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Unit 6 Overview
Unit 6 Overview
This video unveils the key causes and global consequences of World War I, from tangled alliances and nationalism to devastation on the battlefield.
As this video progresses, key ideas will be introduced to invoke discussion.
Think about the following questions as you watch the video
What were some major achievements of the long nineteenth century?
What were some major problems of the long nineteenth century?
How did World War I change global power dynamics?
What data shows that World War I was a total war?
How were the events in St. Petersburg connected to the war?
: Let's call it the Great War.
: - No.
: - Or the war to end all wars.
: - It's called the First World War, or World War I.
: - Spoilers! - I don't want to alarm you,
: but I think they already know there were two.
: - Okay.
: (music playing)
: Hi, I'm Kim Lochner, and along with Colby Burnett,
: we're introducing Unit 6: World War I.
: What does the world of May 1914
: look like in the pages of an average history textbook?
: The revolutions of the Long 19th Century
: were in full swing, or even completed.
: Most promised something new and fresh for many people--
: if not equally for everyone.
: By May 1914, liberal and democratic revolutions
: had brought representative government
: to significant parts of the world for the first time.
: Slavery had been legally abolished.
: In many places, labor reforms put children in schools,
: rather than on factory floors or farm fields.
: They also introduced safety regulations
: and protections for workers.
: Meanwhile, the Industrial Revolution
: promised more efficient production
: and cheaper consumer goods.
: Indoor heating, sewer systems,
: and other great modern innovations
: were slowly spreading.
: Capitalism had brought freedom of economic exchange
: and greater overall wealth.
: At the same time, socialism and reformism
: promised to spread that wealth to more people.
: Telegraphs, steamships, and railroads
: moved people, goods, and ideas more rapidly than ever before.
: They connected societies and individuals to each other
: in radical new ways.
: We've seen that many of these advances and innovations
: were not available to much of the population of the world.
: In a lot of places, women, the working classes,
: colonial subjects, and minorities
: had little access to these new rights and wealth.
: Instead, they faced a great deal of discrimination.
: Nevertheless, many people could still point
: to great achievements that the Long 19th Century had brought.
: But the Long 19th Century was about to end in a way
: that would bring all that "progress" into question.
: In fact, in many ways,
: it was in its final month in May 1914.
: On June 28,
: Gavrilo Princip would assassinate
: the Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
: Less than two months after that,
: the First World War would erupt.
: The most powerful countries in the world
: would turn all of their nationalist passions,
: money, factories, railroads, and steamships
: to the task of killing each other.
: As a consequence,
: the global connections or networks
: that tied people together
: would shrink for a while.
: Nations would tear apart
: what it had taken them so long to build.
: In this unit, we ask some key questions.
: In what ways was the First World War
: the result of changes that occurred
: in the Long 19th Century?
: Was it a turning point in world history?
: As we have just seen,
: one way to begin to answer those questions
: is to look backward from May 1914.
: We can view the war as bringing into question
: all of the progress that people believed had been made
: over the course of the Long 19th Century.
: Another way to answer the same questions
: is to look from 1914 forward
: into the century that would follow.
: The world of 1914 was very much a world
: with an economic and political center.
: Powerful European states
: like Britain, France, and Germany
: dominated diplomacy.
: They ruled vast empires,
: and could project military force around the world.
: Their economies hummed along,
: extracting raw materials from their colonies
: and other smaller, weaker states.
: They then sold back finished products--
: from pens to whole cars-- at great profit.
: KIM: But after 1914,
: the First World War began a long process
: that would eventually end the concentration of power
: in the hands of European states.
: The conflict was expensive.
: It put many of the big European states into great debt.
: The decades that followed would bring the Great Depression,
: and then another world war.
: By the 1950s,
: power would decisively shift away
: from Western and Central Europe
: to the Soviet Union in the East
: and the United States in the West.
: A few decades later, new global centers would arise.
: East Asia would become
: the world's great manufacturing center.
: Meanwhile, empires would be in collapse
: as African, Asian, Caribbean, and Pacific colonies
: became independent countries.
: These changes would take decades,
: but the First World War started them in motion.
: Why did the First World War have such a huge impact?
: One answer can be found in the staggering costs of the war.
: We can see these costs in data like this chart,
: produced mainly by Finnish historian Jari Eloranta.
: The chart shows changes in economic and demographic data
: in some of the major combatant countries.
: It covers the time between the beginning of the war in 1914
: and its end in 1918.
: Two important trends stand out here.
: The first is the military burden,
: or the percentage of a nation's economy
: spent on the military.
: It is very difficult to sustain this percentage above 15%.
: In the United States today, for example,
: the military burden is about three percent.
: But by the end of the First World War,
: it was incredibly high in all of the countries
: for which we have data.
: In Germany, it was almost 40%,
: and in France, it was more than half the economy-- 60%.
: The percentage of the population actually in the military
: shows us a second interesting trend.
: Normally, this number is very small, below one percent.
: In Germany in 1914, it was 1.3%.
: In the U.S., it was 0.17%.
: By the end of the war, these numbers had grown
: to unprecedented levels.
: In the United States, 2.81% of the population--
: over four million men--
: had been enlisted.
: In the United Kingdom,
: ten percent of people were in the military.
: In France and Germany, incredibly,
: almost 14% of the population was in the military,
: meaning almost every man of fighting age.
: Total war on this scale had a huge effect
: on the societies that waged it.
: World War I left nations in debt
: and without enough surviving workers
: to power the economy.
: Some countries, like Britain and France,
: continued to use profits from their colonies
: to maintain their power.
: The losers in the conflict--
: Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
: and the Ottoman Empire--
: experienced much more upheaval, with dramatic effect.
: But perhaps the most obvious example
: of the disruption caused by the war
: took place in Russia.
: Even though Russia was technically on the winning side,
: it was nevertheless devastated by the conflict.
: In 1914, St. Petersburg, the capital of Russia,
: was a city entering industrialized modernity.
: It was once largely an administrative center,
: full of aristocrats, university students,
: naval officers, and the shops that served them.
: But, by the 1890s,
: St. Petersburg had begun to develop
: large factories and power plants.
: Trains brought goods and people thousands of miles
: from Siberia and the Russian interior
: to the port city.
: Ships connected it to Europe.
: This new St. Petersburg attracted
: a large working class eager for jobs.
: Many were forced to live in segregated districts,
: separated from the wealthy.
: Others lived and worked
: in the basements and kitchens of the wealthy.
: Migrant workers from rural areas
: and everyday sailors and soldiers
: were barred from parks, gardens, and other public spaces.
: Tensions were already high when Russia entered the war
: against Germany, Austria-Hungary,
: and the Ottoman Empire.
: But at first, nationalism inspired workers
: to support the war effort.
: However, by 1917, after three years of war,
: Russia was in shambles.
: Terrible defeats led to the catastrophic loss
: of millions of lives.
: The war led to food and fuel shortages.
: Workers suffered greatly.
: On February 23, female textile workers marched,
: demanding an end to the war and calling for food.
: Within three days,
: 200,000 workers were on the street.
: By the end of February, the Russian monarchy
: had been dissolved and replaced by a parliament.
: This new government continued the disastrous war.
: But in October, a second revolution
: replaced the parliament
: with the first large-scale communist government
: in world history.
: Its leader, Vladimir Lenin, spoke from St. Petersburg.
: He declared the moment ripe
: for a worldwide socialist revolution.
: Soon after, St. Petersburg would be renamed Leningrad.
: The First World War changed the world forever.
: Events in St. Petersburg were just one early result--
: although an important one.
: The war also weakened imperialism.
: It disillusioned an entire generation in many countries.
: It led to cries for perpetual peace,
: but it also set the scene
: for an even more terrible conflict to follow.
: As a result, the story of the First World War
: did not end when the shooting stopped in 1918.
: It did not end with the peace treaty signed in 1919.
: Instead, it continued to reverberate
: in the years that followed.
: (finger cymbals clink)
: What the? - It's reverberating.
: - This is a serious subject.
: - I'm taking it seriously.
: - You need to read the room.
: - And you need percussion.
: (cymbals clinking)