![]() ![]() Soldiers returned to civilian life after two or three years, but could be recalled in the event of a war. Empire total war british professional#The Prussian Army was a peacetime training organisation for a system of mass conscription controlled by a highly professional general staff. Particularly important were those wars leading to the unification of Germany - the Austro-Prussian War (1866) and the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71). The wars of the mid-19th century gave the first indications of what these new technologies and the potential for mass armies might mean. ![]() There were, of course, protests and debates, but the vast majority of people fought in World War One, or supported it with the 'Home Front' because they believed that victory for their own country was worth the cost. By the middle of World War One it was known as 'Total War' - the organisation of entire societies for war in a social, economic, and even spiritual sense. Known at first as 'People's War', this idea developed in the 19th century as part of a growing sense of national identity. In the ideology of revolutionary France, young men were conscripted into the armed forces as part of their duty as citizens, but the remaining population was also expected to make personal sacrifices for the war, blurring the distinction between civilian and soldier. More than a century before, the French Revolution of 1789 had seen the first attempts to harness citizenship and patriotism to a national war effort. The war was also fought at a high point of patriotism and belief in the existing social hierarchy beliefs that the war itself helped destroy, and that the modern world finds very hard to understand. This was the first mass global war of the industrialised age, a demonstration of the prodigious strength, resilience and killing power of modern states. ![]() But I’m not bothering with that on this first playthrough - for now, concentrating on positioning my ships is enough to worry about without forgetting to fire my cannons or some other embarrassing newbie-admiral mistake.What made World War One so different was the long-term impact of the Industrial Revolution, with its accompanying political and social changes. While automatic firing and circling options allow you simply to set a target and step back as your ships engage, you can choose to get more hands-on, such as turning off autofire to unleash a storm of cannonballs at the perfect moment. It brings to mind Sid Meier’s Pirates! as a strategy game, but with much more realism: the primary goal is to line up as many of your cannons as possible to fire at the right moment. I watch as my British fleets manage to trap the Americans between them, shredding sails and bringing down masts with chain-shot, thinning out the crew with grapeshot, and punching great dirty holes through timbers with dependable solid shot. In an improvement to the grouping systems of previous games, ships can be set not only to group, but to maintain a formation in group. Ships’ destinations are charted with a mouse click, with the goal of manipulating fields-of-fire to line up much-desired broadsides (directing the cannon-laden flanks of your ship toward the enemy). Naval combat works and feels absolutely like a logical extension of Total War’s maximalist mandate. ![]()
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