Ten Minute History - World War One and International Relations (Short Documentary)

1900 and things in Europe are getting a bit tense. Why? One reason was that a series of defensive alliances had been drawn up, meaning that the next European war was going to be a doozy. To make matters worse, there were several areas of contention that could lead to the outbreak of said war. The first was the ongoing Anglo-German naval arms race, as the recently formed German Empire ruled by Kaiser Wilhelm II sought to build a fleet large enough to challenge the Royal Navy. The second was French resentment over its loss of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany back in 1871. The third was the rivalry between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Russian Empire for dominance in the Balkans. And the fourth was the rivalry between Britain and Russia for control over the Middle East. Knowing that a major war was potentially on the horizon, you'd think that the great powers of Europe, these nations, would act calmly to prevent that. But you'd be wrong. Over the following decade and a bit, there were several potential sparks for the outbreak of this war. France and Britain had signed some agreements, collectively known as the Entente Cordiale, which made them allies in foreign policy, but importantly it wasn't a mutual defence pact. Soon after this, in 1905 came the first Moroccan crisis, in which Wilhelm II gave his support to Moroccan independence, which upset the French because they saw it as a part of their sphere of influence. It was agreed that Morocco would stay under French influence, but with a foreign run police force. 1907 saw Britain and Russia patch things up, where they divided the Middle East up between them. Thus, it seemed that things were calming down, but then Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia in 1908 without consulting anyone, which led to Russia getting very annoyed. More tensions erupted from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire's European territories. This led to the birth of the Balkan states, who by 1913 looked like this. By 1914, things were very tense, but fortunately nothing interesting was happening, except for a visit of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Franz Ferdinand, to Bosnia to inspect troops there. Whilst in Bosnia, he managed to get a tiny bit assassinated by a Bosnian Serb called Gavrilo Princip. The Emperor of Austria-Hungary, Franz Josef, was unsurprisingly furious, and the assassination gave him pretext for war. With whom? Serbia. This was because it was assumed that Serbia, whom Princip had wanted Bosnia to be united with, had something to do with it. The turmoil that followed this is known as the July Crisis. During this, Germany issued the Blank Check, whereby it gave its full support to Austria in any course of action it chose to take. Austria-Hungary wanted to subdue Serbia, either by diplomacy or by force, and this would almost inevitably mean war with Russia, who saw itself as the protector of all Slavs. For Germany, supporting Austria-Hungary made sense, since it had determined that if it left Russia to its own devices, Russia would become far too powerful to defeat in a war by about 1917. As such, an ultimatum with a list of demands was issued to Serbia. Serbia refused, and on the 28th of July, Austria-Hungary declared war on them, and Russia began to mobilize its military. Germany demanded they stop, they didn't, and on the 1st of August, Germany declared war on Russia. France then started to mobilize, and on the 3rd, Germany declared war on them too. The German plan for the war was simple. Hold off the Russians in the east, whilst a large force cut through Luxembourg and Belgium in what was called the Schlieffen Plan. The idea was that the Germans would capture Paris and force a French surrender, after which they could turn their full might on the Russians, who would take a long time to mobilize. On the 4th, Germany entered Belgium, after it refused to grant the passage of German troops. Britain had guaranteed Belgium's independence since 1830, but the Germans weren't expecting the British to actually be willing to go to war for it. They were wrong. By mid-August, the respective sides of the war looked like this. You'll note that Italy hadn't come to the aid of the rest of the Triple Alliance, and the reason for this was that this was only a defensive pact, so Italy wasn't obligated to do anything, and so they didn't. So the balance of power early on favoured Germany and Austria-Hungary, together known as the Central Powers. Germany had a large population, it was heavily industrialized, and at the beginning had more men available to fight. Austria-Hungary was also there. Whereas Russia, on paper, had a terrifyingly large army, but it was spread out, poorly trained, and under-equipped. France also had a well-equipped conscript army, but it was much smaller, and Britain didn't have any conscripts at all, but instead had a fairly small but robust professional army. The German army started by quickly pushing through Belgium, and in the zones they occupied, they brutally repressed any Belgian resistance. Germany advanced ahead, but it was halted at the First Battle of the Marne by the British and the French. This ended in the hopes of a quick war, and the Germans retreated where they dug in and began what the conflict is most famous for, trench warfare. After Marne came the race to the sea, in which both sides advanced north, trying to outflank each other, and after this the western front came to a standstill. So trench warfare heavily favoured the defenders, since in order to attack the enemy, soldiers had to go over the top and leave the safety of the trenches. They were then exposed to enemy machine guns, barbed wire, and all the other horrors of war. Both sides would spend a lot of time and money developing weapons and tactics to break this stalemate. On the eastern front, the Russian empire did well at first, and pushed into Germany. This advance came to a grinding halt at the Battle of Tannenberg, in which Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg crushed the Russian army. To the south, Austria-Hungary concentrated on attacking Serbia, which did not go well, and Russia advanced into the empire. Soon after this, the central powers received a boost when the Ottoman Empire entered the war on their side. Montenegro would also join the Entente, and by the end of the year the front lines looked like this. After this, the methods of fighting a modern war started to evolve rapidly. England was subject to zeppelin raids, and Germany debuted the use of chlorine gas. Mid-1915 saw the Gallipoli campaign, which, spoiler alert, ended in disaster. This was where the Entente tried to strike at the heart of the Ottoman Empire, but again, defensive warfare was easier and a lot of people died for nothing. 1915 also witnessed the sinking of the Lusitania, a passenger ship which was carrying people and weapons to Britain from the United States. The sinking was part of the German naval doctrine of unrestricted submarine warfare, in which German U-boats would attack shipping indiscriminately in the hopes of starving Britain out of the war. Soon after this, Italy joined the war on the side of the Entente. The Italians failed to advance quickly into Austria-Hungary, and so, trench warfare. The war wasn't just limited to Europe though. Troops of the British and Russian empires were advancing into Ottoman lands, and both sides clashed in Africa as well. Japan also joined the war and nabbed all of the German colonies in the Pacific, and Australia captured Guinea. Late 1915 saw Serbia finally fall, but not until Bulgaria joined the Central Powers and invaded from the south. The Russians, who had been struggling for a while, were now in mass retreat, and so Tsar Nicholas II decided that he would take personal charge to fix things. 1916 saw Montenegro conquer the failed Easter Rising in Ireland, and attempts by both sides to break the deadlock on the Western Front. The Germans launched the Battle of Verdun, during which lots of people died for a whole load of nothing, and later, the British launched the Battle of the Somme, which was more of the same. Soon after this, Romania entered the war, and were swiftly conquered. This was also the year that saw the main British and German fleets clash at the Gargantuan Battle of Jutland, in which Germany attempted to break British naval dominance. They did not. Soon after this came the Brusilov Offensive on the Eastern Front, which saw the Russians push back to here. Also, Franz Josef proved that he could actually die, and was succeeded by Charles I. 1916 was important from a technological standpoint, because it saw the introduction of the tank by the British, and they were largely effective, when they weren't breaking down, so by 1917 everyone was getting a bit tired of this war stuff, but not much could be done, since both sides wanted to remake the balance of power in Europe, which the other side could never accept. The Central Powers wanted Europe to look like this, and the Entente wanted this. The discontent with the war was particularly strong in Russia, and February saw rioting, which soon became the February Revolution. This saw Nicholas II abdicate, and Russia become a republic. The new provisional government there would importantly not end the war. Discontent wasn't limited to Russia, though. Austria-Hungary was basically coming apart at the seams, and in Germany political pressures were dividing the country. This was exacerbated by the British naval blockade, which prevented Germany from importing the food it desperately needed, which induced hunger and starvation in certain parts of the country. Woodrow Wilson, the recently re-elected President of the United States, was keen to stay out of the war, but had sympathies to the Entente. After some more unrestricted submarine warfare, and finding out about the Zimmermann Telegram, in which Germany invited Mexico to invade the US, America joined the war against the Central Powers. Greece, after a lot of pressure, joined the war on the side of the Entente. The late year also saw the October Revolution, in which the Communists seized control of Russia. Russia then withdrew from the war, and after long negotiations with the Central Powers, Russia ceded this territory in 1918. Germany then launched the Spring Offensive against the Entente to win the war before too many Americans arrived. A lot of people died, some land was taken, nothing changed, and the war dragged on. Austria-Hungary continued to break down, and most of the fronts were still a stalemate. In Southern Europe, Greek, Serbian, British and French troops advanced into Bulgaria, which had its own disgruntled population, and so it signed an armistice. The British were now advancing into the Ottoman Empire, with the help of its rebelling Arabian population and the neighbouring peoples, under the guidance of T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia. The British had secured their help by promising them this land. The British had lied. By late October, the Entente had captured the important city of Damascus, and the Ottomans signed an armistice on October 30th. Four days later, after the Italians had finally pushed into Austro-Hungarian territory, Charles I signed an armistice, and about six seconds later, the Empire fell apart. Realising the war was lost, Wilhelm II abdicated, and on November 11th, Germany signed an armistice. The war was over. In 1919, a peace was formalised in the Treaty of Versailles, which limited the size of Germany's armed forces, demanded hefty reparations, and reduced its territory to this. The Treaty of Trianon divided the Hungarian half of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and gave territory to Romania and the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later known as Yugoslavia. The Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye divided the Austrian half, creating Czechoslovakia, giving territory to Poland and also Italy, but not as much as they had been promised. Bulgaria was stripped of this territory, and the Ottoman Empire was supposed to lose this. The Turks refused to accept this, a war broke out, the Turks won, and this became the Republic of Turkey, with the rest of the Empire's territories going to Britain and France. The war had seen about 8 million military dead, with Russia, Germany and France seeing the lion's share. The war had been started over imperial pride, and millions of men had died in the vain hope of bringing their generals and emperors glory and a quick resolution to the war. Tactical inflexibility combined with revolutionary methods of war meant that scores of men who didn't have to die, did. So with such a heavy price paid, what did the war achieve? Honestly, not much. It had brought about the death of four major empires and the rise of new nations from their ashes. Ultimately, World War 1's greatest legacy was that it created the conditions necessary for the outbreak of World War 2. I hope you enjoyed this episode and thank you for watching. A special thanks to James Bizonette, Thomas Gestridge, Adam Harvey and Winston Cawood. If you'd like to know more about World War 1, there are some book recommendations in the description below.