Although the term “total war” was first popularized by Erich Ludendorff, the German general who had masterminded much of Germany’s war effort between 1916 and 1918, it was appropriated as a description of whole societies at war much more fully in Britain and America than it was in continental Europe. “There can be no doubt,” wrote the British aviation journalist Oliver Stewart in 1936, “that a town in any industrial civilisation is a military objective; it provides the sinews of war; it houses those who direct the war; it is a nexus of communications; it is a centre of propaganda; and it is a
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