State, Society and Mobilization in Europe during the First World War

This volume examines the process of political and cultural mobilization in the face of industrialized mass death during World War 1. Comparing Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary, it generates arguments on mobilization and total war which have wider relevance. The book explores national ideals which cast the war as a crusade, the inclusive self-mobilisation of sectional identities and private organizations behind national efforts, and the exclusion of suspect groups (the enemy within) from the mobilization process. It also highlights the importance, and difficulty, of assessing the limits of mobilization as well as the differing capacities of the state to sustain it, factors related to prior degrees of national integration and political legitimacy. Mobilization in this sense was an important factor which determined the outcome and legacy of the war.