World War One: What Were They Thinking? Lessons From the Catastrophe 

"We were an isolationist nation and we evolved." No. We DEVOLVED into the empire the founders never intended us to be.

In a cablegram sent from Europe on May 29, 1914, President Wilson's chief adviser Colonel House predicted the war. He said, "Whenever England consents, France and Russia will close in on Germany and Austria." That is what happened. Russia arranged the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand, which was done by a Serbian terrorist organization, and in the subsequent crisis France and Russia mobilized their forces knowing this would trigger Germany's defensive plan. To cover up the conspiracy, another assassination occurred in Paris. All this is documented in my book "Twelve American Wars."

+Eugene, is a copy of that telegram available online?

For German history also read Europe -The Struggle for supremacy by Brendan Simms

I can't watch this . The audio level is all over the place.

On the point at the end about “Russia has its own blank check from France and mobilized long before Berlin” , yes but the Russians didn’t declare war. The actual declaring of war between two great powers is the critical thing in why most people blame Germany the most.

At the end of the presentation the lady makes an error when she says no one foresaw the devastation that the new war would produce. There was one such person - De Gaulle, he wrote a book about it and warned that the next war would be very bloody because of the new advances in armaments.

they fought because they all thought they could deter others, and they couldn't

Woodrow Wilson was a randy old goat it seems,he certainly didn't look it.

Complacency, a lack of awareness that it could all go to hell, fat, dumb, happy, armed to the teeth, with no thought that we had outgrown war if we went full on, the individuals made a bigger mistake. They had no allowance in their countries for backing up and reversing course. All human events can be interrupted. every day before and during the war, the same people who decided yes could decide no. Peace can break out just as suddenly. That missed opportunity is the big lesson then and now. The problem is human nature. It is not fixed. Gorbachev just today said the world is arming for war, talking strategic first use of nuclear weapons, drawing red lines and talking smack. His point: Putin and Trump control 90% of the world's nukes and need to sit down and talk turkey. We need heads of state to pull back on deploying conventional weapons from borders and get busy working on peace, realizing how no national goals will be realized by war again. That is the lesson of The Great War to me.

WWII synopsis in the near future?

The fact that 65 million men could join the military and have a world war, just because some idiot shot someone in the Balkans shows how fragile the world is.

Unbearable introduction:

Ok