L'invention de la guerre totale: XVIIIe-XXe siècle

The concept of "total war" was created by the French Revolution and used from 1792, although it was often questioned, even sometimes distorted. This phrase refers to the book published by General Ludendorff in 1936, and even more so to Goebbels' famous appeal in Berlin in 1943, when he asked the crowd if he wanted "a war more total war than total war". According to historians, this concept defines a conflict whose consequences and implications are not limited to the battlefields but affect all the societies of the countries mobilized. Invented by the revolutionary spirit for the liberation of humanity, it has been transformed over time into its opposite: an instrument of domination. This book of history tells the evolution of this notion during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, particularly through Franco-German relations. It is addressed to those who want to understand how the idea of ​​the Patriot of the Convention (the Soldier of Year II) was able to transform the history of war to this point. [Publisher]