my name is indy neidell and this is
another thrilling episode of out of the
trenches where i sit here in my chair of
wisdom and answer your questions about
the first world war
[Music]
one Harford says hello is it possible
can you put this on out of the trenches
were there any huge naval battles in the
Mediterranean or any battles fought on
smaller islands if so were the US Marine
Corps and British Commonwealth involved
in said battles the Allied fleet's under
French leadership had pretty much
confined the austro-hungarian Navy into
the Adriatic Sea there were some smaller
naval battles at the beginning of the
war like the Battle of Antivirus when an
Austrian cruiser and destroyer were
intercepted by British and French
battleships other than that the war in
the Adriatic Sea consisted of many like
sea raids by both parties shelling of
coastal cities and the rise of the
importance of small torpedo boats and
they were really cheap really agile and
those little boats could rapidly deploy
battleship sinking torpedoes and then
just quickly disappear from view and
they were a real threat for all navies
involved here they experimented with
naval airplanes and sonar equipment
later in the war the Allies basically
trapped the Austrians by deploying a
huge net a huge belt of mines at the
mouth of the Adriatic Sea and pretty
much all efforts to break that belt
failed the US Marine Corps only saw
action on the western front and wasn't
used in the Mediterranean or the Italian
front the 332nd regular Infantry
Regiment was though during the final
battle of Vittorio Veneto you had an
amphibious operation that took Trieste
and some fighting on the Piave River but
we will definitely come to that in our
regular episodes vogner Bua writes hi
Indiana hi folks hi folks
hi me you are doing an awesome show
which you know but I'm gonna read it
with the periods you are doing an
awesome show which you know
of course gotta read it the way you
wrote it following question
[ __ ] built planes for the German fleet
whoop it was Fokker exclusively building
aircraft for Germany how did that affect
Dutch neutrality was there no pressure
from the Anton forces on the Dutch
government to stop the trade with the
German army
Antoni Fokker actually studied aircraft
manufacturing and engineering in Mainz
Germany and Germany back then in like
1910 1911 was pretty much the Promised
Land for engineers and entrepreneurs its
automobile and machine industry was
among the most modern and well-equipped
in the world so studying there gave a
man like Fokker a pretty good start his
first plane in 1912
despina the spider was well recognized
among his peers and even the military
became interested in his works so they
began financing his work already before
the war true he really became wealthy
and popular after the war broke out and
the military began buying and ordering
new planes pretty much on a daily basis
for his 25th birthday in 1915 he got
German citizenship from the German High
Command actually so you can see how
valuable his person became to the German
war effort they wanted to keep him as
closely attached to the Reich as
possible the Netherlands didn't
intervene or anything since Fockers
whole livelihood
had been in germany for years and had no
affiliation with the Dutch government or
the Dutch military after the war when
the Treaty of Versailles forbade Germany
from producing aircraft Fokker moved
back to the Netherlands and they
welcomed him to expand his factories on
Dutch soil so no hard feelings there
Antoni Russia writes I've got two
questions do you think that if Japan
fought on the Western Front
it would have mitigated their failures
in the next war and did Germany ever
create a semi-automatic rifle during the
war or in the interwar period good work
on the show by the way
ok we do not do what ifs because that is
a hole with no bottom there's
their other history channels and other
YouTube channels out there that do what
ifs you'll have to ask them for your
answer about that Japan did send
military advisors to the Western Front
and those military at rachets were well
informed about the horrible conditions
of trench warfare and the mass amounts
of casualties it produced they reported
their experiences back home and Japan
like all countries all over the world
did not want to relive those horrible
times instead Japanese commanders hoped
to fight a highly mobile war with
mechanized infantry which they did for a
long time against the Chinese armies and
on their own advances towards Burma and
the Philippines only on the Pacific
Islands where the Japanese built vast
networks of trenches bunkers and dugouts
against the superior American artillery
we come to see many similarities there
from the Great War here you often had
close combat trench warfare with machine
guns flamethrowers grenades okay I'll
say I can't think of many failures that
could have been avoided if a Japanese
army had fought on mass on the Western
Front no but maybe you can write us in
the comment section if you think of any
ok let us know what you think for your
second question Germany as well as
weapon manufacturers from all the other
nations had designs in mind for a
semi-automatic rifle wait before 1914
most of those designs never saw
production for Germany you had the Luger
rifle 1906 model which was designed with
the borchardt pistol and it's toggle
action mechanism in mind
it used a similar spring mechanism for
the chamber as that handgun we don't
exactly know why it wasn't mass-produced
but its loading mechanism was probably
too fragile but don't quote me on that
the other one was the Mauser M 1916
designed as a self-loading carbine it
used a delayed blowback mechanism and it
could carry a 25 round magazine it's
biggest weakness was again the loading
mechanism which was very vulnerable from
alpha
like the Mondragon it was issued in
small numbers to soldiers in the German
Flying Corps since he had no dirt or mud
that would interfere with the mechanism
in the air if you'd like to see an
episode we did in association with o'the
eius at sea and Arsenal you can click
right here to learn all about German
rifles in the First World War
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