Onyx1916 Honestly, that man was better of dead. The fact, that war broke out over HIS death is the worst thing ever. People should have celebrated instead!
Márton Köves people didn’t fight over him. The Austrians use to defeat Serbia for causing ruckus in the Balkans. The world war is caused by international tensions and polarisation of the alliance
His advisors actually warned him that an assasination plot was forming multiple times, and after an officer in front of his car was injured by a bomb that was meant to hit franz, they begged him to come back to Vienna but he refused
@@angelamagnus6615 That's a stupid comment altogether since the US didn't go to Iraq for oil, it went in to remove an unstable element and create a new ally in a democratic Iraq. The US encouraged the Iraqi's to sell the oil to the highest bidder...which was NOT the US. So yeah, overall rather ignorant comment.
@@stephenjenkins7971 Which Iraq war? The First Gulf War was to maintain stable oil (energy) prices. If Hussein moved troops into Saudi Arabia, soaring oil prices would have lead to an economic depression in the USA and around the world. The Second Gulf War was because Hussein cheated on the peace treaty his gov't signed. Eventually Iraqi weapons of mass destruction could have led to the same situation as before the First Gulf War. The USA is self sufficient for oil because of oil fracturing at home, so US forces have been drawn down. China is the nation that needs Persian Gulf oil. It's their problem now.
@@seanmoran6510 mustard gas and nerve agents dropped from aircraft. These were used against Iran during their war, and against uprisings in several areas of Iraq
@@ehs1452 Many famous generals and officers fought at the front lines along with their men, just as high of a risk of dying as any other soldier, just luckier.
Microsoftman404 I dunno, the Americans could be enough to swing it. Sure, theyre not a large force, or even particularly well armed or well trained, but they can help fill the ranks with fresh troops and make it easier for the British and French to rest their own, and the Central Powers seem to be more on the back foot than the Entente. We will see.
Halinspark Nah. The US will supply material and a small number of support troops in non combat areas. Wilson promised he'd keep America out of the war.
Losing by trying an offensive, as opposed to losing by attrition and defensive warfare where you are always on the end getting beaten. I can see why Ludendorff and the German Army could think in such a manner.
6:20 Ludendorff was willing to lose a million men in an offensive--just so he would be able to fight "the next war"? Even with all the massive numbers of casualties so far in the war, that's a rather stunning statement.
Sort of. He wrote a book called "der Totale Krieg", where he argues that the object of war is the annihilation of the enemy people. Not domination, not subjugation, but annihilation.
Something you didn't mention - 100 years ago this week the first official case of the Spanish flu was confirmed in Fort Riley, Kansas. It would have made an interesting aside at the end.
Secretly, they (Spain) were working on a weapon, capable of bringing death, the destroyer of worlds! This secret project was to end the war... Wait, wrong war....
They get enough youtube views and patreon support. And probably sell some merchandise. Also the content is owned so they can sell it to 3rd parties for some extra dough.
The harsh terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk do put the terms of the Treaty of Versailles into perspective. Had Germany won the war, Britain and France would've had to to sign an equally punishing treaty, if not an even more punishing one. The war was far beyond either side looking to rebuild somewhat stable post-war relationships. Four years of war had embittered all sides to the point of "an eye for an eye". The seeds of WW2 were sown when the treaties to end WW1 were signed.
With the big difference that Brest-Litovsk carved out territories that were not ethnically Russian, while Versailles happily ignored Wilson's fourteen points. Self-determination was the exception, not the rule.
@@orpheonkatakrosmortarchoft4332 Ethnicity =/= self-determination, though my comment wasn't clear about that either. For example: Alsace was predominantly German but they were very unhappy about being a German Empire colony and preferred French rulership. Memel Lithuanians were predominantly Protestant and given their supported minority status in Prussia not necessarily happy about moving into a Catholic dominated Lithuania. Danzig was majority German and wanted to belong to Germany... On the other hand Ukraine had enough nationalist sentiment to have two governments and armies fighting in the post-war period for control. There's a reason even a giant famine wasn't enough to break secessionist tendencies in its people.
@@Runenschuppe Well in that case Germany can't use the "self-determination" card as the vast majority of the territories they lost didn't want to be a part of Germany.
Kinda sounds like the Germans were biting off more than they could chew. If they wrote Belgium off, they could focus on digesting the east, ensure Russia doesn't get back on its feet. They'd basically proven they could beat France in a one-on-one fight, and could hold the Brits and French at bay indefinitely. If a second war broke out with only one front, Germany would likely come out on top.
@@rachelsombo9045yea that’s true but without Britain France would of lost a while ago even during the French mutinies of 1917 had German attacked they might of lost but idk not completely sure but overall had the western front been France vs Germany then German would of won
hahah. Bulgaria would have won if Germany had allowed the Bulgarians to storm into Greece and kick the Allies back into the boats , instead of digging. Bulgarian army was the biggest in the Balkans, but was fighting 5 countries at the same time with little German support. Germany is to blame for that.
I've always scoffed at how the "terrible " and "punitive" Versailles Treaty was so unfair. Versailles was nothing compared to the land-grab Brest-Litovsk treaty. Someone should do an episode on what we know of German plans for a Western Front German victory treaty
France would have liked to annex a lot of the German territories left of the Rhine, already in Napoleon's era. But since not a single enemy soldier entered the Reich during WW1 (apart from brief Russian interventions in East Prussia, which were quickly repulsed), it was therefore very difficult for France to make territorial claims. After all, the Empire did not want to annex Russian territories; it would have meant conditional freedom for Ukraine and other peoples subjugated by the Russians.
Jack Sharpe Thats becaise these are the regions where Unrainians, Baltics, Estonians etc. live. These regions were incorporated into the USSR as Soviet Republics later, which then declared their independence in those borders 1991. (Except for Poland of course)
The Woolly Eel Versailles gave Polish land back to Poland and French land back to France, then made Germany pay for the damages caused by invading two countries and occupying then for years. Sounds pretty fair.
Damage caused by invading two countries? No matter the actions, the winners of the war would have found one reason or another to demand war reparations from the losing sides. Those demands were made out of spite and revanchism. I don't see how you can be in favour of them given what would happen later. And yes (to the Polish land part), but this was made possible because the Brest-Litovsk treaty set the precedent for independence in the area. Without it there would have been nothing stopping the Allies from giving Polish lands to Russia in case of a White Russian victory.
The Woolly Eel Reparations had been part of war for some time. The Germans put extremely harsh Reparations on France in 1870 and occupied the capital until it was paid off.
11.09.1914 >It was also this week that saw the Pact of London, when France, Britain and Russia that none of them would make a seperate peace with Germany or Austria-Hungary. They would fight to the end 08.03.1918 This week, Russia signed a peace treaty with the Central Powers >que "curb your enthusiasm" theme
Dang. The war will be over for 100 years this November 11. That's going to be really cool! I'm actually going to be at a cadet at a millibars school when this happens! Can't wait!
His entire design in the east was to do what Ludendorff and Hoffman had achieved in the east in 1917-1918. Germany controlled territory all the way from the Arctic to the Caspian Sea, something which Hitler tried to emulate but failed to.
With each of these post-revolution episodes I'm sitting on the edge of my seat. i'll get a summer job again and I swear I'll donate you guys something.
The Woolly Eel and with German monopoly on the Romanian oilfields for the next 90 years (as it was supposed in the treaty) and with little access to the commerce on the Black Sea (even though they could still maintain only the Constanta port)
Hoàng Kim Việt they had no choice, the Petrograd Soviet made them. Though the early decision not to agree to the Soviet's policy of no annexations or indemnities was stupid
Dropping out the war would have had a caused a laundry list of challenges, and the war wasn't exactly going well for the central powers at the time. It seemed like the best decision at the time.
Russia had a treaty in place with the French I believe that said neither side would make a separate peace...obviously Russia now had little choice but at the time there was a chance that Russia could have kept fighting in a limited fashion at least and by directing their efforts against the Austrians who weren't in great shape either in 1917.
Germany declared war on Russia specifically for territorial gain in eastern Europe. That was the whole idea. In fact all of the European belligerents had their territorial ambitions in WWI. The war was a direct (and predictable) result of the competition between great empires.
@@vadimandreev8570 The USA was the biggest winner of WW1. It went from a regional powerhouse before WW1 to "on par" (aka "eye level") with the British Empire after WW1. The masterminds of the American Century knew they just had to wait long enough until European nations tore each other apart in eternal cycles of ever-increasingly more destructive wars. The "recipe for success" was known as "never let a crisis/war go to waste".
6:19 - "...even a failed offensive would encourage the army to try again in the next war." I've watched every episode in order and now I think I've come to the theme of the Great War story.
Oh, one more thing. It appears that General Erich von Falkenhayn was right all along. If the war was going to be won it WOULD be won in the west, meaning they should have listened to the guy when they had the chance.
@@bisbeejimit could of been won at the start but once they failed it was over and the Germans knew it they knew that after 1914 victory was impossible but they kept attacking hoping and hoping and hoping the Allies held the line better and were better off economically and politically but once the us got involved it was over as we saw at the end the us played a part in leading money and supplies neutral but not really militarily not saying it didn’t help but even if the us didn’t join or joined but only sent money and supplies by the summer of 1918 it was all over for Germany at the end the war turned into a war of who could outlast the other and German just couldn’t they ran out of ken
Damnit! When this all started my bookie gave me 5/2 that the Czar would march triumphantly into Poland and Finland. 6/1 that he would make Vienna the regional capitol of West Russia. How was I supposed to say no?
Were the austro-hungarian prisoners of war, upon returning used for combat again? 650,000 seems like a formidable amount. I however, understand that rearming them, retraining them and the overall logisitics of getting them prepared for war, would be hard due to the capabilities of the empires industries and food shortages. Although the central powers did take control of Ukraine so that would have provided food for a while. I don't know if all Russian troops were returned, from the video I take it is at least a portion of them were, but that would have fixed some of the food problem surely.
Hi Indy! Love the show but i have a few questions possibly for Out of the trenches. Are you going to do a similar show with ww2 since this weekly baisis is really effective
On your last point Indy, I'm just gonna hazard a guess and say I think the occupation of the territories taken in the Treaty of B-L would be pretty easy considering it was something like self determination. Like if there's already a government in Ukraine that's pretty great.
Hey Indy I have a question for you about That peace treaty , I know Germany was keen on Belgium however with all the land that they got from Russia and with all the nations except for US exhausted from the war and that all their old and new allies (Poland ,Lithuania,etc ) would most likely back them up in another war why wouldn’t they just let Belgium go ?
Because Ludendorff was mad. He totally refused any peace deal in which Germany didn’t control Belgium or didn’t have absolute power over north west Europe.
Thanks for another great and exiting episode! Sometimes it is said that the Brest-Litovsk treaty was kind of a blueprint for the treaty of Versailles to justify the harsh conditions of the Versailles treaty. You pointed out that the Russian-German peace was very tough in terms of annexation but therefore was quite reasonable regarding the economic side. In my eyes this is quite the opposite for Versailles which took away a moderate amount of land but was devastating in economic terms for Germany. What is your opinion about? Can you somehow compare the two treaties? Maybe this could be worth a special or the mighty chair of wisdom is willing to share his thoughts on this through the mouth of its willing servant Indy when the time arrives.
I have a bit of a META question for OOTT: What will happen when the War ends? Will you keep making specials and, “Who did whats”, or will you make a new channel about WW2 and call it, “It Happened Again”?
For the first time in 189 episodes I disagree - the Germans didn't actually need to leave troops in Russia to control the newly acquired land/population. They could simply have made those areas independent states. The only areas they needed to control with troops were the resources (coal, crops, and oil).
I lied that pic of Blankebergh. 've always been fascinated by what the coast (the end of the front line) must hae looked like. Does anyone got good sources on this (book/website/pictures?)
Would it have been possible for Germany to call it quits now that they were ahead? Had they given up claims on Belgium, would peace have been possible? Would that be a realistic scenario? I'm genuinely curious. Cause it seems to me that a big part of why Germany waged the war in the first place had been achieved. Russia had been neutralized as a factor, and Germany had dominion of Eastern Europe, gaining vast territories and many resources. Even Austria-Hungary had achieved it's objective, it pacified Serbia and with Romania out of the picture the Balkans were theirs to dominate. Even without Belgium, a Germany as powerful as this seems easy to defend against possible future French revanchism.
I don't think Britian and France would agree to that. One of the key underlying reasons for the war was the shift in the european ballance of power that happened when the German Empire was created as a nation state in 1871. By 1914 Germany had clearly surpassed France and was challenging the British Empire. Germany was on the rise, Britannia not so much. Allowing Germany to control all the newly founded eastern european countries and their ressources would mean that Germany has surpassed Britain and is no longer depedent on the world market when it comes to natural ressources and raw materials. There is no way Britain could accept that just like Britain couldn't accept Napoleon ruling supreme on the european continent.
Okay... So mother Russia may be out of the war, but I have faith she will be back to fight the Germans once those pesky Bolsheviks have been crushed and the rightful Tsar has returned to lead her once again. Long live the Tsar!!!
I have a question. I thought until I started watching this video that Russia lost control of Poland in 1915 and the Ukraine and Finland in 1917. But you are saying they lost control of all 3 at the same time when they signed the Armistice with The Central Powers.
I can't help but think had German territorial ambitions been far less. Would they still be seen as the bad guys by the allies. It's something to think about. Great job.
Some sloppy research on this one. Germans did not really land in continental Finland until April 3rd. They only deployed naval units to Aland waters in March. And what nickel ? Petsamo mine was not discovered until 1921 and Finland did not get a hold on that territory until 1920 anyway.
A question for Out of the Trenches (if it does not get covered in regular episodes or in a special): what happened in Romania as Russia signed peace? Did they had any plan? Were they counting on the support of the other Allies?
ok, but my question was slightly another: as they were not surrendering, but forced to surrender, what plan they made? Did someone propose to escape, say, trough enemy lines to Salonika? They had some agreements with the Allies, like "asking the permission" to surrender?
That was 1918, the race in 2018 is to see if The Great War can get to a million subscribers and earn a Golden Play Button before the deadline on 11 November. ... (Whoops, that date may be a spoiler!)
There was a lot of Germans in Ukriane. The steppe was full of Germans and German towns due to Catherine the great land offer to Germans which outs be continued.
Hello, please make a video about Ukraine’s Nestor Mahno. He and his army are controversial and unique because they were some of the first military anarchists in the world and to this day there are people in Ukraine and Russia who either absolutely hate Mahno or try to make him their national hero. Thanks
Given that Belgium was the chief cause of was with Britain, and the submarine war was the cause of war with USA, withdrawing from belguim after signing a peace would still be a German victory if they could keep their new protectorates in the east, especially Poland , the Ukraine and the Baltic’s coast
i got a question for out of the trench. Since germany got control of so much land after Brest Litovsk armistice, couldn't it get supplies from there and thus diminish the impact of the allied blocus? wich would have allowed germany to pursue a defensive war without having to launch a risky offensive. how was actually germany managing the occupied lands in the east.
That was the hope, but getting grain and other resources in bulk was actually rather difficult because of the political climate. Many regions were on the edge of civil war and the infrastructure had suffered under the strain of war.
great content, but Russia was actually forced to pay six billion marks to the Central Powers, this was decided in August, so slightly after Brest-Litovsk
Can anyone help me find any information on a question I have? I want to know who was the most decorated German soldier of the great war but google is no help.....
It's a difficult question. I'll give you the default answer which is usually Ernst Junger. Then I'll include a longer one about why it's a tough question.
So each of the different German kingdoms had their own sets of medals and honors. Prussian medals. Bavarian Medals. House of Hohenzollern medals. Etc, etc... Many of them with different degrees or ranks. Precedence of which medals from which house or state are worth the most is the sort of thing royalists will go on about for an infinite number of years. On top of that because of the way the war ended *SPOILERS* with Germany losing, and all the German Princes either abdicating or being thrown out, you also had a number of awards that were recommended but never actually awarded. Do they count or not? Then there's the problem of officer vs. enlisted vs. senior officer. There were a lot of awards that were restricted by custom to different ranks of troops. The pour le merite medal being the most famous of those, but the knight's cross was another example. So do you give the nod to an enlisted man with a knight's cross second class, or an officer who got a knight's cross first class or a general who maybe got one with fancy chevrons and inducted into an order of prussian nobility? Last is that towards the end of the war, German medals got rather...inflationary. Like their currency would, after the war. When all you're left with is giving out awards and telling people they're all heroes, I guess that's just what you do. Allied nations would also sometimes give out certain medals to other countries' troops. Then there's that german military awards were changed multiple times, first under the weimar republic, then again under hitler. Some awards would be eliminated entirely, while others might just be changed, and which award is equal to what, or ranks where is another thing people could argue for a very long time over. Last issue? Defining the difference between "most decorated" and "highest decorated." Are 7 purple hearts & a bronze star worth more than 1 silver star and a medal of honor (to use a US example)? But I think the consensus view that I see for Germany is Ernst Junger who did indeed have himself one helluva war.
