The key factor of this «age of labor» is total mobilization. After verifying that «fitting one’s sword-arm» no longer suffices when countries have at their disposal such an enormous proportion of energies–energies much stronger in industrial democracies than in monarchic countries–, Jünger concludes that the carrying out of the mobilization befitting those energies is the task of total mobilization. This phenomenon is described, symptomatically, as if it were the industrial output of a gigantic machine: total mobilization is «an act which, as if through a single grasp of the control panel, conveys the extensively branched and densely veined power supply of modern life towards the greater current of martial energy» (pp. 126-27). This process, which according to Jünger was not visible in 1914, intensified as the conflict went on. Among the elements of total mobilization mentioned by Jünger stand out the planned management of foodstuffs and raw materials, the national guard duty, the arming of merchant vessels, and above all, two complementary, almost overarching, dimensions of total mobilization: the transposition of industrial conditions to military circumstances and the struggle conducted by the leadership of the German armed forces to merge military and political command (p. 127).
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 02:15:57 +0000
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