Soldiers returned to civilian life after two or three years, but could be recalled in the event of a war. The Prussian Army was a peacetime training organisation for a system of mass conscription controlled by a highly professional general staff. Particularly important were those wars leading to the unification of Germany - the Austro-Prussian War (1866) and the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71). The wars of the mid-19th century gave the first indications of what these new technologies and the potential for mass armies might mean. There were, of course, protests and debates, but the vast majority of people fought in World War One, or supported it with the 'Home Front' because they believed that victory for their own country was worth the cost. By the middle of World War One it was known as 'Total War' - the organisation of entire societies for war in a social, economic, and even spiritual sense. Known at first as 'People's War', this idea developed in the 19th century as part of a growing sense of national identity. In the ideology of revolutionary France, young men were conscripted into the armed forces as part of their duty as citizens, but the remaining population was also expected to make personal sacrifices for the war, blurring the distinction between civilian and soldier. More than a century before, the French Revolution of 1789 had seen the first attempts to harness citizenship and patriotism to a national war effort. The war was also fought at a high point of patriotism and belief in the existing social hierarchy beliefs that the war itself helped destroy, and that the modern world finds very hard to understand.

This was the first mass global war of the industrialised age, a demonstration of the prodigious strength, resilience and killing power of modern states. What made World War One so different was the long-term impact of the Industrial Revolution, with its accompanying political and social changes.

Empire total war france