Hi everyone, I am looking for History undergraduates and PhDs to help me with future videos. That would be paid. If you are interested please email me at henrystewart278@gmail.com CORRECTION: I said that the gun used in the assassination was made in Serbia. It was actually made in Belgium. Apologies I have started a Patreon. Any support would be greatly appreciated! :) patreon.com/HenryStewartHistory
Great point! You should've added Belgium to your list of potential instigators of WW1 because had it not produced that pistol, Gavrilo couldn't have shot Ferdinand! If try to argue that Gavrilo would've chosen a pistol produced by another country - no problem, but in that case that specific country would've bear responsibility! This has more sense than attempting to blame Serbia for German invasion of Belgium!
Maybe you should learn history of Belgium at that time in Belg Congo then you can understand why Belgium was so dangerous - naybe responisble for the word war? - but why could Britain join a word war only to defend Belgium or Belgium intrests?
@@ralfrath699 That's what I want to point - poor innocent Belgium, which sl@ughtered millions of people thousands of miles away from itself, is invaded because a Serb killed the next-in-line leader of the occupied Serb-inhabited territory!?
King George, Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas were all first cousins and grandsons of Queen Victoria. The Kaiser, who was Queen Victoria's oldest grandchild, said about the war “If our grandmother [Queen Victoria] were alive, she never would have allowed it.”
And what of it? The "elite" never gave a shit about the plebs, not then, not now. Ohh mommy Vicky would have never allowed it... ffs The Romanovs got what was coming to them, same for the frog eaters and to a lesser extant the krauts. The Windsors survived and look at Britain now... shame, shame on all of them.
The problem was the Kaiser's youth. He thought he knew better than the absolute omegigachad that was Bismark. He should have listened and learned from Bismark. Constitutional monarchies are the best form of government. Sadly the world was divided into the extremes of democracy/capitalism and communism and all the stable and established orders in the world were toppled by the "superpowers". Now the question is if humanity can recover from the US brought disasters which were ww1 and ww2.
@@Kalenz1234 lol lmao blaming the Americans for European wars. And hows that constitutional monarchy/liberal democracy working out for indigenous working class Brits?
The European "peace" of 1815 to 1914 is somewhat illusory. There was fighting, sometimes on a large scale, in Belgium, Switzerland, Poland, Russia, Denmark, Italy, Austria, France and the Balkans. There were revolutionary conflicts all over Europe in 1848-9. Plus a number of near misses (including the Bosnian crisis). There were tensions left over from those, re-divided Poland, Schleswig-Holstein, Italia Irredenta, Alsace-Lorraine, not to mention new nations in the Balkans. All of which contributed to the outbreak of WWI.
One thing should be noted about Austria is that many people in Austria wanted a war with Serbia long before the assassination. In 1913 Austrian chief of staff Conrad von Hötzendorf proposed war with Serbia 25 times. Again, this was the year before the assassination. But he's not the only person. Many in Europe wanted a war. It really was a powder keg and any spark would have set it off.
People can take the piss out of what happened then but it comes down to the fact that a generation perished in this conflict. Not just thousands but millions.
The men Canada sent from Newfoundland were almost entirely wiped out at the Battle of the Somme. It permanently altered the demographics of the province.
@@MakerInMotiondon’t forget they also fought at Gallipoli with the rest of 29 Division ,on the Somme again at Guedecourt and at Arras. Love visiting the Caribous. Great soldiers
@@kendomyers The Yanks who entered the War very late brought the so called Spanish Flu to Europe, but then bitches about China and Covid! The rich wanted to teach the working class that they can´t always ask for more money? So they murdered millions during WW1.
My (maternal and paternal) family lost 8 boys to battle (average age around 20). One Grandad was shell shocked and the other used to show me shrapnel that went into his back in 1916 coming out of his wrist of all places in 1970. It was blue in colour. He was also burnt on the legs with mustard gas. Then of course more of my lot were lost in the second war, including lost legs. We never found them either. All I know is, my family didn’t start it but we did pay the price. I have always thought that we ordinary souls always pay the butchers bill for the mistakes and arrogance of all the leaders of this world. I’m sure there are many of you also with similar family histories. Sadly, Nothing changes.
Here in the states World War I is largely overlooked and somewhat forgotten because it was mostly Europe's issue and America was only involved for a year or so before the Armistice was signed
@@isaacwest If you think it was all aggression then you should look into mutual defense treaties and alliances which dragged in countries after countries like falling dominoes. Also, revolutionaries with countries and regions -- with no armies -- who lit the fuses of alluances A lot if defense was based on fear of mobilization of potential opponents who feared the mobilization of surrounding countries and their allies. Standing armies didn't help The EU is starting to talk about coming up with its own EU army now. In the EU smaller countries have survived since WW2 with minimal defenses... what is the EU gets big army and gets thrown into something or start something all bets are off off. Italy tried to start fighting toward the end of World War II, but its ally Germany brought in its troops and invading forces fighting its way up through the Italian peninsula cost most of the destruction to Italian towns and people in that war, while Spain and Switzerland which were neutral were not the sites of such battles.
@@jeannovacco5136 It doesn't need to be a EU army. The NATO treaties have put us into a very similar position and with Biden and the fools in his administration the possibility of another situation like WW I is scary. There are people in power pushing for Ukraine to join NATO which is insanity.
That seems to be the popular consensus. The evidence presented by Germany at the treaty of Versailles did not consolidate that consensus. An innocent nation does not blot out 50 percent of its evidence. Due process suggests Germany was the culprit. Western historians generally used Lenin’s synopsis. Lenin’s association with German is an interesting historical read. I recommend, Europe’s last summer by Fromkin.
The outbreak of WW1 is even crazier when you consider that the leaders of Germany, Russia and Great Britain were related. Kaiser Wilhelm was the grandson of Queen Victoria. Tsar Nicholas II was distantly related to Queen Victoria and he also married Alexandra, Queen Victoria's granddaughter. Ferdinand I of Romania married Queen Victoria's granddaughter Marie. So when the Kaiser went to war he was fighting his cousin George V and his cousins-in-law in Russia and Romania. If that wasn't crazy enough, the Kaiser was also an honorary admiral in both the British and Russian navies.
The king of Romania was also family with the German rulers. Pretty much all royal families were related somehow, some more than others (let's just say that Queen Victoria had lots of children and grandchildren).
Also, Europe from 1814-1914 produced music so powerful and beautiful that it's still being performed today all over the world. Whistle a couple of lines and everyone recognizes it from hearing it in movies, mostly.
It's funny how Europe mass produced genocides across the globe but hoped they can get along producing music back in Europe. Pathetic and no accounting for taste.. European music was too mechanical almost arithmetic for my personal taste. What goes around comes around. When European dehumanize entire continents and civilizations it's only a matter of time they start treating their own populations likewise simply because it works (in satanic ways, but still it works). Narratives will differ of course but end goals are the same. War is horrible and cost 10 millions lives? Forget it! Here's the Spanish flu to help you! - 35,000,000 lives.
@@carminegalante4925 Erich Korngold, Jewish, Sinfonietta 1913 at age 15, Gustav Holst, English, Planets 1917, both leading to John William's Star Wars & E.T.
@@arthursulit Do not forget colonel bogey march, which was used by the british army in WWI and WWII where the british added lyrics to it "Hitler has only got one ball" and people still sing it to this day.
More words of wisdom when starting a war include, " Be careful what you think, for it becomes your words, which become your actions , and in turn becomes your country's character." This war along with WW2 affects even the character of babies born today caused from generations of war.
This is a fantastic treatment of the causalities of WWI. Thank you for the work you put into this. I learned a great deal that I had never learned about the causes of the war. So many critically important and yet small details, such as messages that were left undelivered, and the timing of mobilization, meant all the difference in how I perceive the causes of the conflict and the entities to be blamed. I am very grateful for your work.
There’s an old joke about a man picking up a hitchhiker, who then asks if he’s at all worried that the man he just let into his car is a serial killer. ”Nah, I’m good. The probability of having two serial killers in one car is close to nil.” Maybe Franz Ferdinand reasoned something along the same line: what are the odds of two attempts at his life on the same day? Not that it makes a whole lot of sense, but it’s possible something like this was going on.
To my understanding of digging a bit deeper into the biography of Franz Ferdinand, is that he was NOT well liked by the Austrian Kaiser, and he wasn't happy about him being his successor (the German Kaiser had similar sentiments). And hes was a bit of naive idiot. But his assassination presented a rather inconvenient loss of face to a small, new neighbor with a powerful friend.
He was an abrasive man, and he leaned into that quite a bit in public. He was a warm family man though (you should look up his last words). The funny thing (and with funny I mean tragic) is that he was the only person in the world who could, and probably would, give the Serbians what they said they wanted. When he was emperor he wanted to give Serbia independence (within or without the empire). Not because he was a nice man but because he was done with their eternal bickering. Now the Serbians would never be happy with anything that wasn't Great Serbia (an entity that had existed for a handful of years, a 1000 years ago) but it could have made them quiet for a few years. Maybe.
15:36 The Archduke not only continued on in that open car after the first bomb, but also told the driver to stop when he realised that they were taking the wrong road to the hospital. In the process of sorting that out, the car had by chance stopped directly next to where Gavrio Princip was standing, and thus gave Princip a clear shot at the stationary car instead of a moving one. He could hardly have missed...and didn't. The car by the way is still in a military museum in Vienna.
The 1911 Gräf & Stift 28/32 PS Double Phaeton in which Archduke Franz Ferdinand was riding at the time of his assassination, Museum of Military History, Vienna (2003)
@flashgordon6670 Definitely not, it is in the Heeresmuseum in Vienna, plus the blood-stained clothes of the couple. They feature quite an extensive collection from the late medieval times to the modern age.
It's not like they were really at peace for a century and that the war just sprang out of nowhere :P It sprung out of the fact that those various large powers were very competitive and always wanted to ensure their supremacy.
He thus also forgot to mention just how critical Franz Ferdinand was, as he was the one who kept talking the Emperor back from war. And while Franz was a flagrant racist against Serbians, he also viewed it as necessary for his future government to include Serbians significantly to maintain peace throughout the Empire. The Black Hand chose literally the worst person to assassinate.
@@_XLimit_ History would say that lesson is wrong, plenty of nations and cultures fucked with Serbia and Serbia took it like a little kurwa 🤣 Serbs are christianized turks with an identity crisis, fight me🤡
The Austro-hungarian ultimatum after the assassination was designed to provoke a war. Germany wrote the famous blank cheque supporting its neighbour and the Great War was inevitable. Germany certainly bears some responsibility in giving the beligerent Austria-Hungary such unquestioning support. This all played into the hands of opportunist imperialists across the continent and the die was cast.
WW I was THE most catastrophic event of the 20th century. It upended a century of relative stability and prosperity in Europe. It was a major contributor to European chaos of the 20s and 30s and of the rise of fascism and WW II and all of the misery, death and destruction that that war brought to Europe. Great video, thanks!
In the extras of the They Shall Not Grow Old DVD, listen to the later recordings of the veterans who were by then in their fifties. "It made a man out of me," and "I wouldn't have missed it for the world," were some of their comments. They presumably also went to church and saw no contradiction in what they were taught there and their mindsets. Maybe we shouldn't feel too sorry for such sickos. They apparently loved what they were doing, were also reportedly upset when it came to an end, and then they did it all over again. It takes a real man to klil a baby, I guess. I have to wonder if anything changed in the meantime.
@@Christmas-dg5xc I somehow don't think that the recordings you mentioned represent the vast majority of ANY men who fought in ANY war. Most soldiers of any army want just want to do their job and go home as soon as possible.
lol, yeah, peacefull Europe for the last 100 years. Sooo.... what abou Deutsch-Französischer Krieg or Guerre franco-allemande. Lie on the second minute, dude.
thats what i have always thought when learning about world war 1 and had he been more preparted for war he might have been able to stop the Bolshevik revolution too
Gee, what did Marine General Smedley Butler, twice recipient of the Congressional Metal of Honor, and combat veteran of WWI, mean when he said, “ War is a racket”
Blackadder goes forth put it very well: Edmund: You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent war in Europe, two superblocs developed: us, the French and the Russians on one side, and the Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two vast opposing armies, each acting as the other's deterrent. That way there could never be a war. Baldrick: But this is a sort of a war, isn't it, sir? Edmund: Yes, that's right. You see, there was a tiny flaw in the plan. George: What was that, sir? Edmund: It was bollocks.
@@tommyprince9931 Hidden History: The Secret Origins of the First World War. by Gerry Docherty & Jim Macgregor A new theory on how World War I started-not with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, but rather 10 years earlier, by power-hungry men whose lies have infiltrated history Hidden History uniquely exposes those responsible for World War I. It reveals how accounts of the war's origins have been deliberately falsified to conceal the guilt of the secret cabal of very rich and powerful men in London responsible for the most heinous crime perpetrated on humanity. For 10 years, they plotted the destruction of Germany as the first stage of their plan to take control of the world. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was no chance happening. It lit a fuse that had been carefully set through a chain of command stretching from Sarajevo through Belgrade and St. Petersburg to that cabal in London. Our understanding of these events has been firmly trapped in a web of falsehood and duplicity carefully constructed by the victors at Versailles in 1919 and maintained by compliant historians ever since. The official version is fatally flawed, warped by the volume of evidence they destroyed or concealed from public view. Hidden History poses a tantalizing challenge. The authors ask only that you examine the evidence they lay before you. www.ww1hiddenhistory.co.uk/
I remember doing a paper on this for my historiography class in college. We each had to argue why a specific country was responsible for WW1. Definitely one of my favorite papers.
It used to be common to place blame on the losers. The comments are full of old people promoting this point of view, Germany is to blame for everything. Now it is customary to present everything that happened as an absurd accident, no one is to blame. In the Soviet Union, this war was studied as a crime of the ruling classes against the people. Some time will pass and the Marxist view of these events will become generally accepted.
@@flashgordon6670 It could be hard to live in a panic because how a war started what ended more than a century ago. :) The propaganda works worst every year and people will understand it in the future it was not good vs bad. It is probably not easy for you, you grew up in a world where everything was simple, where the good guys always won and the bad guys started every war. I'm enjoying to see your desperate attempt.
I love this channel. The amount of info is meticulously researched and delivered in such a short amount of time. I have watched countless of ww1 videos and never once seen one like yours. Truly unique and easy to follow, hats off to u sir.
WOW! This was incredible and my favorite kind of historical content. Most on CZcams focus on battles and gloss over the geopolitical side of the conflict but this perspective lets you feel and understand what caused millions to be in support of killing each other, and pulls you away from century old war propaganda of one side being evil. It is also what teaches the mistakes that were made in foreign policy and how to avoid them which is how you truly avoid war. I hope to see more like this from this channel!
I think it's important to remember that periodic wars had been a reality in European politics essentially forever. The leaders of Europe were recruited mostly from the pre-industrial aristocracies that had fought those previous wars and they completely failed to grasp the way in which industrialisation had changed what a full scale European war would mean.
No, periodic wars had not been a reality in European politics essentially forever. The diplomats who converged on Vienna following the end of the wars of Napoleon in 1815 set up an international system based on maintaining a balance of power. The five great powers would play a balancing act where if one power began to become too powerful the others put it in its place. This was the reason for the Crimean War where France and Britain (and Piedmont-Savoy?) pushed back Russia which they felt was advancing too far into Turkey (AKA the sick man of Europe). They succeeded and the balance of power was preserved. It was the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 that would upset the balance in later years. With France defeated, the King of Prussia now became the Emperor of a united Germany that excluded Austria-Hungary. The second emperor, Wilhelm II started an arms race to become equal to Britain as a naval power. Britain had been operating as a balancer to keep the system going. The system began to unravel. Austria wanted to help France in 1870 but the Hungarians wouldn't let them. A formerly subservient region now held almost equal power to their old masters. Austria was starting to break up. They sought an alliance with the Germans. The French having had no real friends since Napoleon found one in Russia. The Germans began reaching out to Turkey. The Italian states merged into a single kingdom under the House of Piedmont-Savoy by 1871 and it was aiming to become a great power. Eventually the Italians would sign a defensive treaty with Germany and Austria. Britain merely had an "understanding" with France and had guaranteed protection for permanently neutral Belgium. Russia had agreed to protect Serbia which hated Austria for occupying the Slavic lands they coveted. The balance of power had given Europe a century of peace during which industrialization, the building of railways, telegraph and later telephone systems, the tremendous advances in science and medicine, the creation of beautiful music, art, and architecture, the spread of electric lights, tram systems in cities, huge ocean liners that plied the seas, the start of flying machines, were achieved across much of Europe. It only took a spark in one of the most backward areas of Europe to push the continent off its road to progress. Serbia and Austria-Hungary went to war, Russia declared war on Austria, Germany and Russia declared war on each other, France declared war on Germany and its allies which now included Bulgaria and Turkey. Britain hesitated and then declared war on France's enemies. The Italians were the most sensible; they thought the war was crazy, but their leaders were bribed by the British and French with promises of Austrian territory and Italy betrayed its allies in 1915. The system of entangling alliances undid the balance of power that had kept Europe largely free of war for 100 years.
"If you had a competition to write the stupidest things that humanity has ever done, A strong contender for the winner would have to be World War One." For a split second, I thought the whole video was going to rhyme.
Not even true. Germany, for example, preferred peace. The Kaiser himself said that he did not think Austria should not go to war over the issues at that time. But Austria did go to war and Germany was a loyal ally and joined in.
IN THE END WE FINALLY HAVE SOMEONE WHO GIVES A REAL ANSWER AND DOES NOT SHY AWAY FROM GIVING A BLAME!!! How long did it take for someone not ending that question by "it is everyone or no one 's fault?" Man, you've gained my respect and my subscription.
It's the fault of Serbia. I don't know how this is even a complicated question. They assassinated the archduke, Austria declared war, rightfully so, and others got involved and then it escalated. It's not complicated.
@@ararune3734 Serbia seems to clearly be worst culprit but we should not underestimate: 1. ) the actions of those nations that had no democracy or a limited democracy, 2.) the tremendous amount of incompetence in the German and Russian decision making apparatus and especially the Russian czar and Wilhelm from Germany and 3.) the thirst for war from Austria that set up demands on Serbia that they knew would be denied in 1 pertinent part.
@@MLB1212 Certainly Germany did not declare war until its enemies had mobilized their armies ie. Russia and France. At that time mobilization was equivalent to a declaration of war. The Kaiser appealed to the Tsar to stop Russian mobilization but he refused.
@@ararune3734 "It's the fault of Serbia. I don't know how this is even a complicated question." Serbian terrorists unaffiliated with the Serbian government assassinated the archduke. The Serbian government had no hand, heh, in it.
I've always heard the assasination of Ferdinand being called the spark to the poweder keg, but the more I learn of the July Crisis, the more it sounds like the first domino in an elaborate array. there were so many ways and opportunities where removing a single domino would stop the entire thing from topplin g over, but time, circumstance, or poor choices meant that the chain reaction continued.
The reasons for WW 1 are a complex geopolitical array, but one major factor was bc the World leaders wanted to know what all their new hardware could do in a large scale battle. Most of them never expected the war to blow so out of proportion and spread to the whole World with millions of casualties. The most defining weapon in World history since the introduction of gunpowder, was the machine gun, no other weapon have had such a tremendous impact on tactics as that. At the outbreak of the war, the military doctrine for engagement was still like the Napolionic Wars, human wave attack, but just 3-5 machine guns from a good position, could mow down hundreds of men in a matter of seconds. By the beginning of 1915, there where still some commanders stuck in the old ways, but most armies had completely changed their doctrines, which had been prevalent for almost 400 years.
If the British had not been distracted by the prospect of a unionist rebellion in the kingdom of Ireland against home rule for that state, aw rebellion that was funded and promoted by the tory party in order to split the liberal Party and bring down the Liberal government, an intervention might have been made in time to prevent the conflict. The tory party has a lot to answer for in its lust for power.
There was conflict coming in europe (most likely at the balkans) there was no question abaut that, no one saw the scale of this conflict that escalated
Although many nations in some measure bore responsibility for WW1, the Treaty of Versailles blamed Germany. It is no wonder that the punitive reparations, and other humiliating conditions imposed on Germany led to WW2 just 20 years after the end of WW1
One critical element that should always be put into the limelight, is that of the benefactors. Any type of organization that isn't mentioned as much in official narratives that benefit to the utmost extreme from war as the profiteers. They have the money, resources, and desire for war. Such as IG F arben during WW2, M onsanto during Vietnam, Hal iburton/B lack Rok gulf wars etc. WW1 was the genesis of corporate, bank, and state cultivating death for profit in such a fine way. I would like to know more on who was pushing the media, whispering in the Royal families ears, and playing politics on the underside of the board...
Archduke Franz Ferdinand went to Bosnia so that his wife, who was actively snubbed by the Austrian nobles, could be treated with the respect of a state visit. Several in Austria were eager to go to war in Serbia, especially Hotzendorf, who had several times prior pushed for war, and he ironically had been opposed by the Archduke. Many in Germany wanted to go to war with Russia before Russia had completed their railway upgrades (funded in large part by France). France actively encouraged Russia to go to war with Germany. France actively pursued an alliance with Russia after the Franco-Prussian war. France wanted revenge for Germany taking Alsace Lorraine, and they sought an alliance with Russia to acheive that aim. During the 'July Crisis' there was little done by France to prevent war from breaking out. There is positively no way to pretend Serbia was not agitating for war, and had completely expected Russia to support them. It should be noted that the actual first shots of the war was by Austria on Serbia at Belgrade, July 28th, nearly a week before Germany crossed the Belgium border on August 4th. Who is to blame? The war hawks in Serbia, Austria, Russia, Germany, and France. Each of those countries had politicos who purposely agitated for a war, and they got it. Britain was happy to have an excuse to go to war against the rising power of Germany. Italy and the Ottoman empire joined the side they felt would give them the best spoils of war. If one wants to blame any single country for the Great War, they don't understand how eager each and every one of those initial five countries were for war. The celebrations held and filmed in each country gives adequate testament to that eagerness. It's like blaming a fist fight between two people on the one who threw the first punch but totally ignoring that the other guy was provoking it the whole time. They're both to blame.
To be honest, Germany was still mostly to blame because their war hawks (mostly military generals) were pushing Austria into war, and making the declarations, and had been since at least 1906. Russia and Serbia were reckless too (especially Russia), but Serbia's actions aren't enough to justify blaming them for an all-out European war, and while Austria was first to fight, it didn't do anything until it got a green light in the firm of the 'blank cheque' from Germany. As for Frdnve and Britain, neither of then really did enough to justify blaming them for the outbreak in 1914 either.
What makes this question so important, is that it should have been an academic question. Instead it became a major ingredient of an even more gruesome war. Looking at our time, I cannot see that we learned anything. We should not need history to be able to prevent such catastrophes, but having it and then abusing or ignoring it is painful to watch, even more so in contemporary politics than with our benefit of hindsight when looking at history. For the most part of my life I looked at the history of the two wars from a distance and with disbelieve and a complete lack of understanding regarding the nonchalance and ignorance of that time. Only in recent times I developed more understanding about that era of history, now that I see the same nonchalance and ignorance play out right in front of my eyes. I see the same absence of alternatives, the same forced decisions that could just as well not be made.
As Blackadder said, "It was just easier to have a war than it was to not have a war". Simple laziness on the part of those who had the power to de-escalate.
Read Tuchman and you see that it's not so simple. Mobilizations take time. If the other guy is mobilizing and you are not, then your generals are screaming at you that you are endangering the realm (or Republic).
You should avoid statements of absolutes when discussing history, Trooper. Another result of World War 1 was the beginning of decolonizing of Africa. Transferring several colonies from German to British control ultimately made a lot easier for those colonies to seek their independence after World War 2. Breaking free of imperial _or_ fascist Germany would be a lot more problematic than getting out from under the British colonial office.
@@gregrea9578 First of all your statement is incorrect. Just look at how Britian dealt with uprisings in their time. There was no fascist Germany at the time.... or any time at all, really. Secondly it begs the question what rising nation or power would profit from the disintegration of other colonial powers? Didn't the decolonization actually gain momentum after ww2? Who took over after that?
Well if I was looking for the answer, first I’d try to figure out who profited. Who financed the war, with interest and who financed the rebuilding. And who got the German war reparations. 🤷🏽♂️
I think it's safe to say that Franz Ferdinand's hubris became his downfall and it was his death was the force that killed his own empire as well as the Germans and the Russians.
@@mtlicq Wow, CZcams even puts context BS into WW1 videos. Here is a short video of interest: "The Genocide Called World War I": czcams.com/video/psXYMiBM1JE/video.html
@@peterfireflylundthe British, the French and the Americans all had very little to do with it as the video states, the Russians as he states, by mobilising so early pushed the conflict, Britain being visibly indecisive allowed both sides to draw the conclusions that suited themselves, France to a reasonable degree did the same by not pressing its allies, Russia to cut back its mobilisation, although it did signal a desire not to escalate things by drawing its forces back from the Franco German border, America was not even mentioned as they had an isolationist policy and did not want to get involved, with large numbers of British and European people's making up its population this policy was very understandable. That left the Russians who by mobilising to the extent they did created tension, even if they ultimately had no intention of conflict it was a positive action that would prove to only escalate things. The one thing with Serbia that did get glossed over was it's desire to get a sea port, as it is a land locked state, hence a very good reason to help it's fellow Slavic neighbour against the Austrian aggressor, who also benifited from Bosnias extensive coastline. The world is gray, only shades of gray.
When one of my great-grandfathers, an officer in the Austrian army, returned home from WWI he remarked that he hadn't shot a single bullet at the enemy. He was responsible for the provision for men and horses at the fronts to which he was sent. He was very patriotic and deplored the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Realizing that Austria was reduced to even less than the German speaking parts he strongly doubted that the first Republic of Austria would be a sustainable political and economic entity. Hence he was slightly in favour of Austria joining the first Republic of Germany. It's possibly impossible for people today to understand what a shock and humiliation the consequences of WWI were for many people in Austria and Germany. As a result a huge barrier was set up against investigating, reflecting and understanding the root causes of that desaster.
Ellen N. La Motte's book ''The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield As Witnessed by An American Nurse'' shows how angry some of the French soldiers were at the support staff and stretcher-bearers behind the lines who were in an easier position to be in than the front-line troops, and how the experience of being wounded in the war itself defeated and disillusioned their views. I think it's not discussed enough what affect having experienced the mass dehumanisation of the propaganda and war of the trenches may have had in dehumanizing Adolf Hitler enough to have had later adopt the idea of death factories. ''Then the surgeon came, impatiently. Ah, a grand blessé, to be hastened to the rear at once. The surgeon tried to unbutton the soaking trousers, but the man gave a scream of pain. “For the sake of God, cut them, Monsieur le Major! Cut them! Do not economize. They are worn out in the service of the country! They are torn and bloody, they can serve no one after me! Ah, the little economies, the little, false economies! Cut them, Monsieur le Major!” An assistant, with heavy, blunt scissors, half cut, half tore the trousers from the man- 20 - in agony. Clouts of black blood rolled from the wound, then a stream bright and scarlet, which was stopped by a handful of white gauze, retained by tightly wrapped bands. The surgeon raised himself from the task. “Mon pauvre vieux,” he murmured tenderly. “Once more?” and into the supine leg he shot a stream of morphia. Two ambulance men came in, Americans in khaki, ruddy, well fed, careless. They lifted the stretcher quickly, skilfully. Marius opened his angry eyes and fixed them furiously. “Sales étrangers!” he screamed. “What are you here for? To see me, with my bowels running on the ground? Did you come for me ten hours ago, when I needed you? My head in mud, my blood warm under me? Ah, not you! There was danger then-you only come for me when it is safe!” They shoved him into the ambulance, buckling down the brown canvas curtains- 21 - by the light of a lantern. One cranked the motor, then both clambered to the seat in front, laughing. They drove swiftly but carefully through the darkness, carrying no lights. Inside, the man continued his imprecations, but they could not hear him. “Strangers! Sightseers!” he sobbed in misery. “Driving a motor, when it is I who should drive the motor! Have I not conducted a Paris taxi for these past ten years? Do I not know how to drive, to manage an engine? What are they here for-France? No, only themselves! To write a book-to say what they have done-when it was safe! If it was France, there is the Foreign Legion-where they would have been welcome-to stand in the trenches as I have done! But do they enlist? Ah no! It is not safe! They take my place with the motor, and come to get me-when it is too late.” Then the morphia relieving him, he slept.''
@@JingleJangleJam You think Germany in WW2 was demonized beyond reason? I've heard maybe history was too harsh on them, but the Holocaust is still a major issue in that idea
@@thalmoragent9344 It depends what you mean, you'll have to clarify you specific question better for me to answer. I think, you put a false notion to my opinion as my stance. I wasn't meaning to justify or excuse of sympathize with Hitler but trying to explain how objectively Hitler could become a mass murderer through his psychological dehumanisation and near death experiences in the most violent war of human history. I'm trying to explain the root cause of Hitler's insanity and later dependence on drugs for instance, war can derange the morality and conscience of persons, fill one with a rivalry and love of excitement and passionate hatred of the enemy, as well as make people lose their human empathy, and all his life he wanted a re-match for its loss. Also to show that mass life is expendable for some ulterior national idealism or aim, which all countries displayed in WW2 Part 1: the Great War. It included its own genocides also, like that of the Ottomans. The perversion and dementing of Hitler's moral compass by the Great War is I think not analysed properly by both the youtube ''historians'' who show Hitler in a positive framework and those who show and write history, like proper historians like Aldous Huxley even, who deduced Hitler's madness to a kind of personality childhood trait in a kind of pocketbook Freudian way. Either the positive towards Hitler camps hows Hitler's experience in the Great War in a fun, glorifying, white washed way of him as an war hero, or the negative views of Hitler's historians portray his evil as having some supernatural origin like a one day this transcendent evil baby Hitler was born and if you ought to discover a time machine and travel back in time it would be an honourable thing to kill Hitler as he was a baby.
What was perverse about Hitler's moral compass? Maybe you should look into post war Germany and how reparations were handled and by whom. Also, you got some kind of evidence linking Hitler to the "Holocaust"? The entire historical community would love to have it.
You mentioned the Franco-Prussian war of 1870..it did not drag anyone else in, even Britain stayed out. But then came the Entente Cordiale of 1904, followed by the framework of military co operation betwen Britain and France, short of an actual alliance. I believe this emboldened France, when it could have counselled restraint by Russia in 1914. If Russia had taken a step back, this would have also given Germany a chance to play things down, telling Austria to moderate its attitude to Serbia, thus avoiding the death of an heir who was not very popular with the Emperor of Austria Hungary, and not being a cause for war..so a diplomatic incident, but nothing more...1914 could have been so different...
Sean McMeekin an American Academic fluent in German, Russian and Turkish wrote a book called "The Russian Origins of the First World War". There you will learn in detail that the Russians plotted WW1 and wanted it. They wanted to 1 Take Western Galacia (the part of Ukraine part of Austo Hungarian Empire) and to do that they had to destroy Austria-Hungary and also Germany as Germany supported Austria. Russia also wanted to reduce Turkey to a Rump state and to do that they needed to destroy Germany as Germany had good relations with Turkey. To do this they plotted allegiances and intrigues with the French (who were motivated by Revanchism over the loss of the Franco Prussian war in 1871) and to a lessor extent the British as they knew they couldn't destroy Germany alone. This is the cause of WW1 not Germany. Germany was only a reactive power. When the Germans asked France if they would stay neutral if there was a war with Russia and Germany the French replied "We shall have recourse to our own interests) in other words no. The French cabinet decided to declare war on German before the Germans did, its just the Germans delivered the message first. -Slavic unity was also a Russian Tsarist Propaganda. Russia at the time was suppressing the Ukrainian language and culture whereas Austria did no such thing. Serbia was only being used.
Problem is, you have a jingoistic german emperor seeking parity with british naval and colonial dominance, a Britain trying to upheld the status quo in the face, that their naval dominance if falling due to the dreadnought race, a France eager to take revenge on Germany, a Russia desperately trying to get back into the table of great powers after their humiliating defeat in the Far East by being more deterrent in the west. An Austro-Hungarian Monarchy wishing to keep the russians out of the Balkans and take it into their sphere of influence. And then an Italy with an eager foreign policy to prove themselves as a great power. The 1914 tragedy was, that everyone was too afraid to step back.
Speaking of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. It was a mistake to took Alsace-Lorraine from France and also a mistake to proclaim the German empire in Versailles. After winning a war one should not humiliate an enemy on top. This lead to France building alliances for a further conflict with Germany.
@@hermes667 Germany had every right to take the German speaking areas back. Even if Germany didn't take land, France would have found something ells they could blame their desire for revenge. We can't forgot France started a war because Bismarck trolled them in a newspaper article. The Rhine crisis of 1840 showed that if Germany lost the war, France would have annexed everything west of the Rhine.
this war was a great example of big business factions wanting a massively profitable event needing only the slightest provocation to get the war machine into action.
Niall Ferguson, in "The Pity of War", puts blame squarely on the shoulders of Britain. The 3 cousins, kaiser, king and tzar, victoria's grandchildren, had long squabbled about empires. Germany wanted Morocco from France, Britain wouldn't share its empire with Germans, who were by then richer and more productive than any other country, yet had no empire. The Germans saw an opportunity to make a big splash on the world scene, and Britain did nothing to discourage them. This was a war of empires. That war was put on hold in 1918, and started again in 1939. In the end, trying save its empire, britain ended up losing it all, so it was all for nothing. All for nothing.
Some historians views the two world wars as a single conflict. Indeed, WWII being the corollary of Versailles. The powers just needed a new generation of warriors.
In the same book Ferguson also claimed that Germany winning the war in Europe would just have been like them creating the EU a few decades ahead of schedule. What an utter insane point.
you could find more grounds to place fault on the French. for centuries they pushed their borders eastward towards the river Rhine. in the late 18th century they finally schemed their way to Alsace and Lorraine, regions which were settled by German speaking people since the Romans vacated the area. when the Germans wanted to unite their lands the strongest opposition came from one Napoleon III. he got his ass kicked in 1870 and Germany took back Alsace-Lorraine. the French didn't like it and plotted to retake it at all costs. they fumed over it for more than 40yrs, watching Germany economically surpassing them, even overtaking the British in the 1890s. they took every opportunity, tried every avenue to offset Germany, oppose them, hinder them and generally frustrate them. the first 20yrs they didn't have much luck but then the Russians gradually were annoyed by the kaiser and the French won them over. a few years later, they convinced the British to form the _Entente Cordiale_ despite many opposing interests with London mainly due to colonial squabbles and centuries of animosity. while the crisis of 1914 was going on, the French saw an opportunity to get back at the Germans and egged the Russians on. all actors were criminally oblivious to the changes in war technology and what the industrialisation of war meant for near-peer adversaries in the European theater. all they were familiar with were light colonial skirmishes and everyone believed the war would be quick and decisive. old fools from the 19th century fighting a modern industrialised war in the 20th century. all are to blame - not just the losers.
The greed for land of the Austrian Imperial family and the arrogance of the German Emperor to tell anyone in Europe what to do were the sparks that ignited the fire of total war.
In my WW1 course in college, a long time ago, my professor was adamant that the British were at fault. That was pretty much the theme of that whole course.
In 1916 Woodrow Wilson was re-elected on the campaign promise: “I will keep the USA out of the European War.” Wilson was inaugurated in March 1917. In April 1917, Wilson dragged the USA into the European War.
The US stayed because of isolationism of the time, I'm from the states and America was only involved in the war for a short time unlike the European powers that had been fighting long than our guys did and lost thousands of men in sluggish battles especially on the Western Front
Wilson has a lot to answer for. If we had stayed out I am sure the European war would have devolved into some kind of stalemate. In some ways the war did result in the end of monarchies and empires but my question is could that have been achieved without the rise of fascism and another world war.
Germany had committed a string of provocations against America. First in 1915, Germany started unrestricted submarine warfare, though they stopped after being warned they were risking war with the US. Later in 1915, Germany sank the RMS Lusitania killing 128 Americans. In January of 1917 Germany tried to instigate a war between Mexico and the US by means of the Zimmerman telegram. Lastly, in February of 1917, Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare which was the final straw for America. So Wilson kinda had no choice but to bring the US into the war in March of 1917
@@tomjackson4374 The US played no part in that, only 2 Countries are to blame for "nono germany" and that is France and ofc Germany (well i suppose Austria aswell come to think of it).
In German schools, we are being taught that we have to blame ourselves for both worldwars, so it will never happen again. When I was an exchange student in the US, however, our American history teacher was defending the US invasion into vietnam to be something for the greater good. Difference in culture.
Well i think the second one is absolutely our fault. Even when you blame the treaty of versaille and so on the true reason for the nazi uprising was rooted in the german people letting themselve be way to easily covinced by nationalism and racist views and blaming their misfortune on everyone around them. For the most part they were not pressured into doing this but willfully ignorant up to outright malicious. As for WWI i dont think we were the only ones to blame but we were definetly NOT innocent. In the end the question of who is at fault is pretty dumb because it is WAY more important to look at what caused people to become nazis and how to prevent this in the future. Because the generation that lived through WWII is mostly dead by now, right wing and fascist thought is again being pushed into the mainstream and this is what really should be adressed. 😐
Over 60 years ago, my high school history teacher was the one that told us about WW1. I remember all the alliances that were impetus to the development of the war. His lectures have inspired an interest in this topic ever since. A most complex and important event that resonates to this day.
The common thread, the indecisive manner they all handled it foreshadowed the dithering of the League of Nations, and later, the United Nations. The obvious solution was to work out the conflict over the assassination. Getting an answer to the guilty parties in the assassination, and a resolution that pleases the Austrians without offending Serbia. Interesting that the Ottomon Empire was not considered in light of the many wars in the Bulcans leading up to 1914.
@@effexonThe Nazis did not turn up until World War II. But of course no one talks about the Americans stocking up the Germans with enough military equipment to start a war in the first place and then changing sides
@@James-kv6kb The Nazis began in the '20s but I'm not sure what you mean considering the Americans especially when you consider the state of the American armed forces up to the start of WW2. They certainly didn't supply vehicles or ships so are you talking about arms sales?
@@EndertheWeek sorry I wasn't clear with my comment the United states set Germany up with all its military equipment to start World War I then changed sides and sold to the British and allies and then when World War II erupted because the Germans were so devastated at losing the first time they thought they'd have another go , the Americans waited until everybody was running out of equipment, looked the other way when pearl Harbour was being flattened got into the war and signed all these countries up for 50-year arms deals. I know England was paying back America in the 80s from World War II and I believe Australia was similar . That's why they won't go and help the Ukrainian people with troops on the ground because they're making too much money with arms packages
You forgot to mention that Serbia agreed to all demands except the one allowing Austrian police to investigate on Serbian territory. And more to the point, Serbia proposed to have an international investigation into the assassination
Russia did all they could to start a war and afterwards faked the documents to lie everyone that they were forced to do so. Russia also started WW2, attacking its neigbors, terrible country.
You forgot to mention that the group responsible for the assassination was directly linked to the Serbian government. The black hand was literally funded by the serbian government. Oh and sorry we dont let scumbags investigate themselves. Smh. "after investigating ourselves, we are innocent".
Excellent video! Very sorry if I'm being blind but do you know what show(s)/films were used for the background in this? They look very interesting and keen to check them out! Battles are one thing but the diplomatic build-up is just as tense in my opinion.
Fantastic video! Really thoughtful and well presented. I learned more here in a half hour than I ever did in high school and college. In school way too much focus was on memorizing dates and timelines rather than focusing on the story and players' actions which this video does.
How the hell had europe been "relativly peaceful for a century" in 1914? We had the back end of the coalition wars, two balkan wars, three wars for EACH the german and the italian unification in that time frame...
But no general conflict since 1815. Whereas there were quite a few in the previous century. The examples you note were quite localised. The closest to a general conflict was Crimea.
@@harrynewiss4630 This is mostly correct. It just does not matter to the people who died. A turkish boy getting shot at Monastir would not think "at least its not a major conflict, Prussia isn't involved after all". He would probably think "oh, shit". The word "relativly" sure does a lot of heavy lifting in the video.
@@harrynewiss4630 Indeed. And for a historical video, I would expect the facts to be straight. Calling Europe peaceful by the arbitrary criterium that there was no single conflict involving all major powers, but a string of conflicts instead (and even this only if we exclude 1815) is not good historiographie.
@@CG-eh6oe I'm sorry that's wrong. I'm a historian and what he says is a perfectly mainstream and accurate argument. Compared to eg 1618-1815 Europe was relatively peaceful in the century to 1914.
My takeaway from this video is that it was all just sabre rattling and shouting until the Germans marched into Belgium, who were nothing to do with the situation whatsoever. If that hadn't have happened, maybe no shots would ultimately have been fired.
The wildest part is, many arguments have been made that the Monarchs would've preferred there wasn’t a war, but the politicians under then stoked the fire's which forced (most of) the Monarchs to act. Granted, Franz Ferdinand was also foolish to continue with his plans to visit and parade through the streets after all that occured. Monarchy can be great or fickle, in this case, the heir was naive. Turns out though, at times those under a Monarch can be fickle as well; even Democracy, Republics, Communism etc aren't always the ones best for a country.
That's the wird thing. The Monarchs didn't want it though there was a loud minority of Falcons in all their countries both among common politicians as well as high nobility.
That's very insightful. I've thought about how the various technologies might have shifted the ground underneath the old infrastructure set up to deal with conflicts - as the video mentioned, railways made it easier for Russia to mobilize. Communications technologies also had a part - they made it easier to rile up the masses, and also made communications between diplomats faster. The political system of the time must have still been in the process of adjusting to this. But there is a case to be made that what fundamentally changed was the loss of power by the monarchic regimes in favor of new structures. Japan is an example of this, namely the false flag perpetrated in Manchuria, which was done autonomously by military forces, not sanctioned by the emperor
It was Germany’s fault that a Balkan squabble, escalated into world war 1. It was Germany’s fault for not respecting the treaty of Versailles, that started WW2. And it was GERMANY who declared war against its own ally, the USSR and against the USA, and allied with Japan and Italy, inciting them to wage expansionist wars. Germany turned the Western European war, into a full European/Asian/African war. Then if that’s not bad enough, turned that into a full world war. By emboldening and encouraging Japan, to attack the USA and declared war against the USA.
0:55 The murder of Franz Ferdinand had nothing to do with the start of WWI. It was just the excuse used to justify going to war. While some European leaders wanted to avoid war, those who wanted to go to war had much greater influence. If Ferdinand's driver not stopped at that particular spot, or if Gavrilo Princip chose some other place to eat lunch and sulk of the failed attack, some other excuse would have sparked the war.
Whilst saying that WW1 starting had nothing to do with the death of Franz Ferdinand is not necessarily correct you are right in pointing out that it was merely a catalyst for a war that had been in the making for decades, the narrator of the video states that in 1914 war was not on the horizon and that leaders were desperate to avoid war, nothing could be further from the truth, many of the most influential people in Europe particularity in Germany were from an aristocratic officer class who yearned for the glory associated with war and decisive victories and for the fast moving and dynamic warfare of the Napoleonic wars, many influential businessmen and entrepreneurs in Germany yearned for the greater access to the world market that came with owning a powerful empire, in order to sell goods produced by the blooming german economy, many germans feared that without imperial expansion and new colonies the growth of the relatively young german nation would be stifled and suppressed by the established powers of Britain and France.
@@maxanders3000you are not correct about internal and external German politics. German Economy was allready blooming, and overtaking the other european economies without any war or colonies. They had the largest merchant fleet and access to the world market. A war, specially against the largest navies, would only endanger their economy without benefits in sight. The paliament consists of socialists who had allways been against any war. And funnily even the konservatives didnt want conquer new land since new french territory would increase the french minority in the country and gain land from russia would increase the polish minority in the country. This would only endanger the conservative position in the Parlament. The reason Germany went to war is to stay by its only ally. German politicians where naive, careless and stupid but not intentional in going to war. France, brittain and russia hat an Intention to go to war. France wanted elsace lorraine. Russia wanted success in foreign policy to distract their population from internal problems and brittain want to ged rid of its biggest competitor who had starting to overtake the commonwealth in more and more economic parameters.
Its the first domino in the chain. The Austrians heavily pushed for war in retelliation. With no assasination, there wouldnt have no reason to do so. Thats not to say, not an other conflict would not have errupted later on. But that conflict might have looked very different. Most countries where pulled in because they had defensive treaties with other countries, causing a domino effect. But we can only speculate what that would have looked liked. Maybe some great powers wouldnt have been obliged to enter that war.
German generals wanted to go to war with Russia before it can modernize its railways. And battle of Tannenberg 1914 just proved how important railways were. Russian mobilization was the only excuse Germany needed to start trying to conquer Europe one country after another. German "we need to attack first" attitude is to blame here. Because of it the anti war people had little to say. Without Germany that can flood any of its borders with drafted soldiers there wouldnt ba a great alliance. Germany (united after the Austro Prussian war) was build to be the aggressor of Europe that will go full out war for the slightest reason. United Germany is a dangerous propaganda invention. Told in school till all Germans started to believe in it (roughly in the nineteen century). Austria nor Switzerland dont need to be united to be rich and they do not see greater Germany as a value. Napoleon the 3rd understood this. France that wanted the partition of Germany after WWI understood this. People that split Germany into 4 occupation zones in 1945 understood this.
@@maxanders3000 that leaves out all the english and french aggression towards germany from 1894 to 1914. germany was excluded from the colonial game and many in britain yearned for war. you are trying to blame a singular nation and thereby seeding what made those wars possible in the first place.
Fun part is Franz was a major obstacle to war over Balkans. He was for Austria-Hungary as a multiethnic nation and specifically wanted to elevate the Slavic population as a hedge against the influence of the Hungarians.
My great Grandpa served in the Austrian Army on the serbian front. We was baking bread and making food for soldiers on the front and sometimes when enemy broke through he also had to fight with a weapon and heart shots flying around next to his ear. During the second world war he got angry about the Waffen SS. He said to one of the SS Dudes basically "You are stupid, you never heart a bullet fly" You know the bullet sound when a bullet flies very close to you like a whistle or sth. SS warnes him, if you say something again you can work in the concentration camp. Some Concentration camp workers were forced to work in our bakery. I don't know if they got food. As far as i know the secretly gave them a little bit to eat. 10km away there was still a concentration camp area. My grandma had potatoes in hear garden and threw them over the fence into the concentration camp to prisoners but before you do that you have to look who is at the moment Guarding the Prisoners. Some SS Dudes warned them and told them to stop them. Others actually kept it a secret and ignored it and didn't report it.
Many good Aussies died as well . But a lot of people don't know the American sold the Germans the equipment even sending Houdini over to teach the Germans how to fly lol then of course changed sides
@@BasementEngineer all the military equipment the Germans used against the allies was made by the Americans except I believe for the ships that they built themselves . And type in Houdini with German pilots and you'll see plenty of photos just before the war. It is the last thing the United states wants you to know but it is the truth
This is a very thorough yet concise, dispassionate explanation of all the various elements in the run up to WWI. IMHO this should be part of the curriculum for every student of the history of western civilization.
From 8:48 on, the whole seriousness and logic accuracy of the topic was instantly lost to me and I will always think that this was a plot by Darth Sidious to spark the invention of Stormtroopers and imperial uniform style...
I don’t think there was a single party to the war to “blame”. It was a complicated web of treaties and alliances that were triggered by events that weren’t carefully considered.
*Serbia* Assisted in the assassination (or at the least did nothing to stop it). *Russia* First to commit a full mobilization. *Germany* By invading Belgium forced Britain into the war.
UK was responsible. If the British had told the French that under no circumstances would they come to the aid of the French, France would not have dared to attack Germany. Austria would have dealt with the Serbs and the Germans would have then dealt with the Russian and the war would have been over in a few months. On the other hand, if the British had begun to build up a land army and told the Germans that they would levy total war against the Germans if the Germans attacked France, Germany would have restrained Austria and the war would have been settled at a European Congress. It was the waffling of perfidious Albion the caused the French and the German to miscalculate.
born 70 years ago I always was keen to learn, how one can recognize a world situation rising as in 1914 and from that I knew since some 10 years ago, that we are in it again.
Great History content. I always found World War One fascinating especially after reading the first book in Ken Follet's Century trilogy, but the political dynamics were a little difficult to follow at times. I like how you broke it down by Nation and how each played a role in escalating the crisis.
Who started it is a study in greed, vindictiveness and opportunism. Austria-Hungary took Bosnia-Herzegovina which rubbed the Serbs the wrong way because they wanted it too. The fact that a lot of Serbs lived there played an important fact in that too. At the time there was a pan Slavic movement that wanted to unite all Slavic people, preferably under the auspices of Russia. When the heir to the throne Archduke Ferdinand decided to visit Sarajevo, they decided to take him out. The emperor, not a great fan of the Archduke, saw this as a chance to declare war on Serbia and add it to his Empire. The Serbs were supported by Russia so they said “bring it on”. Russia got its ass handed to it by Japan in 1904 so the Czar needed to polish his tarnished military bona fides. That was the greed part. The vindictiveness all came down to the French president Clemenceau who wanted revenge on Germany for the loss of Elzas Lotharingen in 1871 when they got their asses handed to them by Prussia. He even gave up gaining territories in Africa hoping to keep the British on his side. Don’t forget the Rhine for the sake of the Nile! So, when Austro-Hungary, Germany and Russia went to war over Serbia, the French sided with Russia (Entente Cordial) and declared war on Germany and Austro-Hungary. Now the opportunism. The German kaiser Wilhelm and grandson of Queen Victoria foolishly declared that Germany’s future lay on the oceans and started to build a fleet while acquiring a few colonies here and there. That did not sit well with London because Britannia rules the waves so when the Germans invaded France through Belgium and the French were once again getting their asses handed to them, the British dusted off an 1831 treaty guaranteeing the integrity and sovereignty of Belgium, they declared war on Germany. That this treaty was originally designed to keep the Dutch from reclaiming Belgium was beside the point. For clarity, Belgium, Luxemburg and the Netherlands were united under the Dutch throne in 1815 as a northern buffer against France to keep the French in check (we had just had Napoleon!). The stage is set, let the fun begin. The two main culprits are Franz Jozef and Clemenceau.
The German military humiliated France in 1871. The Germans knew that France was weak, so the German invasion of Belgium and France was nonsensical. Why did they not merely fortify their border with Russia?
After all of that you put tbe Blame on Franz Joseph? It was Serbias fault. Franz Ferdinands plan for a united States of Greater Austria were well known, Serbia knew that if that came to happen Serbia would have never had their "greater Serbia".
No , its your Franz J. fault.. Austria wanted to defeet Serbia and take route to Ionic sea.. but Potyorek failed..twice.. first time on the mountain Zer . We are better soldiers then Austrians. Every morning i look at the Zer and i am proud
Everybody wants to rewrite history to their own liking. The Kaiser insisted that Austria refuse to accept Serbia's capitulation to the ultimatum. Germany needed to prop up the reputation of their weak (and only) ally. Also, Germany did not HAVE to go through Belgium, they CHOSE to.
Austria-Hungary should not have delayed and gone into Serbia ASAP before all the other countries' war plans congealed into place. They dawdled while they still had semblance of goodwill. Also , Conrad should have been dismissed years before as the head of the Austrian army because his grandiose war plans had no resemblance to the assets of Austria-Hungary. Who was to blame? France, for funding and then goading Russia into general war.
Quite a few years ago I attended a lecture by A.J.P.Taylor on the origins of the First World War - the subject for which he was famous. I recall his point that railway timetables took many months to devise, and that Germany had prepared a timetable for invading France, and one for withdrawing its armies from the border, but not one for supplying its armies during a prolonged period at the border; they therefore had to choose attack or withdrawal without the luxury of a leisurely decision. Not perhaps a question of blame or innocence, but an additional difficulty for preserving peace.
Which was the result of great power politics due to the fact that the Germans knew that they could not win a two front war vs England, France and Russia. And thus they had to win on one front quickly. Ofc the others knew, tooand that is why the English and French were so hellbent on triggering that war.
I like the narrative style and the somewhat breathless, vocal mood, it gives the whole thing an imminent atmosphere. Also a very important video; it makes the anger of the Germans after the Treaty of Versailles more understandable.
This is indeed a very important part of history, it goes to show how such a thing can give birth to an even greater danger especially if we see how populism evolves nowadays. That in large part righteous anger of a populace can easily be used by ill intended figures.
Very good stuff. Well spoken well researched and attempt to keep out personal bias is commendable. Here we are 110 years away from it and still it has so many answered questions.
-Serbia fought two wars just before the start of the First World War (two Balkan wars) , the new war was not an option for Serbs. -In 1903, major changes took place in Serbia, one dynasty (which had close relations with Austro-Hungarians) was overthrown, and another dynasty that came had direct relations with France. -Austria-Hungary had to go to war primarily because of the spread of nationalism in their own country, Slovaks, Czechs, Hungarians and others eagerly awaited the weakening of the empire and the creation of a state. The war was supposed to be a kind of unifier, and also a message to the other nations within the empire. We could do this for hours. There are many facts and there are many important details, that lead us far into the past. Nothing in history can be taken black and white.
Meh... while both austria and russia had their interrests in the balkans colliding and risking conflict, it was germany which turned it into a world war. They had been pushing the arm race for decades, at sea against britain, and on land against france and russia, were the ones starting the alliance game, and at no point were hiding any of it. The kaiser in 1912 said to a swiss journalist that war was coming soon, and the reality was that germany needed said war sooner rather than later, considering that russia would outpace them in the long run. The blank check is a reality. The agressive mobilization was a reality too (look by comparison to the french for example who mobilized but ordered the troops to remain tens of miles from the frontiers to avoid any accidental start of the war). Germany being the one declaring wars left and right (litteraly, look at the order of the wars declarations) is a reality too. And the objectives Germany had were a reality too (as soon as former neutral Belgium was invaded, the german leadership had decided for full annexion of Belgium post war). The austrians and the russians were a bunch of amateurs really, who got over their heads, but the germans knew very well what they were doing, and had been preparing for it for a long time, encouraging it when things went out of hand, and literraly started it by declaring wars and launching the invasions. Fun fact, at the start of the war, the german leadership received the wrong information that France would not honor its alliance with russia, but decided to invade France anyway, justifying it by saying that they had been preparing for this particular plan and couldn't improvise anything else than what they had wanted to do for a couple of decades. Just like the franco prussian war, the reality is that behind all the posturing and the faults of one of another, at the end of the day, what happened was what germany had planned from the start
It was Germany’s fault that a Balkan squabble, escalated into world war 1. It was Germany’s fault for not respecting the treaty of Versailles, that started WW2. And it was GERMANY who declared war against its own ally, the USSR and against the USA, and allied with Japan and Italy, inciting them to wage expansionist wars. Germany turned the Western European war, into a full European/Asian/African war. Then if that’s not bad enough, turned that into a full world war. By emboldening and encouraging Japan, to attack the USA and declared war against the USA.
The German transgression into Belgium did not "provoke" Britain. It provided the PRETEXT for Britain to enter the war. Britain's treaty with Belgium was put in place specifically to provide Britain a diplomatic tripwire against England's biggest rival. Britain's European strategy had long been to keep continental Europe fractured, while Britain ruled the seas and amassed the greatest empire in the world.
Not sure what's wrong with his use of the word "provoke"? The neutrality of Belgium was designed to keep key channel ports on the Belgian coast out of the hands of the mainland great powers. It was a prudent arrangement to shore up British security. You're making it sound like a conspiracy for GB to throw itself into a war (that it didn't want). British support for getting involved was fractured and reluctant until the invasion of Belgium. There was a massive peace march on Trafalgar Square. Even after the invasion of Belgium, Asquith's cabinet only made the decision through gritted teeth.
The Treaty guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium was also signed by Prusia, France, Rusia and Austria. It was not just a British-Belgian treaty. Every Great Power had it's reasons to sign it. And you can't blame the british for honoring a treaty that had also been signed by the germans, who broke it.
Well , why would Britain, with a tiny army when compared to Russia and the Continental powers , want to embark on a land war ? And Germany was the one with aggressive intent , because of the idiot Kaiser . And " Keep the right wing strong " ..... In other words, they had set the course a decade earlier .
You're wrong about this, the Treaty of London that guaranteed Belgian neutrality was signed in 1839, and by Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Russia as well. There wasn't a unified Germany at the time to set a tripwire against, not for 32 years
I think one aspect is overlooked when it comes to WW1. Instead of focusing on individual countries alone, we should also have a look at the whole system that was very problematic: nationalism, imperialism, militarism, lack of democracy. This system was basically the same everywhere in Europe. And as far as Russia is concerned, it's still in effect in certain countries even today.
Great video. Thx. There were powerful industrial leaders and politicians in England that was screaming "Germany must be destroyed" in 1913 because german industry was outcompeting english industry. I'm sure this had at least some influence in the parliament.
@@pashapasovski5860 Doesn't matter. Foreigners bought machinery and chemicals from Germany, stuff that was known to be better than what the British could offer.
Given that Russia had been slapped on the wrists a couple years prior, which led to riots and uprisings against the Tsar, you would think that Nicholas II would have been much more careful to get involved in another war, wouldn't you?
Britain and France had been filling the Balkans with their agents for decades before the the war. Just think of how many new royal connections were formed by Britain or how many French officers worked in the Balkans. Not to mention things like Seton-Watson's activity, which massively influenced public opinion.
I have never seen a documentary or any presentation that is as well thought out as this one. This video is the gold standard of how to discuss the start of World War 1. Absolute KUDOs to the creator of this video. History teachers should absolutely use this video in describing the catastrophe of the Great War.
OMG, thank you for this. The narrative is the most comprehensive i've ever seen or heard and strikes me as consciously objective. Very classy production that nicely leverages a mesmerizing mix of historic and theatrical film content. BRAVO!!
In the ranking - the start of the war is one thing - it becoming a world wide war is another. This had no business turning into a everyone jumps in war and then it really had no business being a total victory or death struggle.
I always wonder : if everyone could see 4 years down the road, would anyone have stepped one foot towards war? Or were they trapped by circumstances like alliance networks and mobilization tables.
@@lisanalgaib555tsar Nicholas and kaiser Wilhelm didn't want to go to war what so ever, but their nations were dragged into war, thanks to Austria-Hungary not respecting the Serbians right to have the assassin prosecuted
All around among politicians and even the elite military brass I think there was a serious misunderstanding of how destructive the new weapons were. I think many expected a short almost napoleonic style war to ‘settle’ some outstanding differences.
Thank you for this upload. I don’t think I’ve ever come across as comprehensive a review as this one that clearly summarises the catastrophic cascade of events that ultimately defined 20th century world history.
In Ireland Unionists and Republicans were on the verge of conflict with each other before the outbreak of world war one. So a conflict might have ignited from that.
What a great summary. One more aspect that plays into it: From the powers in charge, nobody was aware how much warfare had changed or would change within a few years of technological advance. They were still caught up in thinking, the battles would be taking place in a manner of the last century, unaware of the deadly new weaponry.
Or is that an apologists rant for the leaders who led an entire generation to near extinction? "We didn't know" - similar to "We were just following orders". The powers of the new weaponry was full-on display at the battle of Petersburg at the end of the civil war in the US - 4 decades earlier!! The siege mortars, Gatling guns, railway guns all used against fortifications similar to what was constructed in WW1. 9 ½ ton 13 inch mortar capable of throwing a 220 pound bomb over 4000 yards in 1865 should have been a wake-up call.
@@BlackMan614 good points. Probably from the european perspective, nobody took notice (in details at least) of that little civil war going on somewhere far away. my point came from details like the colorful uniforms of the french or the traditional helmets of the germans when the war begun, that both were changed asap to camouflage.
@@doggydude2668 1914 Britain barely had an army, as they put all their effort into the navy (largest in the world) a) to protect the empire and its waterways and b) as an island they could defend enemies at sea. When the war broke out they had to mobilize quickly.
well, yes and no. I'm no apologist for anyone. Insanely stupid decisions were made all the way through the war, causing the deaths of millions. But for twentieth century Europeans, their idea of war was the Franco-Prussian war of 1871 (during which there were still calvary charges). They did not have any conception of what a modern, mechanized meatgrinder war would look like. And while the prototypes of many of the guns used in WWI were already appearing in the Civil War, by 1914, military tech had evolved in scale and power by orders of magnitude. Gatling guns may have worked in the Civil War, but they would have been laughably outclassed by the Vickers machine guns in WWI. There may have been mortars used at the siege of Petersburg, but millions of shells were used during the battle of Verdun alone. Throw in barbed wire, and you end up with 1,600,000 casulties in the carnage on the Sommes. @@BlackMan614
Super job! I really liked the 'whistle stop tour' part of this and most folks miss that. Even back in history class, our teacher was unable to really tell us just how the assassination of FF and Mrs. FF ended up actually causing the war. It was really the inciting incident that set of an unfortunate chain of events. Another factor was the young Germany. It'd only been a nation for a bit over 40 years but even their formation made other nations nervous. Their involvement really helped step things up.
Sometimes you hear stupid people say a nuclear war can’t happen because nobody wants it to happen. History teaches bad things can happen even when none of the people involved want it to happen
"Relatively peaceful" for a century? Napoleonic Wars (1803-15), First & Second Serbian Uprising (1815-17), Greek War of Independence (1821), First Greek Civil War (1823-24), Russo-Turkish War (1828-29), French Revolution of 1830 (1830), Belgian Revolution (1830-31), Polish Uprising (1830-31), Bosnian Uprising (1831-33), June Rebellion (1832), First Carlist War (1833-40), several Balkan uprisings (1836), First Albanian Revolt (1843-44), Second Albanian Revolt (1845), Second Carlist War (1846-49), Revolutions of the Italian States (1848-49), Revolutions of the German States (1848-49), Revolutions of the Habsburg Areas (1848-49), Wallachian Revolution (1848), Sicilian Revolution (1848-49), First Italian War of Independence (1848-49), Hungarian War of Independence (1848-49), Serb Uprising of 1848 (1848-49), Slovak Uprising of 1848 (1848-49), First Schleswig War (1848-51), Crimean War (1853-56), Second Italian War of Independence (1859), Second Schleswig War (1864), Austro-Prussian War (1866), Third Italian War of Independence (1866), Cretan Revolt (1866-69), Macedonian Revolt (1866-67), Glorious Revolution in Spain (1868), Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), French Civil War of 1871 (1871), Third Carlist War (1872-76), Bulgarian Uprisings of 1876 (1876), Russo-Turkish War (1877-78), Austro-Hungarian Campaign in Bosnia & Herzegovina (1878), Greek Macedonian Rebellion (1878), Macedonian Struggle (1893-1908), and Greco-Turkish War (1897). And those are just the European wars or rebellions fought in Europe. I hear this claim about a "peaceful" century and it just wasn't so, relatively or not.
@@mdaly724 thats why he said relatively peaceful. Alpha Centauri is relatively close to our Sun, its actually stupidly far away but compared to everything else its close.
This many times over. The video is naive in the extreme about Europe being at peace when it was near continuous war in the east and south east. The killing went on for years after armistice day. The western front horribly colours the perspective of most British people because we have no exposure to the rest of the conflict outside of Franz Ferdinand, Gallipoli and the Russian revolution of 1917.
it's obvious. ..the Germans are to blame ......just like Putin is to blame for Ukraine .... He who attacks first must bare the responsibility ... German stupidity in invading Belgium, Russian stupidity invading Ukraine ... simple.
@3:18 the ridiculous part about that assassination was that Franz Ferdinand was likely going to address the grievances of the Slavs that Princip represented (in stark contrast to his uncle), in essence he was shot for absolutely nothing.
One of the reasons Black Hand (and the Serbian Gvt) wanted Franz Ferdinand dead was exactly because they feared he might resolve things with the Slavs! It also a major reason Anarchists assassinates Tsar Alexander. He was a progressive who freed the Serfs and was intent on improving conditions in Russia!
@@ethanperks372 Serbian Government did not want that. Simple put, there is 0 evidence that government supported Black Hand, specially considering that government activelly tried to suppresse it, thinking they finally got stronger possition over organisation.
@@aleksaradojicic8114 Many sources say the Serbian Govt was heavily involved with the "Black Hand"! Moreover, the ArchDuke was an especial threat to Serbian asperrations. He was a political moderate who favored making the Empire a Triple Monarchy adding a Slavic Crown to the Dual Monarchy!
Excellent work. The role of France, however, was actually a bit more complicated, Clark, whom you quoted, mentions the large French loans for weapons to Serbia in the decade preceding the war and Poincaré's desire for revenge over Alsace-Lorraine; jis visit ro St. Petersburg after the assassination certainly reinforced the Russian's bellicosity which also had an eye on the Dardanelles. And the whole tragedy, ending with the Versailles stupidity was the embryo for WW2.
Hi everyone, I am looking for History undergraduates and PhDs to help me with future videos. That would be paid. If you are interested please email me at henrystewart278@gmail.com
CORRECTION: I said that the gun used in the assassination was made in Serbia. It was actually made in Belgium. Apologies
I have started a Patreon. Any support would be greatly appreciated! :)
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So basically it was Belgium which was really responsible for the war. No wonder the Nazis invaded it.
Great point! You should've added Belgium to your list of potential instigators of WW1 because had it not produced that pistol, Gavrilo couldn't have shot Ferdinand! If try to argue that Gavrilo would've chosen a pistol produced by another country - no problem, but in that case that specific country would've bear responsibility!
This has more sense than attempting to blame Serbia for German invasion of Belgium!
Maybe you should learn history of Belgium at that time in Belg Congo then you can understand why Belgium was so dangerous - naybe responisble for the word war? - but why could Britain join a word war only to defend Belgium or Belgium intrests?
@@ralfrath699Because Britain had signed a treaty protecting Belgium's neutrality.
@@ralfrath699
That's what I want to point - poor innocent Belgium, which sl@ughtered millions of people thousands of miles away from itself, is invaded because a Serb killed the next-in-line leader of the occupied Serb-inhabited territory!?
King George, Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas were all first cousins and grandsons of Queen Victoria. The Kaiser, who was Queen Victoria's oldest grandchild, said about the war “If our grandmother [Queen Victoria] were alive, she never would have allowed it.”
And what of it? The "elite" never gave a shit about the plebs, not then, not now. Ohh mommy Vicky would have never allowed it... ffs The Romanovs got what was coming to them, same for the frog eaters and to a lesser extant the krauts. The Windsors survived and look at Britain now... shame, shame on all of them.
WW I, second war of cousins. 😂😊
They all look like family. The resemblance between all three (especially George and Nicholas) was remarkable.
The problem was the Kaiser's youth. He thought he knew better than the absolute omegigachad that was Bismark. He should have listened and learned from Bismark.
Constitutional monarchies are the best form of government. Sadly the world was divided into the extremes of democracy/capitalism and communism and all the stable and established orders in the world were toppled by the "superpowers". Now the question is if humanity can recover from the US brought disasters which were ww1 and ww2.
@@Kalenz1234 lol lmao blaming the Americans for European wars. And hows that constitutional monarchy/liberal democracy working out for indigenous working class Brits?
I heard it started when a bloke called Archie Duke shot an ostrich because he was hungry
Yes a bit of blackadder love it !!!!!!
Ha ha !Sooo hilarious,l am shure?
I heard that it was due to Harry Hun and his villainous empire building?
😂
Did he have a cunning plan?
The European "peace" of 1815 to 1914 is somewhat illusory. There was fighting, sometimes on a large scale, in Belgium, Switzerland, Poland, Russia, Denmark, Italy, Austria, France and the Balkans. There were revolutionary conflicts all over Europe in 1848-9. Plus a number of near misses (including the Bosnian crisis). There were tensions left over from those, re-divided Poland, Schleswig-Holstein, Italia Irredenta, Alsace-Lorraine, not to mention new nations in the Balkans. All of which contributed to the outbreak of WWI.
One thing should be noted about Austria is that many people in Austria wanted a war with Serbia long before the assassination. In 1913 Austrian chief of staff Conrad von Hötzendorf proposed war with Serbia 25 times. Again, this was the year before the assassination.
But he's not the only person. Many in Europe wanted a war. It really was a powder keg and any spark would have set it off.
Hötzendorf was a real moron.
People can take the piss out of what happened then but it comes down to the fact that a generation perished in this conflict. Not just thousands but millions.
The men Canada sent from Newfoundland were almost entirely wiped out at the Battle of the Somme. It permanently altered the demographics of the province.
@@MakerInMotiondon’t forget they also fought at Gallipoli with the rest of 29 Division ,on the Somme again at Guedecourt and at Arras. Love visiting the Caribous. Great soldiers
That was the plan for those who fund but don't die in war. The same group every single time.
A Lost Generation, you might say
Between this and the Spanish Flu, events so shocking it led to us naming generations
@@kendomyers The Yanks who entered the War very late brought the so called Spanish Flu to Europe, but then bitches about China and Covid!
The rich wanted to teach the working class that they can´t always ask for more money? So they murdered millions during WW1.
My (maternal and paternal) family lost 8 boys to battle (average age around 20). One Grandad was shell shocked and the other used to show me shrapnel that went into his back in 1916 coming out of his wrist of all places in 1970. It was blue in colour. He was also burnt on the legs with mustard gas. Then of course more of my lot were lost in the second war, including lost legs. We never found them either. All I know is, my family didn’t start it but we did pay the price. I have always thought that we ordinary souls always pay the butchers bill for the mistakes and arrogance of all the leaders of this world. I’m sure there are many of you also with similar family histories. Sadly, Nothing changes.
How many of yours would be dead if no one stood against agression?
Here in the states World War I is largely overlooked and somewhat forgotten because it was mostly Europe's issue and America was only involved for a year or so before the Armistice was signed
@@isaacwest
If you think it was all aggression then you should look into mutual defense treaties and alliances which dragged in countries after countries like falling dominoes. Also, revolutionaries with countries and regions -- with no armies -- who lit the fuses of alluances A lot if defense was based on fear of mobilization of potential opponents who feared the mobilization of surrounding countries and their allies.
Standing armies didn't help
The EU is starting to talk about coming up with its own EU army now. In the EU smaller countries have survived since WW2 with minimal defenses... what is the EU gets big army and gets thrown into something or start something all bets are off off.
Italy tried to start fighting toward the end of World War II, but its ally Germany brought in its troops and invading forces fighting its way up through the Italian peninsula cost most of the destruction to Italian towns and people in that war, while Spain and Switzerland which were neutral were not the sites of such battles.
mutual defense is DEFENSE.
what do you defend against? that's right, agression. @@jeannovacco5136
@@jeannovacco5136 It doesn't need to be a EU army. The NATO treaties have put us into a very similar position and with Biden and the fools in his administration the possibility of another situation like WW I is scary. There are people in power pushing for Ukraine to join NATO which is insanity.
Expecting WW1 not to start and having every other European country pitch in is like expecting your dominoes to stay standing in a hurricane
WW1 is literally family feud but with countries.
I'd say that's pretty much what it was, nice analogy.
Rothschild family against Christians
That seems to be the popular consensus.
The evidence presented by Germany at the treaty of Versailles did not consolidate that consensus.
An innocent nation does not blot out 50 percent of its evidence. Due process suggests Germany was the culprit.
Western historians generally used Lenin’s synopsis. Lenin’s association with German is an interesting historical read.
I recommend, Europe’s last summer by Fromkin.
It’s really not
Do some homework
@@bluerider451if you are speaking about Vladimir Lenin I won’t listen to or take anything he says into account. He was a waste of a human being
The outbreak of WW1 is even crazier when you consider that the leaders of Germany, Russia and Great Britain were related. Kaiser Wilhelm was the grandson of Queen Victoria. Tsar Nicholas II was distantly related to Queen Victoria and he also married Alexandra, Queen Victoria's granddaughter. Ferdinand I of Romania married Queen Victoria's granddaughter Marie. So when the Kaiser went to war he was fighting his cousin George V and his cousins-in-law in Russia and Romania. If that wasn't crazy enough, the Kaiser was also an honorary admiral in both the British and Russian navies.
Family feud all over. If they would just had invented reality TV already this episode would have been just another annoying TV show.
@@madrooky1398 If only. Could have saved millions of lives.
The king of Romania was also family with the German rulers. Pretty much all royal families were related somehow, some more than others (let's just say that Queen Victoria had lots of children and grandchildren).
Thing is it was the politicians who decided there would be war
@@FlorinArjocu The relationships went back far earlier than Empress Victoria. Empress Katherin of Russia can also be included.
Also, Europe from 1814-1914 produced music so powerful and beautiful that it's still being performed today all over the world. Whistle a couple of lines and everyone recognizes it from hearing it in movies, mostly.
It's funny how Europe mass produced genocides across the globe but hoped they can get along producing music back in Europe. Pathetic and no accounting for taste.. European music was too mechanical almost arithmetic for my personal taste. What goes around comes around. When European dehumanize entire continents and civilizations it's only a matter of time they start treating their own populations likewise simply because it works (in satanic ways, but still it works). Narratives will differ of course but end goals are the same. War is horrible and cost 10 millions lives? Forget it! Here's the Spanish flu to help you! - 35,000,000 lives.
Examples? I would love to listen
@@carminegalante4925 Erich Korngold, Jewish, Sinfonietta 1913 at age 15, Gustav Holst, English, Planets 1917, both leading to John William's Star Wars & E.T.
@@arthursulit Do not forget colonel bogey march, which was used by the british army in WWI and WWII where the british added lyrics to it "Hitler has only got one ball" and people still sing it to this day.
Google "best classical composers Europe 19th Century"
@@carminegalante4925
The quote "Be careful of what you wish for. You may just get it." Is the best summary of the First World War. That I have ever heard of.
Very good.
More words of wisdom when starting a war include, " Be careful what you think, for it becomes your words, which become your actions , and in turn becomes your country's character." This war along with WW2 affects even the character of babies born today caused from generations of war.
Just wat's going on at the moment. Hope i'm totally wrong.
The whole blame game would come home to roost 21 yeaars after this suicide of civilization was concluded.
This is a fantastic treatment of the causalities of WWI. Thank you for the work you put into this. I learned a great deal that I had never learned about the causes of the war. So many critically important and yet small details, such as messages that were left undelivered, and the timing of mobilization, meant all the difference in how I perceive the causes of the conflict and the entities to be blamed. I am very grateful for your work.
There’s an old joke about a man picking up a hitchhiker, who then asks if he’s at all worried that the man he just let into his car is a serial killer. ”Nah, I’m good. The probability of having two serial killers in one car is close to nil.”
Maybe Franz Ferdinand reasoned something along the same line: what are the odds of two attempts at his life on the same day?
Not that it makes a whole lot of sense, but it’s possible something like this was going on.
To my understanding of digging a bit deeper into the biography of Franz Ferdinand, is that he was NOT well liked by the Austrian Kaiser, and he wasn't happy about him being his successor (the German Kaiser had similar sentiments). And hes was a bit of naive idiot. But his assassination presented a rather inconvenient loss of face to a small, new neighbor with a powerful friend.
So you're saying, there is a chance.
@@brianfox771 afaik he was a very nice person not a naive idiot
He was an abrasive man, and he leaned into that quite a bit in public. He was a warm family man though (you should look up his last words).
The funny thing (and with funny I mean tragic) is that he was the only person in the world who could, and probably would, give the Serbians what they said they wanted.
When he was emperor he wanted to give Serbia independence (within or without the empire). Not because he was a nice man but because he was done with their eternal bickering.
Now the Serbians would never be happy with anything that wasn't Great Serbia (an entity that had existed for a handful of years, a 1000 years ago) but it could have made them quiet for a few years. Maybe.
@@exharkhun5605 oh ok thanks
15:36 The Archduke not only continued on in that open car after the first bomb, but also told the driver to stop when he realised that they were taking the wrong road to the hospital. In the process of sorting that out, the car had by chance stopped directly next to where Gavrio Princip was standing, and thus gave Princip a clear shot at the stationary car instead of a moving one. He could hardly have missed...and didn't.
The car by the way is still in a military museum in Vienna.
Germany.
@@flashgordon6670
you are wrong.....
according to wikipedia it is wien, vienna, wenen.
The 1911 Gräf & Stift 28/32 PS Double Phaeton in which Archduke Franz Ferdinand was riding at the time of his assassination, Museum of Military History, Vienna (2003)
@flashgordon6670 Definitely not, it is in the Heeresmuseum in Vienna, plus the blood-stained clothes of the couple. They feature quite an extensive collection from the late medieval times to the modern age.
True, I was there a few weeks ago and the car is there @@johanv4668
It's not like they were really at peace for a century and that the war just sprang out of nowhere :P
It sprung out of the fact that those various large powers were very competitive and always wanted to ensure their supremacy.
This is the most accurate comment in this thread. IMO
@@jeffreybroek3845 Cheers.
Doesn't particularly take a genius, however I appreciate the acknowledgement, thanks!
The only thing you forgot to mention is how many times Austrian general stuff demanded from emperor to start war with Serbia between 1910-1914
He thus also forgot to mention just how critical Franz Ferdinand was, as he was the one who kept talking the Emperor back from war. And while Franz was a flagrant racist against Serbians, he also viewed it as necessary for his future government to include Serbians significantly to maintain peace throughout the Empire.
The Black Hand chose literally the worst person to assassinate.
Hardly.... such a minor haf nation, that were just used as an excuse for something far bigger.@@_XLimit_
@@_XLimit_ History would say that lesson is wrong, plenty of nations and cultures fucked with Serbia and Serbia took it like a little kurwa 🤣 Serbs are christianized turks with an identity crisis, fight me🤡
The Austro-hungarian ultimatum after the assassination was designed to provoke a war. Germany wrote the famous blank cheque supporting its neighbour and the Great War was inevitable. Germany certainly bears some responsibility in giving the beligerent Austria-Hungary such unquestioning support. This all played into the hands of opportunist imperialists across the continent and the die was cast.
...or the best person, if their goal was to start a war @@slb797
WW I was THE most catastrophic event of the 20th century. It upended a century of relative stability and prosperity in Europe. It was a major contributor to European chaos of the 20s and 30s and of the rise of fascism and WW II and all of the misery, death and destruction that that war brought to Europe. Great video, thanks!
Apart from the exploitation of people of the various emipres that is.
Very well said sir! You are very astute.
WW1 was the very reason why WW2 happened, Even Japan wanted revenge after getting nothing out of being involved seizing German colonies in China
In the extras of the They Shall Not Grow Old DVD, listen to the later recordings of the veterans who were by then in their fifties. "It made a man out of me," and "I wouldn't have missed it for the world," were some of their comments. They presumably also went to church and saw no contradiction in what they were taught there and their mindsets. Maybe we shouldn't feel too sorry for such sickos. They apparently loved what they were doing, were also reportedly upset when it came to an end, and then they did it all over again. It takes a real man to klil a baby, I guess. I have to wonder if anything changed in the meantime.
@@Christmas-dg5xc I somehow don't think that the recordings you mentioned represent the vast majority of ANY men who fought in ANY war. Most soldiers of any army want just want to do their job and go home as soon as possible.
This is probably the first ever english speaking documentary towards this topic that is not clouded in WW1 propaganda. Very very well done and subbed
There is another interesting video I can recommend. Check out simple historys video about ww1.
I suggest you visite extra historys ww1 videos. Might be interesting for you as it was for me.
lol, yeah, peacefull Europe for the last 100 years. Sooo.... what abou Deutsch-Französischer Krieg or Guerre franco-allemande. Lie on the second minute, dude.
Let’s not mention the outright racism of the Germanics towards the Slavs. Still going today.
Not really. The Germans are to blame.
Never considered it bit the Czar basically killed himself and his cpuntry and family by supporting king killers in serbia.
Kakav si na dojenju?
thats what i have always thought when learning about world war 1
and had he been more preparted for war he might have been able to stop the Bolshevik revolution too
Gee, what did Marine General Smedley Butler, twice recipient of the Congressional Metal of Honor, and combat veteran of WWI, mean when he said, “ War is a racket”
The Elites get Wealthier while the Poor Die for them.
Blackadder goes forth put it very well:
Edmund: You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent war in Europe, two superblocs developed: us, the French and the Russians on one side, and the Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two vast opposing armies, each acting as the other's deterrent. That way there could never be a war.
Baldrick: But this is a sort of a war, isn't it, sir?
Edmund: Yes, that's right. You see, there was a tiny flaw in the plan.
George: What was that, sir?
Edmund: It was bollocks.
In that same series there was mention that it was Rothschild's war.
@@tommyprince9931 Really? I don't remember that. Where did you get that idea?
@@tommyprince9931 Hidden History: The Secret Origins of the First World War. by Gerry Docherty & Jim Macgregor
A new theory on how World War I started-not with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, but rather 10 years earlier, by power-hungry men whose lies have infiltrated history
Hidden History uniquely exposes those responsible for World War I. It reveals how accounts of the war's origins have been deliberately falsified to conceal the guilt of the secret cabal of very rich and powerful men in London responsible for the most heinous crime perpetrated on humanity. For 10 years, they plotted the destruction of Germany as the first stage of their plan to take control of the world. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was no chance happening. It lit a fuse that had been carefully set through a chain of command stretching from Sarajevo through Belgrade and St. Petersburg to that cabal in London. Our understanding of these events has been firmly trapped in a web of falsehood and duplicity carefully constructed by the victors at Versailles in 1919 and maintained by compliant historians ever since. The official version is fatally flawed, warped by the volume of evidence they destroyed or concealed from public view. Hidden History poses a tantalizing challenge. The authors ask only that you examine the evidence they lay before you.
www.ww1hiddenhistory.co.uk/
I remember doing a paper on this for my historiography class in college. We each had to argue why a specific country was responsible for WW1. Definitely one of my favorite papers.
It used to be common to place blame on the losers. The comments are full of old people promoting this point of view, Germany is to blame for everything. Now it is customary to present everything that happened as an absurd accident, no one is to blame.
In the Soviet Union, this war was studied as a crime of the ruling classes against the people. Some time will pass and the Marxist view of these events will become generally accepted.
Germany.
@@flashgordon6670 It could be hard to live in a panic because how a war started what ended more than a century ago. :)
The propaganda works worst every year and people will understand it in the future it was not good vs bad. It is probably not easy for you, you grew up in a world where everything was simple, where the good guys always won and the bad guys started every war.
I'm enjoying to see your desperate attempt.
@@flashgordon6670 No
@@flashgordon6670Troll
I love this channel. The amount of info is meticulously researched and delivered in such a short amount of time.
I have watched countless of ww1 videos and never once seen one like yours.
Truly unique and easy to follow, hats off to u sir.
WOW! This was incredible and my favorite kind of historical content. Most on CZcams focus on battles and gloss over the geopolitical side of the conflict but this perspective lets you feel and understand what caused millions to be in support of killing each other, and pulls you away from century old war propaganda of one side being evil. It is also what teaches the mistakes that were made in foreign policy and how to avoid them which is how you truly avoid war. I hope to see more like this from this channel!
I think it's important to remember that periodic wars had been a reality in European politics essentially forever. The leaders of Europe were recruited mostly from the pre-industrial aristocracies that had fought those previous wars and they completely failed to grasp the way in which industrialisation had changed what a full scale European war would mean.
It wouldn't have started if the Americans didn't sell the Germans the equipment
No, periodic wars had not been a reality in European politics essentially forever. The diplomats who converged on Vienna following the end of the wars of Napoleon in 1815 set up an international system based on maintaining a balance of power. The five great powers would play a balancing act where if one power began to become too powerful the others put it in its place. This was the reason for the Crimean War where France and Britain (and Piedmont-Savoy?) pushed back Russia which they felt was advancing too far into Turkey (AKA the sick man of Europe). They succeeded and the balance of power was preserved. It was the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 that would upset the balance in later years. With France defeated, the King of Prussia now became the Emperor of a united Germany that excluded Austria-Hungary. The second emperor, Wilhelm II started an arms race to become equal to Britain as a naval power. Britain had been operating as a balancer to keep the system going. The system began to unravel.
Austria wanted to help France in 1870 but the Hungarians wouldn't let them. A formerly subservient region now held almost equal power to their old masters. Austria was starting to break up. They sought an alliance with the Germans. The French having had no real friends since Napoleon found one in Russia. The Germans began reaching out to Turkey. The Italian states merged into a single kingdom under the House of Piedmont-Savoy by 1871 and it was aiming to become a great power. Eventually the Italians would sign a defensive treaty with Germany and Austria. Britain merely had an "understanding" with France and had guaranteed protection for permanently neutral Belgium. Russia had agreed to protect Serbia which hated Austria for occupying the Slavic lands they coveted. The balance of power had given Europe a century of peace during which industrialization, the building of railways, telegraph and later telephone systems, the tremendous advances in science and medicine, the creation of beautiful music, art, and architecture, the spread of electric lights, tram systems in cities, huge ocean liners that plied the seas, the start of flying machines, were achieved across much of Europe. It only took a spark in one of the most backward areas of Europe to push the continent off its road to progress. Serbia and Austria-Hungary went to war, Russia declared war on Austria, Germany and Russia declared war on each other, France declared war on Germany and its allies which now included Bulgaria and Turkey. Britain hesitated and then declared war on France's enemies. The Italians were the most sensible; they thought the war was crazy, but their leaders were bribed by the British and French with promises of Austrian territory and Italy betrayed its allies in 1915. The system of entangling alliances undid the balance of power that had kept Europe largely free of war for 100 years.
@@James-kv6kb OK, what equipment, exactly, did the USA sell to Germany prior to 1914???
"If you had a competition to write the stupidest things that humanity has ever done,
A strong contender for the winner would have to be World War One."
For a split second, I thought the whole video was going to rhyme.
This was done by white people stop including everyone into your conflicts
We know it's true because it rhymes
The rhyming continued allllll the way through, just not in words. The events rhyme so much, in fact, that it all seems scripted.
No you didn’t mf
Here is a rhyme from Private S Baldrick. The German Guns. Boom, Boom, boom, boom,. Boom, boom, boom, boom,. Boom, boom... How's that for a Poem
Everyone, literally every country wanted war.
Except Great Britain.
Not even true. Germany, for example, preferred peace. The Kaiser himself said that he did not think Austria should not go to war over the issues at that time. But Austria did go to war and Germany was a loyal ally and joined in.
IN THE END WE FINALLY HAVE SOMEONE WHO GIVES A REAL ANSWER AND DOES NOT SHY AWAY FROM GIVING A BLAME!!! How long did it take for someone not ending that question by "it is everyone or no one 's fault?" Man, you've gained my respect and my subscription.
It was Germany’s fault that a Balkan squabble, escalated into a world war.
It's the fault of Serbia. I don't know how this is even a complicated question. They assassinated the archduke, Austria declared war, rightfully so, and others got involved and then it escalated. It's not complicated.
@@ararune3734 Serbia seems to clearly be worst culprit but we should not underestimate: 1. ) the actions of those nations that had no democracy or a limited democracy, 2.) the tremendous amount of incompetence in the German and Russian decision making apparatus and especially the Russian czar and Wilhelm from Germany and 3.) the thirst for war from Austria that set up demands on Serbia that they knew would be denied in 1 pertinent part.
@@MLB1212 Certainly Germany did not declare war until its enemies had mobilized their armies ie. Russia and France. At that time mobilization was equivalent to a declaration of war.
The Kaiser appealed to the Tsar to stop Russian mobilization but he refused.
@@ararune3734 "It's the fault of Serbia. I don't know how this is even a complicated question." Serbian terrorists unaffiliated with the Serbian government assassinated the archduke. The Serbian government had no hand, heh, in it.
I've always heard the assasination of Ferdinand being called the spark to the poweder keg, but the more I learn of the July Crisis, the more it sounds like the first domino in an elaborate array. there were so many ways and opportunities where removing a single domino would stop the entire thing from topplin g over, but time, circumstance, or poor choices meant that the chain reaction continued.
The reasons for WW 1 are a complex geopolitical array, but one major factor was bc the World leaders wanted to know what all their new hardware could do in a large scale battle. Most of them never expected the war to blow so out of proportion and spread to the whole World with millions of casualties. The most defining weapon in World history since the introduction of gunpowder, was the machine gun, no other weapon have had such a tremendous impact on tactics as that. At the outbreak of the war, the military doctrine for engagement was still like the Napolionic Wars, human wave attack, but just 3-5 machine guns from a good position, could mow down hundreds of men in a matter of seconds. By the beginning of 1915, there where still some commanders stuck in the old ways, but most armies had completely changed their doctrines, which had been prevalent for almost 400 years.
If the British had not been distracted by the prospect of a unionist rebellion in the kingdom of Ireland against home rule for that state, aw rebellion that was funded and promoted by the tory party in order to split the liberal Party and bring down the Liberal government, an intervention might have been made in time to prevent the conflict. The tory party has a lot to answer for in its lust for power.
There was conflict coming in europe (most likely at the balkans) there was no question abaut that, no one saw the scale of this conflict that escalated
Although many nations in some measure bore responsibility for WW1, the Treaty of Versailles blamed Germany. It is no wonder that the punitive reparations, and other humiliating conditions imposed on Germany led to WW2 just 20 years after the end of WW1
One critical element that should always be put into the limelight, is that of the benefactors. Any type of organization that isn't mentioned as much in official narratives that benefit to the utmost extreme from war as the profiteers. They have the money, resources, and desire for war. Such as IG F arben during WW2, M onsanto during Vietnam, Hal iburton/B lack Rok gulf wars etc. WW1 was the genesis of corporate, bank, and state cultivating death for profit in such a fine way. I would like to know more on who was pushing the media, whispering in the Royal families ears, and playing politics on the underside of the board...
Archduke Franz Ferdinand went to Bosnia so that his wife, who was actively snubbed by the Austrian nobles, could be treated with the respect of a state visit. Several in Austria were eager to go to war in Serbia, especially Hotzendorf, who had several times prior pushed for war, and he ironically had been opposed by the Archduke. Many in Germany wanted to go to war with Russia before Russia had completed their railway upgrades (funded in large part by France). France actively encouraged Russia to go to war with Germany. France actively pursued an alliance with Russia after the Franco-Prussian war. France wanted revenge for Germany taking Alsace Lorraine, and they sought an alliance with Russia to acheive that aim. During the 'July Crisis' there was little done by France to prevent war from breaking out. There is positively no way to pretend Serbia was not agitating for war, and had completely expected Russia to support them.
It should be noted that the actual first shots of the war was by Austria on Serbia at Belgrade, July 28th, nearly a week before Germany crossed the Belgium border on August 4th.
Who is to blame? The war hawks in Serbia, Austria, Russia, Germany, and France. Each of those countries had politicos who purposely agitated for a war, and they got it. Britain was happy to have an excuse to go to war against the rising power of Germany. Italy and the Ottoman empire joined the side they felt would give them the best spoils of war.
If one wants to blame any single country for the Great War, they don't understand how eager each and every one of those initial five countries were for war. The celebrations held and filmed in each country gives adequate testament to that eagerness.
It's like blaming a fist fight between two people on the one who threw the first punch but totally ignoring that the other guy was provoking it the whole time. They're both to blame.
An American cartoonist summed it up commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chain_of_Friendship_cartoon.gif
About Britain...Their initial neutrality also played the part, as very favorable for Germans.
Obviously you’re not a Belgian faced with a rampage of Huns.
I still thinks serbia should got the biggest blame out of all
To be honest, Germany was still mostly to blame because their war hawks (mostly military generals) were pushing Austria into war, and making the declarations, and had been since at least 1906. Russia and Serbia were reckless too (especially Russia), but Serbia's actions aren't enough to justify blaming them for an all-out European war, and while Austria was first to fight, it didn't do anything until it got a green light in the firm of the 'blank cheque' from Germany. As for Frdnve and Britain, neither of then really did enough to justify blaming them for the outbreak in 1914 either.
What makes this question so important, is that it should have been an academic question. Instead it became a major ingredient of an even more gruesome war. Looking at our time, I cannot see that we learned anything. We should not need history to be able to prevent such catastrophes, but having it and then abusing or ignoring it is painful to watch, even more so in contemporary politics than with our benefit of hindsight when looking at history.
For the most part of my life I looked at the history of the two wars from a distance and with disbelieve and a complete lack of understanding regarding the nonchalance and ignorance of that time. Only in recent times I developed more understanding about that era of history, now that I see the same nonchalance and ignorance play out right in front of my eyes. I see the same absence of alternatives, the same forced decisions that could just as well not be made.
This was a very well done presentation, it's one of the best I have seen regarding the start of WW1.
As Blackadder said, "It was just easier to have a war than it was to not have a war". Simple laziness on the part of those who had the power to de-escalate.
Read Tuchman and you see that it's not so simple. Mobilizations take time. If the other guy is mobilizing and you are not, then your generals are screaming at you that you are endangering the realm (or Republic).
I'm always flabbergasted when people take comedians seriously.
@@tgorski52
True. But even the Monarchs weren't all so bad. The politics under them were
@@Kalenz1234I can't take any of our current world "leaders" seriously., I'm flabbergasted that some people do.
Getting your history from a BBC comedy show... right.
The saddest part of that is that the only role WW1 played in history is to set the stage for the second one, even worse than the first war
And the future ones
@@tombkings6279how would the treaty of Versailles lead to any other war besides WW2?
@@nowhereman4319straight lines in the middle east go brrrrrr
You should avoid statements of absolutes when discussing history, Trooper. Another result of World War 1 was the beginning of decolonizing of Africa. Transferring several colonies from German to British control ultimately made a lot easier for those colonies to seek their independence after World War 2. Breaking free of imperial _or_ fascist Germany would be a lot more problematic than getting out from under the British colonial office.
@@gregrea9578 First of all your statement is incorrect. Just look at how Britian dealt with uprisings in their time. There was no fascist Germany at the time.... or any time at all, really. Secondly it begs the question what rising nation or power would profit from the disintegration of other colonial powers? Didn't the decolonization actually gain momentum after ww2? Who took over after that?
Well if I was looking for the answer, first I’d try to figure out who profited. Who financed the war, with interest and who financed the rebuilding. And who got the German war reparations. 🤷🏽♂️
I think it's safe to say that Franz Ferdinand's hubris became his downfall and it was his death was the force that killed his own empire as well as the Germans and the Russians.
Rest in peace to all the innocent lives lost from all sides during the conflict and thank you for the informative video!
@iNotoriousAJ Peace Pledge Union
@@mtlicq Wow, CZcams even puts context BS into WW1 videos. Here is a short video of interest: "The Genocide Called World War I": czcams.com/video/psXYMiBM1JE/video.html
I have a really hard time seeing the French, the Russians, the Brits, and the Americans as innocent in that war.
@@peterfireflylundthe British, the French and the Americans all had very little to do with it as the video states, the Russians as he states, by mobilising so early pushed the conflict, Britain being visibly indecisive allowed both sides to draw the conclusions that suited themselves, France to a reasonable degree did the same by not pressing its allies, Russia to cut back its mobilisation, although it did signal a desire not to escalate things by drawing its forces back from the Franco German border, America was not even mentioned as they had an isolationist policy and did not want to get involved, with large numbers of British and European people's making up its population this policy was very understandable. That left the Russians who by mobilising to the extent they did created tension, even if they ultimately had no intention of conflict it was a positive action that would prove to only escalate things.
The one thing with Serbia that did get glossed over was it's desire to get a sea port, as it is a land locked state, hence a very good reason to help it's fellow Slavic neighbour against the Austrian aggressor, who also benifited from Bosnias extensive coastline.
The world is gray, only shades of gray.
Germany.
When one of my great-grandfathers, an officer in the Austrian army, returned home from WWI he remarked that he hadn't shot a single bullet at the enemy. He was responsible for the provision for men and horses at the fronts to which he was sent. He was very patriotic and deplored the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Realizing that Austria was reduced to even less than the German speaking parts he strongly doubted that the first Republic of Austria would be a sustainable political and economic entity. Hence he was slightly in favour of Austria joining the first Republic of Germany.
It's possibly impossible for people today to understand what a shock and humiliation the consequences of WWI were for many people in Austria and Germany. As a result a huge barrier was set up against investigating, reflecting and understanding the root causes of that desaster.
Ellen N. La Motte's book ''The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield As Witnessed by An American Nurse'' shows how angry some of the French soldiers were at the support staff and stretcher-bearers behind the lines who were in an easier position to be in than the front-line troops, and how the experience of being wounded in the war itself defeated and disillusioned their views. I think it's not discussed enough what affect having experienced the mass dehumanisation of the propaganda and war of the trenches may have had in dehumanizing Adolf Hitler enough to have had later adopt the idea of death factories.
''Then the surgeon came, impatiently. Ah, a grand blessé, to be hastened to the rear at once. The surgeon tried to unbutton the soaking trousers, but the man gave a scream of pain.
“For the sake of God, cut them, Monsieur le Major! Cut them! Do not economize. They are worn out in the service of the country! They are torn and bloody, they can serve no one after me! Ah, the little economies, the little, false economies! Cut them, Monsieur le Major!”
An assistant, with heavy, blunt scissors, half cut, half tore the trousers from the man- 20 - in agony. Clouts of black blood rolled from the wound, then a stream bright and scarlet, which was stopped by a handful of white gauze, retained by tightly wrapped bands. The surgeon raised himself from the task.
“Mon pauvre vieux,” he murmured tenderly. “Once more?” and into the supine leg he shot a stream of morphia.
Two ambulance men came in, Americans in khaki, ruddy, well fed, careless. They lifted the stretcher quickly, skilfully. Marius opened his angry eyes and fixed them furiously.
“Sales étrangers!” he screamed. “What are you here for? To see me, with my bowels running on the ground? Did you come for me ten hours ago, when I needed you? My head in mud, my blood warm under me? Ah, not you! There was danger then-you only come for me when it is safe!”
They shoved him into the ambulance, buckling down the brown canvas curtains- 21 - by the light of a lantern. One cranked the motor, then both clambered to the seat in front, laughing. They drove swiftly but carefully through the darkness, carrying no lights. Inside, the man continued his imprecations, but they could not hear him.
“Strangers! Sightseers!” he sobbed in misery. “Driving a motor, when it is I who should drive the motor! Have I not conducted a Paris taxi for these past ten years? Do I not know how to drive, to manage an engine? What are they here for-France? No, only themselves! To write a book-to say what they have done-when it was safe! If it was France, there is the Foreign Legion-where they would have been welcome-to stand in the trenches as I have done! But do they enlist? Ah no! It is not safe! They take my place with the motor, and come to get me-when it is too late.”
Then the morphia relieving him, he slept.''
@@JingleJangleJam
You think Germany in WW2 was demonized beyond reason? I've heard maybe history was too harsh on them, but the Holocaust is still a major issue in that idea
@@thalmoragent9344 It depends what you mean, you'll have to clarify you specific question better for me to answer. I think, you put a false notion to my opinion as my stance. I wasn't meaning to justify or excuse of sympathize with Hitler but trying to explain how objectively Hitler could become a mass murderer through his psychological dehumanisation and near death experiences in the most violent war of human history. I'm trying to explain the root cause of Hitler's insanity and later dependence on drugs for instance, war can derange the morality and conscience of persons, fill one with a rivalry and love of excitement and passionate hatred of the enemy, as well as make people lose their human empathy, and all his life he wanted a re-match for its loss. Also to show that mass life is expendable for some ulterior national idealism or aim, which all countries displayed in WW2 Part 1: the Great War. It included its own genocides also, like that of the Ottomans.
The perversion and dementing of Hitler's moral compass by the Great War is I think not analysed properly by both the youtube ''historians'' who show Hitler in a positive framework and those who show and write history, like proper historians like Aldous Huxley even, who deduced Hitler's madness to a kind of personality childhood trait in a kind of pocketbook Freudian way.
Either the positive towards Hitler camps hows Hitler's experience in the Great War in a fun, glorifying, white washed way of him as an war hero, or the negative views of Hitler's historians portray his evil as having some supernatural origin like a one day this transcendent evil baby Hitler was born and if you ought to discover a time machine and travel back in time it would be an honourable thing to kill Hitler as he was a baby.
What was perverse about Hitler's moral compass? Maybe you should look into post war Germany and how reparations were handled and by whom. Also, you got some kind of evidence linking Hitler to the "Holocaust"? The entire historical community would love to have it.
Your grampa must be croatian.
You mentioned the Franco-Prussian war of 1870..it did not drag anyone else in, even Britain stayed out. But then came the Entente Cordiale of 1904, followed by the framework of military co operation betwen Britain and France, short of an actual alliance. I believe this emboldened France, when it could have counselled restraint by Russia in 1914. If Russia had taken a step back, this would have also given Germany a chance to play things down, telling Austria to moderate its attitude to Serbia, thus avoiding the death of an heir who was not very popular with the Emperor of Austria Hungary, and not being a cause for war..so a diplomatic incident, but nothing more...1914 could have been so different...
Sean McMeekin an American Academic fluent in German, Russian and Turkish wrote a book called "The Russian Origins of the First World War". There you will learn in detail that the Russians plotted WW1 and wanted it. They wanted to 1 Take Western Galacia (the part of Ukraine part of Austo Hungarian Empire) and to do that they had to destroy Austria-Hungary and also Germany as Germany supported Austria. Russia also wanted to reduce Turkey to a Rump state and to do that they needed to destroy Germany as Germany had good relations with Turkey. To do this they plotted allegiances and intrigues with the French (who were motivated by Revanchism over the loss of the Franco Prussian war in 1871) and to a lessor extent the British as they knew they couldn't destroy Germany alone. This is the cause of WW1 not Germany. Germany was only a reactive power. When the Germans asked France if they would stay neutral if there was a war with Russia and Germany the French replied "We shall have recourse to our own interests) in other words no. The French cabinet decided to declare war on German before the Germans did, its just the Germans delivered the message first.
-Slavic unity was also a Russian Tsarist Propaganda. Russia at the time was suppressing the Ukrainian language and culture whereas Austria did no such thing. Serbia was only being used.
Problem is, you have a jingoistic german emperor seeking parity with british naval and colonial dominance, a Britain trying to upheld the status quo in the face, that their naval dominance if falling due to the dreadnought race, a France eager to take revenge on Germany, a Russia desperately trying to get back into the table of great powers after their humiliating defeat in the Far East by being more deterrent in the west. An Austro-Hungarian Monarchy wishing to keep the russians out of the Balkans and take it into their sphere of influence. And then an Italy with an eager foreign policy to prove themselves as a great power.
The 1914 tragedy was, that everyone was too afraid to step back.
Speaking of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. It was a mistake to took Alsace-Lorraine from France and also a mistake to proclaim the German empire in Versailles. After winning a war one should not humiliate an enemy on top.
This lead to France building alliances for a further conflict with Germany.
@@hermes667 Germany had every right to take the German speaking areas back. Even if Germany didn't take land, France would have found something ells they could blame their desire for revenge. We can't forgot France started a war because Bismarck trolled them in a newspaper article.
The Rhine crisis of 1840 showed that if Germany lost the war, France would have annexed everything west of the Rhine.
There was a young generation of French who desired revenge for the 1870/71 war with Germany, which France lost.
And now we see that its not Germanys fault, we can get our territory back
this war was a great example of big business factions wanting a massively profitable event needing only the slightest provocation to get the war machine into action.
Explain. Big business entities such as?
Principal Vagina: no relation...... to current events.
Niall Ferguson, in "The Pity of War", puts blame squarely on the shoulders of Britain.
The 3 cousins, kaiser, king and tzar, victoria's grandchildren, had long squabbled about empires. Germany wanted Morocco from France, Britain wouldn't share its empire with Germans, who were by then richer and more productive than any other country, yet had no empire. The Germans saw an opportunity to make a big splash on the world scene, and Britain did nothing to discourage them. This was a war of empires. That war was put on hold in 1918, and started again in 1939. In the end, trying save its empire, britain ended up losing it all, so it was all for nothing. All for nothing.
Some historians views the two world wars as a single conflict. Indeed, WWII being the corollary of Versailles. The powers just needed a new generation of warriors.
In the same book Ferguson also claimed that Germany winning the war in Europe would just have been like them creating the EU a few decades ahead of schedule. What an utter insane point.
Try France they had the great revenge plan after getting their arse kicked in 1870 by Germany
You never really studied any history did you ?
you could find more grounds to place fault on the French. for centuries they pushed their borders eastward towards the river Rhine. in the late 18th century they finally schemed their way to Alsace and Lorraine, regions which were settled by German speaking people since the Romans vacated the area. when the Germans wanted to unite their lands the strongest opposition came from one Napoleon III. he got his ass kicked in 1870 and Germany took back Alsace-Lorraine. the French didn't like it and plotted to retake it at all costs. they fumed over it for more than 40yrs, watching Germany economically surpassing them, even overtaking the British in the 1890s. they took every opportunity, tried every avenue to offset Germany, oppose them, hinder them and generally frustrate them. the first 20yrs they didn't have much luck but then the Russians gradually were annoyed by the kaiser and the French won them over. a few years later, they convinced the British to form the _Entente Cordiale_ despite many opposing interests with London mainly due to colonial squabbles and centuries of animosity.
while the crisis of 1914 was going on, the French saw an opportunity to get back at the Germans and egged the Russians on. all actors were criminally oblivious to the changes in war technology and what the industrialisation of war meant for near-peer adversaries in the European theater. all they were familiar with were light colonial skirmishes and everyone believed the war would be quick and decisive. old fools from the 19th century fighting a modern industrialised war in the 20th century. all are to blame - not just the losers.
The greed for land of the Austrian Imperial family and the arrogance of the German Emperor to tell anyone in Europe what to do were the sparks that ignited the fire of total war.
In my WW1 course in college, a long time ago, my professor was adamant that the British were at fault. That was pretty much the theme of that whole course.
In 1916 Woodrow Wilson was re-elected on the campaign promise: “I will keep the USA out of the European War.” Wilson was inaugurated in March 1917. In April 1917, Wilson dragged the USA into the European War.
The US stayed because of isolationism of the time, I'm from the states and America was only involved in the war for a short time unlike the European powers that had been fighting long than our guys did and lost thousands of men in sluggish battles especially on the Western Front
Wilson has a lot to answer for. If we had stayed out I am sure the European war would have devolved into some kind of stalemate. In some ways the war did result in the end of monarchies and empires but my question is could that have been achieved without the rise of fascism and another world war.
Germany had committed a string of provocations against America. First in 1915, Germany started unrestricted submarine warfare, though they stopped after being warned they were risking war with the US. Later in 1915, Germany sank the RMS Lusitania killing 128 Americans. In January of 1917 Germany tried to instigate a war between Mexico and the US by means of the Zimmerman telegram. Lastly, in February of 1917, Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare which was the final straw for America. So Wilson kinda had no choice but to bring the US into the war in March of 1917
England was going to loose without te US help, the Lusitania fals flag was used to trick the US in the war .
@@tomjackson4374 The US played no part in that, only 2 Countries are to blame for "nono germany" and that is France and ofc Germany (well i suppose Austria aswell come to think of it).
In German schools, we are being taught that we have to blame ourselves for both worldwars, so it will never happen again.
When I was an exchange student in the US, however, our American history teacher was defending the US invasion into vietnam to be something for the greater good. Difference in culture.
Neither was your fault.
Das stimmt so nicht. Deutsche Alleinschuld wird nur bezugnehmend auf den zweiten Weltkrieg gelehrt.
yeah modern germany is obsessed with blaming themselves for both world wars now
Well i think the second one is absolutely our fault. Even when you blame the treaty of versaille and so on the true reason for the nazi uprising was rooted in the german people letting themselve be way to easily covinced by nationalism and racist views and blaming their misfortune on everyone around them. For the most part they were not pressured into doing this but willfully ignorant up to outright malicious. As for WWI i dont think we were the only ones to blame but we were definetly NOT innocent. In the end the question of who is at fault is pretty dumb because it is WAY more important to look at what caused people to become nazis and how to prevent this in the future. Because the generation that lived through WWII is mostly dead by now, right wing and fascist thought is again being pushed into the mainstream and this is what really should be adressed. 😐
@@chrislth Lol sure buddy.....I bet you loved communism
WOW! This was OUTSTANDING! Very, very impressive and very well done! Thank you for this presentation!
Will you list the movies you used in this presentation? Enjoyed your unbiased commentary.
Over 60 years ago, my high school history teacher was the one that told us about WW1. I remember all the alliances that were impetus to the development of the war. His lectures have inspired an interest in this topic ever since. A most complex and important event that resonates to this day.
yea, critical difference. nazi germany was so driven it would and many places did fight alone against allies. but WW1 was different.
The common thread, the indecisive manner they all handled it foreshadowed the dithering
of the League of Nations, and later, the United Nations. The obvious solution was to work
out the conflict over the assassination. Getting an answer to the guilty parties in the
assassination, and a resolution that pleases the Austrians without offending Serbia.
Interesting that the Ottomon Empire was not considered in light of the many wars in the
Bulcans leading up to 1914.
@@effexonThe Nazis did not turn up until World War II. But of course no one talks about the Americans stocking up the Germans with enough military equipment to start a war in the first place and then changing sides
@@James-kv6kb The Nazis began in the '20s but I'm not sure what you mean considering the Americans especially when you consider the state of the American armed forces up to the start of WW2. They certainly didn't supply vehicles or ships so are you talking about arms sales?
@@EndertheWeek sorry I wasn't clear with my comment the United states set Germany up with all its military equipment to start World War I then changed sides and sold to the British and allies and then when World War II erupted because the Germans were so devastated at losing the first time they thought they'd have another go , the Americans waited until everybody was running out of equipment, looked the other way when pearl Harbour was being flattened got into the war and signed all these countries up for 50-year arms deals. I know England was paying back America in the 80s from World War II and I believe Australia was similar . That's why they won't go and help the Ukrainian people with troops on the ground because they're making too much money with arms packages
You forgot to mention that Serbia agreed to all demands except the one allowing Austrian police to investigate on Serbian territory. And more to the point, Serbia proposed to have an international investigation into the assassination
Correct. The war was inevitable anyway
Russia did all they could to start a war and afterwards faked the documents to lie everyone that they were forced to do so. Russia also started WW2, attacking its neigbors, terrible country.
Since the Serbian government was protecting the terrorists , what was the point?
You forgot to mention that the group responsible for the assassination was directly linked to the Serbian government. The black hand was literally funded by the serbian government. Oh and sorry we dont let scumbags investigate themselves. Smh. "after investigating ourselves, we are innocent".
@@to_co_jest_prawdziwe Bullshit
Excellent video! Very sorry if I'm being blind but do you know what show(s)/films were used for the background in this? They look very interesting and keen to check them out! Battles are one thing but the diplomatic build-up is just as tense in my opinion.
Fantastic video! Really thoughtful and well presented. I learned more here in a half hour than I ever did in high school and college. In school way too much focus was on memorizing dates and timelines rather than focusing on the story and players' actions which this video does.
How the hell had europe been "relativly peaceful for a century" in 1914?
We had the back end of the coalition wars, two balkan wars, three wars for EACH the german and the italian unification in that time frame...
But no general conflict since 1815. Whereas there were quite a few in the previous century. The examples you note were quite localised. The closest to a general conflict was Crimea.
@@harrynewiss4630 This is mostly correct.
It just does not matter to the people who died. A turkish boy getting shot at Monastir would not think "at least its not a major conflict, Prussia isn't involved after all". He would probably think "oh, shit".
The word "relativly" sure does a lot of heavy lifting in the video.
@@CG-eh6oe it's a historical video not an exercise in emoting.
@@harrynewiss4630 Indeed. And for a historical video, I would expect the facts to be straight. Calling Europe peaceful by the arbitrary criterium that there was no single conflict involving all major powers, but a string of conflicts instead (and even this only if we exclude 1815) is not good historiographie.
@@CG-eh6oe I'm sorry that's wrong. I'm a historian and what he says is a perfectly mainstream and accurate argument. Compared to eg 1618-1815 Europe was relatively peaceful in the century to 1914.
FN 1910's weren't made in Serbia, they were made in Belgium. They are actually in the Vienna War Museum today.
Palpatine is in the Video, so he probably executed order 1914 to gain Power.
My takeaway from this video is that it was all just sabre rattling and shouting until the Germans marched into Belgium, who were nothing to do with the situation whatsoever. If that hadn't have happened, maybe no shots would ultimately have been fired.
The wildest part is, many arguments have been made that the Monarchs would've preferred there wasn’t a war, but the politicians under then stoked the fire's which forced (most of) the Monarchs to act.
Granted, Franz Ferdinand was also foolish to continue with his plans to visit and parade through the streets after all that occured. Monarchy can be great or fickle, in this case, the heir was naive.
Turns out though, at times those under a Monarch can be fickle as well; even Democracy, Republics, Communism etc aren't always the ones best for a country.
That's the wird thing. The Monarchs didn't want it though there was a loud minority of Falcons in all their countries both among common politicians as well as high nobility.
That's very insightful. I've thought about how the various technologies might have shifted the ground underneath the old infrastructure set up to deal with conflicts - as the video mentioned, railways made it easier for Russia to mobilize. Communications technologies also had a part - they made it easier to rile up the masses, and also made communications between diplomats faster. The political system of the time must have still been in the process of adjusting to this. But there is a case to be made that what fundamentally changed was the loss of power by the monarchic regimes in favor of new structures. Japan is an example of this, namely the false flag perpetrated in Manchuria, which was done autonomously by military forces, not sanctioned by the emperor
It was Germany’s fault that a Balkan squabble, escalated into world war 1.
It was Germany’s fault for not respecting the treaty of Versailles, that started WW2.
And it was GERMANY who declared war against its own ally, the USSR and against the USA, and allied with Japan and Italy, inciting them to wage expansionist wars.
Germany turned the Western European war, into a full European/Asian/African war.
Then if that’s not bad enough, turned that into a full world war. By emboldening and encouraging Japan, to attack the USA and declared war against the USA.
0:55 The murder of Franz Ferdinand had nothing to do with the start of WWI. It was just the excuse used to justify going to war.
While some European leaders wanted to avoid war, those who wanted to go to war had much greater influence.
If Ferdinand's driver not stopped at that particular spot, or if Gavrilo Princip chose some other place to eat lunch and sulk of the failed attack, some other excuse would have sparked the war.
Whilst saying that WW1 starting had nothing to do with the death of Franz Ferdinand is not necessarily correct you are right in pointing out that it was merely a catalyst for a war that had been in the making for decades, the narrator of the video states that in 1914 war was not on the horizon and that leaders were desperate to avoid war, nothing could be further from the truth, many of the most influential people in Europe particularity in Germany were from an aristocratic officer class who yearned for the glory associated with war and decisive victories and for the fast moving and dynamic warfare of the Napoleonic wars, many influential businessmen and entrepreneurs in Germany yearned for the greater access to the world market that came with owning a powerful empire, in order to sell goods produced by the blooming german economy, many germans feared that without imperial expansion and new colonies the growth of the relatively young german nation would be stifled and suppressed by the established powers of Britain and France.
@@maxanders3000you are not correct about internal and external German politics. German Economy was allready blooming, and overtaking the other european economies without any war or colonies. They had the largest merchant fleet and access to the world market. A war, specially against the largest navies, would only endanger their economy without benefits in sight.
The paliament consists of socialists who had allways been against any war. And funnily even the konservatives didnt want conquer new land since new french territory would increase the french minority in the country and gain land from russia would increase the polish minority in the country. This would only endanger the conservative position in the Parlament.
The reason Germany went to war is to stay by its only ally.
German politicians where naive, careless and stupid but not intentional in going to war.
France, brittain and russia hat an Intention to go to war. France wanted elsace lorraine. Russia wanted success in foreign policy to distract their population from internal problems and brittain want to ged rid of its biggest competitor who had starting to overtake the commonwealth in more and more economic parameters.
Its the first domino in the chain. The Austrians heavily pushed for war in retelliation. With no assasination, there wouldnt have no reason to do so.
Thats not to say, not an other conflict would not have errupted later on. But that conflict might have looked very different. Most countries where pulled in because they had defensive treaties with other countries, causing a domino effect. But we can only speculate what that would have looked liked. Maybe some great powers wouldnt have been obliged to enter that war.
German generals wanted to go to war with Russia before it can modernize its railways. And battle of Tannenberg 1914 just proved how important railways were. Russian mobilization was the only excuse Germany needed to start trying to conquer Europe one country after another. German "we need to attack first" attitude is to blame here. Because of it the anti war people had little to say. Without Germany that can flood any of its borders with drafted soldiers there wouldnt ba a great alliance. Germany (united after the Austro Prussian war) was build to be the aggressor of Europe that will go full out war for the slightest reason.
United Germany is a dangerous propaganda invention. Told in school till all Germans started to believe in it (roughly in the nineteen century). Austria nor Switzerland dont need to be united to be rich and they do not see greater Germany as a value. Napoleon the 3rd understood this. France that wanted the partition of Germany after WWI understood this. People that split Germany into 4 occupation zones in 1945 understood this.
@@maxanders3000 that leaves out all the english and french aggression towards germany from 1894 to 1914. germany was excluded from the colonial game and many in britain yearned for war. you are trying to blame a singular nation and thereby seeding what made those wars possible in the first place.
10:20 what is the name of the movie this clip is from??
Fun part is Franz was a major obstacle to war over Balkans. He was for Austria-Hungary as a multiethnic nation and specifically wanted to elevate the Slavic population as a hedge against the influence of the Hungarians.
My great Grandpa served in the Austrian Army on the serbian front. We was baking bread and making food for soldiers on the front and sometimes when enemy broke through he also had to fight with a weapon and heart shots flying around next to his ear.
During the second world war he got angry about the Waffen SS. He said to one of the SS Dudes basically "You are stupid, you never heart a bullet fly"
You know the bullet sound when a bullet flies very close to you like a whistle or sth.
SS warnes him, if you say something again you can work in the concentration camp.
Some Concentration camp workers were forced to work in our bakery. I don't know if they got food. As far as i know the secretly gave them a little bit to eat.
10km away there was still a concentration camp area. My grandma had potatoes in hear garden and threw them over the fence into the concentration camp to prisoners but before you do that you have to look who is at the moment Guarding the Prisoners. Some SS Dudes warned them and told them to stop them. Others actually kept it a secret and ignored it and didn't report it.
This was excellent. As a Canadian, this was disturbing. We lost the cream of a generation for a vanity project. 🍁
And the second world war as a consequence, the atomic bomb, countless other things that don't come to mind ,all because of an arrogant royal
Many good Aussies died as well . But a lot of people don't know the American sold the Germans the equipment even sending Houdini over to teach the Germans how to fly lol then of course changed sides
@@James-kv6kb Sold the Germans what equipment, and prior to 1914???
@@BasementEngineer all the military equipment the Germans used against the allies was made by the Americans except I believe for the ships that they built themselves . And type in Houdini with German pilots and you'll see plenty of photos just before the war. It is the last thing the United states wants you to know but it is the truth
This is a very thorough yet concise, dispassionate explanation of all the various elements in the run up to WWI. IMHO this should be part of the curriculum for every student of the history of western civilization.
What is the movie or TV drama that the color B-roll is from?
You know there's going to be war when Emperor Palpatine shows up (8:48).
😂😂😂😂
My thought exactly! No doubt he's the one responsible for WW1 single handly...
From 8:48 on, the whole seriousness and logic accuracy of the topic was instantly lost to me and I will always think that this was a plot by Darth Sidious to spark the invention of Stormtroopers and imperial uniform style...
Haha, what movie might that be that they've taken clips from? Just curious.
I don’t think there was a single party to the war to “blame”. It was a complicated web of treaties and alliances that were triggered by events that weren’t carefully considered.
Thank you Helmut
*Serbia* Assisted in the assassination (or at the least did nothing to stop it). *Russia* First to commit a full mobilization. *Germany* By invading Belgium forced Britain into the war.
UK was responsible. If the British had told the French that under no circumstances would they come to the aid of the French, France would not have dared to attack Germany. Austria would have dealt with the Serbs and the Germans would have then dealt with the Russian and the war would have been over in a few months. On the other hand, if the British had begun to build up a land army and told the Germans that they would levy total war against the Germans if the Germans attacked France, Germany would have restrained Austria and the war would have been settled at a European Congress. It was the waffling of perfidious Albion the caused the French and the German to miscalculate.
@@gussetma1945 '"Look what you made me do..I'm waging a four year war on foreign soil" 😂 Get real.
@@FiveLiver I wrote two different comments on this video. Tell what you are responding to and make a more detailed challenge and I will respond.
born 70 years ago I always was keen to learn, how one can recognize a world situation rising as in 1914 and from that I knew since some 10 years ago, that we are in it again.
Great History content. I always found World War One fascinating especially after reading the first book in Ken Follet's Century trilogy, but the political dynamics were a little difficult to follow at times. I like how you broke it down by Nation and how each played a role in escalating the crisis.
Who started it is a study in greed, vindictiveness and opportunism. Austria-Hungary took Bosnia-Herzegovina which rubbed the Serbs the wrong way because they wanted it too. The fact that a lot of Serbs lived there played an important fact in that too. At the time there was a pan Slavic movement that wanted to unite all Slavic people, preferably under the auspices of Russia. When the heir to the throne Archduke Ferdinand decided to visit Sarajevo, they decided to take him out. The emperor, not a great fan of the Archduke, saw this as a chance to declare war on Serbia and add it to his Empire. The Serbs were supported by Russia so they said “bring it on”. Russia got its ass handed to it by Japan in 1904 so the Czar needed to polish his tarnished military bona fides.
That was the greed part. The vindictiveness all came down to the French president Clemenceau who wanted revenge on Germany for the loss of Elzas Lotharingen in 1871 when they got their asses handed to them by Prussia. He even gave up gaining territories in Africa hoping to keep the British on his side. Don’t forget the Rhine for the sake of the Nile! So, when Austro-Hungary, Germany and Russia went to war over Serbia, the French sided with Russia (Entente Cordial) and declared war on Germany and Austro-Hungary.
Now the opportunism. The German kaiser Wilhelm and grandson of Queen Victoria foolishly declared that Germany’s future lay on the oceans and started to build a fleet while acquiring a few colonies here and there. That did not sit well with London because Britannia rules the waves so when the Germans invaded France through Belgium and the French were once again getting their asses handed to them, the British dusted off an 1831 treaty guaranteeing the integrity and sovereignty of Belgium, they declared war on Germany. That this treaty was originally designed to keep the Dutch from reclaiming Belgium was beside the point. For clarity, Belgium, Luxemburg and the Netherlands were united under the Dutch throne in 1815 as a northern buffer against France to keep the French in check (we had just had Napoleon!).
The stage is set, let the fun begin. The two main culprits are Franz Jozef and Clemenceau.
The German military humiliated France in 1871. The Germans knew that France was weak, so the German invasion of Belgium and France was nonsensical. Why did they not merely fortify their border with Russia?
After all of that you put tbe Blame on Franz Joseph? It was Serbias fault.
Franz Ferdinands plan for a united States of Greater Austria were well known, Serbia knew that if that came to happen Serbia would have never had their "greater Serbia".
No , its your Franz J. fault.. Austria wanted to defeet Serbia and take route to Ionic sea.. but Potyorek failed..twice.. first time on the mountain Zer . We are better soldiers then Austrians.
Every morning i look at the Zer and i am proud
@@aleksandarjovanovic7055 I already added to one post why Serbia is at fault.
Everybody wants to rewrite history to their own liking. The Kaiser insisted that Austria refuse to accept Serbia's capitulation to the ultimatum. Germany needed to prop up the reputation of their weak (and only) ally. Also, Germany did not HAVE to go through Belgium, they CHOSE to.
Does anyone know what movie footage was used in the making of the video? It would be interesting to watch it
Austria-Hungary should not have delayed and gone into Serbia ASAP before all the other countries' war plans congealed into place. They dawdled while they still had semblance of goodwill. Also , Conrad should have been dismissed years before as the head of the Austrian army because his grandiose war plans had no resemblance to the assets of Austria-Hungary. Who was to blame? France, for funding and then goading Russia into general war.
Quite a few years ago I attended a lecture by A.J.P.Taylor on the origins of the First World War - the subject for which he was famous. I recall his point that railway timetables took many months to devise, and that Germany had prepared a timetable for invading France, and one for withdrawing its armies from the border, but not one for supplying its armies during a prolonged period at the border; they therefore had to choose attack or withdrawal without the luxury of a leisurely decision.
Not perhaps a question of blame or innocence, but an additional difficulty for preserving peace.
Yet they still managed to supply their army at the front for 4 years. That seems like a vapid excuse.
Which was the result of great power politics due to the fact that the Germans knew that they could not win a two front war vs England, France and Russia. And thus they had to win on one front quickly.
Ofc the others knew, tooand that is why the English and French were so hellbent on triggering that war.
@@donaldduck830So hell-bent that Germany invaded France? That doesn't make any sense.
It was Germany’s fault that a Balkan squabble, escalated into a world war.
@@flashgordon6670 Oh, right. It was Germany's fault to not roll over and surrender immediately when attacked.
I like the narrative style and the somewhat breathless, vocal mood, it gives the whole thing an imminent atmosphere. Also a very important video; it makes the anger of the Germans after the Treaty of Versailles more understandable.
This is indeed a very important part of history, it goes to show how such a thing can give birth to an even greater danger especially if we see how populism evolves nowadays. That in large part righteous anger of a populace can easily be used by ill intended figures.
To be against war, is like being against ice-age. Said wise man once.
Very good stuff. Well spoken well researched and attempt to keep out personal bias is commendable. Here we are 110 years away from it and still it has so many answered questions.
-Serbia fought two wars just before the start of the First World War (two Balkan wars) , the new war was not an option for Serbs.
-In 1903, major changes took place in Serbia, one dynasty (which had close relations with Austro-Hungarians) was overthrown, and another dynasty that came had direct relations with France.
-Austria-Hungary had to go to war primarily because of the spread of nationalism in their own country, Slovaks, Czechs, Hungarians and others eagerly awaited the weakening of the empire and the creation of a state. The war was supposed to be a kind of unifier, and also a message to the other nations within the empire.
We could do this for hours. There are many facts and there are many important details, that lead us far into the past. Nothing in history can be taken black and white.
Pretty sure Austria-Hungary had to go to war because SOMEBODY JUST KILLED THEIR CROWN PRINCE.
National fervor was a 2ndary component.
Meh... while both austria and russia had their interrests in the balkans colliding and risking conflict, it was germany which turned it into a world war.
They had been pushing the arm race for decades, at sea against britain, and on land against france and russia, were the ones starting the alliance game, and at no point were hiding any of it. The kaiser in 1912 said to a swiss journalist that war was coming soon, and the reality was that germany needed said war sooner rather than later, considering that russia would outpace them in the long run.
The blank check is a reality.
The agressive mobilization was a reality too (look by comparison to the french for example who mobilized but ordered the troops to remain tens of miles from the frontiers to avoid any accidental start of the war).
Germany being the one declaring wars left and right (litteraly, look at the order of the wars declarations) is a reality too.
And the objectives Germany had were a reality too (as soon as former neutral Belgium was invaded, the german leadership had decided for full annexion of Belgium post war).
The austrians and the russians were a bunch of amateurs really, who got over their heads, but the germans knew very well what they were doing, and had been preparing for it for a long time, encouraging it when things went out of hand, and literraly started it by declaring wars and launching the invasions.
Fun fact, at the start of the war, the german leadership received the wrong information that France would not honor its alliance with russia, but decided to invade France anyway, justifying it by saying that they had been preparing for this particular plan and couldn't improvise anything else than what they had wanted to do for a couple of decades.
Just like the franco prussian war, the reality is that behind all the posturing and the faults of one of another, at the end of the day, what happened was what germany had planned from the start
It was Germany’s fault that a Balkan squabble, escalated into world war 1.
It was Germany’s fault for not respecting the treaty of Versailles, that started WW2.
And it was GERMANY who declared war against its own ally, the USSR and against the USA, and allied with Japan and Italy, inciting them to wage expansionist wars.
Germany turned the Western European war, into a full European/Asian/African war.
Then if that’s not bad enough, turned that into a full world war. By emboldening and encouraging Japan, to attack the USA and declared war against the USA.
The German transgression into Belgium did not "provoke" Britain. It provided the PRETEXT for Britain to enter the war. Britain's treaty with Belgium was put in place specifically to provide Britain a diplomatic tripwire against England's biggest rival. Britain's European strategy had long been to keep continental Europe fractured, while Britain ruled the seas and amassed the greatest empire in the world.
Couldn't agree more.
Not sure what's wrong with his use of the word "provoke"? The neutrality of Belgium was designed to keep key channel ports on the Belgian coast out of the hands of the mainland great powers. It was a prudent arrangement to shore up British security. You're making it sound like a conspiracy for GB to throw itself into a war (that it didn't want).
British support for getting involved was fractured and reluctant until the invasion of Belgium. There was a massive peace march on Trafalgar Square. Even after the invasion of Belgium, Asquith's cabinet only made the decision through gritted teeth.
The Treaty guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium was also signed by Prusia, France, Rusia and Austria. It was not just a British-Belgian treaty. Every Great Power had it's reasons to sign it. And you can't blame the british for honoring a treaty that had also been signed by the germans, who broke it.
Well , why would Britain, with a tiny army when compared to Russia and the Continental powers , want to embark on a land war ?
And Germany was the one with aggressive intent , because of the idiot Kaiser .
And " Keep the right wing strong " ..... In other words, they had set the course a decade earlier .
You're wrong about this, the Treaty of London that guaranteed Belgian neutrality was signed in 1839, and by Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Russia as well. There wasn't a unified Germany at the time to set a tripwire against, not for 32 years
What is the title of the movie used in the background?
I think one aspect is overlooked when it comes to WW1. Instead of focusing on individual countries alone, we should also have a look at the whole system that was very problematic: nationalism, imperialism, militarism, lack of democracy. This system was basically the same everywhere in Europe. And as far as Russia is concerned, it's still in effect in certain countries even today.
Great video. Thx. There were powerful industrial leaders and politicians in England that was screaming "Germany must be destroyed" in 1913 because german industry was outcompeting english industry. I'm sure this had at least some influence in the parliament.
British had more colonis and greater navy to dominate entire European prosperity!
@@pashapasovski5860 Doesn't matter. Foreigners bought machinery and chemicals from Germany, stuff that was known to be better than what the British could offer.
I think you are referring to Cecil Rhodes, Lord Milner and Lord Rothschild.
It's interesting that Emperor Nicholas II did side with regicide, then was regicided himself.
Given that Russia had been slapped on the wrists a couple years prior, which led to riots and uprisings against the Tsar, you would think that Nicholas II would have been much more careful to get involved in another war, wouldn't you?
@@michaelritzen8138 perhaps he did consider that, but thought a war would distract people toward external problems.
@@IblameBlamethat exact thought was in the back of leaders’ minds all over Europe.
@@michaelritzen8138 He was always a bit of a dunce. No one ever accused Nicholas II of being smart.
@@HarrDarr Tsar Nicholas had two braincells fighting for third place.
Awesome video with very insightful analysis 👌 10/10.
Britain and France had been filling the Balkans with their agents for decades before the the war. Just think of how many new royal connections were formed by Britain or how many French officers worked in the Balkans. Not to mention things like Seton-Watson's activity, which massively influenced public opinion.
I have never seen a documentary or any presentation that is as well thought out as this one. This video is the gold standard of how to discuss the start of World War 1. Absolute KUDOs to the creator of this video. History teachers should absolutely use this video in describing the catastrophe of the Great War.
Look up Corbett Report - The WWI conspiracy
czcams.com/video/_8xxVplUHL8/video.htmlsi=-Hgc5FJX0nlPbsUp
Yes! That changed everything for me.
OMG, thank you for this. The narrative is the most comprehensive i've ever seen or heard and strikes me as consciously objective. Very classy production that nicely leverages a mesmerizing mix of historic and theatrical film content. BRAVO!!
What song is playing in the background?
I think they didn't anticipate the industrialization of war. In their head, they were about to fight with cavalry and storm castles.
In the ranking - the start of the war is one thing - it becoming a world wide war is another. This had no business turning into a everyone jumps in war and then it really had no business being a total victory or death struggle.
I always wonder : if everyone could see 4 years down the road, would anyone have stepped one foot towards war? Or were they trapped by circumstances like alliance networks and mobilization tables.
Never.
@@peterasp1968 Well, the Serbs certainly. France maybe. UK probably not. Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia for sure not.
Things spun out of control faster than they could keep up.
@@lisanalgaib555tsar Nicholas and kaiser Wilhelm didn't want to go to war what so ever, but their nations were dragged into war, thanks to Austria-Hungary not respecting the Serbians right to have the assassin prosecuted
@@lisanalgaib555 definitely not serbs or the french....serbs lost like 30% of there population ffs
All around among politicians and even the elite military brass I think there was a serious misunderstanding of how destructive the new weapons were. I think many expected a short almost napoleonic style war to ‘settle’ some outstanding differences.
Funny to state that Europe lived in peace and then a few minutes later mention that the war had almost broken out in 1908 already.
i think it goes to show while THIS conflict could be avoided the war itself was inevitable. something had to happen.
Thank you for this upload. I don’t think I’ve ever come across as comprehensive a review as this one that clearly summarises the catastrophic cascade of events that ultimately defined 20th century world history.
You're very welcome!
Ukrainian flag ...and thinking ...😆🤦♂
In Ireland Unionists and Republicans were on the verge of conflict with each other before the outbreak of world war one. So a conflict might have ignited from that.
Russia is smashing Ukraine, the Ukrainian criminal govt. is kidnapping people in Ukraine every day and sending them to the battlefield
What a great summary. One more aspect that plays into it: From the powers in charge, nobody was aware how much warfare had changed or would change within a few years of technological advance. They were still caught up in thinking, the battles would be taking place in a manner of the last century, unaware of the deadly new weaponry.
Or is that an apologists rant for the leaders who led an entire generation to near extinction? "We didn't know" - similar to "We were just following orders". The powers of the new weaponry was full-on display at the battle of Petersburg at the end of the civil war in the US - 4 decades earlier!! The siege mortars, Gatling guns, railway guns all used against fortifications similar to what was constructed in WW1. 9 ½ ton 13 inch mortar capable of throwing a 220 pound bomb over 4000 yards in 1865 should have been a wake-up call.
@@BlackMan614 good points. Probably from the european perspective, nobody took notice (in details at least) of that little civil war going on somewhere far away. my point came from details like the colorful uniforms of the french or the traditional helmets of the germans when the war begun, that both were changed asap to camouflage.
i thought that was only france with them marching Napoleonic tactics style since Britain had learned from the indians and boers and everyone else idrk
@@doggydude2668 1914 Britain barely had an army, as they put all their effort into the navy (largest in the world) a) to protect the empire and its waterways and b) as an island they could defend enemies at sea. When the war broke out they had to mobilize quickly.
well, yes and no. I'm no apologist for anyone. Insanely stupid decisions were made all the way through the war, causing the deaths of millions. But for twentieth century Europeans, their idea of war was the Franco-Prussian war of 1871 (during which there were still calvary charges). They did not have any conception of what a modern, mechanized meatgrinder war would look like. And while the prototypes of many of the guns used in WWI were already appearing in the Civil War, by 1914, military tech had evolved in scale and power by orders of magnitude. Gatling guns may have worked in the Civil War, but they would have been laughably outclassed by the Vickers machine guns in WWI. There may have been mortars used at the siege of Petersburg, but millions of shells were used during the battle of Verdun alone. Throw in barbed wire, and you end up with 1,600,000 casulties in the carnage on the Sommes. @@BlackMan614
Super job! I really liked the 'whistle stop tour' part of this and most folks miss that. Even back in history class, our teacher was unable to really tell us just how the assassination of FF and Mrs. FF ended up actually causing the war. It was really the inciting incident that set of an unfortunate chain of events. Another factor was the young Germany. It'd only been a nation for a bit over 40 years but even their formation made other nations nervous. Their involvement really helped step things up.
Sometimes you hear stupid people say a nuclear war can’t happen because nobody wants it to happen. History teaches bad things can happen even when none of the people involved want it to happen
"Relatively peaceful" for a century? Napoleonic Wars (1803-15), First & Second Serbian Uprising (1815-17), Greek War of Independence (1821), First Greek Civil War (1823-24), Russo-Turkish War (1828-29), French Revolution of 1830 (1830), Belgian Revolution (1830-31), Polish Uprising (1830-31), Bosnian Uprising (1831-33), June Rebellion (1832), First Carlist War (1833-40), several Balkan uprisings (1836), First Albanian Revolt (1843-44), Second Albanian Revolt (1845), Second Carlist War (1846-49), Revolutions of the Italian States (1848-49), Revolutions of the German States (1848-49), Revolutions of the Habsburg Areas (1848-49), Wallachian Revolution (1848), Sicilian Revolution (1848-49), First Italian War of Independence (1848-49), Hungarian War of Independence (1848-49), Serb Uprising of 1848 (1848-49), Slovak Uprising of 1848 (1848-49), First Schleswig War (1848-51), Crimean War (1853-56), Second Italian War of Independence (1859), Second Schleswig War (1864), Austro-Prussian War (1866), Third Italian War of Independence (1866), Cretan Revolt (1866-69), Macedonian Revolt (1866-67), Glorious Revolution in Spain (1868), Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), French Civil War of 1871 (1871), Third Carlist War (1872-76), Bulgarian Uprisings of 1876 (1876), Russo-Turkish War (1877-78), Austro-Hungarian Campaign in Bosnia & Herzegovina (1878), Greek Macedonian Rebellion (1878), Macedonian Struggle (1893-1908), and Greco-Turkish War (1897). And those are just the European wars or rebellions fought in Europe. I hear this claim about a "peaceful" century and it just wasn't so, relatively or not.
WW1 was a century after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. There wasn't a war on the scale of the Napoleonic wars for nearly 100 years
@@Anakin_Sandy_High_Ground but it was hardly a peaceful century.
@@mdaly724 thats why he said relatively peaceful.
Alpha Centauri is relatively close to our Sun, its actually stupidly far away but compared to everything else its close.
This many times over. The video is naive in the extreme about Europe being at peace when it was near continuous war in the east and south east. The killing went on for years after armistice day. The western front horribly colours the perspective of most British people because we have no exposure to the rest of the conflict outside of Franz Ferdinand, Gallipoli and the Russian revolution of 1917.
it's obvious. ..the Germans are to blame ......just like Putin is to blame for Ukraine .... He who attacks first must bare the responsibility ... German stupidity in invading Belgium, Russian stupidity invading Ukraine ... simple.
@3:18 the ridiculous part about that assassination was that Franz Ferdinand was likely going to address the grievances of the Slavs that Princip represented (in stark contrast to his uncle), in essence he was shot for absolutely nothing.
Thr eternal Slavs in the east are the eternal Anglo to the west
It was all just one big misunderstanding you see
One of the reasons Black Hand (and the Serbian Gvt) wanted Franz Ferdinand dead was exactly because they feared he might resolve things with the Slavs! It also a major reason Anarchists assassinates Tsar Alexander. He was a progressive who freed the Serfs and was intent on improving conditions in Russia!
@@ethanperks372 Serbian Government did not want that. Simple put, there is 0 evidence that government supported Black Hand, specially considering that government activelly tried to suppresse it, thinking they finally got stronger possition over organisation.
@@aleksaradojicic8114 Many sources say the Serbian Govt was heavily involved with the "Black Hand"! Moreover, the ArchDuke was an especial threat to Serbian asperrations. He was a political moderate who favored making the Empire a Triple Monarchy adding a Slavic Crown to the Dual Monarchy!
Excellent work. The role of France, however, was actually a bit more complicated, Clark, whom you quoted, mentions the large French loans for weapons to Serbia in the decade preceding the war and Poincaré's desire for revenge over Alsace-Lorraine; jis visit ro St. Petersburg after the assassination certainly reinforced the Russian's bellicosity which also had an eye on the Dardanelles. And the whole tragedy, ending with the Versailles stupidity was the embryo for WW2.
Whoch film are you using for this?