Margaret MacMillan: Planning War Before 1914 

ABSOLUTELY STUPENDOUS. i'M IN MY EIGHTIES, AND HAVE ABSORBED TO TEACHINGS AND OPINIONS OF MANY GREAT MILITARY HISTORIANS; PROFESSOR MARGARET MacMILLAN, IS AMONG THE VERY BEST.

What an amazing and knowledgeable woman you are Prof Margaret. Thankyou!

She is one of the best lecture's ever. I have listened to so many of her lectures..

Excellent lecture!

i am very honoured to listen to the complete trilogy of the lecture.

Great analysis. I wish I had had access to this resource when I was doing A Level history. Thank you 😊

Very good lecture-

Four years of stalemate and I think Europe has never recovered from that. How very true. One survivor Donald Christopher Smith wrote; In 1914 the public schools Officers Training Corps annual camp was held on Salisbury Plain. Lord Kitchener was to review the cadets but the imminence of the war kept him away and General Smith-Dorrien was sent instead. He surprised the two or three thousand cadets by declaring that war should be avoided at almost any cost, that war would solve nothing the whole of Europe and more besides would be reduced to ruin and the loss of life would be so large that whole populations would be decimated. In our ignorance many of us felt ashamed of a British general who uttered such depressing and unpatriotic sentiments but during the next four years those of us who survived the Holocaust - probably not more than one quarter- of us learn how right the general’s prognosis was and how courageous he had been to utter it.

Great lecture

Thanks for the subtitles.

Professor MacMillan details what Henry Kissinger calls "Into the vortex" in his brilliant book "Diplomacy". There was no reason for the First World War to come about but it did because of what politicians all across Europe and the USA thought between 1898 and 1914. Margaret MacMillan delivers a highly interesting exposition of what really happened then.

It's terrible to think that the alliances were so insecure and fragmented and yet the powers went to war for each other anyway and so many people died for the sake of these alliances that were not sensible to begin with.

Having seen several historians cite the British blockade of Germany as part of the shift towards total war, but it wasn't new in the twentieth, or even the nineteenth, century; it was the blockades of the Dutch, French and Spanish Navies during the the 17th and 18th century that had contributed significantly to the Royal Navy's superiority in seamanship, evident in all the battles of Hood, Jervis and Nelson. The Brest blockade during the Napoleonic wars lasted for more than twenty years, with ships of the line travelling a straight course between two points on the chart, calm or gale, and a swarm of frigates, sloops and brigs cruising for blockade runners or delivering mail and supplies. Meanwhile the opposition was cooped up in port, unable to train in real sailing or navigation, and with the crews gradually becoming unfit and dissolute or outright deserting.

Ms. MacMillan elucidates an explanation of the causes of a war that seems inexplicable.

37:30 - 37:45. Football player Johan Cruyff taught: "To score, you have to shoot." General Von Schlieffen, in 1893: "To win, you have to attack." I like these parallels. For the famous Rinus Michels, the inventor of modern football (soccer) in the 1960's, famously said: "Football is war." So we can conflate these two fields of human endeavour. LOL

British isolation? How about Rosenblum, Sacharov and others?

"...and so Europe had four years of stalemate and HAS REALLY NEVER RECOVERED FROM THAT." That failure to have recovered has allowed the US to strive for hegemonic power and to lead Europe and the world towards great catastrophe in 2021.

Ms. McMillan is the great-granddaughter of David Lloyd George, British PM during WW1.

I'm glad the lecture was not given by the guy who introduced Margaret MacMillan!

Excellent lecture, very interesting! A question that comes to my mind: the role of pacifists seems to be very limited. I believe this is because pacifists are by nature ‘passive’, also towards extremism in their own country. Isn’t this an interesting subject to discuss in a future lecture?

MacMillan mentions German failure to plan for a long war. That was because German military planners knew, correctly, that Germany would be at a disadvantage with a long war. Clauswitz wrote that if a German plan for a quick victory failed, that left only one alternative. Seek a negotiated settlement. This is why Moltke told the the Kaiser, after the German defeat at the Battle of the Marne, "the war is lost." At that point Germany should have proposed a cease fire and negotiations.

they couldn't have move the camera to see the graphic???

I luv me some M & M....

Wonka ask Is it true?

If germany had made and effort to keep britain out of the war they has won they had had no blockade , France mistakes in 1914 had Made them surrender and they migth use all its force in the east against Russia

43:27 eminence grise

Seems 21:43 is precisely what happened in Ukraine. As Mearsheimer said, Ukraine was "led down the primrose path" believing they would join NATO.

In my simple mind it all started because Russia could not convince Serbia to come clean in order to control the enraged Austrian after Sarajevo .

Skip directly to 0:58, dont waste time

Seems very illogical, and crazy, that the Germans thought by building a strong Navy the British would react by becoming friendlier toward Germany

This broad knows everything about ww1

The Germans were idiotics. The Army didn't talk to the foreign office about the effect of violating Belgium and its brining Great Britain into the war. As the French Army wouldn't violate Belgium neutrality and it was impossible for the French to successfully breakthrough the German defenses in Alsace-Lorraine, there was no need to attack France in 1914. Germany could have remained on the defensive in the west and used the majority of the German Army against Russia. This would have kept Austo-Hungarian forces from being crushed by Russia and England would have remained neutral. After disposing of Russia, Germany could have crushed France.

Zz

Considering my extensive knowledge of WWI, I am amazed at how much I don't know whenever I hear this erudite woman 📖📗