Abstract :
Recent studies of ‘total war’ depict a process of inexorable expansion leading to an often
nebulous linkage of everything to war. This article takes the study of ‘total war’ in the opposite direction by
studying a specific example of strategic restraint. It examines how the French bombing strategy that was
developed over the course of the First World War went to considerable lengths to maintain a distinction
between the civilian and the military. The article studies France’s restraint by highlighting the strategic,
geographical, institutional, and economic factors upon which it was built. It then goes on to examine the
political pressures for an expansion of bombing which proved incapable of overturning this policy. Finally, it
contrasts French restraint with that of its key ally, Great Britain. There, bombing developed into a strategic
weapon designed to destroy the ‘home front ’. This study of restraint underscores the importance of limits, and
the attendant choices government has to make, in understanding the course and intensity of a country’s
mobilization for modern war.
