The First Total War
From AwardAnnals
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| Author(s) | David A. Bell |
|---|---|
| Subtitle | Napoleon’s Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It |
| Publisher | Mariner Books |
| Honors | |
| The twentieth century is usually seen as the century of total war, but as historian David Bell argues in this landmark work, the phenomenon actually began much earlier, in the age of Napoleon. Bell takes us from campaigns of extermination in the blood-soaked fields of western France to savage street fighting in ruined Spanish cities to central European battlefields where tens of thousands died in a single day. Between 1792 and 1815, Europe plunged into an abyss of destruction, and our modern attitudes toward war were born. Ever since, the dream of perpetual peace and the nightmare of total war have been bound tightly together in the Western worldwhere wars of liberation, such as the one in Iraq, can degenerate into gruesome guerrilla conflict. With a historians keen insight and a journalists flair for detail, Bell exposes the surprising parallels between Napoleons day and our own in a book that is as timely and important as it is unforgettable. | |
World War I has been called “the war to end all wars,” the first time combatants were mobilized on a massive scale to ruthlessly destroy an enemy. But as David Bell argues in this tour de force of interpretive history, the Great War was not, in fact, the first total war. For this, we need to travel back to the era of muskets and sailing ships, to the age of Napoleon. According to Bell, it was then that warfare was transformed into the hideous spectacle that seems ever present today. Indeed, nearly every modern aspect of war took root in that time: conscription, unconditional surrender, total disregard for the rules of combat, mobilization of civilians, guerrilla warfare, and the perverse notion of war fought for the sake of peace. The revolutionaries were leading “the last crusade for universal liberty.” A war for such stakes could only be apocalyptic—and terribly bloody.
With a historian’s keen insight and a journalist’s flair for detail, Bell brings this period to life while keeping an eye on our own “war of liberation” in Iraq. The parallels are astonishing, making this vivid narrative history as timely and important as it is unforgettable.
