Causes of World War I 

*WW1 but as a group project:* Germany: Does 99% of the work. Austria-Hungary: Has no idea what's going on the whole time. Bulgaria: Says he's going to help but he's not. Italy: Disappears at the very beginning and doesn't show up again til the very end.

our teacher taught us an acronym: M- militarism A- alliances N- nationalism I- imperialism A- assassination of arch duke

If history taught us one thing is that Italy is the worst ally you could possibly pick.

About 14 hours before the test, and I finally understand what WWI started :)

Just a note if you do any other videos on the topic in the future: Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand was an advocate for dealing with the Slavic Nationalists by promoting equality between Slavs, Austrians, and Magyars. He was in Bosnia to observe army drills, but he decided to pay a visit to Sarajevo, the provincial capital, as a good will gesture in the hopes he could win over the city's Slavic populace.

Thank you Tom. A useful, informed and succinct account of the causes of WW1. I have subscribed and look forward to watching more of your videos.

Totally in love with your material, it became my main source of history... I come from Brazil you see, and our schools don't really focus a lot on history, and our teacher are below average, being able to learn history from you really is a privilege, keep up the good work Can I make a request? Could you please do a lecture on medieval Holy Roman Empire and their relationship with Byzantium, thanks ^^

5 hours before my mid term and this is a perfect video for learning/reviewing the causes of WW1

I'm from Croatia and I can guarante 99.9% that you can visit Croatia! Nothing bad will happen you there. We are now tourist nation for the last 20 years and everyone is welcome. I know that you were joking but i want to adress this for people who take it seroiusly :)

Good lecture, but I had my headphones and at 3:53 I had my ears blast.

currently pursuing a Master's in Education to teach middle/high school history, definitely plan on making your videos available to my students as study resources. Would've loved to have had these as an AP student in high school!!

Thanks for the lectures and the live hangouts!

This is so helpful and your analogies are excellent.

Your lectures made lots of my exams and systematically increased my know;edge of European History. Thank you so much

I'm a college student and I use your videos just to keep me refreshed before quizzes and tests, entertaining to just chill and listen to. My text book is pretty annoying because it simplifies things as well as leaves out a bunch of the effects on the non-western world (thank you community college). I took AP World History back in high school and my teacher was in the same spirits as you, must be an AP thing. Wonderful! not monotonous at all. shout out from Olympia, Washington!

Great videos..me and my friend are using these videos to cram in study for exams in college and learn more in 15 mins with your vids than in an entire year with my lecturer ..Thanks from Ireland

Love your videos! Informative plus a great southern accented sense of humor. Thanks!

Wow, Tom. Even most Americans relinquished such prejudices about the Balkans by now. I was a 1-year-old kid when the Yugoslav war broke out and I'm 25 now. Like most of my generation I was brought up to treat everyone with respect and without prejudice, in spite of the war and media nationalism. I wouldn't dream of hurting anyone for the sake of politics and I'm sure an overwhelming majority of people here feel the same. Also, I'm afraid the mentioning of the Civil War in Yugoslavia in the 90's as a valid reason of the conflict that sparked WWI 80 years earlier is rather misguided (unless you take into consideration a jingoistic notion that the South East European nations are always at each other's throats, which would make the whole idea false in a historical perspective, since with the exception of the misguided Serbian-Bulgarian war of 1884 and the Romanian-Bulgarian conflict at the end of the Second Balkans War, these nations had not been in any sort of conflict with each other since the early XIV century). In fact the ones who had attained independence were in a coalition against the Ottoman Empire, and had friendly relations among each other. The integration of the cultural and national movements of the various Slavic nations, and stronger ties of the nations who had gained independence from Turkey with Western European nations like France (who were rivals of Austria), made Austria-Hungary insecure about losing its influence in the region (especially evident in the 1906-1908 Pig War (or Customs war) between Serbia and the Habsburg Monarchy) as well as its internal stability. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo was not completely unexpected, as there was a fear among European aristocracy of possible coups, especially after the much glossed over the assassination of the Serbian pro-Austrian King Alexander in 1903 and his replacement with the pro-Entente King Peter by the very same organization that killed the Austrian Archduke (the members of the organization were tried and executed by the Serbian authorities towards the end of WWI). After reading this, I expect all of you to take into consideration the complexity of the situation in WWI and stop with "the Balkans are a shithole and its people animals" jingoistic nonsense. It is both offensive and untrue. Even here in Serbia, where YOUR government did a significant amount of collateral damage to civilian buildings in 1999 (bridges with cars still on them, news agencies, the ministry of defense in Belgrade), similar to what you gasped at in the picture, all Americans are treated as welcome guests. I don't expect you to apologize for yourself or your nation, but please refrain from filling the heads of young Americans with fear and hatred, instead of actual knowledge. You're a teacher for goodness' sake!

Hi Sir! Great stuff, all your videos are helping me through my A-levels. May I ask where the other further videos are for WW1? Anyways have a great day and keep doing these videos :)

i really needed this thanks Tom

tom- i don't write comments often. but i really want to take the time to do so. I'm taking european history in college this semester, as well as last semester. I watch your lectures either before or after i've read the text book to either prep me for internalizing what i'm about to read. or to fine tune my understanding what i've just read. you really do incredible work with how you explain not just the events, but the feelings of the times. Ii really appreciate your work, and i wanted to express that sentiment as well as my gratitude for sharing your knowledge in this forum and in the way that you do. keep up the great work!

If you have to say "I'm sorry if I offended anyone" chances are, you offended someone, and what you said is better left unsaid.

such great description. I needed this. :)

I laughed so hard through this entire lecture, loved it.

This video is so understandable it's not so complicated like the other ones thanks Tom Richey😁

7:59 So beautiful... Listen with headphones... I loved it...😉

you have a great way of making your videos interesting! I lowkey wish some of my teachers were like you😭

thanks! I'm currently studding for my WW1 history test and this taught me a lot!

2:00 The Dreadnought! Great informative video, so funny that part abut the ship

Your videos are awesome. They have uni level detail.

shoutout from Singapore! Good job tom!

Bismark also made a non-aggression pact with Russia. After Willhelm II fired Bismark, this treaty wasn't renewed.

Rip Headphone users 3:47

This was extremely helpful, thank you!

Hey Tom! Shoutout from the UK! Your videos are great! Its a really nice review right before the exam! I have a video request... I was wondering if you could do a video focusing on the major events of both world wars and/or a video of what happens after WWII in Europe?

Very goog work! Among the several movies about this war, there is one that I like too much, called "De Mayerling à Sarajevo" or just "Sarajevo". Is a 1940 French movie, of the German director Max Ophüls. It tells the story of love between the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the Duchess Sophie Chotek, and about their morganatic marriage, since they know each other until their murder by Gravilo Princip. All inside the context of pre war...

If Franz Ferdinand had survived it would be so much better......

Thanks. Information was helpful

Excellent!! Where were you when I was going to college? You would have been a remedy for my attention deficit.

Also, Arch duke Franz Ferdinand was actuallty quite popular in Bosnia. He wanted to rebrand the Austro-Hungarian empire as the Austro-Hungarian-Slavic empire, in order to further stability. Serbs were actually lynched in Sarajeco after the arch duke was killed. In addition, Franz was vehemently opposed to war with Russia. Austria-Hungarys chief of staff (Conrad von Hotzendorf) had urged the emperor to start war over 20 times in 1913 alone. Arch duke Franz Ferdinand was the only person to hold him back. Conclusion: In killing Franz Ferdinand, the black hand killed the only man in A-H who could give the slavs what they wanted, and the only man who could have prevented the war.

The best tutorial section. Thanks a ton

You’re hilarious. Love your lectures!

Militarism and imperialism are circumstances, not causes. The initiating causer of World War I was the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip. The continuation of the war was due to poor decisions by politicians and Emperors.

No one: Literally no one: Not even baby yoda: Tom: DREADNOUGHT

Big fan of your youtube channel. I am currently working on getting a bachelors in history.

You should have mentioned that Bismarck's alliance system consisted of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia, known as the Three Emperor's League. This had the effect of diplomatically isolating a revanchist France. What made Bismarck's alliance system increasingly untenable were the geopolitical clashes in the Balkans between Austria-Hungary and Russia. Bismarck tried hard to keep his two allies from destroying his alliance system. When Kaiser Wilhelm II came to power, he undid Bismarck's alliance system by refusing to renegotiate an alliance treaty with Russia in which the Tsar was eager to implement, and emphasized relations with Austria-Hungary. This had the effect of insulting Russia. This gave France an opportunity to ally itself with a major power, Russia, after being diplomatically isolated from Bismarck's alliance system for two decades. France and Russia formed an alliance against Germany, and everything was history from there.

this helped a lot thank you!

Can you please make a video on the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917, as well as the aftermath

Love that video, first one to see mixing history with fun, specially when commenting about how nice Archduke Franz's car LOL

Thank you so so SO much! Any possibility you could do a video on World War II and the Cold War?

Tom Richey makes more intelligent videos than Matt Damon. Matt Damon can't compete. Case closed.

thanks for the video

Nice one! Greetings from Bulgaria

I laughed way too hard at 7:58

amm... dude :D am from Serbia... not cool by your side about the prejudice :)! The war in *91-95 here was the factor of all kind of element's but mostly by stupidity of leaders in those countries... :/ and... we do not like to kill each other " WTF. " ?! are you talking about ?! There are tension's still but come on...

i thank you alot because the way you use is helpfull

Not sure if you're being serious or not, but Archduke Franz Ferdinand was in Sarajevo because it was suppose to be a holiday since June 28th was his wedding anniversary with Princess Sophie.

You are so good....!

The main reason why Franz Ferdinand went to Sarajevo in the first place was mainly to get away from the military politics he was so heavily in charge of and he wanted to essentially take a vacation with his wife, which was usually not condoned at all during their marriage. Franz Ferdinand rarely could ever do much with Sophie unless it involved military matters. He sternly believed that he was respected enough in the Balkan peninsula to go to Bosnia in 1914. That's the reason why he went to Sarajevo.

Hey Richey, you are wrong about the Former Yugoslavian nations.. We don't want to kill each other. It is peaceful here now. You should come and see the situation before you say something, really

Good stuff.

What was the economic impact of world war 1 although the short and long term causes? It will be nice if you make a new video about these as well?

Hallo Tom am Os'wald Ojara, a Ugandan. I really love your lectures. I should be very greatful if I will find where you concentrated on the causes of World War 2.

that is a good explaination you told

Hello Mr. Richey. Is there any chance that you could do a video about the building of Romania. It seems like you have great xp about Europe and Balkans and you know what you are talking about. If you could explain the beginning and even before that, all the way to 1918. We all know what happen after 1918 but is kinda blurry what happen before that. Looking forward to hear a positive response from you. Mike B

Fun Fact: Arch Duke had a rudimentary bullet-proof vest that he'd wear for those sorts of occasions. He decided not to wear it that day. Also, sort of an over-simplification of the Italian switcherooni. Italy wanted what was best for Italy. It didn't like either side, and though it had a common lineage with Prussia, in terms of Nationalism (which would kinda come into more depth later...>.>) it was reallly salty over Austria holding lands that they considered part of Italy proper. That's contentious, but you can look at a map and see the chunk that was held by Austria at the time. Anyway, basically, the Allies offered them more and, ever the pragmatists, they took the better offer.

OMG! I take serious exception to your categorization of the Balkans! (Both in the lead up to WWI and now!)

You are amazing sir😄👍

i wish i had a teacher like you

Amazinggggg! Greatings from Amsterdam

Hey Tom! Could u do a lecture about Estonia or the Baltic states in general? :)

The so-called "Anglo-German Naval Arms Race" is very famous. Also a misnomer. Of course, it "started" much earlier, and the modern part (steam ships after the age of sails) was officially declared with London's "two power" standard. *It was in fact a "European Naval Arms Race" at the time.* As clearly defined by the British 2-Power Standard... en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Defence_Act_1889 ...which doesn't mention countries. It just simply stated "build more ships that the next two countries with a margin of 10%", making it (at the time/in reality) a *European Naval Arms Race* which was "started" by GB. According to this own policy, GB was also trying to outbuild Russia and France, carrying out own naval programmes. *The "international" naval arms race of course, did not start in 1905/06* with "the Germans". It also did not end in 1919 with the scuttling of the High Seas Fleet in Scapa Flow. That was only the "Anglo-German" part of it... *In reality, the naval arms race continued throughout WW1: only the rivals morphed as time passed.* Simplifying it down to "Anglo-German" is a little bit of name branding, just so the people know who "the enemy" is...

Hello Tom! I really enjoy all of your videos. I'm currently studying for the upcoming AP Euro exam. I was wondering if you had any videos on imperialism? We're covering that topic in our class and I was trying to find one of you videos on that subject, but to no avail.

Thankyou so much for making this video

I have always the impression, that the americans have a very simplified view on the WWI and the reasons that leads to this war. Even though the german Kaiser had a fundamental lack of diplomatic skills, and was never able to fully grasp what he set in motion with his imprudent speeches, he was not fully to blame for the Daily Telegraph Affair. A british major had some privat talk with the Kaiser, wrote some passages down in form of a fictive interview and sold it to the Daily Telegraph. Bismarck's intention was not primarily peace, but political stability for the young german empire without serious external threats. An empire that should not be recognized as an aggressor by the other major powers, but instead should be seen as a part of the european balance of power.

Not going to lie, but I watched a few baseball brawls after this.

great!

State the cause of WWI as briefly and accurately as possible: England's European policy since Napoleon was to prevent the rise of a competitor European industrial hegemony that centralized Europe. Germany became England's primary industrial competitor. This motive to eliminate Germany persisted until the end of WWII. From this perspective, the two wars can be considered one 30-years-war punctuated with a brief cease-fire and re-armament phase in the middle.

I am an Indian.You are superfragilisticexperodicious explanation.Can you please let me know some more additional causes in further videos.Kindly thanking you for explaining in such an awesome way.You are a 100 times better and better from my boring social teacher

Awesome.....

very helpfull

Here's a question; what drew the bulgarians, also orthodox slavs, into the war on the side of austrians/hungarians and their former rulers, the ottomans?

thank u sooooo much

Are there any videos on the course of WWI? WWII?

The absolute most significant thing you have left out. Franz F. was the war inhibiter of his country while the Aus-Hun govt. wanted war and have suggested it several times before his death. With the killing of FF the Aus-Hun govt. can now go to war with his killing as the "perfect" excuse. FF wanted to give all the peoples within Aus-Hun more control on a local level. The really weird thing is that the guy whom opposed war was seen as the enemy. During the Yugoslav war it again were the Serbs who fucked everything up.

I'm almost shocked that you said the Archduke's assassins "basically caused World War I." They only provided a convenient excuse for Austria-Hungary to do what they really wanted to, which was to attack Serbia. How to do that? Send Serbia an ultimatum that was completely unacceptable, and do it quickly, underhandedly, and covertly, before the Germans had a chance to change their minds. Ultimate objective, add Serbia to Austria-Hungary's collection of subject states. If the Archduke hadn't been shot, odds are good Austria would have simply found some other excuse. ...So in that broader sense, imperialism was a much more important factor than you're crediting. Austria wasn't interested in acquiring territories in Africa and East Asia, but for centuries it had been mad, mad, mad about picking up pieces of the declining Ottoman Empire. How the Turks got suckered into allying with them is completely beyond me.

Thank you Matt Damon for this video

it is mind blowing

Franz Ferdinand was advised not to go but he went anyway because he was defiant towards the emperor and the throne he was going to inherit, he had a different vision of the future of the empire and he wanted to prove himself👑

One thing about the manufacturing numbers, the British Empire in total would be well over 21% of world manufacturing, and the largest economy in the world in terms of GDP.

Sir explain about impact of congressof vuenna

Hah i love your energy, i have my ap test friday may 6th

cool!

Thank you!! You're hilarious x

ex-yugoslavian streets are much safer then US streets these days :p

That famous painting of the Sarajevo incident is inaccurate, the actual story is much more interesting: They tried to kill Franz with a bomb, but it hit someone else instead. The Archdude later visited that person in the hospital and there he was shot.

I enjoyed a bunch of your previous videos, but that "Yugoslavia" explanation was pretty "american-biased" and uninformed sadly... For a region that has been so exploited over the past few centuries by so many different entities, i would say the Balkans are doing just fine these days, and if you truly are afraid of going there, then you probably had little bit too much of that sweet US propaganda that Clinton fed you guys over there in the 90's. Keep in mind that I'm not from the Balkans, and my opinion is in no way biased by "nationalist" feelings of any kind. I simply have spent enough time in the Balkans recently, to know its an amazing place to go to, it has amazing food, amazing landscapes, and the people are warm and very welcoming. And yes, the former "Yugoslav" countries are in peace with each other, and there is a pretty good feeling of safety in all of them.

can you please do a video on the freedom struggle for Indian Independence

I like this guy

Why exactly did Italy leave the central powers?