twentieth century to its earlier decades. 

If the psychological dimension of war is seen as operating in the way I have 

suggested then we are in a position to resolve some of the contradictions between 

the over-romanticized patriotic view of the entire British nation being united in its 

efforts against Germany, and the clear evidence of working class militancy and, in 

some cases, hostility to middle-class and upper-class interests. In general, it was 

the upper elements in society, those in a position to bring about conscious social 

change, who felt the sense of united patriotic nationhood and identification of 

interests with the brave working class; it was working-class groups whose sense of 

class loyalty was strengthened and who were therefore all the more ready to 

demand social change. The two, apparently contradictory, tendencies thus come 

together to create a strong pressure for social change. With regard to the other 

major aspects of the psychological dimension of war, I would not wish to disagree 

with what James Joll says in the preface to his well-received general work, Europe 

Since 1870: “We can now see for instance that the First World War was not such a 

total break as it appeared to be, and that the movements and ideas which have 

conditioned the experiences of the later twentieth century had nearly all made their 

appearance before 1914.’lZ5 The point about the war is that it gave a new currency 

and a new acceptability to these ideas, and by virtue of the very fact that it seemed 

like a total break to people at the time, reinforced the strength of these new ideas. 

The historian W. H. Dawson, writing in late 1916, expressed the whole mood very 

well: 

We are living at a time when days and weeks have the fullness and significance of years 

and decades. Who does not feel that since August 1914 England has in many ways 

broken with her past and entered an entirely new epoch in her history, marked by 

transformations of every kind, so that when the day of peace arrives, be it soon or late, 

we shall be confronted at home by an altogether altered situation?26 

With regard to the arts in particular I can do no better than quote the introduction 

which the art critic P. G. Konody wrote in his introduction to Modern War: 

Paintings by C. R. W. Nevinson (1917): 

138 
It is fairly obvious that the ordinary representational manner of painting is wholly 

inadequate for the interpretation of this tremendous conflict in which all the forces of 

nature have to be conquered and pressed into service against the opposing enemy. A 

more synthetic method is needed to express the essential character of this cataclysmic 

war, in which the very earth is disembowelled and rocky mountain summits are blown 

sky-high to bury all life under the falling debris. How could even a faint echo of such 

things find its way into that species of enlarged and coloured newspaper illustration that 

continues to represent the art of the battle painter on the walls of the Royal Academy? 

I quote, and discuss further, this passage in War and Social Change in the Twentieth 

Century, page 84. Paul Fussel’s, The Great War in Modern Memory (1975) argues 

along the same lines in regard to the war’s effects on literature. 

What of the other European countries? The test of war was particularly 

devastating for rambling, shambling, Russian society. War brought the first real 

opportunity for middle-class participation, through the “voluntary organizations.” 

Workers and peasants, even if in uniform, were, with rifles, a formidable threat to 

an incompetent regime. Revolution, such as it was, took place in Germany under 

the impact of defeat, but the crucial reallocations of power took place during the 

war, as Gerald Feldman has convincingly demonstrated. Change appears sharper 

in Russia and in Germany because these societies were more obviously autocratic 

in 1914. What of France? Here the important point to stress is that, despite 

optimistic predictions being voiced as early as 1915, women did not get the vote at 

the end of the war. Partly this was because traditional attitudes about the roles of the 

sexes was stronger in rural, Catholic France. But two other factors are also 

relevant: all French men already had the vote, so in France there could be no 

question of men’s efforts helping to open the door for women; and, secondly, the 

French labor movement, being weaker than the British, was less able to push 

anyway. On the other hand, because France was industrially less developed than 

Britain, and because, indeed, she went through something of an industrial revolution to meet the demands of war, there was a permanent expansion in industrial 

employment for women.*’ That there is universal validity to the argument about 

the war experience changing women’s own attitudes and enhancing their selfconfidence gains further support from this extract from the journals of the American Ambassador to Belgium: 

Augusrl7,1916. -One of the curious things the war has brought to Belgium is a certain 

liberation of women. They go out alone without chaperones; some of them walk among 

the poor side streets, and so forth, which many of them had never seen before. Girls ride 

everywhere on bicycles, there being no automobiles or other form of transport. Van 

Holder (a well-known Brussels painter) says girls come and pose at his studio for their 

portraits; girls of the best families, without a chaperone, as they never did before the war. 

And Count de Jonghe made a similar observation to me the other day. Women seem to 

have found themselves; they work, from patriotic motives, but they work.28 

With the opening of the archives in the 1970s, there has been a spate of 

intensive work on British social policy and British social experience during the 

Second World War. Unfortunately, this has led one of the most brilliant of the 

139 
younger historians, Dr. Josie Harris, to the tiresome conclusion that we cannot 

make any generalizations about the relationship between that war and social 

change till far more research has been accomplished and dige~ted.’~ Again, I 

would appeal, not to the accumulation of still more evidence, but to the method 

whereby that evidence is analyzed. A. J. P. Taylor, in the concluding chapter of his 

final volume of the Oxford History, has emphazised the social changes he saw as 

accompanying the Second World War, as has Gordon Wright in his The Ordeal of 

Total War. Among the new generation of historians, Paul Addison in The Road to 

1945: British Politics and the Second World War, argued that the war pushed the 

fulcrum of British politics towards a centre-left position. On the other hand, Henry 

Pelling very cautiously argued the case against the war having had any significant 

effects on British society. Angus Calder, in his massive study of the People’s War, 

argued passionately that the war simply hastened the country along the old 

grooves, and the journalist and essayist Anthony Howard bluntly remarked that 

“1945 brought the biggest restoration of traditional values since 1660.” In my view, 

Calder and Howard are measuring social change against some unreal socialist 

society of their own: Britain after 1945 manifestly was not such a society, 

therefore, they argue, the war did not bring about social change. 

The great change in material standards for the vast majority of the British 

people as between the 1930s and the war and postwar period would seem not to be 

open to question, and certainly Calder seems to agree to this. I believe further that 

an analysis of the war experience in the light of my four dimensions, particularly 

that of participation, brings out clearly the central role of the war in bringing about 

this change. In this short essay, I do not wish to linger longer on this aspect. What I 

want to do is to concentrate on the question of the gradual change in attitudes 

towards social policy and social relationships which built up steadily throughout 

the war period. I believe that where many of those who argue that the war had no 

significant long-term effects have gone wrong is in posing a false antithesis 

between a glorious “people’s war” in which there was a series of sudden mass 

conversions from selfishness to patriotism, and from snobbishness to practical 

socialism, and the postwar period in which all the conversions just as suddenly 

lapsed. I believe this incorrect analysis arises largely (as with the theory about “the 

failure of social reform” at the end of the First World War) from too strong a belief 

in the ability of human beings consciously to alter themselves and their environment. An analysis which brings out how change comes irrespective of the 

deliberate decisions of individuals, can uncover more realistically the slow buildup of change during the war period leading to lasting change in the postwar period. 

Let me first of all take the question of civilian evacuation in face of the threat, 

and the reality, of enemy bombing, in itself an important segment of the disruptive 

dimension of the war. Evacuation has had much attention from social historians for, 

it is argued, it was the sudden projection of slum children into contact with wealthy 

middle class householders which aroused in the latter the social conscience which 

fed into the reforms at the end of the war. (Commentators of a different persuasion, 

of course, have excoriated the evacuation policy for the traumatic effects it 

140 
undoubtedly had on some evacuee^.)^' To my mind it is better to see the evacuation 

experience as but a part, though a substantial one, of a much more extensive, 

forced intermingling of members of the upper and lower classes brought about by 

the disruption of this war. Thus in place of the rather limited picture of two short 

evacuations at the beginning of the war marked by many well-documented instances of rich and poor positively refusing to mix, followed by a final evacuation 

at the time of the V-bomb menace (where, significantly, the evidence does show a 

much greater, and unforced, mixing of classes), we have a much broader, developing process embracing the Women’s Volunteer Service, the Auxiliary Fire Services, the other voluntary services and corps, and such unofficial activities as the 

establishment of playgroups for slum kids by middle class volunteers. 3’ 

If we turn to the test of war we find it at its most powerful in bringing about the 

collapse of local authority services, and in exposing the inadequacy in face of the 

blitz of the divided hospital services. We find in the Emergency Hospital Scheme 

the basis of the National Health Service at the end of the war, and we find a new 

powerful contempt for the style and methods of the old local elites. If any one 

single document merits quotation here, it is the unpublished report of Mass 

Observation on the East End blitz in September 1940, which in turn formed the 

basis of an article entitled, revealingly enough, “A Test for Democratic Institutions” in the Economist: 

Alas for Whitehall. it turned out quite differently. Nobody foresaw the tidal wave of 

refugees who fled all over the country after that first hideous weekend, inundating places 

like Oxford with homeless people, being decanted in peaceful Essex suburbs from 

lorries by desperate local authorities who hoped for the best that something would be 

done about them. Nobody foresaw that everybody would not know all about the official 

plans for them, that the rest centres would be overflowing, that people would stay there 

for weeks instead of hours, that people would not be able to be billeted in their own 

boroughs, that transport would not turn up, so that refugees were bombed to death in the 

rest centres, that people would flock to the tubes and unofficial deep shelters rather than 

use the official surface shelters which they regarded as death-traps. In fact, there were 

rather too many things that nobody foresaw for official democracy to plume itself very 

much on its efficiency as a wager of war on the Home Front. 

But the report goes on to praise the magnificent work of the “mainly middle-class” 

voluntary workers. There is a wealth of evidence elsewhere of middle class anger 

over the incompetence of the authorities, and determination to see that in the 

postwar world the social services would be organized more effectively. 32 

If we turn to the question of participation, we do not find a great heroic surge 

of uncomplaining enthusiasm on behalf of the patriotic effort. Instead we find 

morale disturbingly low in the early summer of 1940, we find plenty of examples in 

the blitz (contrary to the versions published in the press) of people fleeing from 

their homes and (understandably) in very deep distress over the apparent collapse 

of their world and all supporting services around them. In the South Wales coal 

mines the morale was certainly pretty hostile to Government and management: 

perhaps war doesn’t have such “impact” when you’re working underground 

14 1 
anyway. Yet there is much evidence too of the grim, and sometimes extrovert, 

determination beloved of in the popular traditional And as the war 

progressed a greater optimism about the possibilities of social change, and a 

greater determination to secure it, begins to manifest itself. (I leave aside, remember, the potent “market” aspect of participation, the way in which workers could 

effectively demand better wages and conditions-and did; the number of days lost 

due to strikes went up every year from 1941 to 1944, and in 1945 was still double the 

1938 figure.) 

What of women’s participation, and its consequences? Perfectly properly 

much attention now is focused on the lack of advances made by women in the 

twentieth century (Margaret Thatcher notwithstanding). It has been argued (most 

specifically by Betty Friedan, the American feminist, in The Feminine Mystique) 

that, having had masculine roles thrust upon them during the war, women, just as 

unceremoniously, had the traditional feminine image reimposed upon them as 

soon as the war ended. Again this is, to my mind, to fall into the error of positing 

abrupt change in one direction during the war, followed by abrupt reaction in the 

other at the end of the war. The evidence clearly indicates that during the war many 

were simply continuing to fulfill feminine occupations, albeit in a different 

environment: the women’s land army, for instance, advertised for women “who 

like doing housework.” In assessing the gains made by women due to wartime 

participation one must also consider what it was women themselves wanted: all 

surveys at the end of the war showed that a majority of women, in fact, wanted to 

get back to their traditional role in the home.34 However, a broad base for further 

steady changes had been laid; new status, new independence, new economic 

freedom as in the previous war; and, above all, as a government survey showed, a 

big swing in opinion among employers who were now more prepared to regard 

married women as perfectly acceptable employees (there was a deeply entrenched 

tradition before the war that as soon as a woman got married, she got fired).35 

Here I have spilled over into the psychological dimensions of war-the 

greater acceptance of change, and the greater belief in its possibility. What I said 

about evacuation and other aspects of disruption overlap with what I was saying 

earlier about “ingroup-outgroup” reactions. Let me stress again that these are not 

all in the direction which could be regarded as progressive. Hostility to Jews long 

settled in this country intensified in the first years of the war; feeling in favor of 

locking up all aliens, mostly more recent refugees from the Hitler regime was very 

strong; and there was not too much sympathy for evacuees from the over-run 

territories of Europe.36 About the best that anyone could say on behalf of Belgian 

refugees, for instance, is encapsulated in these remarks of a lower middle class 

housewife who ran a sweet shop: “If they are anything like the Belgians in the last 

war-they’re a dirty lot . . . but poor things they can’t help it. I mean the Irish are 

dirty but we don’t hate them. That’s the only way they’ve been brought up.”37 

But if the war inevitably intensified xenophobic and sectional feelings, it 

undoubtedly also fostered a broad, and clearly identifiable, movement of change. 

142 
Two Mass Observation documents are again specially helpful here: a summary by 

Tom Harrisson, the moving spirit, and sharp scientific brain behind the organization, on “The Mood of Britain-1938 and 1944,” bringing together a vast range of 

Mass Observation evidence on, basically, working-class opinion; and the “Report 

on Changes of Outlook During the War” compiled by the organization’s national 

panel of observers. 

The Mass Observation national panel reported that, with regard to temperament, the most frequent changes mentioned were a greater self-reliance and 

courage, and a greater seriousness which was to some extent offset by an appreciable number of comments about greater frivolity. The two most important social 

changes were a greater sociability and tolerance, with a decrease in class prejudice. In some cases reported, the change was said to be really great. Political 

developments were not all in one direction. The most frequently mentioned 

changes were an increase in cynicism and apathy, on the one side, yet on the other 

more political interest, but also more hatred of the Germans. However, there was 

also considerable evidence that more people were taking more interest in politics 

than before the war. The main broad movement detectable was definitely from the 

Right to the Left. In the realm of morals, the main changes noted were a tendency 

to a greater spirit of service and cooperation, and also, inevitably, changes in 

sexual morals. The panel were finally asked to report on people’s interests: here the 

evidence was that, apart from the political changes already mentioned, people’s 

interests had broadened, usually owing to experiences directly related to the war.38 

Tom Harrisson summarized the mood of 1938 as: bewilderment, uncertainty, 

insecurity and hope for the best. For the period 1932-42 he recorded the mood as 

less selfish, but with the main concentration on the war. From 1942 onwards he 

detected a shift in focus towards the period after the peace, and he saw the 

publication of the Beveridge Report in December 1942 as a turning point because 

of its basic concern with security. Very perceptively, Harrisson noted that there was 

nothing terribly new in the interest in postwar reform, but that people were now 

able to be more specific and concrete about the sort of reforms they wanted. As I 

have tried to argue throughout this paper, people do not undergo sudden conversions: as Harrisson saw it, the underlying big values had not changed, but 

people’s focus on them had.39 

Now the publication of the Beveridge Report. as is today too often forgotten, 

attracted an enormous amount of hostility from the rich and p~werful.~’ Within the 

government and civil service there was a colossal battle over the publication and 

implementation of the Report: the files of the Lord President’s Committee give a 

clear view of the tremendous fight the Secretary to the Beveridge Committee, D. 

N. Chester (a wartime civil servant and former university lecturer) put up on behalf 

of the Report against the Treasury mandarin^.^' However, not all the rich and the 

powerful were opposed to the Report. In a private letter, W. H. Haslam, landowner 

and director of several companies, hostile critic of Clement Attlee and believer in 

the breaking up of the Trade Union system, penned a marvelous piece of fullblooded military participation theory: 

143 
The Government in my view have made a great mistake in not endorsing the Beveridge 

Report to the extent of creating a Ministry of Social Security. Such an institution would 

be an earnest of their intentions that unemployment and want shall not prevail on 

demobilization. I feel sure such a gesture would have appealed to the services. Surely 

the first two calls on the national finances for the future are maintenance of defence and 

freedom from want. Financial consideration must be subservient to both necessities.42 

That was a private letter, so we can’t accuse it of being propaganda. In fact, I 

don’t think we need worry too much about propaganda. Undoubtedly, in my view, 

low morale in the early stages of the war is related to the incompetence with which 

official propaganda was conducted. But in the later stages it is generally fair to say, 

I believe, that propaganda canalized a deeper feeling within society, rather than 

creating it (and this view seems to be supported by Ian McLaine’s recent important 

study of the Ministry of Information, Ministry @Morale (1979)). No doubt some of 

the statements about building a better world after the war were simply politicians’ 

hot air, of purely temporary validity. But on the whole the picture is of a broad, and 

pretty genuine, movement towards the Left among those in influential positions; 

those who did not share in this movement did not hesitate to speak out against it. 

Whatever the substantial defects subsequently revealed, social services of the 

post-1945 period were qualitatively quite different from the fragmented, meanstested services of the thirties. So too was the whole language and imagery of social 

class, even if, as is undoubtedly true, the essential class structure of the country 

remained the same. In the popular cartoon series made just after the war by 

Harrison and Bachelor for the Central Office of Information in order to summarize 

Britain’s recent history and explain her postwar economic problems, the average 

Briton at the center of the cartoon, “Robinson Charlie,” is played as a black-collar 

working man;43 analogous efforts to portray the ordinary citizen of the 1930s would 

always have given him a white collar. The detail of housing legislation and policy 

in the thirties is full of argument and discussion over the nature of the working 

classes for whom housing policy is exclusively directed, including gems such as 

this: 

In order to constitute a redevelopment area, the area must contain not less than fifty 

working class houses. At least one third of these houses must be congested, overcrowded or unfit for human habitation and not capable at reasonable expense of being 

rendered fit. The area must be one which clearly ought to be used to a substantial extent 

for working class houses, and it must be one which ought to be redeveloped as a whole.” 

In explicit intention, the Housing Act of 1946 was supposed to apply to the 

community as a whole, and the Housing Act of 1949 for the first time dropped any 

reference to the “working classes.” Likewise the other social legislation of the 

forties moves away from the contorted but crystal-clear euphemisms of the thirties: 

“employed workpeople” (in Holidays with Pay legislation) and “ex-PES” and 

“non-ex-PES” (in ed~cation).~’ 

These are brief, and rather fragmentary points, chosen to highlight arguments 

which I have developed much more thoroughly elsewhere. There is much irony in 

144 
the way in which social change comes about. Neither in 1914 nor in 1939 did 

British governments embark on war in order to transform their societies: rather 

were they forced into war in the vain hope of preserving the cosy worlds they 

inhabited. World War I brought the British working class and British women 

within the pale of citizenship. World War I1 administered severe shocks to continuing upper-class complacencies, and, above all, helped to banish many of the 

social insecurities which had been the nightmare of the thirties. World War I was 

the more significant watershed, but World War I1 revealed a vital glimpse of social, 

economic, and participatory democracy. 

Yet, in comparison with other European countries what stands out in regard to 

the Second World War is that, in the end, it did not impinge physically upon British 

society to anything like the degree that it did on France, Germany, or Russia. Much 

of Britain’s poor economic and social performance since the war, compared with 

that of both France and Germany, can be attributed to the way in which, in the 

matter of social expectations, Britain had not been reduced to a minimal level as 

had the two continental countries;46 in addition, there was a general British 

complacency over “having won the war.” Thus the destructive dimension, in its 

negative as well as positive aspects, was particularly important for continental 

Europe. But the participation dimension has particular relevance in connection 

with the social reform programs of the European resistance movements which, 

illuminatingly, tended usually to incorporate references to the British Beveridge 

Report. 

What, finally, of neutral countries? Since, overall, they have gone through 

broadly the same social transformations as belligerent countries does this not 

suggest that in the end any analysis of the relationship between war and social 

change is really irrelevant? On closer inspection the problem simply dissolves. In 

some degree or another, war did impinge on the several neutral countries of the 

First World War, and on occupied Denmark and neutral Sweden in the Second 

World War. Even in spheres where the direct impact of war was slight, or nonexistent, as with regard to participation within the neutral countries in the Second 

World War, these countries found that, after the war was over, they were inescapably part of the new social, intellectual, economic and political structures created 

elsewhere by war. Broadly, this applies to Switzerland, though, revealingly, 

women did not get the vote there till the 1970s; Spain has remained one of the most 

socially backward of European countries. Sweden in the First World War enjoyed a 

boom in the production of her high-grade steel, and endured a blockade more 

complete than that of any country save Germany. Norway in the same war suffered 

destruction of her shipping greater, in proportion to her shipping resources, than 

any other country, and in absolute terms second only to the United Kingdom. In 

1921 Sweden followed most of the major belligerent countries in granting universal 

manhood suffrage and votes for women; even though there had been no participation dimension, Sweden was now joining a new political and social order created 

elsewhere by the experience of war. In the Second World War Sweden was 

inevitably affected by the international dislocations of war; she was subject to 

145 
severe press control; and she was tom by arguments over where participation in the 

national interest properly lay. 

In the 1960s Western countries moved into a new phase of social transformation which can, without too much bathos, be described as the time of “cultural 

revolution.” In all countries there were striking changes in social relationships, 

customs, and morals; France went through economic changes probably greater 

than at any other time in the twentieth century. Wars or no wars, the well-springs of 

social change are manifold. But the two World Wars do exist as historical facts: 

horrific and tragic though they undoubtedly were, they still call out for the careful 

attention of the student of social change. 

Chairman Kohn’s Introduction of Professor Harvard Sitkfl 

Our second speaker this morning is Harvard Sitkoff of the University of New 

Hampshire. Professor Sitkoff studied at Queens College and at Columbia University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1975. He has taught at Queens, at Washington 

University, and since 1976, at the University of New Hampshire, where he is 

currently associate professor. He has been the recipient of many grants, fellowships, and awards, including in 1979-1980, a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship and a Charles Warren fellowship from Harvard University. He is 

the author of many articles and essays, but he is perhaps best known for his two 

most recent books, The Struggle for Black Equality, 1954-1980, and his A New 

Deal for Blacks: The Emergence of Civil Rights as a National Issue; Volume I, 

Depression Decade, published by Oxford University in 1978. He will speak to us 

this morning on “American Blacks in World War 11: Rethinking the MilitancyWatershed Hypothesis.’’ 

I46 
AMERICAN BLACKS IN WORLD WAR 11: 

HYPOTHESIS 

RETHINKING THE MILITANCY- WATERSHED 

Harvard Sitkoff 

In the early and mid-l960s, as the civil rights movement seared its way into 

the American consciousness, most journalists and social scientists writing about 

the struggle for racial equality and justice depicted it as something new, unique, a 

revolutionary break with the past. These commentators on the “Negro Revolution” 

or the “Civil Rights Revolution,” after giving a perfunctory nod to the formation of 

the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) early 

in the century, and perhaps a glance to the Harlem Renaissance and Garveyism in 

the 1920s, focused on the 1954 Supreme Court decision on school desegregation, 

or the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott, or the sit-ins of 1960 as the starting point of 

the modern black struggle. Not surprisingly, however, as historians grew interested 

in the movement they searched deeper into our past for origins and antecedents, for 

the sources and roots of black protest, for a continuing tradition of black struggle. 

Toward the end of the 1960s, a number of historians, myself included, published 

essays asserting that the true beginning of the contemporary militant movement, 

the watershed years of the struggle, were the years of the Second World War. 

Today, this is virtually a historical truism.’ 

It is now a textbook cliche to follow Richard Dalfiume in seeing the war years 

as the “forgotten years of the Negro revolution,” the time when “a mass militancy 

became characteristic of the American Negro” and when blacks first aggressively 

protested the racial status quo. The war is now generally viewed as the turning 

point in black consciousness and behavior that culminated in the civil rights 

revolution of the 1950s and 1960s. According to Dalfiume, the discrimination 

faced by blacks in defense industries and in the armed forces, plus the bitter 

memories of World War I, led to low morale in regard to the war effort and high 

morale in race consciousness and determination to institute a revolutionary change 

in the nation’s racial policies. Dalfiume underscores this by stressing isolationist 

and even pro-Axis sentiment by blacks in the immediate pre-war period and by 

emphasizing militant protests against discrimination and segregation, as exemplified by the Durham conference of Southern blacks in 1942, the outspokenness of the Negro press, the race riots of 1943, the anger and unity of the black 

masses, their involvement in protest and political activities, and, most of all, the 

March on Washington Movement (MOWM). 

147 
A quick survey of some recent writings on black history and on World War I1 

reveals how thoroughly the militancy-watershed hypothesis has been adopted. 

John Brooks’ history of the civil rights movement begins with a couple of chapters 

on the war years whose theme is the militancy of the black masses forcing civil 

rights to become a central concern of the era. Brooks particularly stresses the 

significance of both the Congress of Racial Equality’s (CORE) nonviolent civil 

disobedience and the MOWM’s mass militancy to the civil rights movement of the 

1960s. Histories of the home front by John Blum, Richard Polenberg, Richard 

Lingeman and Geoffrey Perrett do the same. Each, in varying ways, emphasizes 

the unique and unprecedented militancy of the black masses, the importance of 

CORE and the MOWM, and the ways in which pressure from blacks forced white 

society to grant concessions. As Perrett sums it up: “new techniques, leaders, 

organizations, race consciousness and militancy” came into being which 

“launched the modem phase of the struggle for equality.” These were the “watershed‘’ years, Perrett continues, “when American Negroes began for the first time to 

fight for their rights effectively and independently. . . . Here was where the 

modem civil rights movement began; here was where it scored its first important 

victories.” The militancy-watershed hypothesis also reverberates throughout Neil 

Wynn’s and A. Russell Buchanan’s accounts of black Americans in the Second 

World War, and Lee Finkle goes even further in his treatment of black militancy, 

claiming that the Negro press lagged behind the temper of the masses. Two recent 

scholarly articles pinpoint this new consensus. In The Historian, Peter Kellogg 

boldly contrasts the lack of concern for civil rights in the 1930s with the passion for 

and progress of civil rights suddenly stimulated by the war. And writing in 

Prologue, James Nuechterlein states in his very first sentence: “It is now clear that 

the period of World War I1 marked the beginning of the modern civil rights 

movement in the United States.”* 

It is no longer so clear to me, however. Having published several essays a 

decade ago which contributed to this watershed thesis, I began research for a fullscale study of the civil rights issue in World War I1 several years ago as a fervent 

believer in it. 1 fully expected my research to uncover much new evidence of the 

black protest movement building on its experiences in the New Deal era and going 

far beyond it in attracting mass support and in actively demonstrating against 

segregation and discrimination. But, to date, my research indicates that the Second 

World War delayed and stifled black protest activism, that it dampened black 

militancy. And the more often I returned to Dalfiume’s work, and to others who 

argue similarly, the more flaws I found in the argument that the war marks a sharp 

break with the past in race consciousness and militancy and activity, and in the 

conclusion that these so-called new developments led directly to the civil rights 

revolution of the fifties and sixties. 

First, there is the matter of timing, of the dates when things happened. Almost 

all of the references by the above historians to vitriolic editorials in the Negro 

press, to angry statements by black protest leaders and organizations, to allegations of black disloyalty or tepid support by blacks for the American cause are 

148 
dated pre-Pearl Harbor. They should not be confused with wartime militancy. 

Much of this supposed militancy was really opposition to Roosevelt’s reelection in 

1940 by some Negro publishers and organizations; much of it was really Communist-related opposition to defense mobilization and aid to Great Britain during the 

Hitler-Stalin pact. Most of it was simply the desire of blacks to share equitably in 

the gains of the pre-war defense effort. Certainly blacks were angered at the racist 

military, trade union, and industrial policies which denied them their due. But to 

assume that what blacks sought to do about these problems was not at all changed 

by the actual entrance of the United States into the Second World War is fallacious. 

What Roosevelt called the war for survival affected blacks as well as whites, and as 

the nation became more fully involved, the belligerence of blacks dramatically 

decreased. Black soldier violence diminished perceptibly after 1941, as did opposition to the draft. Serious talk of a march on Washington ended. Demonstrations against war industries which discriminated ceased; indeed, racial strikes 

constituted only .00054 percent of all wartime work stoppages! And the Negro 

press, as Lee Finkle has demonstrated conclusively, was not militant after Pearl 

Harbor. 

This decreased belligerency, moreover, occurred at a time when militancy 

might have flourished. The war years were a period of black rising expectations and 

white reaction, an era in which gains by blacks whetted their appetite for further 

progress and stimulated white opposition. Such a combination should have resulted in an explosion of black protest activity, but it did not. The reason was total 

war, and all the constraints placed on a protest movement in the midst of a nation’s 

war for survival. However determined and united blacks were to end segregation 

and discrimination, few flirted with anything that might remotely be considered 

treasonous to the war effort. 

Secondly, in this matter, the militancy-watershed hypothesis greatly overstates the significance, even for the pre-war period, of isolationist or pro-Axis or 

pro-Japanese black groups. There were a few such groups, not “many” as Dalfiume 

claims, and their numbers remained miniscule in a nation of 13 million blacks. 

There were only 33 black conscientious objectors in 1941, about 2 percent of the 

total number of COs, and only 166 for the following four years. Only a tiny handful 

of blacks was ever convicted of draft evasion, much less sedition, and they and the 

cults they belonged to were loudly and insistently condemned as “fanatics” and 

“crackpots” by virtually every major Negro leader, organization and newspaper, 

even those reputedly most militant like A. Philip Randolph. Typically, black 

spokesmen stated, as the Chicago Defender did in the case of Robert 0. Jordan and 

his four supporters in the Ethiopian Pacific Movement who were charged with 

sedition, that as “agents of fascism” the court should “convict them all.” In 

addition to their numerical insignificance and the manner in which black spokesmen disassociated themselves from whatever smacked of disloyalty, there is also 

the fact that not all black opposition to the war was racially motivated. It cannot all 

be equated with black militancy. There were sincere religious objections, pacifistic 

149 
ones, and during the Nazi-Soviet pact, ideological concerns that had nothing to do 

with black ad~ancement.~ 

An enlargement of this point leads to my third objection. There has been an 

all too facile effort to label any and all black violence, or anti-social behavior, as 

evidence of racial militancy. The evidence does not support such a view. We simply 

do not know enough about most of the clashes between black and white soldiers, or 

between black servicemen and white townsfolk, or between blacks and military 

and civilian police to ascribe them to militantprotest attitudes and behavior. Some 

surely were related to the black quest for equality and justice and dignity, and some 

just as surely were manifestations of criminality devoid of ideological content. 

Some were as much evidence of black despair as of assertiveness. Some were 

caused not by blacks demanding more but by whites irrationally reacting against 

their perceptions of Negro gains. We need to know far more about racial violence 

in World War I1 before we make some of the assertions I did a decade ago. It is 

wrong, for example, to couple the 1943 Detroit and Harlem riots. Virtually every 

major black spokesman repudiated the Harlem rioters. The Pittsburgh Courier 

labeled the riot “an orgy of vandalism.” A writer in Crisis compared the crowd in 

Harlem “in spirit, ironically, to a Southern lynch mob.” “It took a riot in Harlem to 

teach Negro America that all racial intolerance is not on one side of the fence,” 

Lester Granger stated, “and that a Negro riot in action is every bit as bestial and 

blindly destructive as a white mob.” Indeed, black leaders as diverse as Adam 

Clayton Powell, Jr., and Walter White joined to praise the actions of Mayor 

LaGuardia and the New York City police, and a poll showed that fewer than one in 

three Harlem residents thought the riot ju~tified.~ 

One may well speculate, given the legitimacy of Negro frustration and their 

presumed militancy, why there were not more riots in World War II? Why Detroit 

qualifies as the only genuine race riot? Why wasn’t the Second World War, in this 

respect, more like the 1917-1919 period or the 1964-1968 period? Mass racial 

violence in World War I1 was the exception, not the rule. It was not a prevailing 

mood or mode of action. Black spokesmen almost without exception condemned 

racial violence as harmful both to victory abroad and at home. I find it striking that 

while some of my early essays are cited and quoted from historians to buttress their 

hypotheses of black militancy, few have bothered with my conclusions-namely, 

that these conflagrations frightened the black leadership, made it excessively 

fearful of further outbreaks, and caused it to turn its attention to reducing black 

aggressive behavior of any kind. Moderation became the watchword; gradual 

reform the order of the day. For well over half the time we were engaged in the war, 

“Good Conduct” campaigns and controlling racial rumors took precedence over 

actively combatting segregation and discrimination. Furthermore, much of the 

evidence often considered indicative of civil rights militancy, particularly the 

mushrooming of hundreds of new interracial committees and organizations including the American Council on Race Relations, the Race Relations Institute, and the 

National Association of Intergroup Relations Officials, actually demonstrated 

decreasing manifestations of militancy. Fearing a postwar wave of racial violence 

150 
like the one which followed World War I, the emphasis of these new groups was 

racial quiet, not racial justice. Most worked closely with police departments and 

were funded by conservative philanthropic or municipal agencies. Their primary 

goal was stopping racial violence-not seeking greater rights for blacks. 

Fourth, the militancy-watershed hypothesis suffers from a confusion of elite 

opinion and mass behavior. Again and again I see assertions similar to Dalfiume’s 

that “The Negro masses simply did not support a strategy of moderating their 

grievances for the duration of the war,” or that “Never before had Negroes been so 

united behind a cause” or so involved in protest activity, and the footnote reference, 

when there is one, is to an editorial in the Negro press or a speech or article by a 

civil rights leader. This is not sufficient as evidence of mass militancy. Militant 

mass protest activity would constitute such evidence. Militant mass political 

behavior would constitute such evidence. But such evidence is not forthcoming, 

and there is no proof whatsoever for Dalfiume’s statement that the Negro press 

“simply reflected the Negro mind.” The Courier may have had the “Double V” 

plastered on its masthead, but it had a weekly circulation of 140,000. We have to be 

careful of making it representative of the feelings of 13 million people, or of 

similarly utilizing the Chicago Defender, the next largest weekly, with a circulation 

of under 80,000. There is good reason to question, moreover, Dalfiume’s characterization of these papers as militant. The fullest study of the Negro press, by Lee 

Finkle, concludes just the opposite, agreeing with A. Philip Randolph’s description of the Courier as the “spokesman for the petty black bourgeoisie.” And, 

however unradical the Courier and Defender might have been, the great bulk of the 

Negro press, mainly small Southern weeklies, was even less forceful in opposing 

raci~m.~ 

The absence of this distinction between North and South is a fifth error 

commonly made by historians expressing the militancy-watershed hypothesis. 

There was in the 1940s a tremendous difference between what could be done by 

black protest, and what was done, in the South as opposed to the North. Southern 

blacks were not militant during the war-not in demonstrations, not in the 

activities of the scattered Southern branches of civil rights organizations, not in 

their support of two new protest groups most historians see as indicative of the new 

black militancy, CORE and the March on Washington Movement, not even in the 

editorials of their newspapers or the statements of their leaders. And this at a time 

when nearly three-quarters of all Afro-Americans still lived below the MasonDixon Line. One poll in the Negro press, for example, indicated that only one out 

of ten Southern blacks felt that segregation should be attacked during the war. Even 

the supposedly militant statement of the Southern Negro leaders who met in 

Durham in 1942 needs to be qualified far more than Dalfiume does. True, it 

criticized segregation; but it did not call for its abolition. Instead, the Southern 

blacks asked for an improvement in race relations within the existing framework of 

segregation, They asked for equal education and economic opportunities, but not 

for integrated ones. Perhaps most importantly, the Durham conference led to no 

direct actions against Jim Crow. Eventually, it was subsumed in the Southern 

151 
Regional Council formed in 1944. No effort was made to make the SRC an 

organizaton with mass appeal. The Council was a vehicle for Southern white 

sociologists and newspapermen who desired a liberalization of race relations 

without fundamental changes. Not until late 1949 would it finally declare itself 

against segregation.* 

Even among the quarter of the black population who lived in the North, 

militancy was neither common nor massive. This is in the sixth and most significant problem with the militancy-watershed argument. The centerpiece of the 

hypothesis is that blacks, unlike the preceding decades, in huge numbers aggressively combatted Jim Crow during World War 11, and the main proof offered is 

the MOWM. Building on Herbert Garfinkel’s work, Dalfiume claims that the 

MOWM pioneered “the spontaneous involvement of large masses of Negroes in a 

political protest. . . . Unlike the older Negro movements, the March on Washington had captured the imagination of the masses.” John Brooks, asserting that 

the MOWM “is the granddaddy of all the black protest that proliferated through the 

1960’s,” states: “Randolph ushered the Negro masses onto the stage of history. . . . The march marked a change in the character of Negro protest.” The 

change stressed by all the historians I mentioned earlier is that the MOWM was an 

all-black mass movement that used direct action pressure tactics to force concessions from white America. Purportedly this is unique, other civil rights organizations being interracial rather than all-black, devoted to pleading rather than 

pressuring, placing their faith in lobbying, litigation and legislation rather than 

direct action by the masses.’ 

The extent of the MOWM’s break with earlier black protest, its success in 

enlisting the support of the masses, and its influence on later protests in Montgomery, in Greensboro, in Birmingham, are the critical questions that need to be 

raised. I have already discussed in detail the first two questions in the first volume 

of my history of the emergence of civil rights, A New Deal For Blacks. Time now 

permits me only to recapitulate briefly my answers. To the extent that the MOWM 

was a departure, it was so only in Randolph’s extremely militant and nationalistic 

rhetoric. All the existing civil rights groups, including the NAACP and National 

Urban League (NUL), agreed with the movement’s goals and endorsed the march. 

None considered the idea of bringing mass pressure to bear on the government 

particularly novel or radical. Many black leaders had sounded that theme in the 

depression decade. Talk of “mass action,” of “mass power,” of “mass marches on 

Washington,” was common in the leftist and labor vocabulary of the 1930s, and 

numerous black organizations adopted the language. Even for Randolph, the 

phrases and tactics were not new; he was reiterating in 1941 the themes he had 

propounded as head of the National Negro Congress (NNC) in the thirties. Nor was 

Randolph’s insistence that the MOWM be an all-black enterprise particularly new 

in civil rights. During the Great Depression, Cleveland had its all-black Future 

Outlook League to fight discrimination, Detroit had a similar Civil Rights League, 

at least thirty-five cities had all-black “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” 

organizations. Moreover, despite some recent accounts of the MOWM which take 

152 
Randolph’s rhetoric and turn him into an early version of Malcolm X, Randolph 

and the MOWM had integrationist goals and welcomed all possible cooperation 

and collaboration with white liberals and white labor. Randolph’s all-black posture 

was primarily designed to avoid a Communist takeover of the MOWM, as white 

Communists had previously taken over the NNC. It was not to foster separation. 

That was understood at the time and so, not surprisingly, the MOWM drew support 

from white church, liberal, and labor groups and from all the major civil rights 

spokesmen and organizations opposed to separation and nationalism. In addition, 

the MOWM gained this support because its aim was to arouse white America to the 

plight of blacks for the purpose of influencing the political system to make 

necessary reforms-a common goal for race advancement organizations in the 

thirties.I0 

The amount of Randolph’s mass support is problematic. No one knows for 

sure. The march never took place. But some guesses are in order. If 100,000 blacks 

were ready to march, as Randolph said, or even if 50,000 blacks were so 

mobilized, or 20,000, why did Randolph accept such a weak and tarnished 

compromise from Roosevelt? If as many blacks were militant, why didn’t another 

leader take up where Randolph left off? If his support was so massive, why did the 

March on Washington Committee have a budget of less than $3,000 in August, 

1941, about half of it coming from Randolph’s own Brotherhood of Sleeping Car 

Porters and much the rest of it from the NAACP? If the MOWM was indicative of 

such mass militancy, why did it wither away after the NAACP and NUL ended 

their support in 1942? Why did a Courier poll in October 1942 show 71 percent of 

the blacks in Washington against the idea of a March on Washington? Why did no 

support materialize when Randolph called for mass marches on city halls in 1942? 

Why did no blacks march? Why, given such purported mass militancy, did all the 

major civil rights spokesmen and Negro newspapers shun and denounce Randolph’s 1943 call for civil disobedience to protest Jim Crow schools and railroads? 

And why didn’t mass numbers of blacks engage in such actions? Why, indeed, 

considering what historians have written about Randolph and the MOWM as being 

representative of the new wartime mood of black militancy, did the MOWM 

convention at the start of the summer of ’43, held in the city of Chicago, attract 

virtually no blacks other than a handful of Sleeping Car Porters? Indeed, in the 

light of most of what has been written about the MOWM, 1 find it ironic that the 

bulk of Randolph’s energies for over half the wartime period was directed to his 

leadership of the National Council for a Permanent Fair Employment Practices 

Commission (FEPC), a traditional legislative lobby which never talked of direct 

action or of mobilizing the masses, and which was controlled by a small group of 

mainly white New York labor leaders and Socialists.” 

As to the MOWM’s much-heralded influence on later direct action civil rights 

campaigns, as well as CORE’S, I am persuaded by Meier and Rudwick’s exhaustive survey of protest that the history of direct action and militancy has been 

episodic and marked by sharp discontinuities. “We would argue,” they conclude, 

“that such tactics and strategies were continuously reinvented by blacks in re153 
sponse to shifting patterns of race relations and the changing status of blacks in 

American society.” Most civil rights participants have been ahistorical, knowing 

little of earlier protest techniques. Both the sit-in students and Martin Luther King, 

Jr., and his associates thought they were inventing new forms of protest. Neither 

thought they owed anything to Randolph, or even, initally, to CORE. The 

Gandhian ideology introduced by CORE during the Second World War did not 

enter the mainstream of black protest until King articulated it, well after the 

Montgomery bus boycott was underway. CORE, during World War 11, remained a 

tiny, little known, interracial group, attractive mainly to A. J. Muste’s pacifist and 

socialist followers. It sought to involve large numbers of blacks, and failed. 

CORE, and its Gandhism, was not even known to blacks at Howard University and 

in St. Louis who, independent of each other, thought they were inventing the sit-in. 

Moreover, CORE’S direct action tactics are not nearly so novel as often pictured. 

Most came directly from the CIO experiences in 1930s; CORE even called its first 

sit-in a “sit-down” after the famous CIO strikes. Considering their leadership, it is 

not at all surprising that both CORE and MOWM owed much to the Marxist and 

labor union activities of the thirties.” 

Finally, given my short time remaining, I would like to cite Meier and 

Rudwick again on the critical questions of the uniqueness and magnitude of black 

militancy. “The era of the Depression,” they write, “marked a watershed in AfroAmerican direct action.” It was in the 1930s that blacks for the first time massively 

marched, picketed, boycotted, and sat-in for the goal of racial equality. “Indeed,” 

they state, “direct action during the Depression contrasted sharply both quantitatively and qualitatively with the history of such tactics during the entire 

preceding century, and achieved a salience in black protest that would not be 

equalled or surpassed until the late 1950s and 1960s.” Meier and Rudwick 

continue: “there was less actual use of direct action tactics during World War I1 than 

in the 1930s.” Because the wartime emergency created a milieu unfavorable to 

such militant protest, blacks did not employ it as a major weapon. They conclude 

that “despite the publicity which Randolph gave to direct action and the diligent 

work of ‘the CORE chapters, demonstrations had declined sharply during World 

War I1 compared to the 1930s. . . . Overall, the amount of direct action was minor 

compared to the Depression era.”l3 

However, even if the Second World War does not mark a sharp break in civil 

rights thinking, leadership and militancy, and even if it was not the direct progenitor of the movement that burst onto the American scene a dozen years later, the war 

era is still critically important in the development of the struggle for black equality. 

It is so primarily because World War I1 changed the United States, deeply, 

fundamentally. And these unanticipated consequences of our involvement, in the 

realms of demography and our economy, in the scope and nature of our federal 

government, and in our place in the world, created the preconditions which made 

the modern civil rights struggle not only possible, but successful. Objective 

conditions that had little to do with race in a primary sense created a context in 

which organizations and leaders could press for racial reforms. And more directly, 

154 
the experience of war, especially the nation’s shocked reaction to Nazi racism, its 

fear of massive racial violence, and its concern that white racism weakened our 

security, established a milieu in which blacks could confidently organize for 

fundamental social change. To the extent that World War 11 was a watershed for 

civil rights it was not so because of a new mass militancy, but rather, it was so 

because of the revolutionary changes in American life that made it impossible for 

this nation to remain ignorant of, or ignore, the black quest for racial equality and 

justice. 

Chairman Kohn’s Introduction of Professor Leila J. Rupp 

Our third paper this morning is by Professor Leila Rupp. Professor Rupp 

received her Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr College in 1976, taught for a year at the 

University of Pennsylvania, and has been teaching history and women’s studies 

since 1977 at the Ohio State University, where she is currently associate professor. 

She has published Mobilizing Women for War: German and American Propaganda, 1939-1945, and with Barbara Miller Lane, Nazi Ideology Before 1933: A 

Documentation. Currently she is engaged in collaborative research with Verda 

Taylor on the American women’s movement in the post-Second World War period, 

under a two-year research grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. 

A book tentatively titled, The Survival of American Feminism: The Women’s 

Movement1945 to the1960s, will be published by Yale University Press. Her paper 

this morning is “War is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things: 

Reflections on the Impact of Total War on Women.” 

155 
WAR IS NOT HEALTHY FOR CHILDREN AND OTHER 

LIVING THINGS: 

REJXECTIONS ON THE IMPACT OF TOTAL WAR ON 

WOMEN 

Leila J. Rupp 

A poster so common in the 1960s that it has become an artifact of sixties 

culture proclaimed that “war is not healthy for children and other living things.” I 

chose to use this slogan in my title for two reasons. First, it suggests the tenor of my 

conclusions about the ultimate impact of total war on women. Second, the 

reference to the antiwar movement reminds us that, although war might bring 

certain kinds of gains to women, it is not a method of social change that women as a 

group ever have, or I hope ever would, advocate. The question of gains arises 

because some observers believe that war can liberate women. Anne O’Hare 

McCormick, an editor of the New York Times, expressed this view in 1943: “[Mlen 

are apt to wake up some day and stop wars on the grounds that women win them,” 

she wrote.’ Those who disagree with such an optimistic evaluation usually point to 

the temporary nature of women’s wartime opportunities and argue that permanent 

change does not result from the wartime necessity for women’s greater participation. It is a debate that most often focuses on the American experience in the 

Second World War, but one that can be and is extended to other countries and other 

wars as well.* 

I would like to look beyond the relatively simple terms of this debate by 

considering the issue of the impact of total war on women from a broader and 

comparative perspective. Although the Second World War was a total war-that is, 

a war that demanded extensive mobilization of the home front-the American 

experience is not the most representative one for building an argument about the 

impact of war on women. As the popular wartime query “Don’t you know there’s a 

war on?’ suggests, the war touched this country less than it did all the other 

combatants. As Arthur Marwick has suggested in his study of war in the twentieth 

century and as the case of the Vietnam War makes clear, a “total war” can be total 

for some combatants and not for other^.^ Given this situation, a comparative 

perspective is essential for any consideration of the general issue. 

Making use of such a comparative perspective, it is important to be precise 

about what groups of women were affected in what ways. To take two obvious 

cases, Jewish women in Europe, swept up in the Holocaust, and Japanese156 
American women in the United States, sent to internment camps, suffered in 

particular ways from the experience of total war. On a less obvious level, women of 

different classes, races, ages, and family arrangements experienced the war in 

different ways. Maurine Greenwald has shown, for example, in‘her study of 

American women workers in the First World War, that even workers within 

particular industries had quite different experiences during the war: within the 

railroad industry, clerical workers, common laborers, and skilled workers found 

different obstacles confronting them and took advantage of different opportunities; 

within the streetcar industry, women conductors in different cities had widely 

divergent experiences moving into a previously all-male oc~upation.~ Women 

historians in general warn us not to take traditional rhetoric that speaks of 

“Woman” as an accurate reflection of reality. Women as a group share certain 

characteristics, including the potential for bearing children and, perhaps most 

important, socially-defined roles, but women do not comprise a homogeneous 

group. 

In addition to employing a comparative perspective that recognizes differences among groups of women, it is important to look beyond the most obvious 

issue of women’s wartime employment. I shall consider, first, women’s roles in the 

labor force but shall then turn to women’s reproductive, sexual, and childbearing 

roles; the impact of wartime violence on women; and, finally, public attitudes 

toward women and women’s own self-perceptions. This does not pretend to be a 

comprehensive and systematic study of women and war, but is rather a series of 

reflections based on existing research on the Second World War. I offer examples 

from the German, Japanese, American, British, and Soviet experiences in order to 

raise questions and suggest new perspectives on the ways that total war affects 

women. 

Turning first to the area most often discussed in histories of the war, the area 

on which most claims of the liberating effects of war are based-women’s role in 

the labor force-what is immediately striking is how similar the story is in all 

countries, regardless of government system or prevailing political ideology. A 

patriarchal ideology that proclaimed a particular “place” for women prevailed in 

every country involved in the war. All governments realized at some point in the 

war that it would be necessary to recruit women into the labor force in order to 

replace men drafted into the armed forces. Important groups in all countriesindividual government officials or leaders, employers, male workers-apposed 

the mobilization of women. Despite the desperate need for female labor, women 

continued to experience discrimination in wages, promotion, training, seniority, 

and so on. At the end of the war, all countries made haste to send women either 

back home or back to their traditional low-status, poorly-paid, sex-segregated 

jobs. It is a grim scenario, yet it cannot be denied that women moved into jobs 

previously reserved for men, and in some cases, earned high wages during the war. 

What did this mean for women? To suggest an answer to that question, we must 

consider the experiences of different groups of women in different countries. 

Women moved into new sectors of the labor force, but we cannot ignore the way 

157 
they got there-that is, what degree of compulsion they experienced in mobilization. Surprisingly, the totalitarian nations of Germany and Japan allowed citizen 

women more choice than did Britain. Britain, along with the Soviet Union, 

utilized women’s labor most efficiently. British women had to register with the 

government and those considered “mobile”-without children under fourteen or 

other significant domestic responsibilities-could be drafted into the armed forces 

or for work anywhere in the country. By 1943,90 percent of single women and 80 

percent of married women with children over fourteen were ~orking.~ In the 

Soviet Union, women served under military discipline in all areas of the economy, 

comprising 56 percent of the labor force by 1945, and one million of them even 

served, on a voluntary basis, in the military as snipers, machine gunners, artillery 

soldiers, tank crewmembers, and combat engineers.6 In Germany and Japan, on 

the other hand, the governments reluctantly passed but did not systematically 

enforce registration laws. In both countries, ambivalence on the part of the regimes 

about the proper roles of women resulted in a relatively small-scale mobilization. 

In Germany, the female labor force increased by only 1 percent during the war, 

despite the desperate need for labor as the war continued. The Nazis imported 

prisoners of war and foreign workers as a substitute for “Aryan” women, at the 

same time that they poured enormous amounts of labor power into the extermination of the Jews. “Protection of women” meant only concern for the proper role of 

“racially-acceptable’’ women. Women of “non-Aryan” stock helped to make up the 

contingents of forced and slave labor. At the same time, Hitler spoke of the need to 

preserve women’s place in the home in total disregard of the millions of “Aryan” 

women already at work under strict regulations. While women already at work 

could be imprisoned for missing work, non-working women flaunted their leisure 

at cafes and resorts. Middle and upper class women evaded registration without 

penalty while less privileged women, whether working or not, bitterly resented the 

lack of a fairly enforced conscription decree that would spread the burden equitably among the population. By the end of the war, the working class population had 

come to resent the social injustices of the mobilization program and publicly 

expressed sentiments of class conflict.’ 

In Japan, too, the female labor force increased very little in the course of the 

war-less than 10 percent between 1940 and 1944. At first unmarried, later even 

married, women were supposed to register with the government, but many 

officials opposed the conscription of women as a measure that would disrupt the 

family. Nominally volunteer labor associations, which neighborhood leaders 

hounded women to join, set women to work in factories, but, as in Germany, 

women evaded work by failing to register, taking easy office jobs, bribing officials, 

or marrying. By the end of the war, systematic bombing by American forces led to 

such disruption that the state could no longer control the labor force.8 

In the United States, success at mobilizing women fell somewhere between 

the extremes already described. Ultimate victory in the war and, even more 

important, the absence of fighting and destruction at home, set the American 

experience apart. Although the government discussed the possibility of registra158 
tion and conscription throughout the war, it relied instead on propaganda to 

mobilize women into the labor force. The Office of War Information coordinated 

large-scale intensive national campaigns designed to “sell” war work to women 

and recruit women into the women’s branches of the armed forces. The female 

labor force increased by 32 percent from 1941 to 1945, but, in contrast to the 

situation in Britain, only 36 percent of all women over the age of fourteen worked 

outside the home at the peak of employment. As was true elsewhere, women 

moved from traditionally female jobs into war industry at the same time that 

previously non-employed women joined the work force. Black women found that 

for the first time they could move out of domestic service and agricultural labor into 

jobs previously barred to them on the basis of both their race and gender, but they 

continued to experience discrimination in their new jobs .9 Industrial wages were 

high in the United States (although, as in every country, unequal to those of men) 

and this attracted women to war industries in particular. Propaganda pictured 

“Rosie the Riveter” as the white middle class housewife in overalls maintaining her 

glamour and doing her domestic duty for her man by making airplanes. The 

reality, as the recently released documentary “The Life and Times of Rosie the 

Riveter” makes clear, was different, but women of all groups-white women and 

women of color, young women and old women, single women and married 

women-did seize the opportunities opened to them during the war and thereby 

contributed to the war effort.’” 

What can we make of all this? We know that work outside the home does not 

mean automatic liberation, for if it did, the least privileged women in every society 

would be the most liberated. Even work in previously male jobs did not “free” 

women, as the avoidance of factory work by German and Japanese women 

suggests. Japanese women lived in filthy company dormitories, worked an excessive number of hours, and received too little food and low wages based on age, 

gender, and experience rather than work performed. Women in all countries 

complained about inadequate social services and the problems of the “double 

shift,” the necessity of working a full day in a factory and doing their household 

chores at night. Nevertheless, women did move into new roles and sometimes 

received good pay-“men’s pay”-for doing so. So it might be possible to argue 

that, despite continuing discrimination and bad conditions, women made employment gains during the war. But what about the permanence of these gains? 

The situation in the postwar period depends very much, of course, on the 

war’s outcome for each country, but I believe that the evidence shows that postwar 

patterns of employment were generally a consequence of long-term changes in the 

labor force rather than a result of the war. This is a point very much in dispute with 

regard to the United States. The contemporary trend of employment for married 

women, including middle class women, is one that some scholars attribute to the 

wartime experience.” William Chafe, for example, sees the Second World War as 

a watershed in women’s history; the movement of women into the labor force that 

the war initiated created the essential foundation, according to Chafe, for the 

emergence of the women’s movement in the 1960s. Others argue, as I do, that the 

159 
contemporary acceptability of work outside the home is a consequence of structural changes in the labor force, especially the growth of the service sector, and has 

little to do with the massive influx of women into industry during the war.” 

The patterns in other countries seem to support the argument that factors other 

than the war shaped women’s labor force participation. In Japan, the female labor 

force today consists primarily of young women not yet married and housewives 

with older children, a pattern brought about by urbanization and cultural tradition.I3 In the two Germanies, the patterns differ significantly. In the Federal 

Republic, about 50 percent of all working-age women are gainfully employed, 

while in the German Democratic Republic, the comparable figure is over 80 

percent.14 As in the United States and the Soviet Union, whose patterns the two 

German states reflect, economic necessity and ideology determine levels and 

patterns of female employment. In general, the changes in women’s employment 

patterns-primarily the increase in women’s labor force participation-that emerged by the 1960s seem to have been a consequence of long-term economic, social, 

and technological developments, in both capitalist and socialist societies, rather 

than a result of the war. 

Nevertheless, an intriguing situation discovered by Karen Anderson in her 

book on American women in the war suggests that the war might at least have had 

the potential to bring about real change. The United States Employment Service 

traditionally classified job seekers into categories based on previous employment 

and permitted registrants to refuse jobs outside their categories without losing 

unemployment benefits. In Detroit, large numbers of women registered for industrial jobs while many returning veterans, who had done clerical work in the army, 

registered for white-collar jobs traditionally considered women’s work. Faced with 

this unexpected situation, the Employment Service warned the men that opportunities in the clerical field were limited and the pay was too low for men, and 

denied unemployment benefits to women who refused to take jobs outside the 

industrial ~ategory.’~ This experience suggests that war did in fact have some 

potential for breaking down the traditional division of labor, but makes clear that 

employers and government had an interest in thwarting that change and used 

whatever means were necessary to maintain the traditional order. Perhaps war is a 

potentially liberating experience in the realm of work, but in practice its effects can 

be subverted. 

Turning away from the question of women’s work during the war, we enter a 

realm not often considered in discussions of the impact of war on women. 

Reproduction, as women’s studies scholars have pointed out, plays a central role in 

women’s lives and must be considered alongside production if we want to understand women’s experiences. Here I would like to consider what we know about 

reproduction, sexuality, and childrearing together, although the three areas are not 

necessarily linked in the experiences of individual women. 

160 
From the perspective of the fascist states, the link between sexuality and 

reproduction was a vital one. Both Germany and Japan maintained, at the same 

time, that they had to expand territorially in order to provide resources for an 

overcrowded population and that they had to increase the birth rate in order to keep 

the nation strong. The Nazis instituted a eugenics policy that had both negative and 

positive measures: for the “racially fit,” the outlawing of contraception and 

abortion, marriage loans, and medals of honor for prolific mothers; for the 

“racially impure” and physically or mentally disabled, compulsory sterlization.I6 

Although Nazi propaganda glorified the family, the government encouraged the 

bearing of “racially-pure’’ children by unmarried women. The rigidity of gender 

arrangements and the emphasis on reproduction can be seen as well in the intensity 

of the Nazi leadership’s hatred of homosexuality, which dictated the extermination 

of an unknown number of lesbians and gay men in the concentration camps.I7 

In Japan, too, a national eugenics law forbade contraception for the healthy 

and required sterilization of the insane. As in Germany, state policy attempted to 

entice women to marry and bear children with institutions and measures such as 

matchmaking agencies, baby bonuses, state subsidies for those too poor to 

purchase wedding clothes, and a program of free higher education for families with 

ten or more children. At the same time, the government shut down the geisha 

houses and brothels and sent the women who worked in such institutions to the 

labor corps.IS But in neither Germany nor Japan did such measures succeed in 

raising the birth rate. 

No such explicit eugenics policies existed in the U. S., although the government was not all together unconcerned about sexuality and reproduction. The war 

caused a great deal of social disruption, especially in the boom towns where 

industry attracted migrants from all over the country. Women who seemed to flaunt 

conventional morality by sleeping with servicemen out of patriotism or a desire for 

excitement were dubbed “victory girls,” and their appearance awakened fears of a 

massive challenge to traditional morality. Concern for loose morals and fear of a 

venereal disease epidemic led to serious violations of women’s constitutional 

rights as citizens. Women suspected of engaging in sexual relations without 

“sincere emotional” involvement or young women found in places or at hours 

deemed inappropriate could be detained for mandatory VD testing and held until 

the results came in. Local officials in Detroit attempted to enforce special regulations for unescorted women entering bars. Needless to say, nothing was done to 

control unescorted men, and the male partners of women detained for VD testing 

were not arrested or forced to submit to testing.” Despite the persistence of the 

traditional double standard, the war does seem to have had some impact on the 

sexual behavior of young married women, but the increase in the incidence of 

extramarital sexual relations does not necessarily mean that women had taken 

greater control over their own sexuality. As feminist scholars have shown with 

regard to the much-vaunted “sexual revolutions” of the 1920s and 1960s, greater 

permissiveness in sexual relations can mean simply the substitution of one maledefined standard of sexuality for another. On the other hand, the war did seem to 

161 
bring greater autonomy and security for lesbian women, who found freedom in 

increased geographical mobility and urban growth, in the relaxed wartime standards of “femininity”--especially the new acceptability of pants for women-and 

in the opportunity to establish economic independence through wartime jobs in 

industry or the military.20 

If the American government did not place much emphasis on increasing the 

birth rate in the war years, it did express concern for the future of the family. The 

belief that mothers belonged at home with their young children had, at the outset of 

the mobilization campaigns, hampered the recruitment of women. The government’s reluctance to fund day care centers and the growing concern that the 

employment of women led to juvenile delinquency created practical and emotional 

difficulties for many women. Because many of the centers established were of poor 

quality, overcrowded, and/or inconvenient, most women preferred to arrange for a 

relative or friend to care for their children while they worked. What day care 

centers were opened with federal funds were shut down as soon as possible at the 

end of the war, making it clear that day care was a response to wartime necessity 

and had nothing to do with oppotunities for women.21 

War brought even greater disruption to the British family, since children from 

London were evacuated and sent to the countryside during the bombing and a 

higher percentage of women with children worked outside the home. As in the 

United States, however, the end of the war brought a reduction to the number of 

nursery schools and a burst of psychological propaganda on the importance of fulltime mothering.” British services for working women were superior to those 

provided American women, but perhaps that fact says more about the war’s threat 

to British existence than any commitment to equality for women. 

While the Nazi regime was clear about its desire for an increased birth rate, its 

attitude toward the family, as suggested by its encouragement of childbearing by 

unmarried “racially-pure’’ women, was more confused. On the one hand, Nazi 

ideology glorified the traditional family and compared, in true patriarchal fashion, 

the authority of the state to the authority of the father. On the other hand, Nazi 

policy disrupted the family by encouraging sex-segregated and age-segregated 

organizations for leisure time activities and glorifying male bonding at the expense 

of family relationships. As a means of extending the authority of the state into 

personal life, children were encouraged to inform on treasonous parents. Thus the 

family, supposedly the foundation of the state, was also viewed as a potential 

source of opposition. If, as sociologist Philip Slater has suggested, it is impossible 

for a government to establish an authoritarian regime at the same time that it 

destroys traditional authority in a society, then the Nazi regime would have had 

difficutly maintaining itself even had it not lost the war.23 Family policy, in any 

case, was fraught with contradictions. Nazi ideology appealed to some women 

because it promised them a return to security and status within the family, but the 

realities of the Third Reich undermined the family and women’s “place” with it. 

162 
What conclusions can we draw from all this? More research on reproduction, 

sexuality, and childrearing is needed before any definite conclusions can be 

reached, but the available research does suggest that the war increased the concern 

for control of women’s reproductive capacities, sexuality, and traditional mothering role, All governments fashion population policies that determine women’s 

access to contraception and abortion. Sometimes those policies allow some groups 

of women access to the information and technology necessary for reproductive 

control, but the vital issue is who controls the access. In wartime, government 

concern for population policy is heightened, so it is clear that war is not likely to 

bring any increase in reproductive freedom for women. In the fascist states, the 

government decided which women should bear children prolifically and which 

women should not give birth at all. Although the war may have opened up sexual 

opportunities for some American women, the balance sheet shows the losses to be 

greater than the gains. The war created anxiety about women’s roles as mothers, 

since government interest in women caring for their children at home came into 

conflict with the need for women in the labor force and, in Germany, the attempt to 

regiment society. The consequence for women was difficulty juggling roles during 

the war and exposure to propaganda glorifying motherhood at the war’s end. In a 

total war, people became resources to be allocated along with natural resources and 

equipment, and the tendency to view women as sexual and reproductive commodities was intensified. 

We turn now to a third area of concern suggested by the work of some 

women’s studies scholars: violence against women. Feminist theorists argue that it 

is impossible to understand women’s lives without considering the institutionalized violence that supports the social order by confronting women with 

actual or threatened rape, domestic violence, and harassment on the street or at 

work. In exploring the impact of total war on women, we must consider genderrelated ways that women experienced the violence of war. Little research has been 

done in this area to date. We do not know, for example, what percentage of the 

people killed in Nazi concentration camps and in the bombing of civilian targets 

were women. As a result, what I shall discuss here is quite tentative, meant only to 

suggest some of the questions that need to be raised in this area. 

We do know something about the prevalence and function of rape in the 

Second World War. There was, of course, nothing new about this phenomenonrape in war is as old as human history. Susan Brownmiller, in her classic study of 

rape, has documented the use of rape by the Germans and Japanese as a means of 

achieving their ultimate objective, the destruction of “inferior peoples” and the 

establishment of a master race.% Mass rape of Jewish women began even before 

the war as part of the process leading up to the “final solution” and continued in the 

ghettoes and concentration camps. At the Nuremburg trials, the Soviets presented 

careful and extensive documentation of the German practice of raping women as 

they invaded Soviet territory. In that case, rape served as notice that an area had 

been conquered. Evidence from occupied France shows that the Germans also 

raped for military retaliation or reprisal, as evidence shows that outbreaks of 

163 
systematic rape followed a successful maneuver by the Resistance. The Japanese 

army, too, used rape as a means of solidifying conquest. The Japanese victory over 

the city of Nanking in 1937 was not called the “Rape of Nanking” for nothing: 

evidence that emerged at the postwar tribunal indicated that the Japanese raped 

20,000 women within the first month of conquest. 

The rape of women was, of course, only one of the horrors suffered by the 

people under German and Japanese occupation. But the liberation did not bring the 

end of rape, nor was the use of rape confined to the Axis powers. Soviet soldiers 

raped German women in retaliation for the same acts by German soldiers. And 

General George S. Patton, Jr. admitted in his memoirs that he had had to warn the 

Moroccan sultan during the North African campaign that, “in spite of my most 

diligent efforts, there would unquestionably be some raping” by American soldier~.*~ Rape in war is a weapon used by men of one side against men of the other, 

but it is an institution that terrorizes and destroys women. 

Rape is a form of violence that affects only, or primarily, women, and its 

functions of controlling women is not confined to wartime. The second form of 

violence against women I would like to discuss here-the atomic bombing of 

Hiroshima and Nagasaki-is quite different. The bomb killed indiscriminately and 

it was a form of violence confined to wartime. Yet women suffered in genderspecific ways as a result of the bombing, which by the end of 1945 had killed 

210,000 people, 35 percent of the population of Hiroshima and 25 percent of the 

population of Nagasaki. First of all, in both cities, the majority of the population by 

1945 consisted of women, children, and old persons of both sexes, so a majority of 

victims were women. The same was certainly true of the conventional bombings of 

other cities throughout the war, a fact apparently never considered by those who 

pondered the connection between bombing and civilian morale. Although men 

died in huge numbers at the front, women died waiting, passive and defenseless, in 

the air raids that killed so many civilians. Second, women survivors of the atomic 

bombings suffered from particular kinds of injuries related to their reproductive 

capacity. Diseases of the breast and uterus were (and still are) common. Women 

widowed by the bombs or abandoned because of facial disfigurement eked out a 

marginal existence in a society that saw no alternative to marriage for women. 

Perhaps most terrible was the decision whether or not to marry and bear children 

and, if they chose to have children, the anxiety women felt over the health of their 

daughters and sons, who suffered from a myriad of health problems and died at an 

unusually high rate from cancer. In 1967, two Japanese women set up a Women’s 

Section of the Osaka Association of the A-Bomb Victims to provide emotional and 

tangible support. The Women’s Section helped women to find assistance for 

specific problems, offered understanding and support, and set out to collect the 

stories of women survivors as eloquent testimony of the necessity for a nuclear-free 

world. I would like to quote here from one such story as an example of the 

particular kind of violence war can inflict on women. This is the story of Kazue 

Miura, who in 1945 was an eighteen-year-old switchboard operator in Hiroshima. 

She survived within five hundred meters of the hypocenter of the explosion, wrote 

164 
a memoir published by the Women’s Section in 1979, and died in 1980 of cancer of 

the stomach. She wrote of her daughter, Maki: 

As she grew older, Maki noticed that newspapers in the summer featured 

stories of the bombings and deaths of survivors. She came to hate all reminders of 

the bombings because of the pain it had caused me and her fear that I, too, would 

succumb. When she was 14 she looked me in the face reproachfully and asked, 

‘Why did you give birth to me, Mom? You are a bomb victim, so you should not 

have brought me into the world.’ I had long anticipated that question, but no 

amount of emotional preparation could have softened the blow of those few words. 

I told her that I had thought a lot before giving birth to her and didn’t know whether 

she might get a bad disease, not wanting to mention leukemia. ‘And what would 

you do if it happened to me?’ she asked. What could I answer her? In painful 

honesty I told her there was nothing we could do about it. That was the saddest and 

most heartbreaking moment of my life.26 

War brings violence to all people, and men have traditionally borne the brunt 

of that violence, but we cannot consider the impact of war on women without 

asking how women experienced violence differently because they were women. 

Any analysis of “gains” that women made as a result of war must be set in the 

context not only of losses of family and friends but also in the context of the special 

horrors war held for women. 

The last area I would like to consider here is a particularly elusive one: public 

attitudes toward women and women’s own self-perceptions. William Chafe argues 

that social change occurs when a new social situation forces people to question and 

revise old ideas. In the case of the American home front, he suggests, men had to 

deal with women working competently in “masculine” jobs, which eventually led 

to the beginning of a change in public attitudes toward women. Using a similar 

argument, those who believe that war has a liberating effect on women place a 

great deal of reliance on the self-confidence and independence that women gain 

from taking over previously male jobs and roles during the war, and this does seem 

to be the area in which positive change is most likely to occur. The problem lies in 

collecting evidence of such change. 

I would argue that war does not change public attitudes toward women in any 

significant way. The human mind seems amazingly capable of fitting the most nontraditional activities of women into women’s traditional roles. One has only to 

think of the phenomenon of Nazi women sewing and wearing brown shirts and 

brawling in the streets on behalf of a system that promised them a secure place in 

the home. Propaganda in both Germany and the United States conceptualized 

women’s work in war industry as an extension of their traditional roles as wives and 

mothers. American propaganda films and Nazi tracts compared the operation of 

industrial machinery to women’s familiar work with sewing machines and vacuum 

cleaners. And propaganda viewed women as simply exercising their concern for 

their husbands and sons by donning pants and making airplanes. “Earlier 1 buttered 

165 
bread for him, now I paint grenades and think, this is for him,” one Nazi tract 

quoted a woman munitions worker as saying.27 In the same vein, an American 

newspaperwoman wrote of the “deep satisfaction which a woman of today knows 

who has made a rubber boat which may save the life of her aviator husband, or 

helped fashion a bullet which may avenge her son!”28 In part as a consequence of 

such propaganda, public attitudes toward women’s employment changed little as a 

result of the war. In the American case, the public rather readily accepted the need 

for women’s labor during the war, but in 1945 only 18 percent of a Gallup poll 

sample approved of a married woman working if she had a husband capable of 

supporting her. 29 

There is no evidence of great changes in attitudes in other societies either, 

although we know much less about the postwar situation, complicated as it was by 

demographic imbalance, widespread destruction, and changed political systems. 

In the Soviet Union, for example, the loss of millions of men wrought havoc with 

the demographic balance. The dictates of population policy led the Stalinist regime 

to revise the Family Code in 1944 along even more conservative lines than the 

changes associated with the “sexual counterrevolution” of the 1930s. The new code 

reestablished the man as head of the household and made divorce extremely 

difficult. Children born to unmarried women became once again “illegitimate” and 

lost their inheritance rights, while the state maintained some responsibility for 

their support out of fear of abortion, which had already become illegal. As in Nazi 

Germany and Japan, women with large families received special honors and cash 

awards. While women were able to move into some professional jobs, due to the 

shortage of men, the overwhelming majority of women remained in unskilled, 

low-status, and poorly-paid jobs. The population imbalance may have opened up 

opportunities to a few privileged women, but for the majority of women it meant 

not only personal loss but pressure to bear children and, perhaps most important, a 

social setting that substituted pampering of men for eq~ality.~’ 

But what about women’s own self-perceptions? Is it possible that women took 

on new tasks and survived the rigors of the war without some major change in 

consciousness? The documentary “The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter” tells 

the stories of five women for whom the war was a confidence-building experience. 

But what happened to all the women who learned new skills and prized their 

independence and competence in the 1950s? We still do not know how the wartime 

experience affected their lives in the period of extreme domesticity labelleu by 

Betty Friedan the era of the “feminine my~tique.”~’ 

Whatever the impact on American women, we might expect more dramatic 

changes in societies that experienced the war more directly. An article by Ingrid 

Schmidt-Harzbach which appeared recently in a West German feminist magazine 

takes up the question of the war’s impact on German women. Schmidt-Harzbach 

argues, first of all, that women experience war quite differently than do men, that 

German women today do not expect recognition for their heroic acts of survival but 

view their efforts as an obvious extension of what they had always done. And she 

166 
suggests that the exceptional situation of the war and postwar period created selfassurance in this generation of women by forcing them to be strong and overstep 

their limits.32 

Schmidt-Harzbach goes on to suggest that the strength of women in the war 

leads women today to wonder why their mothers did not make more of the 

opportunities open to them at the time to push forward in the economic, political, 

and social realms. She suggests that we remember that such opportunities grew out 

of the destruction of the world women knew. And yet the war did force women to 

think differently about traditional gender arrangements. A woman in Berlin told 

Schmidt-Harzbach that her feelings about men-that the feelings of all women 

about men-had changed. Men seemed so pitiful and powerless, the weaker sex. 

The Nazi regime had stood for male power and masculinity, and it had been 

destroyed. In the postwar period, the “crisis of marriage and the family” became a 

public issue. The men who survived came home empty-handed, insecure, with 

feelings of inferiority, especially those who had believed in victory to the end and 

had expected to return as heroes. They expected women to be the way they had left 

them, but found them instead heading their families and coping with the harsh 

realities of daily life. At the same time, the shortage of men, as in the Soviet 

Union, increased their value and encouraged deference and service on the part of 

women. Out of these contradictory realities postwar German society worked out a 

new, but still patriarchal, balance. 

Surely the experience of work, of survival, of self-confidence and independence must have made a profound impact on the consciousness of individual 

women. At the same time, the war created an artificial situation in which the 

absence of men created opportunities-as well as anxiety and loneliness-for 

many women. There seems to be no guarantee that either public attitudes or 

women’s own self-perceptions change permanently as a result of war. 

We know, even without further badly-needed research, that the postwar 

period did not bring a social revolution in the status of women in any country. 

These reflections are intended to suggest that the question of the impact of total war 

on women is a complex one that necessitates looking beyond the boundaries of the 

issue as ordinarily defined. Women moved into non-traditional jobs in the labor 

force and the military, but the consequences of such changes were neither clearly 

positive nor permanent. Wartime brought increased control over women’s reproductive, sexual, and childrearing roles. Women experienced the violence of 

war in ways directly connected to gender, and that violence cannot be left out of any 

consideration of the impact of war on women. Finally, what evidence we have of 

attitudinal change suggests that traditional ideas about gender persist even in the 

face of total war. 

These reflections perhaps suggest a new perspective on women’s historical 

association with pacifism and the peace movement. The connection between 

women’s penchant for peace and the female capacity for bearing children is one 

167 
that has been made over and over again. An article in the first postwar issue of the 

German Catholic women’s magazine, for example, insisted that “Men make warwomen must endure it. For war is foreign to the essence of woman. She, who 

carries and passes on life, must hate him, the killer, as her most terrible enemy.”” 

But we do not have to assume that women are biologically programmed for 

pacifism because of their reproductive capacities; it is, rather, a question of social 

roles and socialization. Public opinion polls show persistent gender difference in 

American attitudes toward violence as an instrument of foreign policy. In August 

1972,70 percent of women as compared to 54 percent of men, favored withdrawal 

of American troops from Vietnam. In 1980, 17 percent more men than women 

favored increased defense spending. In 1981, only 56 percent of women, compared 

to 73 percent of men, approved of President Reagan’s handling of In the 

last presidential election, in fact, women’s lesser support of Reagan emerged as the 

first significant divergence in male-female voting patterns since women were 

granted suffrage in 1920. In my own neighborhood, the results of opinion polls 

distributed by our congressional representative consistently show a gap between 

women’s and men’s opinions on only one issue: the desirability of the neutron 

bomb, a weapon that kills people but leaves property intact. Approximately 70 

percent of women oppose it, while the same percentage of men approve it. 

What I would like to point out here is that women’s historical desire for peace 

is consistent with the largely negative impact of total war on women. It is perhaps 

significant that, in the political and legal arena, women gained most after the war in 

the defeated and occupied nations of Germany and Japan. The American military 

government in Japan granted women the vote out of the conviction that women 

could transform Japanese society into a peaceful and democratic The 

1949 constitutions of both the Federal Republic of Germany and the German 

Democratic Republic granted women equal rights-something that has not yet 

been accomplished in this co~ntry.~‘ The relationship between defeat and the 

granting of equal rights for women is striking. Legal equality for women was, to a 

certain extent, imposed as a sort of punishment for militaristic men rather than as 

any kind of reward for women for a job well done. 

Presumably no one really favors war, as long as particular objectives can be 

achieved by other means, but someone generally benefits from it. Despite the 

popular notion, it is not women as a group who benefit, and women’s attitudes 

toward violence must be understood in that context. 

I offer these reflections in order to suggest that we must look at all aspects of 

women’s lives in any attempt to evaluate the impact of total war on women. Richard 

Polenberg may be right that historians, who accuse generals of fighting the 

previous war, themselves write about the most recent one.* I would not deny that 

*Ed note: For Profesor Polenberg’s commentary, see pp 170-175. 

168 
the lessons of Vietnam overshadow what I write. But I would argue that those 

lessons, if used carefully, can help us see more clearly. 

Chairman Kohn’s Introduction of Professor Richard Polenberg 

Our commentator for this session is Professor Richard Polenberg of Cornell 

University. Professor Polenberg was educated at Brooklyn College and at Columbia University, where he received his doctorate in 1964. He’s taught at Cornell 

since 1966, where he is now professor of history, also having served as chairman of 

the History Department there from 1977 to 1980. He has been the recipient of 

grants from the Social Sciences Research Council and the American Philosophical 

Society, and he is the author of many publications, including Reorganizing 

Roosevelt’s Government, 1936-1939, and several works on America at war in 

World War 11. I must say that when I first began to teach military history in 1970, 

Professor Polenberg’s excellent edition of documents on the American home front, 

America at War: The Home Front, 1941-1945, was just extraordinary in helping me 

to define and teach the subject. In a subsequent book, War and Society: The United 

States, 1941-1945, he drew the key sources together and analyzed them for the 

elucidation of us all. 

169 
COMMENTARY 

Richard Polenberg 

Thank you, Dr. Kohn, for those very kind remarks about my book, America 

At War. The publishing industry being what it is, that book, of course, is now out of 

print. However, given the choice of being out of print or out of date, I suppose I 

prefer to be out of print. And after listening to some of the comments this morning, 

I’m not sure whether it’s not both of them. 

In their informative and provocative papers, Professors Rupp and Sitkoff have 

attempted to turn upside-down many of the things historians have been saying for 

the last fifteen years about war and society, more particularly about World War I1 

and American society. Of course, Professor Marwick’s intent is quite different; 

nevertheless, even his argument is not wholly at odds with this revisionist view 

which, simply stated, holds that historians have exaggerated the impact of war on 

social change, especially its liberating or progressive effect on women, blacks, and 

workers. 

Well, I’m reminded of the story that was told about George Bernard Shaw. 

You know, the story of the young, aspiring playwright who went to see Shaw and 

asked him what the secret of his success was, and Shaw said, “Well, it’s really quite 

simple. Every play boils down to the same thing, the plots are all the same. Act I, 

curtain rises, girl meets boy, curtain falls. Act 11, curtain rises, girls falls in love 

with boy, curtain falls. Act 111, curtain rises, girl marries boy, curtain falls.” “But 

Mr. Shaw,” the young playwright protested, “what’s so exciting about that?” And 

Shaw smiled and said, “Same girl, different boy.” 

Listening to the papers this morning I’m tempted to say, same war, different 

interpretation. And this type of historiographical debate certainly adds dramatic 

interest, at least, to the study of the social effects of war. Now, of course, we’ve 

heard about more than one war, and about more than one country, but my 

comments will focus on the United States during World War 11, the case in which 

changing interpretations are most clearly evident. 

According to Professor Rupp, the war proved about as liberating for American 

women as a day spent at the ironing board or, perhaps, an evening spent reading the 

collected works of Phyllis Schlafley. The war, she believes, did “not change public 

attitudes toward women in any significant way.” The gains women made resulted 

170 
less from the war than from long-term economic trends operating independently of 

it. According to Professor Sitkoff, the war, far from being a watershed for the civil 

rights movement, was more like a dry well, for it “delayed and stifled black protest 

activism.” I’ve always thought the shortest book in the world would be entitled 

“His Friends’ Tribute to George Steinbrenner.” However, a book about black 

militancy during World War I1 might be even shorter. And we undoubtedly will 

find out when Professor Sitkoff publishes his next volume. Now, Professor Marwick takes a different view. He holds that World War I1 was indeed a force for 

social change in England, but he makes rather modest claims, actually, mentioning 

the willingness to hire married women and the popularity of the Beveridge Report. 

And even in the written version of his paper, Professor Marwick concludes that 

while the language and imagery of social class changed as a result of the war, “the 

essential class structure of the country remained the same.” 

So, the interpretation that emerges, at least from Professors Rupp’s and 

Sitkoff‘s papers, certainly differs from the traditional one. Which leads me to my 

first question: if World War I1 was not as significant an agent of social change as is 

commonly believed, why did historians fall, hook, line, and sinker, for the idea 

that it was? The first answer is that contemporaries, those who wrote about 

American life during the war, left all sorts of enticing bait in the form of selfconscious assertions that the war was reshaping the nation. There those juicy 

statements were, flashing and wriggling like lures on the water’s surface. Who 

could blame historians if we swam up for a nibble? For example, we find 

Breckenridge Long, a State Department official, writing in his diary just two 

weeks after Pearl Harbor: “This is the end of an era. It is one of the great moments 

in history. That which has been shall be no more. A new order begins.” And a few 

months later, almost as if he were worried that some future historian, perhaps in too 

much of a hurry, would overlook that first entry in his diary, he said it all over 

again. “The signs all point one way-a changed country with a new schedule of 

economic, financial, social and political conditions. The World of Yesterday died 

. . . but that which will then exist will be of an entirely different character than that 

which was.” 

When historians read popular journals and travelers’ accounts published 

during the war, what did we find? Articles whose very titles, “What the War is 

Doing to Us,” or “Revolution at Home,” emphasized massive change and whose 

very choice of language-“transformation,” “cataclysmic,” “profoundly affect ,” 

“the lightning of war”4rove home the same point. As one writer put it in 1943: 

“The whole pattern of our economic and social life is undergoing kaleidoscopic 

changes without so much as a bomb being dropped on our shores.” Similarly, 

journalists who crisscrossed the country wrote accounts that focused on mobility, 

metamorphosis, modernization. “The war has brought a long overdue economic 

revolution” in the South, one observer wrote, “and the changes that have come will 

outlast the war.” 

Sober minded scholars in the 1940s echoed this view, grounding it in social 

science theory and lending it a reassuring aura of respectability. In 1943, a book 

17 1 
entitled American Society in Wartime was published. Edited by William F. Ogbum, it contained essays by eleven members of the University of Chicago’s 

Sociology Department, including such eminent and soon to be eminent men as 

Robert Redfield, Robert Park, W. Lloyd Warner, Louis Wirth, and Samuel 

Stouffer. And what did the book have to say about the very issues of gender, race, 

and class? An essay on the family noted the newly favorable economic climate for 

women: “The big increase in the number of working women spells increased 

economic independence which lays a solid basis for enhancing social status.” An 

essay on race relations, while pointing out the persistence of white supremacist 

sentiment, commented that “the racial structure of society seems to be cracking.” 

An essay on class structure held that the war “is rapidly destroying many social 

barriers that separate people.” But it was the editor’s preface that most clearly set 

the book’s tone. “Note what the application of steam power to handicraft manufacture did to revolutionize the social order. A big modern war is in the same category 

of influences as steam and its attendant inventions. Hardly an aspect of culture 

.escapes its influence.” 

That image-f war as a powerful engine transforming and modernizing 

society-proved irresistible to historians, who, reading these diaries, journals, 

and books and taking copious notes, were inclined to agree with what they said. 

But there’s a second reason, too, why historians emphasized the impact of war on 

social change, an obvious reason, perhaps, but one that merits at least a word or 

two. An impressive amount of evidence showed that tangible changes did occur in 

all the areas that we’ve been considering. Four and a half million women, many of 

whom had never expected to work outside the home, much less earn decent wages, 

took jobs, often in war industries. Nearly three quarter of a million blacks migrated 

north and west; many of them were rural southerners who had hardly dared dream 

they would, in their lifetimes, ever walk into a polling booth and vote. Four and 

one-quarter million workers, many of whom had not held a steady job in ten years, 

or seen the inside of a union hall, signed up in the AFL and CIO, acquiring job 

security and seniority rights. 

Now, one might, with Professors Rupp and Sitkoff, certainly ask whether 

wartime changes were entirely beneficial, whether they proved permanent, or 

whether they would have occurred if the United States had not entered the war. Yet 

if the significance of the changes can be contested, the changes themselves cannot 

be discounted. To return for a moment to the analogy of war and steam power: one 

might wish to contest the significance of the change-over from sailing vessels to 

steamships, or from stagecoaches to locomotives, but one wouldn’t want to deny 

that the trip was a whole lot faster. 

There’s still a third explanation of why historians emphasized the transforming effects of World War 11, one I offer somewhat more tentatively. The social 

changes that the war produced were, on the whole, changes which most historians 

approved, and so it was natural to emphasize them. The direction in which 

American society moved during the war was, broadly speaking, the direction in 

172 
which historians thought it should have moved and hoped it would keep on 

moving. If you believe in equality and job opportunities for women, or in racial 

justice and civil rights, or in the reduction of disparities in wealth and class 

privilege, then the war seemed to serve worthwhile purposes. Further, the war 

validated these purposes, showing that it was possible to accomplish all these 

liberal goals and gain public acceptance for them. The war, from this perspective, 

was almost too good to be true. One might say, with apologies to Voltaire, that if 

World War I1 hadn’t existed, it would have been necessary to invent it. 

Moreover, as historians well knew, wartime changes in these areas did not just 

happen all by themselves, as if by magic. The federal government, under the 

leadership of Franklin Roosevelt , encouraged or facilitated them by adopting 

certain policies respecting manpower allocation, fair employment practices, price 

control, and rationing. To focus on the social effects of World War I1 was, in a way, 

to justify both the exercise of presidential authority and the expansion of the 

welfare state. And it is probably fair to say that historians who formulated the older 

view of World War 11, one that emphasized its transforming and beneficial effects, 

were not only responding to what people had written during the war, and to what 

had actually taken place, but were also justifying their own liberal values and 

progressive inclinations. 

And that brings me to my second question. Why have some historians begun 

to view the war in a different, less favorable light? Not, I think, because new 

evidence has suddenly appeared that alters our view of what happened, though new 

archival materials are opening up all the time. Nor, I think, because history is like 

some huge grandfather clock with interpretations swinging, pendulum-like, from 

one side to the other, though, in fact, interpretations do shift with a distressing 

degree of regularity in just that way. And certainly not because historians have 

grown any less sympathetic with the goals of social, racial, and sexual equality. 

Rather, new interpretations of World War I1 reflect disenchantment with the notion 

that war can be a means of achieving those goals. Our present values usually shape, 

in some measure, our perspectives on the past, and the study of World War I1 is no 

exception. 

I think attitudes towards World War I1 have been powerfully affected by the 

most recent war through which we’ve lived, and the lessons of Vietnam, at least the 

lessons many historians learned, were that the social consequences of war could be 

harmful and destructive. World War I1 had seemed to unify different groups in 

American society, but Vietnam, as a Defense Department official said in 1967, had 

sown the “seeds of the worst split in our people in more than a century.” During 

World War I1 hardly anyone questioned the justification for American involvement 

or the legitimacy of American goals. “Never in our history,” an aide wrote to 

President Roosevelt in 1942, “have issues been so clear.” But never in our history 

were issues more opaque or murkier than during the late 1960s and early 1970s. As 

Vietnam produced unprecedented division and bitter discord at home, the editors 

I73 
of Time magazine admitted to “the loss of a working consensus, for the first time in 

our lives, as to what we think America means.” 

Vietnam demonstrated the dangers inherent in an imperial presidency, and 

historians began to question whether Roosevelt’s use of executive authority in 

World War I1 had been wholly benign. The revelation in James MacGregor Bums’s 

biography that Roosevelt had encouraged Adolf Berle, in private, to call him 

“Caesar,” did nothing to discourage such questions. (It is, however, safe to infer 

that Berle never asked FDR to call him “Brutus .”) Vietnam demonstrated that 

government policies could contribute to the twin evils of unemployment and 

inflation, and historians began to ask whether economic policy in World War I1 had 

accomplished all that much. A recent study of the War Manpower Commission, for 

example, concluded that far from transforming class relations, manpower policies 

illustrated “the power of social continuity even during war.” An important new 

study of wartime labor argues that the CIO was converted into a “politically timid’ 

bureaucratic organization whose accommodationism led to a “filial-dependent 

relationship” with government. 

The Vietnam years demonstrated to civil rights activists and to feminists just 

how little progress they had made and just how far they had to go. Not surprisingly, 

scholars reexamining the 1940s began to insist that blacks and women had not 

made the substantive gains it once seemed they had. Or rather, that those gains, 

consisting essentially of better jobs and higher pay, were partial or short-lived. 

Some historians continue to reiterate the older view, but their scope is so narrow, or 

their arguments so qualified, as to leave one wondering. The most recent article to 

state that World War I1 was, in fact, a civil rights watershed, written by Thomas 

Cripps and published in the journal Prologue just a few months ago, focuses on the 

alliance between black activists, white liberals, and federal bureaucrats. And what 

did this alliance manage to accomplish? Ensure voting rights? Win job equality? 

No, nothing of the sort. Rather, it persuaded Metro Goldwyn Mayer that its film 

Tennessee Johnson, about President Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction, should 

portray the radical Republican leader, Thaddeus Stevens, as a man not utterly 

without some redeeming social value. The film was a commercial flop and an 

artistic Waterloo, but a resounding political success. Again, Karen Anderson’s 

recent book, which maintains the war profoundly affected women workers, is 

careful to point out that wartime gains disappeared almost immediately after VJ 

Day as women on the west coast lost their jobs in aircraft factories and shipyards. 

The author cites one woman, a columnist for a union publication, who preached a 

return to domesticity, suggesting that Rosie the Riveter make a beeline for the 

beauty parlor: “When this war is over-I’ll get a manicure, put on the frilliest dress 

I can find, pour a whole bottle of cologne over my head, and then, I’ll be glad to 

give up my Union chair. . . to some boy who comes marching home deserving it.” 

Historians had grown increasingly uneasy with the view that war could have a 

generally positive effect, that it could move society in a liberal direction. Looking 

back on the 1940s from a post-Vietnam vantage point, the old accomplishments 

174 
began to seem less impressive, the old failures more prominent. Historians 

sometimes comment that the trouble with generals is that they’re always fighting 

the last war. Perhaps generals should turn the tables and say that the trouble with 

historians is that they’re always writing about the last war. 

And this leads me to a third and final question: where should historians who 

wish to understand the social impact of total war, go from here? What approaches 

are likely to be most fruitful? Fortunately, the papers presented this morning make 

a number of useful suggestions, at least three of which deserve some comment. 

First, Professor Marwick makes the perfectly reasonable point that historians 

should be cautious about making generalizations regarding the effects of war, since 

war is not an independent variable to be added to another independent variablesociety-to come up with “consequences.” There’s no simple one to one relationship, he claims, but rather a complex evolving relationship involving all the things 

that he talked about. And I think that he’s right. While it’s necessary to generalize 

about the past, it’s just as important to understand what kinds of generalizations 

make sense and what kinds of generalizations don’t make any sense. Second, as 

Professor Rupp points out, the most enlightening generalizations are likely to be 

those made within a comparative framework. Her account of the regulation of 

women’s labor in the United States is sharpened by comparisons with the situation 

in England and Russia on the one hand, and in Germany and Japan on the other. 

Third, as Professor Sitkoff indicates, the most trustworthy generalizations do not 

gloss over differences within particular groups, but take them into account. To 

make sense of the civil rights movement during World War I1 certainly requires a 

willingness to distinguish between southern and northern blacks, blacks who were 

militant and those who were not, and the black middle and lower classes. 

I’m not sure that historians can or should be wholly objective in writing about 

the past. Our interpretations will, to some extent, always reflect our current 

concerns. But to revert to the story with which I began, if each new generation is 

likely to say “same war, different interpretation,” historians will be much better off 

if the interpretations, however they vary, are based on the drawing of careful 

distinctions, the use of comparative analysis, and a proper caution in the making of 

generalizations. 

175 
DISCUSSION AND COMMENTS 

Richard H. Kohn (Moderator) 

Kohn: Thank you, Professor Polenberg. We have just a brief time for 

questions, but first, Professor Sitkoff would like to make a brief comment. 

Sitkoff: I would. I think sometimes there’s a distressing tendency to lump 

blacks and women together as minorities and to think that the same things are 

always happening to each, and what you say about one group you can say about the 

other. Here, I think, Professor Polenberg’s desire for symmetry in talking about 

Professor Rupp’s paper and mine may have caused some misunderstanding. I never 

sought to deny, and it certainly was not the intent of my paper to deny, that the 

Second World War caused fundamental changes in race relations that were vital to 

the development of the civil rights revolution. I do think that the war was a 

watershed in causing certain developments that would become ever increasingly 

important to the civil rights revolution. What my paper sought to do was to 

differentiate between the war as a stimulus to black militancy and the war as a 

stimulus to social change. David Kennedy, during the break, asked me a question 

which, I think, summed up the thrust of my paper very well in that direction; that 

is, what I’m arguing is that changes in objective conditions preceded changes in 

mass consciousness. In that sense, it was the changed conditions in black life in the 

United States which preceded mass militancy. Thank you. 

Kohn: We have just a brief time for questions so please keep your questions or 

comments as disciplined and brief as did our presenters and commentators. 

James Watson (State Historical Society of Wisconsin): I would like to 

suggest that perhaps the watershed hypothesis is a kind of a situation where we 

have an effect that is looking for a cause. As you may remember, in the 1948 

national election period, Harry Truman issued an order ordering the integration of 

the armed services of the United States, which was probably the first great civil 

rights victory for the black movement. Now this order received surprisingly little 

resisitance in the army and air force, and the reason why goes back to the First 

World War experience and an observation made by John J. Pershing: “Due to the 

disadvantages of their civil condition, it takes long and careful training under the 

best quality of officers in order to bring out the full fighting ability of the black 

soldier.” Pershing had commanded black soldiers in Mindanao during the Philippine insurrection. He was with the 10th Cavalry. He knew what good troops they 

176 
could be. He also understood that only in a regular army of long service soldiers 

could blacks be good soldiers. He learned that in the First World War. Now 

Pershing had a profound effect upon the general staff officers of the American army 

during the twenties and thirties, on men like Marshall, Eisenhower, and many 

others. And these men, as they considered the problem of mobilization for war, 

realized that within the constraints of the American method of war, it would be 

impossible to raise effective black combat units. Therefore, in World War 11, 

because they could not integrate the army, due to southern opposition, there was a 

tendency to form only those black units that the army could use. They had to form 

two combat infantry divisions, but these divisions were given no priority in 

training because they were never expected to go overseas. They did form black 

technical service units, anti-aircraft artillery and field artillery units, transportation, truck, and quartermaster labor units in large numbers, and also engineer 

units. But the situation changed in 1944 when the army faced an infantry crisis. 

The army was running out of infantry riflemen. The two black divisions were sent 

to Italy where it was hoped that they could be kept out of serious combat. 

Kohn: Can you sum up your point? 

Watson: I’m getting to it. Also in 1944, a very significant thing happened in 

Europe and that was the formation of infantry rifle platoons of black soldiers in one 

company of one battalion in the regiments of six infantry divisions. These units 

fought very well and creditably in the fall of 1944 and into 1945. There was also the 

black artillery battalion that stood with the lOlst at Bastogne. The performance of 

these units convinced the army that the way to utilize black troops in a war was to 

integrate, to break up the old black units completely and put the black troops into 

white units. In 1948, Harry Truman accepted this as military policy and the army 

began to integrate. Many whites who fought alongside of blacks in World War I1 

did not oppose this. I think that this was one of the things that really helped the civil 

rights movement get started. 

Kohn: Thank you for the point. Do we have other questions or points? 

Lt Colonel Vance Mitchell (Office of Air Force History): I would like the 

panel to respond to the following observation: The status of a group in society is 

enhanced by its right to serve in the military. Would you please comment on that? 

Rupp: I think that that is true and I think that in the American context, 

probably one of the things that came out of the war that I would see as a gain for 

women as a group, and that I think is very clearly related to the war, is the 

integration of women into the armed services. I don’t think that would have 

happened without the war. It might have eventually, but I think it would have come 

after some of the other gains that women made in the labor force. 

Marwick: I think I have some doubts about the statement. One of the funny 

things about Britain before the First World War was that the argument often used 

177 
for not giving women the vote was that they could not defend the country and that 

men could, which would seem to support the contention that was just made. But 

the actual fact was that the overwhelming majority of men in Britain before 1914 

had no expectation of actually serving in the army. It was a nice theoretical point to 

make. Now, one mustn’t forget that large numbers of men did, in fact, volunteer 

after 1914 out of a sense of duty, love of country, and all the rest. But many others 

didn’t and it was not until the actual imposition of conscription in 1916, as I said in 

my talk, that many men somewhat reluctantly, and who’s to blame them, were 

forced into the army. So, I think it’s one of those statements that sounds very nice in 

theory, but I think it doesn’t quite check out in practice, in all cases at any rate. 

SitkoR Very briefly, I would agree with Arthur. That is not to deny the very, 

very significant gains for blacks that flowed from their service in the Second World 

War, but I think that we also have to face the fact that blacks have fought in the 

military in every one of our nation’s wars and the struggle for equality is still not 

completed. 

Polenberg: Well, I’ll make it two against two. I agree with the statement. You 

know, one of the interesting things is that the army sees itself and the military sees 

itself as merely reflecting society rather than somehow acting as an agent to 

transform it. The argument against admitting blacks to full rights in the military 

during World War I1 was that the army should not be an engine for social 

transformation. But in fact that’s what the military has turned out to be, and as 

different groups have won rights in the military, I think that their status has indeed 

been enhanced. 

Robert Kinsey (Golden High School, Golden, Colorado): I’m concerned 

about the fact that most of the conversation has dealt with minority groups or 

various sorts of sub-groups in society. I would like to ask a question about the 

effect that military service on a large-scale might have had on a society which, 

prior to World War 11, did not look on the military with great deal of favor. I also 

wonder about the effect of secrecy on a democratic society over a long period of 

time, both in terms of political participation and of the individual citizen’s sense of 

having any sort of influence over government policy. 

Kohn: In the absence of volunteers, let me respond. There is an interpretation 

that military service itself is a unifying and cohering force in society. My own 

impression, looking backwards three centuries, and after teaching military history 

for some years, is that the rise of the modem state and its power-the ability of the 

state and its centralizing powerdid unify and integrate societies and nations, and 

materially through military service. Eugene Weber, in his study of the French 

peasantry in the late nineteenth century, made that point. Conscription in the 

nineteenth century helped to make French persons into Frenchmen and Frenchwomen. So I think that cohering process has occurred. 

178 
The secrecy question is more elusive. Because of the World Wars, Americans 

came to see the government itself as a social arbiter almost in the patriarchial 

sense, they came to look to government as the embodiment of the nation and the 

institution that spoke for society, and to trust it more than Americans had in the 

past, particularly the central government. I believe total war had that effect. The 

trust has dissipated, of course, in the last twenty-five or thirty years beginning to 

some degree with the Korean War and the politicization of war with limited war or 

war as an extension of policy. One would expect that. 

Kohn: I think we have time for one more question. 

Dick Hallion (Air Force Flight Test Center): I have a question for Profesor 

Rupp. In your studies of women in the Second World War, did you go back and 

examine the experience of women who served in the military and in industry 

during the First World War to see if there were any conditioning factors that might 

have played a later role in influencing military and civilian bureaucracies to 

incorporate women in the mobilization effort during the Second World War? 

Rupp: At least in some countries I think that the First World War did serve as 

a kind of rehearsal for what went on later in the Second World War. I think that’s 

particularly clear in the case of Britain. In part because of their mobilization 

policies during the First World War, the British were more adept at mobilizing 

women during the Second World War. I know less about the military mobilization 

experience elsewhere, although it’s something I hope someone will do some more 

research on soon. However, I do think there is a connection and that in some 

countries- though not so much in the United States-women’s military service in 

the First World War helped in terms of mobilizing women for military service in 

the Second World War 

Robin Higham (Kansas State University): Several speakers referred to “the 

horrors of war”. It is true that sometimes there are some, but at the symposium we 

have been in danger of making that into a myth. Even for civilians, war may have 

been unfamiliar, and it may on occasion have been bloody and horrible, but the vast 

majority of the time it was boring. Until detailed studies are undertaken, we have 

very little precise, as opposed to literary generalities, about the actual minutes or 

hours of fear that people experienced, even for the First World War. C. E. 

Carrington’s A Subaltern from the Wars Returning is one of the few accounts to 

specify the days actually spent in the front-line trenches. Stouffer, et al, in The 

American Soldier do provide an introduction to the subject in some detail. But we 

still have to be very careful about making statements about the “horrors of war”. 

The other point which none of the speakers mentioned was that in World War 

11, as opposed to World War I, there is a considerable case to be made that those on 

the home front, especially wives and mothers, faced a much harder life than did 

their husbands and lovers in the services. The latter had everything “found,” to use 

the British expression, while the former had to cope with queues and ration books 

179 
and heating and the blackout and firewatches, and all those other intrusions into 

family life in which they were also both father and mother. In this respect, after the 

war one of the London dailies published some statistics coordinating the monthly 

birthrate with embarkation leave and the beginning of overseas campaigns and 

showing that there was about a similar nine-month lag that culminated in action on 

both the hospital and battlefront. 

180 
CONCLUDING REMARKS 

Richard H. Kohn 

In summation, while this century has been the century of total war, historians 

still disagree about war’s effects. But I think no one, no matter what side he or she 

takes of any interpretation, disagrees that potentially, possibly, the social and 

political and economic effects of war can be massive. Until we find out more, until 

we begin to dissect the various issues and problems and take a hard look, with the 

connective research between action, activity, and change, we will still be far away 

from explaining the development of society in the twentieth century. 

181 

SESSION IV 

LIMITED WAR AND THE PROBLEM 

OF HEARTS AND MINDS ON THE 

HOME FRONT 

LIMITED WAR AND THE PROBLEM OF HEARTS 

AND MINDS ON THE HOMEFRONT 

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 

Allan R. Millett 

I think it is appropriate on the twentieth anniversary of the Cuban missile 

crisis to end a symposium discussing home fronts and total wars with a session on 

limited war. Twenty years ago this very day, I was standing on a runway at the 

Naval Base, Guantanamo Bay, loaded down with more hand grenades and ammunition than I should have been carrying for my own and my troops’ safety. And I 

can tell you from having that one brief brush with the possibility of total war, that I 

became an immediate convert to the idea of limited war, in fact, the more limited 

the better. After some years of reflection, of course, and as a citizen of the United 

States and as a part-time Marine officer, I’m less happy about the concept of limited 

war other than from the standpoint of personal survival. 

The idea of limited war, of course, is not new. The phenomenon has been with 

us for some time, although the exact language is less antique. Limited war is a 

conflict in which war aims, at least for one of the belligerents, do not involve 

immediate national survival. This limited commitment is expressed in many ways. 

It may be a limited commitment in will and lives and resources. The limit may be in 

geographic area. And the limits may be applied to military means as well. Since 

World War 11, the concept also involves the concept of limited risk, of avoiding 

escalation to nuclear war of any sort. Limited war, of course, now carries with it a 

bad odor for many Americans, civilians and military officers. I don’t think it is 

accidental that our conference organizers have selected case studies from Algeria 

and Vietnam, because this reflects the predisposition to see limited war as synonymous with unpopular war. It’s not accidental that we have attached a rather 

arduous shorthand of “Hearts and Minds” to this session, because the problem of 

legitimizing limited war in the twentieth century, an era in which the world’s 

military powers could hardly afford any other kind of conflict, is the central 

dilemma of our time. I think it remains an open question, whether a democratic 

society of any kind can support limited war. 

The gap between effort and results that limited war implies, as I said, is not 

new. One of the gaps that can open is that between the understanding of the conflict 

held by those who are fighting it and those who are at home supporting it. This 

particular problem is, I think, summed up well by the Centurion Marcus Flavinius 

185 
in a letter written to Tertullus, his cousin and a citizen of Rome, in the second 

century A.D.: “We had been told on, leaving our native soil, that we are going to 

defend the sacred rights conferred on us by so many of our citizens settled 

overseas, so many years of our presence, so many benefits brought by us to 

populations in need of our assistance and civilization. We could verify that all of 

this was true and because true, we did not hesitate to shed our blood, to sacrifice our 

youth and hopes. We regretted nothing. . . . I am told that in Rome factions and 

conspiracies are rife, that treachery flourishes, and that many in their uncertainty 

and confusion lend ready ear to the dire temptations of relinquishment and vilify 

our actions. . . . Make haste to reassure me, I beg you, and tell me that our fellow 

citizens understand us, support us, and protect us as we ourselves are protecting 

the glory of the Empire. If it should be otherwise, if we should leave our bleached 

bones on these desert sands in vain, then beware of the anger of the Legions.” 

One wonders how long the Roman Empire would have survived if news teams 

from CBS, that is, the Cataline Broadcasting System, had been with Varus at 

Teutoburger Wald or with Flavius Silva at Masada. In the most recent issue of 

Public Opinion, Ben Wattenberg speculates, in fact, that TV coverage, rather than 

the judgment of the battlefield, will decide future limited conflicts, especially 

when TV crews have access to only half the horror. We have with us an excellent 

panel today to weigh these problems-waging war with one eye on the enemy and 

the other on the home front. 

Chairman Millett’s Introduction of Professor Talbott 

Our first speaker this afternoon is John Talbott. He received his undergraduate 

degree from the University of Missouri and his graduate degrees in 1963 and 1966 

from Stanford University. After teaching at Princeton, Jack went to the University 

of California, Santa Barbara, in 1971 where he is now a professor. He has written 

articles in Daedalus, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Armed Forces and Society. 

He is the author of two books, The Politics ofEducationa1 Reform in France and 

The War Without a Name: France in Algeria, 1954-1962, published in 1980. He 

has been a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, a visiting 

professor of strategy at the Naval War College in 1981-82, and a visiting professor 

at his alma mater. 

186 
KEEPING ALGERIA FRENCH: 

THE WAR ON THE HOME FRONT 

John E. Talbott 

On November 12,1954, FranGois Mitterrand, minister of the interior in Pierre 

Mendes France’s government, intervened in the first parliamentary debate on the 

insurrection that had broken out in Algeria twelve days earlier. “Algeria,” he 

proclaimed, “is France.”’ Earlier in the debate MendeS France had declared that 

his government would make no compromises with “the sedition.”’ Mendes had 

sent reinforcements to North Africa as soon as news of the All-Saints Day rising 

reached the mainland. By year’s end, 20,000 additional troops and 20 companies 

of riot police had been dispatched across the Mediterranean in support of the policy 

that Algeria was French and French would Algeria remain. 

For almost five years MendeS’s successors insisted that France would keep 

Algeria French, until in September 1959 Charles de Gaulle raised the possibility 

that Algeria might one day be Algerian, independent of French rule. Nearly three 

years later-in July 1962-the possibility became a reality. 

For all General de Gaulle’s efforts to portray the outcome as a great French 

victory, independence marked the defeat of the policy France had pursued 

throughout most of a long and divisive war. Many explanations for the defeat-r 

the victory, if you happen to be a Gaullist-have been put forward. At one pole, 

partisans of the settlers driven from Algeria in the last savage months of the war 

charged de Gaulle with sabotaging a victory nearly in hand. At the opposite pole, 

some contemporary observers saw the loss of French Algeria as inevitable; in an 

era of worldwide decolonization, they declared, nothing else was in the cards.3 

Between a great man’s act of betrayal and the ineluctability of historical forces 

lie several other explanations for the passing of French Algeria. The one I would 

like to offer draws on Clausewitz, whose life ended before French rule in North 

Africa had been established. “No one starts a war-or rather, no one in his senses 

ought to do SO,” Clausewitz wrote,-“without first being clear in his mind what he 

intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it. The former is its 

political purpose, the latter its operational objecti~e.”~ 

French policy-makers were clear about what they intended to achieve by the 

war in Algeria: they meant to keep Algeria French. They were even fairly clear 

187 
about how they intended to conduct the war. From MendeS France's primeministership in 1955 to Charles de Gaulle's presidency in 1960, from the Fourth 

Republic to the Fifth, every French government pursued essentially the same 

strategy. Each combined repressing the armed insurrection against French rule 

with reforming the political and economic structure of French Algeria. 

But the Fourth Republic failed to make policy and strategy4nds and 

means-fit together in the manner Clausewitz prescribed. That ill-starred regime 

failed to do two things, especially, that might have enabled it to reach a more 

favorable outcome. First, it failed to act swiftly and decisively against the armed 

forces of the Front de libe'rution nationule (FLN). Second, it failed, in a timely 

fashion, to prevent gunrunners and guerrillas from crossing back and forth over the 

Tunisian and Moroccan frontiers. 

Eventually, both these tasks were accomplished. By 1960 a series of devastating French offensives had rendered the FLN incapable of fielding units larger than 

company size; elaborate barriers constructed along the frontiers had reduced the 

flow of men and anns from Tunisia, especially, to a trickle. But by then political 

events had overtaken military actions. French strategy did not meet the demands of 

French policy until it was too late to keep Algeria French-until, that is, the policy 

itself had undergone a fundamental change. 

The reasons for the mismatch between policy and strategy are mainly, but not 

exclusively, to be found in the difficulties of waging such a war in the face of 

important sectors of public opinion at home. Mainland opinion proved unwilling 

to pay the price that keeping Algeria French probably demanded. 

*** 

From the outset, the Fourth Republic was very hard pressed indeed to pursue 

a strategy commensurate with its policy. News of the rising of November 1, 1954, 

came to a mainland that six months earlier had sustained a humiliating military 

defeat in another corner of the old empire. The fall of the fortress at Dien Bien Phu, 

although not strategically decisive, had sufficient impact on domestic opinon to 

force the French government into negotiating in earnest an end to the war in 

Indochina.s 

The Indochina experience cast a long shadow over events in Algeria. In the 

first place, the troubles in North Africa could not have come at a worse time. Large 

numbers of French troops-the most experienced combat soldiers in the French 

army-remained in Indochina when the insurrection broke out, and bringing them 

home stretched well into 1955. Many of the Indochina regiments, victims of heavy 

casualties, had to be reorganized and reequipped before they could be sent to North 

Africa, 

188 
The Algerian garrison had itself been short-handed for years, stripped of 

troops and equipment required in Southeast Asia. In late 1954 only one helicopter 

was to be found in Algeria; virtually no serviceable aircraft of other types were 

available.6 

Such troops as could be rushed to Algeria from mainland garrisons had little 

or no combat experience. And most of the units to which they belonged were in any 

case designed, equipped, and trained to fight the mechanized, armored war of the 

North German plain, not the foot-slogging, mountain-hopping war of the guerrilla. Divisions created to fulfill France’s NATO mission were as ill-suited to 

counterinsurgency operations elsewhere as a Royal Navy specializing in antisubmarine warfare turned out to be ill-prepared for amphibious operations in the South 

Atlantic. 

Even had seasoned, properly trained and equipped troops been dispatched to 

Algeria at the outbreak of the insurrection, their operations would have been 

hampered by a lack of accurate intelligence. At the outset, French authorities did 

not know who the FLN was or how great its numbers were. To borrow the famous 

line from “Casablanca,” police arrested “the usual suspects.” Jailing the most 

prominent nationalist leaders did the revolutionaries of the FLN a favor, removing 

from the scene their chief competitor^.^ 

Still, an x-ray photograph of FLN headquarters, a list of names of every last 

FLN recruit, would have availed little had the mainland been unable to commit 

sufficient economic resources to the struggle against the Algerian revolution. 

France’s recovery from the material devastation of the Second World Wargreater, even, than that of the First-had by the early 1950s been pretty much 

accomplished. By 1954, the French economy was showing the first stirrings of the 

rapid growth that later pushed France to the forefront of Western industrial powers. 

Whether such an economy could have afforded a rapid and massive military 

response to the revolt against French rule in Algeria is a hard question to answer. 

Certainly, such a response could not have been made without causing important 

economic dislocations. Calling up in short order large numbers of reservists and 

draftees, for example, would have created severe shortages in the labor market, 

sharply driving up wages and prices, As it was, the French economy didn’t escape 

such war-generated inflationary pressures. 

Recovering militarily from the Indochina war and instructing the French army 

in counterinsurgency warfare slowed the response to the Algerian insurrection; 

economic bottlenecks impeded the rapid deployment of forces. But the most 

severe-and in the end most decisive-onstraints on French action in Algeria 

were political. 

In the wake of Dien Bien Phu, Pierre Mendes France’s threat to send 

conscripts to join the professional expeditionary force in Southeast Asia quickly 

brought the National Assembly to see the need for negotiating a settlement. In the 

189 
light of this experience, not until August 1955 did the French government call up 

reservists for duty in North Africa; months later it extended active service to 

twenty-seven months; later still did it become the fate of most conscripted twentyyear-olds to do their time in Algeria. 

The government plainly expected recalling reservists to provoke trouble; it 

chose to announce the measure in August, when most of the French are away on 

vacation and rulers traditionally disclose unpopular news to the ruled. Elements of 

one reserve regiment rioted in their barracks. Other soldiers scuffled with police at 

railroad stations, pulled troop-train emergency brakes, and shouted anti-government remarks at onlookers as they made their way to Marseilles.’ 

Contrary to the hopes of antiwar activists, however, these disruptions did not 

mark the beginning of the collapse of military discipline over the question of 

serving in Algeria. The government took steps to deprive reservists of the means of 

protest; never again did such widespread outbursts take place. Draftees, younger 

men than the reservists, went more docilely to North Africa than had this first batch 

of older brothers. 

If the French government had less trouble shipping reservists and draftees to 

North Africa than it feared, the falling-off of protest nevertheless did not encourage it to accelerate the military build-up. Jacques Soustelle, whom Mendes France 

had appointed governor-general, the government’s chief administrative and political officer in Algeria, found his appeals for more troops, dispatched more quickly, 

falling on deaf ears.l0 

Coming to grips with the insurrection was not, of course, simply a question of 

pouring an enormous number of troops into North Africa. It was also a question of 

deploying them. From the outset until early 1959, units composed mainly of 

reservists and conscripts defended lives and property in the countryside. They 

essentially performed guard duty. A much smaller force of professional soldiersparatroopers and legionnaires, for the most part-perhaps 10 percent of the total, 

conducted offensive operations against the guerrillas. Conscripts may have owed 

their duty to their lack of military experience. Guard duty was dangerous 

enough-a grenade rolled through the doorway of a cafe, a bomb exploded in a 

marketplace, an ambush sprung at night, death by mutilation, were always possibilities to be feared. But such duty was far less risky than hunting down guerrillas 

in the mountains. It’s hard to find a political motive for this division of military 

labor, but it’s also hard to think that one didn’t exist. Assigning the conscripts to 

quadrillage, as the system was called, may have been a means of keeping them, at 

least relatively speaking, out of harm’s way.” 

The costs of this deployment were high. To conduct an essentially defensive 

war was to play the guerrillas’ game. To delay, to hit and run, to avoid decisive 

engagements, to live to fight another day, to survive until the enemy got tired and 

went home-nothing could have suited the FLN better. 

190 
During the first two years of the insurrection, the FLN was militarily very 

weak indeed. Fewer than a thousand men took part in the All-Saints rising; their 

bombs were crude, homemade contraptions, many of which failed to go off.” In 

the months before the flow of weapons across the Tunisian frontier commenced, 

guerrillas who even bore arms carried mainly ancient hunting rifles and shotguns.13 

For the first year of the war the western half of the country was virtually empty of 

FLN fighting men. Even in its mountainous eastern stronghold the FLN, out of 

military weakness, spent much of 1955 lying low.l4 Never, in the entire course of 

the conflict, did the FLN succeed in organizing the guerrillas of the interior into a 

conventional army. In this respect, the Algerian war was quite unlike the French 

and American wars in Indochina, where the final defeats came at the hands of 

North Vietnamese regulars. 

It’s true that the French government was unaware of some of the FLN’s 

weaknesses. But it’s also true that the predominantly defensive strategy that 

mainland political considerations seemed to require was not well-suited to exploiting such weaknesses as the government knew about. 

*** 

No government of the Fourth Republic could ever be certain that a parliamentary majority cobbled together on one set of issues would survive a challenge posed 

on another set. In such circumstances, well-placed minorities exerted an influence 

out of all proportion to their numbers. 

This was especially true of the so-called “Algerian lobby,” the group of 

settlers’ deputies and senators that had held sway in parliament for three-quarters 

of a century. Any hint on the government’s part of a conciliatory move toward the 

Algerian insurrection, any whisper of the possibility of negotiating with the FLN, 

was enough to provoke from the settlers’ benches charges of sell-out and treason.15 

For all their bluster and bombast about keeping Algeria French, conservatives 

imposed on the Fourth Republic constraints of another kind. They made quite clear 

that they would not stand for increasing taxes the better to fight the war. This was 

the issue that brought down Guy Mollet in May 1957; the conservative parties 

voted against his tax bill even though they supported his Algerian policy. l6 

From another quarter, the government had increasingly to contend with 

charges arising from the army’s methods in Algeria. The most celebrated episode 

in a lengthy affair was the so-called “Battle of Algiers.” In early 1957 the Tenth 

Parachute Division successfully put down a terrorist campaign in Algeria’s capital 

city at the expense of practices, including the use of torture, that outraged liberal 

opinion. The Mollet government, which drew much of its parliamentary support 

from this same quarter, was at least discomfited by the allegations appearing in Le 

191 
Monde, L’Express, and elsewhere, and appointed a blue-ribbon committee (whose 

teeth it then carefully extracted) to look into them. 

Such a response did nothing to mollify the government’s critics; it angered 

and embittered army officers who saw themselves made into scapegoats for their 

civilian superiors. In the eyes of the settlers and their mainland allies, of course, 

these same officers were heroes of whom too much could not be made.I7 

The Battle of Algiers underscored the Fourth Republic’s dilemma. By 1957 

the fragile consensus on keeping Algeria French that the government hoped to 

maintain had been shattered. The political leadership found itself having to steer 

between the Scylla of the left-the minority who believed France should leave 

Algeria forthwith as well as the growing number of liberals (and a handful of such 

conservatives as Raymond Aron) who doubted whether Algeria was worth maintaining at the price being extracted-and the Charybdis of the right, the diehards of 

Algkrie frunpise who called for ever sterner measures against the insurrectionthe strain on the moral and constitutional fabric of the Republic be damned. 

Between such rocky shores, republican governments had very little room to 

maneuver. A middle course suggested half measures; neither an all-out offensive 

against the FLN’s ability to wage war, nor a recognition that France had anything to 

gain from negotiating an end to its sovereignty in Algeria. 

And yet . . . the Fourth Republic, unloved during its lifetime and unlamented 

since its demise, probably deserves more credit than it has received for measures 

that eventually enabled a way out of the Algerian stalemate to be found. It has been 

the practice of Gaullists, especially, to stress the discontinuities between the Fourth 

Republic and the Fifth, to claim credit for post-World War I1 successes that the 

Fifth does not exclusively deserve, and to heap the blame for failures on its hapless 

predecessor. In the realm of economic policy, for instance, it was once fashionable 

amoung Gaullists to attribute to themselves responsibility for the astonishing 

growth rates of the 1960s and to ignore that the foundations of economic progress 

had been laid under the Fourth Republic.’’ 

So it has been with respect to Algeria. The continuities between the Fourth 

Republic and the Fifth have been slighted. Closing the Algerian frontiers, especially the border with Tunisia, had a greater impact on the FLN’s war-fighting 

capabilities than any other measure. Begun in 1957 under Andre Morice, minister 

of defense in Maurice Bourges-Maunoury ’s cabinet, the barrier sealing off Algeria 

to gunrunners from Tunisia-and Tunisia to guerrillas slipping across from Algeria-was a formidable construction indeed. A belt several miles deep, laced with 

accordion wire, festooned with searchlights, strewn with mines, bristling with 

sensors, patrolled day and night by tanks and other armored vehicles, the Morice 

Line presented to the FLN a very discouraging obstacle.” As I suggested above, 

had it been in place a year or two earlier, when the guerrillas were not only woefully 

short of weapons and ammunition, but were also able to hurry into their Tunisian 

sanctuary any time things got hot on the Algerian side, the war might have gone 

192 
differently. As it was, the Line contributed to de Gaulle’s efforts to negotiate a 

settlement; both sides knew the FLN was in no position to hold out at the 

bargaining table in the hope of getting more by means of some battlefield 

achievement. 

The high command that at last took offensive operations against the insurrection was not composed of creatures of the Fifth Republic, but soldiers who had 

made their reputations under the Fourth. The commander in chief in Algeria was 

General Maurice Challe, an air force officer whose political opinions, insofar as he 

had any, were thought to be mildly socialist. Named commander in late 1958, in 

1959 Challe directed against the FLN a series of smashing blows that owed as much 

to World War I1 as to any manual of counter-insurgency warfare. Sweeping across 

Algeria from west to east, Challe’s offensive hammered away at guerrilla strongholds with air, artillery and infantry, severely diminishing the FLN’s capacity to 

fight.20 It is hard not to wonder what such an offensive, carried on three or four 

years earlier, might have accomplished in terms of the FLN’s willingness to carry 

on the struggle. Certainly, a version of the Challe Plan carried out in 1955 or 1956, a 

Morice Line erected in the same years, would have provided the Fourth Republic 

with a strategy more in keeping with its policy. 

*** 

Nevertheless, it was General de Gaulle who brought the war to an end. What 

difference did de Gaulle make? Within the context of this essay, the difference he 

made was to master French public opinion. He alone, among the available political 

leadership, had both the will and the authority to surmount the clashes of opinion 

that had tom the Fourth Republic apart and to impose a settlement remote from 

France’s original aims. 

The body of opinion that threatened de Gaulle most resided in the army, which 

was not supposed to have an opinion at all. Worse, the army was prepared to take 

action on its views, as it had shown in the crisis of May 13, 1958. Conniving with 

the settler rebels in Algiers, the soldiers had abandoned the Fourth Republic and 

swung their support to de Gaulle, believing that he represented the best chance of 

keeping Algeria French.2‘ 

Before long, it became evident that de Gaulle was not the diehards’ man at all. 

To them, the self-determination hinted at in the General’s speech of September 

1959 was anathema. On one occasion army and settler activists, in the hope of 

either changing de Gaulle’s course or removing him from power, tried to repeat 

their tactics of May 13, 1958. The so-called “Week of the Barricades” in January 

1960 was far bloodier than May 13 had been; it ended a ludicrous failure. Making 

masterful use of television, de Gaulle went on the air, denounced the sedition, and 

recalled the army to its responsibilities. The activists’ attempt to rally both force 

and opinion against him fizzled.22 

193 
The army’s next attempt to force de Gaulle to embrace the policy of Algkrie 

frunpise was on the face of it far more serious. This time the army acted alone (on 

the question of including the settlers, the military conspirators were bitterly 

divided). In the hope of rallying other commanders behind them, in April 1961 a 

handful of activist colonels brought their regiments into Algiers. Among the 

quartet of retired generals who lent themselves to this enterprise was Maurice 

Challe, the disillusioned former commander in chief. Challe’s sense of betrayal 

had brought him into the conspiracy; his reputation for integrity, it was thought, 

might induce fence-sitters in the officer corps to join the rebellion against de 

Gaulle. The “Putsch,” as it was called, was a fiasco. Once again de Gaulle 

appeared on television; once again, he delivered a masterful performance, perhaps 

the most brilliant, indeed, in a long career of dramatic interventions, ordering the 

rank and file in Algeria to disobey the commands of the military usurpers. Two 

days later the Putsch collapsed, whether owing to the resistance de Gaulle had 

rallied or to the weight of its own internal disarray is hard to judge.23 

In any event, the failure of the Putsch hastened de Gaulle’s search for a 

settlement. Once the army had been forced to see that it had no right to its own 

opinions on Algeria, that it was no more-but also no less-than an instrument of 

the state’s policy, negotiations with the FLN steadily progressed. The way certainly did not become easy: the settler activists, wild with anxiety over their future 

in an Algerian Algeria, joined the military desperadoes, fugitives from the failed 

Putsch, in the Secret Army Organization (OAS). In the last year of the war, OAS 

saboteurs and murder gangs hunted down enemies real and imagined in the streets 

of Algeria and the mainland.24 Nevertheless, de Gaulle’s victory over the army 

removed the most important obstacle to a settlement. 

For in reaching a settlement, de Gaulle had mainland opinion, opinion 

between the extremes of left and right, squarely behind him. Unlike many things 

about the Algerian war, we know this with a reasonable degree of certainty. For 

under de Gaulle’s republic, public opinion researchers assiduously studied the 

relationship between the French and their leader. From 1958 on, de Gaulle’s 

Algerian policy never enjoyed the support of less than half those interviewed, and 

usually as many as two-thirds .25 Given the policy’s obscurities and ambiguities, 

deepened by de Gaulle’s Delphic pronouncements, such an unvarying expression 

of support suggests that, with respect to Algeria, the French were content to follow 

their president’s lead. 

But their willingness to go along with de Gaulle had limits. A close inspection 

of the public opinion polls reveals that the mainland French made up their minds 

about Algeria earlier than the political leadership. As early as July 1957, nearly a 

year before de Gaulle assumed power, a majority (53 percent) favored negotiations 

with the FLN with a view to a ceasefire, a position the French government still 

publicly rejected out of hand.26 Once the idea of looser ties became admissible, it 

was but a step to accepting Algerian independence. 

194 
This is not the place in which to follow the twists and turns of de Gaulle’s 

course in arriving at independence. In retrospect, at least, one thing stands out. At 

some point, whether during the lonely years of self-imposed exile on his country 

estate, as his memoirs imply, or sometime after he returned to power, as seems 

more likely, de Gaulle made up his mind that France must rid itself of the Algerian 

obsession. Once his mind was made up, he acted ruthlessly in pursuit of this aim. 

Everything, in his view, had to be subordinated to France’s regeneration. It was 

time, he often said, that France “marry her century,” by which he meant that the 

nation must modernize, must push itself to the front rank of modem industrial 

states. In pursuit of this grand ambition, much that belonged to the past must be put 

aside, regrettable as such losses might be. Foremost among these anachronisms 

was the empire, Algeria incl~ded.~’ 

De Gaulle’s grand ambition coincided with the far less lofty attitudes of the 

majority of his countrymen. “Emotionally remote from the settlers, reluctant to 

spend vast sums of money on their defense, . . . pessimistic about the long-range 

prospects of the French presence, unenthusiastic about the prosecution of the 

war,”28 by 1961 the mainland French were willing to concede the end of empire that 

withdrawal from Algeria represented. 

De Gaulle had the will, the authority, and the ruthlessness to impose a 

settlement over the objections of the French army and against the wishes of the 

settlers and the Muslims who had stood by the French. The officers paid with their 

careers, the settlers with their homeland, the Muslims with their lives. Some 

things de Gaulle didn’t do much differently than the Fourth Republic had done 

them. The Fifth Republic applied strong military pressures against the insurrection, undertook economic and social reforms, and pursued secret contacts with the 

FLN. A strategy that, executed early enough and forcefully enough might have put 

down the insurrection-might even have kept Algeria French- served instead to 

extricate France from Algeria. 

Chairman Millett’s Introduction of Mr. Braestrup 

Our second speaker, Peter Braestrup, graduated from Yale University in 1951 

and did his post-graduate work in the United States Marine Corps in Korea where 

the People’s Liberation Army carried on a number of instructional activities. 

Peter’s active career in journalism started before he went to college, but his earliest 

writing that I’ve seen, which he did as a first lieutenant, appeared in the Marine 

Corps Gazette. He and I share that experience. His article was about digging 

trenches deep. If you are a lieutenant, that is not an inconsequential problem, 

particularly if you are getting mortared. He later discussed trench digging at Khe 

Sanh in another series of articles that I can recall. His active career in journalism 

began in 1953 when he was a staff writer with Time magazine. He moved on to the 

New York Herald Tribune where he covered the war in Algeria. He went to Harvard 

as a Nieman Fellow and spent almost a decade as a correspondent with the New 

York Times, serving in Washington, Algeria, Paris and in Vietnam. He switched to 

I95 
the Washington Post and served there until he left to become a Fellow at the 

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is now, of course, the 

editor of the Wilson Quarterly. He’s had a prolific career as a writer. His best known 

work, which I think most of you know, is Big Story. It is a big book, in fact, two big 

books, subtitled: How the American Press and Television Reported andlnterpreted 

the Crisis ofTet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington. It was published first in 1973 and 

now is being reissued by the Yale University Press. 

196 
A COMMENT ON THE VIETNAM CRISIS IN AMERICA: 

TET 1968 

Peter Braestrup 

Almost fifteen years ago, something happened in Vietnam and Washington, 

and historians and politicians have been arguing among themselves about it ever 

since. 

On January 30-31, 1968, Hanoi switched its strategy and sent 84,000 troops 

into Saigon, Hue, and a dozen other cities in the South. It was a TV spectacular. A 

nineteen-man Viet Cong sapper team tried to get into the U.S. embassy in Saigon; 

two North Vietnamese divisions pressed their seige of the Marine base at Khe 

Sanh. 

But within a week, as the South Vietnamese held firm, the North Vietnamese 

tide began to ebb with heavy losses; within three weeks, the last city, Hue, was 

cleared by the allies, and within a month pressure began to ease on Khe Sanh. In 

the end, it was, as Don Oberdorfer wrote in Tet!, a severe military setback for 

Hanoi even as “the communist claim to moral and political authority in South 

Vietnam suffered a grievous blow.” 

But that was not the way the 1968 Tet offensive came across in the news media 

then or later-leading to a controversy that endures to this day. To varying 

degrees-and in various ways-the dominant themes in the press and, especially, 

on television added up to this message in February-March 1968: Disaster in South 

Vietnam. 

Why did this distortion---of a magnitude rare in the annals of American crisis 

journalism-take place? And what were the consequences? 

Tet was an extreme case. Its peculiar circumstances-surprise, melodrama, 

uncertainty, White House ambiguity-impacted to a rare degree on the peculiar 

habits, susceptibilities, manpower limitations, and technological constraints of 

newspapers, news magazines, wire services, and TV news. 

In crisis, first reports are always partly wrong, and instant analysis by 

reporters or TV anchormen represents the hasty reactions of the half-informed. Tet 

abounds with examples But the failure to convey the changing realities on the 

197 
ground in February-March 1968 was perhaps the media’s greatest sin. As the fog of 

war lifted and the Communist tide ebbed, the managers of the press and especially 

TV put the accent on more melodrama rather than on trying to update the inevitably 

melodramatic first impressions-urban destruction, enemy omnipresence, allied 

confusion-of the Tet surprise. After four weeks, Time, the New York Times, and 

the Washington Post began to publish a few such recovery stories, but rarely on 

Page One. Other publications and TV waited even longer. Disaster, real or 

impending, was a “story”; recovery was not. 

The melodrama of Khe Sanh, for example, preoccupied newsmen and their 

bosses to the exclusion of much else in Vietnam. It was, in reality, a fairly lowintensity siege, only 12 miles from the nearest U.S. forces; and U.S. bombers 

dumped 100,000 tons of bombs (“five Hiroshimas”) to discourage the North 

Vietnamese besiegers. 

But to the eyes of the American reader or viewer, all sense of perspective was 

lost; Lyndon Johnson’s own “leaked” worries about a repeat of the famed 1954 

French disaster of Dien Bien Phu only fanned media anticipation of the same 

climax at Khe Sanh. The seige accounted for 25 percent of all network evening 

news shows during the Tet period and slightly smaller chunks of newspaper front 

pages; Newsweek put the “Agony of Khe Sanh” on its cover on March 18 (after 

Communist troops, in fact, had started to withdraw). Khe Sanh was an aberration, 

an uncharacteristic battle with little military impact on a long war; yet Walter 

Cronkite and others made it a “microcosm” of the whole war, even as the allies 

elsewhere began to recover from the Tet onslaught, repair the urban damage, and 

recapture the battlefield initiative. 

The “disaster” occurred not in Vietnam but in Lyndon Johnson’s Washington. 

The Tet surprise led to a political crisis that led to LBJ’s own “abdication,” the 

entrance of Robert F. Kennedy into the Democratic race, and as it turned out, to 

eventual U.S. disengagement from the war. 

Why did the crisis take place? Old “doves” said that Tet, exposing the folly of 

U. S. intervention, suddenly turned the public against the war, and forced LBJ to 

reject “military victory.” This analysis is simplistic, as will be seen below. So is the 

“hawk” critique-LBJ threw in the towel in the midst of enemy defeat. So is the 

complaint by Johnson administration alumni that the media treatment of Tet mide 

the crisis a wound. 

The story of the Tet crisis in Washington is complex, and not totally clear, 

particularly with regard to LBJ’s own motives, reactions, and expectations. 

But it must be seen in context. Before Tet, Lyndon Johnson was already in 

trouble on Capitol Hill; his popularity was sagging; and the Democratic party was 

split on the war, which had gone on for three years at the cost of 16,000 U.S. battle 

dead. And, as the TV correspondents were fond of saying, there was “no end in 

198 
sight.” Indeed? the administration’s limited war policy promised no quick end, 

only perseverance. In late 1967, the administration had launched a last big 

propaganda effort, including a much-publicized speech by General William C. 

Westmoreland, the American commander in Vietnam, to shore up public opinion 

with assurances that “progress” was being made. 

Implicitly, President Johnson promised the press, politicians, and public that 

no bad news was in store. Although he had warnings from Saigon of an impending 

enemy effort, he barely mentioned Vietnam in his State of the Union address. 

Lastly, the Tet surprise caught Washington in the middle of another “crisis”-the 

January 23 seizure by the North Koreans of the USS Pueblo, a Navy spy ship. In 

short, Washington was caught badly off guard by the big bad news from Vietnam. 

The Tet surprise-and the attention theret- forced LBJ to confront anew 

the old contradictions of his Vietnam policy. Both the Pentagon “hawks” and the 

more visible “doves” sought to exploit the Tet surprise to revive old demands for 

changes (i.e., a bombing halt for the “doves,” a reserve call-up for the “hawks”). 

LBJ hunkered down and sought to buy time. He left the explanations of Tet to 

subordinates. In effect, the President left a vacuum, which others-senators, 

pundits, critics-hastened to fill. 

Washington newsmen conveyed the White House’s “siege” atmosphere and 

partial echoes of the inner debate over a 206,000 troop increase. But neither 

newsmen nor their sources understood that LBJ at Tet, as before, always resisted 

any massive reserve call-up sought by the Joint Chiefs-unless such was needed to 

ward off catastrophe in Vietnam. LBJ saw such mobilization as fatal to his beloved 

Great Society programs. In early February, he may have wavered a bit; but 

Westmoreland soon told him that the allies were going on the offensive without 

additional troops. Thus reassured, LBJ apparently cast about for ways to quiet the 

opposition at home, and enable him to pursue his middle-of-the-road war policy as 

before. 

In public, for two months, Johnson gave local sermons but no nationwide TV 

address-until March 31 when he announced his decision not to seek reelection, 

another temporary partial bombing pause, and another offer to Hanoi to talk peace. 

He did not rule out further U.S. escalation, but he spoke of greater efforts by the 

South Vietnamese. In effect, he again sought to buy time. But to his surprise, 

Hanoi accepted the offer to talk, and thereafter “peace with honor,” not “winning,” 

emerged as the chief U.S. hope. 

Did the press and television-through their impact on public opinion-alter 

the course of the war? 

Such claims-made by both critics and champions of the media-are impossible to substantiate. We now know, thanks to Herbert Schandler’s The Unmaking 

ofa President and other studies, that the White House was shaken not only by the 

199 
Tet shock but by its portrayal on TV, and so (as a result?) was the the rest of political 

and journalistic Washington. Yet, as measured by pollsters, public support for the 

war effort itself remained remarkably steady in February-March 1968, even as 

LBJ’s popularity hit a new low. Scholarly studies have shown that among Democrats who voted for “peace candidate” Eugene McCarthy in the March 12 New 

Hampshire primary, anti-Johnson “hawks” outnumbered anti-Johnson “doves” 

by more than three to two! Yet the primary results were interpreted by politicians 

and much of the media as an anti-war protest; Robert F. Kennedy entered the race 

against LBJ a few days later on a “dove” platform. 

My own hunch is that the media’s generalized portrait of “disaster” in South 

Vietnam affected political Washington more than it did the general public. As 

Oberdorfer suggests, the “disaster” portrait may have impelled many editors, 

pundits, and “opinion-leaders,” long uneasy about the war, to put themselves on 

record against it. But I would also suggest that election-year politics, and Lyndon 

Johnson’s own behavior, did more to aggravate the Washington crisis than did all 

the alarms of the media. 

The election-year pressures-and the underlying contradictions of the Administration’s ambiguous, costly “fight and talk,” “guns and butter” war policywould have forced a New Look sometime in 1968, even if the media had come 

closer to the realities of February-March. 

One can speculate, of course, that if the press and television had portrayed the 

battlefield with more cold light and less black fog, the politicans would have 

reacted more calmly. 

At least the Washington “hawks” and “doves” and Robert Kennedy would not 

have had a “disaster” to exploit; LBJ might have felt less cornered, less impelled to 

try (once again) to pacify both sides, more willing to wait for the dust to settle and 

for Hanoi to make an offer. 

The February-March 1968 crisis and LBJ’s climactic speech did not end the 

war, which went on for five more years. They merely made it more difficult for LBJ 

and his successor to deal from a position of strength with Hanoi in negotiating an 

end to it. But the ultimate responsibility-for candor and coherence before the 

crisis and for leadership and coherence in crisis-lay not with the media but with 

the President. By failing to meet this responsibility, Lyndon Johnson made the Tet 

crisis and his own humiliation, in large measure, a self-inflicted wound. 

Chairman Millett’s Introduction of Dr. MacIsaac 

Our commentator, Dave MacIsaac, needs no introduction to many of you. I’ll 

tell you what many of you already know. Dave was a long-time and esteemed 

member of the history faculty at the United States Air Force Academy and served 

on the faculties at other military institutions until his recent retirement. He is now 

200 
boondoggling, happily, down at the Air Power Research Institute at Maxwell Air 

Force Base where I’ve had the pleasure to visit and watch him boondoggle. He is 

doing contract research on a book for the Air Force. He is, of course, a prolific 

writer, his best known work being Strategic Bombing in World War Two: The Story 

ofthe United States Strategic Bombing Survey, published in 1976. He’s also written 

articles in Air Force Magazine, Air University Review, and the Naval War College 

Review. From August of 1978 through September of 1979 he was a Fellow of the 

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution 

in Washington. He is a veteran of these meetings. He organized the fourth 

symposium in 1970, and then edited the proceedings of the fifth in 1972. It is 

always good to know that Dave is going to be the commentator because that really 

keeps the other people honest. 

20 1 
COMMENTARY 

David MacIsaac 

I shall begin by noting that Allan didn’t tell you the real reason I was invited 

back. Namely, the reliably predictable and exceptionally wonderful weather that I 

always bring to Colorado when I return in the fall. 1 hasten to point that out lest 

some of you think it’s just a simple fact that the Department of History is afraid to 

put one of these affairs on without having the “Duke Mafia” adequately 

represented. 

It was mentioned earlier that this is the twentieth anniversary of the Cuban 

missile crisis. That reminded me of a perverse habit I developed, when I used to 

teach in these hallowed halls, of going into class in the morning and starting out by 

asking, “What is this day in history?’ And it got to be a pretty good game, once the 

cadets figured out that they could get an “A” for the day, if they got the right 

answers. And I would have expected today that it would have been the Cuban 

missile crisis. But that’s at about the “B” level; “B +” level would be A1 Millett’s 

birthday. An “A + ” level, almost, would be Peter Braestrup’s son’s birthday. But I 

would have told them something else that’s relevant to a lot of people in this room: 

that on this date in the year 1746, what is now Princeton University was granted a 

charter by the royal governor of Virginia; that in the year 1836 on this date, Sam 

Houston was sworn in as the first President of the new Republic of Texas; and that 

on the 22nd of October of this year, 1982, a Princeton grad is being sworn in as the 

President of North Texas State University, and I trust you will all join me in sending 

him best wishes.” 

Implicit in the arrangement in any such session as this one is a conception 

that, by adopting the techniques of comparative history, some generalizations 

might emerge that, at best, might lead us to other or new sets of questions that we 

might otherwise miss in looking at a single instance. Or so I was once taught and 

have often thought. And at first glance, the Algerian and Vietnam experiences 

seem to suggest a number of parallels. As I read through Professor Talbott’s 

perceptive, incisive and elegantly written paper, I found myself scribbling the 

letters “VN” for Vietnam and “K’ for Korea in the right margin, time after time. 

* Ed note: Dr. MacIsaac is referring to the inauguration of Brigadier General Alfred F. Hurley, USAF, 

Ret., as the President of North Texas State University on 22 October 1982. As Permanent Professor and 

Head of the Department of History at the Air Force Academy, Brigadier General Hurley organized the 

First Military History Symposium in 1967 and developed the continuing series of symposia which 

grew out of that first meeting. 

202 
As I got to the end of his paper, though, in the clear revelation of his thesis-that is, 

as I read it, that by the time the French government found a strategy in tune with its 

initial policy, the policy itself had changed-that there had been a mismatch 

between policy and strategy. By the time I got to that point, though, I got to feeling 

that he was coming close to suggesting, as many of the committed believers have 

done in writing about Vietnam, that something beyond a temporary victory might 

have been possible if the French government had just done this or that, earlier or 

more swiftly, or massively, or whatever. In the end I came, once again, to the 

conclusion, however, that the two experiences have only minor and superficial 

resemblances. The presence, for one thing, of the Algerian deputies and senators 

in the French parliament made so great a difference, it seems to me, that Algeria 

must be given a nod over Vietnam in terms of its complexity, and for me to say that, 

that’s saying a lot. For all of our difficulties, after all, we did not have to contend 

with General Thieu and Colonel Ky in the House of Representatives. 

With regard to Vietnam, I must openly admit to a rather dire lack of 

objectivity. I first heard about it in any real sense in 1964, flying home from a threeyear tour in Spain, looking through the Paris edition of “The Trib” on the airplane, 

and finding on page eight or nine, near the bottom, a short column indicating that 

U.S. strength in Vietnam had reached ten or twelve thousand (I forget the exact 

number). And I can remember turning to my wife, Charlotte, and saying “My God, 

that’s more people than we had in all of Spain and Morocco when we were running 

six SAC Combat Support Groups and nine radar posts. Doesn’t anybody back 

there in Washington know what happened to the French?” That was my introduction. Within two months, by August, we had the incident in the Gulf of Tonkin, 

followed by the Tonkin Gulf resolution. That sort of bothered me; my interpretation was that U. S. warships at sea had been attacked and fired upon, and it seemed 

unnecessary for me, within my understanding of the laws of war, for the Congress 

to pass a resolution authorizing reprisals. And so it went. By February of 1965 we 

had BOQs being blown up and people being killed, and we were answering those 

with air attacks against others, there being some presumed connection between the 

terrorists in South Vietnam and the North Vietnamese. And by late 1965, Time 

magazine was writing an unsigned essay about the right war, at the right place, at 

the right time, and I was starting to retreat into dire thoughts about Nicias and 

Lamachus and Alcibiades and the expedition to Syracuse. 

In his paper this afternoon, Mr. Braestrup begins with the timely reminder 

that the war in Korea was just as unpopular in its day as Vietnam ever became; that 

“No more Koreas!” presaged “No more Vietnams!” by a decade and a half. The 

worry warts among us will gain little solace from remembering that the approved 

government solution to no more Koreas was a massive buildup of strategic nuclear 

forces aimed at deterrence via a threat to respond massively at times and places of 

our own choosing. In a curious way, Mr. Reagan’s defense counselors give many 

the impression that they seek to invoke an update of the 1954-57 solutions(!) in 

response to America’s “Vietnam trauma,” so-called conventional forces increases 

and the RDJTF to the contrary notwithstanding. More, bigger, and better seems 

203 
unalterably the American way-regardless of the specific military problem we 

face. 

I get the impression now that Mr. Braestrup has moderated his view on the socalled media impact on the home front during Vietnam-or perhaps I misread, or 

earlier read something into, his superb Big Story. With his major points I have no 

argument: that election year politics and LBJ’s own behavior, together with 

adequate but ignored warnings, made Tet a big surprise for the average American; 

that the real disasters occurred in Washington rather than in Vietnam; that ambiguous and often contradictory policies had more to do with failure than did the 

sensationalism of television journalism. With all this I have no quarrel worth 

mentioning, but I do think we should always remember that Vietnam belongs in 

that category of situations where there is plenty of blame to go around. 

What continues to bother me, though, is the implication that we might have 

been able to solve the Vietnam problem if we had just done x or y. My own view 

falls in more closely with that of George Herring. And I’m borrowing this idea 

from him. “The problem with such explanations,” he has written, “is that they are 

too ethnocentric. They reflect the persistence of . . . the illusion of American 

omnipotence, the traditional American belief that the difficult we do tomorrow, the 

impossible may take a while. When failure occurs, [we seem to think] it must be 

our fault, and we find scapegoats in our own midst: the poor judgment of our 

leaders, the media, or the anti-war movement. The flaw in this approach is that it 

ignores the other side of the equation, in this case, the Vietnamese dimension.” 

Herring says that “I would contend that the sources of our frustration and ultimate 

failure rest primarily, although certainly not exclusively, in the local circumstances 

of the war: the nature of the conflict itself, the weakness of our ally, the relative 

strength of our adversary.”’ I want to offer two more ideas, also borrowed. 

The next idea I want to borrow from Ernest May. “The general proposition 

that the Vietnam experience most readily supports is that protracted and inconclusive ground warfare will not for a long period of time command public support [in 

the United States]. That seems to be a proposition for which one can find many 

other supporting examples.” As Peter [Braestrup] has pointed out as well, “. . . the 

American experience in Korea supported it, as did the Boer War and, elsewhere, 

the French experience in Indochina and in Algeria. One can find very few 

examples that refute that proposition. Where the exceptions exist, they seem to 

involve objectives that are clearly defensive, and where a fairly high level of 

idealism is involved, as in the American Revolution or the Irish Rebellion.” May 

went on to argue that “it would be better if the operational inference drawn from 

Vietnam were somewhat broader. In analyzing a case that might seem to call for the 

application of military force, an effort could be made explicitly to see the domestic 

component as one among the set of interests involved. The problem should be cast 

in those terms, if we have learned anything, and not in terms that characterize these 

domestic concerns as merely a limitation on action that is dictated by external 

interests .”2 

204 
And the last idea I want to borrow, which I can safely do, given our chairman 

and his views on life, is from a recently retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel 

named David S. Rilling, who speaks very bluntly and in a way comes around full 

circle to our title for this session. “The Vietnam War,” says Colonel Rilling, “was 

lost in the homes of America because it was an undeclared, unconstitutional war 

called by another name. It is important for this legal status to be firmly established 

in order to deal with the second fundamental lesson which is yet unlearned. Before 

American armed forces are ever committed to battle in the future, it must be only 

after the President has gone to the Congress by some means of communication and 

that body has exercised its declaratory powers prescribed in the Constitution. Then 

and only then can the battlefield be censored; treason be called treason and 

prosecuted as such; and the civilian population brought into the picture as an 

instrument of policy. The civilian population has a tremendous role to play in the 

battlefield successes of our armed forces. Whereas this was well understood during 

World War 11, this fact is apparently no longer re~ognized.”~ Which brings us 

almost full circle to where we were last night when we almost heard how 

Hollywood went to war. 

205 
DISCUSSION AND COMMENTS 

Allan R. Millett (Moderator) 

Millett: We’ll now entertain questions from the audience until about 4 

o’clock. I hope that those of you who have real questions to ask will ask real 

questions rather than make ad hoc speeches, which is the temptation at gatherings 

like this. And also please identify yourself so that the record of the conference will 

identify you. You will eventually appear in the text of the proceedings. First of all, 

while we are getting into position, perhaps our panel would like to comment upon 

Colonel MacIsaac’s comments. 

Braestrup: I just would like to say that I think he’s forgotten there was a 

geographical component in America’s involvement in Vietnam and part of that was 

encouraged by the Johnson Administration. There are a lot of self-delusions among 

the anti-war people, which a number of them have come to recognize, as well as 

among the Administration people. You may recall that in late 1965, Secretary of 

State Dean Rusk was saying that North Vietnam was a surrogate for Red China. 

There were a lot of basic difficulties aside from the policy of intervention, which I 

think was a noble cause but a bad mistake. We are not quite sure why Lyndon 

Johnson wanted to intervene in Vietnam in the first place. There was a lack of 

conviction and a lack of certainty in the Johnson Administration about why we had 

to go there which was not present among Truman’s advisors about Korea. The 

environment was vastly different and so on and so forth, but there is a good deal of 

work that still has to be done on the underlying real motivations on the part of 

Lyndon Johnson for going into Vietnam in the first place. I think the second 

important thing, or at least I would so argue, was that there was a possibility of a 

military victory. I mentioned this once to a senior army general. I told him that I 

thought if we had adopted his plan in 1967 and had cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail and 

isolated the battlefield, that the war could have been won in a kind of satisfactory 

way. But then I went on to inquire of the general how long he thought the American 

people and politicians would have kept 50,000 American troops in Vietnam along 

a new DMZ against a regime in Hanoi which seemed to have no other goal in life, 

regardless of cost, than to unify the country under its own colors? You could send 

in the B-52s once and maybe cool them down, and two years later they’d come 

again. Do you send in the B-52s again? They care more than we do, I suggested. 

They would care more than we would. And we would start blaming the South 

Vietnamese after about the third incursion. I think a military victory, by us, largely 

by us, was impossible. I think the South Vietnamese, if left in peace, would have 

206 
developed a fairly reasonable regime by third world standards, certainly by 

comparison to the North. But they cared more up there than anybody else. They 

were better organized. And I think that if we’d “won” the war in 1967, somebody 

would still be fighting there right now. That was my argument. 

Millet: May we have questions? 

Lt Colonel Joe Guilmartin (Editor of the Air University Review): I think we 

see very clearly, in all our panelists, a keen awareness of the dangers of appearing 

wise after the fact when dealing with a subject that is so emotionally charged and so 

near to the present as Vietnam. I believe that what I’m doing is agreeing largely 

with Dr. Maclsaac’s commentary in suggesting that, in fact, large forces were at 

work and that some of this wisdom, at least, was not after the fact. I’d like to direct 

your attention, those of you who are turned on by such things, and at the risk of 

appearing to be self-serving, to a little article which appeared in the Air University 

Review in the spring of 1954. It’s a piece by the Air University Review staff entitled 

“The War in Indo-China in light of The Lessons of Korea.” It makes rather 

frightening reading. In essence it said that unless we were prepared to interdict 

supply lines in southern China, we’d better think very long and very hard about 

involvement in Vietnam. 

Robert Kinsey (Golden High School, Golden, Colorado): I was wondering if 

we might impose on Arthur Marwick to reflect on the Falkland Islands’ situation, 

and the effect on the hearts and minds of people in Great Britain of an apparently 

different kind of limited war that was quicker and more successful. 

Millett: Arthur shook his head, and my loafers, which were made in Argentina, just squeezed the hell out of my feet. So, we’ll pass on that one. 

Braestrup: I’ll talk about it. The argument has been made, and I have in my 

hand, as Senator Joe used to say, I have here in my hand Ben Wattenberg’s analysis 

again assigning an enormous role to television’s impact. One of the nice things he 

says about the war in the Falklands was that they censored everything, and that 

Margaret Thatcher didn’t have to worry about that, and so on and so forth. But it 

seems to me there was plenty of opposition in Britain with or without censorship. 

The left wing of the Labor party thought this was a terrible thing to do and 

sufficient word of losses got out so at least I could figure out that some “Brits” were 

being killed. I think the big thing that helped Margaret Thatcher was that she knew 

what she wanted and she was going to do it and she made that clear to her 

countrymen. There were no games. She was straight and she had a good army and 

they only had some islands to get to. Once they got there, which took a while, they 

were OK. 

There are two other points which I want to make. One is that during the 

Vietnam war relatively little real battlefield coverage got onto film. The Tet period 

was special because the war came into the cities and, like the Beirut episode this 

207 
last summer, it made wonderful film to show all those buildings burning and the 

refugees weeping and. so on. It was excellent melodrama and the TV news 

organizations loved it. It was almost as good as the Iranian hostage crisis. So at Tet 

there was this kind of peculiar exercise going on where the actions suited TV. In 

contrast, most of the normal TV news footage simply consisted of anonymous GIs 

wandering around in the fields, and the helicopters flying in, and occasionally a 

wounded guy being carried off. This was accompanied by a very dramatic 

voiceover by the TV correspondent who made it seem as if you were seeing 

combat. But very few people died on television in the war. It’s too gory. They didn’t 

want to show that stuff at supper time. 

The second point is that you ought to realize that the audiences for TV news 

are very small. The persistent audience is a big audience, but it’s very fickle. Only 1 

percent of all TV news households watch Dan Rather as often as four nights a 

week. It’s a vast flickering audience that kind of turns on the TV news because it’s 

turning on TV. So this notion of night after night after night the American public 

was getting bombarded with these horrible images of the war and thereby we 

couldn’t hack it, is false, apparently. 

Robin Higham (Kansas State University): I think we’ve gotten onto an 

interesting point here, one that Dave MacIsaac started with, and I would like to 

suggest that we might explore it a little further. I wonder whether, when you are 

looking at the question of TV coverage, there is any distinct difference that might 

be commented upon between the United States and, say, France. Certainly with the 

BBC in wartime, in World War 11, it was very easy to provide censorship. The other 

half of the question is: What if you turn it around the other way? How much of the 

press in this country would particularly object to having their freedom curtailed if 

they were told there was going to be censorship and they were going to be restricted 

or delayed in what they could say in a limited-war situation where we did not have 

the normal blanket laws that applied in times like World War II? 

Braestrup: Again, I think it depends. The press, as Frankie Fitzgerald once 

pointed out, has the memory of a rabbit. The Israelis have press censorship and 

employed censorship of various kinds in all of their wars except, really, this last 

one. They tried it this last time and their efforts were a little clumsy. They ran up 

against the problem of destruction in Beirut and they couldn’t really objcct on 

security grounds to that being reported. I think it will be very much dependent on 

the situation. If we were landing in the Persian Gulf, I think they would clamp on 

censorship. I would if I were the commander. I would censor everything for the first 

week or two just on security grounds, because you would be in a non-incremental 

situation. Two operations in Vietnam were put under censorship. Nothing could be 

written about them for a week or two. The first was quite successful and was 

applied when the First Air Cavalry Division went to the A Shau Valley in late April 

of 1968. There was a blackout on what they were doing for a week or ten days. No 

one objected; they understood. Similarly, but less successfully, the military 

command tried to exercise a kind of news blackout when the South Vietnamese 

208 
army went into Laos in 1971. That was more difficult because Radio Hanoi and 

others were already talking about it. There was a kind of blurred situation. I think 

the First Amendment was everything and the most important thing probably 

through about 1978, but fads change and I think there is a more reasonable attitude 

today. 

Millett: Jack, I wish you’d comment about the practice in Algeria. 

Talbott: Very briefly, the growth of French television really came in the 1960s 

after the war in Algeria was over. Secondly, certainly at that time television was a 

state monopoly, which meant it was a Gaullist monopoly, which meant it was a 

marvelous means of conveying the views of the government, ranging all the way 

from de Gaulle’s dramatic appearances, to which I alluded in my paper, to showing 

American tourists in ridiculous and ludicrous positions when they visited France. 

The war itself didn’t really receive much coverage. 

MacIsaac: Excuse me, I cannot speak to this point but I notice that Professor 

Showalter is up in the back of the room. Would you please share some of your 

views on this with us? 

Dennis E. Showalter (The Colorado College): This is simply a hypothesis, 

but I suggested when I was down at the Air University that at least part of the 

American military’s almost paranoid “bird toward the snake” attitude towards 

television reflects a situation that may not be likely to come again. That’s simply 

because ever since Vietnam, television has moved further and further towards the 

pattern of seeking new stimuli and new sensations. Because of the ability of a 

military system to complete operations in a relative hurry, the odds are that within 

two weeks of an event like the Israeli invasion of Beirut, the faithful scribes of the 

networks would have found something else to attract their attention, some kind of 

new sensation. I think this process was a bit more difficult in Vietnam, partly 

because of the ongoing nature of the war, partly because at that point “USA’ hadn’t 

quite come to stand for “Universally Stimulated America.” As I say, I’m not sure of 

this. This is simply a hypothesis. But I do have a sense that the media simply tends 

to shuffle events and to turn events over even much faster now than they did during 

the Vietnam War. As a parallel, I am impressed, once again, by this almost 

hypnotized anxiety which the professional military seems to have about television. 

I mean Walter Cronkite’s moustache appears to exercise a great deal of influence 

even though the man is long in retirement. I know the line you are looking for, 

Dave, and I think I’ll hand it to you, but I also think it appropriate that we all 

remember that the difference between the television newscasters and a $30 whore 

is nil. That is to say, these people deliver what they are paid to deliver, no more and 

no less. And I think it’s perhaps inappropriate that, in our concern with the First 

Amendment, we take the people who deliver the news as damn seriously as we 

seem to have in the last ten years or so. 

209 
Millett: Thank you, Dennis, for being your usual opaque, unopinionated 

self. 

Laura Watson (Washington, D.C.): There were some people on the television news about a week ago who gave a possible explanation of Johnson’s policies, 

or non-policies, in relation to Vietnam by linking them with the circumstances in 

which he became President after Kennedy’s death. They suggested that Johnson 

was trying to do what he thought Kennedy had wanted to do. He was trying to 

perpetuate Kennedy’s policies and Kennedy’s memory, and he was sort of walking 

on eggs as Truman had done when he came into the presidency under similar sad 

circumstances. 

Braestrup: I don’t want to get into this too deeply, but there is an alternative 

explanation which is that President Johnson was, at that time, surrounded by 

Kennedy’s people. There is one explanation, or one theory, that Lyndon Johnson 

did what he did in Vietnam out of two fears. One was that if he didn’t try to hold 

Vietnam as his predecessors had done, he would be accused of “losing Vietnam” 

just as Truman was accused of “losing China.” The second fear was that if he did 

not persevere in Vietnam, if he had, say, decided to cut his losses after he beat 

Goldwater in 1964, he would have been accused by the Kennedy people of having 

betrayed the Kennedy mandate, the Kennedy legacy. But it’s still a mystery, at least 

as far as I can tell. No one has really pinned it all down. 

James Watson (State Historical Society of Wisconsin): Somebody compared 

the British experience in the Falklands to the American experience in Vietnam. I 

really wonder whether the comparison shouldn’t be made with the British experience in Borneo where they fought a long counter-insurgency war in about the same 

time frame. Perhaps somebody in the panel would like to comment on that point. 

Millett: I think you mean Malaya, not Borneo. I see-you mean western 

Borneo in the 1960s. I think that the appropriate response is that media coverage, 

whether in Malaya, Borneo or someplace else, is a reflection of the policies and the 

conduct of the operations themselves. Whether operations are reported badly or 

not, they still shouldn’t be used to change the policy. I think Mr. Braestrup’s point 

is well taken, which is that media is exactly that, and while one could quibble about 

the degree of control or censorship, or the quality or quantity of the news, that at 

least every American military experience in the twentieth century has been shaped 

by what’s really happened. Any regime that believes that by press coverage they 

can turn bad policy into good policy is asking for difficulty. In the case of Malaya, 

in handling that long and drawn out affair, the British made some crucial political 

concessions very early in the business. Basically, they said that Malaya would 

become Malaysia, an independent nation under local rulers, but only at such time 

as the insurgency was cleaned up. They asked for Malayan support, particularly 

Moslem support, to help clean up the insurgency. In short, there were real political 

goals that isolated the communist movement and allowed the kind of constabulary 

operations that such a challenge required. 

210 
Watson: The confrontation in Borneo was the case I had in mind, and I think 

it was somewhat different than the situation in Malaya. There was, though, a 

certain continuity in the military operations between the two, a continuity which 

involved the troops that were used in the two situations and their experience versus 

the confrontation forces. That was the question I was raising. In Borneo the British 

primarily used mercenary units, Gurkhas. I think that’s one of the reasons why the 

war there got so little publicity. 

Braestrup: I was in Borneo after the worst of that exercise was over and my 

impression was that the total casualty toll did not match that of the U.S. highways 

during the Fourth of July weekend. There was very little fighting between the 

Indonesians and the Gurkhas. The Gurkhas were there but did not have to do much 

shooting. It was a much simpler problem for the Malaysian government with its 

British support than was the problem for the British in Malaya or, needless to say, 

for the Americans in Vietnam. And the reason it got little attention was that very 

few people got killed. 

Millett: I hope you will join me in thanking our panelists for a very 

stimulating session. 

21 1 

SUMMARY 

EDWARD M. COFFMAN 

“BEYOND THE BATTLEFIELD” 

Introduction of Professor Edward M. CofJinan by Colonel Carl W. Reddel 

Professor and Head, Department of History 

United States Air Force Academy 

I have a very specific and pleasurable task at hand, one that I’m very happy to 

execute. Someone asked me earlier today why no members of our department are 

on the program. Well, a visiting member of our department, Professor “Mac” 

Coffman is indeed on the program. Well known to many of you, Professor “Mac” is 

the Distinguished Visiting Professor in History at the Air Force Academy this year, 

He has earned campaign ribbons for nine of our ten military history symposia, a 

special point of pride for us. I also must inform you that Wisconsonians are not 

always what they appear to be. Professor “Mac” is, in fact, a Kentuckian. He took 

all of his academic degrees from the University of Kentucky. However, between his 

undergraduate and graduate work, recognizing the unreality of academic life, he 

spent two years in the Army as an infantry officer. And then, having had enough of 

reality, he began his teaching career at Memphis State University. He has been on 

the faculty at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, since 1961. He has also served 

as the Eisenhower Professor at Kansas State and as a distinguished visiting 

professor at West Point. His two books, The Hilt ofthe Sword: The Career of Peyton 

C. March, and The War To End All Wars: The American Military Experience in 

World War I, are clearly volumes of great distinction. He is currently writing a 

social history of the peacetime American army from 1784 to 1940. This afternoon 

Professor “Mac” has agreed to give his thoughts on the symposium in this 

summary session. 

215 
“BEYOND THE BATTLEFIELD” 

Edward M. Coffman 

The close relationship between the home front, society as it were, and war is 

apparently so obvious that one might well ask why make a point of it. The reason is 

that, too often in the past, historians have either ignored it or created artificial 

divisions which inhibit recognition of that basic connection. The long lives of the 

stereotypes which emphasize the differences between the military and the society 

from which it springs are testaments to this situation. In this country, scholarly 

specialization shares the blame together with the mutual suspicion with which 

military historians and those who worked in the fields of social, economic, 

political, indeed any other area of history, viewed each other. In a session of the 

second symposium here in 1968, the late Louis Morton addressed this condition. 

Since those in his audience were mostly military historians, he appealed to them to 

broaden their interests. “What military historians should be doing more of is 

seeking the relationship between military institutions and activities and the broadest streams of history in an effort to enlarge our understanding of both.”’ The 

current symposium and at least three others demonstrate that this appeal was 

heeded.‘ 

As a reader, I have often shuddered at the stark break represented by the word 

Summary in large block letters at the end of a chapter; yet, when I was a student, I 

must admit that I welcomed it, particularly if I were pressed for time on the eve of 

an examination. I suspect that all of you who have listened to these papers have as 

good an idea of what their essential points were as I do. Once published, they will 

be even more obvious as well as available. Nevertheless, I happen to be the only 

one with the task of putting them on paper. So, in the interest of struggling students 

in the future who may turn to the volume of these proceedings, I shall try to do 

justice to this assignment. 

Before I discuss the papers in the first session on “The Quest for National 

Unity in the Great War,” as one who has studied that era, I wish to express my 

appreciation for the use of the term “the Great War” because it gives that war its 

proper due. 

In his paper on mobilization in Britain and Germany, Dennis Showalter 

developed the thesis, in part with the help of the psychological theory of cognitive 

dissonance, that both nations were ambivalent toward going to war in 1914. This is 

216 
in contrasl to the view that the Germans were enthusiastic while the British were 

reluctant. The fact that the constitutional state had depersonalized international 

relations and hence, caused leaders to feel as if they were pawns of a greater power, 

contributed to the complexity of the problem. Even when war seemed inevitable, 

these feel] ngs of impotence and ambivalence restrained preparations for the 

conflict on both sides. 

Sandwiched between scholars who talked about countries which paid a 

terrible price in their participation in the Great War, David M. Kennedy properly 

acknowledged that the United States did not suffer as much as the other belligerents. This disparity affected the way this nation conducted its war effort. He 

could have added that it also resulted logically in a different appreciation 

throughout the past sixty years of the importance of this war by Americans and 

Europeans. Just as Showalter maintained about Germany and Britain on the eve of 

war, Kennedy argues that Americans, following the example set by their President, 

were also ambivalent. This attitude continued even after they entered the war. 

Although he wanted to win the war, Woodrow Wilson kept the Allies at a distance 

while at home he tried to restrain the expansion of the power of the central 

governmenit. In both cases, he hampered a more efficient war effort. Kennedy 

explains this approach by emphasizing the continuance of pre-war mores developed over the centuries into the few months of war. Without calling on 

Clausewitz, he corroborates that thinker’s thesis that the way nations fight war 

depends on their “social conditions” as well as other factors .3 

Gunther Rothenberg wound up this session with a description of AustriaHungary’s wartime experience. The divisions with which this nation was riven 

were far more crucial to its existence as a state than those differences in attitude 

toward going to war or carrying on the conflict which the previous authors 

discussed. Despite the fear that Austria-Hungary could not withstand the pressure 

of a large-scale war, the diverse peoples responded surprisingly well for the first 

half of the war. The situation began to change in 1916 after the death of the aged 

symbol of unity, Emperor Francis Joseph. Eventually, the increasing realization 

that the war was not going well led to the collapse that pessimists had predicted 

earlier. 

The second and third sessions shifted the focus from nations at war in World 

War I to the txonomic and social elements of the home front effort in World War 11. 

In the former, “The Sinews of War: Economic Mobilization in World War 11,” 

Wilhelm Deist and Paul Koistinen developed two common themes: that neither 

Nazi Germany nor the United States were efficient in the mobilization of their 

economies and that this was the result of conflicting interests and goals of groups 

within each nation. Diest, who concentrated on the pre-war period, cited in 

particular Germany’s failure to apply the lessons of World War I, the lack of 

popular enthusiasm for going to war, and the inter-service rivalry which caused the 

Air Force arid Navy to struggle against the coordinating agency for economic 

mobilization. Koistinen’s version of American wartime economic mobilization is 

217 
more complex. First, he demonstrated that, by comparison with the other warring 

powers, this nation’s economic effort was relatively unimpressive. He then explained this poor showing by building the case that the military leaders ignored not 

only the World War I experience but also their own pre-war planning when they 

accepted a partnership with the leaders of some forty major corporations. Since 

these businessmen had basically a different goal, namely short-term profits rather 

than winning the war as quickly and efficiently as possible, this hindered the 

economic contribution to the military goal and put the soldiers in the absurd 

position of opposition to those civilians who advocated that military goal. 

Koistinen lays the ultimate blame for this predicament on the President. Rather 

than it being simply another example of FDR’s muddled management, he believes 

that Roosevelt consciously refused to create a powerful economic agency which 

would force businessmen to subordinate their interests to the national goal because 

he wanted to sustain the power elite. To a degree, Koistinen’s thesis of the 

President’s responsibility for the situation is similar to that of Kennedy’s in regard 

to Wilson’s setting the tone of the American role in the previous war. There is a 

striking difference, however, in that Koistinen, unlike Kennedy, does not acknowledge the restraints of the social, economic, and political character of the American 

historical experience. 

In the third session, “Social Effects of Total War,” Arthur Marwick dealt with 

the broadest topic of any of the papers in this symposium as he analyzed the effect 

of the twentieth century’s total wars on Britain and other European countries. Fully 

cognizant that war was only one of many variables influencing social change, 

Marwick tried to discern its particular role by erecting a model to measure its 

significance. His conclusion, which was based essentially on the British experience, was that those wars loosened class bonds and led to a better life and a larger 

participation in government for the working class and women. In his analysis of the 

closely intertwined relationship of war and society, he also made the crucial point 

that war is an episode in the continuing evolution of society, but that the nature of 

such a great challenge and shock speeded up change. 

The other two panelists in this session addressed the impact of war on the 

condition of particular minorities during World War 11. Harvard Sitkoff presented a 

revision of the theory that World War I1 was the turning point in black consciousness and activism in the United States and led to the civil rights movement of 

the Fifties and Sixties. During the war, he shows that blacks were generally willing 

to accept their segregated position and to subordinate their hopes for an improvement of their status to the national war aims. There was, he believes, more protest 

rhetoric and action in the Thirties than in the war period. He qualified his 

revisionism, however, with the acknowledgement that the profound changes in 

society caused by World War I1 created preconditions which eventually made the 

civil rights movement not only possible but successful. 

Leila Rupp made it very clear that she does not think war is good for people. 

Not many would argue with that even within the cloisters of a military school. That 

218 
position established, she embarked on a broad-scale comparison of the effect of 

World War 11 on women in Germany, Britain, Japan, Russia, and the United States. 

In addition to national and racial differences, she recognized that class, age, and 

type of employment qualified consideration of the feminine experience. Generally, 

she does not think that women’s contributions during this war changed male 

attitudes enough to foster a revolution in traditional roles although she does admit 

that, at least in Germany and Japan, women made real gains. In wartime, 

stereotypes limited the efficient use of women in the United States and much more 

drastically in Germany and Japan. She also noted that the endeavor of the Germans 

and Japanese to foster the concept of the master race led to the official encouragement of reproduction which, incidentially, was not reflected in the birth rate, and of 

rape by their soldiers of foreign, hence inferior in their view, women. Whatever the 

gain, and she does not think there was much, it certainly was not worth the terrible 

cost of a war. Of course, nations, as she realizes, do not fight wars with the goal of 

improving the status of women. Nevertheless, any sensitive student of war can not 

help but sympathize with those women whom she mentions who deplore the 

horrors of war. 

In contrast with the other sessions which focused on the home front’s support 

of the war effort and the effect of war on society, the last session, “Limited War and 

the Problem of Hearts and Minds on the Home Front,” dealt with the decisive 

influence on a war by the home front. The similarities between the Algerian and 

Vietnam Wars are marked. As a historian, I wonder if American planners and 

policy makers of the Sixties paid any attention to the French experience of less than 

a decade earlier. Apparently they were too entranced by the abstract beauty of 

models to notice the grimy realities of recent history. In both wars, the Western 

power misjudged its adversary and failed to observe the Clausewitzian principle of 

establishing a clear-cut policy with a matching strategy. Yet they still won military 

victories. As the basic thrust of this symposium has demonstrated, however, there 

is more to war than military operations. In Algeria and Vietnam, France and the 

United States suffered political defeats which resulted in lost wars despite events 

on the field of combat. 

John Talbott surveyed the tortuous twists and turns of the entire Algerian War 

and concluded that if the French had carried out the strategy early in the war which 

actually yielded a military victory in the last years, they could have won the 

political victory necessary to win the war. Those additional years built up a 

frustration among the French people so great that when it did come they could not 

accept the victory in the field. Paradoxically, the charisma of de Gaulle enabled 

many to consider the loss of the war in Algeria a great victory. 

In his paper, Peter Braestrup concentrated on the American reaction to the Tet 

Offensive. He disputed the accepted version that there was a drastic change in 

public support of the war in the aftermath and believed that the President and his 

advisors over-reacted in their misperception of the mood of the country. In the end, 

he blames Lyndon Johnson for the crisis. Johnson’s failure to set policy with an 

219 
appropriate strategy and his lack of candor in explaining the war led to confusion 

and frustration among the people. He thus agreed with Kennedy and Koistinen in 

their beliefs that in our major wars of this century the Presidents have wielded their 

influence to the detriment of the war effort. Braestrup also condemned the media 

for their failure to give accurate reports and analyses of the fighting. In part this 

was the result of the reporters and cameramen on the scene being caught up in their 

particular situation. As Wilmott Ragsdale, who covered D-Day for Time and Life 

told me; the eye deceives. In the small part of a battle that any one person can 

possibly see, horror and chaos dominate, hence it is often easier for an individual 

removed from the scene, but with access to reports from the entire front, to 

understand whether the operation is succeeding or failing. At the time of Tet, with 

television making those immediate scenes of horror and chaos available within 

hours to an entire nation, all of us who watched the nightly news shows were 

misled. Braestnip made an even more damaging charge against the media by 

accusing its practitioners of sticking with the disaster story after it should have 

been obvious th,at it was a moral and military defeat for the communists. 

I would be remiss if I did not mention David Culbert’s stimulating and 

entertaining banquet presentation: “Hollywood Goes To War.” The most striking 

impression I had of those film clips and analysis is the difference in perceptions of 

the generations. The meaning and influence of these films on the World War I1 

generation (even a child such as I) understandably differs from their impact on 

virtually everyone under forty. Attempts to deal with serious matters in the 1940s 

thus appear to these younger people at best quaint and at worst ludicrous. 

When I attempted to discern common themes other than the overall topic of 

war on the home front in these papers on such diverse subjects, 1 turned to men who 

had given much thought to war and to a great novelist whose concern was life itself. 

The key to understanding war, which after all is a part of life, according to Marshal 

Maurice de Saxe, the famed French general of the eighteenth century, is: “The 

human heart [wlilich] is the starting point in all matters pertaining to war.” As one 

would assume, Carl von Clausewitz, who wrote several decades later, agreed: “The 

art of war deals with living and with moral forces.” Appropriately for this 

symposium which has so amply illustrated the intimate connection of war and 

society, a civilian, E. M. Forster, as paraphrased and explained by Elting E. 

Morison, corroborated those two soldiers: “the only true history is the history of 

human affections .” “These incommensurables-a tangle of memories, prejudices, 

emotional needs, aspirations, common decencies-exert a tremendous and probably always a determining influence upon the real, as opposed to the exposed, 

nature of a ~ituation.”~ These principles helped me to find what I sought. 

In the first session, Showalter explained how the emotional needs and aspirations expressed in nationalism and militarism conflicted with the hopes for peace- 

-a conflict which caused ambivalence in Germany and Britain as they approached 

war in 1914. When he searched for a reason for the way the United States fought 

World War I, Kennedy arrived at the conclusion that the combination of attitudes 

220 
held by Americans for more than a century and a half was the dominant influence. 

Rothenberg’s analysis of Austria-Hungary ’s role in the war took into consideration 

more deep-rooted patterns of attitudes in that multi-national country. Yet, the 

nation was able to rise above these differences at least for a while. In their papers 

on economic mobilization, Diest and Koistinen demonstrated that important 

groups did not rise above what they thought were their particular interests even in 

the face of extreme crisis. 

When Marwick, Sitkoff, and Rupp pondered various aspects of the effect of 

war on society, they had to address the gamut of Forster’s human affections either 

directly or indirectly. In his general approach, Marwick laid the foundation of any 

study of war and society by pointing out that society with its inherent attitudes is a 

continuum in which war is only a temporary episode. The other two authors 

addressed the experiences of particular groups within societies at war. Both 

developed Marwick’s point with their recognition of the difficulty of eliminating 

long held prejudices even in times of great pressure on the nation as a whole. In 

contrast with Diest’s and Koistinen’s indictments of groups which would not shelve 

their selfish interests at such times, Sitkoff and Rupp depicted blacks and women 

as doing just that during World War 11. 

In the last session, Talbott and Braestrup addressed societies which were not 

involved in a large-scale war but rather were torn by the problems of limited war. 

Without the basic threat of total war, society can continue to go on much as in 

peacetime (Marwick’s continuum is thus particularly evident); yet this, in turn, 

places the horrors of war in more drastic contrast. Against that background, these 

authors dealt with the expectations and fears of the French and the Americans, and 

with the efforts of de Gaulle and LBJ to manipulate those perceptions and emotions 

with different results. In the end, as they show, these intangibles became a force 

greater than that wielded by the military and determined the outcome of the war. 

At several of these symposia in the past, Lou Morton, to whom I referred 

earlier, performed the role that I am attempting to play today. I believe that he 

would be pleased with the broad approach toward military history that this 

symposium has taken. It is not really accurate, however, to refer to this broad 

approach as “new” military history. Seventy years ago, at the American Historical 

Association meeting in Boston, academics, army officers, a pacifist editor, and a 

former President gathered to discuss the state of military history. The consensus 

was that it was very low indeed and all, even the pacifist, Oswald Garrison Villard, 

agreed that they should try to bolster the field. Only one of the speakers at that 

meeting, however, ventured to suggest that military history was anything other 

than a study of operations. Theodore Roosevelt argued that military historians 

should blend their studies with other aspects of national hi~tory.~ In his later 

appeal, Morton was thus following the logic of that argument. During the past 

decade many historians have responded and broadened the area of military history 

to provide not only a more balanced image of the military but also new perspectives 

in the civilian area. They have done much, but they certainly have not exhausted 

the possibilities. 

22 1 

NOTES 

John M. Blum 

John M. Blum, V Was For Victory (New York, 1976), p 3. This essay is based so heavily on that 

book, and on the works cited in it and so important to its content, that annotation here seems to me 

redundant. I do want to restate my special debt, for this essay, to two studies cited in the book: Jerome S. 

Bruner, Mandate from the People (New York, 1944) and Richard Polenberg, War and Society, The 

United States 1941-1945 (Philadelphia, 1972). This essay also draws upon other literature either not 

relevant or not available in 1976. Each of the works hereafter cited is easily identifiable in the context of 

the parts of this essay to which it applies: Gordon W. Allport, The Nature ofprejudice (Anchor Books 

edition. Garden City, 1958); Nelson Lichtenstein, Labor’s War at Home: The C/O in World War I/ 

(Cambridge, 1982); Walter Lippman, Public Opinion (New York, 1922); Herbert G. Nicholas, ed., 

Washington Despatches, 1941.1945: Weekly Political Reports from the British Embassy (Chicago, 

1981); Bradley Smith, The Road to Nuremberg (New York, 1981); Alan M. Winkler, The Politics of 

Propaganda (New Haven, 1978). 

Dennis E. Showalter 

1. The best recent analysis is Paul Kennedy, TheRise ofthe Anglo-German Anfagonism, 1860-1914 

2. A. Von Tirpitz, My Memoirs (New York, 1919), I:361 ff. 

3. Leon Festinger, A Theory ofcognitive Dissonance (Stanford, 1957), is a useful introduction to 

the concept. 

4. Arno Mayer, The Persistence ofthe Old Regime: Europe and the Great War (New York, 1981). 

For the process of accommodation and absorption in Britain cf. Walter Amstein, “The Survival of the 

Victorian Aristocracy,” in TheRich, the WellBorn, andthePowerju1, ed. F. C. Jaher (New York, 1973): 

203-257, and “The Myth of the Triumphant Victorian Middle Class,’’ The Historian, 38 (1975): 

205-221. For Germany, cf. Lamar Cecil, “The Creation of Nobles in Prussia,” American Historical 

Review, 50 (1970): 757-795, and Otto Graf zu Stolberg-Wernigerode, Die Unentschiedene Generation: 

Deutschlands konservative Fuhrungsschichten am Vorabend des Ersten Weltkrieges (Munich, 1968). 

5. The best brief surveys of the process of militarization in Germany are Manfred Messerschmidt, 

“Die Armee in Staat und Gesellschaft,” in Das Kaiserliche Deutschland, ed. Michael Stunner 

(Dusseldorf, 1970), pp. 89-118; and Wilhelm Deist, “Die Armee in Staat und Gesellschaft, 1890-1914,” 

ibid., 312-329. For the growing public interest in the British army, see Edward M. Spires, The Army and 

Society, 1815-1914 (London, 1980), pp. 206 ff.; A. R. Skelley, The Victorian Army at Home (Montreal, 

19771, pp. 243 ff. and W. S. Hamer, The British Army: Civil-Military Relations, 1885-1905 (Oxford, 

1970), pp. 214 ff. 

6. H. R. Moon, “The Invasion of the United Kingdom: Public Controversy and Official Planning, 

1888-1918,” 2 vols (Ph.D. diss., London, 1968), is comprehensive for its period. I. F. Clarke, Voices 

Prophesying War, 1763-1864 (London, 1966), pp. 30 passim; and Hugh Cunningham, The Volunteer 

Force: A Social and Political History 1859-1908 (Hamden, Conn., 1975), pp. 5 ff; are good for the 

emotional environment of the invasion scares. 

(London, 1980). 

223 
7. Jonathan Steinberg, “The Copenhagen Complex,” Journal of Contemporary Hi.story 1 (1966): 

12-46, is an excellent case study of the relationships among fears and realities. Golo Mann, The History 

ofGermany Since1789, tr. Marian Jackson (New York, 1968), pp. 200passim, is among the best general 

works stressing the Second Empire’s angst. 

8. Ulrich Manvedel, Carl von Clausewitz: Personlichkeit und Wirkungsgeschichte seines Werkes 

bis1918 (Boppard, 1978), is a good discussion of the degeneration of Clausewitz’s work into a source of 

quotations supporting preconceptions. 

9. Jay Luvaas, The Military Legacy ofthe Civil War: The European lnheritance (Chicago, 1959). 

10. On the general climate of opinion prior to 1914 cf. particularly Roland N. Stromberg, 

Redemption by War: The Intellectuals and 1914 (Lawrence, Kans., 1982); Robert Wohl’s superb The 

Generation of1914 (Cambridge, Mass., 1979); and Peter Loewenberg, “Arno Mayer’s Internal Causes 

and Purposes of War in Europe, 1870-1956: An Inadequate Model of Human Behavior, National 

Conflict, and Historical Change,” Journal of Modern History, 42 (1970): 628-636. John Gooch, 

“Attitudes to War in Late Victorian and Edwardian England,” in War and Society, ed. B. Bond and I. 

Roy (London, 1975), pp. 88-102, is a useful summary. Alfred Kelly, The Descent of Darwin: The 

Popularization ofDarwinism in Germany, 1860-1914 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1981), shows the movement of 

the idea from an elite to the masses. W. Warren Wagar, Good Tidings: The Belief in Progress from 

Darwin to Marcuse (Bloomington, Ind., 1972), pp. 105 ff., surveys the relationships between theories 

of progress and theories of violence during the period. 

11. The best studies of this relationship are the older ones-not least because of historians’ growing 

dislike for accepting juxtapositions in lieu of connections. Cf. in particular E. M. Carroll, Germany and 

the Great Powers, 1866-1914: A Study in Public Opinion and Foreign Policy (New York, 1940); and 

Oron J. Hale, Publicity and Diplomacy with Special Refirenee to England and Germany, 1890-1914 

(New York, 1940). J. F. Scott, Five Weeks: The Surge ofpublic Opinion on the Eve of the Great War 

(New York, 1927) focuses on the July crisis. 

12. Geoffrey F. Best, “Militarism and the Victorian hblic School,” in The Victorian Public 

School, ed. B. Simon and I. Bradley (Dublin, 1975), pp. 129-146. 

13. The essays in Nationalist and Racialist Movements in Britain and Germany before 1914, ed. P. 

Kennedy and A. Nicholls (London, 1981), provide a good comparative overview of these organizations. 

14. A pertinent illustration of this problem and its ramifications is Harry F. Young’s biography of 

the German ambassador to Great Britain from 1912 to 1914, Prince Lichnowsky and the Great War 

(Athens, Ga., 1977). 

15. A point stressed in Lothar Gall’s superb Bismarck, der weisse Revolutioniir (Frankfurt, 1980). 

Manfred Messerschmidt, Militur und Politik in der Bismarckzeit und im Wilhelmischen Deutschland 

(Darmstadt, 1975), incorporates a comprehensive survey of the literature on the militaristic aspects of 

Bismarck’s foreign policy. Cf. also Andreas Hillgruber, Bismarcks Aussenpolitik (Freiburg, 1972). 

16. Kraft Karl zu Hohenloe-Ingelfingen, Aufzeichnungen aus meinem Leben (Berlin, 1906), 111: 

392. 

17. Sir John Caldwell, ed., Field Marshall Sir Henry Wilson: His Life and Diaries (New York, 

1927), I: 105. 

18. Nicholas d’ombrain, War Machinery and High Policy.: Defense Administrations in Peacetime 

Britain 1902-1914 (London, 1973); and John Gooch, The Plans of War: The General Staff and British 

Military Strategy c. 1900-1916 (London, 1974), can be combined for an excellent description of the 

process at work in Great Britain. Cf. also L. C. F. Turner, “The Role of the General Staffs in 1914,” 

Australian Journal of Politics and History, 11 (1965): 305-323. 

19. Robert Conquest, Present Danger: Towards a Foreign Policy (Stanford, 1979), pp. 134-136, is 

refreshingly caustic on the spate of clever books making Harry Truman or Stanley Baldwin the true 

villains of the twentieth century. 

20. Lysbeth Muncy, The Junker in the Prussian Administration under William 11, 1888-1914 

(Providence, R.I., 1944), remains useful. Cf. also Karl Demeter, The German OfJicer-Corps in Society 

and State, 1650-1945, tr. A. Malcom (New York, 1965), pp. 25 ff.; John R. Gillis, The Prussian 

Bureaucracy in Crisis, 1840-1860 (Stanford, 1971), pp. 209,210; and Daniel J. Hughes, “Occupational 

Origins of Prussia’s Generals, 1871-1914,” Central European History, 13 (1980): 3-33. 

21. Such general studies as Bernard Porter, Critics of Empire (New York, 1968), and A. P. 

Thomton, The Imperial fdea and its Enemies: A Study in British Power (New York, 1968), can be 

224 
supplemented by case histories like John W. Auld, “The Liberal Pro-Boers,” Journal ofBritish Studies, 

14 (1975): 78-101; Arthur Davey, The British Pro-Boers, 1877-1902 (Cape Town, 1978); and John V. 

Crangle, “The Economics of British Anti-Imperialism: Victorian Dissent Against India,” Studies in 

History and Society, 6 (1975): 60-76. 

22. A good overview is Woodruff D. Smith, The German Colonial Empire (Chapel Hill, N.C., 

1978). Cf. also R. V. Pierard, “The German Colonial Society, 1822-1914” (Ph.D. diss., State University 

of Iowa, 1964). 

23. The best statement of this thesis is Kurt Riezler’s Die Erjorderlichkeit des Unmcglichen 

(Berlin, 1913). For its influence in general, and on Bethmann-Hollweg specifically, see Wayne C. 

Thompson, In the Eye ofthe Storm: Kurt Riezler and the Crises $Modern Germany (Iowa City, 1980), 

24. See, for example, Moltke’s warning of 13 August 1914 to the war ministries and corps districts 

against doing anything to riskGermany’s stability, inMilitiir undlnnenpolitik im Weltkrieg 1914-1918,2 

vols, ed. Wilhelm Deist (Dusseldorf, 1970), I: 193-194. Cf. the general analysis in Jurgen Kocha, 

Klassengesel1,xhaft im Kriege. Deutsche Sozialgeschichte 1914-1918 (Gottingen, 1973). passim. 

25. As in Fritz Fischer, War oflllusion: German Policies from I911 to 1914, tr. M. Jackson (New 

York, 1975); ;and Paul Schroeder, “World War I as Galloping Gertie: A Reply to Joachim Remak,” 

Journal of Modern History, 44 (1972): 319-345. 

26. Adolf Gasser, “Der deutsche Hegemonialkreig von 1914,” in Deutschland und der Weltpolitik 

des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, ed. I. Geiss and B. J. Wendt (Dusseldorf, 1973), pp 307-339; and 

“Deutschlands Entschluss zum Proventivkrieg 1913/1914,” in Discordia Concors. Festgabe fiir Edgar 

Bonjourzu seinem siebzigsten Geburtstag am 21. August 1968,2 vols., ed. M. Sieber (BasellStuttgart, 

1968), I: 173-224, are the best systematic presentations of the argument that Germany deliberately 

planned and iinitiated World War I. 

27. As in Gordon A. Craig, Germany 1866-1945 (New York, 1978), pp. 318-321; or Peter Rassow, 

“Schlieffen urtd Holstein,” Historische Zeitschrifi 173 (1952): 297-313. 

28. A. Moritz, Das Problem des Praventivkrieges in der deutschen Politik wahrend der ersten 

Marokkokrise (Bern, 1974). Cf. also Norman Rich, Friedrich von Holstein, (Cambridge, 1965), 11: 696 

ff. 

29. Particularly in John G. Rohl, ed., “An der Schwelle zum Weltkrieg: Eine Dokumentation iiber 

den ‘Kriegsrat’ von 8. Dezember 1912,” Militurgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, 21 (1977): 77-134; and 

“Die Generalprobe. Zur Geschichte und Bedeutung des ‘Kriegsrates’ von 8. Dezember 1912,” in 

Industrielle Gesellschaft und politisches System, ed. D. Stegmann, B-J Wendt, and P-C Witt (Bonn, 

1978), pp. 357-373. 

30. Cf. especially Wolfgang J. Mommsen, “Domestic Factors in German Foreign Policy Before 

1914,” Centrar‘ European History, 6 (1973): 12-14; and Egmont Zechlin, “Die Adriakrise und der 

‘Kriegsrat’ von 8. Dezember 1912,” in Krieg und Kriegsrisiko (Dusselforf, 1979), pp. 115-159. 

31. A good recent survey of this issue is Lothar Burchardt, Friedenswirtschaft und Kriegsvorsorge. Deutschlands wirtschaftliche Beststrungen yon 1914 (Boppard, 1968). P-C Witt, Die 

Finanzpolitik cles Deutschen Reiches vom 1903 bis 1913 (Lubeck, 1970), is strong on the problems of 

financing the various armaments programs. Cf. also Alfred Muller, Die deutsche 

Kriegsrohst@>ewirtschafmng 1914-1918 im Dienste des deutchen Monopolkupitals (Berlin, 1955), p. 

14; and Gerald S. Feldman, Army, Industry andLabor in Germany, 1914-1918 (Princeton, 1966), p. 52. 

32. Isabel V. Hull, The Entourage of Kaiser Wilhelm 11,1888-1918 (Cambridge, 1952), p. 250. 

33. The best English-language discussion of this issue, despite the author’s Fischerite commitment, is John A. Moses, The Politics of Illusion: The Fischer Controversy in German Historiography 

(New York, 1975). 

34. The best balanced treatments of Bethmann’s pre-war career are Konrad Jarausch, The 

Enigmatic Chancellor: Bethmann-Hollweg and the Hubris oflmperial Germany (New Haven, 1973), 

pp. 69-184; and Hans-Gunter Zmarzlik, Bethmann-Hollweg als Reichskanzler 1909-1914 (Dusseldod, 

1957). Eberhard Veitsch, Bethmann-Hollweg, Staatsmann zwischen Macht undEthos (Boppard, 1969), 

is also useful. Egmont Zechlin, “Deutschland zwischen Kabnettskrieg und Wirtschaftskrieg,” Historische Zeitschrift, 199 (1964): 347-458, is good on the evolution--or degeneration-of Bethmann’s 

policies after August 4. 

pp. 22 ff. 

225 
35. See particularly J. C. G. Rohl, “The Emperor’s New Clothes: A Character Sketch of Kaiser 

Wilhelm 11,” in Kaiser Wilhelm 11: Newlnterpretations, ed. J. C. G. Rohl and N. Sombart (Cambridge, 

1982), pp. 23-61. 

36. For an opposing viewpoint stressing the army’s unwillingness to modernize, see Bernd F. 

Schulte, Die deutsche Armee 1900-1914. Zwischen Beharren und Verandern (Diisseldorf, 1977). Cf. 

also T. E. H. Travers, “Technology, Tactics and Morale: Jean de Bloch, the Boer War, and British 

Military Theory, 1900~-1914,” Journal of Modern History, 51 (1979): 284-286. 

37. The most familiar work of this type is probably Jacob Meckel, Ein Sommernachtstraum 

(Berlin, 1888). Cf. also two perceptive articles by Joachim Hoffman, “Die Kriegslehre des Generals 

von Schlichting,” Militurgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, 5 (1969), 5-36, and “Der Militarschriftsteller 

Fritz Hoenig,” ibid., 7 (1970): 5-26. 

38. Schlieffen’s growing pessimism is described in Gerhard Ritter, Sword and Scepter, tr. Heinz 

Norden (Coral Gables, Fla., 1970), 11: 199 ff. and The Schlieffen Plan: Critique of a Myth, tr. M. A. and 

E. Wilson (London, 1958), pp. 101 ff., 168 ff. 

39. Roger Chickering, Imperial Germany and a World Without War (Princeton, 1975). 

40. Wolfgang J. EAommsen, “The Topos of Inevitable War in Germany in the Decade before 1914,” 

in Germany in the Age OfTotal War, ed. V. R. Berghahn and M. Kitchen (London, 1981), pp. 23-45. 

41. A good introduction to this concept is L. L. Farrar, The Shorr-War Illusion: German Policy, 

Strategy, and Domeslic Affairs, August-December, 1914 (Santa Barbara, 1973). 

42. The best concise statement of this concept remains Eckart Kehr, “Class Struggle and 

Armament Policy in Imperial Germany,” in Economiclnterest, Militarism, and Foreign Policy: Essays 

on German History, ed. G. A. Craig, tr. G. Heinz (Berkeley, 1977). pp. 50-75. Jehuda Wallach, Das 

Dogma der Vernichtirngsschlacht (Munich, 1970); and Helmut Otto, “Entstehung und Wesen der 

Blitzkriegsstrategie des deutschen Imperialismus von dem ersten Weltkrieg,” Zeitschrift fur Milirargeschichte, 6 (1967): 400-414, are more technically oriented. 

43. On this issue Gotthard Breit, Das Staats-und Gesselschaftsbilder deutscher Generale beider 

Weltkriege im Spiegel ihre Memoiren (Boppard, 1973), is useful. 

44. Cf. Dennis E. Showalter, “The Retaming of Ballona: Prussia and the Institutionalization of the 

Napoleonic Legacy, 1815-1871,” Military Affairs, 44 (1980): 57-63. 

45. VolkerR. Berghahn, GermanyandtheApproachofWarinl914 (New York, 1973), pp. 15ff., is 

a recent summary pmentation of this interpretation. 

46. Karl von Einem, Prussian War Minister from 1903 to 1909, suggests the approach in his 

Erinnerungen eines Soldaten, 1853-1933 (Leipzig, 1933). pp. 82 passim. Cf. the documentary material 

in Reichsarchiv, Kriegsriistung und Kriegswirfschaft, (Berlin, 1930), Volume 11. 

47. This particular approach is developed by John Lewis Gaddis in Strategies ofContainment: A 

Critical Appraisal @Postwar American National Security Policy (New York, 1982), p. 273. 

48. Ritter’s The Schlieffen Plan can usefully be supplemented by L. C. F. Turner, “The Significance of the Schlieffen Plan,”AusrralianJournalofPolirics andHistory, 13 (1967): 47-66; and Gotthard 

Jaschke, “’Schlieffenplan’ und ‘Marneschlacht,”’ in Militargeschichte, Militurwissenschaft und 

KonJliktforschung. Eine Festschrift fur Werner Halweg, ed. D. Bradley, U. Marwedel (Osnabruck, 

1977), pp. 185-189. 

49. Heinz Kraft, Staatsraison und Kriegfuhrung im Kaiswerlichen Deutschland 1914-1916 (Gottingen, 1980), pp. 19 passim. 

50. A good critical analysis of Moltke’s character is Corelli Bamett, The Swordbearers (London, 

1963), pp. 15-106. Moltke’s OwnErinnerungen. Brie@. Dokumente. 1877-1916 (Stuttgart, 1922), are too 

extensively edited tci be useful 

51. I am indebted to Professor Jack Dukes for permission to cite his forthcoming article, 

“Militarism and Arms Policy Revisited: The Origins of the Germany Army Law of 1913.” 

52. Cf. F. R. Bridge, From Sadowa to Sarajevo. The Foreign Policy of Austria-Hungary, 

1877-1914 (London, 1972). pp. 310 ff.; and the briefer comments in Schroeder, “Galloping Gertie,” pp. 

53. Cf. P. H. S. Hatton, “Harcourt and Solf The Search for an Anglo-German Understanding 

through Africa, 1912-14,” European Studies Review, 1 (1971): 123-145; and Richard Langhorne, 

“Anglo-Geman Ne5otiations Concerning the Future of the Portuguese Colonies, 1911-1912,” The 

Historical Journal, 16 (1973): 361-387. 

338-343. 

226 
54. W. Arthur Lewis, “International Competition in Manufactures,” American Economic Review 

47 (1957): 578-587; D. C. Platt, Latin America and British Trade, 1806-1914 (London, 1972), pp. 99. 

ff.; and more generally, Platt, Finance, Trade and Politics in British Foreign Policy, 1815-1914 (Oxford, 

1968), passim. 

55. On the foreign policy functions of the German navy before 1914 see in particular Holger 

Henvig, ‘Luxury’ Fleet: The Imperial German Navy, 1888-1918 (London, 1980), pp. 32 ff; Volken R. 

Berghahn “Zu den Zielen des deutschen Flottenbaus unter Wilhelm 11,” Historische Zeitschrif, 210 

(1970): 34-100; and Jonathan Steinberg, Yesterday’s Deterrent (London, 1965). 

56. Cf. in particular Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall ofBritish Naval Mastery (London, 1976), pp. 

208 ff.; R. F. Mackay, Fisher ofRilverstone (Oxford, 1973), pp. 319 ff., 383 ff.; Arthur Marder, From 

the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow; Vol 1, The Road to War, 1904-1914 (London, 1961), and Richard 

Langhorne, “The Naval Question in Anglo-German Relations, 1912-1914,” Historical Journal, 14 

(1971): 359-370. R. F. Mackay, “Historical Reinterpretations of the Anglo-German Naval Rivalry, 

1897-1914,” in Naval Warfare in the Twentieth Century, Essays in Honour of Arthur Murder, ed G. 

Jordan (London, 1977), pp. 32-44, surveys the literature. 

57. Jonathan Steinberg, “The Kaiser and the British: The State Visit to Windsor, November 1907,” 

in Kaiser Wilhelm II; New Interpretations, pp. 121-141, is a useful case study. 

58. On this question, see particularly Zara S. Steiner, The Foreign Ofice and Foreign Policy, 

1898-1914 (Cambridge, 1969), passim. 

59. The most familiar version of this argument, repeated with some variations in many general 

histories of twentieth century England, is George Dangerfield, The Strange Death of Liberal England 

(London, 1935). Elie Halevy, History ofthe English People in the Nineteenth Century; Vol VI, The Rule 

ofDemocracy, tr. E. I. Watkin, rev. ed. (London, 1932), pp. 441 ff., made a similarcase as early as 1932. 

A recent version is Arthur Marwick, Britain in the Century of Total War (Boston, 1968), pp. 24 ff. 

60. Cf. M. R. Gordon, “Domestic Conflict and the Origins of the First World War: The British and 

German Cases,” Journal of Modern History, 46 (1974): 191-226; and Donald Lammers, “Am0 Mayer 

and the British Decision for War,” Journal of British Studies, 12 (1973): 137-164. 

61. This is the thrust of Zara Steiner, Britain and the Origins ofthe First World War (New York, 

1977). 

62. David French, British Economic and Strategic Planning, 1905-1915 (London, 1982), pp. 22 

ff., capably summarizes this line of reasoning. Cf. in essays in War and the State: The Transformation of 

British Government, 1914-1919, ed. K. Burk (London, 1982). 

63. Cf. H. W. Koch, “The Anglo-German Alliance Negotiations: Missed Opportunity or Myth?’ 

History, 54 (1969): 378-392; and George Monger, The End of Isolation: British Foreign Policy, 

1900-1907 (London, 1963), pp. 21 ff. 

64. Schroeder, “Galloping Gertie,” pp. 324 ff., is the clearest brief statement of this thesis. Cf. also 

inter alia Christopher Andrew, Theophile DehssC and the Making ofthe Entente Cordiale (New York, 

1968); P. J. V. Rolo, Entente Cordiale: The Origins and Negotiations of the Anglo-French Agreements 

of 8 April 1904 (London, 1969); F. R. Bridge, Great Britain and Austria-Hungary, 1906-1914: A 

Diplomatic History (London, 1972); Horst Jaeckel, Die Nordwestgrenze in der Verteidigung lndiens 

1900-1908 und der Weg Englands zum russischen-britischen Abkommen von 1907 (Koln, 1968); and F. 

Kazemzadeh, Russia and Britain in Persia 1864-1914: A Study in Imperialism (New Haven, Conn., 

1968), pp. 447 passim. 

65. Trevor Wilson, “Britain’s ‘Moral Commitment’ to France in August 1914,”History, 64 (1979): 

380-390. 

66. On this issue Eugen Weber, The Nationalist Revival in France, 1905-1914 (Berkeley, 1959), 

remains useful. Cf. also Gilbert Ziehura, Die deutsche Frage in der qfSentliche Meinung Frankreichs 

von 1911-1914 (West Berlin, 1955). 

67. “Memorandum on the Present State of British Relations with France and Germany,” January 1, 

1907, in British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898-1914, ed. G. P. Gooch, H. Temperley 

(London, 1928), 111: 397 ff. 

68. Cf. J. K. Dunlop, The Development of the British Army, 1899-1914 (London, 1938); and J. E. 

Tyler, The British Army and the Continent, 1904-14 (London, 1938). 

69. Good overviews of these developments include E. M. Spiers, Haldane: An Army Reformer 

(Edinburgh, 1980); John Gooch, “Mr. Haldane’s Army: Military Organization and Foreign Policy in 

227 
England,” in The Prospect of War: Studies in British Defence Policy, 1847-1942 (London, 1981), pp. 

92-115; L. J. Satre, “St. John Brodrick and Army Reform, 1901-1903,” Journal ofBritish Studies, 4 

(1976): 117-139; and A. V. Tucker, “The Issue of Army Reform in the Unionist Government,” Historical 

Journal, 9 (1966): 96-100. On the conscription question see M. J. Allison, “The National Service Issue, 

1899-1914” (Ph.D. diss., London, 1977). 

70. W. J. McDermott, “The Revolution in British Military Thinking from the Boer War to the 

Moroccan Crisis,” The Canadian Journal ofHistory, 9 (1974): 159-177. N. W. Summerton, “The 

Development of British Military Planning for a War Against Germany, 1904-14,” 2 vols. (Ph.D. diss, 

London, 1970), is comprehensive. 

71. A point made by John Terraine in “Somme Myths (I): Machine Guns, ‘The Most Lethal 

Weapon,”’ in The Smoke and the Fire: Myths andAnti-Myths ofwar 1861-1945 (London, 1980), p. 142. 

E. M. Spiers, “The Reform of the Front-Line Forces of the Regular Army in the United Kingdom” 

(Ph.D. diss., Edinburgh, 1974), contains much useful material on specific measures. 

72. S. R. Williamson, The Politics of Grand Strategy: Britain and France Prepare for War, 

1904-1914 (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), is the most detailed analysis. Cf. also Michael Howard’s 

stimulating The Continental Commitment (London, 1972), pp. 45 ff.; and Gooch, Plans ofwar, p. 279 

ff. 

73. Douglas Porch, TheMarch to the Marne: The French Army, 1872-1914 (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 

228-229, is the latest authority to argue that the B.E.F. was given a minor role in French planning 

because British intervention could not be counted on. At operational levels, however, a widespread 

French attitude toward the British army is best indicated by General Lanrezac’s reply to what he 

regarded as an unbearably stupid question by Sir John French. The Germans, Lanrezac said, had merely 

gone to the Meuse River to go fishing. Sir Edward Spears, Liaison 1914, 2nd ed. (New York, 1968), pp. 

74-75 and passim. 

74. A modern critical study of Wilson would be welcome. Basil Collier, BrasshatcA Biography of 

Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson (London, 1961), is dated in approach and interpretations. 

75. Williamson, Politics of Grand Strategy, 369. 

76. The quotation is from Michael Howard, “Reflections on the First World War,” in Studies in War 

and Peace (New York, 1971), p. 102. 

David M. Kennedy 

1. Mark Sullivan, Our Times: The United States, 1900-1924; Vol V, Over Here, 1914-1918 (New 

2. Ibid., p. 32. 

3. Congressional Record, Senate, 65th Congress, 1st session, April 6, 1917, p. 1148. 

4. Wilson’s war message may be found most conveniently in Albert Shaw, ed, The Messages and 

5. Congressional Record, Senate, 65th Cong., 1st Sess., April 4, 1917, p. 228. 

6. Eliot G. Mears to Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, March 24, 1919, Bureau of 

Foreign and Domestic Commerce, File 510-UK, Record Group 151, National Archives, Washington, 

D. C. 

7. Herbert Hoover, testimony before Senate Committee on Agriculture, June 19, 1917, quoted in 

William Clinton Mullendore, History of the United States Food Administration, 1917-1919 (Stanford, 

York, 1933), p. 2. 

Papers of Woodrow Wilson, 2 vols. (New York, 1924), I: 372-383. 

1941). pp. 52-53. 

8. George Creel, How We Advertised America (New York, 1920), p. 24. 

9. Mullendore, History of the United States Food Administration, p. 221. 

10. The several quoted remarks in this paragraph are from Grosvenor B. Clarkson, Industrial 

America in the World War: The Strategy Behind the Line, 1917-1918 (Boston, 1923), pp. 177,94,99. 

11. Ray Stannard Baker and William E. Dodds, eds., The Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson, 6 

vols. (New York, 1925-1927), V: 39. 

228 
12. Newton D. Baker to Woodrow Wilson, May 1,1917, in Ray Stannard Baker, Woodrow Wilson: 

13. Second Report ofthe Provost Marshall General (Washington, D.C., 1919), p. 271. 

Life and Letters, 8 vols. (Garden City and New York, 1929-1939), VII: 74n. 

GUNTHER E. ROTHENBERG 

1. The best discussion of the Compromise is still Ivan Zolger, Der Staatsrechtliche Ausgleich 

zwischen Osterreich und Ungarn (Leipzig, 1911); cf. the critical views in Julius Miskolczy, Ungarn in 

der Habsburaer Monarchie (Vienna-Munich, 1959), passim. 

2. Gunther E. Rothenberg, “Toward a National Hungarian Army: The Military Compromise of 

1868 and Its Consequences,” Slavic Review, 31 (1972), pp. 807-811. 

3. Gunther E. Rothenberg, The Army ofFrancis Joseph (W. Lafayette, Ind., 1976), pp. 119-120, 

4. August v. Cramon, Unser osterreichisch-ungarischer Bundesgenosse im Weltkrieg, 2nd rev ed. 

5. Norman Stone, “Army and Society in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1900-1914,” Past and Present, 

6. Militarstatistisches Jahrbuch fur das Jahr 1913 (Vienna, 1914), p. 147. 

7. Cited in Arthur J. May, The Habsburg Monarchy, 1867-1914 (Cambridge, 1951), p. 491. 

8. Oskar Regele, Feldmarschall Conrad (Vienna-Munich, 1955), p. 491. 

9. Rothenlberg, Army of Francis Joseph, pp. 134-136. 

10. Z. A. B. Zeman, The Break-Up ofihe Habsburg Empire (London, 1961), p. 39. 

11. Edmund V. Glaise-Horstenau, Die Katastrophe: Die Zertriimmerung Osterreich-Ungarns 

12. Hajo Holborn, “The Final Disintegration of the Habsburg Monarchy,” Austrian History 

13. Joseph Redlich, Austrian War Government (New Haven, 1929), pp. 55-63. 

14. Christoph Fuhr, Das k.u.k. Armeeoberkommando und die Innenpolitik in Osterreich, 

1914-1917 (Graz-Vienna-Cologne, 1968). pp. 19-20; Redlich, Austrian War Government, pp. 85-86. 

15. Redlich, Austrian War Government, pp. 85-86. 

16. Ibid., lip. 91-93; Fuhr, Armeeoberkommando, pp. 38-46. Redlich also postulates an ideological 

conflict between the military and the civilian authorities, dating to the pre-war period. Fuhr maintains 

that this is not proven. Yet, such conflicts clearly existed as attested by the memoirs of Feldmarschall 

Lieutenant Alfred Krauss, Die Ursachen unserer Niederlage, 2nd ed. (Munich, 1920), pp. 69-74, 

76-79, and the bitter complaints by Conrad, in Kurt Peball, ed., Conrad von HotZendoif Private 

Aufzeichnungen (Vienna-Munich, 1977), passim. 

130-131, 144, 146-147, 148. 

(Berlin, 1922)., p. 200. 

33 (1966), p. 103. 

(Vienna, 1939;1, pp. 62-63. 

Yearbook, 3 iii (1967), pp. 189, 205. 

17. Rothenberg, Army of Francis Joseph, p. 177. 

18. Redlich, Austrian War Government, p. 93; Fuhr, Armeeoberkommando. pp. 46-47. 

19. Zeman, Break-Up of the Habsburg Empire, p. 251. 

20. Fuhr, Armeeoberkommando, pp. 49-52. For the defection of the 21st Infantry, see Rothenberg, 

Army of Francis Joseph, p. 185. 

21. As Gerhard Ritterput it, “despite their best efforts, the soldiers never assumed the same powers 

in Austria-Hungary as in Germany.” See Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk (Munich, 1956), 111, p. 77, 

and Fuhr’s conclusions: “Several authors have described the conditions in Austria during this period 

(i.e., 1914-1915‘) as a ‘military dictatorship.’ However, neither the political powers of the AustroHungarian high1 command nor the course of the dispute between the Armeeoberkommando and the 

government up to February 1917, justify this description.” See Fuhr, Armeeoberkommando, pp. 

22. Victor S. Mamatey, “The Union of Czech Political Parties in the Reichsrat, 1916-1918,” in 

Robert A. Kann, Bela K. Kiraly, and %la Fichtner, eds., The Habsburg Empire in World War 1 

(Boulder, Colo., 1977), pp. 6-10. For a traditional \ iew accepting the postwar accounts of unswerving 

181-182. 

229 
Czech resistance, see Arthur J. May, The Passing ofthe Habsburg Monarchy, 1914-1918 (Philadelphia, 

1966), I, pp. 352-361. 

23. Mamatey, “Czech Political Parties,” p. 24. 

24. Zeman, Break-Up ofthe Habsburg Empire, pp.98-99; May, Passing ofthe Hapsburg Mon25. C. A. Macartney and A. W. Palmer, Independent Eastern Europe (London, 1966), p. 66. 

26. For an assessment of Charles, see May, Passing ofthe Hapsburg Monarchy, I, pp. 436-442. 

Negative evaluations are in Carl v. Bardolff, Soldat im alten Osterreich (Jena, 1938), pp. 267-268; Karl 

F. Nowak, Der Weg zur Katastrophe (Berlin, 1919), pp. 207-210; and Cramon, Bundesgenosse im 

Weltkrieg, pp. 88-95. A partisan account is that of Reinhold Lorenz, Kaiser Karl undder Untergang der 

Donaurnonarchie (Grdz-Vienna-Cologne, 1959), while G. Brook-Shepard, The Last Habsburg (London, 1968), is far too favorable. See also Peball, Conrad von Hotzendor$ pp. 239-240, for Conrad’s 

scathing denunciation of Charles. 

archy, I, pp. 430-433. 

27. Rothenberg, Army of Francis Joseph, pp. 201-203. 

28. Ibid., pp. 204-205; for detail, see Robert A. Kann, Die Sixtus-Amre und die geheimen 

29. Redlich, Austrian War Government, pp. 110-113. 

30. See General Ottokar von Landwehr-Pragenau’s memoirs, Hunger (Zurich-Leipzig, Vienna, 

31. Redlich, Austrian War Government, pp. 110-113. 

32. Rothenberg, Army ofFrancis Joseph, p. 204; Zeman, Break-Up ofthe Habsburg Empire, p. 

189; Cramon, Bundesgenosse im Weltkrieg, pp. 113-115; and Krauss, Die Ursachen UnsererNiederlage, 

Friedensverhandlunger Osterreich-Ungarns im Ersten Weltkrieg (Vienna, 1966). 

1931), passim. 

pp. 279-280. 

33. Cited in May, Passing of the Hapbsburg Monarchy, 11, pp. 666-667. 

34. Redlich, Austrian War Government, pp. 169-170; FuhrArmeeoberkommando, pp. 124.125; the 

memorandum, Kriegsarchiv Wien, Militarkanzlei seiner Majestat 1917 69-217 in Rothenberg, Army of 

Francis Joseph, p. 210. 

35. Rothenberg, Army ofFrancis Joseph, p. 211; Leo Valiani, The End ofAustria-Hungary (New 

York, 1973), pp. 212-213. For a comprehensive treatment of military interventions, etc, on the home 

front, see Richard G. Plaschka, Horst Haselsteiner, and Arnold Suppan, lnnere Front: Militarassistenzen, Widerstand, und Umsturz in der Donaumonarchie, 2 vols (Vienna, 1974). 

36. May, Passing of ihe Hapsburg Monarchy, 11, p. 625. 

37. Rothenberg, Army of Francis Joseph, pp. 211-212, and Karel Pichlik, “Das Ende der 

osterreichisch-ungarischen Armee,” Osrerreichische Osrhefte, 2 (1963), pp. 353-356. 

38. Holbom, “Final Disintegration of the Habsburg Monarchy,” pp. 197-199; Mamatey, “Czech 

Political Parties,” p. 24. 

39. Rothenberg, Army of Francis Joseph, pp. 209-210; Regele, Feldmarschall Conrad, pp. 90-91; 

and Johann C. Allmayer-Beck, “AOK und ‘Armeefrage’ im Jahre 1918,” Osterreichische Militarische 

Zeitschrif, 6 (1968), pp. 431-433. 

40. Rothenberg, Army ofFrancis Joseph, p. 210. 

41. C. A. Macartney, The House ofAustria (Edinburgh, 1978), pp. 268-270. 

42. Ibid., pp. 211-272. 

43. Peter Fiala, Die Letzte Offensive Altiisrerreichs (Boppard, 1967). 

44. Rothenberg, Army of Francis Joseph, pp. 215-216. 

45. Ibid., pp. 217-218; A. J. P. Taylor, The Habsburg Monarchy, 1815-1918 (New York, 1975), p. 

46. Rothenberg, Army of Francis Joseph, pp. 217-219. Cf. Macartney, House of Austria, pp. 

47. Macartney, House ofAustria, pp. 280-282; May, Passing ofthe Hapsburg Monarchy, 11, pp. 

251. 

278-279. 

805-807. 

Wilhelm Deist 

My outline of a few problems of mobilization for war within the framework of a totalitarian regime 

is based predominantly on the following studies: M. Geyer, Aufrusfung oder Sichrrheit; Die Re230 
ichswehr in der Krise der Machrpolitik 1924-1936 (Wiesbaden, 1980); Das Deutsche Reich und der 

Zweite Weltkrieg, ed. by Milit%rgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, Vol 1: Ursachen und Voraussetzungen 

der deutschen Kriegspolitik (Stuttgart, 1979); W. Deist, The Wehrmacht and German Rearmament 

(London, 1981); for further reading cf. M. Steinert, Hitler’s Krieg und die Deutschen: Stimmung und 

Haltung der deurschen Bevdlkerung im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Dusseldorf, 1970); M. Broszat, Hitler’s 

State (London, 1981); T. W. Mason, “Innere Krise und Angriffskrieg 1938/1939,” in Wirtschaft und 

Riistung am Vorabend des Zweiten Weltkrieges, ed by F. Forstmeier and H. E. Volkmann (Dusseldorf, 

1975); The “Fuhrer State”-Myth and Reality: Studies on the Structure and Politics ofthe Third Reich, 

ed by G. Hirschfeld and L. Kettenacker (Stuttgart, 1981). 

Paul A. C. Koistinen 

1. The term “necessitarian” appears first in John Morton Blum, V Was For Victory: Politics and 

American Culture During World War II (New York, 1976), p. 8. The quotations in the second paragraph 

are from pp. 13-14. Blum sets forth the basis for his analysis in the Prologue, pp, 3-14, and summarizes it 

in Chapter 9, pp. 301-332, but the most forthright, brief thesis statement appears on pp, 144-146. Blum’s 

volume is rich and suggestive. At key points, important ideas and material require further development 

for purposes of clarity and of avoiding apparent contradictions. Labels like “culture” would benefit 

from more precise definition. Certainly the operations of power in American society could receive 

additional attention. 

Various forms of the “necessity” interpretation are reflected in the works of Blum’s students: Allan 

M. Winkler, Thepolitics ofpropaganda: The Ofice of Warlnformation, 1942-1945 (New Haven, 1978); 

Jonathan Foster Fanton, “Robert A. Lovett: The War Years” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1978); and 

Richard Norman Chapman, “Contours of Public Policy, 1939-1945” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University 

Press, 1976). The same is true for other publications like: Alan Clive, State of War: Michigan in World 

War N (Ann Arbor, 1979); Richard A. Lauderbaugh, American Steel Makers and the Coming of the 

Second World War (Ann Arbor, 1980); and John William Partin, “’Assistant President’ for the Home 

Front: James F. Byrnes and World War II” (Ph.D. diss., University of Florida, 1977). 

A variation of Blum’s analysis of economic mobilization for the Second World War is exemplified 

by James MacGregor Bums, Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom (New York, 1970). Bums implicitly 

appears to accept much of the “necessity” thesis, but with many qualifications. He places much greater 

emphasis on the enormous ambivilance throughout American society about practically all wartime 

developments; and, by contrast with Blum, he stresses more change than continuity between the prewar 

and wartime years. This approach is evident in the one most complete surveys of the home front during 

World War 11: Richard Polenberg, War and Society: The United States, 1941-1945 (Philadelphia, 1972). 

Interpretations similar to Bums’ are also found in numerous other scholarly works, including: John W. 

Jeffries, Testing the Roosevelt Coalition: Connecticut Society and Politics in the Era of World War I1 

(Knoxville, Tenn., 1979); Philip J. Funigiello, The Challenge to Urban Liberalism: Federal-City 

Relations during World Wart1 (Knoxville, Tenn., 1978); and Donald H. Riddle, The Truman Committee: A Study in Congressional Responsiblity (New Brunswick, N.J., 1964). 

Both Blum and Burns back away from emphasizing the positive in the momentous developments 

of World War 11. Eliot Janeway, The Strugglefor Survival: A Chronicle of Economic Mobilization in 

World War11 (New Haven, 1951) offers a very different approach: For Janeway, the war years at every 

level of life were affirmative, restoring the promise of America with the dynamism appropriately 

coming from the system itself, not the government. In a curious blend of the populist and the neoconservative, a similar interpretation is presented in the journalistic account of Geoffrey Perrett, Days of 

Sadness, Years $Triumph: The American People, 1939-1945 (New York, 1973). A generally positive 

view of the war, though without the exuberance of Janeway or Perrett, is offered in George Q. Flynn, The 

Mess in Washington: Manpower Mobilization in World War I1 (Westport, Conn., 1979). It should he 

noted that Flynn’s work is rather narrow, being more a rendition of Paul V. McNutt’s leadership of the 

War Manpower Commission than a full-blown study of wartime manpower mobilization. 

23 1 
Bruce Catton’s, The War Lords of Washington (New York, 1948) presents a negative view of war 

mobilization. This volume was among the first and early significant publications on the wartime 

economy. Catton indignantly and passionately indicted industry and the military for thwarting an effort 

to make the war years serve as a fulfillment of New Deal promises. The author based his indictment on a 

New Deal, liberal perspective. A similar viewpoint, although with a very different approach, is offered 

in the popular history of Richard R. Lingeman, Don‘t You Know There’s A War On? The American 

HomeFront, 1941-1945 (New York, 1970). A much more scholarly, ideological, and systematic critique 

of the economic mobilization effort, which, unlike Catton and Lingeman, includes the President, was 

published as a New Left interpretation in 1968 by Barton J. Bernstein, “America in War and Peace: The 

Test of Liberalism,” in Towards a New Past: Dissenting Essays in American History, ed. Bernstein 

(New York, 1968), pp. 289-321. 

One of the more subtle and sophisticated liberal defenses of the President and economic mobilization for the Second World War is that of David Brody, “The New Deal and World War 11,” in The New 

Deal: TheNationalLevel, ed. John Braeman, Robert H. Bremner, and Brody (Columbus, Ohio, 1975), 

pp 267-309. The war years, according to Brody, witnessed a consolidation of a fragmented New Deal 

under Roosevelt’s brilliant pragmatic leadership. Brody had presented a “consolidation” interpretation 

of organized labor during World War I1 in an earlier essay: “The Emergence of Mass-Production 

Unionism,” in Change and Continuity in Twentieth-Century America, ed. John Braeman, Robert H. 

Bremner, and Everett Walters (Columbus, Ohio, 1964), pp. 221-262. 

The best bibliographic essays on the World War I1 home front include: Polenberg, WurandSociety, 

pp. 261-279; and Jim F. Heath, “Domestic America During World War 11: Research Opportunities for 

Historians,” Journal ofAmerican History, 58 (1971): 384-414. Clive, State of War, pp. 2-6, outlines the 

major interpretative approaches to wartime domestic history, but his categories and some of his 

observations must be treated with caution. Chapman, “Contours of Public Policy,” cites in his 

bibliography various volumes and dissertations involving Congress during wartime (the main subject of 

his study) which are useful and not often listed elsewhere. Recent dissertations and other literature on 

the wartime economy will be discussed in the endnotes that follow. 

2. I have already published on the subject of economic mobilization for World War I1 with 

elaborate documentation: The Hammer and the Sword: Labor, the Military, and Industrial Mobilization, 1920-1945 (Ph. D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1964; reprinted., New York, 1979); 

“Mobilizing the World War I1 Economy: Labor and the Industrial-M ry Alliance,” PaciJic Historical 

Review, 42 (1973): 443-478; and essays that involve the Second World War in The Military-Industrial 

Complex: A Historical Perspective (New York, 1980). In the following pages I will not cite what is in 

footnotes elsewhere, but I will include secondary or primary material which I have either not used 

before or which is especially important. 

My research in primary material includes: numerous War and Navy Department collections, 

Papers of the War Production Board and predecessor agencies, the Office of War Mobilization and 

Reconversion, the War Manpower Commission, the Office of Price Administration, and the Congress of 

Industrial Organizations, the Papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Henry L. Stimson, Bernard M. Baruch, 

Samuel I. Rosenman, Grenville Clark, William Green, and Phillip Murray, and various privately held 

collections. Most of the voluminous Congressional hearings and reports have been used, along with 

many newspapers and numerous unpublished manuscripts. Needless to say, the secondary literature on 

the subject is legion. 

An analysis of economic mobilization for World War I1 obviously does not involve a limited 

administrative problem. The entire American political economy, which is exceptionally complex and 

which includes most aspects of American life, is relevant. Consequently, information and ideas relate to 

central themes in the paper, but which might distract from them if included in the text proper, have been 

placed in the endnotes. The notes, therefore, are more a sub-text than simply a citation of sources. 

3. Comparative figures on the financing of America’s wars are given in Koistinen, MilitaryIndustrial Complex, pp. 107-108. Some wartime revenue comparisons between the United States and its 

allies are contained in: Alan S. Milward, War, Economy and Society, 1939-1945 (Berkeley, 1977), pp. 

105-109. 

4. Studies on wartime profits and farm and labor income are still rudimentary, with scholars 

dependent principally upon contemporary sources. This is a field which cries out for sophisticated, in232 
depth analysis. The following quotation from my volume, Hammer and the Sword, pp. 283-284, based 

on sources published in 1945 and 1949, fairly well fills out the points made in the text: 

Certainly the wages of the working population increased during World War 11. In 1939 

dollars, average weekly earnings in manufacturing rose from $24.00 in 1939 to a high of 

$36.72 in 1944; average hourly earnings from 64 cents to 81 cents. However, with 

reduced hours of overtime and downgrading, average weekly earnings skidded to 

$34.57 in 1945. Rampant inflation in 1946 and 1947 reduced the figures further to $31.46 

and $31.39 respectively. But these are gross figures. After taxes and 10 percent war bond 

deductions-admittedly a saving-the average worker was probably somewhat better 

off during the war than in 1939 but not substantially. Furthermore, average figures ignore 

the considerable portion of the population earning below the citations. Compared with 

war profits, the gains of labor seem slighter. At the peak of production activity during 

World War 11, corporate profits after taxes had increased 100.6 percent from the 1939 

level; net farm income, including government parity payments, went up 181.6 percent; 

average weekly wages, in unadjusted dollars, before taxes increased 84.4 percent, 

including overtime compensation. Moreover, it must be kept in mind, despite high 

excess profits taxes, industry was permitted to write off defense plant investments in five 

rather than the normal twenty years, was permitted to reclaim 10 percent of the excess 

profits taxes paid during the war at the termination of hostilities, and was permitted to 

“carry back” or “carry forward” post-war losses to gain tax credits for the war years. In 

effect, for a limited period, the government would guarantee any industrial losses up to 

80 percent in post-war America. Farmers had the security of parity. 

See also: pp. 577-584, 664-572, 778-579. 

Other useful primary and secondary studies of industrial profits include: “Statement of Col. 

Maurice Hirsch, General Staff Corps, Chairman, War Contracts Pnce Adjustment Board, and Chairman, War Deparment Price Adjustment Board, to the Select Committee on Small Business of the House 

of Representatives of the United States”-reproduced in U.S., Congress, House, Congressional 

Record, 79th Cong, 1st Sess, 1945,91, pt 5: 6145-48; U.S., Office of Price Administration, Divisionof 

Research, Financial Analysis Branch, War Profits Study 12, Corporate Profits, 1936-1944, Part 111, 

First Half 1944, Industry Stabilized at Wartime Peak, 1120 Leading Industrial Corporations, March 

1945; Richard C. Osborn, The Renegotiation qf War Profits (Urbana, Ill., 1948); John Perry Miller, 

Pricing of Military Procurement (New Haven, 1949). 

For a recent analysis of labor’s wartime gains that is more positive than that presented in the 

quotation from my study, see: Geoffrey Thomas Mills, “The Economics of Price Control: The OPA 

Experience 1941-1946” (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 1979), Chapter 8. As 

the title indicates, Mills’ analysis is derived from an evaluation of the OPA’s performance. For a more 

sophisticated study of the OPA which is based on more extensive work in primary sources, see: Andrew 

Hudson Bartels, “The Politics of Price Control: The Office of Price Administration and the Dilemmas of 

Economic Stabilization, 1940-1946” (Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980). Darrel 

Robert Cady, “The Truman Administration’s Reconversion Policies, 1945-1947” (Ph.D. diss., University of Kansas, 1974), also deals with the OPA, but within the larger context of the nation’s readjustment 

to peacetime conditions. While this work provides some useful information and insights on the early 

years of the Truman Administration, it is based on limited work in primary sources and the organization 

and development of material and ideas are weak. The author fails to substantiate his positive assessment 

of the Truman Administration’s reconversion program. 

Still the most valuable study of the distribution of wartime economic benefits is: US., Congress, 

Senate, Economic Concentration and World War II: Report qfthe Smaller War Plants Corporation to 

the Special Committee to Study Problems ofAmerican Small Business, 79th Cong, 2nd Sess, Doc 206, 

June 14,1946. This impressive study was researched and written under the direction of John M. Blair 

and Dewey Anderson, both of whom served with the Temporary National Economic Committee and 

drew upon the extensive information of that body for helping to formulate the analysis. Among other 

observations, the study found that the nation’s manufacturing facilities existing in 1939 had cost around 

$40 billion. Wartime expansion added $26 billion more, two-thirds of which the government financed 

and most of which had peacetime utility. Furthermore, out of wartime expenditures approximating 

233 
$315.8 billion, the War and Navy Departments spent the greater share. Between June 1940 and 

September 1944, prime contracts went to 18,539 firms, but two-thirds were awarded to the top 100 

corporations; 30 percent to 10 corporations. Subcontracting did not significantly change the picture 

since most of it took place among the large corporations. Expenditures for research and plants and 

equipment followed a similar pattern. 

Concentrating economic power in the traditional sense of mergers and acquisitions did not take 

place at a significant level during and immediately after the war. But the wealth acquired by corporations 

and financial institutions during the war no doubt helped create the conditions for economic consolidation which began in the early to mid-1950s and, with varying degrees of intensity, has continued right up 

to the present day. Moreover, the continued high level of “peacetime” defense spending in the postwar 

years acted as a stimulus for the growth of conglomerates, as firms heavily involved in munitions 

production sought to protect their corporations through diversification. See: Samuel Richardson Reid, 

Mergers, Managers and the Economy (New York, 1968), p. 19; Robert Sobel, The Age of Giant 

Corporations: A Microeconomic History ofAmerican Business, 1914-1970 (Westport, Conn., 1972), 

pp. 178-235; Ralph L. Nelson, Merger Movements in American Industry, 1895.1956 (Princeton, 1959), 

pp. 122-126; and Carl Eis, The 1919-1930 Merger Movement in American Industry (New York, 1978), 

pp. 136-148. The most detailed information about the increase of economic concentration during World 

War I1 is presented in U.S., Federal Trade Commission, The Merger Movement: A Summary Report 

(Washington, 1948). While this report concentrates on the years from 1940-47, it also provides an 

overview of industrial consolidation and the federal government’s response to it extending back to the 

late nineteenth century. For the period 1940-47, the report noted that around 60 percent of all mergers 

and acquisitions occurred in six manufacturing areas: food and beverages, textiles and apparel, 

chemicals, nonelectrical machinery, petroleum, and transportation equipment, with the first three 

categories accounting for 36 percent of activity. Moreover, the commission reported that most consolidations took place during the last three years of the period. See also: Koistinen, Military-Industrial 

Complex, pp. 14-15 and footnotes 11-13 for a brief discussion and citations of sources on the crucial 

subject of concentrated economic power and its consequences in America. For the latest study 

challenging the managerialist thesis and proposing that in terms of the control of major corporations by 

financial institutions more continuity than change has been evident throughout the twentieth century, 

see: Mark S. Mizruchi, The American Corporare Network, 1904-1974 (Beverly Hills, Calif., 1982). 

A recent study of the Defense Plant Corporation established that industry largely acted as its own 

watchdog in the operation of government-built plants that cost billions of dollars. See: Gerald T. White, 

Billions for Defense: Government Financing by the Defense Plant Corporation during World War 11 

(University, Ala., 1980). The author contends, but cannot substantiate, that management behaved in a 

trustworthy fashion. To illustrate the point on discerning with any exactitude corporate profits during 

World War 11, the Senate Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions lndustry (Nye 

Committee) while examining World War I contracting established that it took twenty-two individuals 

five years to “audit . . . the income, excess-profits, and war-profits tax returns of the United States Steel 

Corporation and its subsidiaries for 1917 and 1918.” In its most impressive reports, the Nye Committee 

presented a very sophisticated and thorough analysis of wartime profit controls, including the dangers to 

private industry and the vicissitudes facing the government. The committee concluded that the 

government faced insuperable odds when pitted against private industry. These reports are among the 

best sources on this crucial subject. See: U.S., Congress, Senate, Special Committee on Investigation 

of the Munitions Industry, Munitions Industry: Preliminary Report on Wartime Taxation and Price 

Control, 74th Cong, 1st Sess, 1935, S. Rept 944, pt 2 (Serial 9882), pp. 1-164 (direct quotation above, p. 

38); and U.S., Congress, Senate, Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry, 

Munitions Industry: Report on War Department Bills S. 1716s. 1722 Relating to Industrial Mobilizarion in Wartime,74th Cong, 2nd Sess, 1936, S. Rept 944, pt 4 (Serial 9884), pp. 1-77. 

The distribution of national income and wealth is closely related to the issue of interest-group 

benefits during war. Those tending towards a more positive view of the home front often assert that from 

1939 or 1941 to 1945 there was lessening of economic inequality in that the top 5 percent or 20 percent of 

the population received less of the national income. That is correct. This type of focus took on new 

importance and urgency with the publication of the now classic study of Robert J. Lampman, TheShare 

ofthe Top Wealth-Holders in National Wealth, 1922.1945 (Princeton, 1962). While it is true that the top 

1,5,10, or 20 percent of the population saw its share of the national income shrink, several points about 

234 
this phenomenon need to be made. First, the trend began in 1929, not 1939 or 1941. Second, the 

redistribution process stopped in 1944 and has held rather consistently until very recently when a turn 

towards greater inequality apperas to be under way. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the 

beneficiaries ol the redistribution in the depression and war years were not the bottom fifth of the 

population; their gain was minimal. Most of the shift in income went to those in the upper 50 percent of 

the population. Moreover, when all forms of taxation are taken into account, taxes do not appear to have 

significantly altered income distribution patterns. Lampman’s findings on the distribution of wealth are 

similar, although he does not give figures indicating who benefitted from the redistribution and he notes 

that the trend towards greater equality in wealth-holding reversed itself between 1949 and 1956; later 

studies confirm that that process continued after 1956. The above discussion is based on Lampman and 

the following: Herman P. Miller, Rich Man, Poor Man (New York, 1964), pp. 25-36; Gabriel Kolko, 

Wealth and Power in America: An Analysis of Social Class and Income Distribution (New York, 1962), 

pp, 9-54; and Ferdinand Lundberg, The Rich and the Super Rich: A Study in the Power ofMoney Today 

(New York, 1968), pp. 11-37. Ira C. Magaziner and Robert B. Reich, Minding America’sEusiness: The 

Decline and Rise ofthe American Economy (New York, 1982), Chapter 1, and Lester C. Thurow, The 

Zero-Sum Soci,?ty: Distribution and the Possibilities for Economic Change (New York, 1980), Chapter 

7 and pp. 7-8,19,50-54, and 199-200, offer some recent and useful insights and information on income 

and wealth distribution in the United States. For a differing, rather extreme neo-conservative interpretation of income and wealth distribution matters and citations of secondary literature supporting such a 

view, see: Barry W. Poulson, Economic History ofthe United States (New York, 1981), Chapter 28. 

Most scholars :studying income and wealth distribution draw heavily from Simon Kuznets, Shares of 

Upper Income Groups in Income and Saving (New York, 1953). 

5. Not many scholars have written recently on the mobilization of the labor force during the 

Second World War. Flynn, The Mess in Washington: Manpower Mobilization in World War I1 is the 

latest and broadest monograph on the subject. For observations on this volume, see footnote 1. Nelson 

Nauen Lichtenstein, “lndustrial Unionism Under the No-Strike Pledge: A Study of the C10 During the 

Second World ‘War” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1974), in his revisionist assessment of wartime labor developments, contributes some insights relevant to work force policies, 

although he does not treat with that subject directly. 

The most significant work on mobilizing the nation’s working population for hostilities involves 

the participation of women. A rich collection of monographs, dissertations, and articles on the subject 

is beginning to appear. For some examples, see: Karen Anderson, Wartime Women: Sex Roles, Family 

Relations, and the Status of Women During World War I1 (Westport, Conn., 1981); Leila J. Rupp, 

Mobilizing Women for War: German and American Propaganda, 1939-1945 (Princeton, 1978); Chester 

W. Gregory, Women in Defense Work During World War 11: An Analysis of the Labor Problem and 

Women’s Right:? (Jericho, N.Y., 1974); D’Ann Mae Campbell, “Wives, Workers and Womanhood: 

America Durine World War 11” (Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1979); and 

Eleanor Ferguson Straub, “Government Policy Toward Civilian Women During Warld War 11” (Ph.D. 

diss., Emory University, 1973). These monographs include bibliographic citations for other work on 

women and the war effort. 

6. Reconversion as a subject has also been neglected of late by scholars. Cady, “The Truman 

Administration’s Reconversion Policies, 1945-1947,” focuses on years which still need more attention. 

See end note No. 4 for a brief critique of Cady’s work. A dissertation of William Steinert Hill, Jr. is most 

relevant to the intense debate over readjusting the economy to peace. Hill’s work is discussed at length 

in endnote 20. Plans and policies for America’s fighting forces as part of the process of returning the 

society to peace are treated elaborately in the following works: Davis R. B. Ross, Preparing for 

Ulysses: Po1itic.r and Veterans During World War11 (New York, 1969); Bert Marvin Sharp, “’Bring the 

Boys Home’: Diemobilization of the United States Armed Forces After World War 11” (Ph.D. diss., 

Michigan State University, 1976). 

7. The besl. source on the Truman Committee is Riddle, The Truman Committee. One of the most 

active members of the Committee, and an astute critic of the entire economic mobilization program, 

was Harley M. Kilgore (D.-W.Va.). He is discussed briefly in Riddle and at length in the biography of 

Robert Franklin Maddox, The Senatorial Career of Harley Martin Kilgore (New York, 1981). 

The idea that the Roosevelt Administration’s mobilization policies helped strengthen the conservative oppostion is further developed on pp. 107-8 - SESS I1 and in endnotes 22-25. 

235 
8. Civilian Production Administration, Industrial Mobilization for War: History of the War 

Production Board and Predecessor Agencies, 1940-1945 (Washington, D.C., 1947), pp. 961-966; 

Bureau of the Budget, The United States at War: Development and Administration ofthe War Program 

by the Federal Government (Washington, D.C., 1946), p. 507. 

9. The first significant work on the World War I1 economy, Bureau of the Budget, United States at 

War (1946), did not go in for hyperbole about American production efforts in its very candid and antimilitary rendition of economic mobilization. By reciting statistics, the official history of the WPB (then 

called the Civilian Production Administration), Industrial Mobilization for War (l947), tacitly laid the 

basis for the “miracle of production” approach. Donald Nelson, Arsenal ofDemocracy: The St051 of 

American War Production (New York, 1946), p. ix, stated it more directly: “American war production 

, , , I think . . . is one of the greatest stories in human history. . . .” He was seconded by Catton in his 

brilliant polemic against the WarLords ofwashington, p. 306: “There is not much use in citing figures, 

because the figures are all so astronomical that they cease to mean very much. . . . America did the 

greatest job in the history of the human race.” Janeway, The Struggle for Survival, p. 361, offered a 

variation on the theme by labeling the wartime production record as “the Rooseveltian miracle.” See 

Chapter 1 and pp. 360-61 for a full development of the Janeway analysis. 

Numerous scholarly works, textbooks, and other volumes either directly or indirectly accept the 

“miracle of production” thesis, although with vastly ranging levels of sophistication. For some 

examples, see: Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of CivilMilitary Relations (Cambridge. Mass., 1957), pp. 342-344; Milward, War, Economy and Society, pp. 

63-75; Sobel, Age @Giant Corporations, pp. 162-165; Riddle, Truman Committee, p. 97; Lingeman, 

Don’t You Know There’s A War On?, pp. 110-111; Brody, “The New Deal and World War 11,” p. 267; 

Chester Whitney Wright, Economic History ofthe United States (New York, 1949), pp. 794-810; Harry 

N. Scheiber, Harold G. Vatter, and Harold Underwood Faulkner, American Economic History (New 

York, 1976), pp. 407-409; and Charles Sellers, Henry May and Neil R. McMillen, A Synopsis of 

American History (Boston, 1981), pp. 324-325. 

10. The subject of prewar economic potential and wartime performance is examined most 

thoroughly and from numerous angles by Klaus E. Knorr, The War Potential ofNations (Princeton, 

1956). Knorr’s work contains good statistical material as well as the appropriate caveats about the 

limitations of any comparative approach. This volume is intended primarily to explain the nature and 

outcome of World War 11. Another work by Knorr, addressed more to the postwar situation, is still 

relevant to the Second World War and twentieth century warfare in general. See: Military Power and 

Potential (Lexington, Mass., 1970). Two other volumes are valuable for viewing the war from a 

comparative perspective: Milward, War, Economy and Society; and Arthur Marwick, War and Social 

Change in the Twentieth Century: A Comparative Study of Britain, France, Germany, Russia and the 

United States (New York, 1974).The following tables provide a comparison of prewar and wartime 

production data for the major combatant nations. 

11. Goldsmith, “Power of Victory,” p. 79. Of all those writing on the World War I1 economy, 

Perrett, Days $Sadness, Years $Triumph, p. 182, curiously, in his “pop”-type history, comes closest to 

making Goldsmith’s point. 

Table 1 

Percentage Distribution of the World’s Manufacturing Production (excerpted) ~~~ ~ ~ 

Period United Canada United USSR Germany Japan 

States Kingdom 

19261 42.2 2.4 9.4 4.3 11.6 2.5 

I929 

19361 32.2 2.0 9.2 18.5 10.7 3.5 

1938 

Source: National Industrial Conference Board, The Economic Almanac. 1953- ;Q54 (New York, 1955), 

pp. 600-601. 
Table 2 

Volume of Combat Munitions Production of Major Belligerents 

Billions of Dollars, 1944 U.S. Munitions Prices 

Country 1935-39 1940 1941 1942 1943 I944 

United 11 11 41 20 38 42 

States 

Canada 0 0 1 1 11 11 

Great 21 31 61 9 11 11 

Britain 

USSR 8 5 81 111 14 16 

Germany 12 6 6 81 131 17 

Japan 2 1 2 3 41 6 

Source: Raymond W. Goldsmith, “The Power of Victory: Munitions Output in World War 11,” Military 

Affairs 10 (1946): 75. 

Note: In comparing manufacturing production before the war with munitions production in 1944, I am 

assuming a production level of about $100 billion, even though for the six countries listed the total 

comes to $93.5 billion. The Goldsmith table that follows (Table 3) is a much more accurate gauge of 

what actually took place. 

Table 3 

Prewar and Wartime Productivity in Major Belligerent Countries 

Production per Manhour in U.S. = 100 

~ ~~~~ 

Country Pre-War (1935-1938) War 

(1944) 

All Manufacturing Munitions 

Industries Industries 

United States ..................... 100 100 

Canada .......................... 71 51 

Great Britain 36 41 

USSR ........................... 36 39 

Germany 41 48 

Japan ........................... 25 17 

..................... 

........................ 

The prewar figures are taken from War Production Board Release TP-178. 

The 1944 data are rough estimates based on the figures for total combat munitions production given in 

Table 2 (increased by estimates of merchant vessels and motor vehicles), number of workers in the metal 

and basic chemical industries, and average hours per week. The data on number of workers and hours 

are taken from official sources for the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, but based on 

rough estimates only for the USSR, Germany, and Japan. 

Source: Goldsmith, “Power of Victory,” p. 79. 

Sobel, Age @Giant Corporations, p. 177, observes: 

[Blig business was far stronger in 1938-39 than most contemporaries had realized. Small and 

medium-sized firms suffered greatly during the depression, but the large concerns emerged without 

undue difficulty, and often stronger than they had been in 1929. 

As pointed out in the text and in note 4, a relatively few huge corporations constituted the basis of the 

American economic mobilization effort. 

237 
12. Goldsmith, “Power of Victory,” pp. 78-8-uotatior1, p. 79. Goldsmith appears to be in error 

in his assertions involving a labor draft. The proposal was so politically volatile that the implementation 

of any form of national service would most likely have harmed rather than helped the war production 

effort unless drastically different war front conditions existed. 

13. See above, p. 98 and endnote 3 on U.S. and other belligerent nations’ war financing. Other 

areas which by comparison could cast further light on the American mobilization effort would include 

interest-group benefits from the war in terms of profits, subsidies, wages, and the like, the amount of 

private as opposed to public financing of plant expansion, the use of existing facilities before the 

construction of new plants or the expansion of existing buildings and equipment, and the further 

concentration of economic power and its consequences. Also of concern would be provisions made for 

the general public in matters of health, housing, feeding, child care, transportation, recreation, and so 

forth. From what information is available to me, which is piecemeal and spotty, the United States 

compares unfavorably with most other belligerents in many of these categories. As noted above, p. 101, 

however, the nation was almost alone in increasing, rather than diminishing consumer output during the 

14. That is precisely the point of Huntington, Soldier and Stare, pp. 337-344. Catton, War Lords of 

Washington, argues instead that the prodigious production achievements stand as an indictment of the 

nation by demonstrating that it did not use the enormous vitality generated by the war to revitalize 

democracy at home and abroad. Catton’s thesis is scattered throughout the volume but is fairly well 

summed up in the last chapter, pp. 304-313. Many authors fall somewhere between these two polar 

interpretations and are fairly well represented by the authors and works cited in endnotes 1 and 9. 

15. Huntington, Soldier and State, pp. 315-344, raises and discusses some of these issues in a most 

provocative way. The role of an “Advisory War Council,” or some similar name, as part of the military’s 

interwar Industrial Mobilization Plans, is analyzed in my volume which will be forthcoming and is 

tentatively entitled, “The Political Economy of Warfare in America.” Magaziner and Reich and Lester 

Thurow in analyzing the current decline of the American economy, prescribe for today something 

comparable to a war council in order to devise and implement “a coherent and coordinated industrial 

policy” required to reverse the nation’s failing ability to compete internationally. For a fuller discussion 

of this theme, see endnote 20. 

16. Good information and insights concerning Forrestal and Knox, and indirectly War Department 

leadership, are offered in the following volumes: Robert Greenhalgh Albion and Robert Howe Connery, 

Forrestal and the Navy (New York, 1962) and Arnold A. Rogow, James Forrestal: A Study of 

Personality, Politics. and Policy (New York, 1963). 

17. The Feasibility Dispute laid bare the struggle for power and the issues involving it that wracked 

the World War I1 economy. Consequently, an in-depth analysis of that conflict provides many insights 

about how the nation’s industrial system was harnessed for war. The one best source on that controversy 

is: Committee on Public Administration Cases, The Feasibility Dispute: Determination of War Production Objectives for 1942 and 1943 (Washington, D.C.: Committee on Public Administration Cases, 

1950). The information in this volume is excellent and it is not readily available in other secondary 

sources. But the author avoids drawing the logical conclusions from his analysis. 

18. In the reorganization of the armed services, Roosevelt personally intervened, and continued to 

do so throughout the war years, to prevent Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Ernest J. King from 

taking control of procurement operations, but not Chief of Staff George C. Marshall from doing the 

same thing. Why the President acted in this way is unclear, but experience and knowledge may have 

made him realize that from twenty years of procurement and economic mobilization planning the War 

Department was ready for a vastly expanded procurement role while the Navy Department was not and 

required the civilian talent gathered around Forrestal as Under Secretary. 

19. Throughout a good part of 1942 and into 1943, jurisdictional battles were being waged within 

the War Department over how to coordinate strategy and supply. This created conditions in which the 

department had less time and energy to even consider, let alone be receptive towards, improving 

relations with civilian agencies like the WPB. The Navy Department was experiencing similar 

difficulties, as endnote 18 indicates, but since it was smaller, had fewer requirements, and had been at a 

higher state of preparedness than the Army at the outset of the war, what the Navy did or did not do was 

less consequential for mobilization than the Army. Still, the central point remains: Roosevelt did not 

press the matter of coordinating strategy and production with the military, although proposals for doing 

War. 

238 
so were constantly being presented to him throughout 1942 by civilians. Had he moved decisively in 

this area the armed services would have had to respond and display greater flexibility. 

Attempts to coordinate strategy and production by having the JCS assign officers to the WPB was 

only a “gesture” for several reasons: first, the arrangement practically placed the WPB in the position of 

a subordinate, not a coordinate, let alone a superior, agency to the JCS; and, second, no review of 

military requirements took place. When the OWM-OWMR was established with Byrnes as director, 

reviewing military requirements was recognized as imperative, and a program was created for doing so. 

In the end, the military services and JCS agencies, with some participation by OWM-OWMR 

personnel, in effect examined and passed on their own requirements with expectably modest results. 

Herman Miles Somers, Presidential Agency: OWMR-The Ofice of War Mobilization and Reconversion (Cambridge, Mass., 1950) is much more impressed by the Byrnes-directed review of and control 

over the armed services than is Partin in his more recent study, “’Assistant President’ for the Home 

Front: James F. Byrnes and World War 11,” (1977). Byrnes’ memoirs, if used cautiously, can also be of 

use in assessing his performance and the record of the offices he headed. See: Speaking Frankly (New 

York, 1947); and All in One Lifetime (New York, 1958). 

20. The focus of this analysis has been on the governmmt’s economic mobilization structure with 

only general references to the corporate community. To understand fully the wartime economy, an indepth examination of the attitudes and actions of business, and especially big business, is imperative. Of 

course, no such presentation is possible in a footnote, but a few general and relevant points can be made. 

First, during the “Feasibility Dispute,” corporate leaders tended to oppose the Planning Committee’s 

approach because they, like the military and the President, favored “incentive scheduling”: set the goals 

high enough so as to force the system to perform maximally. Nelson, Nathan, and associates, according 

to this viewpoint, were engaged in offering sophisticated excuses for why the WPB was not doing better. 

Moreover, many business men were simply unaccustomed to and found difficulty accepting the reality 

of shortages growing out of demand exceeding supply. Additionally, various corporate leaders argued 

that the armed forces should set strategy and requirements with the WPB created to fulfill their needs. 

Finally, for some businessmen, operating within a framework of economic analysis and planning 

involving national production potential, particularly when it was presented and advocated by “academics” and “theoreticians,” was both foreign and unacceptable. 

Second, these attitudes obviously changed as planning based on finite resources was carried on by 

the WPB with increasing refinement and sophistication, first, under the Controlled Materials Plan and, 

later, the Production Executive Committee. But this planning was formulated, advocated, and carried 

out by those familiar and acceptable to the corporate community. Last, unlike World War I, with the 

Second World War the industrial giants did not want the planning to continue into the postwar period. 

Business appeared to believe it could handle its own affairs without the government, or that New Dealtype government was to be contained whenever and wherever possible. In view of the fact that the fear of 

a postwar depression or a difficult transition to a peacetime economy was justifiably widespread, this 

attitude and the policies that grew out of it were at best shortsighted, at worst irresponsible. 

Mobilizing the World War I1 economy and the response and role of the corporate giants create 

some problems of interpretation for the “new business history” which emphasizes an institutional 

approach. This type of analysis proposes that massive changes in the volume of business after 1840 

created conditions for the rise of the modem corporations, with the pioneering efforts first applied to the 

railroads. By the turn of the century, the modern corporate device had spread from the railroads to 

industry and was fairly well developed. In the most refined form the new corporation was a multidivisional structure integrated backwards and forwards and directed by professional or professionally-oriented 

managers. Middle managers ran the process of production and distribution while the top managers were 

left free to evaluate, plan, and allocate resources for a bureaucratic empire in order to insure balanced, 

long-range growth. “New business history” scholars deemphasize the role of government in shaping the 

corporation or the economy and instead stress its role of increasing demand. They similarly downplay 

the importance of entrepreneurs and a “free enterprise” system. A centralized economy built around the 

necessady huge corporation with systematic planning, coordination, and control by detached, farsighted, and clear-headed managers is what counts. What existed before in the nineteenth century was a 

decentralized system of family firms, partnerships, joint stock companies, and rudimentary corporations, with an interim period, around the turn of the century, in which the giant financial houses like J. P. 

Morgan and Company exercised widespread influence, if not dominance, 

239 
The pioneer, leader, and chief spokesman for the “new business history” is Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. 

He and his students have trained many or most of those pursuing this line of analysis, and he has 

incorporated years of research, analysis, and publication in a major work of synthesis: The Visible 

Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, Mass., 1977). 

Something is wrong either with the general information available on the corporate community and 

World War I1 mobilization, or else with the “new business history.” Too many contradictions abound 

between theory and practice, particularly in the area of what is supposedly the chief characteristic of the 

modem corporation: the dedication to planning, coordination, integration, balance, and the long, as 

opposed to the short run. Various reasons can be offered to explain away the paradoxes. For example, it 

could be argued that the corporate leaders had not and could not achieve over-all planning of the system 

before the war and did not desire to think it necessary after the war. Consequently, their first objective 

was to protect the corporate system from an obtrusive government and the vicissitudes of war. Working 

with the military and quickly dismantling the planning apparatus after the war ended grew out of that 

protective goal. While this type of explanation might have some validity, it does not suffice. The 

corporate managers throughout the defense and war years appear too often as parochial, short-sighted, 

narrow, petty, and fearful in order to fulfill the role of the collective “visible hand,” confidently 

directing industry. Developments during the Second World War may anticipate the present economic 

crisis the nation faces. With most of the industrial world first in shambles and then rebuilding from 1945 

through 1960, the United States had ideal and almost unique conditions for stability and growth. Once 

belligerents on both sides had fully reconstructed their societies and economies, America’s practical 

monopoly on opportunity disappeared, revealing not a nation with corporate managers setting and 

implementing a definable industrial policy for the long run, but instead a drifting economic system with 

business leaders scrambling for short run profit returns with reckless disregard for their own institutions, the government, and the larger social system. 

Much current literature probing the decline of American economic power follows this line. An 

outstanding example of such an analysis is Magaziner and Reich, Minding America’s Business. One of 

the best critiques of the “new business history” is presented by Ronald L. F. Davis, “Recent Developments in Business History: The New Determinism,” (Paper delivered at the Annual Meeting of the 

Economic and Business History Association, St. Paul, Minnesota, April 1982). Davis suggests that 

perhaps the investment bankers of the past were better long-range planners than the short- sighted 

managers of the present. 

A recent dissertation by William Steinert Hill, Jr., “The Business Community and National 

Defense: Corporate Leaders and the Military, 1943-1950’ (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1979) is 

most relevant concerning the subject of the corporate structure and planning. Hill’s work is important 

because he focuses upon the neglected years from 1945 to 1950 and ties them in well to the World War I1 

and post-Korean periods. During the war and postwar years, the author maintains that businessmen did 

favor some form of planning once hostilities ended and that planning by necessity included a role for 

government, albeit a modest one. In analyzing the varying approaches of business leaders, Hill, 

drawing upon earlier studies, divides them into two categories: the classicalists and the managerialists. 

The former, best characterized by groups like the National Association of Manufacturers and the 

Chamber of Commerce, favored as much of an unfettered market as possible; the latter, with the 

principal spokesmen coming from the Committee for Economic Development and the National 

Planning Association, accepted the reality of a significantly modified capitalism with a meaningful 

regulatory role for both industry and government essential. Differences aside, both groups viewed warinduced prosperity as probably their last chance for demonstrating that continued peacetime growth was 

possible through the operations of a basically privately operated economy. 

Hill’s principal contribution involves his conclusion, which would be more persuasive if it were 

based on better primary sources (a fact the author himself recognizes). He concludes that businessmen 

outside of the aircraft, shipbuilding, and machine tool industries continuously and vigorously fought 

against military Keynesianism. Indeed, their struggle continued into the late 1950s. The advocates of 

huge military spending included some industrialists, some military elements, and some non-defense 

civilian officials, but they mainly involved members of the State Department, Defense Department, and 

National Security Council who worked out the rationale for massive rearmament during 1949-1950 in 

what ultimately became labeled NSC-68. Nonetheless, Hill insists that business leaders by acts of 

omission created conditions which almost inevitably led to military Keynesianism and a Military240 
Industrial Complex. In failing to work out with the federal government before the Korean War methods 

to ensure prosperity and full employment, businessmen lost probably their last chance to combat 

economic recessions and depressions without relying upon military spending. 

Hill’s study blends in well with that of Magaziner and Reich. Hill carries out his analysis largely by 

concentrating upon the policies of business organizations and the ideas of industrial spokesmen; 

Magaziner and Reich examine carefully not only the strategies of government and business, but also the 

detailed operations of the business community and its parts. Although he does not use the same terms, 

Hill would probably agree with Magaziner and Reich on the need for “U.S. companies and the 

government [to1 develop a coherent and coordinated industrial policy” in order to reestablish the 

efficiency and growth of the American economy and make it internationally competitive (quotation, p. 

4). The crux of the matter, however, is whether even the managerial groups that Hill studies would have 

supported the creation of a “relatively small” governmental organization for formulating and implementing an industrial policy. Ideally, argue Magaziner and Reich, such an agency would be “relatively 

free from the effects of political changes in government” and based upon interest-group consensus and 

widespread public support. That would require “significant links with both business management and 

unions” and other interest groups and modes of operation accessible to the general population 

(quotations, p. 307). A governmental body of that nature, as reality or as goal, Magaziner and Reich see 

as practically indispensable for the success of any coherent industrial strategy. These authors appear to 

be more optimistic than Hill in that they do not view the few years after World War I1 as the last 

opportunity for making the American economy and system viable. Indeed, they see the current decline 

of American industry and its lack of international competitiveness as reversible today and in the future 

under the right policies and programs and institutions for applying them. 

Thurow, The Zero-Sum Society, addresses many of the same issues as Magaziner and Reich and 

reaches many of the same conclusions. Thurow ’s perspective, however, is considerably broader than 

that of the other two authors and he is willing to concede the possibility, implied by Hill, that by not 

facing squarely the numerous economic problems plaguing it, the society may fail like other social 

systems of the past. For Thurow’s view of Minding America’s Business and further development of 

some of his ideas, see his review of Magaziner and Reich, “How to Rescue a Drowning Economy,” New 

York Review ofBooks, 29 (April I, 1982): 3-4. 

David P. Calleo, The Imperious Economy (Cambridge, Mass., 1982) provides the most comprehensive examination of the nation’s diminished and diminishing power. In an intricate and sophisticated analysis, Calleo relates how American economic, political, and military policies have interacted 

at home and abroad to undermine the nation’s economy. Basic to the crisis facing the United States, the 

author persuasively argues, is the fundamental contradiction between an expansionist economic policy 

at home and an imperial policy abroad. The nation’s leaders of the past twenty years have failed the 

public by manipulating, instead of trying to resolve, the contradiction between domestic and foreign 

goals. Any attempt to reverse the nation’s decline, Calleo insists, must begin at home with the 

formulation of “a long-range national economic strategy” which involves major economic interest 

groups (quotation, p 193). Calleo’s analysis is consistent with or complements those of Magaziner and 

Reich and Thurow. By concentrating upon the nation’s international economic policy and especially its 

relationship to the world’s monetary system, the author’s approach and conclusions are very similar to 

those of the New Left, Wisconsin diplomatic school of which William Appleman Williams remains the 

primary spokesman. For a perceptive review of Calleo’s book and another related volume, see: Jason 

Epstein, “Going for Broke,” New York Review @Books, 29 (September 23, 1982): 17-22. 

21. The subject of a war council relates to the larger issue of the role of the military in the American 

system of power since 1939. Scholars generally agree that prior to World War 11, except for periods of 

warfare, the armed services did not figure meaningfully into the nation’s power relations. A permanently large war and defense establishment that grew out of the Second World War dramatically 

changed that reality. During and after World War 11, and in a few instances even before hostilities, 

various scholars and other analysts recognized that the modern military had to be incorporated into any 

analysis of power operations in the United States. 

In his seminal volume The Power Elite (New York, 1956), C. Wright Mills set the terms for the 

ongoing debate about the military’s changed status. Mills proposed that World War 11 and the Cold War 

had elevated the armed services to a position of shared elitest power with the federal executive and the 

largest corporations. While Mills’ thesis was generally recognized as trenchant and provocative, few 

241 
accepted it totally. Variations of or alternates for Mills’ proposal are so numerous and often overlapping 

as to be bewildering, if not overwhelming. Nonetheless, the varying analyses tend to fall into three 

general, rough categories. First, the non-Marxist New Left maintains that Mills exaggerated the extent 

of the military’s clout. No doubt its power was greater than in the pre-1940 days, but it was still a 

secondary, not a primary, power group which was controlled or co-opted by the governmental and 

economic elites which still basically guided the destinies of the nation. G. William Domhoff, Who Rules 

America? (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1967) fairly well represents this approach. Second, the Marxists 

reject outright the idea that the military has in any meaningful way modified the calculus of power. It is 

controlled by the capitalist classes and serves their interests at home and abroad. Paul A. Baran and Paul 

M. Sweezy, Monopoly Capital: An Essay on the American Economic and Sociul Order (New York, 

1966), exemplify such an analysis. Third, some liberals tend to view the militaryof the World War11 and 

the postwar years as the new dominant element in society. Such is the case with Fred J. Cook, The 

Warfare State (New York, 1962). Others of a liberal persuasion adopt a more sophisticated stance by 

pointing out that the military has emerged as the most aggressive and, hence, potentially the most 

powerful, element in America’s bureaucratic state which has evolved over the course of the twentieth 

century and which is run by non-elected managers and experts. Seymour Melman, Pentagon Capitalism: The Political Economy of War (New York, 1970) presents the most elaborate rendition of this 

viewpoint. Of course, pluralists look upon even an expanded military as only one more interest group 

vying to shape national policies and, consequently, only complicating without significantly modifying 

their concept of what makes the system run. For a conservative and liberal example of pluralism, see 

respectively: Huntington, The Soldier and the State; and Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier: A 

Social and Political Portrait (Glencoe, Ill., 1960). 

Charles C. Moskos, Jr., “The Concept of the Military-Industrial Complex: Radical Critique or 

Liberal Bogey,” Social Problems, 21 (April 1977): 478-512, examines the various interpretative 

approaches involving the military and power in America, and discusses or cites most works of 

significance on the issue. His article, however, is quite confused and confusing. 

In an earlier publication-The Military-Industrial Complex, Chapter 1-1 argued that the military, 

despite World War I1 and Cold War developments, remained a subordinate rather than a dominant power 

group. I also pointed out, however, that by seriously eroding the cohesion and authority of the elite, the 

Vietnamese War had destabilized civil-military relations with uncertain consequences for the future. 

Sources involving power in general and its relationship to the military in particular are cited and 

discussed in Chapter 1 of my volume and other parts of the book. 

Most theories about the modem military in American society are based on the post-World War I1 

period. The war years should not be neglected. My discussion in the text about the Roosevelt 

Administration and the military could he recast in the following manner to make it more compatible 

with the various theories about power in America. Roosevelt passed up the opportunity during World 

War I1 to use the military as a rising, although still a secondary, power group to strengthen the more 

enlightened managerial elements of the business community with the result that the more hidebound 

classicalists dominated the economic mobilization effort, including the civilian-staffed parts of the 

armed services. Those developments insured that wartime planning would serve conservative and 

narrow, as opposed to liberal and broad, interests and precluded needed innovations like indicative 

planning in the post-war years. An ascendant military could never remain neutral; it would inevitably 

help to push the nation ideologically to the Left or the Right. While the armed services are traditional by 

nature, procurement and economic mobilization planning in the interwar years indicated a more 

flexible, even innovative side to the military which, under the right circumstances, would have favored 

business managerialists, not the classicalists. By acts of omission and commission, the Roosevelt 

Administration insured that the armed forces served conservative and restrictive purposes. 

Why the Roosevelt Administration proceeded as it did is problematical. Several explanations are 

possible. First, with war-induced prosperity, the President’s own conservative, First New Deal instincts 

were made manifest. Second, Roosevelt’s ideological position may have been actually closer to the 

enlightened business managerialists instead of the narrow classicalists, but the imperatives of war made 

it more expedient for him to side with the latter rather than the former. In other words, the President was 

avoiding confrontation in which the classicalists, much more than the managerialists. were likely to 

engage. Lastly, the President’s limited intellect and understanding prevented him from fully grasping 

the importance of power systems and what was required on his part to achieve desired goals. In terms of 

242 
available evidence, the first and the second, not the third, explanation seem to be the more valid with 

some combination of the first two interpretations providing the most insight into the President’s often 

enigmatic leadership. 

22. The most systematic analysis of the 1942 election which concludes that the Democratic losses 

stemmed principally from “home-front problems and grievances” is found in Jeffries, Testing the 

Roosevelt Coalition, pp. 93-141 (quotation, p. 139). The author contrasts his interpretation with that of 

Polenberg, Wur and Society, pp. 188-192 and Bums, Roosevelt, pp. 276-281. Actually, both of these 

scholars mention wartime resentment, lack of presidential leadership, and other factors, although the 

low turnout of Democratic voters as a result of wartime disruption is given prominence. Lingeman, 

Don’t You Know There‘sA War On?, pp. 346-347, goes along with the last two authors. Blum, V Was 

for Victory, pip. 320-334, maintains that low Democratic voter turnout explains the outcome of the 

election, a claim challenged by Jeffries, but emphasizes attitudes ranging from indifference to 

resentment over the conduct of the war at home and abroad that kept Democrats away from the polls. 

Perrett, Days ofSadness, Years of Triumph, pp. 247-254, touches all interpretative bases in analyzing 

the Democratic defeat in a way that can only leave the reader confused. 

23. Blum, V Was For Victory, p. 244, suggests this point in the following quotation (underlined 

passage is my emphasis): 

As Fortune had predicted, the Congress during 1943 and early 1944 interpreted the 

election returns of 1942 as a mandate against the New Deal. Roosevelt had read those 

results about the same way. . . . He had let [his liberal friends] down, though from his 

point of view with reason. He had not wanted to divert his energy and attention from the 

necessities of warmaking. He understood the restlessness of his constituents with social 

reform. He recognized the strength of his opposition on the Hill. In one sense, the “Dear 

Alben” [Barkley] episode proved that Roosevelt could not have put across liberal 

domestic measures in 1943 even if he had tried. In anorher sense, that episode was 

something ofa self-fu(filling prophecy. Because Roosevelr had not tried, he had built up 

no reservoir of liberal public and congressional support on which he could call when he 

needed to. 

The last two sentences appear to contradict the author’s necessitarian interpretation. 

24. Most authors who have written recently on the World War I1 home front at least touch on this 

theme. Blum, V Was For Victory, subtly picks up the trend in his Prologue, pp. 3-14, and then addresses 

it more directly throughout the volume. For some examples, see: pp. 104-105, 222-223, 230-234, 

247-248, 256-;!57, 323-324, and Chapters 5 and 6. See also: Bums, Roosevelt, pp. 280-281. As with 

the election of 1942, the more negative aspects of the public’s attitudes are examined most systematically and in depth in Jeffries, Testing the Roosevelt Coalition. Clive, State of War, adds further 

details on the subject. 

25. Bums Roosevelr, pp. 465-472, so characteristic of his brilliantly written volume which spills 

over with insights, touches upon the need for the nation’s leaders to assist the population through a very 

trying transition, but he does not develop this key idea. Both directly and indirectly, Jeffries, Testing the 

Roosevelr Coalition, pursues this subject throughout his detailed study of wartime Connecticut. 

26. Koistinen, “Mobilizing the World War I1 Economy,” pp. 471-478. 

27. The subject of this paragraph is examined in greater depth in endnote 20. 

Arthur Marwick 

1. Ross McKibbin, The Evolution of the LabourParty (1974); H. C. G. Mathew, R. I. McKibbin, J. 

A. Kay, “The Franchise Factor in the Rise of the Labour Party,” English Historical Review, 91 (1976): 

723-752. 

2. McKibtiin, Evolution ofthe Labour Party, p. 239. 

3. Paul Thompson, The Edwardians (1975). 

4. Martin Pugh, Electoral Reform in War and Peace, 1906-1918 (1978). 

243 
5. Gail Braybon, Women Workers in theFirst World War (1981). In general, Carol R. Berkin and 

6. W. J. Reader, Imperial Chemical Industries: A History (1970), I: 257. 

7. Volume 12 of Nouvelle Histoire de la France Contemporaine (1975) (editions du Seuil). 

8. Keith Burgess, The Challenge ofLabour (New York, 1980), see Chapter 5, “1914-1920: A New 

9. Gerd H. Hardach, TheFirsr World War (1973, English translation 1977); Marc Ferro, The Great 

10. Keith Middlemas, Politics in Industrial Society (1979). 

11. Gerald D. Feldman, Army Industry and Labor (1966); and Iron and Steel and the German 

Inflation 1916-1923(1977). Charles S. Maier, Recasting Bourgeois Europe: Stabilization in France, 

Germany, and Italy in the Decade after World War I (1975). 

12. Philip Abrams, “The Failure of Social Reform: 1918-1920,” Past and Present (April 1963): 

43-64. 

13. Henry Pelling, Britain and the Second World War (1970), pp. 298-299. 

14. R. C. 0. Mathews, “Why Has Britain Had Full Employment Since the War?’, Economic 

Journal 78 (1968): 555ff.; Pelling, Britain and the Second World War, pp. 299-301. 

15. William G. Runciman, Relative Deprivation and Social Justice (1966). 

16. See William E. Leuchtenberg’s fascinating article, “The New Deal and the Analogue of War” 

in Change and Continuity in Twentieth Century America, ed. John Braeman, Robert Bremnar and 

Everett Walters (1966). See also my article “Middle Opinion in the Thirties: Planning, Progress and 

Political ‘Agreement’,’’ English Historical Review, 79 (1964): 295ff. 

Clara M. Lovett, Women, War and Revolution (New York, 1980). 

Social Order?,” especially pp. 183.184. 

War (English translation 1973). 

17. J. M. Winter, Socialism and the Challenge of War (1974), p. 279. 

18. Parliamentary Papers, 1914-1916, Cmd 8005. 

19. See my The Deluge: British Society and the First World War (London, 1965), pp. 232-236. 

20. See my The Deluge, Chapter 3, “New Women: 19151916.’’ 

21. Press accounts of the “uppityness” of servant girls cannot, of course, be taken at face value. But 

a clear picture does emerge from such articles as “Maids and Mistresses Meet Together,” Daily 

Chronicle, March 8, 1919, and “Call of the Home Unheeded by Many Girls,”Bristol Evening News, 

February 19, 1919, and many, many others. I am indebted to Mr. Bernard Waites for these references. 

See also Ruth Adam, A Woman’s Place (1975), pp. 74-75. 

22. David H. Coke, “The Collapse of Resistance to Democracy: Conservatives, Adult Suffrage, 

and Second Chamber Reform, 1911-1928,” Historical Journal, 20 (1977): 898. 

23. Ibid., p. 904, note 49. 

24. Millicent Garrett Fawcett, January 1918: “The great searchlight of war showed things in their 

25. James Joll, Europe Since 1870 (1976). 

26. W. H. Dawson, ed, After War Problems (1917), p. 7. 

27. See M. Dubesset, F. Thebaud and C. Vincent, “Les Munitionettes de la Seine,” in 19/4-1918, 

L’autre Front (1977), ed. Patrick Fridenson, pp. 189-219. 

28. The Journals ofBrand Whitlock (New York, 1936), p. 287. I am indebted to Professor Geoffrey 

Best for this reference. 

29. Jose Harris, “Some Aspects of Social Policy in Britain During the Second World War” in 

Wolfgang Mommsen, ed., The Emergence of the Welfare State in Britain and Germany (1981), p. 249. 

30. See my Britain in the Century of Total War: War, Peace, andSocial Change: 1900-1967 (1970 

paperback edition), pp. 266-268. 

31. For a moving, and disturbing, testimony on the last point, see Marie Paneth, Branch Street 

(1944). 

32. Mass Observation: “Report on a Survey of the Activities of Official and Voluntary Bodies in 

the East End, During the Intensive Bombing, September 7th-27th, 1940 (MO file number 431); 

Economist, October 5, 1940. 

33. See especially, in the Imperial War Museum, the diary of William Penny (a London bus 

driver), the diary of Dr. J. P. McHutchison, the letters of the Reverend J. Mackay, the letters of John 

Hughes, the diaries of Ernest Kingsbury (a Sidcup policeman), and many other collections. The 

government also had reliable (secret) infomdtion drawn from censored letters, and other sources. See, 

true light, and they gave us enfranchisement with open hands.” 

244 
for example, “Home Opinion as Shown in the Mail to USA and Eire, Number 11: Britain and the 

Blitzkrieg,” CAB 66/12/W. P. (40) 407 (October4,1940); War Cabinet: Civil Defence Report Number 

22 for period 1st September 1940 to 29th September 1940, CAB 68/7/W. P. (R) (40) 196 (October 10, 

1940); and Air Raids on London, September to November 1940: Memorandum by Home Secretary and 

Minister of Home Security, CAB 67/91 (44) (May 5, 1941). 

34. E.g., Mass Observation: “Women at Work,” M.O. file number 1110, 1944, p 30: “Work after 

marriage is condemned by the majority of single and by the minority of married women.” 

35. “Attimdes Towards the Employment of Women, 1946:” appendix 2 Report on Pensionability of 

Unestablishea’ Civil Service, Parliamentary Papers, 1945-1946, XII, Cmd 6942. 

36. Mass Observation files 79 and 118; see also Public Opinion Polls, especially inDaily Mail and 

News Chronicle. 

37. 2nd report from “Mass Observations on Refugees,” M.O. file 174 (June 6, 1940). 

38. Mass Observation: “Report on Changes of Outlook During the War,” M.O. file number 2149 

(August 1944). 

39. Mass, Observation: “The Mood of Britain-I938 and 1944” by Tom Hamsson, M.O. file 

number 2067 (April 20, 1944). 

40. See A,. Marwick, Britain in the Century @Total War (1970 paperback edition), pp 306-315, and 

“People’s War and Top People’s Peace?’ in Crisis and Controversy: Essays in Honour ofA. J. P. Taylor 

(1976). 

41. Lord President’s Office: The Beveridge Report, CAB 123145. 

42. W. H. Haslam to J. Winder, March 5,1943; see also Haslam to Winder June 9,1942 (Haslam 

43. The “Robinson Charlie” films can be viewed in the National Film Archive, London. 

44. Miniiitry of Health, About Housing (1939), p. 16. 

45. “Ex-Public Elementary School” and “Non-Ex-Public Elementary School.” 

46. Sidney Pollard, The Wasting of the British Economy (1982). 

Collection, Imperial War Museum). 

Harvard Sitkoff 

I. Louis I;. Lomax, The Negro Revolt (New York, 1962); Richard M. Dalfiume, “The ‘Forgotten 

Years’ of the Negro Revolution,” Journal of American History, 55 (1968); Harvard Sitkoff, “Racial 

Militancy and Interracial Violence in the Second World War,” Journal ofAmerican History, 58 (1971), 

and “The Detroit Race Riot of 1943,” Michigan History, 53 (1969). 

2. John R. Brooks, Walls Come Tumbling Down: A History of the Civil Rights Movement, 

1940-1970(En~:lewood Cliffs, N.J., 1974); John Morton Blum, V Was For Victory: Politics and 

American Culture During World War I1 (New York, 1976); Richard Polenberg, War and Society: The 

United States, 1941-1945 (Philadelphia, 1970); Geoffrey Perrett, Days of Sadness, Years of Triumph: 

The AmericanPeople, 1939-1945 (New York, 1973); Neil A. Wynn, The Afro-American and thesecond 

World War (New York, 1975); A. Russell Buchanan, BlackAmericans in World Warll (Santa Barbara, 

Calif., 1977); Lee Finkle, Forum for Protest: The Black Press During World War I1 (Rutherford, N.J., 

1975; James A. Nuechterlein, “The Politics of Civil Rights: The FEPC, 1941-46,” Prologue, 10 (1978); 

and Peter J. KI:llogg, “Civil Rights Consciousness in the 1940s,” The Historian, 42 (1979). 

3. Office of War Information, “Survey of Intelligence Materials,” various dates, Record Group 

208, National Archives; Ulysses Lee, The Employment ofNegro Troops (Washington, D. C., 1966), p. 

348; Committee on Fair Employment Practice, Report from Special Service Division, “Negro Organizations and the War Effort,” April 28,1942, Record Group 228, National Archives; and Brooks, Walls 

Come Tumblinp Down, p. 36. 

4. Alfred McClung Lee, “Subversive Individuals of Minority Status,” Annals of the American 

Academy of hlitical and Social Science, 223 (1942) (hereafter cited as Annals); Selective Service 

System, “Selective Service in Peace Time: First Report of the Director of Selective Service,’’ and 

“Special Groups: Special Monograph No. 10,” Record Group 228, National Archives; Louis Martin, 

245 
“Fifth Column Among Negroes,” Opportunity, 20 (1942); A. Philip Randolph, “Pro-Japanese Activities Among Negroes,” The Black Worker, 11 (1942); and Chicago Defender, January 16, 1943. 

5. Bernard F. Robinson, “War and Race Conflicts in the United States,” Phylon, 4 (1943); 

Pittsburgh Courier, August 14, 1943; Lester B. Granger, “Victory Through Unity,” Opportunity, 21 

(1943); Polenberg, War and Society, p. 129; and Adam Clayton Powell, Riots and Ruins (1945). 

6. Granger, “Victory Through Unity”; Pittsburgh Courier, October 9, 1943; A. A. Liveright, 

“The Community and Race Relations,” Annals, 244 (1946); “Negroes Fight on Four Major Fronts,” 

Southern Frontier, 5 (1944); “Programs of Action on the Democratic Front,’’ Monthly Summary of 

Events and Trends in Race Relations, 2 (1944); and National Urban League, Racial Conjict-A 

Homefront Danger (New York, 1943). For a contrary view, see Blum, V Was For Victory, p. 215. 

7. Finkle, Forumfor Protest, especially p. 168; Blum, V Was For Victory, p. 208; Ralph N. Davis, 

“The Negro Newspapers and the War,” Sociology and Social Research, 27 (1943); and P. L. Prattis, 

“The Role of the Negro Press in Race Relations,” Phylon, 7 (1946). 

8. Polenberg, War and Society, p. 106; Virginicus Dabney, “The South Marches On,” Survey 

Graphic, 32 (1943); Charles Johnson, et al, To Stem This Tide: A Survey of Racial Tension Areas in the 

United Stares (1943), pp. 131-139; J. Saunders Redding, “Southern Defensive-I,” and Lillian Smith, 

“Southern Defensive-11,” Common Ground, 4 (1944). 

9. Herbert Garfinkel, When Negroes March: The March on Washington Movement in the 

Organizational Politics ofFEPC (New York, 1959). Garfinkel popularized the idea that World War I1 

constituted a watershed in black militancy. The sources cited in notes 1 and 2 above also argue on behalf 

of that now traditional view. Alan M. Osur, Blacks in the Army Air Forces During World War 11: The 

Problem ofRace Relations (Washington, D.C., 1977), also closely follows Dalfiume in stressing black 

mass pressure and protest. 

10. Harvard Sitkoff, A New Deal For Blacks, The Emergence ofcivil Rights as a National Issue: 

The Depression Decade (New York, 1978). 

11. NAACP Board of Director Minutes, April 13, September 14, 1942, Series A, Box 11, and Roy 

Wilkins to Walter White, July 7,1943,270:3, NAACP Papers, Library of Congress; Lester Granger to 

A. Philip Randolph, September I, 1942, Series I, Box 28, NUL Papers, Library of Congress; Brooks, 

Walls Come Tumbling Down, p. 34; New York Times, February 2,1944; and Louis C. Kesselman, The 

Social Politics ofFEPC: A Study in Reform Pressure Movements (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1948). 

12. August Meier and Elliott Rudwick, “The Origins of Nonviolent Direct Action in AfroAmerican Protest: A Note on Historical Discontinuities,” in Along the Color Line: Explorations in the 

Black Experiences (Urbana, Ill., 1976), pp. 387, 344-352. 

13. Ibid., pp. 379, 362, 314. 

Leila J. Rupp 

1. Quoted in the New York Times, March 8, 1943. 

2. See, for example, the essays in Carol R. Berkin and Clara M. Lovett, Women, War and 

Revolution (New York, 1980). 

3. Arthur Manvick, War and Social Change in the Twentieth Century: A Comparativ; Study of 

Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States (London, 1974), pp. 216-219. 

4. Maurine Weiner Greenwald, Women, War, and Work: The Impact of World War I on Women 

Workers in the United States (Westport, Conn., 1980). 

5. Raynes Minns, Bombers and Mash: The Domestic Front 1939-45 (London, 1980), pp. 31-33. 

For a similar study of British women in the First World War, see Gail Braybon, Women Workers in the 

First World War: The British Experience (London, 1981). 

6. K. Jean Cottam, “Soviet Women in Combat in World War 11: The Ground Forces and the Navy,” 

International Journal of WomenS Studies, 3 (1980): 345-357; Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, “Love on the 

Tractor: Women in the Russian Revolution and After,” in Renate Bridenthal and Claudia Koonz, eds., 

Becoming Visible: Women in European History (Boston, 1977), pp. 370-399. 

246 
7. Leila J. Rupp, Mobilizing Women for War: German and American Propaganda, 1939-1945 

(Princeton, 15178); Rupp, “Women, Class, and Mobilization in Nazi Germany,” Science andSociety, 43 

(1979): 51-69. 

8. Thomas R. H. Havens, “Women and War in Japan, 1937-1945,”American Historical Review, 

9. Karen ’hcker Anderson, “Last Hired, First Fired: Black Women Workers During World War 

11,” Journal of American History, 69 (1982): 82-91. 

10. Rupp, Mobilizing Women for War ; “The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter,” directed and 

produced by Connie Field. See Miriam Frank, Marilyn Ziebarth, Connie Field, The Life and Times of 

Rosie the Riveter (Emeryville, Calif., 1982). 

11. William Henry Chafe, The American Woman: Her Changing Social, Economic, and Political 

Role, 1920-1970 (New York, 1972). For an excellent discussion of the debate over the impact of the 

Second World War on American women, see Karen Anderson, Wartime Women: Sex Roles, Family 

Relations, and the Status of Women During World War I1 (Westport, Conn., 1981), pp. 3-11. 

12. See, for example, Paddy Quick, “Rosie the Riveter: Myths and Realities,” RadicalAmerica, 9 

(1975): 115-13 1; Eleanor E Straub, “Government Policy Toward Civilian Women During World War 11,” 

(Ph.D. diss., ]Emory University, 1973); Alan Clive, “Women Workers in World War 11: Michigan as a 

Test Case,” LaborHistory, 20 (1979): 44-72; Karen Beck Skold, “The Job He Left Behind: American 

Women in the Shipyards During World War 11,” in Berkin and Norton, Women, War andRevolution, pp. 

55-75; and Anderson, Wartime Women. For a similar analysis of the impact of the First World War, see 

Greenwald, Women, War and Work. 

13. Edwilrd R. Beauchamp, “The Social Role of Japanese Women: Continuity and Change,” 

International .Journal of Women’s Studies, 2 (1979): 244-256. 

14. Harry G. Shaffer, Women in the Two Germanies: A Comparative Study ofa Socialist anda NonSocialist Socivty (New York, 1981), pp. 55-56. 

15. Anderson, Wartime Women, pp. 169-171. 

16. Gisela Bock, “’Zum Wohle des Voolkskorpers . . . ‘: Abtreibung und Sterilisation in 

Nationalsozialismus,” Journal fdr Geschichte, 2 (1980): 58-65; Gisela Bock, “Frauen und ihre Arbeit 

irn Nationalsozialismus,” in Annette Kuhn and Gerhard Schneider, eds., Frauen in der Geschicizte 

(Diisseldorf, 1979), pp. 113-149. 

17. See Harry Wilde, Das Schicksal der Verfemten(Tubingen, 1969); and James D. Steakley, The 

Homosexual Emancipation Movement in Germany (New York, 1975). 

18. Havens, “Women and War,” pp. 927-930. 

19. Anderson, Wartime Women, pp. 103-111. 

20. Maddine Davis, Liz Kennedy, and Avra Michelson, “Aspects of the Buffalo Lesbian 

Community in the Fifties,” Buffalo Women’s Oral History Project, paper presented at the National 

Women’s Studies Association conference, Bloomington, Indiana, May 1980. 

80 (1975): 913-934. 

21. Anderson, Wartime Women, pp. 122-153. 

22. Minns, Bombers and Mash, p. 200. 

23. Philip E. Slater, “Social Change and the Democratic Family,” in Warren G. Bennis and Philip 

24. Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (New York, 1975), pp. 43-78. 

25. Quoted in ibid., p. 72. 

26. Quoted in Janet Bruin and Stephen Salaff, “Never Again: The Organization of Women Atomic 

27. Magda Menzerath, Kampffeld Heimat: Deutsche Frauenleistung im Kriege (Stuttgart, 1944), 

28. Mrs. William Brown Melony, “Foreword,” in American Women at War, By 7 Newspaper 

29. Hazel Erskine, “The Polls: Women’s Role,” Public Opinion Quarterly 35 (1971): 282-287. 

30. Rosenthal, “Love on the Tractor,” in Bridenthal and Koonz, Becoming Visible, pp. 390-392; 

and Gail Warshiofsky Lapidus, Women in Soviet Society: Equality, Development, and Social Change 

(Berkeley, 1978), pp. 115-119. 

E. Slater, eds., The Temporary Society (New York, 1968), pp. 20-52. 

Bomb Victims in Osaka,” Feminist Studies, 7 (1981): 5-18. 

p. 49. 

Women (New York, 1942), p. 6. 

31. Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York, 1963). 

32. Ingrid Schmidt-Harzbach, “Die Luge von der Stunde Null,” Courage, 7 (June 1982): 32-40. 

247 
33. Quoted in ibid., p. 34. 

34. Sheila Tobias and Shelah Leader, “An Intelligent Woman’s Guide to the Military Mind: What 

35. Susan J. Pharr, Political Women in Japan: The Search for a Place in Political Life (Berkeley, 

36. Shaffer, Women in the Two Germanies, pp. 12-13. 

Kinds of Guns Are They Buying with Your Butter?’Ms. (July-August 1982): 119ff. 

1981). 

John E. Talbott 

1. Le Monde, March 14, 1954. 

2. Ibid. 

3. Antoine Argoud, La Dtcadence, l’imposture et la tragidie (Paris, 1974); Raoul Salan, 

Mimoires: Fin dun empire, Vol IV, L’AlgCrie, de Gaulle er moi (Paris, 1974); Alain de SCrigny, Echos 

dAlger, Vol 11, L’Abandon, 1946-1962 (Paris, 1974); Charles-Robert Ageron, Histoire de l’dlgerie 

conremporuine, 4th ed (Paris, 1970), pp. 115-116. 

4. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Peter Paret and Michael Howard, eds. and trans. (Princeton, 

1976), p. 579. 

5. Bernard Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege @Dim Bien Phu (Philadelphia, 1967). 

6. C. A. de Cherriere, “Les Dkbuts de l’insurrection algtrienne,”Revue de difense nationale, 12 

(1956): 1457. 

7. William B. Quandt, Revolution and Political Leadership: Algeria, 1954-1968 (Cambridge, 

Mass., 1969), p. 94; ]Michael K. Clark, Algeria in Turmoi1:AHistor-y afthe Rebellion (New York, 1959), 

p. 109; Laurent Their, and Philippe Ratte, La Guerre d’ AlgCrie ou le temps des mtprises (Paris, 1974), p. 

69. 

8. The best book on all this is Jean-Jacques Carrt, Paul Dubois and Edmond Malinvaud, La 

Croissance francaise (Paris, 1972). 

9. Jean Gardt and Claude Roque, Service militairepourquoi? (Pans, 1960), pp. 47-48; L’Express, 

September 17, 1955: “Une Jeunesse en guerre,”Esprit, 26 (May 1958), pp. 791-797; Pierre Belleville, 

“La Guerre et la ‘gzuche’ ,” Perspectives socialistes, 39-40 (August-September 1960), p. 57. 

10. Jean Planchais and Jacques Nobecourt, Histoirepolitique de l’armte, Vol 11, De de Gaulle d de 

Gaulle, 1940-1967 pari is, 1967), p. 299. 

11. Alf Andrew Heggoy, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Algeria (Bloomington, Ind., 

12. Philippe Tripier, Autopsie de la guerre dA1gtrie (Paris, 1972), p. 73. 

13. Marcel Fkvre, Petite suite algtrienne de guerre et chirurgie (Paris, 1957), pp. 32, 34. 

14. Heggoy, Insurgency, pp. 107-129. 

15. William G. Andrews, French Politics and Algeria (New York, 1962), passim. 

16. Philip M. \Yilliams, Crisis and Compromise: Politics in the Fourth Republic (London, 1964), 

p. 56. 

17. John Talbott, The War Without a Name: France in Algeria, 1954-1962 (New York, 1980), pp. 

90-114. 

18. An example of this literature is Louis Terrenoire, De Gaulle el l’AlgCrie; timoignage pour 

l’histoire (Paris, 1964). 

19. Alistair Home, A Savage War @Peace: Algeria, 1954-1962 (New York, 1978), pp. 330-338; 

Tripier, Autopsie, pp. 314-343. 

20. Maurice Chalk, Notre Rtvolte (Paris, 1968), pp. 91-114; Yves Courrikre, La Guerre d‘dlgirie, 

Vol 111, L’Heure d,es colonels (Paris, 1970), pp. 472-475. 

21. Philip M. Williams, “Death of the Fourth Republic: Murder or Suicide?” in Wars, Plots and 

Scandals in Posfwcrr France (Cambridge, 1970), pp. 144-145. 

22. Merry and Serge Bromberger, Georgette Elgey, and Jean-FranGois Chauvel, Barricades et 

colonels, 24 janvier 1960 (Pans, 1960) remains the most detailed account of the Week of the Barricades. 

1972), pp. 189-190. 

248 
23. Talbott, War Without a Name, pp. 182-215; Jacques Fauvet and Jean Planchais, La Fronde des 

24. Paul Henissart, Wolves in the City: The Death ofFrench Algeria (New York, 1971) is a good 

25. “Les Dtbuts de la V‘ Rtpublique: L’Opinion en ftvrier 1959,” Sondages, 2 (1959): 10; “La Vie 

26. A table reviewing samplings of opinion between July 1957 and December 1959 is printed in 

27. Charles de Gaulle, Discours etmessages, Vol II1,Avec le renouveau, 1958-1962. (Paris, 1970), 

28. John Talbott, “French Public Opinion and the Algerian War: A Research Note,” French 

g6nt!raux (Paris, 1961). 

book on the OAS. 

politique de septembre 1960 a mai 1961,” Sondages, 1 (1961): 12-18. 

Sondages, 3 (1960): 45. 

passim. 

Historical Studies, 9 (Fall 1975): 361. 

David MacIsaac 

1. George C. Herring, “The Vietnam Syndrome and American Foreign Policy,” Virginia Quar2. Stanley Hoffman, et al, “Vietnam Reappraised,” International Security, (Summer 1981): 4-5. 

3. Davicl S. Rilling, “Lessons Yet Unlearned,” Armed Forces Journal International, 118 (July 

terly Review, 57 (Autumn 1981): 605. 

1981): 68-69. 

Edward L. Coffman 

1. Louis Morton, “Commentary,” in William Geffen, ed, Command and Commanders in Modern 

Warfare: Proceedings of the Second Military History Symposium (U.S. Air Force Academy, Colo., 

1969), p. 32. 

2. Although several sessions in other symposia stretch the narrow definition of military history, 

Science, Technology, and Warfare (1969), The Military and Society (1972), and The American Military 

and the Far East (1980) stand out in that regard. 

3. Carl vim Clausewitz, On War ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J., 

1976), p. 76. See also Chapter Three of Book Eight, 582ff. 

4. The first quotation is from Stefan T. Possony and Etienne Mantoux, “DuPicq and Foch: The 

French School,” in Edward M. Earle, ed, Makers of Modern Strategy (Princeton, 1941), p. 210. The 

second is from Clausewitz, On War, p. 86. The third is from Elting E. Morison, Men, Machines, and 

Modern Times (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), p. 76. 

5. “Proceedings of the Conference on Military History,” in Annual Report of the American 

Historical Association for the Year I912 (Washington D.C., 1914), pp. 159-197. 

249 
PARTICIPANTS 


JOHN M. BLUM. Professor Blum received his 

Ph.D. from Harvard in 1950 and is Sterling Professor of History at Yale. He has held three of the 

highest appointments in American history at British universities: Pitt Prdessor at Cambridge, 

Commonwealth Lecturer at University College, 

London, and Harmsworth Professor at Oxford. 

Author and editor of numerous books, his works 

include The Progressive Presidents: Roosevelt, 

Wilson, Roosevelt, Johnson; From the Morgenthau Diaries; The Price of Vision: The Diary 

ofHenry Wallace; V Was for Victory: Politics and 

American Culture During World War 11: and The 

Letters of Theodore Roosevelt. 

PETER BRAESTRUP. Mr. Braestrup is the editor of the Wilson Quarterly. He began his professional career as a local news correspondent for the 

New Haven Register. Graduating from Yale in 

1951, he served as a Marine officer in Korea. 

Following his military service, he held positions 

as a staff writer for Time, an investigative reporter 

for the New York Herald Tribune, and as Saigon 

bureau chief for the Washington Post. He is the 

author of the award winning two-volume work 

Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Tet Crisis of 

1968 in Vietnam and Washington. 

253 
EDWARD M. COFFMAN. Professor Coffman 

graduated from the University of Kentucky in 

1951 and served as an infantry officer in Japan and 

Korea in 1952-1953. Following his military service, he returned to Kentucky and took his Ph.D. 

there in 1959. A Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin- Madison, he was the Distinguished Visiting Professor of History at the 

United States Air Force Academy during academic year 1982-83. His major publications include 

The Hilt of the Sword: The Career of Peyton C. 

March and The War to End All Wars: The American Military Experience in World War I. He is 

currently writing a social history of the peacetime 

American army. 

ROBERT D. CUFF. Professor Cuff received his 

Ph.D. from Princeton in 1966. He has taught at 

Princeton University, the University of Rochester, and York University in Downsview, Ontario, 

where he is currently Professor of History. His 

publications include The War Industries Board: 

Business-Government Relations During World 

War 1 and American DollarslCanadian Prosperity: Canadian-American Economic Relations, 

1945-1950. 

254' 
DAVID H. CULBERT. Professor Culbert received his Ph.D. in 1970 from Northwestern University and has taught at Yale and Louisiana State 

University where he is currently Associate Professor of History. His numerous awards include a 

fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson International 

Center for Scholars, Smithsonian Institution. Dr. 

Culbert's works include Newsfor Everyman: Radio and Foreign Affairs in Thirties America: Mission to Moscow: Film and Propaganda in America: A Documentary History: and a 90 minute 

film documentary entitled Television's Vietnam. 

WILHELM DEIST. Dr. Deist is a member of the 

Military History Research Office in Freiburg, 

Federal Republic of Germany. He studied at the 

University of 'Ebingen and received his Ph.D. 

from the University of Freiburg. He is co-editor 

of Militar-Geschichtliche Miteilungen and the 

War and Society Newsletter. His works include 

Militar und Innenpolitik im Weltkreig and The 

Wehrmacht and German Rearmament. 
DAVID M. KENNEDY. Professor Kennedy received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1968 

and is presently serving as Professor of History 

and Associate Dean, School of Humanities and 

Sciences at Stanford University. He has been a 

Guggenheim Fellow and Pulitzer Prize runner-up 

for his Over Here: The First World War and 

American Society. His other works include Birth 

Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger; Social Thought in America and Europe; 

Readings in Comparative Intellectual History 

(co-editor); The American People in the Age of 

Kennedy (editor); The American People in the 

Depression (editor); and The American Pageant 

(co-author). 

RICHARD H. KOHN. Dr. Kohn received his 

Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1968 

and has taught at Wisconsin, The City College of 

New York, and Rutgers University. Since 1981 

Dr. Kohn has served as Chief of the Office of Air 

Force History, Washington, D. C. Widely known 

for his studies in civil-military relations, Dr. 

Kohn is the author Eagle and Sword: The 

Federalists and the Creation of the Military Establishment in America, 1783-1802. His writings 

on military history and military affairs have also 

appeared in such leading journals as the American 

Historical Review, the Journal ofAmerican History, and the William and Mary Quarterly. 

256 
PAUL A. C. KOISTINEN. Professor Koistinen 

received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1964 and is presently Professor 

of History at California State University, Northridge. He has been the recipient of research fellowships from the American Council of Learned 

Societies and Harvard’s Charles Warren Center 

for Studies in American History. His works include The Hammer and the Sword: Labor, the 

Military, and Industrial Mobilization, 1920-1945 

and The Military-Industrial Complex: A Historical Perspective. 

DAVID MacISAAC. Dr. MacIsaac is currently 

serving as a Research Associate at the Air War 

College, Maxwell AFB, Alabama. A retired Air 

Force lieutenant colonel, Dr. MacIsaac received 

his Ph.D. from Duke University and has taught at 

the U. S. Air Force Academy, the Naval War College, and the Air War College. He was a Fellow of 

the Woodrow Wilson International Center for 

Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution in 

1978-1979. The author of Strategic Bombing in 

World War Two: The Story of the United States 

Strategic Bombing Survey, he also edited the 

companion ten-volume work, The United States 

Strategic Bombing Survey. Dr. Maclsaac’s writings on military affairs have appeared in the 

Naval War College Review, the Air University 

Review8 and Air Force Magazine. 

257 
ARTHUR MARWICK. Professor Manvick was 

named first Professor of History at the United 

Kingdom’s Open University when it opened in 

1969. He has been Dean of Arts at the Open 

University since 1978. He studied at Balliol College, Oxford University, and received the Doctor 

of Letters degree from Edinburgh University. His 

publications include The Explosion ofBritish Society, 1914-1962; The Deluge: British Society and 

the First World War; Britain in the Century of 

Total War: War, Peace and Social Change, 

1900-1967; The Nature of History; The Home 

Front: The British and the Second World War; 

and War and Social Change in the Twentieth Century: A Comparative Study of Britain, France, 

Germany, Russia and the United States. 

ALLAN R. MILLETT. Professor Millett received his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University 

in 1966. He is Professor of History and Mershon 

Professor and Director, Program in International 

Security and Military Affairs at Ohio State. A 

colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve, Dr. Millett 

has published The Politics of Intervention: The 

Military Occupation of Cuba 1906-1909; The 

General: Robert T. Bullard and OfJicership in the 

United States Army, 1881-1925; A ShortHistory of 

the Vietnam War; and Semper Fidelis: The History of the US. Marine Corps. 

258 
RICHARD POLENBERG. Professor Polenberg 

received his Ph.D. in 1964 from Columbia University and is Professor of History at Cornell 

University. His numerous works include Reorganizing Roosevelt's Government, 1936-1939; 

America at War: The Home Front, 1941-1945; 

War and Society: The United States, 1941-1945; 

The American Century (co- author); and One Nation Divisible: Class, Race, and Ethnicity in the 

United States Since 1938. 

GUNTHER E. ROTHENBERG. Professor Rothenberg received his Ph.D. in 1958 from the 

University of Illinois and has taught at Illinois 

State, Southern Illinois, and the University of 

New Mexico. He is presently Professor of History 

at Purdue University. A Guggenheim Fellow in 

1962-1963, his numerous works include The Austrian Military Border in Croatia, 1522-1747; The 

Army ofFrancis Joseph; The Art of Warfare in the 

Age of Napoleon; The Anatomy 4 the Israeli 

Army; and The Mi[itary Border in Croaria, 

1740-1881. 

259 
LEILA J. RUPP. Professor Rupp received her 

Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr College in 1976, taught 

for a year at the University of Pennsylvania, and 

has been teaching history and women’s studies 

since 1977 at The Ohio State University where 

she is Associate Professor of History. Under a 

two-year research grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, she is currently 

engaged in collaborative research with Verda Taylor on the American women’s movement in the 

post-Second World War period. Her works include Mobilizing Women for War: German and 

American Propaganda, 1939-1945 and, in conjunction with Barbara Miller Lane, Nazi Ideology 

Before 1933: A Documentation. 

DENNIS E. SHOWALTER. Professor Showalter 

received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1969 and is Associate Professor of History at The Colorado College. He is currently a 

Trustee of the American Military Institute and 

serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of Military Affairs. His books include Railroads and 

RiJes: Soldiers, Technology and the Unijication 

of Germany; German Military History Since 

1648: A Critical Bibliography; and Little Man, 

What Now? Der Sturmer in the Weimar Republic. 

260 
HARVARD SITKOFF. Professor Sitkoff received 

his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1975. He 

has taught at Queens College and Washington 

University and is presently serving as Associate 

Professor of History at the University of New 

Hampshire. His major publications include Fifty 

Years Later: The New Deal Evaluated; A History 

ofour Time: Readings on Postwar America; The 

Struggle for Black Equality, 1954-1980; and a 

projected three-volume work entitled A New Deal 

for Blacks: The Emergence of Civil Rights As A 

National Issue. The Depression Decade, the first 

volume in that series, was published in 1978. 

JOHN E. TALBOTT. Professor Talbott received 

his Ph.D. from Stanford in 1966 and is Professor 

of History at the University of California, Santa 

Barbara. He has been a National Endowment for 

the Humanities Fellow and was a member of the 

Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton in 

1975-1976. Professor Talbott was a visiting professor at Stanford in 1980-1981 and a visiting 

Professor of Strategy at the Naval War College in 

1981-1982. His works include The Politics ofEducational Reform in France and The War Without A 

Name: France in Algeria, 1954-1967. 

261 
DAVID F. TRASK. Dr. Trask is Chief Historian 

at the United States Army Center of Military 

History, Washington, D. C. He received his 

Ph.D. from Harvard in 1958 and has taught at 

Boston University, Wesleyan, the University of 

Nebraska, and the State University of New York 

at Stony Brook. Before assuming his present 

position in 1981, he was Director of the Office of 

the Historian, U.S. Department of State. His major works include The United States and the Supreme War Council: American War Aims and 

Inter-Allied Strategy, 1917-1918; Captains and 

Cabinets: Anglo-American Naval Relations, 

1917-1918; and The War With Spain in 1898. Dr. 

Trask also edited World War 1 at Home: Readings 

on American Life, 1914-1920. 

RUSSELL F. WEIGLEY. Professor Weigley received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1956. He is Professor of History at Temple University and has taught at the University of 

Pennsylvania, Drexel Institute of Technology, 

Dartmouth College, and the Army War College. 

He has been a Guggenheim Fellow and also has 

served as President of the American Military Institute. His many works include Quartermaster 

General ofthe UnionArmy:A Biography ofM. C. 

Meigs; Towards An American Army: Military 

Thoughtfrom Washington to Marshall; History of 

the United States Army; The American Way of 

War: A History of United States Military Strategies and Policy; and Eisenhower’s Lieutenants: 

The Campaigns of France and Germany, 

1944-1945. 

262 
ALLAN M. WINKLER. Professor Winkler received his Ph.D. from Yale in 1974 and is Associate Professor of History at the University of 

Oregon. He has been a Bicentennial Professor of 

American Studies at Helsinki University, Finland, and a Mellon Fellow at the Aspen Institute 

for Humanistic Studies. Professor Winkler’s major works include The Politics of Propaganda: 

The OfJice of War Information, 1942-1945. He is 

currently completing a new book on the history of 

the United States since World War 11. 

263 

INDEX 

A Shau Valley: 208 

Abrams, Philip: 133, 134 

Abrahamson, Col. James: 77 

Addison, Paul: 140 

Addison Housing Act: 134 

Adriatic: 47 

Advisory War Council: 103 

Afghanistan: 30 

Afro-American and the Second World 

Agincourt: 33 

Agram: 65 

Air Force, German: 86 

Air Force Academy: 81 

Air warfare 

War, The: 131 

and rearmament: 88-89 

Department of History: 202, 20211 

bombing: 75, 140-141, 158, 163, 

164, 198, 199, 206 

and military planning: 21, 76 

and popular thinking: 75, 76 

Air University Review: 207 

Albania: 66 

Algeria 

“is France”: 187, 192 

French settlers in: 187, 191, 192, 

peace negotiations: 191, 193, 194 

representation in Parliament: 191, 

war for independence: 185, 187, 

194, 195 

203 

188, 189, 190, 191, 191-192, 

192-193, 195, 202, 204, 219 

Algerian lobby: 191 

Algiers, Battle of 191-192 

Alcibiades: 203 

All Saints Day rising: 187, 191 

Allied Maritime Transport Council: 

Allport, Gordon: 10 

Alsace-Lorraine: 27, 41 

Aluminum: 93. 97 

50 

quoted: 7 

America Arms for a New Century: 77 

America at War: 170 

American Council on Race Relations: 

American Expeditionary Force: 50. 

American Federation of Labor (AF of 

American Historical Association: 221 

American Revolution: 127, 204 

American Revolution Considered as a 

Social and Economic Movement, 

The: 127 

150 

See also Army, U.S. 

L): 74, 172 

American Society in Wartime: 172 

American Soldier, The: 179 

Americanism, 100 percent: 52 

Anderson, Karen: 160, 174 

Andreski, Stanislav: 132 

Anglo-German rivalries: 24, 37-38, 

Anti-war sentiment: 19-20, 20, 21, 

39, 41, 42 

22, 167-168, 190, 198, 199, 200, 

203 

Armed Forces, British 

professionalism in: 29 

war plans: 29 

strategy and tactics in Algeria: 188, 

Armed Forces, French 

190, 191-192, 192-193, 195 

Armed Forces, German 

High Command: 57, 86 

and para-military organizations: 

and political support: 84, 85-86 

professionalism in: 29 

and public opinion and support: 

71, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88 

and rearmament: 84-85, 88-90 

War Economic Staff: 83, 88 

during Weimar Republic: 84-85 

World War I and civilian authority: 

59 

World War I1 

84, 8.5 

shortages: 83 

use of rape: 163-164 

Armed Forces, Japanese: 163-164 

265 

Attu: 7 

Ausgleich, 1867: 58, 59, 62, 63, 64 

Austria: 37, 41, 57, 58, 59 

Charles I renunciation of authority 

over: 66 

civilian morale: 61 

and federalism: 65 

food production: 62 

and Germany (1938): 86 

Reichsrat: 57, 59, 62, 64 

See also Austria-Hungary 

Army. See Army, Austro-- 

civilian morale: 57, 61 

disintegration of: 65-66, 69 

dissenters in: 60 

dualism in: 57-58 

endurance of 66 

federalism in: 64 

industrial production: 58, 60 

joint budget of 57, 58 

joint ministries of 57 

martial law in: 60 

military conscription: 58, 59 

nationalism in: 57, 58, 59, 60-61, 

parliaments of: 57, 58, 59 

peace negotiations: 62, 63, 65 

revolution in: 57, 59 

Socialists in: 61, 63 

society: 68-69, 221 

strikes in: 58, 59, 63 

war emergency powers: 59, 60 

World War 1 and empire cohesion: 

See also Dual Monarchy; 

Austria-Hungary: 24, 48 

Hungarian 

62, 63-65 

59, 61, 63, 65-66, 68-69, 217 

Habsburg Empire 

Austro-Hungarian food commission: 

Auxiliary Fire Service: 141 

62 

B-52s: 206 

Badeni, Count Kasimir, quoted: 58 

Baker, Newton D.: 73 

quoted: 52 

Baruch, Bernard M.: 49, 51, 71, 97, 

See also War Industries Board 

115, 115-116 

Bastogne: 177 

Batt, William: 120, 120n 

Battle ofDorking, The: 27 

Beirut: 207-208, 209 

Belgium: 139 

Bede, Adolf 174 

Berlin: 60, 63, 83, 167 

Berlin, Isaiah: 7, 10, 11-12 

quoted: 6, 6-7, 10, 11 

Bernard, Philippe: 130 

Bernstein, Barton: 112 

Bethmann Hollweg, Theobald von: 

25, 31, 33, 35 

Beveridge Report: 143-144, 145, 171 

Bezukhov, Pierre: 24 

Big Story: 204 

Big Ten: 5 

Birmingham, Ala.: 152 

Birth rate and population control: 

161, 162, 163, 166, 219 

Bismarck, Otto von: 27, 28, 33, 42 

Black press: 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 

refugees from in Britain: 142 

153 

See also News media 

gains from war: 154-155, 170, 174, 

and the military: 178 

Philippine Insurrection: 176 

Vietnam War: 132 

World War 1: 127, 176-177 

World War 11: 11-12, 177, 178 

Blacks 

178 

and trade unions: 11, 172 

World War I1 

isolationist and pro-Axis attitudes: 147, 148-149 

militancy: 10-11, 147-150, 151, 

218 

race relations: 10-11, 14, 147, 

and racial reforms: 154-155, 170, 

148-149, 150-151, 172, 174 

176. 218 

267 

Central Powers: 57, 60, 61, 63, 64, 

Chafe, William: 159, I65 

Challe, Gen. Maurice 

65 

and the 1959 offensive: 193 

and the 1961 “Putsch”: 194 

Challe Plan: 193 

Chamber of Commerce: 120 

Chan, Charlie: 8 

Charles I, of Austria-Hungary: 61-62, 

Chesney, Sir George: 27 

Chester, D.N.: 143 

Chicago: 153 

Chicago Defender: 149, 151 

Chicago, University of, Sociology 

Chicanos: 10 

China: 14, 43, 164, 206, 207, 210 

China-Burma-India Theater: 7 

Chinese: 8 

Churchill, Winston: 5 

Civil Rights League: 152 

Civil Rights Movement 

62-63, 64, 66 

Dept.: 172 

Tactics: 11, 148, 152, 153-154 

World War 11 

civil disobedience: 153 

moderation and delay: 11, 148, 

149, 150, 150-152, 171, 175, 

176, 218 

See also Blacks 

and racial reforms: 11, 154-155 

Civil War, U.S.: 27, 109 

Civilian morale and durability: 8, 19, 

20, 21, 24, 57, 61, 133-134, 

141-142, 143, 144, 179-180 

See also Public opinion and support 

Clarke, I.F.: 76 

Class structure: 1, 5, 11-14, 26, 27, 

30, 32, 35, 39, 40, 91, 94, 134, 

138, 143, 144, 145, 158, 171, 

174, 218 

217, 219, 220 

Clausewitz, Carl von: 27, 187, 188, 

Cleveland: 152 

Coal: 13 

Coffman, Edward M.: 1, 215 

summary paper: 216-222 

Cognitive dissonance: 25-26, 45, 

Cole, G.D.H.: 135 

Cole, Ron, discussion and comments: 

73, 73-74, 74 

Collective security: 20 

Colons. See Algeria, French settlers 

Colse, David H.: 137 

Combined Chiefs of Staff: 105, 106 

Combined Production and Resources 

Board: 105, 106 

Combined Raw Materials Board: 105 

Commerce Department: 50 

Committee on Public Information 

Common enemy: 1, 5, 6, 7-8, 14 

Communism and communists: 12, 14, 

Comparative Approach to American 

Compromise of 1907: 64 

Concentration camps: 14, 163 

See also Internment 

Confiscation of property: 127 

Congress, U.S.: 12, 13, 48, 98, 198, 

and economic mobilization: 50, 

67-68, 73, 216-217 

in 

(CPI): 51, 52-53, 55, 70 

39, 74, 149, 153 

History: 69 

203 

96, 100-101, 104, 106, 108, 

113 

House: 100, 203 

Senate: 96, 100 

Congress of Industrial Organizations 

Congress of Vienna: 42 

Congress on Racial Equality 

(CORE): 11, 148, 151, 153, 154 

Conrad von Hotzendorf, Gen. Franz: 

59, 60, 62 

(CIO): 13-14, 153, 172, 174 

quoted: 58 

Conscription, labor: 158-159 

269 

Education: 128, 134, 145, 147, 153 

Edwardians, The: 130 

Emergency Hospital Scheme: 141 

Employment and social change: 132 

Ethiopian Pacific Movement: 149 

Ethnic rivalries. See Prejudice 

Eugenics policies: 161, 162, 219 

Europe Since 1870: 138 

Executive Office of the President: 116 

FLN. See Front de libe'ration naFacts and Figures, Office of: 6 

Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC): 11, 153 

Falkenhayn, Erich von: 36 

Falkland Islands War: 207 

Far East: 38, 43 

Fatalism: 30, 34-35 

Fawcett, Millicent Garrett: 138 

Federal Republic of Germany: 160, 

tionale 

168 

See also Germany 

Feldman, Gerald D.: 130-131 

Feminine Mystique, The: 142 

Ferro, Marc: 130 

Fifth Republic. See de Gaulle, Gen. 

Fin dun Monde 1914-1929, La: 130 

Finance: 2 

Charles; France 

and German rearmament: 84, 

and U.S. economic mobilization: 

94, 95, 98, 99, 103, 113 

88-89, 89-90 

Finkle, Lee: 148, 149 

Fischer, Fritz: 31, 36 

Fisher, Adm. Sir John: 29 

Fisher Education Act: 134 

Flanders: 47 

Flavinius, Marcus: 185 

on limited war: 186 

Food Administration: 49, 50, 51, 53 

See also Hoover, Herbert 

Food shortages and rationing: 12, 

Forrestal, James V.: 95, 104, 105 

50-51, 53, 61, 62-63, 71, 72, 99 

See also Navy Department 

Forster, E.M.: 220, 221 

Fortune: 12 

Four Freedoms: 7 

Fourteen Points: 63, 65 

Fourth Republic. See France 

France: 34, 36, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 

44, 45, 69, 87, 146 

Algerian policy: 187, 187-188, 189, 

191-192, 193, 194-195, 203, 

219 

Algerian representation in Parliament: 191, 203 

Alsace-Lorraine: 27 

August decisions: 190 

censorship: 209 

Fifth Republic 

and Algeria: 192-195 

and the armed forces: 193-194 

and Algeria: 187-192, 193, 195 

and the armed forces: 191-192 

Fourth Republic 

franchise expansion: 139 

Germanophobia in: 41-42 

Indochina experience 

and Algeria: 188-189, 189-190 

and the U.S. in Vietnam: 203 

labor movement: 139 

military as a cohesive force: 178 

National Assembly: 187, 189 

public opinion and support: 188, 

Revolution: 26, 127 

World War I 

191-192, 193, 194, 195, 221 

and break-up of Austria-Hungary: 64-65 

and peace efforts: 62 

and society: 127, 130, 139 

and women: 139 

and society: 14, 145 

and women: 163 

Army, French 

139, 145, 146 

World War I1 

See also Armed Forces, French; 

Franchise, expansion of: 137-138, 

27 I 

Great War in Modern Memory, The: 

139 

Greenland: 7 

Greensboro, N.C.: 152 

Greenwald, Maurine: 157 

Grey, Sir Edward: 25, 39 

Guantanamo Bay, naval base: 185 

Guerre future, La: 34 

Guerrilla warfare: 128, 189, 190, 191, 

192, 193 

Guilmartin, Lt.Col. Joe, discussion 

and comments: 207 

Guilt by association in law: 9 

Gurkhas: 211 

Habsburg Empire: 37, 58, 60, 62 

break-up of: 61, 63, 65 

and public support: 60-61 

See also Austria-Hungary; Dual 

Monarchy 

Haldane reforms: 43, 45 

Hallion, Dick, discussion and comHanle, Paul: 75 

Hanoi: 197, 199, 200 

Hardach, Gerd H.: 130 

Harding, Warren G., on WWI war 

resolution: 48 

Harlem: 10, 150 

Harlem Renaissance: 147 

Harmon Memorial Lecture, 25th: 1, 

Harrier: 76 

Harris, Josie: 140 

Harrison, Tom: 143 

Harrison and Bachelor, British cartoonists: 144 

Harvard University: 5 

Haslam, W.H., quoted: 143-144 

Hawaii: 10 

Henderson, Arthur: 136 

Henderson, Leon: 94, 95, 106 

ments: 74-75, 179 

5-15 

See also Office of Price AdminHerring, George, on Vietnam: 204 

Henry V, of England: 33 

istration 

Higham, Robin, discussion and comHillman, Sidney: 13-14, 94 

Organizations 

ments: 75, 179-180, 208 

See also Congress of Industrial 

Himmler, Reichsfuhrer Heinrich: 87 

Hirabeyashi: 10 

Hiroshima: 163 

Historian, The: 148 

Historians: 

as reflectors of society: 171-172 

and war and social change: 172-175 

History, military, See Military history 

Hitler, Adolf: 6, 14, 31, 83, 85, 142, 

158 

and propaganda: 85-88 

and rearmament: 85-86, 88-90 

quoted: 85, 86, 87, 90 

Hitler-Stalin pact: 149, 150 

Ho Chi Minh: 24 

Ho Chi Minh Trail: 206 

Hofstadter, Richard: 54 

Hohenzollern Empire: 57 

See also Germany 

Holder, van, Belgian artist: 139 

Hollywood: 205 

“Hollywood Goes To War”: 220 

Holocaust: 156 

Holstein, Friedrich von: 31 

Home Rule, Ireland: 39 

Hoover, Herbert: 49, 119 

on legal coercion: 50-51 

See also Food Administration 

Hopkins, Harry: 95, 106 

Hossbach Conference: 31 

Hotzendorf, Baron von. See Conrad 

House Select Committee Investigatvon Hotzendorf, Gen. Franz 

ing National Defense Migration. 

See Tolan Committee 

Housing: 10, 12, 134, 144 

Housing Act of 1946: 144 

Housing Act of 1949: 144 

Houston, Sam: 202 

Howard, Anthony: 140 

Howard University: 154 

27 3 
Hue: 197 

Hungary: 57, 58, 59 

acceptance of the Fourteen Points: 

and Charles I: 61, 64 

civilian morale: 61 

federalism: 65 

food production: 62 

WW I government: 59, 60, 64 

independence: 63, 64 

parliament: 57, 59, 62, 64 

See also Austria-Hungary; 

65 

Magyars 

Hurley, Brig. Gen. Alfred F.: 202n 

Hurley, Edward N.: 50 

IMP. See Industrial Mobilization Plan 

IWW. See International Workers of 

Ickes, Harold: 13 

Imperial Chemical Industries: 130 

Imperialism: 27 

India: 44 

Indochina War: 191, 203, 204 

the World 

and Algeria: 188-189, 189-190 

and Korea: 207 

and Vietnam: 203, 207 

Industrial Mobilization Plan (IMP): 

103, 104, 107, 114, 116 

Industrial production, WW I1 belligerents: 102, 236-237n-11 

Industrial revolution: 19, 26, 39 

Industry Advisory Committees: 93 

Information offices. See Central Office of Information; Committee 

on Public Information; Office of 

Facts and Figures; Office of War 

Information 

International conflict, peaceful resolution of 20, 22 

International Workers of the World 

(IWW): 73, 74 

Internment: 9-10, 14, 142, 156157 

Invasion 41910, The: 27 

Iranian hostage crisis: 208 

Ireland: 39, 40 

Irish Rebellion: 204 

Isolationism: 47, 48, 147, 149 

Isonzo River: 61 

Israel: 208 

Istria: 62 

Italian-Americans: 10 

Italy: 6, 7, 14, 27, 60, 62, 64-65, 

65-66, 69, 177 

See also Army, Italian 

Ivy League: 5 

Iwo Jima: 7 

JCS. See Joint Chiefs of Staff 

Jamison, J. Franklin: 127 

Japan: 5, 6, 14, 38, 43 

industrial production: 102, 

impact of the atomic bomb: 

post-WW I occupation: 168 

World War I1 impact on women: 

157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 163, 

164-165, 166, 168, 175, 219 

236-237n-11 

163-164 

Japanese, in propaganda: 8, 9 

Japanese-Americans, treatment of in 

Jews, European: 8, 14, 142, 157, 158, 

Jim Crow: 151, 153 

Johnson, Andrew: 174 

Johnson, Lyndon B. 

WW 11: 9-10, 156-157 

163 

and the Great Society: 199 

and Vietnam: 198, 198-199, 

199-200, 204, 206, 210, 

219-220, 221 

Johnson Administration: 206 

Joint Army Navy Board (Joint 

Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS): 199 

Board): 104 

and WW 11 economic mobilization: 

105, 106 

Joll, James, quoted: 138 

Jonghe, Count de: 139 

Jordan, Robert 0.: 149 

274 
Journalism. See Black press; News 

media; Press; Radio; Television; 

Wire services 

July Crisis: 45 

Junker: 30 

Justice Department: 10 

Kaiser: The Beast of Berlin, The: 52 

Kalahari Desert: 30 

Karman, Theodore von: 75 

Karolyi, Count Mihaly: 64 

Kellogg, Peter: 148 

Kennedy, David M.: 46, 68, 69, 74, 

77, 176, 217, 218, 220-221 

discussion and comments: 71, 72, 

paper: 47-55 

73, 75 

Kennedy, John F.: 210 

Kennedy, Robert F.: 198, 200 

Keynesianism: 110 

Khe Sanh: 197, 198 

King, Martin Luther, Jr.: 154 

Kinsey, Robert, discussion and comments: 178, 207 

Kipling, Rudyard: 43 

Klein, Felix: 75 

Knox, Frank: 104, 105 

Kohn, Richard H.: 170 

See also Navy Department 

discussion and comments: 176, 

introductions: 128-129, 146, 155, 

remarks: 127-128, 181 

177, 178, 179 

169 

Koistinen, Paul A.C.: 90, 111, 112, 

113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 

discussion and comments: 119-120 

paper: 91-110 

Kolko, Gabriel: 111 

Konody, P.G.: 138 

Korean War: 202, 203, 204, 206, 

Kotor: 63 

Kramar, Czech politician: 60, 63 

217-218, 220, 221 

quoted: 139 

207 

Krohne, Rudolf, quoted: 85 

Kuomintang: 14 

Ky, Col. Nguyen Cao: 203 

La guerre future: 34 

Labor 

in Austria-Hungary: 58, 59, 23 

in France: 139 

gain from war: 132, 136-137, 145, 

170 

in Germany: 88, 128, 158 

unemployment insurance: 135 

unions: 11, 12-14, 39, 136, 144, 

in the United Kingdom 

172 

World War I: 130, 135, 136-137, 

World War 11: 133, 142, 145 

discrimination in the work force: 

World War I: 74 

World War 11: 11, 12, 92, 94, 

145 

in the United States 

11, 147, 157, 159, 160, 174 

96, 98, 99-100, 107, 112, 

117, 149, 232-233n-4 

wartime strikes: 12, 13, 40, 59, 63, 

women and wartime employment: 

See also Working class 

135, 142, 149 

157-160 

Labour Party: 14, 130, 134, 135-136, 

La Follette, Robert, quoted: 49 

La Guardia, Fiorello: 150 

Laibach: 65 

laissez-faire: 40, 54 

Lamachus: 203 

Landwehr, Gen. Ottokar: 62 

Langer, William: 68 

Laos: 208-209 

Law, Anglo- American and European 

practise: 9 

L’Express: 191 

Le Monde: 191 

Le Quex, William: 27 

Leukemia: 165 

207 

275 

Military and society: 26, 35-36, 132, 

Military historians: 216 

Military history: 2, 81-82, 221-222 

Military Organisation and Society: 

Military Participation Ratio (MPR): 

Millet, Allan R.: 202 

133, 177-178, 179 

132 

132, 133 

discussion and comments: 206, 

207, 209, 210, 211 

introductions: 186, 195-196, 

200-201 

remarks: 185-186 

Millis, Walter: 2 

Mindanao: 176 

Ministry of Information: 144 

Ministry of Morale: 144 

Mississippi: 11 

Mr. Roberts: 7-8 

Mitchell, Lt.Col. Vance, discussion 

Mitterrand, Francois: 187 

Miura, Kazue: 164-165 

Miura, Maki: 165 

Mobile, Ala.: 10 

Mobilization, agricultural: 49, 50-51, 

See also Food shortages and raand comments: 177 

53, 62-63 

tioning 

Mobilization, economic: 2, 217, 

217-218 

and inflation: 131 

and limited was: 189, 191 

and military needs: 81, 83-84 

necessitarian conditions: 91 

See also Finance; Labor; specific 

Mobilization, military: 2, 45, 48, 49, 

country 

51-52, 58, 59, 68, 189-190, 199, 

216-217, 220-221 

See also specific country; specific 

armed forces 

Mobilization, psychological. See 

Public opinion and support 

Modern War: Paintings by C.R.W. 

MOGUL, operation: 63 

Moltke, Gen. Helmuth J.L. von: 31, 

Mollet, Guy: 191 

Mommsen, Wolfgang: 34 

Montgomery, Ala.: 147, 154 

Moravia: 60, 62, 64 

Morgenthau, Henry, Jr.: 98 

Morice, Andre: 192 

Morice Line: 192, 193 

Morison, Elting E.: 220 

Morocco: 164, 188 

Moroccan Crisis, 1905: 31 

Morton, Louis: 221 

Muller, Hermann: 84 

Munich: 71 

Munich Crisis, 1938: 87 

Munitions: 32, 83, 93, 94, 95, 101, 

Munitions Assignment Board: 105, 

Munitions Ministry: 115 

Murray Committee: 100, 101, 103 

Muste, A.J.: 154 

Nevinson (1917): 138 

36-37 

on military historians: 216 

102-103, 107, 112, 237 

106 

NAACP. See National Association for 

the Advancement of Colored 

People 

NDAC. See National Defense Advisory Commission 

NNC. See National Negro Congress 

NRA. See National Recovery AdminNSC. See National Security Council 

NSRB. See National Security ReNUL. See National Urban League 

Nagasaki: 163 

Naples: 7 

Napoleon 111, of France: 28, 42 

Napoleonic Wars: 22 

Nathan, Robert R.: 96 

Nation state, rise of 19 

istration 

sources Board 

277 
National Advisory Committee for 

Aeronautics: 75 

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People 

(NAACP): 11, 147, 152, 153 

National Association of Intergroup 

Relations Officials: 150 

National Association of Manufacturers: 120 

National Civic Federation: 119 

National Defense, Council of: 49 

National Defense Advisory Commission (NDAC): 93, 94, 109 

National Health Service: 141 

National Insurance Act, 1911: 135 

National Liberation Front. See Front 

National Negro Congress (NNC): 

National Physical Laboratory: 75, 135 

National Planning Association: 119 

National Recovery Administration 

(NRA): 109, 110, 116 

National Security Act, 1947: 112-113 

National Security Council: 113 

National Security Resources Board 

National Service. See Conscription, 

military 

National Socialists 

de libe'ration nationale (FLN) 

152, 153 

(NSRB): 112-113, 113 

assume power: 85 

eugenics policies: 161, 162 

and Nuremberg trials: 9 

use of propaganda: 85-88, 161, 

and rearmament: 85-86, 88-90 

See also Germany 

See also Public opinion and sup162, 165-166 

National unity: 68, 69, 70 

port; War, as a cohesive force 

National Urban League: 152, 153 

Nationalism: 28, 30, 39, 57, 58, 59, 

See also Front de libe'ration na60-61, 62, 63-64, 65, 220 

tionale (FLN) 

Native Sons and Daughters of the 

Golden West: 9 

Naval race, pre-WWI: 38 

Navy, Austro-Hungarian 

mutiny in: 63 

Navy, French: 38 

Navy, German: 27, 29, 41, 48 

and the naval race: 38 

and rearmament: 89 

Navy, Japanese: 38 

Navy, North Korean: 199 

Navy, Royal: 27, 38, 39, 41, 43, 44, 

Navy, Secretary of 103' 

Navy, U.S.: 11, 38, 93. 104, 105, 

107, 199, 203 

189 

See also Navy Department 

and WW I1 economic mobilization: 

See also Knox, Frank; Forrestal, 

Navy Department: 13 

93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 105, 107 

James V. 

Nazi. See National Socialists 

Nazi-Soviet pact: 149, 150 

Nelson, Donald M.: 95, 95-96, 

97-98, 100, 103, 105-106, 109, 

120 

See also War Production Board 

Netherlands: 14 

Neue Ziiricher Zeiturzg: 83 

Neurath, Constantin von: 31 

Neutron bomb: 168 

New Deal: 6, 14, 91, 108, 109, 110, 

111, 112, 113, 114, 116, 117, 148 

New Deal for Blacks, A: 152 

New Guinea: 7 

New Hampshire primary, 1968: 200 

New York: 14 

New York Herald-Tribune, Paris edition: 203 

New York Times: 156, 198 

News media 

and black militancy: 147, 148, 149, 

and Vietnam: 197-198, 199-200, 

150, 151, 153 

204, 207-208, 208-209, 220 

278 
and war coverage: 5, 9, 207-209, 

220 

See also Black press, Press; Radio; 

Television; Wire services 

Newsweek: 198 

Nicias: 203 

North Africa: 187, 190 

North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

(NATO): 189 

North Korea: 199 

North Texas State University: 202 

North Vietnam: 24 

and China: 206, 207 

and peace negotiations: 199, 200 

policy and strategy: 197, 206 

North Vietnamese: 203, 207 

Northwest Frontier, India: 44 

Norway: 14, 145 

Nuclear deterrence: 203 

Nuclear warfare: 2, 22 

Nuechterlein, James, quoted: 148 

Nuremberg trials: 9 

OAS (Organisation de 1’Armee Secrete). See Secret Army Organization 

OES. See Office of Economic Stabilization 

OFF. See Office of Facts and Figures 

OPA. See Office of Price Administration 

OPACS. See Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply 

OPM. See Office of Production Management 

OWM. See Office of War Mobilization 

OWMR. See Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion 

Oberdorfer, Don: 200 

Office of Economic Stabilization 

quoted: 197 

(OES): 98, 99, 101 

See also Byrnes, James F. 

War Production Board 

Office of Civilian Requirements. See 

Office of Facts and Figures (OFF): 6 

Office of Price Administration (OPA): 

Office of Price Administration and 

See also War Production Board 

Office of Production Management 

Office of War Information: 70, 159 

Office of War Mobilization (OWM): 

Office of War Mobilization and Re95, 98 

Civilian Supply (OPACS): 94-95 

(OPM): 93, 94, 94-95, 95, 109 

99, 101 

conversion (OWMR): 99-100, 

101 

Ogburn, William F.: 172 

Ordeal of Total War, The: 140 

Osaka Association of A-Bomb Victims, Women’s Section: 164, 165 

PEC. See War Production Board, 

Pacific Theater: 6 

Pacifism: 34, 71, 154, 167-168 

See also Anti-war sentiment 

Padua: 66 

Palmer, A.W.: 61 

Palmer, R.R.: 127 

Paris: 61 

Park, Robert: 172 

Parliament and social change: 134 

Patterson, Robert L.: 95, 104, 105, 

Production Executive Committee 

106, 115 

See also War Department 

Pearl Harbor: 5, 6, 10, 14, 69, 105, 

109, 149, 171 

Pearson, Lester, quoted: 116 

Peasants, Russian: 139 

Pelling, Henry: 140 

132 

Pensions: 135 

People’s War: 140 

Perrett, Geoffrey: 148 

Pershing, Gen. John J.: 

and participation and social gain: 

and Blacks in the military: 176-177 

quoted: 176 

279 
Persian Gulf 209 

Philippine Insurrection: 176 

Piave offensive: 65 

Pittsburgh Courier: 150, 151, 153 

Police, French, in Algeria: 187 

Poland, restoration of: 60 

Polenberg, Richard: 113, 148, 168, 

168n, 169, 176 

commentary: 170-175 

discussion and comments: 178 

Poles, in Austria-Hungary: 58, 60, 

Polish-Americans: 10 

Political Action Committee: 13-14 

Politics and Markets: I15 

Populism: 48 

Portugal: 37 

Portuguese Africa: 37 

Powell, Adam Clayton, Jr.: 150 

Prague: 60, 64, 65 

Prandtl, Ludwig: 75 

Prejudice: 1, 5, 7, 8-9, 9-12, 14, 

63, 65 

14-15, 134, 142, 143, 221 

See also Blacks; Women 

198, 200, 203, 220 

Press, Negro. See Black press 

Princeton University: 202 

Privy Council: 135 

Production Executive Committee. See 

Progressivism: 48, 54-55, 68, 111-112 

Prologue: 148, 174 

Propaganda: 11, 51, 52-53, 55, 68, 

Press: 7, 8, 11, 39, 156, 174, 197, 

See also Black press; News media 

War Production Board 

69-70, 71, 72, 86, 87, 123, 144, 

159, 161, 162, 165-166 

See also Public opinion and support 

Prussia: 42 

Psycho-history: 68 

Psychological mobilization. See PubPublic opinion: 6, 186 

Public opinion and support: 1, 2, 5, 

lic opinion and support 

6-7, 8-9, 19-20, 22, 24, 28, 29, 

30-31, 34, 39, 45, 47-49, 51-53, 

55, 59, 68, 69-70, 72, 83, 84, 

85-88, 90, 133-134, 136-137, 

144, 186, 188, 190. 191-192, 

193, 194, 195, 198. 200, 

207-208, 221, 222 

See also Propaganda 

Pueblo, USS: 199 

Pugh, Martin: 130, 137 

“Putsch”, 1961: 193 

Pyle, Ernie, quoted: 7 

Race Relations Institute: 150 

Race riots, U.S.: 10-11, 147, 150-151 

Radicalism: 74 

Radio: 5, 135, 209 

See also News media 

Radio Hanoi: 209 

Raeder, Gr.Adm. Erich: 89 

Ragsdale, Wilmott, and combat reporting: 220 

Railroads: 12, 49, 155 

Randolph, A. Philip: 149, 151, 152, 

152-153, 154 

and communists: 153 

Rape. use of in war: 163-164 

Rather, Dan: 208 

Reader, W. J., quoted: I30 

Reagan, Ronald: 168, 203 

Reconstruction: 174 

Reddel, Col. Carl W. 

introduction: 215 

Redfield, Robert: 172 

Reichenau, Col. Walter von, quoted: 

Reichskanzlei: 83 

Reichsrat: 57, 59, 62, 64 

Reichstag: 83, 84, 89 

Reichswehr. See Armed Forces, GerReichswehr and Politics, The: 8411 

Relative Deprivation and Social JusRepresentation of the People Act, 

Republican Party: 13, 14, 107 

86 

man 

tice: 134 

1918: 137 

280 
Revolution: 19, 26, 146 

Algerian. See Algeria 

American: 127, 204 

Austria-Hungary: 57, 59 

French: 26, 127 

Germany: 57, 139 

Russian: 63, 130 

REVOLVER, operation: 63 

Rhineland, reoccupation of, 1936: 86 

Rhodes, Cecil: 37 

Rilling, Lt.Col. David S. 

on legal status of Vietnam War: 

205 

Ritter, Gerhard: 32-33 

Road to 1945: British Politics and the 

Roberts, Field Marshall Frederick S. : 

“Robinson Charlie”: 144 

Roland, Alex: 75 

Roman Empire, and limited war: 186 

Roosevelt, Eleanor: 11 

Roosevelt, Franklin D.: 5, 14, 93, 

94, 95, 97, 98, 99, 101, 104, 

108, 120, 173, 174 

and Blacks: 11 

Hold-the-Line order: 98 

and the Industrial Mobilization 

and Japanese-Americans: 10 

and the military: 103-104, 105, 

105-106, 110, 238n-18 

and Smith-Connally: 13 

and the tone of economic mobilization: 92, 94, 103-104, 105, 

Second World War: 140 

43 

Plan: 114 

108-110, 111, 112, 113-118, 218 

Roosevelt, ED., Administration: 92, 

93, 94, 96, 98, 101, 103, 104, 

109, 113, 120 

Roosevelt, Theodore: 54, 221 

Ropp, Ted: 19 

“Rosie the Riveter”: 159, 166, 174 

Rostow, Eugene V., quoted: 10 

Rothenberg, Gunther E.: 55-56, 67, 

68-69, 220 

paper: 57-66 

Rubber: 99 

Rudwick, Elliott: 153-154 

Rumania: 61, 62 

Rumanians: 58, 60 

Runciman, W.G.: 134 

Rupp, Leila J.: 128, 155, 170, 

170-171, 171, 172, 175, 176, 179, 

218-219, 221 

discussion and comments: 177, 179 

paper: 156-169 

Rusk, Dean: 206 

Russia: 24, 27, 36, 38, 40, 41, 42, 

43, 47, 62, 69, 130, 139 

and Austro-Hungarian POWs: 64 

and peace negotiations: 63 

revolution: 63, 130 

See also Soviet Union 

Russians: 128 

Russo-Japanese War: 32 

Ruthenes: 58, 60 

SRC. See Southern Regional Council 

Saigon: 197, 199 

St. Louis, Mo.: 154 

St. Stephen, Crown of: 57, 60, 61, 

65 

See also Hungary 

Salinger, J.D.: 7 

Salsbury, Robert A.T.G. Cecil, Marquess of 39 

Saxe, Marshal Maurice de, quoted: 

220 

Schacht, Hjalmar: 89 

Schandler, Herbert: 199 

Scheiner, Czech, politician: 60 

Schlafley, Phyllis: 170 

Schleicher, Gen. Kurt von: 85 

Schlieffen, Count Alfred von: 31, 34, 

Schlieffen Plan: 29, 36, 45 

Schmidt-Harzbach, Ingrid: 166-167 

Schutzstaffel (SS): 87 

Science and technology: 2, 19, 20, 

22, 34, 74-75, 128, 135 

Scientific and Industrial Research, 

Dept. of 135 

36 

281 
Searls, Fred, Jr.: 96 

Second International: 74 

Secrecy and society: 178, 179 

Secret Army Organization (OAS): 194 

Security Headquarters (SS): 87 

Selective Service Administration: 53 

Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. See Truman Committee 

Senate Special Committee to Study 

and Survey the Problems of 

American Small Business. See 

Murray Committee 

Serbia: 61 

Serbs: 58, 60, 65 

Shakespeare: 33 

Shaw, George Bernard: 170 

Sherrod, Robert, quoted: 7 

Showalter, Dennis E.: 22-23, 67-68, 

73, 216, 217, 220 

discussion and comments: 71, 76, 

209 

paper: 24-45 

Shy, John: 127 

Siberia: 102 

Sitkoff, Harvard: 128, 146, 170, 171, 

172, 175, 176, 218, 221 

discussion and comments: 176, 178 

paper: 147-155 

Silesia: 60, 62, 64 

Silva, Flavius: 186 

Sixtus, Prince of Parma: 62 

Skoda armament works: 60 

Slater, Philip: 162 

Slavs: 60, 61 

Slovaks: 58, 60 

Slovenes: 58, 60 

Smith, Harold D.: 98 

Smith-Connally bill: 13 

Spain: 145, 203 

Sport, influence of 28 

State, Secretary of: 103 

State of the Union address, 1968: 199 

Statism: 54-55, 68 

Stimson, Henry L.: 95, 104, 104-105, 

106, 115 

and Blacks in the military: 11 

and Japanese-Americans: 10 

See also War Department 

Stouffer, Samuel: 172 

Strategic Air Command, Combat 

Stresemann, Gustav: 85 

Stiirgkh, Karl, Count von: 59, 60 

Stiirmabteilung (SA): 83 

Styria: 63 

Social Democrats: 84 

Socialism and the Challenge of War: 

Socialists: 58, 61, 135, 154 

Solomon Islands: 7 

Soustelle, Jacques: 190 

South Africa: 30 

South Atlantic: 189 

South Pacific: 7 

South Slavs: 63, 64, 65 

South Vietnam: 197, 200, 203, 

South Vietnamese: 206-207 

Southeast Asia: 189 

Southern Regional Council (SRC): 

Southwest Africa: 30 

Soviet Union: 128, 145 

Family Code: 166 

industrial production: 102, 

236-237n-11 

World War I1 

Support Groups: 203 

135 

208-209 

151-152 

and ethnic groups: 14, 128 

impact on women: 157, 158, 

160, 164, 166, 167, 175, 

219 

See also Russia 

Subaltern from the Wars Returning, 

Submarine warfare: 48 

Subsidies, government: 134, 135 

Suffragist movement: 138 

Sullivan, Mark, quoted: 47 

Supply Priorities and Allocation 

Board (SPAB): 95 

Supreme Court: 10, 147 

A: 179 

282 
Sweden: 145, 146 

Switzerland: 66, 145 

Syracuse: 203 

Talbott, John E.: 186, 202-203, 219, 

discussion and comments: 209 

paper: 187-195 

Tallyrand-Pkrigord, Charles M. de 

and the use of force: 71 

Tawney, R.H.: 135 

Taxes: 12, 14 

See also Finance 

Taylor, A.J.P.: 140 

Technology. See Science and technolTelevision 

22 1 

ogy 

and military news: 186, 197-198, 

200, 204, 207-208, 209, 220 

use of by de Gaulle: 193, 194, 209 

See also News media 

Tennessee Johnson: 174 

Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA): 

116 

Tertullus: 186 

Tet!: 197 

Tet offensive: 197, 198 

political reaction to: 198-199, 

199-200, 204, 219 

Teutoburger Wald: 186 

Texas, Republic of 202 

Thatcher, Margaret: 142, 207 

Thebes: 24 

Thieu, Lt.Gen. Nguyen Van: 203 

Thirty Years’ War: 33 

Thomas, Gen. Georg: 83, 88, 90 

Thompson, Paul: 130 

Thun, Baron: 60 

Time: 8, 174, 198, 203, 220 

Tirpitz, Adm. Alfred von: 25 

Tisza, Count Stephen: 59, 60, 61, 64 

Tolan Committee: 100, 101, 103 

Tolstoy, Leo: 24 

“Tommy Atkins” and society: 27 

Tonkin, Gulf of 203 

Tonkin Gulf resolution: 203 

Trask, David F.: 81 

discussion and comments: 75 

introductions: 22-23, 46, 55-56, 66 

remarks: 19-22, 77 

Treitschke, Heinrich von: 27 

Triple Entente: 40, 61 

Triumph of Conservatism, The: 111 

Treasury (British): 143 

Treasury Department (U.S.): 9, 53, 

98 

Truman, Harry S.: 101, 11.5, 176, 177, 

206, 210 

Truman Committee: 96, 100, 101, 

103, 106 

Tunisia: 188, 192 

Tyrol: 61 

UMW. See United Mine Workers 

USSR. See Soviet IJnion 

U-boat. See Submarine warfare 

Ukraine: 63, 64 

Ukrainian unification: 60, 64-65 

Ukrainians: 14, 128 

Ullman, Richard: 67 

Ulster: 39 

Unemployment insurance: 135 

Unionists, Ulster: 39 

Unions, labor. See L,abor 

United Kingdom: 87 

anti-Semitism in: 142 

Beveridge Report: 143-144, 171 

and Borneo: 210, 211 

Cabinet: 39, 40, 103 

class structure: 138, 144, 145 

cognitive dissonance in: 68 

education: 134, 145 

franchise reform, 1918: 130 

government subsidies and pensions: 134, 135 

housing: 134, 144 

industrial production: 102, 

236-237n-11 

and Malaya: 210 

medical services: 141 

merchant fleet: 50, 145 

283 
pre-WW I foreign policy: 26, 27, 

30, 37-38, 39, 39-40, 40-42, 

45 

67, 220 

pre-WW 1 martial spirit: 26-27, 

pre-WW I relations with Germany: 

pre-WW I society: 39-40, 67, 69, 

science and technology: 75, 135 

war cabinet: 136 

Women’s Land Army: 132 

World War I 

26, 37-39, 39-40, 40-42 

220 

ambivalence toward: 25, 39, 41, 

and the arts: 138-139 

effects on society: 130, 134-139, 

and industry changes: 135-136 

labor gains: 130, 136-137 

military conscription: 135 

mobilization: 216, 217 

use of propaganda: 14, 72 

and women: 137-138, 145, 

and the working class: 134, 135, 

67-68, 220 

140, 144, 218 

177-178, 178, 179 

136-137, 218 

World War I1 

civilian life and morale: 140-141, 

combined boards and staffs: 105, 

106 

economic mobilization: 98, 102, 

105 

effects on society: 140-145, 171, 

218 

impact on women: 142, 157, 

158, 159, 162, 171, 175, 

218, 219 

internment: 14, 142 

and labor: 142, 145 

use of propaganda: 144 

Washington Embassy observations: 6-7, 10, 11-12, 114 

See also Armed Forces, British; 

Army, British; Navy, royal 

141-142, 143, 179-180 

United Mine Workers (UMW): 13 

United States: 27, 38, 43 

anti-Semitism: 10, 14 

censorship: 48, 208-209 

civil disobedience: 148, 153 

education: 128, 145, 147, 153 

industrial production compared: 

Nazi racism, reaction to: 155 

post-WW I1 economic reconverpost-WW I1 occupation influence: 

pre-WW I society: 53, 54-55, 69, 

race riots: 10-11, 147, 150-151 

science and technology: 74-75 

Vietnam War 

102, 236-237n-11 

sion: 99-100, 111 

168 

75-76, 220-221 

legal status: 205 

policy regarding: 198, 199, 200, 

political reaction to Tet: 198-199, 

public opinion and support: 197, 

203, 206-207 

199-200, 204, 219 

198, 199-200, 204, 

208-209, 221 

and World War 11: 173-175 

agricultural mobilization: 49, 

ambivalence toward: 47-49, 52, 

domestic violence during: 53 

economic mobilization: 48, 

and labor: 74 

espionage bill: 48-49 

merchant fleet: 50 

migration: 127-128 

military conscription: 48-49, 

and political and military thinkpublic opinion and upport: 

World War I 

50-51 

68, 69, 73-14, 217 

49-51, 76, 115-116, 119, 218 

51-52, 53 

ing: 20-22, 218 

47-48, 49, 52-.53, 69-70 

284 
relations with the Allies: 49, 50, 

use of legal coercion: 49-52, 

USE' of propaganda: 52-53, 68, 

war aims: 48, 65, 73 

ancl women: 157 

and agriculture: 112, 113, 117 

and civil rights delay: 148, 149, 

51, 217 

53-55, 71 

69-70, 71, 72 

Worlcl War I1 

150, 151-152, 154-155, 171, 

175, 176, 218 

106 

lization: 149 

94-95, 100 

92-101 

combined boards and staffs: 105, 

communist opposition to mobiconsumer goods production: 

economic mobilization agencies: 

economic mobilization and central authority: 96, 98, 

100-101, 103-104, 105, 

106-108, 112-113, 116-117 

economic mobilization and Congress: 96, 98, 100-101, 104, 

106, 108, 113 

economic mobilization and defense contracts: 93-94, 95, 

96, 97, 99, 100 

nance: 94, 95, 98, 99, 113 

power patterns: 108-110, 

111, 116, 117 

economic mobilization and the 

corporate community: 

'96, 97, 99, 100, 104, 

L17, 118, 120, 218 

military: 81, 92, 93-94, 95, 

economic mobilization and fiecontomic mobilization and 

12-13, 14, 92, 93, 94, 95, 

107-108, 109, 111-113, 115, 

economic mobilization and the 

06, 97, 98, 100, 103-105, 

107-108, 109, 111, 114, 119, 

218, 238n-18, 238-239n-19 

impact on women: 156-157, 

158-159, 159, 160, 161-162, 

165-166, 172, 174, 175, 219 

internment: 9-10, 156-157 

and labor: 11-12, 13, 92, 94, 96, 

price stabilization: 94-95, 98, 

race relations during: 7-8, 8-11, 

98, 99-100, 112, 117, 149 

113 

14, 147, 150-151, 151-152, 

172, 176, 218 

rationing during: 8, 53, 98 

society: 1, 5, 6-7, 9-11, 12, 

127, 170, 172, 173 

use of propaganda: 8-9, 9, 11, 

14-15, 91, 94, 108-110, 112, 

69-70, 159, 165-166, 220 

See also Blacks 

United States Employment Service: 

Unmaking @a President, The: 199 

Upper classes: 26, 30, 35, 138, 145 

Ural Mountains: 102 

Urban League. See National Urban 

160 

League 

V J Day: 174 

Varus, Publius Quintilius: 186 

Venereal disease: 161 

Versailles Treaty: 84 

Victory girls: 161 

Vienna: 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66 

Viet Cong: 197 

Vietnam: 24 

Vietnam War: 156, 168, 169, 185, 

202, 203, 204, 205, 219 

interdiction in: 206, 207 

Khe Sanh: 197, 198 

negotiations: 199, 200 

Tet offensive: 197, 198 

See also Indochina; United States 

Villard, Oswald Garrison: 221 

Violence, escalating: 19, 20, 21, 22, 

27, 34 

285 
Violence, institutional, and women: 

Virginia, royal governor of: 202 

Vittorio Veneto: 65 

Voices Prophesying War: 76 

Voltaire: 173 

163 

WPB. See War Production Board 

Wabash, Ind., Plain Dealer, quoted: 

Waldersee, Alfred von: 33 

Wallace, Henry A,: 14, 95, 114 

Walpole, Sir Robert: 30 

Warsaw: 14 

War 

47 

and the arts: 138-139 

as a cohesive force: 1, 5, 6, 14-15, 

130, 134, 138, 143, 173 

as a divisive force: 1, 5, 57, 

57, 58-59, 60-61, 69-70, 127, 

58-59, 60-61, 134, 138, 

173-174 

glorification of 19-20, 22, 26, 29, 

limited: 2, 22, 127, 185-186, 203, 

preventive: 31, 33 

and social change, measurement 

total: 2, 20-22, 127, 128, 218 

86 

204, 207, 221 

of 131-134 

War, Office of the Assistant Secretary 

War, Secretary of: 9, 10, 11, 103, 104 

See also Stimson, Henry L. 

War and Social Change in the 

Twentieth Century: 139 

War Department: 9, 13, 93-94, 95, 

96, 97, 103, 104, 105, 107 

See also Patterson, Robert L., 

Stimson, Henry L. 

of 103, 107 

War Industries Board: 49-50, 51, 53, 

115, 116 

War in the Air: 76 

War Labor Board (WLB): 12, 98 

War Ministry, German: 32, 35 

War Manpower Commission (WMC): 

War of American Independence: 127, 

War Production Board (WPB): 8, 

100, 174 

204 

95-98, 99, 100, 105, 105-106, 

109, 120n 

Industry Divison: 97, 98 

Material Division: 97, 98 

Office of Civilian Requirements: 

Planning Committee: 96-97, 98, 

Production Executive Committee 

See also Nelson, Donald M.; 

Wilson, Charles E. 

War Relocation Authority: 10 

War Resources Board: 104 

War Service Act, 1912: 59 

War Supervisory Office: 59 

Warner, Lloyd: 172 

Washington: 10 

Washington, D.C.: I, 13, 14, 197, 

198, 199, 200, 203, 204 

Washington Post: 198 

Watson, James 

100 

102, 105-106 

(PEC): 97-98, 100, 106 

discussion and comments: 176-177, 

210, 211 

ments: 210 

comments: 71 

Watson, Laura, discussion and comWatson, Robert J., discussion and 

Wattenberg, Ben: 186, 207 

Webb, Beatrice: 135 

Webb, Sidney: 135 

Weber, Eugene: 178 

Week of the Barricades: 193 

Wehrmacht. See Armed Forces, GerWeigley, Russell F.: 21 

man 

discussion and comments: 119, 120 

introductions: 82, 90, 110 

remarks: 81-82 

Weimar Republic: 84-85 

See also Germany 

286 
Wejerle, Alexander: 64 

Wells, H.G.: 76 

Westmoreland, Gen. William C.: 199 

Whitlock, Brand, American AmbasWhite, Walter: 150 

White House: 95, 111, 113, 114, 197, 

199 

Whitehall: 42 

William 11, of Germany: 24, 25, 28, 

Willkie, Wendell: 14 

Wilson, Charles E.: 97-98, 106, 107 

See also War Production Board, 

Production Executive Committee 

sador to Belgium: 139 

31, 33, 37, 38 

Wilson, Sir Henry H.: 29, 45 

Wilson, Woodrow: 50, 61, 63, 65, 

and declaration of war: 47-49 

and legal coercion: 53, 54-55 

and military conscription: 51-52 

Wilsonian ideology: 5, 20, 48, 50 

Winkler, Allan M.: 66, 77 

commentary: 67-70 

Winter, J.M., quoted: 135 

Wire services: 197 

See also News media 

Wirth, Lquis: 172 

Women 

73, 115, 217, 218 

and the atomic bomb: 164-165 

and childbearing: 157, 160, 161, 

162, 163, 164-165, 166, 167, 

168 

and conscription: 158-159 

and gain from war: 130, 137-138, 

139, 140, 156, 159, 165-166, 

167, 168, 170-171, 174, 219, 

221 

lesbians: 161, 162 

and military service: 132, 158, 

and pacificism: 167-168 

and propaganda: 159, 161, 162, 

177-178, 179 

163, 165-166 

public attitudes toward: 12, 39, 40, 

157, 165-166, 167, 168, 170, 

219 

and reproduction: 157, 160-161, 

163, 164-165, 166, 167, 

167-168 

self-perceptions: 157, 165, 166-168 

and sex: 157, 160, 161-162, 163, 

suffrage: 39, 130, 137-138, 139, 

and violence: 157, 163-164, 167 

in the work force: 12, 128, 130, 

167 

145, 146, I68 

137, 139, 142, 157-160, 166, 

167, 172, 174, 175 

Women’s Land Army: 132 

Women’s Section, Osaka Association 

Women’s Volunteer Service: 141 

Woodward, C. Vann: 69 

Working class: 133, 134, 135, 

See also specific country 

of A-Bomb Victims: 164, 165 

136-137, 138, 139, 144, 145, 218 

See also Class structure; Labor 

World War I: 48, 54, 60, 61, 62, 63, 

65-66, 127-128, 130-131, 

216-217, 218, 220-221 

Carnegie Endowment for Internadestructiveness of 20 

reactions to: 20-21 

See also specific country; specific 

World War 11: 1, 6-7, 81-82, 102-103, 

as an extension of World War I: 21 

attitudes toward and Vietnam: 

reactions to: 21-22 

See also specific country; specific 

tional Peace studies of 128 

topic 

127-128, 221 

173-174 

topic 

Wright, Gordon: 140 

Yale University: 1, 5 

Zagreb: 64, 65 

Zechlin, Egmont: 32-33 

Zeppelins: 76 

287