Germany and the Outbreak of WWI Reconsidered - Michael Epkenhans
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- Опубликовано: 16 июн 2024
- Dr. Michael Epkenhans, professor and Director of Historical Research at the Centre for Military History and Social Sciences of the German Armed Forces at Potsdam, presents, "Germany and the Outbreak of WWI Reconsidered."
Presented July 27, 2014 in J.C. Nichols Auditorium at the National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial.
For more information about the National WWI Museum and Memorial visit theworldwar.org
Many years ago when I started reading mostly nonfiction I read a ton of books about the American Civil War and World War II. My local library had dozens of books on those subjects. But what I wanted to read about World War I, it was very Slim Pickens indeed.
Thank you for these lectures it's so informative
Watch out for Slim Pickens. He's not had enough to eat
Thanks for posting this. WW1 is a very complex topic in modern history. It is good to hear from very qualified historians from all sides of the war on why it happened.
This lecture is one of the best you guys at the museum have posted online so far.
"This is not an Agatha Christie mystery, everyone is guilty..."
So it's Murder On the Orient Express, then. :)
Ah well, he's a student of history, not English lit.
This man is a serious historian. After listening to it once, I immediately listened to it again.
He is a top notch Historian! I can understand why You listened to it again!
One of the most interesting speakers on WW1 I have heard. Not a lot of details on the immediate events of July to August 1914. More the run up.
Particularly since it’s from a German perspective.
The more I read or listen to, The less I think it was sleep walking. I think it was more incompetence and intransigence particularly in Moscow and Berlin with Paris blindly going along.
The incompetence being mostly the military advisers to the Tsar and the Kaiser,
It’s horrifying to hear, The Kaiser asked Moltke to limit the mobilization to the east.
And Moltke pretty much lied to Kaiser.
So in addition to incompetence, there was something much worse going on.
It appears there was something similar in Russia.
The most unfortunate part of the whole event,
As one British leader said, The Serbs deserve a dame good thrashing.
If other players particularly Russia and France had held back just a little and looked at the situation.
Something should have been done about Serbia who today would be regarded as a rogue state for sponsoring terror.
The Austrians might have been guilty of starting a war. My sense of justice doesn’t really blame them. Given what had happened. Even if nobody particularly liked the Arch Duke.
Incompetence and intransigence is sleepwalking. Failure to comprehend the consequences of decisions for whatever the reason
Do you regard the USA as a rogue state for sponsorship the armed right wing coups of democratically elected governments around the world? You do know that the Serbs told the black hand to stand down and warned the Austrians of a potential assassination attempt? If you suppress a population you will get ax reaction
I think it very strange that Germany was supposed to be the only reason it turned into a world war, yet it was Austria-Hungary that vanished as a state. The Allies had to get a pound of flesh, but if Austria-Hungary was gone, or the successor state could in no way produce anywhere near that pound they had to take from Germany.
I've been viewing a lot of great videos on this channel. One by Gary Armstrong made a point I'd never heard before: the failure of Versailles was the fault of the lawyers! See, to impose punitive reparations, beyond merely compensation for damages, there had to be legal cause in the form of the war guilt clause, which is what really riled up the German populace at large. There was no attempt to pin guilt just on the German general staff, though this was the logic (if any) behind Wilson's rhetoric.
Which are the best ones? There’s a lot on the internet, all quite different, I’m trying to get a good balance. Scarily similar to the world today
Excellent! A cornucopia of information!
Most interesting. I had listened to Christopher Clark's point of view, and though I could see its many merits I did not share his conclusion exonerating Germany. It is all the more remarkable (after Clark's book) to hear a German historian argue (with nuance and balance) in favor of German responsibility.
Clark doesn't "exonerate" Germany, he points out that all of the major powers bore responsibility for WWI and that the war was not _solely_ the fault of Germany. And he's right. Serbia didn't have to sponsor terrorists to assassinate Austro-Hungarian leaders, Austria-Hungary didn't have to threaten war against Serbia, Serbia didn't have to reject the ultimatum (which was actually quite measured and reasonable), Russia didn't have to mobilize against Austria-Hungary or Germany, Germany didn't have to declare war against Russia or France, France didn't have to mobilize against Germany, Britain didn't have to declare war on Germany, Italy didn't have to declare war against Austria-Hungary... There is plenty of blame for the war to go around, and there is plenty of evidence to show that the war was an accident. For example, none of the major powers (Germany, France, Britain and Russia) entered the war with any concrete war goals because the war they got was not the war any of them had envisioned, planned for or intended.
@@Marmocet Very well put!
So you have reconsidered and reached the same conclusions? There is nothing new here, it's only further expanding on "it was Germany's fault" idea.
of course it is ALWAYS the fault of the loser !!!!!!!! see my comments above
It was the envoirment where several nations, not least German militiaries, wanted war and sooner rather than later. It is a 20/20 hindsight thingh though that the German carte blanche to Austria led to the extreme ultimatum > Serbia - Russian mobilisation- German mobilisation and declaring war etc. If Russia or France had wanted to avoid war they might have been able too. But they where ready for war and in some circles for a war with Germany. It was a very tense situation where a bad incident could get the wheels in motion. It just happend to be the assasination of the Austrian-Hungarian crown prince. It was the German/Austrian extreme reaction to the assasination ( war with Serbia) that made it blow up. I don't know what other inncident otherwise whould have started it but surley there could have been such ones if this one had been handled more diplomatically.
@@PMMagro Always appeared to me that Imperial Britain wanted war as well, but has successfully characterized herself as being dragged into it for the past 108 years. The two Ententes did not compel members to go to war on each others' behalf. But, Britain was very concerned that Imperial Germany intended to make life hard for them to hold their empire since the Kaiser was building a navy 60-70% the size of Britain's and that made them mad warmongers.
Have read "Sleepwalkers " and see that Serbian nationalism Is at 40 years before the bottom of the beginning of WW1, not Germany, likely, with French aid. A-Hungary as sitting duck for right moment.
Can you explain that? Not sure I understand
His explanation of the change in German thinking after Bismarck is valuable. I will add, though, that the most cogent explanation I have heard so far is from Dominic Lieven, whose argument is that Ukraine and who would control it, was a central conflict. And it was central because this was a war of empires, and both Germany and Russia recognized they would have to compete with the US to remain powerful.
I have read Dominic Lieven and respect his work and intelligence,(not to mention good prose), but he is an "eastern question" kinda guy. Ukraine did not exist until the treaty of Brest Litovsk, forced it out of the bolshevicks. And the western allies forced Germany to give it back. Not to the West and certainly no the British, who wouldn't even grant diplomatic recognition to the USSR for years after the war! How it could help the allies to give the Ukraine to the communists is beyond my powers of intelligence.
@@Styx8314 "And the western allies forced Germany to give it back."
No, they didn't. It was the Ukrainians that gave the German's their marching orders from Ukraine.
Chris Clarke's Sleepwalkers book places the blame much more equally in everyone else, especially Russia.
@Great-Documentaries= You are right ! But there are corollaries to your theorems :
-(1°)-True that during WWI the US has in effect subcontracted financial aid to Great-Britain and France to the private banking sector. The corollary has been a stubborn insistence of the US for full repayment of these debts by Great-Britain and France. Thus GB & FR were subjected to a double whammy : the obligation to repay US banks and a growing insistence by the US government that GB & FR should go easy on war reparations (the Dawes plan, the Young plan, the Hoover moratorium…).
-(2°)-The amount that post-WWI Germany was capable of paying is perhaps the subject on which facts are the most disputed and disinformation (not least from Lord Keynes) has been the most egregious. The paradoxical fact is that the German economy - helped by loans from US banks and partnerships with US corporations - was recovering fast; and several historian-economists have argued that Germany could have paid more reparations, if this had not been politically abhorrent in Germany.
One thing is certain, however: Clemenceau and Lloyd George sought in the Versailles treaty to impose upon Germany a war tribute similar to that the Germans had obtained from the French in 1871; but the conditions were absolutely different!
In 1871, the war had been short & the French citizenry was rich - the war contribution was quickly covered by State bonds subscribed by the French citizenry; in 1919, the capacity of the German citizenry to subscribe State bonds had already been exhausted by the four years of subscribing War bonds to sustain the German war effort: in short, Germany was utterly broke (except for its paper holdings)!
Among the immense problems that Germany faced after WWI was that the population, fearful of inflation, tried to trade their War bonds for harder currencies (inter-alia the US dollar) thereby generating more inflation. This is reckoned as one of the causes of the 1923 hyperinflation in Germany.
I have wondered for long if the German government was not at first tolerant of “some inflation” (which both would diminish the load of the War bonds and would make a case towards the Allies against Reparations); but the situation soon got out of hand and hyperinflation definitely spelled ruin for the German middle class and led to the rise of extremist parties.
-(3°)-As for the late entry of the US into WWI (and WWII as well), this is another vast subject! The US war effort has been enormous (2 million men in France) but the first major battle (Belleau Wood) started June 1st 1918, 5 1/2 months before the Armistice concluded this four year war. The US Army lost (KIA) less than 1/10th of the 1’350’000 French soldiers killed during WWI.
In spite of this relatively light burden of war, President Wilson has weighed enormously on the terms of the Versailles treaty. This has been (gingerly) accepted by Lloyd George and Georges Clemenceau, but “the Tiger” made the enormous mistake of relying on Wilson’s word: in diplomatic as well as in business negotiations, a cardinal rule is to ensure that the person one deals with has a mandate to take commitments.
Clemenceau abandoned the Left Bank of the Rhine in exchange of a US commitment to militarily guarantee the Versailles treaty; but the US Congress undid Wilson’s commitment, thus throwing the French strategic posture out of balance for the next 20 years. This - much more than the late entry of the US Army during WWI and WWII - has since been the cause of a French lack of full confidence in the dependability of a US strategic support.
Let us hope that in our present times the Ukrainians will get a steadfast US (and EU) support: they deserve it. __ .
I still think at-or near-equal share of blame belonged to Russia for they had NO treaty obligations to defend Serbia. They too knew their actions of mobilizing against Austria was apt to lead to a broader conflict. So beyond the extent the Austrian effort was unjust, they really had no just cause for war either.
Yes, and Russia had not done anything in the 1912 and 1913 Balkan wars, the defense of Serbia was just a pretext, the hidden agenda was the destreuyction of Germany's fast growing economy, industry and increasing access to world markets, Britain was behind it all.
4
(1) None of the belligerents had prepared for a 4-year global war. No one had expected what WW1 became.
(2) Austria-Hungary started the war in order to settle grudges with Serbia. Austria-Hungary expected Germany to discourage Russia from causing any major problems.
(3) Germany expected to watch Austria-Hungary thrash Serbia. Germany didn't expect a world war. The Kaiser was horrified when he realized the disaster that loomed.
And yet the German government after the fact refused to engage in any serious peace talks.
It was now or never, and they could have won if the Americans had stayed out. We always fight Britain's battles for her.
@@Cotswolds1913 sunk cost fallacy. When every major nation suffers hundreds of thousands of casualties within a few months for no major gains and no clear victor then its almost impossible to make peace as every nation would be inclined to make demands that would be unacceptable to their enemiee.
@@Cotswolds1913 They clung to the hope of localizing the war a little too long.
@@replecon1408 Germany would not have won even if America stayed out... best they could have hoped for was dragging the conflict into 1919. Collapse was becoming increasingly inevitable.
26:30 "Castles in the air". Never literally translate German figures of speech word by word.
This fella is German. So he must know what he is doing.
@@jezalb2710 that’s what everyone said about the kaiser and his generals
@@GuinessOriginal 🤣🤣
When you feel your privilege situation slowly being eatern away by some talented new player you can either meet the challenger by increasing the sum value of your offer in a spirit of fair competition or you can beat the heck out of that arrogant aggressor, hoping to diminish his capacity to challenge your position again and if possible, eliminate it altogether, what do you choose?.
Arrogant? That's typical massive anti-German sentiment. Displays you've been brainwashed. The English? Seems their arrogance was gigantic.
@@MikeJones-hc1gw
Germany jealous and most of all envious of England and France.
@@MikeJones-hc1gw it’s no coincidence that it was Germany and Japan who caused the Second World War, with their imperial ambitions a carbon copy of those in the First World War
This is a dispassionate take. And I like its directness. The point of the war was to suppress Germany. Blaming Germany and stifling them was the best way to fulfil that objective. This wasn't about justice but pure, brutal realism. Germany starting a new war after that move looks justified. The problem is, this time, Germany decided to spam the atrocities button at the same time. That's the frightening and, frankly, disgusting part. It effectively justified why that realist move was initially made, even if that move was a BS one.
Pretty thorough coverage of all of the various issues. I think Germany has somewhere between 40-60% of the responsibility for the war.
Them and the hadsburgs wanted to cut through Serbia and get their railway to the ottomans going hoping that nobody would interfere but they thought they could swiftly win with their invading plans it was all purely about empire such a shame they’ll never know how many lives were lost or destroyed over this greed it’s a shame that these type of things still happen today but the media twists it just as they did then to be just
@@jarrettsmith6047 The Berlin Baghdad railway represented a serious threat to the worldwide leadership of the British empire, The deal Germany had singed with the Sultan also included the rights of oil exploration 20 miles on each side of the railway tracks and THAT wasintolerable to Churchill, he had just switched his fleet to oil power while Germany was still burning coal, that made his ships faster and easier to operate therefore, some secret nefarious scheme was made, the railway never made it to Baghdad, the threat was eliminated and the challenger... destroyed. Sherlock Holmes would be proud of me! :-)
@@jarrettsmith6047 exactly. The reasons for war in Ukraine today are exactly the same, and propaganda in the media is very reminiscent of that in the Great War
It always seems to me the Austrian Government did not have justification to invade Serbia, the assasination was more an Austrian mistake than Serbian negligence, and to generate war risked starting war generally. How could Germany support that policy, either the Kaiser was negligent or Germany needed to change her circumstances. Sending Franz Ferdinand to Sarajevo was a mistake, yet everyone was called upon to pay for it. Why did few people say this, was it not acceptable to challenge the decision? Upper class twits, perhaps.
There was neither an Austrian mistake nor Serbian negligence, it was state sponsored terrorism. The Black Hand was a wing of the Serbian military intelligence department
Assasination was deliberate from an Austrian perspective. They kept driving him around until it was successful! Austria needed any excuse to attack Serbia.
@@user-yk4ey3xl9s Ruski point of view. Happy days you got hammered as a result of the War.
Quite possible he was offered up as a sacrificial lamb to the slaughter. No one liked him in the Austrian royal court, and he was consistently the one who advised not to go to war, unlike Conrad who had begged to go to war 25 times in the previous 18 months only to be stopped every time by Franz Ferdinand. The fact is that the Serbs warned the Austrians of a possible assassination attempt, and told the black hand to stand down, and the Austrians ignored it, and ignored the warnings from the head of the local government and police, and ignored the first assassination attempt, and decided not to follow the first two cars escorts cars but to stop the car with the duke and to mess about reversing without his escort, at the very spot Princep was standing... it could all be a coincidence but it’s a very convenient one if you happen to be Conrad who is itching to go to war and being stymied every time by the archduke. At best it’s wilful negligence hoping he’ll get killed, doing nothing to prevent it and everything to help it happen
Austria-Hungary had every reason to request an active part in the investigation regarding Serbia's state sponsored terrorism. Denying that - just - demand would cause a military confrontation, so it was calculated by Russia and France. The blunt face-off against Austria could only be waged by a Serbia, backed up by Tsarist Russia, trying to overcome its painful defeat in Asia and to stabilize its overdue aristocratic system by war - a classic motive. Neither does Epkenhans mention France's aggressive stand against Germany earlier, during the Moroccan crises - when France came to terms with every major power, Spain, Italy and Great Britain - but demonstratively ignored, ostracized Germany. With the lost war of 1870/71, having to cede territories and having to endure the degrading ceremony of an emperor proclamation in the hall of mirrors in Versailles - had the strong motive to defy Germany a more dominant role in Europe. France's traditional hegemony over central Europe collided with the economic realities of a rapidly growing Germany, at a rate, France could not replicate. There is no indication for Germany trying use the Sarajevo murders as the fuse for a long planned conflagration in the summer of 1914 - but there was an 'unconcealed joy' in France, for them to use the Austrian ultimatum combined with an ill-advised 'blanc-cheque' to wage war against Germany and its allies. Not Germany used the situation as an opportunity for the war, even though it has to take a part of the blame for its backing up Austria-Hungary. But the 'sum of all fears' over a revisionist France and an unstable Russia heightened by a 'weary titan' GB lead to the European conflagration - a classical 'Thucidides Trap' (see Graham Allison) - for which the main culprits are France and Russia, who have neither taken their share of the blame for the multimillion deaths nor the ascent of the monsters Hitler and Lenin/ Stalin in the wake of this event. Sry to say, Epkenhans argues one-sided, he does not leave the historically untenable framing of the WW1-guilt-narrative provided by Fritz Fischer. For France's and Russia's role see - ruclips.net/video/dx_V4NAUuW8/видео.html
Did you read Austrian ultimatum to Serbia and their reply?
That was unprecedented document tailored to be rejected. UK foreign office minister says that document that Austria sent was something that one sovereign country cannot accept.
Austria is at fault. Why annex Bosnia and Hercegovina in the first instance? Regions with 0% Austrians. Why? These provinces saw some of the largest Serbian uprisings against the Ottomans- of course they would rebel against another foreign oppressor.
Absolute twaddle. The Austrians had been itching for an excuse to clobber the Serbs for years. Even the kaiser said there was no case for war when he read the Serbian reply and told the Austrians to back off, withdrawing the blank cheque. Unfortunately he sent the message by private courier because he didn’t like using telephones and felt it was too important to send by telegram and it arrived ten hours too late, as the the Austrians has already started shelling Belgrade
Pretty sure Germany trained and funded and sent Lenin and Trotsky into Russia to destabilise it and take them out of the war, which was more successful than they possibly imagined. They made Serbian meddling look amateurish
at 6:20 not sure where this lecture is going BUT let's be really really really clear: ONLY Imperial Germany had a Schlieffen Plan which the military high command HAD NOT told the Reichstag NOR had the von Molke & company thought through what the consequences of failure might be. So it doesn't matter who did what during the July Crisis, the point is that Germany IS to blame for the outbreak of war precisely because it was in lock & fire mode to invade a neutral country to its WEST, Belgium, as a direct response to a threat from Russia on its EAST. THAT is the smoking gun!!!!
Sorry to burst your bubble, but all nations had offensive plans on how to defeat their enemy. Hence all the meticulous mobilization plans on all sides. Once Russia mobilized Germany assumed only a few months time (and they were too optimistic) before they face a full on offensive from East and West at the same time. Which btw. Was France's and Russia's plan.
You also imply a conspiracy among the German High Command... so how does that prove blame on Germany when they kept their war plan secret aka conspired against their own government?
@@mangalores-x_x the German high command were German, right? And the German government were at best incompetent if they allowed their military to keep secrets of this magnitude from them
So ignorant, there was no Schlieffen plan... it is a hoax
You really need to go read some actual history. Start with Clarks "Sleepwalkers".
Like a lot of European Lecturers he is there to provide info not entertain ..
@Michael Löffelmann *You* try giving a lecture in a language not your own, see how you would fare. I suspect the answer to that would be not very well.....
If you want entertainment go to the cinema. Europeans, unlike Americans, don’t have the attention span of a knat and don’t expect the Hollywood experience from everything
@@alganhar1 most Americans can barely speak English or understand it when it’s spoken properly, let alone any other languages
@@GuinessOriginal 'here we awwre: Professor 'enry 'iggins
At 34 minutes the "Germany pushing the arms race" bs.
Anybody can search for "expenditures in arms" and "military forces strength" and realize that Germany for many years had the *weakest* military forces, and was therefore merely catching up to what her neighbours were *already investing.*
I'm out...
They managed to defeat France in 1870 and annex Alsace and Lorraine. The dreadnaught competition with Britain was stupid. The main issue was their lack of diplomacy within which to couch their military build up, even on the eve of the July crisis there were a series of diplomatic blunders due to plain incompetence, something that seems to be with us again today
@@GuinessOriginal LOL!!! That is just propaganda, go and read on troop numbers and militaryh expenditure, Germany was far behind which made the Entente see war as an attactive option.
Hail Germany!
Germany has risen after WW1 and the complete disatser WW2. Quite remarkable really.
@@PMMagro not remarkable at all, the Marshall plan made sure of it in both Germany and Japan. The real winners of the peace after the war were America, Germany and Japan
many US military experts argue the reverse - the WW1 end was TOO SOFT and Versaille treaty too weak and worse, not enforced... so they advocate they should have marched to Berlin and re-shape Germany as they had to do anyway in WW2 (easy to say now, of course)
The American public wanted their Dough Boys to come home. They would have never supported such a policy. Congress quickly blocked US participation in the League of Nations.
Pershing argued it at the time. However, the Allied Powers, at that point, were able to impose their will on the peace negotiations. Had the drive continued all the way to Berlin, it would have been an American Peace rather than an Allied one. Remember Clausewitz's famous dictum. Once the political aims had been achieved, there was no need (and little capability) for the Allied Powers to make that drive.
French general Charles Mangin said at the end of the First World War that the armistice was a mistake. He said that the Germans would not acknowledge that they had been defeated on the battlefield -- which is precisely what happened. (Hindenburg told the German Parliament that the German army had not been defeated in the field, but had been "stabbed in the back" by the Social Democrats at home.) Because the German army supposedly had not been defeated in the field, the army -- during the interwar years -- was eager for revenge and irredentism.
Hence during the Second World War, Roosevelt was determined that Germany surrender unconditionally. He would not repeat the mistakes -- the armistice and negotiations -- of the First World War. The German army would be forced to admit publicly that it had been defeated in the field. There would be no illusions about who had won and who had lost.
Precisely. I have long thought the same. And looking at what happened in 1945 and ever since, the point had largely been proved correct. 1945 was miles harder on Germany that 1919 ever was. In 1945, Prussia, the heart and soul of German militarism was erased from the surface of the earth and the whole country was occupied for decades after having been vastly damaged by the war itself. In 1918, many German people and especially the military were not willing to admit the defeat. The Versailles treaty hurt their feelings but clearly was no guarantee that they would not try again later.
In 1919 the AEF was slated to be the largest Allied army on the Western Front., giving the US a much stronger hand in the peace talks than it had.
It is ridiculous to suggest by some that the German military (not the people or indeed the more prominent socialist groups in the country) weren't much more belligerent that others.
The average German cannot be blamed for that. Rather, it is the fault of a culture within the armed forces, specifically the leaders as in the aristocracy.
This is the very issue-- blaming the entire nation when the guilty only make up a tiny number of that population.
38:50 The reasons Germany gave Austro-Hungary unequivocal support sound a lot like the reasons the USA is giving Ukraine unequivocal support
No, what was said is that the Austrian-Serbian conflict was no business of Germany but that if anyone attacked Austria Germany would take care of that. Of course Austria had to do something about the assassination of Franz Ferdinand but the real reason to invade Serbia was to stop a strong and open anti Austria movement that could have united the Balkans states and attacked Austria in the near future. It Russia had not been involved, it would have been a small and short conflict.
The intro guy sounds Australian to me, at least a bit of an educated Australian accent with some odd speech idiosyncrasies.
Dr Matthew Naylor is Australian
@@TheDog2M so is Christopher Clark but you’d barely know it
6:44 Who were the proximate invaders? Germany and A-H, that's who. Who invaded Belgium and occupied France? Germany, that's who. That's why Germany and A-H started the Great War. (Not a punitive invasion of Serbia, but the Great War.)
7:14 But that's what Clark does by calling the whole thing a tragedy with a gun in everyone's hand.
Great. But you forgot Russia
Germany did have a plan to build a stronger fleet in a 20 year period but Britain had a bigger plan, Germany's naval threat never existed, it was only one of the reasons Britain gave to explain her unnecessary involvement in the war. The Berlin-Baghdad railway was much more problematic for Britain so she made secret arrangements with France, Serbia, Russia and Belgium and waited for an event that could trigger a war of destruction of what was in fact an economic threat to the British Empire, that is what the war was all about, that is why Germany was the only country blamed for the war when in fact everyone else had begun preparations before her. The idea that Germany had planned the war was only meant to hide the real planners who instigated a powerful and vicious propaganda war years before the war began, a war Germany had no idea how to fight or even defend against it. The blank check is another fable used to demonize Germany even up to today, read it.
Well said. There’s an alarming lack of critical thinking in historians.
Truth in few words : England had an Empire , Turkey and Russia had theirs, Austria had another and Germany had none , without even first line material . Japan was similar , tried to join the ww1 winners but its fate did not change so they retried with ww2. Germany had to act accordingly. It is as simple as that you do not have to analyse every irrelevant diplonatic act around 1914
America forced Britain to drop her alliance with Japan by threatening a navel arms race Britain could no longer afford
Hence the Washington Treaty
Don’t forget the Ottomans and the rise of China. The Second World War was just a repeat of the first with due to German and Japanese imperialism you think? We’re seeing a repeat of it all today with American imperialism in the form of NATO expansion
Imperial Germany didn't have an Empire? No colonies? Really? What revisionist tome did you garner this point of view from? BY 1914 Germany possessed the world's third largest Empire, which, considering they jumped on that gravy train somewhat belatedly, was no mean feat.
Dear National WWI Museum and
Memorial,
All Soldiers, All Loved Ones,
Please read Jim Marrs books if you want to find out who started every war since 1744 for their handsome profit. Not sure what the soldiers received let alone us the ones who had to care for these brave men and women. Which beckons, if money can be printed out of then air what was the motive behind each sides slaughter? I hope authors continue where Jim left off per writing with a fact finding mission to state the truth. Please let the public know either in book form or online at RUclips. Many thanks.
Sincerely,
Donald Suiters
New Port Richey Florida
Britain's financiers picked a fight with Germany because their economy was good.
A bit like USA with China now.
What a load of nonsense? Britain did not start World War One.
Churchill and the like thought war was a sport and egged on WW1 and then, since he got whipped at Galipoli, he egged on WW2.
Germany was mostly responsible. They didn't start it but they willingly and stupidly followed Austria-Hungary knowing they were an extremely powerful mititary country. Only an idiot couldn't see what the result would be. Germany did follow their ally who were clearly looking to bludgeon Serbia, an entire country because one small group killed their prince. Germany invaded Belgium, and they did in fact commit atrocities. Germany was first to use cruel poison gas, and it was the first to bomb civilians in the conflict.
It is ridiculous to think Britain, France or Russia were even on the same map when it comes to guilt. At the very least Austria-Hungary, Germany and their allies held 90% of the blame. There's no use saying other countrys' saber rattling was a huge factor, as if Britain for instance was at grave fault for being partner to the naval race-- once again something Germany started because of Wilhelm the baby wanting his shiny ships. Yea, Britain had a cruel empire but that was the times and it developed over centuries, and an island obviously is far more dependent on the sea.
No, it was France who used teargas first and back then mobilizing your troops was a declaration of war so it was Austria, Serbia, Russia, Germany and I'm not sure for France so the truth is Germany only protected her ally, like Russia protected hers They was no one country responsible for starting the war, within a few days they all did, the problem was Clemenceau, he wanted revenge.
The French were in fact the most guilty by far. Their entire internatinonal strategy since 1872 was to seek revenge for the humiliation of 1871. They financed Russias railway expansion to the German border precisely to get the Russians armies to attack Germany in good time and when they had the British on board as well they figured they were finally strong enough. They even figured they'd be able to get away with it because they judged (correctly) the situation in the balkans to be unstable enough that they figured it would kick off there. They even called it the "Balkan inception" scenario. All parties are guilty to some extent for the outbreak, but the French had been working on it since 1872. The are unquestionably the most morally to blame.
poor, very poor. the guy does not offer anything new nor does he reflect even a little on the intellectual failure in germany during July nor the complete incompetence in Austria, backed by Germany. poor lecture.
Are you French by any chance?