9:33 strictly speaking the postcard actually depicts a gigantic German soldier crossing the Seine river and assaulting into Paris itself. Seine river is located in northern France, and it flows through the city of Paris. The German postcard literally reads as we must enter into France, Paris will be ours. There is no mention of Belgium or any kind of Belgian river-crossing in this postcard.
@@neildahlgaard-sigsworth3819 , steelpanther88 was referring (methinks) to the mismatch between interpretation given by Dr Robert Foley, who is saying, at 10:07 (not 9:33), that the propaganda postcard says :""On to Brussels, Belgium must be ours" - while the postcard itself clearly says "France" and "Paris". Yes, it illustrates the German attitude ("und Morgen, die ganze Welt", as they sang during II WW), but nonetheless the discrepancy between the lecturer's narrative and the postcard itself is obvious.
It looks like there is some text in the bottom left corner that is not there when we see the full postcard with Paris mentioned. Maybe his slide included one where it said Brussels and not Paris and the person who made the video showed the wrong postcard.
you people need to get out more.I didnt notice the stammer until reading the comments. i dont know, if you know, but i know...everyone speaks differently.
9:59 : he says Liège. But the Postcard says Paris and France ("Frankreich"). And the river is the Seine. Nothing to do with Belgium whatsoever that postcard
These are just the normal problems that armies face in war. If you look up close at an army in the middle of a campaign you will obviously see that everything is not going perfectly. But the French and the British had all of the same issues and more. The Battle of the Marne was not decided because the German soldiers were more tired than their opponents. It was decided by the positioning and allocation of troops. If you look at the battle on a map you'll see that geometrically it was inevitable. The end of the German line simply ends east of Paris, because there were not enough troops allocated to extend it further north. Instead of occupying undefended and valuable French territory on the channel coast, and holding a continuous line, German units were crammed into the south and center of the line, launching frontal attacks against French defenses. This allowed the French to occupy the bulk of the German army with a somewhat smaller force, by conducting a fighting retreat. The allies were then able to take all of their unoccupied reserves and freely march them around the end of the German line. Multiple armies were concentrated against the German 1st army, and with allied units on three sides threatening to surround the Germans. The only option at that point was for the 1st army to pull back out of the encirclement, and this retreat cascaded all down the line. So the condition of the troops was not a significant factor. A perfectly fit army cannot allow itself to be surrounded any more than a depleted one can. The lack of units on the German right was the overwhelmingly dominant factor in the outcome of the battle.
Since my German Grandfather actually fought in the German army in both Wars and his father had fought with the German Army in 1870, I do sometimes wonder if we are talking the same war. It ignores the serious problems that Germans faced in the east in which My Prussian Grandmother lost a brother serving in the Hussars. The Schlieffen plan was not completely worked through but it was the best the German army had at that time. As to troop advancing without artillery support, given the time table, when junior officers didn't want to be held responsible for delays, their troops had to go in. It's probably that delaying due to some mischance wouldn't be tolerated.
They should've never invaded, just defending the German French border would've secured a victory. No war declaration on France needed, no war with Britain, no war with Belgium. No German war crimes. The border would've been extremely easy to defend. Leaves the bulk of the army free to conquer fast pieces of land in the east. Probably provoking a revolution in Russia ending in a full victory for Germany. Invading France and hoping to defeat it within 4 weeks was just over optimistic. Having Britain involved made stuff even worse.
@@johnc.5600 Well, not invading was certainly an option, but the war with Britain? Given that Churchill had actually implemented a Blockade a day or so prior to the War? Belgium is really rather more ticklish in terms of Neutrality. IIRC
@@johnc.5600 How wrong is it from you to just talk afterwards what shouldve been done, ignoring the political situations in all the years before, which you surely do not understand at all. In addition, you might know at least even from Allied films that a suffering and orderly human is of a complete different quality and therefore you cannot by the slightest understand that you are condemning on left out facts. Even after WW2 England or America has in their culture no perception for humbleness and bravity of Germans, attributes that could only be created in their culture, seeing the war as something lying under the laws of humanity. But you would need to live tehre and meet such people, these people do not exist in the world anymore, and you cannot see their properties, only partially in some old people if you find them on youtube. For them it is self understanding that absolutely no personal baisedness shall be there, but in your writing it is and so you cannot see that being without an Ego allows you for things you cant understand. it is a tragedy of mankind that you wont ever udnerstand this, amongst many people.
I was very interested to hear this topic. Unfortunately I could not watch it due to incessant repetition of words. This presentation should have been about half as long.
Sounds like there are two postcards with the same image but different text. See the conversation upthread. I wouldn't rule out that both were produced by the Brits.
To me it seems like Germany went to war with the expectation that it would be a relatively short war like most of the other wars before it. Think the advancement of technology in some ways surprised the generals since at least some of them probably didnt expect that the ways of warfare changed so much in ww1 with the development of machine guns, torpedoes, fighter planes, tanks and so on. Also this idea of a short campaign seems in retrospect like a major weakness since that is how also Hitler saw the eastern campaign to go in ww2 or how Napoleon thought his military campaign against Russia would proceed. Not to mention this one Putin guy lately.
35:45 It's a long way from the "We were all of one mind and beheld each other with confidence" feeling of Nelson's day. Not that relations between some of the British commanders were any more rosy (French and Smith-Dorrien come particularly to mind).
Haig never forgave Smith-Dorien for making the cavalry stop knee-to-knee charges and sharpen up their marksmanship, during his time as GOC Aldershot Command 1907/12. Haig conspired with French to send S-Dorrien home in April 1915. S-Dorrien was the best and most modern-thinking of generals and would never have indulged in the bloodletting of Haig as C-in-C.
Most people, including myself, had not realized that the French Army historically has won more wars than any other army. However, part of that is because of its excellant strategic location kind of in the center of the continent with excellant sea access. As to geographic strategic analysis, there is no book better than Peter Zehan's "DisUnited Nations", It covers basically the whole world.
Some off us did not learn about the world at Hogwarts (any british school with a extreme British centric view and hsitory off the world) mon ami. French do admire the Germans but we don't talk about it. We rather discuss German "humor" etc. Having been crushed and starved 1918 and then divided and partially destroyed 1945 the main German strenghts are not military..
Zeihan ahs completely messed up any prediciton, no matter about china, USA or the Ukraine war, he is excellent in marketing, dont advertise his book by bringing further peoples money to him, just because he makes popular stuff, instead of correct stuff.
you have to wonder 'what if' about what might have happened if Britain had deployed the BEF to Belgium rather than France, poised to reinforce Liège. It requires a whole diplomatic course of action that was improbable in the period before WWI but I can't help but wonder if the Germans would have chanced extending their push via an invasion of the Netherlands to bypass Liège, as presenter says was the alternative if Liège held out.
27:15 the average Army strength is 155.000? So....155.000 x 7 is 1.085.000 men. However German Army went in with 3.2 million men. 155.000 is way too low. At that time it would have been around 300.000 per Army
The German imperial army had 8 armies, each on average 150.000 men, and quite a lot of Landwehr units etc. These additional units were mainly used in the east. Hint: Of the 400000 German soldiers who died in 1914 more than half died in the east. The 8. Armee was not wiped out, neither the 9. Armee.
1st and 2nd army were the strongest German armies of the right wing in 1914, each of these armies well over 250.000 men at the start of the advance (18 August 1914). For the numerically weakest army of the right wing, the 3rd army i have calculated around 185.000 men on 18 August 1914.
Germany wasn't defeated in 1914, it just failed to win a victory. The French Plan 17 failed as well, but no one says France lost the war in 1914. As with the next world war, Germany ended up losing simply because both wars was about Germany v. the World; neither war ended until German was completely broken. France and Britain combined could never defeat Germany, and even throwing in another front with Russia nothing was certain. But when the U.S. became involved it was curtains. The cost of two defeats was high... Germany today is more of a province than a country with zero territory east of the Oder River. In 1914 a third of Germany was east of the Oder. Germany also lost a lot of itself in the West in both wars.
It was Germany v. the World because Germany declared war on the whole world, not because they're some kind of victim. In both wars, however, they also had very significant allies. It's just that the germans refused to ever accept losing, so unlike the austrians in 1918, or the italians in 1944, they only surrendered after being brought to their knees.
Indeed, there is one name why the Germans lost the First World War: Loncin. This delay, instead of 2 days the German army took 12 days to capture Liège. By that time the French an BEF mobilised! Do visit Fort de Loncin when you are around, well worth the visit.
@@rhysnichols8608 That is very much correct. The French government at the time saw the thread coming. They even knew of the Schliefen plan, the Belgium's also knew. It is just that the Belgium resistance at Liège gave the French just enough time to organise the defences, and it is clear "just". This ended at the first battle of the Marne. The Keizer's forces never reached Paris as you know and the had to retreat, dig in and start the race for the Belgium coast. At the same time they had to retract forces for the Eastern front, where they were outnumbered. Ludendorff went from the Western front to the Eastern front and Tannenberg followed. Though a victory for the German armies, the Schliefen plan was a total failure. Germany did not broke the camel's back in the West and they had a dual front. What follows is history. Thanks for your response. Visit Fort Loncin if you can, it is amazing and I sure you'll like it very much.
german troops run all over french and english, Only US and a muteny in german army , gave the allieds a Armistice, GB and France where on the loosing end, by then, THE OCTOBER communist revolution in Russia and following in Germany, most soldiers walked away, JUST remember, Germany never surrender ww1- its was a conspiracy, and the second WW as a result, the british Never recovered and went broke, only US made some money. simple as that.
For the first few months of the war the British army was slightly better on a tactical level than all others. The individual soldiers were better trained overall, however by the end of 1914 this advantage had been lost due to heavy casualties and the Germans learned fast, by 1915 the Germans were better at trench warfare and they were usually 1 step ahead of their enemies throughout most of the war period. Somehow the British army went from being the best to arguably the worst on the western front by the Somme offensive 1916, showing extremely poor tactical thinking in their first attempts to break the German lines, with the exception of the Ulsters, the assault tactics used were very basic and showed no learned lessons, the Russians, French, Germans and even Austrians were using more sophisticated assault tactics by this time.
The hyperbole in stuff like this is incredible. Germany only nearly got a victory in 1914, because they blitzed into France, to get to Paris quickly, whilst The Brits and the French were distracted, by the Irish home rule political controversy and the female shooting a journalist controversy, respectively. Even with this benefits of surprise, they couldn't win, so this is embarrassing and is to be mocked. Retrospectively from letters recently uncovered from the German generals, it showed you just how pessimistic and incompetent they were in 1914. Moltke even sent a letter to his wife, saying that he thought they were gonna lose the war and it would be the end of Germany as a modern power.He had a nervous breakdown quite quickly after the war started The German generals were disgusting, to start a war like this and they did "start" the war. They only call it a world war, to Claim multiple responsibilities, to try to include the brits and the french in that, but if you follow the sequence of events, responsibilities stop after Germany chose to invade France, having not been provoked by the French. I don't care what they Try to speculate about whether France would have joined Russia, if they didn't invade France, the facts are that That didn't happen and what did happen was that Russia invaded Germany and Germany chose to send 90% of its troops, West to invade France. They were Callous, irresponsible, bloodthirsty maniacs, Just like the Russians, Austro-Hungarian's and the Serbs. France would only join them in being responsible, if it had chosen to invade another country, Like these other powers did, instead of exclusively defending itself The Germans and Germany are the luckiest modern people, to have started, not just one but 2 major Conflicts against major foreign powers( I'm talking about war with Britain and France. here, not this fabricated idea of a world War) at the time that they invaded.Many countries in the past have been punished far more severely than they were in the Treaty of Versailles.Then they got Away with incredibly favourable conditions. After World War II
No they did NOT mobilize “at the same time” - the Russians began it first, they did so coordinating personally with French President Raymond Poincaré in July (they bankrolled his 1913 election), and on the testimony of Dragutin Dimitrijević (“Apis”) they were also behind the June 28th assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his lovely wife. I don’t care what Moltke or Falkenhayn thought (Generals are gung ho... imagine that! Generals on both sides said it would be a cakewalk), the Kaiser runs the show and the Willy-Nicky telegrams show he was the only one trying to stop it. Once the Russians mobilized, there was only one choice left. Kaiser to Tsar Berlin, 31. July 1914 On your appeal to my friendship and your call for assistance began to mediate between your and the austro-hungarian Government. While this action was proceeding your troops were mobilised against Austro-Hungary, my ally. thereby, as I have already pointed out to you, my mediation has been made almost illusory. I have nevertheless continued my action. I now receive authentic news of serious preparations for war on my Eastern frontier. Responsibility for the safety of my empire forces preventive measures of defence upon me. In my endeavours to maintain the peace of the world I have gone to the utmost limit possible. The responsibility for the disaster which is now threatening the whole civilized world will not be laid at my door. In this moment it still lies in your power to avert it. Nobody is threatening the honour or power of Russia who can well afford to await the result of my mediation. My friendship for you and your empire, transmitted to me by my grandfather on his deathbed has always been sacred to me and I have honestly often backed up Russia when she was in serious trouble especially in her last war. The peace of Europe may still be maintained by you, if Russia will agree to stop the milit. measures which must threaten Germany and Austro-Hungary. Willy
Well said Willy, strangely, I think rabid patriotism still clouds the minds 100 years later, or maybe they're to lazy to open a book, bizarre... But worse than that, I had read somewhere that the documents and letters proving the extensive efforts made by Wilhelm II to prevent the war had disappeared from the Imperial War Museum, well, I just checked and it's absolutely true, everything that led to the war is still listed but when you try to view the damn thing all you get is "object currently missing" the bastards have covered their trails well. I'll check in Germany now but they don't have much left, it's the bastards... again!
To add credibility to this, the French government seized and promptly ‘lost’ all the Austrian investigation documents of the arch dukes assassination. Also gavillo Princip himself stated under questioning ‘free masons from France set me up’
Historians think it’s acceptable to take out of context quotes from German generals and use this as ‘evidence’ that they planned and wanted a war. In terms of actual steps taken Germany did NOTHING, no stockpiling of grain, still had over half her gold assets in foreign banks when the war broke out, tried to stop Russian mobilisation and the Germans were the LAST to mobilise their army.
True, one of the reasons the Germans lost so badly against the BEF because they did not wait for fire support in these early days. The BEF with it's small size could have been overcome.
Not at all, Germany clearly outperformed their more numerous enemies. Read the book ‘myth of the great war’ Germany used superior tactics to outperform the French, Russians and even British. They weren’t hugely better but they generally inflicted more casualties and didn’t lose ground for 4 years until the overwhelming power of the US combined with the other world powers finally overcame Germany
@@rhysnichols8608 You think Germany won both world wars after starting them both? And you think my knowledge of history is atrocious? Kindly engage brain before putting fingers to keyboard :)
andrew allen Use your head you fucking spastic, clearly I meant they didn’t START them both. Anyone still believing mainstream history in 2020 is delusional
tip to viewers: mute the sound and put subtitles on. the subtitles cut through all the repetitions and stammers which make the audio inpenetrable. the presentation is nonetheless well researched.
It is very well researched. Speech impediments are quite common. This man has obviously worked hard to overcome the issues. A very good, knowledgeable and prepared speaker
"Germany had long prayed for war, especially against their arch-enemy--The French."Why? What was the juice that fed this hatred? It seems to have be mutual, yet the French at least have some territorial "right" to their opinions. What was the immoveable hatred about? If there is a simple answer, I'd sure appreciate knowing it.
+Bud Fields (PPTS) Nobody actually cares about the lost territory. The German felt that they were surrounded, they fought of it as a plot. It must also be said that it was mainly the leaders, not the people that wanted to see France destroyed.
+Bud Fields (PPTS) Human beings ALWAYS see themselves in terms of "self" and "other." Shen populations live side by side, as the french and the Germans long had, they build up grudges. Grudges about borders, territories, resources, historical and cultural differences... and other things. When neighboring countries are not under pressure (ie. there is enough space and resources for everyone), tensions simmer, or countries even cooperate. But when placed under pressure, populations and governments start to hate the "other, " with whom they are in competition. Often, but not always, people organize their sense of self and other along lines of language or religion. But if there is no competing group with major differences, people will start making smaller distinctions. Its human nature to justify aggression against others rather than sitting down and working things out.
One could also put it the other way round. Germany had no direct territorial ambitions against France (of course the appetite was growing during the war) but France certainly had and constantly pursued a policy of encirclement of Germany (first the alliance with Russia and in 1905 the Triple Alliance with Russia and Britain). The feeling in Germany grew that sooner or later war would be inevitable in this situation. This feeling was also shared in other nations but Germany in Central Europe was much more under pressure to act.
The one person that is the symbol of futile WW1 warfare and considered a mindless butcher of human lives, is in fact the mastermind behind avoiding defeat in 1914. The fog of war was crazy, and GCQ simply didn't expect such massive German forces in north Belgium. Also a disastrous shock of "first contact" which cost the French much more, due to the outdated tactics. How they recovered is nothing short of miracle, but Joffre had his fingers there. Such calm, such poise in face of overwhelming odds and disaster, defeats everywhere. Compare him with Napoleon III, Bazaine, Mac Mahon in 1870 or Gamelin, Georges and others in 1940. He alone is the difference maker. A fantastic recovery on the left flank, formation of new armies, transporting them by rail from the Alsace/Lorraine where trench warfare was already starting... this is a masterclass in war-making. Moltke had so many advantages in August 1914 and managed to squander them all, lose the numerical and moral advantage, having lost his nerve at the very start of the war when Kaiser Wilhelm accused him of being unworthy of his uncle, the great, old Helmuth von Moltke. Everything from 15 August to 1 September went according to the German plan and was worse than even the most pessimistic French could've imagined. And yet the victory at Marne happened. A shame that this victory could not be followed up by rolling the German flank and ending the war in 1914. Both sides were simply too exhausted. But the Germans were far from defeated and even held the initiative until the end of 1914..
Following the British narrative of World War One can be misleading in the extreme. The Brits typically leave out the French Plan 17 and only speak in condescending reference to the French and German Armies. The French with their Plan 17 marched into well prepared German defenses all along their frontier with the Germans and were thrown back with heavy losses. The Germans were paragons of military virtues compared with the Brits. The Brits had no better plan then duplicate the French Plan 17 on July I, 1916 during the Battle of the Somme on the first day. The Brits wasted a seven day artillery bombardment as an added betrayal of their assaulting troops. The Brits marched into no man's land and into a killing zone covered by barbered wire, machineguns, mortars, direct and indirect artillery fire and were slaughtered as badly as the French two years before. The Brits sent 120,000 men over the top on July I, and lost 20,000 killed and 40,000 wia or mia. The Brits had learned nothing in two years.
and on the 28th of march 1918 in the battle of bapaume the German marched into a killing zone and lost about 15000 killed the Germans learned nothing in four of war,and it put paid to operation michael.
Mary Nung it's easy to say such things with the benefit of around a century of hindsight, but you're ignoring the training that the soldiers used at the Somme (less than 2 years training for the volunteers that came forward in August 1914). By the time of the Somme there were very few of the Old Contemptables left, having been replaced by the TA and then by Kitchener's volunteers. Therefore, the British generals, knowing the strengths and weaknesses of their soldiers, kept to simple battleplans (as did the Eritrean and Ethiopians did in their war in the 1990s). The lessons of the Boer Wars had to be relearnt as the volunteer army matured militarily, unfortunately all military lessons are learnt the hard way and paid for in blood.
We won WW1 because the French and the Russians did the vast amount of the fighting and dying, we also had the Empire troops fighting for us, oh and the Americans eventually. In WW2 the Russians did the majority of the fighting and dying, The French lost more than we did, and we only managed to evacuate Dunkirk because the French army held the Germans off for long enough to allow it, oh and we had the Empire troops and the Americans eventually in that war too. In all our major wars we have had allies who did most of the fighting for us, Austria, Prussia and Russia in the Napoleonic wars for example, even against the Argentinians we needed INTEL support from the USA and Chile to win, so just who are we going to depend on to help us after we leave the EU? By the way have you noticed we don't have the Empire any more. Actually we have a lot to fear, but a little Englander muppet like you will never realise that.
@@slightlyconfused876 Britain stood alone for long periods of time in the Napoleonic Wars. Britain just walked away with the entire naval power projection of the European Union, and with America looking west in the foreseeable future the Queen Elizabeth class carrier can offer more to America than all of the EU combined. Do not be surprised when Britain gains preferential treatment in the coming era of high tariffs in exchange for patrolling the Atlantic and Mediterranean. Euronext and the London stock exchange are worth under 5 trillion each and New York is worth over 30 trillion. The US spends 300% of the entire EU military budget every year. Britain just picked a side in the upcoming trade war, and it was the side with more to offer.
slightly confused The British were the single biggest agents in the defeat of Nazi Germany. They were there from day one until the end. The so-called "invincible" Germans army tried and failed, with their allies, for two years in WW2 to defeat the British army in North Africa. The finest army in the world from mid 1942 onwards was the British. From El Alemein it moved right up into Denmark, through nine countries, and not once suffered a reverse taking all in its path. Over 90% of German armour in the west was destroyed by the British. Montgomery had to give the US armies an infantry role as they were not equipped to engage massed German SS armour. Montgomery stopped the Germans in every event they attacked him: ♦ August 1942 - Alem el Halfa ♦ October 1942 - El Alamein ♦ March 1943 -Medenine ♦ June 1944 - Normandy ♦ Sept/Oct 1944 - Holland ♦ December 1944 - Battle of the Bulge Not on one occasion were Monty's ground armies (British & US under his command) pushed back into a retreat by the Germans. The Americans under their own command didn't perform all that great east of Aachen, then the Hurtgen Forest defeat with 33,000 casualties and Patton's Lorraine crawl of 10 miles in three months with over 50,000 casualties - a 1985 US Army report on the operation heavily castigated the man. These operations have been erased from mainstream US history, with few American ever hearing of the Hurtgen Forest operation. The US Army were struggling in 1944/45 "retreating" in the Ardennes. The Battle of the Bulge took all the US effort, and vital help from Montgomery and the British 21st Army Group, who took command of two US armies, just to get back to the start line. The Germans took 20,000 US POWs in the Battle of The Bulge in Dec 1944. No other allied country had that many prisoners taken in the 1944-45 timeframe, and just under 100,000 casualties in total. The USA retreat at the Bulge, again, the only allied army to be pushed back into a retreat in the 1944-45 timeframe. The US was losing so many men; men allocated for the Far East were being sent to Europe to plug the manpower gap. They sent so many fearing future heavy losses that they outnumbered British forces. The US sent so many men to Europe the British had more ground troops in the Far East than the US, with 2.6 million men rolling into Burma, besides the Eastern and British Pacific fleets. Montgomery was effectively in charge of the Bulge having to take control of the US 1st and 9th armies. Eisenhower for the best part of a month never communicated with Montgomery locking himself away - in Paris well away from the war zone. The US 9th army stayed under Monty's control until the end of the war just about. Normandy was planned and commanded by the British which was a great success coming in ahead of schedule with less casualties than predicted. The German armour in the west was wiped out by primarily British - the US forces were largely impotent against massed panzers, using only one inadequate tank. Monty assessed the US armies (he was in charge of them) and had to give them a supporting infantry role, as they were just not equipped to fight tank v tank battles. On 3 Sept 1944 when Eisenhower took over overall allied command of ground forces everything went at a snail's pace. The fastest advance of any western army in Autumn/early 1945 was the 60 mile thrust by the British XXX Corps to the Rhine at Arnhem. Eisenhower was the least responsible for the Normandy operation, compared to Montgomery and Morgan, yet he gets the big share of the victory, when Montgomery, having control of all armies, Dempsey and Bradley, of their respective armies, are left in the background. In the book Pegasus Bridge US author Ambrose says complete fallacies such as "Eisenhower chose Normandy as the landing ground", and that "Eisenhower knew that the right flank would be unprotected, hence the airborne drops" and other nonsense. Well he does write friction dressed up as fact. It was British officers Morgan and Cossac, before Eisenhower had even arrived that chose Normandy, and then Monty's revision, which was when Eisenhower was out of country. During the Battle of the Bulge Eisenhower was stuck self imprisoned on his HQ in des-res Versailles in fear of "German paratroopers wearing US uniforms with the objective to kill allied generals". He had remained locked up more than 30 days without sending a single message or order to Montgomery, and that is when he thought he was doing "ground control" of the campaign, when in effect Montgomery was in control as two US armies had to be put under his control after the German attack, the 1st and 9th armies. The 9th stayed under Monty's control until the end of the war, just about. And yet biased American authors such as Stephen Ambrose said that Eisenhower took control of the Bulge and made the battle "his" glossing it as an all American victory. Someone should have told him about the British 21st Army group being involved and that Coningham of the RAF had to take control of US air force units. Ambrose completely falsified history. In fact the only thing Eisenhower did was tell Monty to get control of the out of controlBEF in France in 1940 was only one third of the British Army and 9% of all allied forces. In about a month all units were fully re-equipped with factories turning out the latest armaments 24/7. Right after the retreat at Dunkirk, up until early 1941, the British had: • Destroyed the German surface fleet. • Neutralised most of the French fleet by sinking or starving it of fuel. • Disabled a major part of the Italian fleet and starving it from fuel. • Freely moving around the Mediterranean. • Starving Germany of food and resources with the effective Royal Navy blockade. • Beat the Luftwaffe over Dunkirk. • Beat the Luftwaffe in the misnomer the Battle of Britain as Britain was never threatened. • Pushed the Italians out of East Africa. • Decimated the Italian army in North Africa. • Were about to take all the southern Mediterranean coast. • Germany was being bombed from the air with raids of over 100 bombers - 150 over Nuremberg - using the new navigational device, Gee. • A massive air bombing fleet was being assembled. • The RAF shot down over 700 German fighters over Continental Europe in 1941. • Supplying the USSR with vital lend-lease tanks and planes - 40% of medium and heavy tanks used in the vital Battle of Moscow were British supplied. After the small BEF left France in June 1940, the British went on the rampage. So much so Franco told Hitler the British would win and he would not join in with Germany, fearing British occupation of Spanish territory. The Turkish ambassador stated Britain will win as it has a pool of men in its empire to create an army of 45 million (later an army of 2.6 million moved into Burma). In 1941 the British suppressed an uprising in Iraq, beat the Vichy French in Syria and secured Iran and the oil by invading. The British determined where the battlefields with the Axis were going to be. After France 1940 Germany never had a significant campaign victory over the British Commonwealth ever again in WW2. The Germans FAILED: • To win the Battle of Britain in 1940; • To win the Battle of the Atlantic in 1940/41; • To control the eastern Atlantic ; • To control the Mediterranean in 1940/41; • To control North Africa and the Middle East in 1940/41. The British Commonwealth stopped the Nazis/Axis achieving all this well before the USA joined WW2 or even sent Lend Lease. Even the expensive pyrrhic victory in Crete meant little in the end to the Nazis because the Royal Navy still dominated the eastern Mediterranean with Crete not leading to any campaign winning difference. Sorry to rain on the parade, but the US only had mediocre generals, their record "proves" that. If Clark was German he would have been shot for disobeying orders and taking his troops into Rome allowing the Germans to get away. But the US high command did nothing. When the Germans pounded through the Ardennes (a British SHAEF officer personally travelled from London to Bradley to tell him of the German build up, who ignored him) three SHAEF officers (2 British one US) saw how the US 1st and 9th armies' high command were operating after visiting them then recommended that the two armies be put under British control - US general Bedell Smith in a rage fired the two British men on the spot for such a recommendation and then took their advise and reinstated them. After WW2 the US has tried to change history putting them in a brighter light, because contrasted against the British they were shown to be not up to the job. Years ago the myth was that the the US were key in defeating Hitler because Hollywood told us so. The Yanks were hustlers and the British sat around drinking tea - if only. When I started to read WW2 books (TV documentaries were tabloid and not worth watching for deep content but OK for seeing bangs) and quickly concluded that the British were key - overall they fought longer and smarter and destroyed over 90% of German armour in the west. Continued.....
slightly confused Continued.... When American ships were being sunk during the so called second ‘Happy Time’, what were the Americans doing? The British were doing the fighting for them. We were told the US supplied the war and without them all would be lost. About 11% of British needs were supplied by the USA and about 4% of Soviet. What was normal trade pre war to the USA became ‘supplying the British war effort’ after 1939. The UK since the 1800s took its wheat from North America - many farms were British owned. The food the US supplied was enough to feed the small city of Bradford. The millions of US troops in the UK were mainly fed and housed by the British. The cans of bully beef eaten by British soldiers came from British ranches in Argentina. The British sourced food in different continents to counter any likely famine - famine was a problem in the 1800s. In 1944/45 more people were working making planes in Britain (the British made the best planes of WW2) than were in the UK based army. David Edgerton in his book ‘Britian’s War Machine’ shows that although food in Britain was rationed, it was in fact in plentiful supply. Whilst luxury items may have been more difficult to find, there was always sufficient bulk foods such as bread, potatoes and vegetables to make sure that the people did not go hungry. Edgerton stresses the continued reliance on traditional suppliers, such as wheat and meat from Canada, Australia and Argentina, and oil from the Caribbean and the Middle East, much of it transported in British ships. Britain had the largest merchant marine in the world. Churchill admitted in his memoires to exaggerating British weakness before coming into office. For example he was content that his accounts of air-power should 'act as a spur'. He wanted the war over as quickly as possible.David Edgerton points out that "Churchill's own warning as to propagandistic aims has not alas prevented many taking his exaggerations as descriptions of the real state of affairs". Britain was one of the richest nations in the world in 1940, and in terms of living standards per head, the Dominions, and even much of the Empire, were right up there with her. None of the Axis powers came close to a similar standard of living. In terms of modern industrial output for instance, 30% of Germans were still involved in agriculture, whereas only 8% of the British workers were. Edgerton: "the richest state in Europe... certainly richer than Germany"; no wonder that "the British were the great meat-eaters of Europe" (even during the war "rationing did not imply drastically cut supplies, except in the case of sugar") and that "Britain was the most motorized nation in Europe" as well as "the world's largest importer of oil"; to be more precise "Britain started and ended the war as the world's largest importer". "So powerful was Britain in the world economy that it could in effect force many people around the world to supply it with goods for credit". Moreover "it had resources to spare, was wealthy enough to make mistakes, and could fight as it chose to rather than had to". "The warfare state was one of plenty, of armed forces generously supplied with new equipment by new factories", "interwar Britain was a military superpower at sea and in the air, supporting the largest arms industry in the world" (incidentally, "it was the largest arms exporter of the world"). "Britain rearmed on a scale unprecedented in peacetime". The "liberal militarism" which pervaded Britain caused a veritable "orgy of techno-nationalist excess", the scientific pursuit of its industrial and military aims was spasmodic: not only "in some key sectors, efficiency of production was the same as in the USA", but "if one of the forces was organized with Teutonic efficiency and regimentation, it was the RAF, not the Luftwaffe". Another measure of preparedness was that during the war forty-four overwhelmingly new ordnance factories were in operation". Britain was so utterly self conscious of its industrial might and technical primacy that "when the British team... went to the US with new British developments in October 1940, there was again a clear sense that the British had more to offer the Americans than vice versa". He goes on to talk about ‘peculiarities of the British Army (the first to have a complete cold-store chain as well as a blood transfusion system); ‘the Middle East Supply Centre [which] coordinated civil imports and promoted local supply’, including the ‘growing of potatoes in Egypt and Syria, potatoes without which the British soldier does not consider himself properly fed’. Far from being a plucky underdog in 1940, David Edgerton says, Britain was a first-class power, with the world's largest navy, the greatest aircraft production of any country and a small but uniquely mechanised army - pre-war appeasement having gone hand in hand with rearmament. Until Japan joined the war, Britain was the world's leading military industrial power, with world's most advanced technology (including the world's leading nuclear bomb program, radar, penicillin, proximity fuse, and many other things that were passed on to Americans to continue development of as part of the United Nations approach to the rationalisation of wartime resources). Continued....
Jesus! I'd love... love... love... love to... to... to... know more ab... ab... ab... about this but uh... uh... uh I... I...I...I... can't take anoth... anoth... anoth... another... minute.
Jamie. Would you say that to his face? I mean, are you just a dick in the safe anonymity of the internet, or are you an asshole in general? Crawl back into your trailer, enjoy your life as a loser, and focus your attention on watching Looney Tunes cartoons and reality shows. More your speed.
I also uh turn tur uh ned it uh, off. Because, because, uh filling every second with uh or repeating words is irritating to listen to. Personal attack? Nah. Criticism of poor lecturing style? You bet.
While this is a very interesting talk and the speaker is clearly incredibly knowledgeable of his subject he is an absolutely terrible public speaker. The entire enjoyment of the talk is greatly diminished because of his perpetual stammering. Had he been able to convey his talk with even half the repeating he went through the talk would have lasted 30 or maybe 40 mins . I do now know why they put him up first to speak... he would have been totally unbearable later in the day. If he had written that talk it would have been most interesting to read but listening to him gibbering away greatly detracts from what was an excellent piece.
Actually I thought he delivered his talk confidently and competently and he doesn’t have a stammer. If you’re distracted it’s more about you than about him. A very snippy and discreditable comment, black mark.
Um, Um, Uh, Uh...MY GOD WHAT A TERRIBLE SPEAKER!!! It's a shame too because I am very interested in this topic but I am closing out of the video after less than 5 minutes because I cannot continue to listen to Dr. Um Um Uh Uh!
@@slightlyconfused876 I have... and to be honest do not enter the kitchen unless you can stand the heat. This fellow is without doubt an expert in his knowledge of the subject but he does not show it in the delivery of his talk it is so laboured .
Please check your numbers: The 50 active divisions had around 30% reservists, the 25 reserve divisions >90%, Landwehr was also a reserve organisation. It is a save bet that more than half of the men were reservists. From another perspective: the German active army consisted of around 700000 men in 1914....
9:33 strictly speaking the postcard actually depicts a gigantic German soldier crossing the Seine river and assaulting into Paris itself. Seine river is located in northern France, and it flows through the city of Paris. The German postcard literally reads as we must enter into France, Paris will be ours. There is no mention of Belgium or any kind of Belgian river-crossing in this postcard.
yes
steelpanther88 the postcard is being used to show the attitude of the Germans and not a specific action.
@@neildahlgaard-sigsworth3819 , steelpanther88 was referring (methinks) to the mismatch between interpretation given by Dr Robert Foley, who is saying, at 10:07 (not 9:33), that the propaganda postcard says :""On to Brussels, Belgium must be ours" - while the postcard itself clearly says "France" and "Paris".
Yes, it illustrates the German attitude ("und Morgen, die ganze Welt", as they sang during II WW), but nonetheless the discrepancy between the lecturer's narrative and the postcard itself is obvious.
I can't see how he got that wrong he must speak German. Well some kind of mix-up on the choice of the graphic.
It looks like there is some text in the bottom left corner that is not there when we see the full postcard with Paris mentioned. Maybe his slide included one where it said Brussels and not Paris and the person who made the video showed the wrong postcard.
you people need to get out more.I didnt notice the stammer until reading the comments. i dont know, if you know, but i know...everyone speaks differently.
9:59 : he says Liège. But the Postcard says Paris and France ("Frankreich"). And the river is the Seine. Nothing to do with Belgium whatsoever that postcard
Capture of Liege 8:00 key rail link. This was the key element in the Schliefen Plan. The Big Bertha howitzers were used to smash the forts.
Die Postkarte wird falsch übersetzt.
These are just the normal problems that armies face in war. If you look up close at an army in the middle of a campaign you will obviously see that everything is not going perfectly. But the French and the British had all of the same issues and more. The Battle of the Marne was not decided because the German soldiers were more tired than their opponents. It was decided by the positioning and allocation of troops. If you look at the battle on a map you'll see that geometrically it was inevitable. The end of the German line simply ends east of Paris, because there were not enough troops allocated to extend it further north. Instead of occupying undefended and valuable French territory on the channel coast, and holding a continuous line, German units were crammed into the south and center of the line, launching frontal attacks against French defenses. This allowed the French to occupy the bulk of the German army with a somewhat smaller force, by conducting a fighting retreat.
The allies were then able to take all of their unoccupied reserves and freely march them around the end of the German line. Multiple armies were concentrated against the German 1st army, and with allied units on three sides threatening to surround the Germans. The only option at that point was for the 1st army to pull back out of the encirclement, and this retreat cascaded all down the line.
So the condition of the troops was not a significant factor. A perfectly fit army cannot allow itself to be surrounded any more than a depleted one can. The lack of units on the German right was the overwhelmingly dominant factor in the outcome of the battle.
Perhaps the logistic failure in the Schlieffen plan were a part of its undoing, as again the German invasion in 1941 of Russia
Its the usual red mist that Germans get when they feel people can live happily without them. They get lonely and angry with everyone.
Since my German Grandfather actually fought in the German army in both Wars and his father had fought with the German Army in 1870, I do sometimes wonder if we are talking the same war. It ignores the serious problems that Germans faced in the east in which My Prussian Grandmother lost a brother serving in the Hussars. The Schlieffen plan was not completely worked through but it was the best the German army had at that time. As to troop advancing without artillery support, given the time table, when junior officers didn't want to be held responsible for delays, their troops had to go in. It's probably that delaying due to some mischance wouldn't be tolerated.
They should've never invaded, just defending the German French border would've secured a victory. No war declaration on France needed, no war with Britain, no war with Belgium. No German war crimes. The border would've been extremely easy to defend. Leaves the bulk of the army free to conquer fast pieces of land in the east. Probably provoking a revolution in Russia ending in a full victory for Germany. Invading France and hoping to defeat it within 4 weeks was just over optimistic. Having Britain involved made stuff even worse.
@@johnc.5600 Well, not invading was certainly an option, but the war with Britain? Given that Churchill had actually implemented a Blockade a day or so prior to the War? Belgium is really rather more ticklish in terms of Neutrality. IIRC
@@johnc.5600 How wrong is it from you to just talk afterwards what shouldve been done, ignoring the political situations in all the years before, which you surely do not understand at all. In addition, you might know at least even from Allied films that a suffering and orderly human is of a complete different quality and therefore you cannot by the slightest understand that you are condemning on left out facts. Even after WW2 England or America has in their culture no perception for humbleness and bravity of Germans, attributes that could only be created in their culture, seeing the war as something lying under the laws of humanity. But you would need to live tehre and meet such people, these people do not exist in the world anymore, and you cannot see their properties, only partially in some old people if you find them on youtube.
For them it is self understanding that absolutely no personal baisedness shall be there, but in your writing it is and so you cannot see that being without an Ego allows you for things you cant understand. it is a tragedy of mankind that you wont ever udnerstand this, amongst many people.
Last time I checked, the Seine wasn't in my backyard? 🙂
Otherwise an interesting presentation, learned a lot!
Thanks for these uploads!
I was very interested to hear this topic.
Unfortunately I could not watch it due to incessant repetition of words.
This presentation should have been about half as long.
10:13 what is he taking about Belgium and Brussels here? It says " Hurra, into France, and Paris shall be ours as well " ... How can that happen?
The first speaker reminds me ofBob Newhart in terms of his speech pattern.
The translation on the cartoon is wrong. It says nothing of Brussles. It's more like " to France Paris must also be ours"
Sounds like there are two postcards with the same image but different text. See the conversation upthread.
I wouldn't rule out that both were produced by the Brits.
Just quoting for emphasis: 11,000 trains moving 3.1 million men and 850,000 horses.
To me it seems like Germany went to war with the expectation that it would be a relatively short war like most of the other wars before it. Think the advancement of technology in some ways surprised the generals since at least some of them probably didnt expect that the ways of warfare changed so much in ww1 with the development of machine guns, torpedoes, fighter planes, tanks and so on. Also this idea of a short campaign seems in retrospect like a major weakness since that is how also Hitler saw the eastern campaign to go in ww2 or how Napoleon thought his military campaign against Russia would proceed. Not to mention this one Putin guy lately.
A redo of 1870-71. Not a fan of the Schlieffen plan. If I were in charge I would want options other than to just attack France.
35:45 It's a long way from the "We were all of one mind and beheld each other with confidence" feeling of Nelson's day. Not that relations between some of the British commanders were any more rosy (French and Smith-Dorrien come particularly to mind).
Haig never forgave Smith-Dorien for making the cavalry stop knee-to-knee charges and sharpen up their marksmanship, during his time as GOC Aldershot Command 1907/12. Haig conspired with French to send S-Dorrien home in April 1915. S-Dorrien was the best and most modern-thinking of generals and would never have indulged in the bloodletting of Haig as C-in-C.
@@robertbryant6859 Most of what you say about Haig, I have seen attributed to French elsewhere.
Most people, including myself, had not realized that the French Army historically has won more wars than any other army. However, part of that is because of its excellant strategic location kind of in the center of the continent with excellant sea access.
As to geographic strategic analysis, there is no book better than Peter Zehan's "DisUnited Nations", It covers basically the whole world.
Well France is significantly older than most other states, you'd have to divide it to wars/year to compare countries fairly.
@@ArcticTemper They still have the best record.
Some off us did not learn about the world at Hogwarts (any british school with a extreme British centric view and hsitory off the world) mon ami.
French do admire the Germans but we don't talk about it. We rather discuss German "humor" etc. Having been crushed and starved 1918 and then divided and partially destroyed 1945 the main German strenghts are not military..
Zeihan ahs completely messed up any prediciton, no matter about china, USA or the Ukraine war, he is excellent in marketing, dont advertise his book by bringing further peoples money to him, just because he makes popular stuff, instead of correct stuff.
@@davidchardon1303 cause they had a massive head start.
Attacking without Artillery support was also done on a huge scale by Austria and Russia. France likely too
Speaker is excellent, but sounds exactly like Bob Newhart 😂
you have to wonder 'what if' about what might have happened if Britain had deployed the BEF to Belgium rather than France, poised to reinforce Liège. It requires a whole diplomatic course of action that was improbable in the period before WWI but I can't help but wonder if the Germans would have chanced extending their push via an invasion of the Netherlands to bypass Liège, as presenter says was the alternative if Liège held out.
27:15 the average Army strength is 155.000? So....155.000 x 7 is 1.085.000 men. However German Army went in with 3.2 million men. 155.000 is way too low. At that time it would have been around 300.000 per Army
The German imperial army had 8 armies, each on average 150.000 men, and quite a lot of Landwehr units etc. These additional units were mainly used in the east.
Hint: Of the 400000 German soldiers who died in 1914 more than half died in the east. The 8. Armee was not wiped out, neither the 9. Armee.
1st and 2nd army were the strongest German armies of the right wing in 1914, each of these armies well over 250.000 men at the start of the advance (18 August 1914). For the numerically weakest army of the right wing, the 3rd army i have calculated around 185.000 men on 18 August 1914.
Germany wasn't defeated in 1914, it just failed to win a victory. The French Plan 17 failed as well, but no one says France lost the war in 1914. As with the next world war, Germany ended up losing simply because both wars was about Germany v. the World; neither war ended until German was completely broken. France and Britain combined could never defeat Germany, and even throwing in another front with Russia nothing was certain. But when the U.S. became involved it was curtains. The cost of two defeats was high... Germany today is more of a province than a country with zero territory east of the Oder River. In 1914 a third of Germany was east of the Oder. Germany also lost a lot of itself in the West in both wars.
It was Germany v. the World because Germany declared war on the whole world, not because they're some kind of victim. In both wars, however, they also had very significant allies. It's just that the germans refused to ever accept losing, so unlike the austrians in 1918, or the italians in 1944, they only surrendered after being brought to their knees.
It would be interesting to know which bit of HMS Victory was appropriated to make Kaiser Bill's desk.
Indeed, there is one name why the Germans lost the First World War: Loncin. This delay, instead of 2 days the German army took 12 days to capture Liège. By that time the French an BEF mobilised!
Do visit Fort de Loncin when you are around, well worth the visit.
French mobilisation orders went out 2 days before German mobilisation
@@rhysnichols8608 That is very much correct. The French government at the time saw the thread coming. They even knew of the Schliefen plan, the Belgium's also knew.
It is just that the Belgium resistance at Liège gave the French just enough time to organise the defences, and it is clear "just". This ended at the first battle of the Marne. The Keizer's forces never reached Paris as you know and the had to retreat, dig in and start the race for the Belgium coast. At the same time they had to retract forces for the Eastern front, where they were outnumbered.
Ludendorff went from the Western front to the Eastern front and Tannenberg followed. Though a victory for the German armies, the Schliefen plan was a total failure. Germany did not broke the camel's back in the West and they had a dual front. What follows is history.
Thanks for your response. Visit Fort Loncin if you can, it is amazing and I sure you'll like it very much.
total BULLSHIT
german troops run all over french and english, Only US and a muteny in german army , gave the allieds a Armistice, GB and France where on the loosing end, by then, THE OCTOBER communist revolution in Russia and following in Germany, most
soldiers walked away, JUST remember, Germany never surrender ww1- its was a conspiracy, and the second WW as a result, the british Never recovered and went broke, only US made some money. simple as that.
@@harryeisermann2784 lol
For the first few months of the war the British army was slightly better on a tactical level than all others. The individual soldiers were better trained overall, however by the end of 1914 this advantage had been lost due to heavy casualties and the Germans learned fast, by 1915 the Germans were better at trench warfare and they were usually 1 step ahead of their enemies throughout most of the war period. Somehow the British army went from being the best to arguably the worst on the western front by the Somme offensive 1916, showing extremely poor tactical thinking in their first attempts to break the German lines, with the exception of the Ulsters, the assault tactics used were very basic and showed no learned lessons, the Russians, French, Germans and even Austrians were using more sophisticated assault tactics by this time.
The hyperbole in stuff like this is incredible. Germany only nearly got a victory in 1914, because they blitzed into France, to get to Paris quickly, whilst The Brits and the French were distracted, by the Irish home rule political controversy and the female shooting a journalist controversy, respectively. Even with this benefits of surprise, they couldn't win, so this is embarrassing and is to be mocked. Retrospectively from letters recently uncovered from the German generals, it showed you just how pessimistic and incompetent they were in 1914. Moltke even sent a letter to his wife, saying that he thought they were gonna lose the war and it would be the end of Germany as a modern power.He had a nervous breakdown quite quickly after the war started
The German generals were disgusting, to start a war like this and they did "start" the war. They only call it a world war, to Claim multiple responsibilities, to try to include the brits and the french in that, but if you follow the sequence of events, responsibilities stop after Germany chose to invade France, having not been provoked by the French. I don't care what they Try to speculate about whether France would have joined Russia, if they didn't invade France, the facts are that That didn't happen and what did happen was that Russia invaded Germany and Germany chose to send 90% of its troops, West to invade France.
They were Callous, irresponsible, bloodthirsty maniacs, Just like the Russians, Austro-Hungarian's and the Serbs. France would only join them in being responsible, if it had chosen to invade another country, Like these other powers did, instead of exclusively defending itself
The Germans and Germany are the luckiest modern people, to have started, not just one but 2 major Conflicts against major foreign powers( I'm talking about war with Britain and France. here, not this fabricated idea of a world War) at the time that they invaded.Many countries in the past have been punished far more severely than they were in the Treaty of Versailles.Then they got Away with incredibly favourable conditions. After World War II
No they did NOT mobilize “at the same time” - the Russians began it first, they did so coordinating personally with French President Raymond Poincaré in July (they bankrolled his 1913 election), and on the testimony of Dragutin Dimitrijević (“Apis”) they were also behind the June 28th assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his lovely wife.
I don’t care what Moltke or Falkenhayn thought (Generals are gung ho... imagine that! Generals on both sides said it would be a cakewalk), the Kaiser runs the show and the Willy-Nicky telegrams show he was the only one trying to stop it. Once the Russians mobilized, there was only one choice left.
Kaiser to Tsar
Berlin, 31. July 1914
On your appeal to my friendship and your call for assistance began to mediate between your and the austro-hungarian Government. While this action was proceeding your troops were mobilised against Austro-Hungary, my ally. thereby, as I have already pointed out to you, my mediation has been made almost illusory.
I have nevertheless continued my action. I now receive authentic news of serious preparations for war on my Eastern frontier. Responsibility for the safety of my empire forces preventive measures of defence upon me. In my endeavours to maintain the peace of the world I have gone to the utmost limit possible. The responsibility for the disaster which is now threatening the whole civilized world will not be laid at my door. In this moment it still lies in your power to avert it. Nobody is threatening the honour or power of Russia who can well afford to await the result of my mediation. My friendship for you and your empire, transmitted to me by my grandfather on his deathbed has always been sacred to me and I have honestly often backed up Russia when she was in serious trouble especially in her last war.
The peace of Europe may still be maintained by you, if Russia will agree to stop the milit. measures which must threaten Germany and Austro-Hungary.
Willy
Well said Willy, strangely, I think rabid patriotism still clouds the minds 100 years later, or maybe they're to lazy to open a book, bizarre... But worse than that, I had read somewhere that the documents and letters proving the extensive efforts made by Wilhelm II to prevent the war had disappeared from the Imperial War Museum, well, I just checked and it's absolutely true, everything that led to the war is still listed but when you try to view the damn thing all you get is "object currently missing" the bastards have covered their trails well. I'll check in Germany now but they don't have much left, it's the bastards... again!
To add credibility to this, the French government seized and promptly ‘lost’ all the Austrian investigation documents of the arch dukes assassination. Also gavillo Princip himself stated under questioning ‘free masons from France set me up’
This subject is a bit complex and cannot be settled by a single telegram taken out of context. May I suggest you take a more nuanced view?
Historians think it’s acceptable to take out of context quotes from German generals and use this as ‘evidence’ that they planned and wanted a war. In terms of actual steps taken Germany did NOTHING, no stockpiling of grain, still had over half her gold assets in foreign banks when the war broke out, tried to stop Russian mobilisation and the Germans were the LAST to mobilise their army.
As bad as the Schleiffen plan was, the Germans simply got outfought at the Marne. People don’t seem to want to give enough credit to the French.
An advice for the presenter (from somebody who gave hundred talks): speak more slowly, which will result in less stuttering.
Thanks, I learned an awful lot from that!
True, one of the reasons the Germans lost so badly against the BEF because they did not wait for fire support in these early days. The BEF with it's small size could have been overcome.
The German staff confused being able to organise railway timetables with military genius.
Not at all, Germany clearly outperformed their more numerous enemies. Read the book ‘myth of the great war’ Germany used superior tactics to outperform the French, Russians and even British. They weren’t hugely better but they generally inflicted more casualties and didn’t lose ground for 4 years until the overwhelming power of the US combined with the other world powers finally overcame Germany
@@rhysnichols8608 That would explain why despite deliberately starting both wars they lost both of them.
andrew allen
Are you 90 years old? Your understanding of history is fucking atrocious man
@@rhysnichols8608 You think Germany won both world wars after starting them both? And you think my knowledge of history is atrocious?
Kindly engage brain before putting fingers to keyboard :)
andrew allen
Use your head you fucking spastic, clearly I meant they didn’t START them both. Anyone still believing mainstream history in 2020 is delusional
The casualty figures show who the superior fighters were, and surpassingly it isn’t the British or French….
the one loosing???
25 August 1914 17:10 "Two Army Corps sent to the Eastern Front". The OHL believed the French were defeated. A failure of German Military Inteligence.
Get the speaker a collar mike, acoustics are poor.
tip to viewers: mute the sound and put subtitles on. the subtitles cut through all the repetitions and stammers which make the audio inpenetrable. the presentation is nonetheless well researched.
It is very well researched. Speech impediments are quite common. This man has obviously worked hard to overcome the issues. A very good, knowledgeable and prepared speaker
"Germany had long prayed for war, especially against their arch-enemy--The French."Why? What was the juice that fed this hatred? It seems to have be mutual, yet the French at least have some territorial "right" to their opinions. What was the immoveable hatred about? If there is a simple answer, I'd sure appreciate knowing it.
+Bud Fields (PPTS) Nobody actually cares about the lost territory. The German felt that they were surrounded, they fought of it as a plot. It must also be said that it was mainly the leaders, not the people that wanted to see France destroyed.
+Nick Zbinden Alsace et Lorraine, oublier jamais.
+Bud Fields (PPTS) Human beings ALWAYS see themselves in terms of "self" and "other." Shen populations live side by side, as the french and the Germans long had, they build up grudges. Grudges about borders, territories, resources, historical and cultural differences... and other things. When neighboring countries are not under pressure (ie. there is enough space and resources for everyone), tensions simmer, or countries even cooperate. But when placed under pressure, populations and governments start to hate the "other, " with whom they are in competition. Often, but not always, people organize their sense of self and other along lines of language or religion. But if there is no competing group with major differences, people will start making smaller distinctions.
Its human nature to justify aggression against others rather than sitting down and working things out.
They were concerned about Russia's modernization and railroad development and thought it would be better to have a war sooner rather than later.
One could also put it the other way round. Germany had no direct territorial ambitions against France (of course the appetite was growing during the war) but France certainly had and constantly pursued a policy of encirclement of Germany (first the alliance with Russia and in 1905 the Triple Alliance with Russia and Britain). The feeling in Germany grew that sooner or later war would be inevitable in this situation. This feeling was also shared in other nations but Germany in Central Europe was much more under pressure to act.
The one person that is the symbol of futile WW1 warfare and considered a mindless butcher of human lives, is in fact the mastermind behind avoiding defeat in 1914.
The fog of war was crazy, and GCQ simply didn't expect such massive German forces in north Belgium. Also a disastrous shock of "first contact" which cost the French much more, due to the outdated tactics. How they recovered is nothing short of miracle, but Joffre had his fingers there. Such calm, such poise in face of overwhelming odds and disaster, defeats everywhere. Compare him with Napoleon III, Bazaine, Mac Mahon in 1870 or Gamelin, Georges and others in 1940. He alone is the difference maker. A fantastic recovery on the left flank, formation of new armies, transporting them by rail from the Alsace/Lorraine where trench warfare was already starting... this is a masterclass in war-making.
Moltke had so many advantages in August 1914 and managed to squander them all, lose the numerical and moral advantage, having lost his nerve at the very start of the war when Kaiser Wilhelm accused him of being unworthy of his uncle, the great, old Helmuth von Moltke.
Everything from 15 August to 1 September went according to the German plan and was worse than even the most pessimistic French could've imagined. And yet the victory at Marne happened.
A shame that this victory could not be followed up by rolling the German flank and ending the war in 1914. Both sides were simply too exhausted. But the Germans were far from defeated and even held the initiative until the end of 1914..
Well done!! Such a catastrophe
It's a shame that this is shot so u sympathetically. Maps and illustrations are constantly shown for a couple of seconds only.
Really annoying.
Following the British narrative of World War One can be misleading in the extreme. The Brits typically leave out the French Plan 17 and only speak in condescending reference to the French and German Armies. The French with their Plan 17 marched into well prepared German defenses all along their frontier with the Germans and were thrown back with heavy losses. The Germans were paragons of military virtues compared with the Brits. The Brits had no better plan then duplicate the French Plan 17 on July I, 1916 during the Battle of the Somme on the first day. The Brits wasted a seven day artillery bombardment as an added betrayal of their assaulting troops. The Brits marched into no man's land and into a killing zone covered by barbered wire, machineguns, mortars, direct and indirect artillery fire and were slaughtered as badly as the French two years before. The Brits sent 120,000 men over the top on July I, and lost 20,000 killed and 40,000 wia or mia. The Brits had learned nothing in two years.
and on the 28th of march 1918 in the battle of bapaume the German marched into a killing zone and lost about 15000 killed the Germans learned nothing in four of war,and it put paid to operation michael.
Your anglophobia is showing.
Plan 17 was not an operational plan. It was a concentration plan and no more. It cannot be compared with the German operation plan.
I wonder how many additional British casualties there would have been if our american cousins had been fighting at our sides in 1916?
Mary Nung it's easy to say such things with the benefit of around a century of hindsight, but you're ignoring the training that the soldiers used at the Somme (less than 2 years training for the volunteers that came forward in August 1914). By the time of the Somme there were very few of the Old Contemptables left, having been replaced by the TA and then by Kitchener's volunteers. Therefore, the British generals, knowing the strengths and weaknesses of their soldiers, kept to simple battleplans (as did the Eritrean and Ethiopians did in their war in the 1990s).
The lessons of the Boer Wars had to be relearnt as the volunteer army matured militarily, unfortunately all military lessons are learnt the hard way and paid for in blood.
Jones Jose Williams Deborah Garcia Paul
Fisty cuffs will unsettle the Hun in a fair manner, always has, always will.
We as a nation have nothing to fear from European Union independence :)
How dare you Toby...the aggressive Hun and the peaceful German, I do indeed make a distinction.
We won WW1 because the French and the Russians did the vast amount of the fighting and dying, we also had the Empire troops fighting for us, oh and the Americans eventually. In WW2 the Russians did the majority of the fighting and dying, The French lost more than we did, and we only managed to evacuate Dunkirk because the French army held the Germans off for long enough to allow it, oh and we had the Empire troops and the Americans eventually in that war too. In all our major wars we have had allies who did most of the fighting for us, Austria, Prussia and Russia in the Napoleonic wars for example, even against the Argentinians we needed INTEL support from the USA and Chile to win, so just who are we going to depend on to help us after we leave the EU? By the way have you noticed we don't have the Empire any more. Actually we have a lot to fear, but a little Englander muppet like you will never realise that.
@@slightlyconfused876 Britain stood alone for long periods of time in the Napoleonic Wars. Britain just walked away with the entire naval power projection of the European Union, and with America looking west in the foreseeable future the Queen Elizabeth class carrier can offer more to America than all of the EU combined. Do not be surprised when Britain gains preferential treatment in the coming era of high tariffs in exchange for patrolling the Atlantic and Mediterranean. Euronext and the London stock exchange are worth under 5 trillion each and New York is worth over 30 trillion. The US spends 300% of the entire EU military budget every year. Britain just picked a side in the upcoming trade war, and it was the side with more to offer.
slightly confused
The British were the single biggest agents in the defeat of Nazi Germany. They were there from day one until the end. The so-called "invincible" Germans army tried and failed, with their allies, for two years in WW2 to defeat the British army in North Africa. The finest army in the world from mid 1942 onwards was the British. From El Alemein it moved right up into Denmark, through nine countries, and not once suffered a reverse taking all in its path. Over 90% of German armour in the west was destroyed by the British. Montgomery had to give the US armies an infantry role as they were not equipped to engage massed German SS armour.
Montgomery stopped the Germans in every event they attacked him:
♦ August 1942 - Alem el Halfa
♦ October 1942 - El Alamein
♦ March 1943 -Medenine
♦ June 1944 - Normandy
♦ Sept/Oct 1944 - Holland
♦ December 1944 - Battle of the Bulge
Not on one occasion were Monty's ground armies (British & US under his command) pushed back into a retreat by the Germans. The Americans under their own command didn't perform all that great east of Aachen, then the Hurtgen Forest defeat with 33,000 casualties and Patton's Lorraine crawl of 10 miles in three months with over 50,000 casualties - a 1985 US Army report on the operation heavily castigated the man. These operations have been erased from mainstream US history, with few American ever hearing of the Hurtgen Forest operation. The US Army were struggling in 1944/45 "retreating" in the Ardennes. The Battle of the Bulge took all the US effort, and vital help from Montgomery and the British 21st Army Group, who took command of two US armies, just to get back to the start line. The Germans took 20,000 US POWs in the Battle of The Bulge in Dec 1944. No other allied country had that many prisoners taken in the 1944-45 timeframe, and just under 100,000 casualties in total. The USA retreat at the Bulge, again, the only allied army to be pushed back into a retreat in the 1944-45 timeframe.
The US was losing so many men; men allocated for the Far East were being sent to Europe to plug the manpower gap. They sent so many fearing future heavy losses that they outnumbered British forces. The US sent so many men to Europe the British had more ground troops in the Far East than the US, with 2.6 million men rolling into Burma, besides the Eastern and British Pacific fleets.
Montgomery was effectively in charge of the Bulge having to take control of the US 1st and 9th armies. Eisenhower for the best part of a month never communicated with Montgomery locking himself away - in Paris well away from the war zone. The US 9th army stayed under Monty's control until the end of the war just about.
Normandy was planned and commanded by the British which was a great success coming in ahead of schedule with less casualties than predicted. The German armour in the west was wiped out by primarily British - the US forces were largely impotent against massed panzers, using only one inadequate tank. Monty assessed the US armies (he was in charge of them) and had to give them a supporting infantry role, as they were just not equipped to fight tank v tank battles. On 3 Sept 1944 when Eisenhower took over overall allied command of ground forces everything went at a snail's pace. The fastest advance of any western army in Autumn/early 1945 was the 60 mile thrust by the British XXX Corps to the Rhine at Arnhem.
Eisenhower was the least responsible for the Normandy operation, compared to Montgomery and Morgan, yet he gets the big share of the victory, when Montgomery, having control of all armies, Dempsey and Bradley, of their respective armies, are left in the background. In the book Pegasus Bridge US author Ambrose says complete fallacies such as "Eisenhower chose Normandy as the landing ground", and that "Eisenhower knew that the right flank would be unprotected, hence the airborne drops" and other nonsense. Well he does write friction dressed up as fact. It was British officers Morgan and Cossac, before Eisenhower had even arrived that chose Normandy, and then Monty's revision, which was when Eisenhower was out of country.
During the Battle of the Bulge Eisenhower was stuck self imprisoned on his HQ in des-res Versailles in fear of "German paratroopers wearing US uniforms with the objective to kill allied generals". He had remained locked up more than 30 days without sending a single message or order to Montgomery, and that is when he thought he was doing "ground control" of the campaign, when in effect Montgomery was in control as two US armies had to be put under his control after the German attack, the 1st and 9th armies. The 9th stayed under Monty's control until the end of the war, just about.
And yet biased American authors such as Stephen Ambrose said that Eisenhower took control of the Bulge and made the battle "his" glossing it as an all American victory. Someone should have told him about the British 21st Army group being involved and that Coningham of the RAF had to take control of US air force units. Ambrose completely falsified history. In fact the only thing Eisenhower did was tell Monty to get control of the out of controlBEF in France in 1940 was only one third of the British Army and 9% of all allied forces. In about a month all units were fully re-equipped with factories turning out the latest armaments 24/7. Right after the retreat at Dunkirk, up until early 1941, the British had:
• Destroyed the German surface fleet.
• Neutralised most of the French fleet by sinking or starving it of fuel.
• Disabled a major part of the Italian fleet and starving it from fuel.
• Freely moving around the Mediterranean.
• Starving Germany of food and resources with the effective Royal Navy blockade.
• Beat the Luftwaffe over Dunkirk.
• Beat the Luftwaffe in the misnomer the Battle of Britain as Britain was never threatened.
• Pushed the Italians out of East Africa.
• Decimated the Italian army in North Africa.
• Were about to take all the southern Mediterranean coast.
• Germany was being bombed from the air with raids of over 100 bombers - 150 over Nuremberg - using the new navigational device, Gee.
• A massive air bombing fleet was being assembled.
• The RAF shot down over 700 German fighters over Continental Europe in 1941.
• Supplying the USSR with vital lend-lease tanks and planes - 40% of medium and heavy tanks used in the vital Battle of Moscow were British supplied.
After the small BEF left France in June 1940, the British went on the rampage. So much so Franco told Hitler the British would win and he would not join in with Germany, fearing British occupation of Spanish territory. The Turkish ambassador stated Britain will win as it has a pool of men in its empire to create an army of 45 million (later an army of 2.6 million moved into Burma).
In 1941 the British suppressed an uprising in Iraq, beat the Vichy French in Syria and secured Iran and the oil by invading. The British determined where the battlefields with the Axis were going to be.
After France 1940 Germany never had a significant campaign victory over the British Commonwealth ever again in WW2. The Germans FAILED:
• To win the Battle of Britain in 1940;
• To win the Battle of the Atlantic in 1940/41;
• To control the eastern Atlantic ;
• To control the Mediterranean in 1940/41;
• To control North Africa and the Middle East in 1940/41.
The British Commonwealth stopped the Nazis/Axis achieving all this well before the USA joined WW2 or even sent Lend Lease. Even the expensive pyrrhic victory in Crete meant little in the end to the Nazis because the Royal Navy still dominated the eastern Mediterranean with Crete not leading to any campaign winning difference.
Sorry to rain on the parade, but the US only had mediocre generals, their record "proves" that. If Clark was German he would have been shot for disobeying orders and taking his troops into Rome allowing the Germans to get away. But the US high command did nothing. When the Germans pounded through the Ardennes (a British SHAEF officer personally travelled from London to Bradley to tell him of the German build up, who ignored him) three SHAEF officers (2 British one US) saw how the US 1st and 9th armies' high command were operating after visiting them then recommended that the two armies be put under British control - US general Bedell Smith in a rage fired the two British men on the spot for such a recommendation and then took their advise and reinstated them. After WW2 the US has tried to change history putting them in a brighter light, because contrasted against the British they were shown to be not up to the job.
Years ago the myth was that the the US were key in defeating Hitler because Hollywood told us so. The Yanks were hustlers and the British sat around drinking tea - if only. When I started to read WW2 books (TV documentaries were tabloid and not worth watching for deep content but OK for seeing bangs) and quickly concluded that the British were key - overall they fought longer and smarter and destroyed over 90% of German armour in the west. Continued.....
slightly confused
Continued....
When American ships were being sunk during the so called second ‘Happy Time’, what were the Americans doing? The British were doing the fighting for them. We were told the US supplied the war and without them all would be lost. About 11% of British needs were supplied by the USA and about 4% of Soviet. What was normal trade pre war to the USA became ‘supplying the British war effort’ after 1939. The UK since the 1800s took its wheat from North America - many farms were British owned. The food the US supplied was enough to feed the small city of Bradford. The millions of US troops in the UK were mainly fed and housed by the British. The cans of bully beef eaten by British soldiers came from British ranches in Argentina. The British sourced food in different continents to counter any likely famine - famine was a problem in the 1800s. In 1944/45 more people were working making planes in Britain (the British made the best planes of WW2) than were in the UK based army.
David Edgerton in his book ‘Britian’s War Machine’ shows that although food in Britain was rationed, it was in fact in plentiful supply. Whilst luxury items may have been more difficult to find, there was always sufficient bulk foods such as bread, potatoes and vegetables to make sure that the people did not go hungry.
Edgerton stresses the continued reliance on traditional suppliers, such as wheat and meat from Canada, Australia and Argentina, and oil from the Caribbean and the Middle East, much of it transported in British ships. Britain had the largest merchant marine in the world.
Churchill admitted in his memoires to exaggerating British weakness before coming into office. For example he was content that his accounts of air-power should 'act as a spur'. He wanted the war over as quickly as possible.David Edgerton points out that "Churchill's own warning as to propagandistic aims has not alas prevented many taking his exaggerations as descriptions of the real state of affairs".
Britain was one of the richest nations in the world in 1940, and in terms of living standards per head, the Dominions, and even much of the Empire, were right up there with her. None of the Axis powers came close to a similar standard of living. In terms of modern industrial output for instance, 30% of Germans were still involved in agriculture, whereas only 8% of the British workers were.
Edgerton: "the richest state in Europe... certainly richer than Germany"; no wonder that "the British were the great meat-eaters of Europe" (even during the war "rationing did not imply drastically cut supplies, except in the case of sugar") and that "Britain was the most motorized nation in Europe" as well as "the world's largest importer of oil"; to be more precise "Britain started and ended the war as the world's largest importer". "So powerful was Britain in the world economy that it could in effect force many people around the world to supply it with goods for credit". Moreover "it had resources to spare, was wealthy enough to make mistakes, and could fight as it chose to rather than had to".
"The warfare state was one of plenty, of armed forces generously supplied with new equipment by new factories", "interwar Britain was a military superpower at sea and in the air, supporting the largest arms industry in the world" (incidentally, "it was the largest arms exporter of the world"). "Britain rearmed on a scale unprecedented in peacetime". The "liberal militarism" which pervaded Britain caused a veritable "orgy of techno-nationalist excess", the scientific pursuit of its industrial and military aims was spasmodic: not only "in some key sectors, efficiency of production was the same as in the USA", but "if one of the forces was organized with Teutonic efficiency and regimentation, it was the RAF, not the Luftwaffe". Another measure of preparedness was that during the war forty-four overwhelmingly new ordnance factories were in operation".
Britain was so utterly self conscious of its industrial might and technical primacy that "when the British team... went to the US with new British developments in October 1940, there was again a clear sense that the British had more to offer the Americans than vice versa".
He goes on to talk about ‘peculiarities of the British Army (the first to have a complete cold-store chain as well as a blood transfusion system); ‘the Middle East Supply Centre [which] coordinated civil imports and promoted local supply’, including the ‘growing of potatoes in Egypt and Syria, potatoes without which the British soldier does not consider himself properly fed’.
Far from being a plucky underdog in 1940, David Edgerton says, Britain was a first-class power, with the world's largest navy, the greatest aircraft production of any country and a small but uniquely mechanised army - pre-war appeasement having gone hand in hand with rearmament.
Until Japan joined the war, Britain was the world's leading military industrial power, with world's most advanced technology (including the world's leading nuclear bomb program, radar, penicillin, proximity fuse, and many other things that were passed on to Americans to continue development of as part of the United Nations approach to the rationalisation of wartime resources). Continued....
Rodriguez Cynthia Smith Betty Williams Kimberly
It would make for better listening if he stopped bleating about ishooos, when he actually means problems
Regimen.
Jesus! I'd love... love... love... love to... to... to... know more ab... ab... ab... about this but uh... uh... uh I... I...I...I... can't take anoth... anoth... anoth... another... minute.
How long did it take you to write this shit?
Jamie. Would you say that to his face? I mean, are you just a dick in the safe anonymity of the internet, or are you an asshole in general? Crawl back into your trailer, enjoy your life as a loser, and focus your attention on watching Looney Tunes cartoons and reality shows. More your speed.
Look at these replies, condemning your mockery as a nasty personal attack and proceeding to insult you with nasty personal attacks.
I also uh turn tur uh ned it uh, off. Because, because, uh filling every second with uh or repeating words is irritating to listen to. Personal attack? Nah. Criticism of poor lecturing style? You bet.
I noticed that the camera panned to a partly sleeping audience.
Fascinating subject BUT delivered by damn Porky Pa pa pa pa Porky Pig !!! Geezus man !!!
Canada and Newfoundland should have stayed out of it.Germany had no desire for war against the British Empire let alone Newfoundland or Canada.
While this is a very interesting talk and the speaker is clearly incredibly knowledgeable of his subject he is an absolutely terrible public speaker. The entire enjoyment of the talk is greatly diminished because of his perpetual stammering. Had he been able to convey his talk with even half the repeating he went through the talk would have lasted 30 or maybe 40 mins . I do now know why they put him up first to speak... he would have been totally unbearable later in the day. If he had written that talk it would have been most interesting to read but listening to him gibbering away greatly detracts from what was an excellent piece.
john pantling harsh
Harsh. True though.
Actually I thought he delivered his talk confidently and competently and he doesn’t have a stammer. If you’re distracted it’s more about you than about him. A very snippy and discreditable comment, black mark.
I liked his delivery. Calm and competent.
Sounded fine to me
Um, Um, Uh, Uh...MY GOD WHAT A TERRIBLE SPEAKER!!! It's a shame too because I am very interested in this topic but I am closing out of the video after less than 5 minutes because I cannot continue to listen to Dr. Um Um Uh Uh!
Ever done a public speech yourself? Not that easy even when you are an expert on a topic, try listening to the content
@@slightlyconfused876 he actually sounds like someone who is fighting a speech impediment to a degree.
@@slightlyconfused876 I have... and to be honest do not enter the kitchen unless you can stand the heat. This fellow is without doubt an expert in his knowledge of the subject but he does not show it in the delivery of his talk it is so laboured .
He has a stutter. I guess you have a case of asshole.
Most of the German Army was NOT made up of reservists. Half perhaps, at most.
Please check your numbers: The 50 active divisions had around 30% reservists, the 25 reserve divisions >90%, Landwehr was also a reserve organisation. It is a save bet that more than half of the men were reservists.
From another perspective: the German active army consisted of around 700000 men in 1914....
The German staff confused being able to organise railway timetables with military genius.
A stupid argument does not become better by repitition.