World War I Battlefields: Crash Course European History #33
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- Опубликовано: 22 янв 2020
- Europe's system of alliances and centuries-old tensions erupted into war in August of 1914. This week on Crash Course Euro, we're talking about the military history of World War I, and taking a look at the broad strokes of how the war unfolded. We'll take you from the guns of August through gruesome battles like Verdun and the Somme, and follow the thread all the way through to the Armistice in 1918. It didn't turn out to be the War to End All Wars, sadly, but there is a lot to learn from it.
Sources
-Engelstein, Laura. Russia in Flames. War, Revolution, and Civil War 1914-1922. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1918.
-Hunt, Lynn et al. Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures, 6th ed. Boston: Bedford St. Martin’s 2019.
-Sanborn, Joshua A. Imperial Apocalypse: The Great War and the Destruction of the Russian Empire. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
-Suny, Ronald Grigor. “They Can Lie in the Desert but Nowhere Else”: A History of the Armenian Genocide. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015.
-Watson, Alexander. Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I. New
York: Basic Books, 2014.
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#crashcourse #history #WWI
"Yes. Clearly, Field Marshal Haig is about to make yet another gargantuan effort to move his drinks cabinet six inches closer to Berlin."
"You know how there's a saying that somewhere there is a bullet with your name on it?"
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Darling: In short, a German spy is giving away every one of our battle plans.
Melchett: You look surprised, Blackadder.
Blackadder: I certainly am, sir. I didn't realise that we had any battle plans.
Melchett: Well of course we have! How else do you think the battles are directed?!
Blackadder: Our battles are directed, sir?
Melchett: Well of course they are, Blackadder, directed according to the grand plan.
Blackadder: Would that be the plan to continue with total slaughter until everyone's dead except for Field Marshall Haig, Lady Haig and their tortoise, Alan?
Melchett: [horrified] Great Scott! Even you know it!
At least Haig learned to be a better commander.
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It's kinda weird to think about it but The Great War was the most significant event of the 20th century. We are still living in the aftermath and effects of it even to this day more than 100 years later
You can say the same about most major historical events.
The seven years war (French and Indian war in the USA) was perhaps the most important event in the past 300 years as it set the stage for British domination world, the US and French and South American revolutions, Russia's rise as a world power, the rise of Napoleon, Prussian supremacy in Germany, European intervention and later colonization of Africa and so much more, yet it is so rarely taught in schools.
The Seven Years war was the first truly global war, with fighting in North and South America, Europe, India and Africa. It is impossible to overstate how much it shaped the world.
Magnus Peacock but WWI is the most recent event that got its fingers in...everything. I mean it basically ended four empires, led to the rise of Nazi Germany AND Soviet Russia, made the US a global superpower via economics, virtually erased a generation of French men, divided the Middle East up by external interests, set the stage for Irish and Indian independence...
Imagine if the Central Powers were beaten sooner. Imagine a Russia without Communism. Imagine if the Weimar Republic actually having a chance to succeed, or (at the very least) without the fear of a Socialist takeover. Imagine...basically every country without Communist fears.
Yes - but it would re-evaluate it further by saying that it was one of two significant high-points in thirty years of one big global conflict. For me, looking at it this way brings in the wide-ranging impacts of the first-half of the twentieth century and explains the global political-economy today.
I find the lack of indy neidell disturbing
Same, to me WW1=indy
I respect Professor Nidel for doing that for 4 years. Professor Alexander is great too for the post Great War content. I like the both of them. Professor Green is okay at simple history, The Great War channel goes in details.
This Is Modern War
Your sad devotion to that ancient channel has not helped you conjure up the stolen ad money for history channels, or given you clairvoyace enough to find the hidden youtube CEO.
This was not meant to be an in depth history of WWI, but an overview as a segment of European history. If you're looking for the former, you came to the wrong place, and you're comparing apples to oranges.
Nobody:
Crash Course: "Verdoon and the Sum"
Lool
More people died in WWI than people who currently live in Canada
Well, to add to that, more people died in the influrenza pandemic than currently live in 3 Canadas
Where are the other two?
@@babscabs1987
Wouldn't you like to know.
@@babscabs1987 Paradise.
conclusion thus far is that no one lives in canada
@@loomhigh Canaidan here. Can confirm.
0:47 "It didn't go that way."
Basically everyone's assessment of WWI before joining in...
Przhemysyl especially.
i haven't heard of "Verdume" and the "some" but they sound deadly.
Only somme survived, that's why
I'm conflicted.
Mispronouncing things is John's thing.
But he also took high school French...
@@Anaguma79 but he also says he's forgotten everything he's learned
@@Anaguma79 This decides me: during Crash Course World History, I think he pronounced it properly.
Well let us know when you put out a video of equivalent quality where you pronounce it the way you prefer.
I'll wait.
During WWI, there was a woman on a train who keep repeatedly counting the fingers on one hand. When the passengers began to scoff, her husband asked them to stop. She was counting the number of sons she had lost, and her husband was taking her to an asylum.
I am a German and as me and my father were traveling to France we encountered a big war grave. To see all these endless crosses gives you a sence of scale for this horreble war.
Well in german Charlemagne is called "Karl der Große" - Karl the Great. So not an uncommon name for an emperor.
The true name of Charlie
Johannes Translated 'Charlemagne' has exactly the same meaning in French as in German
In Dutch also, just as with Keizer Karel V (Emperor Charles V of the Habsburgs)
In Russia we also call him Карл Великий, so it was a hard for me to get used to the English name for the first 20 minutes of talking about him.
In slavic languages, our word for King actually comes from Charlemagne - in Croatian we say Kralj, in Czech they say Kral I think, etc. So to me it was funny because it was like Emperor King.
Hey, I was looking at one of your videos on capitalism, authoritarianism and democracies and it dawned on me just how much CrashCourse has helped me not only in homework assignments, but in gaining a wider perspective. So thanks, I really appreciate what you're doing, and I'm sure many more feel the same way.
I'm surprised that Bulgaria wasn't highlighted as a Central Power on the map at 5:34. It joined the war in October 1915.
or Greece and Romania on the side of the Entente
@@josiahferguson6194 He didn't mention tons of countries involved, at no point did he make an exhaustive list.
Yeah they left out all the little ones, which is a shame, but given their time constraints, I get it.
They couldn't even get who mobilized first right. Anything that shifts the blame more squarely on Germany seems to be the way to go that this series goes. John needs a new writer. the guy who did the old crash course world history episodes had a much subtler understanding of history than the person who writes these.
There were a lot of omissions in this episode
Stories about WW1 always make me weep. The death, brutality, and especially the futility of it are just maddening.
Two things I would have added: The Ottoman Empire and then Turkey were in war well into the 1920's still. Also people in Germany by 1918 weren't just rebellious but there were many revolutions for democracy predominantly lead by mutinies of sailors, communists and anarchists which were put down and murdered by the monarchist establishment, but also by a growing amount of ultranationalists and traditionalists who would go on to lay the foundation of the nazi party.
Yes true
It’s so uncomfortable not seeing him at his desk...
Like a news reporter now.
Are you talking about John or an average 1910s schoolboy.
I’ve never heard “Verdun” or the “Somme” pronounced like that before.
Ciarán Reed “verdoon” is definitely a new one
Americans...
I can't see whoot is wroong
@@johnsparrow7050 ikr?
I mean he excused himself countlessly in the past for his French pronounciations.
Probably says something about the quality of French lessons in American high schools.
That said I've hardly Verdun being pronounced in a such a manner since the words "un" and "une" are probably one of the first French words people learn at school.
The Dan Carlin “Hardcore History” podcast episodes on the First World War are well worth listening to.
Wot pod cast does everyone mean!?!
The difference between this episode and the civil war episode in the American History series goes to show how much crash course improved over the years. That was just mocking military history, ignoring it's importance; this video is a great introduction to what the war was like and how it affected Europe and gives us a glimpse into it's importance to 20th century European history. This series on the whole has been great. Keep up the amazing work!
That was mocking "battle history" - and then they moved here, and regiments XXVI and 478 fought there, and then they moved somewhere else, and did the same again, but now formed a wedge instead of a line. Or stuff like that.
This video was very light on these things, as well, and rightly so. The Great War had a much larger impact on all facets of life, not just the belligerent nations, and shaped the 20th century and modern life in a way that the American Civil War doesn't even come close to.
Yes, that Civil War episode was a bit silly. But also not wrong, esp. in light of American "patriotic" history.
Karl=Charles
Charlemagne was "Emperor Karl" and so was Charles V and all the other Charleses...
Yup, end of the circle... 1118 years of Empire is good enough...
I mean be fair, Emperor Charles has very similar energy.
@@JoshTheValiant ... What are you talking about?
We mostly call him Emperor Chucky.
Cheerful revisionist history???
Crash course notifications ALWAYS make a day better.
I guess Russian revolution will be talked more about in the next one? It is still kinda important to the whole world
Hi, I'm the consultant for the series. Stay tuned for episode 35!
The russian revolution clearly deserves its own episode.
@Amon Ra Don't make yourself look like a fool pretending those are equal. Nazis seized absolute power and went on to do that which the russian revolution *stopped* from continuing to happen...
Yes, the Russian Civil War is included in that episode
@Ordinary Sessel The Glorious October Revolution that took place in November 1917.
8:20 heck, ww1 was so bad that media says "wars awsome! Exept for ww1"
Even though all war is hell.
It either goes unmentioned and if it is mentioned, it's considered to be one of the darkest periods of human history.
Also if ww1 is mentioned in media, depending on where you live it's slaughtered for political gains just like any war. For americans that usually means pretending the US won it and no one else, for conservatives it means attacking people who mention it was a global war and not whites-only, for Germans it usually means talking about the failure of Wilhelm the Second and ww1 being the reason for the rise of nazis (as if ww1 was the only reason which nah) as an example.
@@Argacyan very true
Because drowning in mud isn’t a “fun adventure” like Liberating Paris
Have someone ever visited the former battle fields? I take my pupils to Ypres each year. Even though my Dutch students have no direct historical ties to this battle (the Netherlands was neutral) is makes a huge impression on them.
Yep, I did a backpack trip in 2015 and walked from Amiens to Ypres. Around Loos, farmers were still leaving unexploded ordinance out on the roadside for the police to pick up. If you ever get a chance to visit the museum in Ypres, please do. I ended my trip at the Last Post ceremony at the Menin gate. Powerful trip. That war was inane.
5:05 That was touching. .. Salute to both the survived and fallen!
This War is called the Great one because thankfully it ended all wars. Great job guys!👌
It's not the first war to be called the great one. It just isn't practical because a bigger wat wil require a name change on the last big one.
The only kind of war to end all wars is one where the human race exterminates itself.
11:08
_are we going to tell him about the Swedish monarchs_
Or that the regnal number of this Karl would be VIIIm (cause Austria continued the regnal numbers of the holy roman empire)
Indeed
Can you do a side episode talking about how the war effected literature. Where would we be if Tolkien had not created his world to express the horrors that he saw.
"Dreary and wearisome. Cold, clammy winter still held sway in this forsaken country. The only green was the scum of livid weed on the dark greasy surfaces of the sullen waters. Dead grasses and rotting reeds loomed up in the mists like ragged shadows of long forgotten summers."
Age of anxiety and other effects of the war is prolly next episode.
Indy Neidell might have one on the Great War channel... might....
Wow, "war effected literature" and "Tolkien".
Hahahahaha.
@@Prutswerk Are you aware Tolkien was in the Battle of the Somme, one of the bloodiest battles in human history?
@yearginclarke
Are you aware that "Lord of the rings" hardly can be considered as literature?
Are you aware of the amount of books that has been written by war veterans that doesn't contain elves, dwarfs and magical creatures?
Great work from the whole Crash Course team! Keep it up :)
Yeah, it's pretty messed up that I learned more about World War I from watching Blackadder than I ever was taught in school.
The Back and forth in The Great War of 1914 was MASSIVE. The Christmas Truce 1914 is one of my favorite stories.
1917 brought me here ;) Best film I've ever seen.
irony is dead. hank and john have revived sincerity.
Good to see a crash course video that only states the facts and doesn't descend into biased rhetoric, like the European imperialism video. Congratulations!
Yay! Time for more learning.
13:41 The one time a CrashCourse episode ends on a dark note...
You should have gone more in detail how tragic the start of the war was. There were over a month many chances for peace and all failed because of desprate man, bad luch (litterally a hearth attack), the low confidence of a king and many more.
Darius Gunter or check out what Extra History did on that exact subject
pjv ish m
People really wanted that war, and their leaders where more than happy to give it...
@@pjvish i did that is why I made that comment
@Intellectual Ammunition nationalism made it possible incompetence caused it, though there would most likly have been another only later.
John, you need to smile like you used to. Smiling is contagious. It's also necessary in show biz, of which you are in, whether you like to admit it or not.
He is married now.
@@billboyd2009 OH?! Never mind!
Bill Boyd
Lmao 😂😂😂😂
8:32 I don't remember where I heard it, but I like the line "War isn't hell: there are no innocent bystanders in hell."
Shankar Sivarajan I believe it’s a Hawkeye quote from M*A*S*H
Great summary, I learnt a lot.
I gotta be honest, I miss the fast-paced Crash Course videos
I also felt there were a lot more jokes in the older ones (not to say I don't like the new ones)
The Great War RUclips channel is a must watch series
Damn it John. I knew you were going to bring us up.
We kick you out ONE TIME for being broke and you never let us live it down.
As someone who lives in Canada, that was a rather intimidating conclusion.
I'm here because I'm here because I'm here because I love these videos. Keep up the great work!
This is a really excellent video.
My great grandpa fought in World War 1. With the 372nd Infantry Regiment, 93rd Infantry Division. US Army ✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 Rest in Power
Love your vids John green and I use them for school!
As a Canadian that ending really hit hard.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I swear you said "itawy" after talking about the ottoman empire joining germany. If so I loved that you did.
I dont care if it's a speech impediment, joke, or anything else. I love it and it makes me happy.
Thank you as always for the helpful references. Do you have a specific source for the prohibition of battlefield photography?
Amazing video!
Thanks for making me a statistic at the end 🇨🇦
I know it's kind of a nitpick but it would have been nice to have mentioned the Italian front.
Wonderful video
After I just watch the new 1917 movie. Thanks for the perfect detail Sam Mendez, director.
11:17 I saw the old John Green
As someone who has heard Verdun said a lot (I am a history grad whose dissertation subject was France in WW1, the Interwar Years and WW2) that was a weird pronunciation. And the Somme too.
Fun fact: Russia may have mobilised quicker than expected but the front often experienced shortages and they diverted resources from the rest of Russia to the front. It got so bad that at one point factories in Moscow could only open 3 days a week because they didn’t have enough power. Naturally this contributed to the eventual revolutions along with Rasputin, the fact the Tsar’s wife was German by birth and the fact that Nicholas took over leadership of the army.
Y'all need to link your playlists in the description.
ooh ooh! Mr Green, let me say on behalf of all my fellow folk that hail from the land of Americas Cowichan sweater, that your show is a treat to listen to. best wishes.
Your amazing John
Human technology is truly amazing.
The point at the end is so true its so hard to imagine that many dead.
In the UK for the 100 years remembrance they made ceramic poppies for the British deaths and placed them in the most of the tower of London. The number is insane to look at
Awesome.
wow it's amazing how the commentors have become smarter throughout the years of crash course
Keep the content coming 🎬
@4:54
"Damn, that barbed wire always delays me during the attack...!" 😜
......no. Nothing has ever hit me harder than that closing line- "more people died in World War One than live in Canada...". That's.... that's terrible... I've never thought of WW1 like that before. That was an education, Crash Course... THANK YOU.
What 40 million deaths means, is chills on my entire body.
Great episode, terrible war.
Best channel and host on all of RUclips
It’s amazing to me how much WWI lead into WWII and set the stage for Modern Day.
I love how excited John gets over 'Emperor Karl', lol.
Damn it’s been awhile since I watched John my boy got old🤧
The title is WWI Battlefields, and only two fronts are mentioned :(
The Turkish front is a huge omission.
The Sinai front, Turkey, the japanese invasion into german Tsingtao, the guerilla wars in Namibia and Tanzania were big, the alpine front, ...
If you want a really good go over of lots more ww1 battlefields (including lots of time spent on verdun and the Somme), I heavily recommend Dan Carlin’s “Blueprint for Armageddon”
It is a 6 part series, about 4 hours or so per part.
The series is Crash Course *European* History, they probably weren't going to pay too much attention to non-european theatres. The Italian front is a bit of an omission, but one that can be accepted given the broad strokes the video is painting in.
People need to understand, once and for all, that the western front and to a least extent the eastern front were incomparable in scale compared with the rest of the battle theatres: that war was fought in Europe, and the rest was secondary and served little purpose. That's the reality of this war, and not eurocentrism.
It's then natural and not surprising at all that videos summarizing in 14 little minutes the whole war don't have the time to mention it, if they want to talk about the essential at least.
In May I have a School excursion to Verdun, I am very excited to see the tragedies of WW1....
To quote Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce from MASH - "War is war and Hell is Hell, and of the two war is a lot worse...There are not innocent bystanders in Hell. But war is chock full of them. Little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for a few of the top brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander"
Also, it's worth noting that the Spanish Influenza strain mentioned was actually only attributed to Spain because they were the only country willing to report on the flu. All other governments and presses opted not to for fear that it would damage morale and public sentiment. Thus, Spanish Flu is kind of a misnomer.
I was waiting for a mention of Canada this whole episode... not quite what I expected but hey we got it!
But it wasn't in connection with our huge contribution to the Allied effort. 🤔
When he said it’s hard to picture 40 million people dying I immediate thought “That’s more than Canada’s population”
Any chance of an episode about guilds?
"The old lie: dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" - Wilfred Owen
I was going to do it if someone else didn't quote it first. Good on ya
Translation?
@@festethephule7553 If I can recall the poem from my memory of my literature 12 class I took...20 years ago *sigh* I believe it translates to
"It is right and proper (maybe honerable) to die for ones country" I say this without putting any effort in double checking this, please do and let me know if I'm wrong.
joel mcfarlane Some say that it translates to “it is sweet to die for one’s country”, it’s a very rough translation in general but what you said keeps to the meaning nonetheless, that it glorifies death in war as an honorable effort
Great War
And I cannot take more
Great Tour
I keep on marching on
I play the great score
There will be no encore.
Great War
The war to end all wars...
I'm standing here, I'm full of fear
With bodies at my feet
Man six years is a hell of a thing
Damn you missed so much, I can't even talk about all important stuff you forgot to mention, one that comes as major is southern front (Serbian campaign, Gallipoli, Macedonian front, Italian front, Romanian campaign), and also African front where also big battles took place
Its a 15 minute video to summarize five years of war, obviously something is going to get lost.
Nice to have mentioned the assassination of Jean Jaurès.
That "Emperor Karl" part had me dying
I really hope that they do at least one video on the Russian Revolution
I watched it once in 2x and then watched specific parts of the vid i needed and his normal voice now sounds slow down 😭😭
"Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice hereditary succession." LOL
In my opinion, it would of been much funnier and truer to Sir Walter Scott to have said, "Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to conceive."
9:10 IT WAS! Thank you!
I know it's been a while since your High School French Mr. Green, but it is pronounced "Ver-done"
Damn. I'm Belgian and we rather use the classic French "un" when pronoincing Verdun.
That's just the american English pronunciation, its pronounced ver-dune
As Janno_O mentioned it, it's pronounced with the classic French "un". Rather than making wrong statements, I would recommend to anyone else to actually verify the pronunciation before correcting someone. Just use Google Translation or something.
@@kumirapau-chan9880 I literally live in a borough of Montreal called Verdun, you git.
@@thetruerift I literally live in France, in which is the actual city of Verdun mentioned in this video.
War does not decide who is right. War determines who is let.
1 episode of Crash Course and 1 of The Great War a day keeps the ignorance at bay.
hey john, i’ve been watching your videos since 2014 and i really miss you smiling in your videos. hope everything is okay. 🥺
The Sausage and croissants sums it all 😂😂😂
is possibile to buy the europe map in a vectorial format?
Something not mentioned, probably because it would overly complicate things, is that smaller countries were involved as well. Bulgaria joined the Central powers. Romania joined the Allies and was pretty much instantly destroyed. Greece's national autonomy was trampled and they were pretty much forced by the Allies to join the war with them.
Also, there were two major and three minor fronts in the war. The major fronts are the Eastern and Western fronts. The minor fronts were the Italian front (Italy vs. Austria-Hungary), the Balkan front (Allies vs. Bulgaria and A-H), and the Palestine/Galipoli/Mesopotamian front (UK vs. Ottomans)
why john green looks like he just wanna get over with this series of crash course
Biggest thing missing from this is the naval blockade - maybe it's in the nest one. And from that how Britain's empire was able to feed their homefront while Central Europe starved
I live in Canada, very true. Sobering.
I have a hard time understanding WW1. Do you guys have any particular videos or books that elaborate on this topic and is easy to understand?
I've been having a rough time piecing it together as well despite my college text book
Centralized banks made it easier for nation's to lend money for wars, coupled with the nations' desire outdo their brother nations.
How did Emperor Karl only come up now? There must have been gazillions of them ever since the OG Emperor Karl - Charlemagne.
In English, those are called "Charles". (Or Charlemagne, that one.)
Agreed. Karl is just the German form of the name, and Kaiser Karl I. von Österreich is really just a bland "Emperor Charles I of Austria" in English, though perhaps for some reason the German form of his name became widespread in English too. It's really rather silly that John and the Crash Course team thought this instance of an "Emperor Karl" in history is so unique and funny.
@@varana Exactly. Why did Mr. Green translate "Franz" into "Francis" but not "Karl" to "Charles," exactly?