ABSTRACT
As Helmuth von Moltke the elder had foreseen in 1890, a general European war soon became what he called a “people’s war,” dominated more by national fervor and deeply-held emotion than by military logic. The years 1914 and 1915 were periods of alliance warfare and “cabinet war,” but 1916 became the year of people’s war. The battles of 1916 largely took on lives of their own and moved well beyond the original designs and plans of the generals. The professional armies that began the war had taken enormous casualties. They, of necessity, had to be replaced by conscript and volunteer armies that produced much closer linkages between armies and societies. As a result, many of the battles of 1916 became national symbols for which nations committed all the resources they had, pushing some of them to the breaking point.
