Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | World War I - Total War (Lecture 26)

Lecture 26: World War I (1914–1918) is often called a “total war” because of the all-encompassing mobilization of mass armies, entire economies, domestic societies, and allies demanded by the stakes of the conflict. The changes produced by the experience of war, in which at least nine million soldiers died, were correspondingly deep on the level of international politics. Long-standing diplomatic patterns were overturned under the pressure of war, war aims changed and grew more radical as the conflict dragged on, four empires collapsed (the Austro-Hungarian, German, Ottoman, and Russian empires), and two new ideological actors began their ascent to superpower status: Woodrow Wilson’s United States and Lenin’s Soviet Russia.

Essential Reading:
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 218–227.

Supplementary Reading:
Aviel Roshwald, Ethnic Nationalism and the Fall of Empires: Central Europe, Russia, and the Middle East, 1914–1923.
Hew Strachan, The First World War.