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The First World War was Europe’s most destructive single event since the Black Death, so uh… why on earth did they do it on purpose? Let’s unpack the state of affairs at the turn of the 1900s to understand the World Before the War and see how it could only lead to conflict.
Special thanks to Jonny and Billy from our Discord community, who kindly looked over my script.
SOURCES & Further Reading:
“Smithsonian World War 1: The Definitive Visual History” published by DK & Penguin Random House, edited by Hugo Wilkinson
“Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes To War” by Max Hastings
“Hubris: The Tragedy of War in the Twentieth Century” by Alistair Horne
Great Courses lecture series “World War I: The ‘Great War’”, lectures 1 through 4, “The Century’s Initial Catastrophe”, “Europe in 1914”, “Towards Crisis in Politics and Culture” and “Causes of the War and the July Crisis, 1914”, by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
Great Courses lecture series “The African Experience from Lucy to Nelson Mandela” lecture 20 “European Conquest and African Resistance” by Kenneth P. Vickery
MUSIC:
“There Is Only War” from Space Marine II OST by Nima Fakhrara and Steve Molitz
“The Reliquary” from Stray Gods OST by Austin Wintory
“On Father’s Watch” from Assassin’s Creed Unity OST by Chris Tilton
“Follow My Lead” from Assassin’s Creed Unity OST by Chris Tilton
“48 Hours” from M. Son of the Century OST by Tom Rowlands
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Great to see more people explaining nationalism as the poison it is.
After WW1:
Russian royal family went into kaput
Germany blamed and broke
France badly broke
Austria-Hungary became Austria and Hungary
Italy is broke and depressed
UK is depressed and blaming the government for not protecting its people
Ottoman become turkey
United States is happy and 5-10 years later VERY BROKE
It was over by Christmas…just 4 years later.
It is amazing how many parallels can be drawn to modern day Europe, along with the build up to WW2. And by amazing, I mean for fucks sake can we not do this again?
French people were secretly and eagerly preparing for a war against Germany due to the way the Franco-Prussian war started, ended and its consequences. The purposedly mistranslations of french and prussian communication by Prussia to piss off France, the "Misery Camps" (a prototype for something more sinister, maybe?) created for the captured french soldiers, the devastation left behind the prussian progression, the humiliation after the defeat festered in most french people who went through it all, and school were preparing children for what was to come. Had Serbian kept quiet and a determinated nationalist rose in power in France, that war would've happened anyway.
And Germany wouldn't have been the first one to break the rules (heh, force of habit) and use forbidden weapons. France would've done that with no remorse.
So yeah. "La belle époque" was nice from the outside. In the inside, the whole country was eager to blast it apart. And would've again if it didn't turn out to be a traumatizing brand new circle of Hell on Earth for everyone.
13:19 notice the month between the assassination and the declaration of war. This is frankly one of the most interesting months in modern history and it largely goes unnoticed. The Germans gave Austria the go-ahead right after the assassination, on the condition they moved fast. The sympathies of the great powers were with Austria in that first week and even Russia signaled they wouldn’t interfere. The Kaiser then jumped on a boat for the next two weeks to take a vacation. Most of the Empire was on board with invading Serbia, but there was a hiccup. The Hungarian portion of the empire was fiercely against annexing the land, and it took over a week to finally agree with a “stop in Belgrade” plan, essentially to rush the border into the capital and get them to yield. As a pretext they sent a list of demands to the Serbians, with the last one being that Austrians be granted police powers within Serbian borders, which Serbia couldn’t agree to without giving up sovereignty. Meanwhile, the German ambassador to Russia is meeting with a Russian minister to hammer out a deal to keep the powers from declaring war on each other. Just before they finalize it, the German ambassador drops dead, rumors flying saying he was poisoned. In his place a new man gets rushed to Russia. At this point the halt in Belgrade plan has been agreed to without giving the provision that no land will be taken in the long term, but no one tells the new ambassador that. The Russian foreign minister insists his country will be forced to act if any land is taken from Serbia, but the man he’s negotiating with doesn’t realize his country isn’t looking to actually take any land. In the meantime, Serbia has created a masterful response to the Austrian list of demands. They agree to all but police powers, but they’ll gladly submit to a conference to let the other powers weigh in. This is essential a trap since Austria is constantly being overruled at conferences, so they refuse. They go to the head of the army and tell him to deploy, but he says he can’t just deploy in an instant and he needs a couple weeks to actually draw up his troops. This leads to the Austrian mobilization being rushed and messy, spooking the Russians and causing them to forward deploy their troops. The Germans then mobilize to counter the Russian deployment. The Kaiser finally gets back from his trip and gets an account of how the Austrians still haven’t gone to war despite his instructions to act quickly. He then reads the Serbian response to the ultimatum and says something along the lines of “with this all justifications for war have fallen away”. He tries to get the Russians to draw down and demobilize, but they’re caught in a catch-22. This is the era of the train: he who gets his army to the field first wins by default, so demobilizing while your opponent is still mobilized is impossible. The Tzar and Kaiser, being cousins, end up bypassing the bureaucracy and talking to each other. Tzar Nicolas finally agrees to demobilize, but that leads to a massive fight with the Duma (parliament) and the Army, during which an aide de camp tries to comfort the tzar by saying “we know it must be difficult for you to decide”, accidentally deeply wounding his pride as his entire life he’d been called indecisive and cowardly. The tzar then completely throws his weight behind mobilization and it all spirals from there. There’s so much I had to leave out, it was a busy month
I don't see Israel around here…
my map
Great timing on this video as this is literally the topic for my uni history course this semester lol
Don't worry, it'll all be over by Christmas.