World Wars of the Twentieth Century 335
railheads depended on horse-drawn vehicles or human portage, mus
cular capabilities set a low ceiling on the size and complexity of ev
erything armies could use. But the internal combustion motor lifted
that limit in the course of World War I, beginning with the taxicabs
that carried French soldiers from Paris for the first Battle of the Marne
in 1914. Two years later, trucks traveling along the voie sacrée allowed
the French to hold Verdun even after rail connections were cut. And
by 1918 reconnaisance and pursuit, roles traditionally assigned to
cavalry, were being taken over by airplanes and tanks.
Former limits on the industrialization of war were thereby removed.
Nevertheless, military exploitation of the possibilities of command
invention was really reserved for the future. World War I only opened
a door through which armies might march into a mechanical never-
never land of the kind that navies had already begun to inhabit. But
just as the prospect of what might yet become possible dawned upon a
handful of tank enthusiasts and visionaries, the armistice of 1918
called a halt that lasted for about fifteen years.
Technical change was matched by no less deliberate changes in
human society and daily routines. Millions of men were drafted into
armies and induced to submit to radically new conditions of life—and
death. Other millions entered factories, government offices, or
undertook some other unaccustomed kind of war work. Efficient
allocation of labor soon became a major factor in the war effort of
every country; and the welfare of workers, as well as of fighting men,
began to matter, since an ill-nourished or discontented work force
could not be expected to achieve maximum output. Factory canteens
to feed a firm’s employees became important as food supplies ran
short. Nurseries to provide care for infants freed young mothers for
war work too. Special housing was sometimes constructed for war
workers or assigned to them. Sports clubs attached to particular plants
provided still another kind of fringe benefit and morale booster.^52
Welfare measures emanating from factory managers went hand in
hand with expanding roles for labor unions. In Britain and Germany,
where unions had been well entrenched before 1914, government
officials found it useful or necessary to rely on cooperation from union
leaders in organizing and reorganizing labor for the war effort. When
clashes between unions and employers took place, government repre
sentatives often favored the unions, even when, as in Germany, tradi
tional antipathy divided the official classes from workers’ representa-
- For Renault’s efforts along these lines see Hatry, Renault: Usines de guerre, pp.
94–102.
