The article considers the example of dummy tanks used to deceive the enemy during WWII, the false expectations of the Allied forces that led them to believe that Franco’s fascist regime would fall long before it did, and the therapeutic promises offered by messianic leaders of totalitarian regimes.

Of the many factors that shaped energy transitions in the twentieth century, the World Wars are rarely considered. Yet the dramatic effects of war mobilization on energy systems and the restructuring of supply lines through new geographies of military action and alliance suggest the importance of war as an external shock or crisis with the power to reshape the political economy of energy systems profoundly. Hydroelectricity in Canada during World War II provides one example of this process. The War consolidated and propelled a transition to hydroelectricity, yet the transition was not simple or linear.

The article links this battlefield to the historical accounts of the “Battle of Teutoberg Forest” in the year 9 AD, in which three Roman legions suffered a devastating defeat at the hands of Germanic troops.