3 Important Factors to Economic Survival During Wartime

Tyler Reed
English IV: Senior Thesis, Chicago Style.
October 20, 2016

Tyler Reed

Mrs. Maxwell

English IV

2 October 2016
 Senior Thesis: The three essential factors required to ensuring economic stability

during times of war are resource protection, plentiful food production, and sizeable work

population.

Throughout history the outcome of wars has led to the rise and fall of countless

empires and civilizations. For my study I have researched three different Empires and

nations in chronological order who have fought major wars: The Roman Empire, the

Holy Roman Empire and the United States of America.

The first nation was the the Roman Empire. The article I found gives great detail

as to the type of economy The Roman Empire had. The Roman Empire was one of the

largest Empires in world history that lasted from the end of the Roman Republic in 32

b.c. to 457 a.d. The foundation of Romes economy was centered around grain

production. The farmers of Rome were also its soldiers who were called into service in

times of war from the founding of Rome until the militia army was reformed into a

standing army during the time of Julius Caesar. For a long time Romes militia army

was able to fare pretty well in warfare until it had to take the fighting overseas to

Carthage during the First Punic Wars fought from 261 b.c. until 147 b.c.. The problem

was that the Roman economy began to slow to a halt because the farmers would be

fighting in North Africa which was a great distance from their farms back in Italy.1 Thisled

to farms being unattended for a long time. Since the majority of Romes farmers were

also its warriors you would think that major losses would lead to a decrease in

workforce available but for Rome the majority of losses for the Romans during the First

Punic Wars consisted of slave rowers for their ships at sea. Another area of weakness

was during the Second Punic Wars when Carthaginian General Hannibal crossed the

1 Ryan Grant, Growth and Decline of the Roman Economy,The Distributist Review, March 7,
2011,http://distributistreview.com/the-growth-and-decline-of-the-roman-economy/.
Alps into Italy, and employed a scorched-earth policy to try and destroy Romes supply

of grain. A scorched-earth policy is when an army burns farmland to inhibit the enemy to

collect food or resources from it. This policy depleted food resources for soldiers and

citizens alike; therefore, it can be concluded that an important factor to making sure a

nations economy doesnt falter during war is to protect its most valuable resource. For

the Holy Roman Empire, however, there was a different problem that caused their

economy to weaken.

The Holy Roman Empire had its working population decimated during the Thirty

Years War. The Holy Roman Empire was nothing like the Roman Empire; it was a

confederation of German states from 962 A.D. until 1803. The article I read didnt have

a whole lot of specifics in it. It manly talked about how the Empire was in total chaos

and disorder during the Thirty Years Wars. 2 Famine and plague killed off a large portion

of people and paid mercenary armies roamed around raiding villages and killing

civilians. This in turn led to the ruination of the economy of the empire. To try and

survive, civilians would join the mercenary army which led to the death of more civilians

thus decreasing the working population. This defines another important factor to

ensuring economic stability: Dont let your workforce be killed because you need a

workforce to produce revenue.

Unlike the Roman Empire and The Holy Roman Empire the United States

suffered none of these drawbacks during WWII due to rationing food and being

geographically isolated enough from our enemies so that our workers behind the US

2 Joshua Goldstein, War and Economic History,joshuagoldstein.com, accessed December 12,

2016,http://www.joshuagoldstein.com/jgeconhitm.
war machine that were not in harms way.3 The final key point is that a country needs to

keep the enemys army off the home countrys territory in order to sustain resources and

industry that are producing weapons, vehicles, and other goods that are required to

maintain an army.

In reality, there are too many factors that go into having a successful economy

during a period of war that it is impossible to cover them all. Each war has its own

factors that make it unlike any other war in history. But these main points have
continued to prevail throughout the world in times of war.

Outline: We talked in class and you said we should take my lit review and turn it into an

argument.

I. Resource protection
A. Im going to argue that Hannibals military campaign into into the heart of the
Roman Empire, the Italian Peninsula, was devastating for the Roman economy
because Hannibal employed a scorched-earth policy which destroyed big
portions of Roman farmland which produced its main export, grain. I will relate to
how nations need to protect their most valued resource in wartime and why it is
important
B. I want to incorporate this example that happened thousands of years ago and
relate it to modern day examples.

II. Work Population

A. For this topic Im going to use the Holy Roman Empire as my example to argue
that you need to be able maintain a sustainable food supply to ensure economic

3 Christopher Tassava, The American Economy During World War II,EH.net, February 10,
2008,https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-american-economy-during-world-war-ii/.
 stability. I will also back up this theory with other examples of economic failure
such as the French Revolution and the Russian Empire.
B. I will use the internal chaos and major loss in populations of civilian workers in
the Thirty Years War to support my claim that they were the main reason for
ruination of the Holy Roman Empires economy during the conflict because they
made up the working class of the empire and their deaths was a major loss for
the empire.

III. Border Control

A. Im going to use the United States during WWII as my example as a nation was
able to effectively use border control help the Allies win. They were isolated from
both major enemies, Japan and Germany, by the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
B. I will back up my claim with other nations who were able to use isolation from
their enemies as an advantage in their conflicts with other nations.
 Bibliography
By the Time of Augustus, North Africa and Egypt Were Supplying Most of the Grain That
the Empire Consumed, with Farms in Italy Selling Only a Marginal Amount. In
Other Words, Instead of a Fertile Citizen Population Tilling the Fields and
Sustaining the St. "The Growth and Decline of the Roman Economy." The
Distributist Review. November 27, 2015. Accessed October 28, 2016.
http://distributistreview.com/the-growth-and-decline-of-the-roman-economy/.

Naval, By Virtue of Superior. "War and Economic History."

http://www.joshuagoldstein.com/jgeconhi.htm.

Tassava, Christopher J. "The American Economy during World War II." February 10,
2008. https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-american-economy-during-world-war-ii/.