Strategic Bombing and Restraint in 'Total War', 1915-1918

Strategic Bombing and Restraint in 'Total War', 1915-1918

Andrew Barros

Giugno 1, 2009

Copyright © 2009 Cambridge University Press

Journal Article

Andrew Barros

Journal Article

0018-246X

Recent studies of 'total war' depict a process of inexorable expansion leading to an often nebulous linkage of everything to war. This article takes the study of 'total war' in the opposite direction by studying a specific example of strategic restraint. It examines how the French bombing strategy that was developed over the course of the First World War went to considerable lengths to maintain a distinction between the civilian and the military. The article studies France's restraint by highlighting the strategic, geographical, institutional, and economic factors upon which it was built. It then goes on to examine the political pressures for an expansion of bombing which proved incapable of overturning this policy. Finally, it contrasts French restraint with that of its key ally, Great Britain. There, bombing developed into a strategic weapon designed to destroy the 'homefront'. This study of restraint underscores the importance of limits, and the attendant choices government has to make, in understanding the course and intensity of a country's mobilization for modern war.

2014-05-19 09:10:07

Giugno 1, 2009

2

The Historical Journal

JSTOR

413-431

The Historical Journal

Copyright © 2009 Cambridge University Press

Strategic Bombing and Restraint in 'Total War', 1915-1918

http://www.jstor.org/stable/40264177

52