hi I'm John Green this is crash course
world history and today we're gonna talk
about World War one we actually have two
videos about World War one today we're
gonna talk about how World War one
happened next week we're gonna talk
about why World War one is a really big
deal especially that those of us who are
really interested in like
industrialization and nation-states and
modernity so usually we don't talk that
much about wars but we're gonna make an
exception mystery mystery exception to
the Mongol Taaj ya know me from the past
we don't roll the Mongol Taj every time
we use the word exception we roll it
when we're talking about how the Mongols
are an exception to a lot of our
assumptions about civilizations Stan
Stan no there are no Mongols today we
are talking about world war 1
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so I'm filming this in 2014 which means
that the Great War started 100 years ago
and the world war 1 centenary is just so
hot right now
I can't miss out on it so most
historians agree that the event that
started World War 1 was the
assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz
Ferdinand on June 28 1914 but beyond
that there's not a lot of agreement
others say the war really started after
Franz Ferdinand bid it like when Germany
declared war or when Russia mobilized so
looking at why a war any historical
event happened means looking for a
cause-and-effect relationship that
implicitly assumes that if one
particular event in a chain of events
had gone differently the historical
outcome would also be different this is
why we have alternate history novels
right like what would have happened in
the American Civil War if the South had
won the battle at Gettysburg what would
have happened if the Nazis had repulsed
the d-day invasion in both cases
probably eventually the same outcome but
that's neither here nor there the
question we're looking at today is how
and that's a much more modest question
because we can simply discuss a series
of events but it's still a complicated
one because when you're talking about
how you're always picking from an
uncountable number of things that happen
you know a butterfly flaps its wings and
that leads to a series of events and
then eventually across the world an
Archduke gets killed so even when it
comes to a relatively straightforward
question like how you'll never get to
the bottom of all of it but today we're
going to discuss some of the house so
one way or another all wars start with a
breakdown in peaceful relations between
the eventual belligerents and World War
one is no exception
Oh for the love of agriculture please
stop it right but Roble one is a bit
unusual in that we have a concrete event
and a date to start our discussion
sometimes we get lucky historically and
there's an invasion that starts a war
like in the Korean conflict or the
firing on Fort Sumter in the American
Civil War but other times it's much more
butterfly effect II with events that
might or might not lead to a war
building upon each other until one side
mobilizes or declares war or there's a
fight over who shot first but here we
have a specific assassination of a
specific Archduke Franz Ferdinand in
Sarajevo now it wasn't a great day for
friends to visit Bosnia since it was the
anniversary of the Serbs defeat at
Kosovo polla and 1389 and also st.
vitus's day which was a celebration for
Slavic nationalists and a Bosnian Serb
named Gavrilo Princip and his
co-conspirators chose to celebrate
Slavic nationalism by killing Franz
Ferdinand now they didn't choose Franz
Ferdinand at random he was the heir
apparent of the austro-hungarian Empire
Franz Ferdinand wasn't particularly
well-liked not by his uncle who was the
head of the austro-hungarian Empire
certainly not by Bosnian Serb
nationalists also not really by everyone
else in Europe except for the German
Kaiser but Franz Ferdinand was in his
way kind of a moderate oh it's time for
the open letter oh look it's a
collection of my favorite assassinated
moderates it's hard out there for a
moderate an open letter to moderate
serum ah Duritz so one of the reasons
that Franz Ferdinand's uncle didn't like
him that much is that the Emperor was
really hardcore whereas Franz Ferdinand
you know he was kind of a moderate he
was like you know I'm an
austro-hungarian through and through but
I see the Serbian argument really Franz
Ferdinand was the one leader in the
empire who might have come up with a
solution to the problems of Serbian
expansion and Bosnian independence and
murdering moderates has a way of making
other moderates you know more extreme in
short moderates your work may not be
romantic it may not appeal to the youth
but it is heroic and very dangerous best
wishes John Green so even though friends
Ferdinand's uncle didn't particularly
like him as the Emperor of Austria
Hungary he felt a certain responsibility
to you know do something otherwise the
Serbian nationalists would feel like
they could expand their territory at the
expense of the Empire so despite what
you often hear about World War One being
pointless this makes sense as a point
sort of now it's a bit of schoolyard
bully kind of diplomacy but it does make
a certain sense
if Serbia can get bigger than all of the
other places will think that they can
have nations too soon enough you don't
have an empire now there's still some
debate about whether Princip and his
fellow assassins acted alone or as part
of a larger conspiracy organized by the
Serbian government but the Austrians
certainly thought there was broader
involvement which is why the whole thing
ended up becoming a war so Princip was a
member of these scary-sounding Blackhand
a group dedicated to creating a greater
Serbia that would include Bosnia and
there's some evidence that the Serbian
chief of military intelligence was in on
the assassination plot or at least knew
about it in fact it's likely that the
bombs and pistols the assassins used
were supplied by a Serbian army officer
but this is still pretty controversial
so much so that people are currently
fighting about it in comments so almost
a month after the assassination on July
23rd Austria issued an ultimatum to
Serbia and Austria intentionally made
the demand so harsh that the Serbs would
inevitably have to reject them and ergo
war but that doesn't explain the
month-long delay what happened in that
month well Austria's foreign minister
Berchtold was afraid that if they
attacked Serbia Russia would then attack
austria-hungary so the Austrians spent
that month talking to their allied
Germany to make sure the Germans would
have Austria's back the
austro-hungarians got assurance on July
5th or July 6th in the form of what has
been called the blank check a promise
from Germany that they would help
Austria if Russia mobilize and it was
clear that the Germans expected the
Austrians to move quickly in response to
the assassination not like wait for
another 20 days so usually I don't care
about dates but at this point the timing
becomes pretty important let's go to the
thought-bubble
so when the Serbs received the Austrian
ultimatum Russia declared itself to be
in a period preparatory to war which
sounds a lot like mobilization but
technically it wasn't which russia's
Foreign Minister emphasized to the
Germans the Tsar approved the measure on
July 25th and it went into effect on
July 26 the Serbs rejected Austria's
ultimatum on July 25th but they made the
rejection sound like a capitulation so
the Germans thought that war had been
averted and they were kind of surprised
then on July 28th when Austria suddenly
declared war on Serbia even though the
Austrian army wasn't actually ready to
start fighting then on July 30th Russia
exited his period preparatory to war and
actually officially mobilized Germany
warned the Russians to stand down but
two days later on August 1st France
mobilized its armed forces
supportive Russia and that same day
Germany mobilized and declared war on
Russia so if you're keeping score at
home and good historians always do
Austria and Germany were the first to
declare war on July 28th and August 1st
respectively but Russia with its pre
mobilization mobilization was actually
ready to begin fighting before Serbia
rejected Austria's ultimatum anyway then
Germany declared war on France on August
3rd marched through Belgium to invade
hoping to quickly knock out the French
and focus on Russia
sorry France but you know Russia is a
big deal and you you know German troops
crossed Belgium's border on August 4th
and the British issued an ultimatum to
the Germans telling them to get out of
Belgium or else Germany chose or else
and Britain declared war
so by August 4th 1914 all the major
powers involved in world war 1 were
officially at war with each other thanks
thought-bubble now I know there were a
lot of other powers that would get
involved later including the United
States and Japan in the Ottoman Empire
even Italy but for the nations who did
most of the actual fighting Germany
austria-hungary Russia Serbia France
Great Britain the war happened both very
quickly and very slowly now looking back
it all happened - almost at once but if
you're in the middle of it a month is a
long time and at any point someone like
say the Archduke Franz Ferdinand could
have come in and said wait a second I
guess not anyone because he was dead but
that's how an act of terrorism in a
Bosnian city turned into the first major
European war of the 20th century a war
that still resonates today
now the Austrians and the Serbs probably
both imagined that the war could stay
localized to the Balkans especially
since there had been previous conflicts
in the region that hadn't blown up into
a World War
you know like in 1908 in 1912 and 1913
we'll get into what made 1914 different
next week the whys of course will always
be very complicated but for now please
remember that we are always in the
middle of a how those living in June and
July of 1914 could never have imagined
how significant that month would be for
human history and when thinking about
them it's worth remembering that we also
can't imagine what our decisions today
will mean in a hundred years thanks for
watching
I'll see you next week crash course is
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