"a european economic union dominated by germany as a market for german goods that excludes britain" well congratulations mr. kaiser, your goals have been achieved. and it didnt even take one bullet fired in the end.
Moreover the Russian Empire has been dissolved and Austria-Hungary has been split up. :O In spite of territory losses the German position in 2022 is probably better than in 1914. The Last Ones Shall Be First.
Such an interesting and underrated aspect of WW1 era strategy. Whilst the battles on land and sea were on-going, the diplomatic scheming behind the surface also had a huge part to play. Thanks for covering it.
Yes, for me the diplomatic history of this era has always been far more interesting than the actual military aspect of the conflicts. Glad you enjoyed it.
That’s the thing about the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It wasn’t an empire in decline, it was an empire in need of reform and transformation. Franz Ferdinand and Kaiser Karl I could have achieved that. But as the War dragged on and became a total war, the empire became increasingly strained. I still feel that the Allies should’ve continued to consider reforming the empire much along the lines of federalism like Franz Ferdinand intended, but they eventually decided against that, with much help from Wilson too…
Yes, I honestly think the destruction of the Austrian Empire was one of the most tragic consequences of WW1. To be fair to the allies, the empire had begun to disintegrate by the time the armistice was signed, and would have been hard to resurrect.
@@OldBritannia absolutely. The shame of it all was that the Allies didn’t attempt to preserve the standing of the Habsburg’s in the successor states, not even in Austria itself and the Habsburg laws are still in effect today. They didn’t “blame” the Habsburg’s for the war, but they lumped them into the “German Threat”. Even if the empire disintegrated on its own, it could always reintegrate on its own as well, and if the stigma surrounding the Habsburg’s wasn’t so reinforced they might have salvaged Central Europe.
In my opinion, the entire war was the fault of Austria, and whether it was intentional or not, they suffered a lot after the war with the full disintegration of their empire. Each of the peoples that were occupied by the Austrians deserved representation, if not plain independence. By the interwar period empires of the Austrian kind were long overdue to expire regardless, just like the Russian Empire did. I'm glad their empire collapsed, just like any other empire in the history of man. But that's just my anti-imperialist pro-independence rhetoric. What happened afterwards with the Balkan would be the subject of an entirely different discussion in my opinion. This is not to say that Austria wasn't and isn't a country full of culture and history, it's beautiful, but no people should be allowed to occupy another people against their will. This is something that not only the Austrians, but the Russians, British, Dutch, and French were good a aswell.
@@ROsteveification But the difference is that Austria Hungary tried to give more representation to the other minoritys in the empire but the Hungarian Side didn't allowed it.
@@ROsteveification It really wasn’t their fault. The Black Hand worked closely with the Serbian army and government, they had members of all ranks. Their aims was to create a Yugoslav empire, push the Austrians and Turks out. But in Assassinating the future Emperor of Austria-Hungary, like the Vice President in the USA, you de facto have attacked that country and so you are the belligerent. So many countries, including Russia, were supportive of Austria in the beginning, the problem was that they took too long to arrive at any meaningful action against Serbia and so lost their legitimate grievances and Casis Beli over Serbia, making their moves look less like justice and retribution, and more like opportunism and conquest. They were hoping for guarantees from other countries so they could operate without interference, but that made it look like they were somewhat paranoid. Austria-Hungary was justified in its assault, the problem was in how they did it and how long it took them. By dragging their feet it hurt their legitimate aims greatly.
As an American who had a lot of ancestors men and women serve the federal government in WWI, money was the motivator. The southern US was very pro war because it was our first opportunity to serve the fed govt in massive numbers since before the civil war. Our region had been very poor since the war and when WWI came around we got the opportunity to serve and get paid the same amount as people from other regions. I had multiple great great aunts who spoke English and French and applied to serve as bilingual secretaries. One of them got the job and bought a house with that money. Another great uncle made friends with soldiers from New England and had Winchester guns shipped to the south where they sold like hot cakes. WWI really lurched the South out of poverty
Interesting! Wondering how this WW1 boom affected the southern US during the Great Depression? If it wasn't for this lurch out of poverty, would the southern US be in an even worse state before the industrial expansion post-WW2?
@@BennygoatHistory idk much abt the Great Depression but I know it did not effect Louisiana very much. The explanation I read was Huey Longs policies, the Louisiana War Maneuvers, and that African Americans were allowed to participate in our economy more than most places. so we probably got an even more disproportionate share of that WWI money considering the United States sent more than half a million black soldiers to France, there was a liquor company in New Orleans called Sazerac that brags that it was the first company to bring Hennessy / Cognac brandy to the states which if ur not American that’s liquor still holds a special place with black people because the first time they had wealth to spend on fancy alcohol was serving in France where they didn’t face as much discrimination. Kinda lol but it’s facts
@@voiceofreason2674 wow thanks for the history! I'm British so a lot of this is new to me (although even we know about the Kingfish Huey Long) That alcohol story reminded me about a story in Britain during WW2, where we didn't have segregated pubs/bars and so our pub owners got into fights with the wishes of white American officers demanding segregated areas in the pubs for their black/white soldiers, and the pub owners refused. Though don't get me wrong, Britain also has an unfortunate history of racism and a lot of people saw black people as "from the colonies", and there was a deep racism to Irish people, pubs used to have signs saying "no dogs or Irish"
Interesting. I suppose an implied British Empire war aim was to retain Ireland. Following WWI the Empire lost (most of) Ireland despite the sacrificial efforts of the Sherwood Foresters in an enfilade in the Battle of Mount Street. The enthusiasm for "Self-Determination" and Freedom of Small Nations seemed not to apply so close to home. It surprises me that this isn't widely spoken about.
Self determination wasn't a British aim until American entry. It was committed to Belgium's defence by both treaty and grand strategy (keeping the channel ports neutral). Never the less, a Home Rule bill had been passed in 1914 and was well on its way to being implemented. Redmond actually gave quite a stirring speech in support of the war in the Commons.
It's complicated, but British always do that in the great century, after Russia and France falls from revolution the only threat in continent is Germany
I've seen a lot of people online who view British flexibility as part of some grand conspiracy when in reality you really can't name a nation that lost while winning more than them in both wars. While WW1 appeared to be a victory for Britain reaching it's territorial zenith, the delaying of Home Rule in Ireland literally disunited the kingdom in the following years and left the door open for Welsh and Scottish nationalists we see today. Britain left the war bankrupted to the Americans, and again after the second war as well. Had war not happened, somehow, it would have suited British interests more than any other outcome as Britain was winning the battleship production war against Germany. Colonial nationalism also began due to the war with a lot of early Canadian, Australian and New Zealander histories pinpointing the end of the war as the start of their growing independence and national identities. The League of Nations put a dagger in the back of the Anglo-Japanese alliance with the forced hand Britain was dealt by the racial equality statute they voted against to appease Canada and Australia who had feared Asian immigration and by the question of India causing a huge rift between Britain and it's only real ally preceding the war. While Britain's victory gave it huge potential in reasserting its global position, the costs of the war far outweighed its benefits and all its gains would be gone in a generation, hardly some grand conspiracy in their favour.
Britain ignored the war at first, but then escalated it greatly. Mixed and dubious decisions is a guarantee of backfire. Same happened in WW2 Britain started with appeasement selling Czechs to Hitler and passiveness during invasion of Poland, than suffered defeat at continent , and dismantling their empire as one of outcomes. If only Britain was more determined about single course of actions in both wars outcome would be very different, there could be no WW2 at all.
I think England did more for the Scottish nationalists when they voted for Brexit than any outside force could ever have done. The rest of Europe had learned their lesson, that there was no alternative to standing together if you would want to overcome the old boundaries some day. The thing Britain should have won through those two wars would have been the idea of a peaceful, united Europe -- but they insist on playing the insular game.
@@fkjl4717 Oh I am quite sure the Germans would have *loved* that, because there is only so much you can do with a fleet alone. Without the British soldiers on the ground, the Central Powers might even have turned this into a victory.
A fascinating topic thank you for sharing it with us. Since the final settlement of ww1 was quite Wilsonain, I've always wondered what would have happened to the peace settlement had there been no American influence. Maybe you can also make a part 2 of this video, talking about the intended war aims of the minor powers in ww1 i.e. the balkans countries, the Ottoman empire, and the Italians. I think that could be pretty interesting.
I think that would be 2 different questions. 1. If the Americans never joined the war there’s a solid argument for the Germans never launching their costly last offensive and the French (and possibly British) completely mutinying on the western front resulting in a peace treaty favourable to the Germans. 2. If the Americans didn’t care about the peace treaty then that would be interesting. I don’t know too much about it but there’s a chance Austria-Hungary isn’t broken up but Germany gets cut down even further in size.
Another thing I like to ponder is: What if the Russian Empire was more industrialized before the war and also stabilized (perhaps Alexander II lives long enough to create a constitutional monarchy system). Does Russia have the power to smash into the Central Powers' eastern regions and force an earlier peace settlement? The Russians knew of their French allies' plans and that the Germans would have to divide their forces on two fronts, so this could have been exploited. How different could Eastern Europe have turned out?
You guys overestimating USA army influence, it is just hasten German defeat. Second factor that made Germany is backhome revolution. Also American lend-lease for Entente was more important than American army. So if no USA army on continent, then armistice would be provoked by fear of communist revolution like in Russia and Hungary. Would diminished role USA bring some compromised peace? Hell no. In Opposite USA counter balanced French and Italian ambitions. Without American voice in peace conference, Saar would be French, and Dalmatia would be Italian.
I support a part 2, showing the goals of other powers like Italy, Japan, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire, but also one that shows each nation's goals when it came to one another's colonies worldwide.
Italy wanted better defensive border - South Tyrol up to Brenner pass, and irredenta lands - Istria and Dalmatia (almost all Adriatic coast). But also they wanted Albanian port Vlore, protectorate over Albania and some Turkish land (Antalya region) plus share of colonies in Africa. Actually Italy did botch Greek efforts during Greco-turkish war. Japan wanted to just seize German colonies in Pacific and Asia. Bulgaria wanted to divide Serbia taking northern half of it, including whole Macedonia, but also they wanted Saloniki and Thrace so there was a room for bidding.
Ottomans just wanted the prevent the imminent collapse of the empire, because they were losing lands without even fighting. Maintaining the trade route in Asia, reconquest of Egypt, Libya and Greece, building a connection with the Turks of the Asia (most of them within the Russian Territory) was the main goal. Also ties with Germany would help them industrialize, and modernize the army faster.
I think it also would’ve been interesting to explain ottoman war aims. The British and the Italians had taken ottoman land a little before the war and so the ottomans, with help of the Germans, supported a bunch of various native groups within Northern Africa where the ottomans used to control (or share culture with) to rebel against their entente colonists. These large pockets of resistance gave the entente a big headache and I think is one of the most underrated aspects of the war that not many people talk about. Also something that is worthy of noting is that legally, Egypt was ottoman territory but had been occupied by Britain a few decades before the war though not officially part of the British empire. So basically, the ottomans strongly wanted to restore their African possessions during the war.
I just looked this up and they sought to "extend their influence into the Balkans, North Africa, Caucasus and Iran". That doesn't necessarily mean expansion and I don't think the Ottomans were in a state to be annexing new territories. Puppet governments seem more plausible with a likely war with Iran after WW1 to oil rich Khuzekstan but I am just speculating. Some of the Ottomans war aims overlapped with the central powers. "Influence in the balkans" is vague, but if that goes beyond supremacy over Greece and Bulgaria, then it overlaps with Austria and we already know Germans and Ottomans did fight each other in the Caucasus. Their war aims there definitely overlapped.
main reason ottomans joined war was that they wanted an ally against russia in the future (they needed protection against russia. they would except any ally, they tried to join with britian and france first but ottoman offer was not excepted due to russia). before joining the war they thought in case of a entente victory they believed other power would split ottoman territory whether ottomans was a beligerent or not.
Critical Race Theory should be embraced as a framework to develop laws and policies that can dismantle structural inequities and systemic racism. Building a more equitable future requires an examination of how the shameful history of slavery, caste, and systemic racism were foundational to laws and institutions that exist today.
Part 2 Here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-inUtzRHCbn0.html Edit: Reading through the comments, I understand some of you feel a bit duped by the initial title, and in hindsight I completely understand why, my apologies. I promise it wasn't intentional, more that I thought 'Each Nation' sounded less clunky that 'The War Aims of the 5 Great Powers in WW1'. Because the response to the video has been way more enthusiastic than I expected, I will do a part 2 to this that will look at Italy, the Ottomans, and the Balkans. Thank you for watching. I hope you enjoy this short video about the war aims of the 5 great powers in WW1. Apologies about the lack of uploads, I have had quite a heavy workload over the past few weeks, hence why this video is also less intensively edited compared to my previous output. I'll add a disclaimer here that these are only some of the war aims each nation had, mainly those I personally found most interesting. I've also avoided talking about colonies outside Mesopotamia for the sake of brevity, apologies to any Mittelafrika fans. Even so, I hope you find the video at least semi-interesting.
Would you consider covering the war aims of some of the smaller participants in the war? Namely countries like Bulgaria and Italy would be very interesting.
Margaret MacMillan's great book 'Paris 1919' noted the one ally that got everything and then some at Versailles was Romania. Subsequent events led to attempts to return to 1914 borders but, save for Moldov/Bessarabia, Romania has remained the same since 1920.
"a European economic union dominated by Germany as a market for German goods that excludes Britain" Sounds like France and Germany have a lot more in common than they realize, they only differentiate in who's on top
Honestly, the only true winner in this war was Romania, which got absolutely pounded after staying neutral for years and still managed its size worth of new territories, most of which it retains to the day.
Irony of history: France was the defeated victor of the First World War, Great Britain the defeated victor of the Second World War. In the end, Germany and Japan still made it.
Great video! I don't usually write these type of comments but I was very impressed by the quality of your work! I have many ancestors and family members who died in WW1 so it's always nice to show my respect to them by learning about the Great War.
Interesting to see how all of Britain's plans involved the independence and territorial integrity of Belgium, and all of Germany's plans involved domineering over a Belgian vassal state, another key point on why they wouldn't work together on an earlier peace
@@TheWoollyFrog I always thought Greek neutrality was a case of the anti-war King vs the pro-entente Prime Minister, and the entente landing in Thessaloniki without permission was because the Prime Minister thought Bulgaria was going to invade? I could be wrong though, and history is always more grey than we think
@@BennygoatHistory Yes, the country's population and parliament wanted to join the war to counter Bulgaria. However, their prime minister basically rebelled against the king and invited a foreign army without the consent of the nation's de jure leader. This wouldn't have been the case if the Entente respected Greek neutrality and didn't put pressure on the country to act before it had the means to do so. Therefore the defense of Belgian neutrality was more of a circumstantial war aim and a propaganda opportunity. There was no ideological drive from the Entente to respect the neutrality of small nations since they obviously didn't care about the neutrality of nations that stood in their way. Early in the war they were courting both Greece and Bulgaria at the same time with promises of each other's land.
And then 20 years later Germany took over all Belgium and French ports with ease, and it turned out that Belgium and its channel ports weren’t so important to Britain because Germany couldn’t invade them anyways 😂😂
An excellent and even-handed treatment of the war aims of the various powers. One thing to note is that by 1917 and 1918, access to Romanian and especially Ukrainian grain had become vital for Austria-Hungary, which had been facing perennial food shortages for nearly two years at that point due to devastation in Galicia and lowering agricultural productivity in the Hungarian half of the empire. Their other major war aim, which you didn't discuss, was to create a so-called 'strong Albania' under firm Austro-Hungarian protection in the Balkans, both to counter-balance Bulgaria and Greece, but also to ensure that it didn't fall under the sway of Italy and thus close off the Adriatic Sea
I'm excited for you to blow up like the other history RU-vidrs have. Your content is very interesting and informative while shown in a very professional manner
Just one correction (brilliant video btw), I actually ended up going into Russian archival material and painstakingly translating with web tools. Even Sazanov, the one supposedly in favor of progress for Poland, was not going to put forward any plans for an independent or even autonomous Poland. It was to remain governed by the Tsar.
I have a 130 years old French school book which clearly mentions that one day France will get the help of God to free Alsace and that it has to remain a goal for everyone. 8 years old kids
I think it would be interesting to go into how much the higher command of each nation lied both during, before and after the war about 'what the war was for'. Certainly, most individual accounts from generals read a great deal as 'um...Well, I thought we had a good reason or two.'
Yup, that wouldve been interesting. After all at least the leaders didnt really "want" to start the war at that point, no matter how ready and willing they were to fight otherwise. And neither predicted how horrible the war would actually go.
@@termitreter6545 well...I don't know about 'leaders'. The British didn't want a war, and the russians didn't really want a war. Everyone else seemed to be pretty gung ho about it. The French in general wanted revenge on Germany at least, and the French high command wanted to get some good press after decades of mess ups. Germany in general wanted to become Europe's top power, and the kaiser and military wanted to seriously mess up the Entente, especially Russia, before it got even more powerful. The Austrians...actually, they seemed to genuinely only want a limited war with Serbia but fortunately, their Military leader was a violent maniac who thought he could take Russia. Italy wanted Austria out of the balkans. The ottomans wanted the British and Russia as far away from them as possible... So yeah, most people in charge did want war, just not necessarily for the reasons they said (and they said a lot, pre, during and after that was nothing but lies about how good they thought their chances were, how close they were to winning, why they were even fighting etc). Still, it is a huge what if situation because Russia and the UK nearly didn't get involved (Russia didn't want to fully mobilise after the Austrian ultimatum, but had to if they were going to mobilise at all, and the British until the last possible moment were holding out for peace and really didn't want to get involved in a big land war anywhere)...
@@thebutterflycomposer7130 I'd say Tsar Nicholas II saw an opportunity in the war to unite the country behind him; after all, many dictators in rough times think a war will fix all their problems. Furthermore he wanted to finally establish Russia as a major european power, that was still the dream. And heck, while I agree about Brittain being the major power least at fault for the war, they still happily found reasons to fight for. What I ment though is that nobody actively wanted a war at this time, and this fashion and at this scale. They were almost forced: Austria almost had to invade Serbia after the assassination, and there had been support in Serbia for the assassins. Nicholas II couldnt politically accept to not intervene on Serbias behalf, because revolutionaries and nationalists were getting rowdy. The german empire had two problems; first they couldnt politically afford not to support Austro Hungary, and the offensive started only when the Kaiser was finally convinced the french/russian alliance (and at that point pretty much unavoidable war) was an existencial threat to the german state. At least thats my understanding of the situation. Nobody said "hell yeah, I wanna go to war right now". Except maybe the french, but they werent kicking off the conflict either.
@@termitreter6545 well the russians did have to defend Serbia, and couldn't mobilise partially due to inefficiency in their systems. It was full mobilisation or nothing. And of course, once one great power mobilises... Germany is a weird one. Specific to the Serbian question, the kaiser and his advisors thought the Serbs capitulated exceedingly Well to Austrian demands and thought a war was probably off the table when that happened. However, Austria was determined to go to war, both to get Serbia annexed and because they thought Germany was behind them 100% whatever they did. They were right...but Germany was probably not anticipating them acting like that. After all, they were allies with Austria because they literally had no one else to turn to after the kaiser pissed off everyone else in europe.
@@thebutterflycomposer7130 I think it might have not even made sense to partially mobilize for Russia. If they attacked Austria over Sebia, they know that Germany is likely to strike them, which will result in the alliance systems being triggered. Tbh Im not sure what exactly Nicholas assumption was, if he assumed the conflict would be contained. The bit about germany is almost funny; for versailles, the "blank check" was portrayed as an admittance that they were ready for a world war. In reality, the Kaiser went right to a vacation after sending that letter, because he didnt think anything would come of it. WW1 was trully a time full of world leaders that didnt understand what was happening.
Italian goals were really napoleonic, they claimed South Tyrol, whole Istria and whole Dalmatia with all islands in Adriatic, plus to Austrian part Italy claimed south of Anatolia (Turkey) , city of Vlore (Albania) and share of German colonies.
Such a well done video. It always breaks my heart a little, seeing those northern and eastern German territories go, especially when it's animated so well.
Although in 1914 GD Nikolai Nikolaievich promised polish autonomy, after the February Revolution, Georgy Lvov said that polish independence was inevitable, and aimed for the creation of a polish state to be a buffer.
Too Nice Video that Showed Interaction among Factors of 1- Expansions desires of Emperies fighter countries 2- Economic uprisings Request 3- Borders securities 4- military capabilities & wars out comes 5- Political & Economic competitions all these factors (may be More) created ,wagged & Finished WW1 ...thanks for sharing
I think you could have included the aims of the Alldeutscher Verband or similar proto fascist groups, because they had a quite big impact on German politics. Tirptitz was even part of one of their parties.
I thought about it, but the Germany section was already fairly bloated. Also, I didn't know if some of their more unsavoury (to put it mildly) plans for settlement of conquered territory in the East would bring down the iron hammer of age restrictions etc. on the video.
@@OldBritannia Yeah I can see that. But it would obviously be interesting to talk about the connections between these and later plans. It's also interesting that Germany had pre war at least in less radical circles not really big ambitions for European conquests. But then came the September program with the most ambitious of all war aims. Not even France natural borders came close.
@@ShadowDragon1848 as a war was seen as 'likely coming' by then, they may have just tgought "if we have to have a war, then it should pay out in the end"
@@m.claude5772 Hm that may be true for some people. But most of the groups in Germany who wanted massive territorial gains where motivated by their proto fascistic ideology.
@@ShadowDragon1848 To my understanding, the german leadership didnt really want a war, but mostly started their offensive because it was seen as unavoidable (since russia was about to attack austro hungray+mobilized france), and as a grave threat to the existence of the german state. Actually a bit surprised it didnt seem to get mentioned. And after it started, the megalomaniacs/nationalists probably automatically gained more influence? I guess it would be interesting to look at how official war goals changed over the course of the war. But also probably insanely complicated...
In the Russian Empire section you forgot to regard the 1914 Amber declaration by Lithuanian representatives in the Russian Empire who hoped Russia would annex Lithuania Minor and administratively join it with Lithuania, which would be granted a wide range of autonomy and basically become a state like Finland or Congress Poland before 1831.
I'd say what ACTUALLY happened to both Austria-Hungary and Turkey were far more "Carthaginian" a peace than Germany could ever have extracted from a defeated France, or even the real-life Morganthau plan for the deindustrialization of post-WW2 Germany that was only abandoned once the West realized they needed a Soviet-facing meatgrinder.
if you remember what happened at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, it's never a good idea to seek to completely destroy a strong country, with tens of millions of men and which can pose a threat by fielding a large army in no time. The objective is to seek peace and indemnities, not to provoke some war, so (in the not so probable scenario) if Germany had won, I don't think it would have been ridiculously harsh with France either
@@aa6dcc germany wanted 6 thing: 1)taking all france key industry in the north and the east near alsace to annex to germany and belgium at least 70% of french industrial capacity, 2) take at least half of it's colonial empire including all it's more wealthy colony and it's isle around the world 3) including france in a german dominated union to supress it's capacity to get financial investment without strict german approval 4) limitation of it's army to 200.000 men and no aviation 5) same amount of money as for the 1871 treaty to help skyrocket german economy 6) at least half of french navy had to be handed to germany or sunk Not exactly what i call a fair treaty, and it would have been for france alone
@@TheGirard62 you do realise the amount of money in 1871 is the same as the fee Napoleon imposed on Prussia following its declaration of war and swift defeat against France? I struggle to accept it, but it's "fair" I suppose. Territory-wise, Germany wasn't planning on occupying more than the German-speaking regions (or close to them): go too deep into France and they'll meet resistance and hostility, which was to be avoided. Number 2 is fair, Germany lost its colonial empire too and the French colonies weren't goldmines like the English or Spanish ones I suppose. The number 3 is pretty much the EU anyway no? 😂 It's a harsh treaty but not something ridiculous like "wipe out this region", "partition France into 10 different autonomous regions" or something like that
@@aa6dcc one tiny problem: "Germany wasn't planning on occupying more than the German-speaking regions (or close to them)" yeah, except those region represented more than 70% of france industrial capacity, even germany had it's silesian industrial provinces preserved while it's rhinenland one was occupied due to voluntary default of payment from german government... it was a voluntary try to erase france industrial capacity (northern france would have been annexed by german puppet belgium aswell despite being not neighbooring of german territory because of that) for 2) i don't say it's fair or not i just expose a part of germany exigences 3)the EU is faaaaar from what would have been this economical union, it would have been closer to a economical colonization ruling system over country like romania, poland or france allowing germany to completly controll both the currency and the economical policy of the country, closer to Banana republic than to the EU (but still different) 4) you don't talked about the army part so no need to talk about it 5)actually, it was way way more than what the prussian paid to napoleon, prussia paid a year of their budget to napoleon and the country was way less fortunate than france at the same time, let alone france in 1870. Germany asked in 1870 for 5 billion of repear, 15 year of budget after an extremly short war, not exactly being fair 6)you havn't talked about the navy part so no need to talk about it france wanted more equilibrium between france and germany, and eventually a stronger france than germany if possible (the country was both less industrialised and less populated so even france official knew they had to aim to at least equilize both power) while germany wanted to take both the rank of continental power of france and the rank of diplomatic and economical powerhouse of the world from britain, they wanted an hegemony, so not very fair to say that it was not more extreme than versaille treaty Actually i think the best would have obviously been a fairer treaty in 1916 where both allied and entente country made concession because WW1 is the tomb of european prodigy, and the continent suffered a lot from the two world war, but i'lm tired of kaiserweaboo spending their time defending the "glorious german reich" i don't think this the case for you, as you seem to know quite well the subject, however, i became quite annoyed by this so i tend to keep a more sdefensive stance on the subject: there was no "better side" sthan the other
@@TheGirard62 I didn't mention the navy and airforce because it was part of a strategy of military weakening, wanted by both sides, so I didn't have much to comment on I suppose. I agree, France's industrial regions were in the Germanophone regions (I would say the North and Lyon were also very productive). For the EU it was a joke don't worry, it's just we often see Germany as the master of Europe who passes laws and makes treaties with us regardless of whether it suits our interests (often it isn't: they're making neighbouring economies weaker in certain domains and ecologically I don't think they should be lecturing others but anyway...). Regarding the debt, if I recall correctly, Bismarck made France pay the same price per person as what Napoleon inflicted on Prussia. I should have been more explicit. The First French Empire was very large and wealthy, the Second One had less people, and despite greatly improving France's economy and allowing it to jump on the Industrial Revolution, it wasn't as wealthy as Napoleon I's Empire. That's why proportionally it felt higher. France didn't want an equilibrium as much as its allies wanted it. France wanted to militarily and symbolically annihilate Germany, but its allies wanted to maintain a balance of power, by not allowing France to dominate Europe. Versailles was not too harsh in my opinion, it was too soft, or at least it wasn't enforced: the Germans only ended up paying 12% of what was due, re-militarized and the Western powers were way too tolerant. Many French generals (and Poincare) wanted to reject the armistice, invade Germany and only accept peace once Germany had been completely and utterly destroyed militarily. I agree with you on the overwhelming majority of what you said (I had no idea those were the terms Germany had planned, thanks for pointing it out by the way), and I think we can all agree WW1 was a massive mistake, in which cultural brothers (Europeans) killed each other in the millions for no significant gain... Edit: I am definitely not a Kaiserweeaboo, I'm French! 😂I can see why you thought I was German, because I said they wouldn't have been too harsh with France, but I genuinely think it's also because Germany didn't have the will, money or manpower to try and destroy France via a harsh armistice, that's why they didn't want it to be insanely harsh. It just wasn't in their interest to humiliate France to the extent it would lead to another immediate war, which, realistically, no one wanted.
Austria-Hungary never wanted to annex Serbia because for Hungarian support in the war Hungary made Austria promise that they would not annex the country but rather halt once they got past Belgrade, In fact this plan was so reasonable that in the days prior to the war Britain even backed up and liked the idea
@@hatefulgaming1800 The demand was that Austrian investigators be allowed to participate in the investigation and pursuit of the assassins of their archduke in Serbia. It's not that outrageous. Not more than assassinating another country's heir anyway.
I wrote a paper on what the Central Powers wanted from the war in my Great War class, always fun to hear more people saying similar things. Not because it means I was right, but it means I didn't mess up!
Fun thing that’s not talked about enough is how important the British naval supremacy was in ww1. If the British navy hadn’t been able to blockade the central powers so easily then the war would have been more balanced. With the exception of a couple minor naval engagements the central powers navies and entant navies never really fought battles.
@@lesdodoclips3915 "The German Board of Public Health in December 1918 claimed that 763,000 German civilians had already died from starvation and disease, caused by the blockade.[4][5] An academic study done in 1928 put the death toll at 424,000.[1] An additional 100,000 people may have died during the post-armistice continuation of the blockade in 1919" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_Germany)...so post armistice victims are "only" 100.000. It was a crime against laws of humanity.
@@minimax9452 so… you own source doesn’t even support your claim. No, a blockade isn’t a crime against humanity. They are completely within the rules of war, and had been for hundreds of years.
As a Russian i think that anti-german entente was the biggest mistake of Russian foreign policy, we should ve pushed for germany alliance and anti britain policy, brits really did everything to not make Russia strong for whole pre ww2 history.
I don't think that germany would have liked that Alliance. The France didn't like Germany for the same reason Germany didn't like Russia. They were both scared. France Was scared how germany came out of nowhere and beat the shit out of them and Germany was scared, that if Russia Industrialized like the Rest of Europe they would be unstoppable. Which you can See in the Peace treaty, Germany tried to cripple Russia and France tried to cripple Germany
@@onlyagermanguy WIlhelm II was very fond of the alliance and even tried to maintain it with the treaty of Björkö, I think. However, the Russians didn't want and rather joined the Entente, because of differences with Austria I think.
The Entente was an anti-British and anti-German alliance. Russia even entered into a secret military alliance with Japan in 1916 to carve up China and defend against Britain.
It was a great video, too bad three important players were left out of the equation: Italy, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria. All three of them had territorial aims of their own that would have upset the postwar balance of power in Europe.
Very interesting, I wonder what would’ve happened if the negotiated peace had happened and the war had ended by Christmas. Also, what did you use to make the maps?
Negotiated peace was a fantasy. Cultures cannot be that easily averted in their behaviors. It is like saying an alcoholic can just drink a little bit less.
Great work: Good maps, excellent commentary etc. ...I would enjoy it more if you could breathe occasionally - say, at the end of each sentence. (I'm not as smart as you - I need to process each thought before the next one arrives clinging to its back.) Thank you. Regards.
As a luxembourger i can only tell you that germany wanted to annex my country after a ww1 victory, while france and belgium wanted to do the exact same thing in 1919. it is a wonder we remained independent, and i guess it is also the reason why the two most hated nations in luxembourg are traditionally germany and france. (Which is ironic since some consider luxembourg to be an exact mix of both cultures 😅)
@@krustenkaese3905 haha nichts für ungut! Ich persönlich mag deutsche und franzosen. Ist wohl eher die angst irgendwann geschluckt zu werden von euch Grossen.
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British objectives were to destroy the German commercial maritime power that caused them to lose much of the immigration trade. The first time my oldest grandfather came from Italy he traveled to England and sailed from there around 1900 The Next multiple crossing around 1905 were on German ships sailing from either. Le Harve or Bremen . Depending on origin. In the Early 1920 Germans shipping is dead.
Apologies, it focused on the great powers, which of course Bulgaria was not. I will hopefully do a follow up video at some point on minor powers' war aims.
It s both. Austria just took from Ottomans what was Serbian, and Serbs ordered assassination of Franz Ferdinand. But there were many assassinations previously...
When you do România, the main objective was simple: Unification of all Romanians. This was getting Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transylvania. Transylvania's borders in 1914 had traditionally been the ones the Hungarian province had, but the Romanian definition went beyond, and was not definite. The most accurate aims would be the ones said in the Treaty of Bucharest Treaty of 1916, with all Transylvania proper, all Banat, a bigger Crișana under a well described line (crucially including the city if Bekescaba, i don't know the Hungarian name exactly but its Bichișciaba in Romanian) and parts of Maramureș. But please notice that Maramureș later was fully claimed, it was regarded as an ancient Romanian region, search about the voivodeship of Maramureș to know what i mean. Negotiations with czechoslovakia posteriorly made Romania settle down And also consider the Aromanians. They sent a delegation to the Paris peace conference demanding an independent state which Romania supported. The Aromanians are another balkan romance nation, which the Romanian government then regarded as just more ethnic Romanians
The main objective was simple: to conquer everything they can with the smallest effort. The "unification" of Romanians in one country could've been done by simply encouraging Romanians to move to their homeland, like Israel does. But obviously this was not the ambition there. Just to occupy as much land from its neighbours as they can.
@@Hawk-Tuah-on-that-thang sorry but why should the people who have lived there for over a millenia have to move somewhere else and leave the lands of their ancestors to their oppressors? Why should anyone accept that?
@@9_9876 Where they were living over a millenia? Romanians weren't living even in Wallachia over a millenia. There are literally no Romanian localities in Dobrudza, Bukovina, Transylvania, Partium, Maramaros, Banat. Not even a single one. What kind of oppression we are talking about? If there was oppression in these territories, why they did not flee? Actually the opposite, the Romanian population was in a constant increase. What a pathetic excuse for an aggression. Even Putin's explanation is more credible.
this is one of the most interesting topic to me because i watch a lot of al history channels here on youtube who have covered it very topic in there "what if germnay won" videos and i have to say it very interesting to learn all of the country aims as well really get me thinking man and considering that fact they every country had there own goals and they most of the time over lapped with other country it is interesting to see that you it give you a look of the time batter
Hollweg's plans were maybe the sanest -- for any imperialist dreaming of victory, which admittedly doesn't mean all that much. I realise he planned the independent states to the east as a buffer and safety zone which might eventually succumb economically to Germany's influence. However, it would *still* have been a much better position for those states than what was actually achieved, especially if you consider the lingering tension in east Europe. At least this way, Germany wouldn't have felt it needed to dominate eastern Europe militarily, and the Poles and Lithuanians might have considered Germany a guarantor of their independence. Granted, annexing Luxembourg didn't really make much sense anymore, but then again, the Luxembourg crisis wasn't that far gone back then, and the German public *did* consider Luxembourg to be German, at least at the end of the 19th century. All in all, very interesting.
Kinda feel bad for the Austro-Hungarian empire though, even if you removed the assassination of their emperor as a reason. Their main aim was to preserve their empire in which were being threatened by the Serbians, although the Serbians may be right in wanting to free their countrymen from Austria-Hungary. This war should have been only a war between them and Austria-Hungary and not a full blown world war. Makes you wonder what the Russians were thinking about and how it made sense to them, to join a war that ended up as a world war.
Why Russia acted this way had very strong reasons, in the same way how it was only logical for Austro Hungary to declare war to Serbia. The russian Tsar had styled himself as the protector of the slavic people, especially Serbia. This put the Tsars reputation on the line, and thats why he was going to fight Austro Hungary over it. As the video says, it was somewhat hard to sell, but to Nicholas II, it was vital to his future. Of course, normally it wouldnt have been too big of a problem, but Russia was at the eve of a revolution. Generations of incapability to deal with the fallout of the industrialization and (proto-)capitalism had weakened the Tsars position. Nicholas lived in a fantasy world, but he did somewhat understand the fallout of his disastrous russio-japanese war, as well as the following 1905 revolution. Not enough to fix the underlying issues, but enough to feel like it wouldve been suicidal to not support Serbia. At that point not just the Socialists, but also the Nationalists would have rebelled. (if you care more, I would recommend the "revolutions" podcast about the russian revolution, its a quite extensive retelling of russian history leading to the 1917 revolutions) Thats kinda the fascinating part about the war. Most powers had lots of goals if there would a war happen, but at the same time nobody really wanted a war like this, they felt pushed into it. IMO thats true of Austro Hungary, Russia and even the german Empire. And after the start of the war things just went out of hand (see eg the crazy evolution of german war goals).
Do you think Britan should have tried to further strengthen France and Belgium, against Germany as Russia could no longer be used as counterbalance to German strength? Expanding Belgium and to a lesser extent France to the river Rhine would have made the combined strength of France and Belgium more equal to that of Germany on land. Giving Poland all of east Prussia would make it more viable economically and thus more able to rebuff both German and Soviet expansion. A stronger Poland might have also been able to possibly create a defensive alliance with the Baltic states to prevent the craving up of the east between Germany and the Soviet Union that happened in our timeline. The main flaw of the post war treaties was that Germany was humiliated but not weekend to the point that they no longer had a chance of attaining continental hegemony. The allies also underestimated how flexible Soviet diplomacy could be and foolishly disregarded the idea that Germany and the Soviet Union could have a short alliance of common interest.
While I agree with you. I think that the dividing Germany, with the creation of a "greater" Bavarian state as well as an Prussian state would have been better than annexing lands. Prussian and Bavaria had their own identities inside Germany so it would have been acceptable for the German people. While being annexing by a foreign power is another story. Look at how French Saar occupation traumatized Germans. For the humiliation part. I think that German would had fell that way anyway. Losing a war in a militaristic oriented power is also a trauma.
I don't think adding Prussia to Poland would be smart, it would just create a larger Germany minority in Poland that might cause problems and weaken instead of strenghten Poland and German liberation of these territories would only be more justified. Honestly I don't know if there was really a way for Germany to be weakened except maybe total partition between the neighbours, but this could just create other big problems. And dividing up Germany also doesn't seem feasible to me, afterall there was a reason they joined together in the first place and likely this would just happen again.
Neither Italy or Turkey are traditionally considered major powers in the 1870-1914 concert of Europe. Even so, the parameter for this video was mainly if the great power joined at the beginning of the conflict.
@@DavideKuras It really depends, there are some historians I've seen that consider it one in this period. But the general consensus seems to be it was always just on the edge. Either way not hugely important to this discussion, Italy will be in part 2.
It is especially the general superficiality of historical mapping of comparable videos that the overall accuracy of the maps is quite laudable. This is not to say that there are no significant errors. The worst offender is drawing the Rumanian frontier with Bulgaria in 1916 as if same as currently (or up until 1913). Rumania in fact annexed Southern Dobrudja in 1913 so it should have been shown as part of Rumania. When showing the 1918 Bucharest treaty losses of Rumania these are presented only in the western side of that country, overlooking the Central Powers' joint annexation of Northern Dobrudja (apart from Bulgaria's then regaining Southern Dobrudja). Towards the end the Middle Eastern British possessions are most oddly represented at what is modern Jordan as if the eastern frontier was a line created in 1967 by a Jordan-Saudi Arabian agreement. Again though as with all that the maps here are of a better class than those in most comparable videos they - and Old Britannia - need to be praised.
@@billbobagoda4389 italy was a major power in ww1 as well. Its war aims not being met in the slightest is also why Mussolini rose and they joined hitler in ww2…it’s kind of important
@@Smithy1991 I don't think you understood me. It doesn't matter if Italy features in this video because it'll be in the next one. I thought that was obvious.
"Russia was a nation that was in an almost perpetual crisis of self confidence over what the war was actually being fought for" gee good thing they've stopped doing that
9:45 It's funny how we talk about turning countries into economic puppets in history. NATO and the EU could be characterized as the same thing by historians in the future. It really makes you think, especially as someone who lives in the balkans.
Brest-Litovsk is basically Russia's border today, and they themselves drew it. German demands seem large on the world map but compared to Russia's entire size, it's minuscule. Germany on the other hand was striped of all its colonies, lost German ancestral territory and would have lost more if the Danes didn't resist French/British demands that they take a huge chunk of North Germany. But what really made Versailles a Carthaginian peace was restricting the Germany military in every possible way where it would be a miracle to even win against Belgium invading it.
Most of the land that Russia lost with Brest-Litovsk was much more industrialized and important than the large undeveloped swaths of Siberia and Central Asia that makes up most of Russia. Yeah they had land to spare but it wasn’t as important. Also the Germans didn’t lose a whole lot of ancestral land with Versailles, most of the territory they did lose was populated by other ethnicities, Poles, Danes, French, etc. After Ww2 was when they really lost, losing Silesia, Pomerania, and East Prussia which makes the Versailles territory losses look minuscule in comparison
Don't forget that Germany had demands in their colonies, such as Mittelafrika, and the territories in the west they seeked to annex were crucial to France's industrial output and thus future ability to wage war.
@@benjaminbyrnison4882 The lands Russia would have lost through Brest-Litovsk were also lands populated by other ethnicities that the Russians conquered and it was predominantly farmland. The Germans also got an exclave which economically crippler the Danzig region and East Prussia. If the Versailles treaty was the peace of the second Punic war, then the end of WW2 was close to the peace of the third Punic war. The only reason Germans evaded the same fate is that both the USSR and the West decided to use them as meatshields against each other.
@@jevinliu4658 The only thing French colonies were is a net drain on their finances. Germany, Britain and France flourished after not needing to defend and develop them.
@@Cyricist001 Absolutely. However, they still benefitted industrial interests, the empires brought a lot of prestige and self-confidence, and the balance sheet problem only started coming to central stage in the 40s and 50s, thanks to their difficult finances post-WWII.
