hi I'm John Green this is crash course
world history and today we continue our
discussion of how a regional conflict
became World War one we're also gonna
look at who started the war and although
no one nation is truly to blame some
nations are more to blame than others
like America for once
blameless I'm not totally blameless
largely blameless disagreements green
that's easy the Germans started the war
well we've been passed as it happens
many historians and British politicians
would agree with you I mean you have an
opinion that can be defended and I can't
wait for you to defend it uh maybe they
just like really liked war I'm not
really in the defending positions
business mr. green I'm more in the like
bold proclamations business yes me from
the past noted but it turns out there's
more to life than that
so the topic of who started World War
one remains one of the most
controversial and interesting topics to
discuss in world history not least
because you know we'd like to avoid
having another one but in general when
we talk about world wars as when we talk
about World Cups we pretty quickly end
up discussing Germany the idea that the
root cause of World War one was Germany
or more specifically German militarism
continues to be popular this has been
the case ever since the 1960s when this
historian Fritz Fisher identified
Germany as the chief cause of the war
but Germany's guilt for the war was also
written into the Versailles peace treaty
in article 231 and most of you will be
familiar with the idea that anger over
that clause and it's incumbent debts
helped lead to Hitler's rise also pretty
much however you slice in Germany was
definitely responsible for starting
World War two and looking back that made
it more plausible that they would also
have started World War one because you
know they had a history of starting wars
to be fair the definition of a Western
European nation is has a history
starting wars unless you're the Swiss
cue the Switzer real Stan
yeah okay but the thing is attributing
characteristics like militarism or
authoritarianism to entire national
populations it's a little problematic
also one nation's militarism is another
nation strong national defense and when
you live in the country as I do that
spends more on defense than any other
nation it's probably not that good of an
idea to call people militaristic there's
just something about that broad brush
painting of an entire nation sharing a
particular characteristic that feels a
little bit propaganda also it wasn't
just germans who were militaristic in
1914 the idea of the glory of war was a
very popular concept all over europe and
really there's no evidence that the
german people of 1914 were any more or
less militaristic than the French or the
Russians they all had poetry that
celebrated heroic sacrifice and dying
for the mother and/or fatherland it's
not usually and maybe though I'm gonna
stay open-minded but there's another
problem with the whole idea that the
Germans were more eager for war than
anyone else in Europe that argument
relies a lot on the behavior of kaiser
wilhelm ii the german leader and the
kaiser did make some pretty bellicose
and stupid public statements which in
turn made people fear that germans were
eager for war so willem became kind of a
stand-in for German aggression a literal
cartoon villain upon whom the world
especially the English could project
their stereotypes so I would argue that
the German character isn't to blame for
World War one and in fact no national
character has ever been to blame for any
war but I'm not going to let the Germans
off the hook entirely so you will
remember that Germany offered the
so-called blank cheque that Germans
would always support austro-hungarians
ultimatum to Serbia and in some ways
this empowering by Germany's support
encouraged Austria's foreign minister
Bechtel to behave as recklessly as
possible under the mistaken impression
that this is what the Germans wanted him
to do so basically Austria thought that
Germany wanted a war so they were like
oh we'll just behave really recklessly
and we'll give the Germans the war
they've been so excited about but the
Germans were offering the Austrians the
assurance of support in the hopes that
it wouldn't lead to war so you could
argue that in fact most of the blame for
starting World War one should fall on
the shoulders of the Austrians after all
they were the ones who
issued the ultimatum to Serbia and they
were the first to declare war although
only against Serbia but the Germans were
the first to declare war on a major
power Russia on August 1st and the
German advance on France through Belgium
is what brought Britain into the war and
those are pretty solid arguments that
Germany turned the conflict from you
know a regional thing in the Balkans
which isn't unprecedented to like this
big pan-european war but I don't think
we're done assigning blame because we
didn't just have a pan-european war we
had a world war Russia now you'll
remember that of all the major powers
Russia was the first to mobilize its
massive army and it was Russia's
mobilization that drew Germany France
and Britain into the war Putin is
looking at me isn't he stand I am just
trying to die are you so scary then can
you please make mr. Putin go away I'm
just trying to talk about history I'm
not talking about any current conflicts
and it makes me nervous to say this but
there was really no good reason for
Russia to mobilize in the first place I
mean when Austria declared war on Serbia
on July 28 the Austrians could not
mobilize their own troops for two weeks
because they were on harvest break I
mean if we've learned anything about
agriculture it's that it's hard to have
a large-scale war without it so we can't
go to war until all the wheat has been
farmed but even if Austria had mobilized
and attacked immediately their initial
plan was an attack on Belgrade not
Russia which by the way was called
somewhat confusingly Plan B now Vienna
did have a plan to mobilize against both
Serbia and Russia but they never used it
but even if Austria had launched an
all-out attack on Russia Russia had
begun its pre mobilization the period
preparatory to war on July 25th and
while I usually don't care about dates
with the start of World War 1 very
important because July 25th was before
the Serbs had even responded to the
Austrian ultimatum and just as a general
rule it's hard to play the blameless
victim when you're moving all of your
troops to the border hey why are you
here again Putin so here we have
Austrians and Germans receiving reports
of Russian troops massing on their
borders and you know that seems kind of
like war a lot of it comes down to how
you understand Russia's period
preparatory to war I mean do you focus
on the period preparatory or do you
focus on the to war regardless on July
30th Russia became the first power to
actually put its war machine into motion
let's go to the thought-bubble
so talking about Russia leads us toward
some of the more
meta arguments about the causes of World
War one because it's difficult to
understand what Russia was doing when it
mobilized without trying to understand
why they mobilized after all an Austrian
attack on Serbia was hardly an
existential threat to Russia I mean look
at the map Russia is huge and at the
time probably had the largest army in
Europe if not the world so why would
they care about what was likely to be a
skirmish on the Bosnian border well
here's where geopolitics and history
come in so looking at the map you can
see that the Balkans are right next to
the Dardanelles the Straits that give
access to the Black Sea Russia needed to
maintain influence there in order to
ensure traffic through those straits
especially if the Ottomans were going to
form an alliance with the Germans which
they did also at least in its own
estimation Russia was in danger of
becoming a laughingstock in European
politics they're humiliating loss to
Japan in the russo-japanese war was
followed by Russia's inability to stop
Austria from annexing Bosnia from the
Ottomans in 1908 and that was the event
that sparked Serbia's drive to expand
its own territory its history of prior
weakness meant that Russia's foreign
policy makers feared that without some
decisive action Russia wouldn't be taken
seriously anymore in the wake of
Austria's ultimatum Russian Foreign
Minister Sajjan Hoth concluded that
Russia quote could not remain a passive
spectator with the Slavonic people was
being trampled down if Russia failed to
fulfill her historic mission she would
be considered a decadent state and would
henceforth have to take second place
among the powers if at this critical
juncture the Serbs were abandoned to
their fate
Russian prestige in the Balkans would
collapse
utter thanks thought-bubble so judging
from what we just learned in the
thought-bubble
it was really the Ottomans if they could
have just stopped Austria from annexing
Bosnia in the first place none of this
would have happened and if I may go a
little further back there wouldn't have
even been an ottoman empire without the
stupid Romans and of course the Roman
Empire was largely dependent upon
constant expansion and looting so if
only the gulls could have defeated
Caesar none of this would have happened
in short no wonder Caesar was
assassinated he was about to start World
War one in 1900 years I bring that up
because that's the tricky thing about
the blame game you can trace the causes
of World War one back a bunch of ways I
mean I can't think of anyone who you
can't at least partially assign blame to
Wow I mean accepted
actually you know what if they just kept
control of Russia probably no world war
one anyway all of this only scratches
the surface of the arguments about who's
to blame for World War one I mean I
haven't dealt with stuff like the
Alliance system or European imperialism
or you often hear about the naval
rivalry between Britain and Germany and
then there are the ideological causes
like nationalism and the social
Darwinist thinking that led people to
believe that war was a natural and
inevitable state of human affairs
you can tell all those origin stories of
the Great War and they're important but
our centers on diplomatic history there
are a few reasons for this first the
decision to go to war was ultimately in
the hands of a very small group of
diplomats I mean even in the most
democratic countries Britain and France
popular opinion didn't force
mobilization also in most countries
that's still the case it's still
diplomats who decide whether to go to
war so understanding what makes
governments and diplomats decide to go
to war is very important but looking at
the diplomatic constants of the war also
reveals something to us about the
pitfalls of writing history
I mean diplomats are famous for keeping
pretty detailed records of their
dealings both at the time and in
retrospect and then historians have to
sift through all these sources and make
choices about which ones to emphasize
and sometimes even which ones to believe
because of course often these sources
are in direct conflict now I'm no
historian but in creating this episode
we had to make choices that many of you
will disagree with either because you
don't think we gave enough evidence or
because you don't like the things that
we emphasized and that's great it's
these constructive and critical
conversations that lead us to dig deeper
to consult more primary sources to read
more broadly and that in turn leads to a
richer understanding of the world and a
more engaged life all that noted the
Alliance system was certainly important
and I'm sure you'll be discussing it in
your classes and in comments thank you
for watching I'll see you next week
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