ABSTRACT
The Great War had been the largest and bloodiest conflict to date in human history, but it was in many ways only a preview of that which would follow. Approximately 20 years later World War II erupted and became the largest military event in history. It was a conflict that was total in all senses of that term and a world war in which virtually every corner of the globe served as a theater of action at one time or another. Although records are inadequate, the best guesses are that about 80 million people were in military service at one point or another. Of these, between 15 and 20 million were killed and probably about the same number of noncombatants perished. There were around 10 million combatant casualties and almost that many additional civilian casualties in the Soviet Union alone. Even more than the First World War, World War II was a war between whole societies, a war of factories. The entire resources of the major combatants were dedicated to the war' s conduct, and whole populations were mobilized for one aspect or another of the effort.
