Jean de Bloch (1836-1902)


[Jan Gotlib Bloch (Jean de Bloch) (1836-1902)]

Introduction

Jean de Bloch (1836-1902) was a Polish born banker and railway financier who lived and worked in Russia. The quick Prussian defeat of France in 1870 led him to pursue a scientific study of what a modern war might look like in the near future. His 6 volume work on Future War and its Economic Consequences (1899) is remarkably prescient in many of his predictions of what actually transpired in WW1 - although he had no idea that technological advances would make tanks and aircraft possible. The graphs and statistical tables about the destructiveness of modern weaponry, the economic impact of modern warfare, and his predicted death rates are especially interesting and frightening. He wrote it in Russian and the complete work was translated into German and French but not English. Only an abbreviated 1 volume version was available in English.

Texts in the Collection

Jean de Bloch, La guerre. Traduction de l’ouvrage russe “La guerre future aux points de vue technique, économique et politique (Paris: Guillaumin, 1898-1900).

As these PDF files are very large I have broken some of them into half:

v. 1. Description du mécanisme de la guerre. Part 1 pp. 3-280 [PDF 194 MB] and Part 2 pp. 283-663 [PDF 228 MB]
v. 2. La guerre sur le continent. Part 1 pp. 3-337 [PDF 196 MB] and Part 2 pp. 339-726 [PDF 217 MB]
v. 3. La guerre navale. Part 1 pp. 3-144 [PDF 95 MB] and Part 2 pp. 147-443 [PDF 173 MB]
v. 4. Les troubles économiques et les pertes matérielles que déterminera la guerre future. [PDF 235 MB]
v. 5. Les efforts tendant à supprimer la guerre, les causes des différends politiques, les conséquences des pertes. [PDF 201 MB]
v. 6. Conclusions générales: Le système du militarisme. Pour et contre la possibilité de résoudre les conflits entre états européens. L’organisation d’un tribunal international. Conclusion. [PDF 199 MB]

Johann von Bloch (Jean de Bloch), Der Krieg. Uebersetzung des russischen werkes des Autors: Der zukünftige krieg in seiner technischen, volkswirtschaftlichen und politischen Bedeutung (Berlin: Puttkammer & Mühlbrecht, 1899).

E-Texts:

Band I. Beschreibung des Kriegsmechanismus [PDF 39MB]
Band II. Der Landkrieg [PDF 33MB]
Band III. Der Seekrieg [PDF 23MB]
Band IV. Die ökonomischen Erschütterungen und materiellen Verluste des Zukunftkrieges [PDF 44MB]
Band V. Die Bestrebungen zur Beseitigung des Krieges. Die politischen Konflikts-Ursachen und die Fogen der Verluste [PDF 27MB]
Band VI. Der Mechanismus des Krieges und seine Wirkungen. Die Frage vom internationalen Schiedsgericht [PDF 15MB]

An abbreviated French version in 4 small volumes with a new title:

Jean de Bloch, Évolution de la guerre et de la paix (Paris: P. Dupont, 1899).

Volume 1: Le mécanisme de la guerre de campagne et son fonctionnement [PDF]
Volume 2: Les Victimes de la Guerre [PDF]
Volume 3: La Guerre Navale [PDF]
Volume 4: Résultats Économiques et Financiers [PDF]

Jean de Bloch (Palais des Congrès, Section Suisse), La Guerre future. Que sera-t-elle? Résumé et conclusions des tableaux exposés (Exposition Universelle, Paris 1900) (Paris: Motteroz).

[PDF]

Jean de Bloch, The Future of War in its Technical, Economics, and Political Relations. Translated by R.C. Long, and with a Conversations with the Author by W.T. Stead, and an Introduction by Edwin D. Mead (Boston: Published for the International Union, Ginn and Company, 1903).

[PDF]
extracts of this work in HTML