World War Zero: 3 Conflicts That Foreshadowed WW1 (Full Documentary) 

If you want to know about another important war that set the stage for WW1, check out our Franco-Prussian War documentary: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-vWZz-lHCu-M.htmlsi=GfrdJgJwnVKWlAjg

If you count the Italo-Turkish war, Balkan wars, World War 1 and Greco-Turkish war all together, Ottomans were at war continuously for 12 years. I'm not surprised Turkey tried to avoid World War 2 no matter the cost.

You did a real kindness to the Baltic Fleet by understating how disasterous their trip to Tsushima was. Theirs is a roller coaster story all on its own.

“On the news that the Tsar had sent the troops icons to boost their morals, General Dragomirov quipped: 'The Japanese are beating us with machine-guns, but never mind: we'll beat them with icons.” ― Orlando Figes,

I have seen a Polish newspaper from early 1914 with a brief note about the Second Balkan War (accompanied by an image of a firing cannon). The author wrote how destructive it was, but stated that such a conflict would be impossible in our part of Europe.

My great-grandfather was from Macedonia, back when it was considered a geographical term, not an ethno-nationalistic one. He was born in a small village deep within the borders of the modern day North Macedonian state, whose majority population - like him - considered themselves to be Bulgarians, as evident by the Ottoman ethnographic and ethno-religious maps of the period. It's where the poet Peyo Yavorov that you mentioned fought with his irregulars - to help bring Macedonia back into the homeland. He's my favorite poet, by the way, and I purposefully bought a home close to his old house in Sofia. He, my great-grandfather, had gone away to study in Austria when the First Balkan War broke out. Immediately, he dropped his studies, came to Sofia and volunteered for the Bulgarian army. He got sent to a fast-track officer school and then spent the next 6 years on the front in Thrace and then in Macedonia. I still have his bayonet, binoculars and the Turkish ceremonial sword that he personally received from a Turkish officer that surrendered to him near Odrin (Edirne) after a flanking attack that captured a key Turkish position, opening up the North-East sector of the defense line for the rest of General Vazov's formations to start pouring into the city. Unfortunately, due to petty squabbles with Greece over Salonika and the vicinity, which was never populated with a Bulgarian majority anyway, just like most coastal areas in Thrace, we lost all of Macedonia to the Greeks and Serbs, with hundreds of thousands fleeing the lands they'd been living in for a thousand years, and hundreds of thousands more remaining to be "serbified" and then "macedonified" over the next decades. Anyway, though we Bulgarians are still bitter over all of this and the way it turned out with the North Macedonian "nation" and all, and will probably be bitter about it for generations to come, thankfully, we live in the big European family and I sincerely hope these territorial wars are behind us, at least in the Balkans. Many "Macedonians" now have Bulgarian citizenship (we recognize all of them as having Bulgarian ancestry). The only real shame is that they keep trying to rewrite recent history, claiming people such as Yavorov, Dame Gruev, Gotze Delchev and other IMRO leaders and activists were "Macedonian", even though they publicly and repeatedly identified as Bulgarians during their lives and always talked about the "Macedonian cause" in terms of unification wit the Bulgarian homeland. Thanks for the great and objective documentary. I love your channel and have been following it since the Indy days and I'm glad to see it flourish way after WWI week by week ended, together with your great efforts on Real Time History. Cheers and peace to all :)

For everyone wondering: the title says 3 Conflicts that Foreshadowed WW1, not ALL conflicts that foreshadowed it. ;)

For anyone who heard about the Baltic Fleet's arrival in poor condition and such and wants to know more, there's a couple of really well done videos on that voyage. I particularly enjoy Drachinifel's one. Long story short, calling it a naval fleet is almost absurd, the crews were that bad. The commander's propensity to getting so mad at this poor performance that he threw his binoculars at them with some regularity (to the point where his crew knew to keep the ship extremely well supplied with replacements) just adds to the absurdity, it's an absolutely astounding story of naval incompetence.

I was in a California ghost town, Bodie, a few yrs ago. There was an issue of a latev1800's newspaper in a museum there. An article actually predicted that the machine gun and cannons would lead to a great loss of life with a war originating in the Balkans!

Theee of my favorite videos all in one. Thanks! This mini series of pre-WW1 documentaries were all excellent

I think there’s been several conflicts that could be argued to be considered as “world war 0’s” throughout history, because despite The Great War being called World War 1, there’s actually been multiple wars before that could be arguably labeled as world wars.

Really, it was a remarkable episode..full of historical values ,super informative episode about previous years before WW1. How modernized youth empires flexed 💪 their's muscles and old empires accepted humbled compromise during peaceful negotiations...(the greatwar) channel, you are a great one 👍🏻

A timeline from 1900 to 1914 when WWI started: 1901 January 1: The Australian colonies federate. Dervish War with Mad Mullah in Somali has started, will not end until post WWI. January 22: Edward VII becomes King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India upon the death of Queen Victoria. March 2: Platt Amendment limits the autonomy of Cuba in exchange for withdrawal of American troops. June: Emily Hobhouse reports on the terrible conditions in the 45 British concentration camps for Boer women and children in South Africa during the 2nd British-Boer war. September 6: Assassination of William McKinley. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt assumes office as President of the United States following McKinley's assassination on September 14. September 7: Boxer Rebellion defeated by international coalition. They impose heavy financial sanctions on China. December 12: Guglielmo Marconi receives the first trans-Atlantic radio signal. First Nobel Prizes awarded. 1902 January 13: Unification War of Saudi Arabia begins, will not end until post WWI. May 20: Cuba given independence by the United States. May 31: Second Boer War ends in British victory. July 12: Arthur Balfour becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. July 17: Willis Carrier invents the first modern electrical air conditioning unit. Venezuela Crisis, in which Britain, Germany and Italy impose a naval blockade on Venezuela in order to enforce collection of outstanding financial claims. 1903 February 15: The first teddy bear is invented. June 11: Pro-Austrian King Alexander I of Serbia and his wife Queen Draga, and all family including children are brutally assassinated in a military coup. An Anti-Austria pro-Russian King is put in. July 1: The first Tour de France is held. July - August: In Russia the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks form from the breakup of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. August 4: Pius X becomes Pope. November 18: Independence of Panama, the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty is signed by the United States and Panama. USA can build the Panama Canal. December 17: First controlled heavier-than-air flight of the Wright Brothers. The Ottoman Empire and the German Empire sign an agreement to build the Constantinople-Baghdad Railway. 1904 February 8: A Japanese surprise attack on Port Arthur (Lushun) starts the Russo-Japanese War. April 8: Entente cordiale signed between Britain and France. May: U.S. begins construction of the Panama Canal and eradication of yellow fever. June 21: Trans-Siberian railway is completed. Herero and Namaqua Genocide, the first genocide of the 20th century, begins in German South-West Africa. Roger Casement publishes his account of Belgian atrocities in the Congo Free State. 1905 January 22: The Revolution of 1905 in Russia erupts. March: The First Moroccan Crisis begins between Germany and France, going until May 1906. June 7: The Norwegian Parliament declares the union with Sweden dissolved, and Norway achieves full independence. September 5: The Russo-Japanese War ends in Japanese victory. September 26: Albert Einstein's formulation of special relativity. October 16: The British Indian Province of Bengal, partitioned by the Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, despite strong opposition. December 5: Liberal Henry Campbell-Bannerman becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Secret Schlieffen Plan proposed in Berlin to defeat France. The Persian Constitutional Revolution begins. 1906 April 18: An earthquake in San Francisco, California, magnitude 7.9, kills 3,000. July 13: Alfred Dreyfus is exonerated and reinstated as a major in the French Army; the Dreyfus Affair ends. August 16: An earthquake in Valparaíso, Chile, magnitude 8.2, kills 20,000. September 28: The US begins the Second Occupation of Cuba. October 23: Brazilian inventor Alberto Santos-Dumont takes off and flies his 14-bis plane to a crowd in Paris. December 30: The Muslim League is formed by Nawab Salimullah Khan of Dacca. The Stolypin reform in Russia creates a new class of affluent kulaks. 1907 February - April: A peasants' revolt in Romania kills roughly 11,000. March 15 - 16: Elections to the new Parliament of Finland are the first in the world with woman candidates, as well as the first elections in Europe where universal suffrage is applied. July 24: Japan-Korea Treaty of 1907. Korea is forced become a protectorate. The Indian National Congress splits into two factions at its Surat session, presided by Rash Behari Bose. Persian Constitutional Revolution ends with the establishment of a parliament. The Anglo-Russian Entente bring an end to The Great Game in Central Asia. Bakelite, the world's first fully synthetic plastic, invented in New York by Leo Baekeland, who coins the term "plastics". 1908 April 8: Liberal H. H. Asquith becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. May 26: First commercial Middle-Eastern oilfield established, at Masjed Soleyman in southwest Persia. June 30: The Tunguska asteroid impact devastates thousands of square kilometres of Siberia. July: Young Turk Revolution in the Ottoman Empire. July 26: Founding of the Bureau of Investigation (BOI) October 1: The Ford Motor Company invents the Model T. early October: Austria-Hungary annexes Bosnia-Herzegovina, triggering the Bosnian Crisis. Serbia tries to reverse it with terrorism. October 5: Independence of Bulgaria from Ottoman Empire which does not fight, due to chaos Young Turk Revolution . December 2: Pu Yi, the last Emperor of China, assumes the throne. December 28: The 1908 Messina earthquake in southern Italy, magnitude 7.1, kills 70,000 people. Herero and Namaqua Genocide by Germany in E Africa ends. First commercial radio transmissions. The coldest year since 1880 according to NASA. 1909 March 4: William Howard Taft is inaugurated as President of the United States; deep divisions in his Republican Party over tariffs. March 10: Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909 signed (effective on July 9). Thailand loses land in Malaya. March 12: Indian Councils Act passed. April 6: Robert E. Peary claims to have reached the North Pole though the claim is subsequently heavily contested. April 13: A counter-coup fails in the Ottoman Empire. July 16: A revolution forces Mohammad Ali Shah, Persian Shah of the Qajar dynasty to abdicate in favor of his son Ahmad Shah Qajar. Japan and China sign the Jiandao/Gando Treaty. United States troops leave Cuba. 1910 February 8: Boy Scouts of America is founded. April: Halley's Comet returns. May - July: Albanian Revolt of 1910 lose vs Ottoman Empire. Rebels were supported by the Kingdom of Serbia. May 6: George V becomes King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India upon the death of Edward VII. May 31: Union of South Africa created. August 28: Kingdom of Montenegro is proclaimed independent. August 29: Imperial Japan annexes Korea. October 5: The 5 October 1910 revolution in Portugal vs King and proclamation of the First Portuguese Republic. November 20: Beginning of the Mexican Revolution (Plan of San Luis Potosí). 1911 January 18: Eugene B. Ely lands on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania stationed in San Francisco harbor, marking the first time an aircraft lands on a ship. March 25: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City results in the deaths of 146 workers and leads to sweeping workplace safety reforms. April - November: Agadir Crisis between Germany and France over Morocco. September 29: The Italo-Turkish war which led to the capture of Libya coast cities by Italy, begins. Libya internally is under control of Sensusi tribes. October 10: Xinhai Revolution, which overthrew the Qing dynasty of China, begins. November 3: Swiss race car driver and automotive engineer Louis Chevrolet co-founds the Chevrolet Motor Company in Detroit with his brother Arthur Chevrolet, William C. Durant and others. December 12: New Delhi becomes the capital of British India. December 14: Roald Amundsen first reaches the South Pole. Ernest Rutherford identifies the atomic nucleus. 1912 February 8: The African National Congress is founded. February 12: End of the Chinese Empire. Republic of China established. Yuan Shikai soon asked to be President. February 14: Arizona becomes the last state to be admitted to the continental Union. March: Captain Scott and his companions die in a blizzard on their way back from the South Pole. March 30: Morocco becomes a protectorate of France. April 15: Sinking of the RMS Titanic. May : Italians capture Rhodes Island from Ottomans. July 30: Emperor Meiji dies, ending the Meiji Era; his son, the Emperor Taishō, becomes Emperor of Japan. August 25: The Kuomintang, the Chinese nationalist party, is founded. October 8: The First Balkan War begins due to Italian invitation of Montenegro. Next day the Italo-Turkish war ends. Banana Wars: United States occupation of Nicaragua begins. 1913 January 23: In the 1913 Ottoman coup d'état, Ismail Enver comes to power. February 9 - 19: La Decena Trágica in Mexico City. Mexican Revolution continues until post WWI. March 4: Woodrow Wilson is inaugurated as President of the United States. May : The First Balkan War ends. Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria are dissatisfied with results. May 29: Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring infamously premiers in Paris. May 30: Treaty of London. June - August: Second Balkan War. Bulgaria tries to get land, but fails as Greece, Serbia, Romania and Turkey win. August 10: Treaty of Bucharest. October 7: Ford Motor Company introduces the first moving assembly line. December 23: The Federal Reserve System is created. Yuan Shikai uses military force to dissolve China's parliament and rules as a dictator. Niels Bohr formulates the first cohesive model of the atomic nucleus, and in the process paves the way to quantum mechanics. 1914 June 28: Gavrilo Princip, Serbian trained terrorist, assassinates Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo, triggering the start of World War I.

I like how much effort you put into right pronunciation of foreign words and right stress in them. Also like your English very much. It's just great. I've been deep into English media for years now but still havent encountered so much new interesting expressions that I assume are found in English literature. Thank you for your videos and for your keeping an eye on pronounciation. Best wishes!

The parallels between the Russo-Japanese War and the beginning of Japan's war with America are striking...

The Mauser Model 1893 was also used by the Spanish Army. The soldiers nicknamed it "Mosquetón" (Big Musket) due to its large size, but despite of the bulkiness it was extremely reliable and accurate. It was used until the WW1 years, in which it was replaced by a modified version, the Mauser C93/16, with a shorter barrel but still as reliable as the original. That new version was known by subvariant names after the locations of the Spanish factories that produced them under license, namely the military arsenals at Oviedo (Mauser Oviedo) and Coruña (Mauser Coruña). The C93/16 was kept until the 1950s, when it was replaced by the CETME series of assault rifles.

This was one of the best videos you've ever done .Kudos to you. Keep up the great work.

Hands down the greatest history channel on RU-vid! Much love to you guys!

Your videos are fantastic. Attention to detail is unparalleled

Very informative AND entertaining documentaries. Thank you!

Fantastic presentation a usual Jessie. Great job!

Well done thank you. Happy Thanksgiving

Anyone who enjoys this will also enjoy Real Time History. Thank you to the creators! Really great.

Hi Jesse, Nice to see your Episode after a long time :)

Some neo-Ottomanists blame the Young Turks for the fall of the Ottomans, but it is not a factual assertion. The decline of the Ottoman Empire was inevitable and would have occurred sooner or later. Various powers took advantage of their vulnerabilities. The end became apparent, particularly with the discovery of oil in their land.

👏 👏 thanks for the full WW0 doc

The idea was to make borders and nations more complicated to theoretically make it harder to go to war in the future, really highlights the benefits of Occam's Razor.

I always find the original testimonies and photos so amazing, great video

I love how that line comes up in Wheel of time: "Duty is heavier than a mountain, death is lighter than a feather."

I love your channel and your style of video.

Very enlightening. Thank you!

thank you. All these WW0 videos in one! Are you including them in your complete list?

Great video.

Your videos are very important and informative thank you also for the algorithm.

Excellent reporting/lesson in history

Thank you for the video. It was amazing to see how technology and tactics played a major role in early campaigns.

Great Video 👍🏻

another great documentary👌

Absolutely amazing. Where can we get the soundtrack

Great stuff!

I read the title and I just remembered that I watched a video on the Russo-Japanese War. On this channel. I still find the topic interesting to learn.

Nicely done long video

"Reinforcements are on the way" Sweet, when will they arrive? "....8 months"

Thank you!

Brilliant thanks 👍🏻

the term "world war 0" is a disputed "title". With military operations taking place in India, North and South America, Africa and the Asian Far East and having brought most of the European powers of the time face to face, the 7 Years' War (1753-1763) has its say in the attribution of the title of "world war 0"

Great documentary

I've always called the Seven Years' War world war 0.

You are so accurate and informed ! Cogratulations !!!! (I am Greek)

18:14: Erwähnenswert wäre noch, dass die Planung des dt. Stabes unter Hoffmann und Ludendorff für die Schlacht von Tannenberg sogar ganz bewusst auf der bekannten Rivalität der russischen Generäle aufbaute. Hoffmann ging zu Recht davon aus, dass die beiden russischen Armeen nicht zusammenwirken würden.

THANKS

Excellent

During the earliest years of Italian occupation of Libya the Italians waged a low intensity war against the insurgent Senussi tribe of Cyrenaica. It was this fight with the Senussi that Italian engineers constructed a series of cement emplacements along an approximate 28 mile defensive perimeter around the city of Tobruk. Those same defensive fortifications were used by the British to withstand a 7 month seige in 1941 against the Italians and Germans.

15:03 whats the song playing in the background?

Dear host: your pronunciation is great!

Thank You

At the start of the century the Eastern question was the only potential conflict that had massive destructive consequences containing overlapping dimensions of nationalism, ethnic cleansing, imperialism and great power politics. We are still living the consequences of it in the balkans, caucasus and middle east.

Thank you

44:00 - Italians had the first Heavier-than-Air recon. US Army Balloon corps began the first real time reconnaissance (American Civil War) with telegraphy sets. The Confederates responded with the first anti-aircraft units.

Wonderful presentation as always. This might seem strange, but are you ever planning on doing a video on how logistics plays a part in the victories?Like simply how one side get feed better… I served in USAF from 1975-1979. And there was a time I was in Korea were food was a real issue. And this was a peace time deployment I was engaged in.

Great stuff guys

Thanks for giving the Turkish perspective on those 2 wars!

I always find the appetite for war among the world powers in this period to be truly astounding.

There were no "battle cruisers" at this tome. What the Japanese had were armored cruisers, the predecessors to battle cruisers.

World War Zero? Ah, yes, this must be a video about the Thirty Year's War.

after watching your series on different wars its seems like humans have been at war for centuries... I love your channel btw learning so much about history i would never known otherwise :)

I don't want to say you're wrong, but Nicky very much wanted a war with Japan, he absolutely believed that they would crush the Japanese no problem and his reputation and that of the monarchy would be repaired. He wasn't a warmonger, but he did 100% want this war.

47:28- The Straits soon even made it into the American cultural Lexicon: _"The Boys are there with Bells/Their fighting Blood excels/ It's harder to push them over the Line than pass the Dardanelles"_ ~From "Bow Down To Washington", Official Fight Song of The University of Washington (1915)

Quick Correction when listing the ships at the start of the vid, they were Armoured & Protected Cruisers, not Battle-Cruisers.

Jesse and team, this is an excellent compilation. I am well learned in European wars, the wars of the Americas and some ancient battles but I knew little of the Italian campaign in Africa. A very well produced documentary. Thank you.

How did you not include the Franco Prussian war?! It's the reason why France, Britain and Russia become allies (balance of power was massively shaken up).

"Innocenzo" Befitting name

My great-great uncle fought in the Russo-Japanese war. According to my family, when he returned from the war his beard was so long it touched the floor.

The Seven Years War /French and Indian War was the true first world war spanning many continents.

Please do a video about the Siege of Przemyśl!

Hey, the Xinhai revolution would also consider as world war zero. It is set at 1911 and is consider an important history for modern day China

This is my favorite John Travolta!!!

Another foreshadowing of the great war would have been a war test at 'Dybbøl' where Kaiser tested the trench warfare approach. The fight are taught in the school as an event known as 'abattoir Dybbøl'.

Whose mission was more responsible for awakening a sleeping giant? Admiral Yamamoto or Commodore Perry?

I had to go watch the Battle Of Kaklin Gol after this .Just to feel a little balanced .

It's weird that Russia failed to try to seize Istanbul and the Bosporus when the Ottomans were routed by Bulgaria. It's almost as if they preferred the Ottoman control of the straits to Bulgarian one.

Are you going to talk about the boxer rebellion next?

"Duty is heavier than a mountain." Only of you've been eating Mexican food for a week straight

Kaiser wilhelm 1 actually agitated for tzar nicholas to start the russo-japanese war. It was kaiser wilhelm that thought up the "yellow peril' and continuously sent tsar nicholas letters about going to war with japan and said that Germany would have his back.

Japan attacks Russian harbor. Japan looks at Pearl Harbor. “Wanna see me do it again??”

3:15 - Hey! That guy is smoking!

14:95 - "nikudan" is literally "meatballs".

I saw WW0 and thought they would be talking about The Seven Years War

Impossible to watch thanks to the commercials. 2 already in 8 minutes. RU-vid really wants me to stop using it.

The naval battle led to scraps in Newcastle upon Tyne as the Japanese Battleships were made in Armstrongs Scotswood and the Russians in Swan Hunters. Interestingly the UK government refused to buy its stuff from Armstrong for some reason.

Aaah, this videoclip will explain why drachinifel has a video why russian naval ships engaged "japanese destroyers" during a voyage

"You see, hidden within the unconscious, there is an insatiable desire for conflict. So, you're not fighting me, so much as you are the human condition. All I want to do is own the bullets and the bandages." -Professor James Moriarty-

What about the Crimean War? That was fought between multiple major powers

War never starts just a continuation of an exsisting one

"How dare you take back land we stole fair and square?!" -Ottomans, 1912

I was a teenager in the 80s, and I remember elderly people who would not even consider buying anything made in Japan or Germany.

Dan daily the man the myth the Legend cut his teeth in combat during the boxer rebellion. Semper Fi

Soundtrack?

I miss Indy. Channel theft could have caused a war

You missed the part where the Russian fleet attacked the British fishing fleet at Doggerbank