Part one of term paper
The industrial revolution and the great inventions that were growing out of it were to make possible the rapid deployment of huge armies over great areas. Modern total war was first presaged, not by dramatic technical advances, but by the revival of what is now called the ideological element of conflict. This came with the French Revolution ...

Part two of term paper
... of what "machine guns did to cavalry, modern siege guns to heroically defended fortifications, and trench warfare to the human spirit" came to require a justification of a very high order. This war joined the last two basic elements of modern total war, a real clash of fundamental values and the capacity to wreak massive destruction on an enemy society. Unlike the war of 1914 to 1918, World War II took the form of a true battle to the end between entirely different, agnostic politico-social system ...