The concept of 'total war' - in which the striking power of the armies would ultimately be less important than the home economies and the moral of civilian populations - was understood by few of the war leaders until too late. On the German side, Falkenhayn had perhaps foreseen that the battlefield would not be the only 'theatre of war', but he was superseded, and as the conflict dragged on, with vicotry always round the corner but never quite there, conditions within Germany itself were undergoing a period of radical and near-fatal change.

This article is located in the History of the First World War Volume 4 (REF D522 .H58 1969 V.4).