Jean de Bloch: Selected Articles

Ivan (Jan) S. Bloch was a prophet. A Polish Jewish banker and railroad financier when Poland was a province of the Russian Empire, Bloch compiled an extensive, detailed analysis of the potential effects of a great power war at the end of the nineteenth century. Bloch's work was published in several languages and was widely known and discussed prior to World War I. It was most influential in the international pacifist movements. Bloch's conclusion was that a war between major powers had become too costly to contemplate, that war in the future would bankrupt the countries who engaged in it rather than produce any worthwhile result. Dr. Chris Bellamy has written an excellent critique of Bloch's major work in the April 1992 RUSI Journal, "'Civilian Experts' and Russian Defence Thinking."
The essays reprinted here are shorter statements of Bloch's basic beliefs. As Bellamy points out, Bloch was not entirely right in his views on war. He failed to note the heavy influence that indirect fire would have on World War I battlefields. Obviously, he could not anticipate new technologies such as the airplane and tank. Bloch was more correct in addressing the inability of major combatants to find a war ending strategy -a military solution to their political conflicts -before they bankrupted themselves in the process of conducting a major war.