In just seven years from 1911-18, the following monarchies were ended: The Romanvovs The Hohenzollern The Ottomans The Qing Dynasty The Hapsburgs If you had told people in 1910 that this would happen, you would have seemed INSANE.
This, was the death of almost every last kingdom in the world, nowadays the only royals that have absolute power are the Saudis and the Thailand peoples...
It'd be a bold claim for sure, but the Ottomans were already the sick men of Europe, The Russians had already revolted in 1905 and the Habsburgs were arguably doomed since 1866 when they created Austria-Hungary, The Qing had been carved up and essentially made puppets of the west (especially after the Boxer Rebellion) and god knows how many rebellions had occurred in just the last 50 years against them. Though the Hozenzollern seemed pretty damn stable, so I'll definitely give you that one
over a 100 years after the fact and the story is still more interesting than the assassination that's saying something today if ww3 starts and there is a new Kardashian people would be more interested in the scandal !!
@@kyokyoniizukyo7171 It seems that the editor had some more dirt on her and her husband, specifically of a political nature. It also seems that they had a fairly open-minded relationship, given that they'd started seeing one another while both were married to other people.
Alexander Roderick that is actually where I heard a version of this the first time. Joseph Campbell also has some interesting things to say about recurring themes.
I appreciate how the dynamics in the Balkans was handled. It is complex, and hotly debated even among scholars today. It was a wise choice not to try to unpack it too deeply. That would take an entire series in itself, and that still wouldn't be enough.
It would take an entire series. And they ought to make that series. As it is, this series is seeming more like Crash Course History of Western Europe + Russia. As usual, eastern Europe is mostly forgotten about ('cept when it impacts the West, of course!).
42 seconds into the video, and I want to say that in History class, both in Year 9 and my A-levels, I wrote in essays that there are discrete causes to the First World War. However, in both cases I learned that its not discrete causes, there are many many things that piled on top of each other, from potentially the previous 50 years of european history that compiled and lead to war. Yes, there are more immediate and stronger causes than others, but nonetheless, you can't just trim it down to 5 factors. Yet, I wouldn't hold it against schools teaching this method, as long as they also teach the appreciation of why.
History as a science is evolving. What we thought was true 60 years ago, was revealed later to be a fabrication based on our own point of view. And corrections about what we belive today will comme around in the future!
Right? There was plenty of precedent for the human rights violations that we eurocentric people tend to remember better. Also, the world had already shrunk long before then, and nothing can happen in one part of it now without affecting other parts of the globe.
"I'll remind you I've had 3 years of high school French - it was based on military cooperation and even shared military plans." What a strange curriculum...
To be fair to Franz Ferdinand: His views on the whole empire thing varied from time to time. And while it's true he was a staunch conservative, and racist (as most of them where back in the days, believing the slavs where just a little bit more "uncivilzed" than the rest of Europeans) at some point he even contemplated the creation of the United States of Greater Austria, federalizing the different nationalities of Austria-Hungary, so the different peoples (there where dozends of different ethicities living in the empire) would have better cultural representation, instead of being solely ruled by Asutrians and Hungarians. Last but not least, he can be seen as the best friend,the Serbs had in the Austrian goverment, since he stood steadfast against a war with Serbia (often clashing with hawk and hardliner Conrad von Hötzendorf, chief of staff of the Austrian army). So yes, Princip killed the one guy who was against meddling with the Balkans and with him out of the picture, the road to war was free.
It does make you wonder though. What could have happened if Austria-Hungary was able to federalize. Could it have saved it from its downward spiral, even if the war never came or didn't end as badly.
@@diegogonzalez9877 it might have prolonged the existence of the empire, but considering the massive discrimination against the other peoples in the empire (especially in the Hungarian administered half) it would not have been a peaceful period. The Serbs wanted the slav peoples, the Czech and Slovak were also getting tired of not being represented. The Romanians in Transylvania were worse than second rate citizens, and the messages of national unification were spreading in many circles. Nationalism was on the rise everywhere, the ego of the dominant powers was too high to allow them to admit any actual compromises. In short, it was a massive powder keg waiting for a match.
@@diegogonzalez9877 True. I guess Franz Ferdinand was right when he assessed that the greatest threat to Austro-Hungarian stability - and therefore any chance to turn things around and reform the empire - was a big war. This was basically why he was against any wars and especially against any "adventures in the Balkans". Also he wanted to avoid a war with Russia at all costs, since he realized that would weaken both states and facilitate revolutions that would overwthrow the respective goverments. His plan was to conserve peace at all cost. So, assuming there would be no war, how likely would his federalization happen? Still very unlikely I suppose. While most nationalities and the crown provinces would propably support the movement Hungary would fight against everything that would weaken their power. Also the Austrian establishment, the court and goverment would probably also refuse their cooperation, since again it would weaken their position in the grand scheme of things. Supposing everything would work out, and USGA had been established, would it have kept the empire alive? Hard to say. I would think in the long run: no. There where to many discrepancies, too many disagreements and too much instability (economically, militarily, etc.) and as soon another crisis turns up - some other big war - the whole thing would probably fall apart. Ironically the one thing that held the empire together, after the devastating defeats in the beginning and against all antipathy amongst the different nationalities, was the loyalty and servitute towards the Kaiser. Without him, with less influence on the federal states from Austria, I would assume the Union would break apart in turmoil.
I often wonder how wise it was to send Franz Ferdinand to Sarajevo, to observe military manoeuvers, on such a significant date for Serbs, in a climate of assassinations across Europe... and then to have him pootle around town in an open-topped car with little in the way of protection. I have no evidence for it whatsoever, but I imagine Franz Conrad must have been rubbing his vicious, militaristic little mitts together in glee.
@@brkatimachor Very unwise I'd say. One thing Austrians are famous for, is what we call "Schlamperei", or sloppiness. And the whole structure underlying the k.u.k. army as well as the goverment, was rife with Schlamperei. The Austrian governor of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Oskar Potiorek was the classic career officer. Absolutely unremarkable, even sub-par in his job, he was only looking to advance through the ranks trough connections. It was no secret, that he loathed the - in his eyes - ungrateful position as governor of this backwater province. So when the archduke announced his tour, he saw it as a clever career move: Invite the archduke and show him what a great officer and governor he was, gaining favor for his next career moves. But of course, on par with the rest of the war effort, Potiorek failed miserably to set up proper safety protocols, have additional security forces and a stringent plan for contingecies. The way he saw it: I want to show how safe and secure my province is, putting the archduke behind bulletproof glass and setting up hundrets of policemen and soldiers for security would undermine that message. And yes, having that whole thing go down on that one special day, was exactly the sloppiness that could be expected from Potiorek. So while Potiorek might have held a grudge against F.F. (after all F.F. chose Hötzendorf as chief of staff instead of Potiorek) I believe in Halon's razor: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." I'll leave with a quote that made me smile as it definitely holds true, from Schindlers's "Fall of the Double Eagle": "The army had its share of 'Schlamperei', a trademark Habsburg sort of slackness, and throughout its long history of more than a little red tape and mismanagement had gotten by on 'fortwursteln' (muddling through), a sort of improvisational art to take the place of skilled leadership and proper strategy, which more often than not were lacking."
I liked the video. But I wish there was a discussion or at least mentioning of the various Diplomatic crisies that sowed distrust between the opposing alliance blocs. Events like the Moroccan Crisies of 1905 and 1911 and the Bosnian Annexation Crisis of 1908 (which albeit was mentioned but in passing reference) or the First and Second Balkan Wars and how they almost led to war with Austria-Hungary and Russia.
Morrocoan crisis was interesting since Germany only went against France because they wanted to ease tensions with Britain who had up until that point always been opposed to France. But things had gotten so bad between Germany and Britain already that the British instead sided with France.
@Kwiene Makeda Not sure I agree with you there. The Serbs successfully repelled the Austrians and were only crushed when the Germans took charge of the situation, and even then the German commander in charge of the invasion, August von Mackensen, put up a monument over their heroic defence which has the words in German and Serbian "Here rests Serbian heroes".
@Kwiene Makeda of course it is. It is tying up enemy troops and even making the enemy waste some of it's strength. August von Mackenssen knew a lot more about war than either of us and he saw it.
Crash Course media is one of the most important educational media genre in the last Century. Keep up the great work. I tested out of 4 college classes, learned more than I ever thought possible. Boiler up! :p
Interesting note about the dreadnaughts: Germany dearly wanted to build up a navy capable of challenging the British, but the British navy had a big enough battleship lead as to make the project... daunting. Arguably almost impossible absent a total shutdown of British naval development. But that changed when the British built the HMS Dreadnaught, and overnight made every existing battleship obsolete. This sounds like an amazing advancement for the British, and it was, but it also meant that all of *their* pre-dreadnaught battleships were obsolete. Their many-ship lead had suddenly shrunk to a *one* ship lead. This never really amounted to as big a problem as it sounds, of course. The British still held a very solid lead in shipbuilding infrastructure, which when talking about naval power is quite arguably the more important measure.
Of course, they couldn't avoid making such ships either. They only beat by years at most some other countries who'd come up with similar ideas. So if it's going to happen anyway, would it be better to be the first to start on it?
It takes decades to build a strong navy. The French learned it the hard way under Bonaparte, so did the Germans during the world wars. That's why I'm also not too worried about China being able to challenge the US naval power any time soon.
PhysicsGamer of course Dreadnoughts could have been called Carolinas or even Satsumas. AND early German Dreadnoughts weren’t very good either. And then during WWI the Kaiser didn’t want to scratch the paint in his shiny new battleships.
It should be noted that Germany used to import food from the British colonies, which allowed it to move massive amounts of it's population out of the agrarian economy and into the industrial one, then when Germany outpaced Britain in industry the Brits got concerned and slapped high export tariffs on food exported to the German empire as a way of reining in the German industrial growth (It makes sense from their perspective the British spent a lot on maintaining their overseas empire and Germany did not have to do that). But Germany got the idea that the British were trying to starve them, and proceeded to go looking for a colonial empire of their own to import the food from, this got the British increasing their navy which the Germans saw as a threat to their new colonies and their food imports and so they increased their navy too. At the end of the day it's the Thucydides' Trap, a rising empire trying to rise and a diminishing one won't let them. Unfortunately for the British they focused on the wrong rising power, while the British and Germans spend their time killing one another the United States eclipsed them both.
@@TapOnX Actually in ww1 Germany arguably had the stronger navy because while the British had more ships the German ones were to big and powerful for the British, they simply couldn't consistently sink them. But the Germans never really got on board with that idea and thus under utilized their navy heavily.
I'm happy you mentioned the Second Boer War (South African War). It was a testing ground for the modernized British war machine and a surprising number of international regiments fought on the side of the Boer Republics. Look it up.
Love the video! I noticed that at the beginning you mentioned your high school educational experience lacking substance compared to how historians teach it now. However, from the middle to the end, you essentially just elaborated on the bits that you said were not enough at the beginning. For example. You said that you learned about Military Alliances, Imperialism, Nationalism, etc. stating that those were the former talking points of high school teachers. But then you used those same points through your video to explain the history. I do agree with you that high schools are not able to teach everything in history, but to be honest it seems like you learned more about World War I (then) than I did. Most of my education on the conflict was, “Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, Domino Effect, World War II...” Definitely felt like they skipped around even then. I didn’t get my first true lecture about The Great War until my second year at community college. Regardless, I think the parts of history you did learn at the beginning represented a great precursor to the knowledge you have now. If you don’t have a base for a large topic like World War I, it’s hard to keep up with the plethora of information they feed you all at once in arriving at the university. I have to keep that in mind when I organize lectures for my own history students.
Love how you point out other perspectives. In highschool one of my best papers was about how the War of 1812 could be seen as a first world war from the perspective of so many around the world of the time.
Today when the internet often collectively wonders whether WWII would've happened had Hitler been accepted to art school, I find your closing thoughts profound. We as humans often fail to see beyond immediate causes which makes us extremely susceptible to repeating past mistakes. Hitler wasn't sufficient to cause WWII. The Archduke's death wasn't sufficient to cause WWI. A lot of people have been pouring small drops into a bucket and these were just the drops that finally caused an overflow.
If you want some more awesome WWI History watch the channel The Great War. They did a history of the war week by week, profiles of people involved, and visited many historical places. They are actually still going talking about the political upheavals after the war.
Am I the only one who feels like John's holding back tears towards the end of the video as he sums up the factors that lead to WW1 that're all virtually identical to what's going on right now?
Franz Ferdinand actually had pretty progressive plans for Austria-Hungary, that might have appeased many nationalists. Look up United States of Greater Austria for more information.
Yeah, the problem was that the orginazation of which would be under a starkly absolutist monarch from the Habsburg royal family, seemingly hinting at himself for rather obvious reasons...
Yes. Franz was pro-reform and considering the reactionaries in power all around europe he looked like a progressive in comparison. Very odd to not mention that he was the most pro-serbian man of power inside austria-hungary and paint him as a wannabe evil dictator instead.
@@porfirij It seems familiar because they are pushing this narrative, yes Willhelm had issues but the nature of the issues are completely different from what Trump have, I would argue that comparing trump to Wilhelm is not very nice to Willhelm. Willhelm was simply a man with a tendency to overthink things and who also probably suffered from periodic depressive episodes, who was forced into a controlling the most powerful empire in the world at the time. Willhelm's problem wasn't that he didn't listen it was that he tried ti listen to everyone and that he ended up trusting the wrong people.
There is a beautiful anecdote about the war I read in Sleepwalkers. As the war began, Russian Cossack units in the far east were mobilized too, except news travelled slowly to Siberia and they didn't know who they were going to be fighting against. An American journalist interviewed them and asked for their best guesses, which ranged from Japan to China to Britain. When he told them the truth, they thought he was joking.
Those who think that a war with Iran will kick start WW3 is an idiot. Iran isn't a significant enough power to start a world war and has no powerful allies. In fact Saudis new highly advanced army along with Israeli, UK, Australia, and the United States would make an easy victory. Also a large portion of the population hates the current dictatorship, as it has huge political protester in public.
Real reason for Second Balkan war wasn't jealousy of Bulgaria, it was making of Albania by great powers in order to stop Serbia to access sea, which made Serbia brake previous agreement.
when this series come to an end i hope for a crash course african history, asian history, north american history south american history..... this is too good of a content, please go on forever !
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist." -President Eisenhower, 1961
It is curious how rival sets of alliance can either lead to devastating global war (WWI) or proxy wars in crucial regions of the world. Let us hope that will not be the case in the future.
The reason Henriette Caillaux shot Gaston Calmette wasn't that she believed they were going to accuse her husband of adultary. It was that she believed he was going to accuse her of having an affair with her now husband, while he was still married to his first wife. She always denied that the affair had happened, and the trial seemed to bear that out.
If you've got a lot of time on your hands and want to know more about the buildup to WWI, Hardcore History did a series called "Blueprint for Armageddon", and it's excellent. It's six four-hour episodes but well worth the time investment.
Thank you for mentioning the Herero massacre!! It's such a rarely-discussed part of German colonialism and imperialism in the late 19th-early 20th century!!
Really glad that the Herero genocide in then South West Africa (now Namibia ) by the German colonialists was mentioned. Too often is African history and suffering neglected
"he avidly followed the press coverage of himself and his regime, using that as a monitor of his success. He had tanturms and even nervous break-downs when he was criticized by the press..." Gee THAT sounds awfully familiar....*sigh*
5:23 Actually you have it wrong here. The alliance between France and Russia was falling apart way before Wilhelm II came to the throne. This was under Wilhelm II's father Frederick IV who idealized German nationalism and wanted closer relations with Austria. Austria which had conflicts with Russia over influence in the Balkans saw the league of Three Emperors Collapse. Wilhelm II actually tried to get the alliance between Russia and Prussia reinstated and tried personal diplomacy with his cousin Tsar Nicholas II. Wilhelm also tried his best to avert the war and was the last of the monarchs to mobilize his armies. The problem was that both Empire's governments were firmly against each other. The German General staff feared Russia since it was rapidly modernizing and once it completed its industrialization, it would be too powerful for Germany to face. The Russian court and government was pro-French and was captivated by the Issue of Pan-Slavism. The Russian elites spoke French as a second language thanks to Peter the Great. Despite Wilhelm's best efforts the war had occurred.
It is crazy that if this one guy had better directions, the population of the earth could have avoided being decimated. One guy going the wrong way on a street in some backwater Balkan city-state made the life expectancy of ALL of humanity go down by twelve years.
Capitalism was in place since the late 17th century. Communism had also been an idea since the french revolution. Free-market capitalism wasn't a thing until the 60s., but capitalism in earlier, purer forms was in place for over 100 years at the start of the first world war
Thanks for putting into words an eerie sense of unease I've had myself about the similarities between now and then, but haven't had the time to do the research to back up
I always have subtitles on. It fascinates me to see how the subtitle (draft?) version of the script differs from the final, voiced, one. Sometimes the differences, though small, can be quite meaningful.
I have to change the speed to 1.25x whenever I'm watching the European History histories because obviously John Green heard the criticism that he talked too quickly, but it just feels wrong at normal speed
I thought Franz Ferdinand was a moderate as amentioned in the world history episodes? The assasinated archduke was even one of the Serbs most influential supporters.
He was a conservative, but he was also a pacifist, which ironically made him a prime target to the segment of Serbian nationalists who wanted to build their Greater Serbia through war.
0:45 as you were going through that list, my first thought was "uhhh....this is sounding incredibly familiar...." then you went and stated it outright. and then you went through the rest of the video and my stomach started turning as it became ever more familiar.
Assassinations of national leaders, paranoia in peoples heads, fears of modernization and future... Damn, even the revolutions and mass demenstrations are becoming a thing...
Its the same setup: the older generations and people in power refusing to advance and abandon outdated mentalities, the newer generations and oppressed groups not wanting to deal with them and pushing for change at all cost, and a whole bunch of people forgetting what war is like and dragging the world to them out of insecurity and fear driven prejudice. I swear, the worst part about studying history is how repetitive it becomes once you strip it to its basics. You ask yourself "How many times are they gonna trip on the same rock?" and the answer is always "at least once more"
Much of this sounds like Barbara Tuchman's books, The Proud Tower and the Guns of August. Reading those two books in that order really explains how the societal instability in Europe from about 1870-1914 created an excellent environment for World War I. Her books demonstrate how the orthodox view of WWI (militarism, imperialism, nationalism and alliances) mesh well with the Crash Course view of World War I. Both historical interpretations work together. Greene's explanation in this video describe some of the distal causes of World War I, while the traditional view can help people understand the proximate causes of the Great War. Both work together to help us understand the road to World War I.
It's sad that back then, fear and turmoil came from revolutions that benefitted the people whereas today, fear and turmoil is used as a weapon to obey the State and its authorities.
Princip wasn’t having lunch. He decided to wait further along the pre released route. When the Archduke was on his way to the hospital his driver thought they were still taking the original route.
Remember every nation was rearming its own military constantly throughout the 1880-1900s. The french with the lebel, germans with 98 az and Austrians with manlichers. Watch C&arsenal for much more in depth.
Did you use Margaret McMillan's "The War That Ended Peace" for this? I love all these WWI books that came out recently. I'm still trying to get through "Sleepwalkers". "Lawrence in Arabia" is another good one. I had heard that Barbara Tuchman's "Guns of August" was John F. Kennedy's favorite book. I only thought you used the McMillan book b/c she discussed the social changes as a big part that is not normally brought up. I think that story needs to be told to all of the people that hate social programs now.
"Changing family structures, paradigm shifts in science, disruption of traditional gender roles, achievement of the vote by working men, ongoing economic advances" *oh no*
world history teacher asked me when WWII started. I immediately answered, 1871, with the Treaty of Utrecht. After hearing my arguments/proofs, she had to agree with me, although the actual fighting did begin in early September 1939. History is a tapestry of finely woven threads.
10:35 The oldest scientific mistake in the book. Correlation is not causation John, just because there was disinformation, and there was unease and mistrust, doesn't mean that one caused the other. Unless you have some good scientific study showing that one causes the other, then you don't know that, of course not knowing something has never stopped you claiming it as true before.
In Poland even in 1950's in church people were praying for "war gerat and just" . Seriously. I'm polish, I live in Poland and my father remembers that preyer. He told me about it. Those were people, who 10 years earlier ware under nasi german occupation and at this time there was a silent war between AK, who didn't really disarm themselves (polish partisan organization nat times of world war II) and komunistis. The nationalism was so strong.
In just seven years from 1911-18, the following monarchies were ended:
The Romanvovs
The Hohenzollern
The Ottomans
The Qing Dynasty
The Hapsburgs
If you had told people in 1910 that this would happen, you would have seemed INSANE.
This, was the death of almost every last kingdom in the world, nowadays the only royals that have absolute power are the Saudis and the Thailand peoples...
Also 1910 with the Portugese Monarchy
Technically, the Ottomans held out until 1922.
*Romanov *Habsburg
It'd be a bold claim for sure, but the Ottomans were already the sick men of Europe, The Russians had already revolted in 1905 and the Habsburgs were arguably doomed since 1866 when they created Austria-Hungary, The Qing had been carved up and essentially made puppets of the west (especially after the Boxer Rebellion) and god knows how many rebellions had occurred in just the last 50 years against them.
Though the Hozenzollern seemed pretty damn stable, so I'll definitely give you that one
“Seems like the wrong guy to shoot”
Yeah, why the hell did she shoot the guy? Someone know the context?
I have to learn about this scandal now.
over a 100 years after the fact and the story is still more interesting than the assassination
that's saying something
today if ww3 starts and there is a new Kardashian people would be more interested in the scandal !!
@@kyokyoniizukyo7171 It seems that the editor had some more dirt on her and her husband, specifically of a political nature. It also seems that they had a fairly open-minded relationship, given that they'd started seeing one another while both were married to other people.
Man like Qasem Soleimani
"It wasn't only the driver who made a wrong turn." I love that line
When John said that peace is a historical exception, I was expecting the Mongol montage to play hahhaha!
Myrwin Brena I was really disappointed it didn’t! 😂
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” - Samuel Clemons (Mark Twain)
"It's like poetry, they rhyme." George Lucas
Alexander Roderick that is actually where I heard a version of this the first time. Joseph Campbell also has some interesting things to say about recurring themes.
Sometimes though, one achieves those rhymes through the lens of modern pronunciation.
"Twain never said that, but okay"-- Plato
I appreciate how the dynamics in the Balkans was handled. It is complex, and hotly debated even among scholars today. It was a wise choice not to try to unpack it too deeply. That would take an entire series in itself, and that still wouldn't be enough.
It would take an entire series. And they ought to make that series. As it is, this series is seeming more like Crash Course History of Western Europe + Russia. As usual, eastern Europe is mostly forgotten about ('cept when it impacts the West, of course!).
Crash Course animations really keep students' attention. Love how they are formatted!
42 seconds into the video, and I want to say that in History class, both in Year 9 and my A-levels, I wrote in essays that there are discrete causes to the First World War. However, in both cases I learned that its not discrete causes, there are many many things that piled on top of each other, from potentially the previous 50 years of european history that compiled and lead to war. Yes, there are more immediate and stronger causes than others, but nonetheless, you can't just trim it down to 5 factors. Yet, I wouldn't hold it against schools teaching this method, as long as they also teach the appreciation of why.
History as a science is evolving. What we thought was true 60 years ago, was revealed later to be a fabrication based on our own point of view. And corrections about what we belive today will comme around in the future!
yep. The Treaty of Utrecht, Bismark rubbing France's nose in it, really created a lot of hatred and desire for revenge.
Appreciate the South African and Namibian history mentioned this episode.
Right? There was plenty of precedent for the human rights violations that we eurocentric people tend to remember better. Also, the world had already shrunk long before then, and nothing can happen in one part of it now without affecting other parts of the globe.
Slamming the Military Industrial Complex? That gets a like from me
"I'll remind you I've had 3 years of high school French - it was based on military cooperation and even shared military plans."
What a strange curriculum...
"very little in history, is inevitable."
"I...am...inevitable" - Thanos
@@xMasterxRazorx no
Especially human progress.
Tell that to Hari Seldon.
War between Germany and Russia pretty much was. And that's what the German general in this case was talking about not a world war.
To be fair to Franz Ferdinand: His views on the whole empire thing varied from time to time. And while it's true he was a staunch conservative, and racist (as most of them where back in the days, believing the slavs where just a little bit more "uncivilzed" than the rest of Europeans) at some point he even contemplated the creation of the United States of Greater Austria, federalizing the different nationalities of Austria-Hungary, so the different peoples (there where dozends of different ethicities living in the empire) would have better cultural representation, instead of being solely ruled by Asutrians and Hungarians.
Last but not least, he can be seen as the best friend,the Serbs had in the Austrian goverment, since he stood steadfast against a war with Serbia (often clashing with hawk and hardliner Conrad von Hötzendorf, chief of staff of the Austrian army). So yes, Princip killed the one guy who was against meddling with the Balkans and with him out of the picture, the road to war was free.
It does make you wonder though. What could have happened if Austria-Hungary was able to federalize. Could it have saved it from its downward spiral, even if the war never came or didn't end as badly.
@@diegogonzalez9877 it might have prolonged the existence of the empire, but considering the massive discrimination against the other peoples in the empire (especially in the Hungarian administered half) it would not have been a peaceful period. The Serbs wanted the slav peoples, the Czech and Slovak were also getting tired of not being represented. The Romanians in Transylvania were worse than second rate citizens, and the messages of national unification were spreading in many circles. Nationalism was on the rise everywhere, the ego of the dominant powers was too high to allow them to admit any actual compromises. In short, it was a massive powder keg waiting for a match.
@@diegogonzalez9877 True. I guess Franz Ferdinand was right when he assessed that the greatest threat to Austro-Hungarian stability - and therefore any chance to turn things around and reform the empire - was a big war. This was basically why he was against any wars and especially against any "adventures in the Balkans". Also he wanted to avoid a war with Russia at all costs, since he realized that would weaken both states and facilitate revolutions that would overwthrow the respective goverments. His plan was to conserve peace at all cost.
So, assuming there would be no war, how likely would his federalization happen? Still very unlikely I suppose. While most nationalities and the crown provinces would propably support the movement Hungary would fight against everything that would weaken their power. Also the Austrian establishment, the court and goverment would probably also refuse their cooperation, since again it would weaken their position in the grand scheme of things.
Supposing everything would work out, and USGA had been established, would it have kept the empire alive? Hard to say. I would think in the long run: no. There where to many discrepancies, too many disagreements and too much instability (economically, militarily, etc.) and as soon another crisis turns up - some other big war - the whole thing would probably fall apart. Ironically the one thing that held the empire together, after the devastating defeats in the beginning and against all antipathy amongst the different nationalities, was the loyalty and servitute towards the Kaiser. Without him, with less influence on the federal states from Austria, I would assume the Union would break apart in turmoil.
I often wonder how wise it was to send Franz Ferdinand to Sarajevo, to observe military manoeuvers, on such a significant date for Serbs, in a climate of assassinations across Europe... and then to have him pootle around town in an open-topped car with little in the way of protection. I have no evidence for it whatsoever, but I imagine Franz Conrad must have been rubbing his vicious, militaristic little mitts together in glee.
@@brkatimachor Very unwise I'd say. One thing Austrians are famous for, is what we call "Schlamperei", or sloppiness. And the whole structure underlying the k.u.k. army as well as the goverment, was rife with Schlamperei.
The Austrian governor of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Oskar Potiorek was the classic career officer. Absolutely unremarkable, even sub-par in his job, he was only looking to advance through the ranks trough connections. It was no secret, that he loathed the - in his eyes - ungrateful position as governor of this backwater province. So when the archduke announced his tour, he saw it as a clever career move: Invite the archduke and show him what a great officer and governor he was, gaining favor for his next career moves. But of course, on par with the rest of the war effort, Potiorek failed miserably to set up proper safety protocols, have additional security forces and a stringent plan for contingecies. The way he saw it: I want to show how safe and secure my province is, putting the archduke behind bulletproof glass and setting up hundrets of policemen and soldiers for security would undermine that message. And yes, having that whole thing go down on that one special day, was exactly the sloppiness that could be expected from Potiorek.
So while Potiorek might have held a grudge against F.F. (after all F.F. chose Hötzendorf as chief of staff instead of Potiorek) I believe in Halon's razor: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
I'll leave with a quote that made me smile as it definitely holds true, from Schindlers's "Fall of the Double Eagle": "The army had its share of 'Schlamperei', a trademark Habsburg sort of slackness, and throughout its long history of more than a little red tape and mismanagement had gotten by on 'fortwursteln' (muddling through), a sort of improvisational art to take the place of skilled leadership and proper strategy, which more often than not were lacking."
I liked the video. But I wish there was a discussion or at least mentioning of the various Diplomatic crisies that sowed distrust between the opposing alliance blocs. Events like the Moroccan Crisies of 1905 and 1911 and the Bosnian Annexation Crisis of 1908 (which albeit was mentioned but in passing reference) or the First and Second Balkan Wars and how they almost led to war with Austria-Hungary and Russia.
First and Second Balkan Wars were right after Bosnian Crisis. It's hard to do all the things in such limited time.
Morrocoan crisis was interesting since Germany only went against France because they wanted to ease tensions with Britain who had up until that point always been opposed to France. But things had gotten so bad between Germany and Britain already that the British instead sided with France.
@Kwiene Makeda Not sure I agree with you there. The Serbs successfully repelled the Austrians and were only crushed when the Germans took charge of the situation, and even then the German commander in charge of the invasion, August von Mackensen,
put up a monument over their heroic defence which has the words in German and Serbian "Here rests Serbian heroes".
@Kwiene Makeda resisting invasion however is.
@Kwiene Makeda of course it is. It is tying up enemy troops and even making the enemy waste some of it's strength. August von Mackenssen knew a lot more about war than either of us and he saw it.
5:54 3 years of high school French based on the military.
Not bad
I thought his pronunciation sounded quite good.
Crash Course media is one of the most important educational media genre in the last Century. Keep up the great work. I tested out of 4 college classes, learned more than I ever thought possible. Boiler up! :p
Interesting note about the dreadnaughts: Germany dearly wanted to build up a navy capable of challenging the British, but the British navy had a big enough battleship lead as to make the project... daunting. Arguably almost impossible absent a total shutdown of British naval development.
But that changed when the British built the HMS Dreadnaught, and overnight made every existing battleship obsolete. This sounds like an amazing advancement for the British, and it was, but it also meant that all of *their* pre-dreadnaught battleships were obsolete. Their many-ship lead had suddenly shrunk to a *one* ship lead.
This never really amounted to as big a problem as it sounds, of course. The British still held a very solid lead in shipbuilding infrastructure, which when talking about naval power is quite arguably the more important measure.
Of course, they couldn't avoid making such ships either. They only beat by years at most some other countries who'd come up with similar ideas. So if it's going to happen anyway, would it be better to be the first to start on it?
It takes decades to build a strong navy. The French learned it the hard way under Bonaparte, so did the Germans during the world wars. That's why I'm also not too worried about China being able to challenge the US naval power any time soon.
PhysicsGamer of course Dreadnoughts could have been called Carolinas or even Satsumas. AND early German Dreadnoughts weren’t very good either. And then during WWI the Kaiser didn’t want to scratch the paint in his shiny new battleships.
It should be noted that Germany used to import food from the British colonies, which allowed it to move massive amounts of it's population out of the agrarian economy and into the industrial one, then when Germany outpaced Britain in industry the Brits got concerned and slapped high export tariffs on food exported to the German empire as a way of reining in the German industrial growth (It makes sense from their perspective the British spent a lot on maintaining their overseas empire and Germany did not have to do that). But Germany got the idea that the British were trying to starve them, and proceeded to go looking for a colonial empire of their own to import the food from, this got the British increasing their navy which the Germans saw as a threat to their new colonies and their food imports and so they increased their navy too.
At the end of the day it's the Thucydides' Trap, a rising empire trying to rise and a diminishing one won't let them. Unfortunately for the British they focused on the wrong rising power, while the British and Germans spend their time killing one another the United States eclipsed them both.
@@TapOnX Actually in ww1 Germany arguably had the stronger navy because while the British had more ships the German ones were to big and powerful for the British, they simply couldn't consistently sink them. But the Germans never really got on board with that idea and thus under utilized their navy heavily.
I'm happy you mentioned the Second Boer War (South African War). It was a testing ground for the modernized British war machine and a surprising number of international regiments fought on the side of the Boer Republics. Look it up.
Love the video! I noticed that at the beginning you mentioned your high school educational experience lacking substance compared to how historians teach it now. However, from the middle to the end, you essentially just elaborated on the bits that you said were not enough at the beginning. For example. You said that you learned about Military Alliances, Imperialism, Nationalism, etc. stating that those were the former talking points of high school teachers. But then you used those same points through your video to explain the history.
I do agree with you that high schools are not able to teach everything in history, but to be honest it seems like you learned more about World War I (then) than I did. Most of my education on the conflict was, “Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, Domino Effect, World War II...” Definitely felt like they skipped around even then. I didn’t get my first true lecture about The Great War until my second year at community college.
Regardless, I think the parts of history you did learn at the beginning represented a great precursor to the knowledge you have now. If you don’t have a base for a large topic like World War I, it’s hard to keep up with the plethora of information they feed you all at once in arriving at the university. I have to keep that in mind when I organize lectures for my own history students.
Well now, here we go to the Great War, The War to End All Wars, also known as World War 1
“Wait, you mean there will be a second?!” -Someone from prior to world war 2 but after the first one...
"Well The Great War is finally over, welcome to the inter-war period!"
"Thank god, now finally...wait, what?"
well, yeah, they couldn't just call it WWI at the time. They wanted to see how it went before investing in a sequel.
why was I recommended this? it's been 5 years since I last watched these in my AP US history class...and I'm still completely enamored
You're still completely enamoured. That's why.
Love how you point out other perspectives. In highschool one of my best papers was about how the War of 1812 could be seen as a first world war from the perspective of so many around the world of the time.
I love these videos so very much!
Today when the internet often collectively wonders whether WWII would've happened had Hitler been accepted to art school, I find your closing thoughts profound. We as humans often fail to see beyond immediate causes which makes us extremely susceptible to repeating past mistakes.
Hitler wasn't sufficient to cause WWII. The Archduke's death wasn't sufficient to cause WWI. A lot of people have been pouring small drops into a bucket and these were just the drops that finally caused an overflow.
Great talk. Thank you.
Fear, the most ancient and powerfull feeling in humans.
The manipulation of fear, the most ancient of strategies.
So fear is an ancient and powerful feeling I don't understand why that fear exist as it is today
@@sapphirejade800 Humans didn't change in the last 6000 years (in biology).
"The rise of Athens and the fear that aroused in Sparta"
@@gibranhenriquedesouza2843 jeez that definitely suck of being put in fear for so long.
"The world looks more like 1914 today than it has at any time since 1914" -Peter Zeihan
Yes Saw 1917 Last Sunday, been reading on WWI . This video is what I needed.
If you want some more awesome WWI History watch the channel The Great War. They did a history of the war week by week, profiles of people involved, and visited many historical places. They are actually still going talking about the political upheavals after the war.
Am I the only one who feels like John's holding back tears towards the end of the video as he sums up the factors that lead to WW1 that're all virtually identical to what's going on right now?
Franz Ferdinand actually had pretty progressive plans for Austria-Hungary, that might have appeased many nationalists. Look up United States of Greater Austria for more information.
Yeah, the problem was that the orginazation of which would be under a starkly absolutist monarch from the Habsburg royal family, seemingly hinting at himself for rather obvious reasons...
Yes. Franz was pro-reform and considering the reactionaries in power all around europe he looked like a progressive in comparison. Very odd to not mention that he was the most pro-serbian man of power inside austria-hungary and paint him as a wannabe evil dictator instead.
7:16 wait....WHAT!!!!! Why does this ring a bell....
had the same thought. maybe they are related? trump does have german ancestors, right?
@@porfirij It seems familiar because they are pushing this narrative, yes Willhelm had issues but the nature of the issues are completely different from what Trump have, I would argue that comparing trump to Wilhelm is not very nice to Willhelm. Willhelm was simply a man with a tendency to overthink things and who also probably suffered from periodic depressive episodes, who was forced into a controlling the most powerful empire in the world at the time. Willhelm's problem wasn't that he didn't listen it was that he tried ti listen to everyone and that he ended up trusting the wrong people.
@@DaDunge Wilhelm II made a lot of Trump-style statements, for example his Hun speech or the entire Daily Telegraph-affair
@@jaojao1768 Hun speach? It was the English propaganda machine who labelled the Germans as huns way way before the war.
@@DaDunge What evidence do you have that this is a false narrative?
There is a beautiful anecdote about the war I read in Sleepwalkers. As the war began, Russian Cossack units in the far east were mobilized too, except news travelled slowly to Siberia and they didn't know who they were going to be fighting against. An American journalist interviewed them and asked for their best guesses, which ranged from Japan to China to Britain. When he told them the truth, they thought he was joking.
WW3 Memes Still Spreading Like a Wild Fire
Damn a double offensive meme nice one m8
Those who think that a war with Iran will kick start WW3 is an idiot. Iran isn't a significant enough power to start a world war and has no powerful allies. In fact Saudis new highly advanced army along with Israeli, UK, Australia, and the United States would make an easy victory. Also a large portion of the population hates the current dictatorship, as it has huge political protester in public.
Imagine in year 2120 a crash course episode just on WW3 memes.
@@xxiao5156 ha ha
I wish Crash Course posted this sometime last week.
In short, "The terrible ifs accumulate." - Winston Churchill
Real reason for Second Balkan war wasn't jealousy of Bulgaria, it was making of Albania by great powers in order to stop Serbia to access sea, which made Serbia brake previous agreement.
Had they not intervened maybe today Kosovo wouldn't be disputed and so many bad things avoided.
America did not invent the Military Industrial Complex, but we did PERFECTED it!!
I liked that 😂
13:04 That line delivered with perfect. Well done.
So Kaiser Wilhelm was the old-world Donald Trump...
Next episode: the roads to World War III
😂😂😂😂😂😂
when this series come to an end i hope for a crash course african history, asian history, north american history south american history..... this is too good of a content, please go on forever !
And don't forget to be awesome. I tell this to my children every day.
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist." -President Eisenhower, 1961
Sebia? Serejevo? It's Serbia and Sarajevo...getting sloppy guys....
excellent synopsis and appropriately unsettling for our days
It is curious how rival sets of alliance can either lead to devastating global war (WWI) or proxy wars in crucial regions of the world. Let us hope that will not be the case in the future.
The reason Henriette Caillaux shot Gaston Calmette wasn't that she believed they were going to accuse her husband of adultary. It was that she believed he was going to accuse her of having an affair with her now husband, while he was still married to his first wife. She always denied that the affair had happened, and the trial seemed to bear that out.
If you've got a lot of time on your hands and want to know more about the buildup to WWI, Hardcore History did a series called "Blueprint for Armageddon", and it's excellent. It's six four-hour episodes but well worth the time investment.
Time to listen to the band Franz Ferdinand
Thank you for mentioning the Herero massacre!! It's such a rarely-discussed part of German colonialism and imperialism in the late 19th-early 20th century!!
Germans came late to the game.
I think this might have been the most terrifying episode of crash course I've ever seen.
Kindly add this to the European history playlist, thank you! ❤ and also #21 is missing
Educational!
Really glad that the Herero genocide in then South West Africa (now Namibia ) by the German colonialists was mentioned. Too often is African history and suffering neglected
"he avidly followed the press coverage of himself and his regime, using that as a monitor of his success. He had tanturms and even nervous break-downs when he was criticized by the press..."
Gee THAT sounds awfully familiar....*sigh*
Nobody:
John Green: *speaks french
Also John Green: I've had 3 years of high school french
5:23
Actually you have it wrong here. The alliance between France and Russia was falling apart way before Wilhelm II came to the throne. This was under Wilhelm II's father Frederick IV who idealized German nationalism and wanted closer relations with Austria. Austria which had conflicts with Russia over influence in the Balkans saw the league of Three Emperors Collapse. Wilhelm II actually tried to get the alliance between Russia and Prussia reinstated and tried personal diplomacy with his cousin Tsar Nicholas II. Wilhelm also tried his best to avert the war and was the last of the monarchs to mobilize his armies. The problem was that both Empire's governments were firmly against each other. The German General staff feared Russia since it was rapidly modernizing and once it completed its industrialization, it would be too powerful for Germany to face. The Russian court and government was pro-French and was captivated by the Issue of Pan-Slavism. The Russian elites spoke French as a second language thanks to Peter the Great. Despite Wilhelm's best efforts the war had occurred.
It is crazy that if this one guy had better directions, the population of the earth could have avoided being decimated. One guy going the wrong way on a street in some backwater Balkan city-state made the life expectancy of ALL of humanity go down by twelve years.
Never been this fast to a Crash Course video!
7:41 that sound so familiar to another leader today I don’t even think I have to say the name.
I feel like WW1 is so consequential. Feels like it marked a change from Aristocracy/Empiralism to Democracy Capitalism/Communism.
Capitalism was in place since the late 17th century. Communism had also been an idea since the french revolution.
Free-market capitalism wasn't a thing until the 60s., but capitalism in earlier, purer forms was in place for over 100 years at the start of the first world war
If you would have uploaded it few days ago I would have rocked in the exam 😊
Me. Green, you have done it again!
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Thanks for putting into words an eerie sense of unease I've had myself about the similarities between now and then, but haven't had the time to do the research to back up
I always have subtitles on. It fascinates me to see how the subtitle (draft?) version of the script differs from the final, voiced, one. Sometimes the differences, though small, can be quite meaningful.
If anyone is interested in going in more depth on this topic I highly recommend Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast!
It's crazy how relevant all this assassination stuff is in the beginning of 2020.
love this show
I have to change the speed to 1.25x whenever I'm watching the European History histories because obviously John Green heard the criticism that he talked too quickly, but it just feels wrong at normal speed
War is not a break down in peace. Peace is a break down in war. It's basically fatigue eventually we get tired and take a break.
One small input, the Japanese was in the coaliton to put down the boxer rebellion and if I recall right provided a large portion of men.
I thought Franz Ferdinand was a moderate as amentioned in the world history episodes? The assasinated archduke was even one of the Serbs most influential supporters.
He was a conservative, but he was also a pacifist, which ironically made him a prime target to the segment of Serbian nationalists who wanted to build their Greater Serbia through war.
Play speed at 1.25X keeps nostalgia alive
Amazing, thanks for your work
Sad i cant use the history vids cuz im in south africa and the history is different in but these ww vids might help me a little
didnt know much about the balkan wars. that was very interesting.
0:45 as you were going through that list, my first thought was "uhhh....this is sounding incredibly familiar...." then you went and stated it outright.
and then you went through the rest of the video and my stomach started turning as it became ever more familiar.
Assassinations of national leaders, paranoia in peoples heads, fears of modernization and future...
Damn, even the revolutions and mass demenstrations are becoming a thing...
Its the same setup: the older generations and people in power refusing to advance and abandon outdated mentalities, the newer generations and oppressed groups not wanting to deal with them and pushing for change at all cost, and a whole bunch of people forgetting what war is like and dragging the world to them out of insecurity and fear driven prejudice.
I swear, the worst part about studying history is how repetitive it becomes once you strip it to its basics. You ask yourself "How many times are they gonna trip on the same rock?" and the answer is always "at least once more"
No mention of Conrad von Hötzendorf, who was all but champing at the bit for war with Serbia?
Interesting...
Hey!!! The Iron Chancellor (4:40 onward)!!!
Much of this sounds like Barbara Tuchman's books, The Proud Tower and the Guns of August. Reading those two books in that order really explains how the societal instability in Europe from about 1870-1914 created an excellent environment for World War I. Her books demonstrate how the orthodox view of WWI (militarism, imperialism, nationalism and alliances) mesh well with the Crash Course view of World War I. Both historical interpretations work together. Greene's explanation in this video describe some of the distal causes of World War I, while the traditional view can help people understand the proximate causes of the Great War. Both work together to help us understand the road to World War I.
John is very very proud of his french skills.
It's sad that back then, fear and turmoil came from revolutions that benefitted the people whereas today, fear and turmoil is used as a weapon to obey the State and its authorities.
Wow
From Mockingbird to now... John you’ve aged gracefully
Scary how close we are to this today
I totally agree. It is like to stack together gasoline and TNT, cover it with dry hay and then say "the unfortunate match was the cause of the fire".
Last time I was this early on a Crash Course video Franz Ferdinand was still alive.
Princip wasn’t having lunch. He decided to wait further along the pre released route. When the Archduke was on his way to the hospital his driver thought they were still taking the original route.
I can't wait for crash course to do a ww3 series
Remember every nation was rearming its own military constantly throughout the 1880-1900s. The french with the lebel, germans with 98 az and Austrians with manlichers. Watch C&arsenal for much more in depth.
Did you use Margaret McMillan's "The War That Ended Peace" for this? I love all these WWI books that came out recently. I'm still trying to get through "Sleepwalkers". "Lawrence in Arabia" is another good one. I had heard that Barbara Tuchman's "Guns of August" was John F. Kennedy's favorite book. I only thought you used the McMillan book b/c she discussed the social changes as a big part that is not normally brought up. I think that story needs to be told to all of the people that hate social programs now.
"Changing family structures, paradigm shifts in science, disruption of traditional gender roles, achievement of the vote by working men, ongoing economic advances"
*oh no*
The last sentence was 😲
More politicians should watch your channel - if I ever get into politics I promise to watch! 🐵
world history teacher asked me when WWII started. I immediately answered, 1871, with the Treaty of Utrecht. After hearing my arguments/proofs, she had to agree with me, although the actual fighting did begin in early September 1939. History is a tapestry of finely woven threads.
Your 3 years of high school french was based in military coorperation ? Fancy!
4:22 was a missed opportunity for the Mongols montage
10:35 The oldest scientific mistake in the book. Correlation is not causation John, just because there was disinformation, and there was unease and mistrust, doesn't mean that one caused the other. Unless you have some good scientific study showing that one causes the other, then you don't know that, of course not knowing something has never stopped you claiming it as true before.
Is Sebia @ 11:32 a typo or is that what Serbia was called back then?
In Poland even in 1950's in church people were praying for "war gerat and just" . Seriously. I'm polish, I live in Poland and my father remembers that preyer. He told me about it. Those were people, who 10 years earlier ware under nasi german occupation and at this time there was a silent war between AK, who didn't really disarm themselves (polish partisan organization nat times of world war II) and komunistis. The nationalism was so strong.
dis-ease slaughtered me when i wasn't looking