@@jonathanwebster7091did work out tho at least!! they got along pretty well, and even when slovakia wanted to gain independence they were able to do so peacefully
Three video suggestions: 1.) Why wasn’t Thailand colonized? 2.) Why did Texas and California want to be annexed? 3.) Why is Western Sahara still disputed?
Thailand was pretty much treated as a buffer state between British India and French Indochina. It’s also why Afghanistan was allowed to exist and have that weird panhandle so the British and Russian empires didn’t share a direct border between each other.
California was already a territory when it became a state, and for Texas, I think there's a previous video by him. As for western Sahara, it was given independence from Spain and it was annexed by Morocco before any future decision would be made.
@@cavemanomarSpain did not give independance to western Sahara. The UN asked them to do it, but instead they signed à treaty with Morocco and Mauritenia to split the land between the 2.
Czech person here: One of the main reason that the Czechoslovakia was created, and all people got a Czechoslovakian nationality was.. that there was actually more Germans than there was Slovaks. So if we wanted to separate Czechs and Slovaks into two nationalities Slovaks would be 3rd in the country so we would have to be called something like Czecho-German-Slovakia. So they created this artificial nationality of Czechoslovaks to suppress German minority.
That's correct. The Czechoslovak government always officially said Germans were equal, but in reality there was often racism against German speakers. This culminated in the Germans being mass murdered, hunted and thrown out after WW2.
"But as many of you will know, the czechs and the slovaks were both separate during their time under the hapsburgs." Yep. That was background information I definitely, already knew. I definitely never assumed they were always grouped together.
Slovakia was a completely integrated part of Hungary, while Czechia (Bohemia) was in a very different situation. It was a part of the Austrian half of the empire, where they had their own diet and also sent representatives to the imperial council.
Before 1918 the last time Czech and Slovaks were "grouped together" was in... 906 (nine-zero-six, without a one in the front). Since then Czech and Slovaks lived under completely different administrative regimes*. *honorary mention for Bolesław I the Brave who in 1003 effectively united Poland, Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia, but he lost control over Bohemia after a year, while he and his son managed to control Moravia and Slovakia up to 1031 (or 1025, depending on source).
@@atruv2089 Both ways are true. There is simply no way for the guy to know this, unless he has specifically been interested in A-H internal politics. There are some facts which if you've been interested enough in History, it is essentially inevitable not to know them (the first one we all learn is "Colombus wasn't the first in America" and "Vikings didn't where horned helmets", those are like the 'entry facts' in history, the first ones you learn, and you are essentially uneducated if not knowing them. There are different "everybody/every history nerd knows this fact" fact for ever level of history knowledge, and you can tell peoples' history knowledge by them; after those two the next level of history is "I know the emu war" stage, the "the Dutch ate their prime minister" and so on as history knowledge progresses. If you have high history knowledg, the facts I stated should be the first you learn)
@Tovalokodonc But you said the comment that 650k Hungarians was a lie, I only ask for a source because I genuinely am interested in the history. I've been trying to find it myself but only have found source supporting the 650k hungarians in 1920 claim :/
Always fascinating to hear about the interwar period. So much focus on WWI and WWII itself, that the immediate aftermath of WWI gets overlooked. I like hearing about things like this. I would’ve figured some type of Pan-Slavic idea being the main reason (much like Yugoslavia), but the answers are never so simple. Great video!
I agree. SO much happened in the years immediately after WW1, it made my head spin when I finally learned about it. Basically the western front of WW1 stopped fighting with Treaty of Versailles, but fighting continued all over the rest of Europe.
One thing that I didn't hear mentioned is that Czech and Slovak are very very similar as languages, to the point you can regard them as dialects of each other. Of course, that doesn't count for squat in the case of the Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, etc. Even Montenegro has created its own version of the language. Then again, mutual intelligibility of language didn't stop Australia's gross betrayal of New Zealand in the infamous under-arm bowling incident, next to which all the war crimes of the former Yugoslavia pale into insignificance. Just because you can understand an Aussie is no reason to trust him/her.
@@cv990a4 All Slavic languages are very similar when we compare them with other language families. It is quite unique phenomenon in Slavic languages how little they change over vast geographical distribution. If you lumped together Poland and Slovakia there would also be very little problem in understanding (Polish and Czech is a little more different, but in UK they are dialects of English harder to understand by Londoner compering to understanding between two random Czechs and Poles).
There's definitely a strong myopia caused by primacy of English, American and French perspectives on the interwar period. For Americans, Brits and French the war ended in 1918 and then things were basically fine until crash in 1929 and were at least peaceful until 1939. But in Germany and literally everywhere east and southeast of Germany the entire period of 1918 to 1923 was a shitshow with massive wars, chaos, anarchy, millions of deaths and was often more deadly than even WW1.
It is nice that besides pragmatic reasons the guy who proposed the state of Czechoslovakia was because he saw the similarities between the two peoples. In an era of Nationalism and ethic repression the first thing this man thought was 'Let both of our peoples work together', the end result is....not as wholseome. But, still.
If it stayed at Czechs and Slovaks, maybe it would've worked out. Instead they took Germans, Hungarians, Ukrainians and Poles with them. That worked about as well as can be expected.
I'd say they had a pretty good run in the fist 20 years. During Communist times, they had other concerns to worry. And also now as separate nations, they get along well.
13 years earlier Norway demanded and got independence from Sweden, although Swedes and Norwegians are even more similar than Czechs and Slovaks. Sometimes narrow minded "patriotism" wins.
@@eljanrimsa5843 I’d argue that the communist era gave Czechoslovakia another 45 years of existence (as it did Yugoslavia). If that (and WW2) had never happened, I think both would have inevitably split apart not long after about 1940.
This made me understand why their breakup was so smooth and the two countries remained close. They had literally nothing to feud about and united due to common threats then broke up when those threats had abated.
They are also very "smooth" people. Nothing like the "I have a giant stick up my arse" Germans, or the "Everyone should be as miserable as I" Russians. Very nice people!
Yeah frankly the breakup was mostly due to disagreements at the top rather than ethnic tensions, and most people didn’t care one way or the other if it stayed or dissolved
2:10 this is something that's very underappreciated, especially nowadays with the EU. The collapse of four empires after WW1 led to the creation of large number of small successor states that each had a small share of resources of the larger empires and they frequently had large imbalance, for example Hungary was producing something like 5x more food than it needed to feed itself and Czech industry was massively oversized for it's small population. What made this much worse is that post-WW1 was the first time that borders were strictly enforced, passports required and export and import tightly controlled in Europe. So trade and movement of people was difficult and countries generally had to be more self sufficient than they'd been used to being for centuries (for example, even the 17th century Dutch Republic imported most of its grain from Poland-Lithuania).
A country is not an economic zone. It's a homeland for a nation. If you need resources then use diplomacy and trade. Don't give up your national sovereignty.
@@johnwilson6324 Part of national sovereignty is being able to enforce a national economic zone through customs and tariffs. Diplomacy and trade don't always work as well as simply controlling resources outright. "Homeland" and "nation" have meant different things. Prior to the Napoleonic era, homelands and nations were identified with ruling families who controlled cosmopolitan areas. After Napoleon, homelands and nations generally referred to ethnic, linguistic, and religious homogeneity. This homogeneity was also occasionally defined by an economic system (democracy/republicanism, constitutional monarchy/parliamentary system, communism, fascism, etc). All of this was enclosed within well-defined, yet fluctuating and disputed borders. The modern world is once again returning to large cosmopolitan blocs defined by economic and political systems (mainly constitutional monarchy/parliamentary democracy/republicanism and free market capitalism). The EU embodies this, but its growing transnational power contradicts the old ethnic/linguistic/religious homogeneity model. Hence nativism and Brexit.
@@AAAA-lt9hq "Part of national sovereignty is being able to enforce a national economic zone through customs and tariffs. Diplomacy and trade don't always work as well as simply controlling resources outright." Trying to control them outright leads to far too many problems in the long run. ""Homeland" and "nation" have meant different things. Prior to the Napoleonic era, homelands and nations were identified with ruling families who controlled cosmopolitan areas. After Napoleon, homelands and nations generally referred to ethnic, linguistic, and religious homogeneity. This homogeneity was also occasionally defined by an economic system (democracy/republicanism, constitutional monarchy/parliamentary system, communism, fascism, etc). All of this was enclosed within well-defined, yet fluctuating and disputed borders." Ruling families could draw whatever lines they wanted on the map, but people have understood the notion of ethnic groups and certain ethnic groups inhabiting certain places for thousands of years. Many place names started out as a reference to this. "The modern world is once again returning to large cosmopolitan blocs defined by economic and political systems (mainly constitutional monarchy/parliamentary democracy/republicanism and free market capitalism). The EU embodies this, but its growing transnational power contradicts the old ethnic/linguistic/religious homogeneity model. Hence nativism and Brexit." The modern world isn't. The West is. Much of the world including lsraeI isn't being subjected to this.
Some additional background (from a Czech person): Before WW1, Masaryk and most Czechs didn't want an independent Czech state. Instead they were advocating for gradual improvement of their position within Austria. Contrary to the slogan depicting Austria as "prison of nations" (which was actually mainly popularised as a wartime propaganda against Austria-Hungary), Austria in the late 19th and early 20th century gave a pretty remarkable representation to the different nations it was composed off (Hungary was much worse, though, especially for Slovaks and Romanians) and often supported their culture. This was always partly politically motivated of course: the Austrian Empire didn't have one clear national majority, so instead of forcing the metropole's nationality onto all the people in the state (like the French did), the Austrians were trying to balance all the national movements against one another. By supporting the Ukrainian national movement in Galicia, they were trying to weaken the Poles (which is why Ukrainians still remember Austria very fondly, especially those from Lviv); by supporting Slovenes around the key city of Trieste, they were weakening the Italians etc. But compared with the situation of Bretons and Occitans in France, Catalans and Basques in Spain, or the Irish and Welsh in the United Kingdom, Austria was actually pretty liberal towards its national minorities. But most importantly, however imperfect, Austria was seen as a guarantor of the Czech statehood and nationality. The Czechs said "If Austria didn't exist, we would have to invent it." They realised that an independent Czech state would be too small and weak to survive in Europe in the age of empires. And if given a choice of an empire, Austria was a relatively good one. This changed during the First World War. The Czechs (and others nations of Austria) realised that whatever the outcome of the war, their national fate would only become worse. If Austria and Germany were to win, Austria as the obviously junior partner would slowly be subjugated by Germany, and the Czechs would be Germanised. But if Austria were to lose, it would be even worse, because it would be only a matter of time before some other empire would conquer the Czechs by force. Whether a renewed German Empire or perhaps some reincarnation of Russian Empire, Czechs would soon be swallowed by a larger neighbouring state. Unless they could create a large enough state for themselves. Which is why Masaryk and his friends spent the entire war trying to recreate the Austrian state for the Czechs in its biggest possible form. That's why they invented the Czechoslovak nation (which also helped to have a clear majority over the Germans in the newly created state). At one point, they were considering joing Slovenes and Croats, but in the end, Czechoslovakia was the biggest they could get. This was not by any means automatical. While the WW1 in Western Europe ended in 1918, in central and eastern Europe, it continued for another two years as the states newly created from the disintegrated Austrian, Russian and Ottoman empires were fighting over their borders and sometimes for their very existence. So the Soviets were fighting with the Poles over Ukraine and the Soviet Army was marching towards Western Europe, attempting to bring the communist revolution in the entire world, until the Poles stopped it on the Vistula (for which they absolutely never get the credit they deserve!). The Hungarians were fighting with the Romanians. The Greeks were figting with the Turks. Etc etc. And the Czech army was fighting with Hungary over southern Slovakia (which was mostly populated by Hungarians, but which was strategically important because of the Danube, which was important commerically and as a militarily defensible border) and with Poland over Zaolzie (which was again populated mostly by Poles but which was commercially important and a regional rail hub). This of course proved extremely shorthsighted because Czechoslovakia made bitter enemies of its two neighbours, and at least Poland would have otherwise been a good ally against Germany. The tragic irony of history is that Masaryk was very soon proven right but his acomplishment was not enough. Outside of the Austrian state, Czechoslovakia remained independent only for two decades. In fact, none of the states newly formed after WW1 from Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire, remained existing and sovereign for more than two decades. All of them were first destroyed by Germany or turned into German puppets. And then almost all of them were subjugated by Soviet Russia or turned into Soviet Russia's puppets. This is true for all the states that originated from the disintegrated Austrian, Ottoman and Russian empires: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Yugoslavia, Greece, Austria and Finland (although for the last five, only the subjugation by Germany is true, they managed to escape the Russian subjugation, but often at a great cost and through special circumstances). "If Austria didn't exist, we would have to invent it!" In modern times, we did invent such an Austria! Today, it is the EU that guarantees the security and sovereingty of central and eastern European states. I really hope we all realise it! The Ukrainians for sure do.
I have studied modern history at university, attended conferences, read books ... But I've never seen the topic summarized and explained so well. I applaud you, sir.
I do feel there's a tendency for modern Czechs to "over-vilify" Austrian rule to a certain extent. While Habsburg rule was certainly a far cry from self-determination, and the period around the Thirty Years' War was certainly bloody, there's a tendency to act as if the repression of Czechs was equivalent to the repression endured by the Poles under Russian rule, which is frankly absurd. It's understandable why this vilification happened, though, due to World War II and the occupation of Czechia by the unified German-Austrian NSDAP dictatorship. Drawing parallels between the struggle against Germany in WWII and the Winter King fighting a hopeless battle against the forces of the Catholic League is certainly romantic and was easy fodder for Benes and the Communists who deposed him to justify eradicating the legacy of Habsburg rule like the Sudeten Germans and Catholicism, but it has no real basis in historical reality. The Dichotomy between Sudeten Germans and Czechs was largely false to begin with, since the two ethnicities lived side by side for so long they basically shared everything except a language by WWI.
Brilliant timing! Last week (28.10.) we celebrated the 105th anniversary of the creation of independent Czechoslovakia. Much love to your channel and all the people from Czechia and Slovakia. 🇨🇿❤️🇸🇰
Yet another video that answers a question that I never thought of, but now I'm happy I know. The Interwar Period is criminally underrated, and I'm glad that this channel covers this era, from big to small events.
Why does Serbia fight so hard to maintain control over Kosovo and yet just grant Montenegro an independence referendum(despite the fact it made them landlocked)?
Kosovo was given Autonomy under Serbian SR whille Montenegro was its own SR. It was done by Communists since Montenegrians where already a nation with a century or two of having their own country whille Albanian Kosovars wanted some political representation which turned into wanting their own country because of certain things Serbs did in Kosovo in late 90s
The serbs beat back the turks in what is now kosovo in the 1400s. To say it has historical importance to them would be an understatement. That, combined with the fact that serbs are pissed at the hypocricy of Kosovo being given the right to national self determination while bosnian and croatian serbs weren't. Imagine if the Canadians became a majority in Pennsylvania, declared independnace and took Gettysburg with them.
Well, I usually hit the like button after seeing the whole new History Matters video but considering it's about my country, I guess it has to be done IMMEDIATELY. Great work.
The history of czecho-slovakism starts at least at 1895, when the CzechoSlavic Ethnographic Exhibition was organized in Prague, where Czechs and Slovaks presented themselves as one nation within Austria-Hungary. The nationalism of the 19th century was built a lot around language, and Czechs and Slovaks understand each other well, so many people already in the 19th century understood themselves as one nation with separate history. We also formed common communities in a foreign environments, for example in America or Vienna.
As someone from Carpathian Ruthenia (Modern-day Zakarpattya), I always tell the story of my grandparents that lived in 5 countries without ever moving from their village. My home region switched hands so many times that until now it is such a mix of different ethnicities, languages, religions and cultures.
@@johnwilson6324 I don't know a single person who would say that they are Rusyn and not Ukrainian. Some do say that to underline their origin but none reject belonging to the Ukrainian family
I just wanna say from someone who has been watching your videos since around the time you got started, it's amazing to see your purposefully simple art style become way more intricate as your videos have progressed with gradually more and more detail on the blocky guys and in the background.
Tomas Masaryk is a totally underrated statesman. He was instrumental is the creation of not only Czechoslovakia, but also Israel, where he is fondly remembered. One of the greatest politicians of the early 20th Century whom many have never heard of.
@@d3jsYeah nothing from 890 happened here there was clearly a void and sudenly in 1918 Czechoslovakia appeared everyone knows that. Also That Czech emperor of HRE yeah fake news. Beating crusade with literal sticks, basically creating first ever tank in world, holding whole transsiberian railway just because we wanted to go home and russians said nah. Yeah nothing happened and our history is boring you are right sir.
As a Slovak I'd like to thank you for this short, funny and very accurate video on the origin of Czechoslovakia (there was the anniversary of its' independence on October 28). You even put General Štefánik in it, who is higly regarded as our national hero. I really like your work.
I always thought the Allies just wanted a buffer state so that Germany could not easily unite with Austria. Because to finish Germania proper, Czechia would simply be swallowed up by any German imperial force that tried to annex lands. This video was super interesting, and it is cool that Masaryk had a "home calling" and saw how both people-groups worked well together. Very interesting! As always, sir, your videos are amazing, I watch them all the time. :)
Lol that suggests that the lands were populated by peoples that had no national identity so that outside powers could just shape them according to their whim. Both Bohemia and Slovakia were at that time more than a 1000 years old kingdoms that had a strong idea about what future they want to have…
That doesn't mean that they had the power or ability to make that future a reality. Look at Poland, the Polish Nation-State is so young today though Poland-Lithuania had treasured and gifted dreams of what it could be. They had a rich and ancient culture, though German, Austrian, and Russian hegemonies crushed them under their heels. @@jankopecky8227
Slavic languages, especially if they're all from west/east/south slavic language group are always similar. Czech, Slovak, Pole aven Sorb (slav living mostly in german silesia) could hold conversation without knowing each other's language
@@Protontthat’s not entirely true. Czech and Slovak are fully mutually intelligible, but Polish and Sorbian are only partially mutually intelligible with other West Slavic languages. Slovaks and Czechs can hold fluent conversations with each other, but not with Poles and Sorbs.
Language similarities and cultural similarities don’t stop anyone lol look at serbia croatia and bosnia all three of those speak almost the same language with minor differences have similar enough cultures the only difference is religion and they all hate each other its more than just language tbh
No clue whether all of this is correct but this is one of the best episodes of the channel so far. You could follow through all of the details. Great job.
I’ve always wondered: How did Ethiopia and Liberia avoid colonization during the scramble for Africa? I’m sure there are videos already on TH-cam that’s answered this question but a History Matters version would be awesome (And a lot more funnier too) Edit: I’ve been informed that a video already exists and I somehow missed it. Now I feel silly. But thank you though to everybody in the replies for the answers 🤙
They didnt. Liberia was first colonized by the french i think, who then sold it to the US wich at some point gave them independence (i dont know the date). Ethiopia was assigned to Italy during the Berlin conference, the thing is when Italy tryed to conquer it (First Italo-Ethiopian war) they lost, so until Mussolini invaded in 1935 (Second Italo-Ethiopian war) they were independent. Italian colonization lasted short beacause of ww2
There is also the fact the Czech leadership decided they would be united, by themselves, and after the declaration of their new statehood was made they got really lucky that the Slovak leaders upon finally being asked their own input on this matter went “ok.”
0:15 Technically, two states. The Kingdom of Bohemia (a large, western portion) and the Margraviate of Moravia (a small, southern eastern portion). Both were separate crownlands
But both were (at least on paper) part of the Crown of Bohemia. So they were both Austrian (Austrian Empire) and Bohemian (Crown of Bohemia) crownlands.
@@Gosudar Austrian government did everything that "Bohemian Lands" was the most symbolic title and waste of paper only. Kingdom of Bohemia, Margraviate of Moravia and Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia where three different states that answering directly to Vienna. They really did not wanted have a "second Hungary" in their empire. :P
@@Hadar1991 Yep, thats what I meant by "on paper". :) Reuniting the Crown of Bohemia was one of the main goals of the Czech politics pretty much throughout the whole long 19th century until the war.
No, one state with three land under the Czech Crown, Bohemia, Morava and Silesia. Margraviate Moravia was always (with minor exceptions)par of the Czech kingdom.
And many Slovaks already studied in Czechia because the languages are pretty similar. So the politicians, lawyers, priests, doctors and other high qualified part of the Slovak nation had lots of buddies in Czechia already. And this practically remains the same to this day.
Your videos are always so interesting and informative, it always amazes me how much information you fit in to a 3-4 min video, and still have time for some of your regular jokes! :)
Just to clarify to others: The happy guy in French uniform is Slovak Milan Rastislav Stefanik (also from czech-slovak mixed region as Masaryk) which life was one a hell rollercoster... due to health always on the edge of death, but climb Mt. Blanc to observe stars, that travel to Tahiti to observe sun, and than came back to ww1 in Europe and died in aircraft crash when first time arriving to his dreamland Czechoslovakia... Still cannot believe he was real and not Jara Cimrman...
Btw you might notice that modern day Czech Republic has held onto the old symbols and heraldry of the Kingdom of Bohemia. Even the currency is called a "crown" which is rather strange for a republic. This was at least partially done to support the claim of the new Czechoslovak government in 1918 that they were THE successor state to the Kingdom of Bohemia and therefore "inherited" all of its territories...including the ones populated mostly by ethnic Germans. Btw what the nationalist optics always fails to capture is the level of mixing and mingling that had been going on within the Austrian Empire for quite a while before the 20th century. The ethnicities were hostile to each other mostly on the elite level whereas the common folk managed to live together quite well... all things considered.
A side-argument, which I don't see mentioned is that the Pannonian lands were mostly Slavic before the arrival of Hungarians (mostly under Great Moravia and related subjects), so there was the underlying idea of re-creating the state again / reconnecting the Slavic people together. The former idea was to also include Yugoslavia with a lang bridge, however it quickly failed - look up "Czech Corridor" on Wikipedia for example.
We have no information about exact ethnic relation but many factor refer the non slavic population was also significant otherwise the immigrating hungarians would have sinked the slavic see. The fragmented ethnic structure (slavs, avars germans perhaps small romanized groups) in 9th century and the lack of strong state save us (hungarians). Of course it is likely the different slavic groups were the biggest.
The simple and obvious thing not mentioned is that Czech and Slovak are closely interrelated cultures and mutually intelligible languages. It seems some 65% of the vocabulary of each is shared. Their differences are due to the fact that the Czech culture flourished relatively under Austrian control while Slovak culture suffered under the more onerous oppression of Hungarian domination.
Languages are very similar, but culturaly, we are not that close as some people think, since 15th century, we are on hussite/protestant side (and beying forced to switch back to catholicism later), while Slovaks were always catholics and they are still much more religious even today, while religion in Czechia pretty much died completely. And today, Slovaks are very proRussian and constantly talk about some LGBT things and how it should be everything banned and bad EU.....here in Czechia, we don't care about such things that much, I would say we are much more tolerant.
1. There was no such thing as a Kingdom of Bohemia and Moravia. It was the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Margraviate of Moravia and the parts of Silesia that remained part of the Habsburg monarchy after 1742. Together they formed the Lands of the Bohemian Crown. 2. Since you tried to show the regions within Czechia where Germans held the majority i would especially consider the map at 1:03 as wrong. There where large parts of southern Moravia at the border to Austria as well as some islands entirely surrounded by Czech population that where inhabited mostly by Germans (or more precise: by German speaking people). So the problem for Czechoslovakia wasn´t some Germans near the western border but rather a significant German population just everywhere and especially surrounding the Czechs by inhabiting almost all borderlands
Good points. Block colors on maps are very misleading. Uninformative. Easy for mapmakers, but offering O facts. Germans - Ashkenaz, + their associated Ashkenazi in "island" towns in a sea of Nationalists / Natives. Lots of colored dots could give better info, but tedious and time consuming, perhaps, for PC screens. Same in the Volga region and the Balkans. So there were Germans. It was not Deutschland nor GroBdeutschland. Block colors or dots ? Same in West Poland, Danzig Corridor and South OstpreuBen. Block colors do not make Germland. Statistics for 1900 show dots.
0:58 As a Pole, my heart began to beat faster when I saw this wonderfully done map. II Republic borders, with Free City of Danzig/Gdańsk and Zaolzie. Perfect borders, I truly wish we had reached and kept them until today. Also, I think it's worth to mention few things about "mild disagreements" we had with Czechoslovakia. It was about Zaolzie, a part of Silesia. It is a small piece of land, but it's industrialised. For this reason, Czechoslovakia invaded it in 1919. They chose the moment well, because Poland was busy with various wars on the east, which eventually evolved into a Polish-Bolshevik War. When League of Nations was deciding on the solution for the dispute, Red Army was carrying out its 1920 offensive and everyone thought that Poland would fail soon. Hence they granted Zaolzie to Czechoslovakia. Its population was mostly Polish and wished to live in Poland. Also, as I said, it was economically important. For this reason, Poland and Czechoslovakia had rather unfriendly relations throughout 1920s and 1930s. It's untrue, however, that Polish minority was repressed. Czechoslovakia respected Poles and allowed them to cultivate their culture. Regardless, in 1938 Polish soldiers entering Zaolzie were welcomed with cheers - local population still preferred to live in Poland
This leaves out imporant information about why the conflict sparked. The Poles and Czech people agreed that the land would be subject to vote which nation to join. Until this vote both nations were forbiden to: a. organise elections there and b. mobilise people there. Both of those things the Polish goverment did. The Czechoslovak goverment saw this as a breach of this agreement and thus attacked and started the seven day war. I cannot speak to the situation there, if the population wanted to be part of Poland or Czechoslovakia, but what i know is that in the region there were parts with more Czechs and parts with more Poles.
that oversimplifies the situation of the region. Before major population transfers that were a result of this conflict it was a messy blend of Poles, Czechs, Germans and Jews that lived there next to each other for centuries. It's not like nowadays where you have Poles on one side and as soon as you cross the river you have Czechs and a Polish minority, there was a multiethnic mix in every village and every town with no clear border between "the Polish part" and "the Czech part" - and the ethnic composition of the region also evolved over time. This is why it was not possible to simply draw a border and divide the area fairly.
The reasons for Czechoslovak invasion were bit more complex than mere industrialization of the region. One, the region had steel mills Czechoslovakia wanted. Two, there was a critical railway connection between Czech and Slovak part of the country. So both the economic and military factors played a role. Another factor was that Czechoslovak government had no inclinations to allow the right to self-determination of any minority to threaten historical borders of the Czech Kingdom. The reasoning was that if Poles got away with it, Germans would get ideas. So the cheeky Czechs played self-determination card to become independent and then also played the indivisibility of "historic territories" card.
You are wrong sir. The Duchy Cieszyn was divided between Czechoslovakia and Poland after the Seven-day war won by Czechoslovakia that sparked after the polish government broke the preliminary treaty and started to organise election in that region, that was subject to the Kingdom of Bohemia for centuries (as recognised in Visegrad Conference in 1335). Plus, please note that term Zaolzie is quite offensive and factually inaccurate.
@@ondrejnejedly9455maybe we decided to moblilize people there bc I don't know... We were fighting a full scale war against the soviet union a d were extremely desporate for any kind of manpower and resources? Expecially considering the fact that we were very likely to vin that vote anyway due to the fact that majority of the population there was Polish.
We must remember that Czech and Slovak are mutually-intelligible languages, and also that was the medieval state of Great Moravia which covered most of the territory that would become Czechoslovakia about a thousand years later. Czechs, Slovaks and Ruthenians lived in different administrative units, but ruled from the same crown for many centuries. It was coherent at the end of World War I that the lands of Czechoslovakia would unite around a single country, which would be stronger against menaces of the neighbors. But then came Hitler and his support for the separatist Sudetenland parties…
I can mentally process most YoutTube videos at 1.5x speed, and listen to them thus. I often listen to this channel at .75x speed, in order to absorb everything, including the fleeting witty graphics.
Worth mentioning that Ruthenians are just another name for Ukrainians. And in early 1938 they declared Carpatho-Ukraine state which existed for 3 months.
@Tovalokodonc Probably after the war. There was critiques of current legislation by other countries as well, and it will be adressed when survival of the state is not at stake. I do believe they will be adressed cause that's the guys we wanna be friends with.
What a Wednesday night (Thursday morning in NZ) - B1M, History Matters, Stuntpegg, Company Man, Barry McCockiner all coming out with new vids.. Just needed Johnny Harris but he did say he is working on another vid but life is good!! Thank you Aaron the White!
My wife's grandfather was a Hungarian living in Slovakia. At the end of WWII my in-law's company was nationalized by the Soviet "occupiers" and so they decided to leave Budapest. My mother-in-law took the 2 kids and went to visit grandpa in Slovakia. From Slovakia they took a train to Vienna pretending to be Germans. (Mother-in-law spoke 5 languages, including German, and the kids were drugged to remain asleep). Father-in-law bribed a farmer with some wine and money to hide in a hay wagon and cross into Austria. From a Vienna refugee camp they selected Chile to emigrate to where they became medium wealthy until the communists took over; whereupon they moved to Los Angeles and bought the apartment building I was living in...
@@rumkeg919 Father-in-law landed in Chile and started out selling Christmas tree ornaments. Later became a iron ore mining manager up in the Andes selling ore to the Japanese to make cars. Having delt with communism in Hungary, as soon as Allende (communist) won the election, they left for LA the next day.
Kinda doubt the soviets nationalised they property . I mean they were just army , they have no byrocracy here But the Czechoslovak authorities did take away property of many Hungaryens living in Slovakia after the WWII In fact a Slovakization program was establish fór like 7 years the goverment tried to force them to be Slovaks , eventualy they gave Up on that
@@niccolorichter1488My father-in-law's business was machining and tipping metal cutting blades sold mostly to the Germans. He had 20+ employees. A Russian captain and his orderly were billeted in my father-in-law's apartment. Daily on his walk to work he was stopped and inspected by Russian soldiers. On a particular day he arrived at work and was told that all businesses with more than 20 employees were now owned by the government. He made plans and emigrated soon after. All of these events were in downtown Budapest. In 2002 my in-laws hosted us in Budapest for a tour.
@@colombianguy8194 There are a lot of foreigners in Prague and not many outside of Prague. I live in west Bohemia and sometimes drink with some guys from Colombia so there are some people from latam. You have a better chance at being socially accepted in Prague than elsewhere and moving here is as difficult as moving to the rest of Eastern Europe so its not an easy process but not impossible.
What a coincidence that you did this video when a game inspired by the Czechoslovak Legion is weeks away from release. I can't say I was ever expected a game like Last Train Home to be announced.
Good video, but at 1:37 it would have been worth mentioning that the situation among the Ruthenians in the Carpathians was a bit more complex. Yes, there were the Russophiles who sent a delegation to the Paris Peace Conference requesting to join a future non-Bolshevik Russia. At the same time, however, there were Ukrainophiles (particularly active in the city of Khust) who participated in the West Ukrainian People's Republic in Galicia and the wider Ukrainian People's Republic. complicating matters was the existence of Magyarophiles, who tried to transform Subcarpathia into an autonomous province of Hungary. It was actually the diaspora in the United States which, after some nudging (to put it most charitably) from the Wilson Administration, voted on unification with Czechoslovakia
ukrainophiles and magyarophiles were outvoted in all of the councils bar the yasinya council which was split, thus creating the hutsul republic. russophiles and rusynists were still the biggest groups
The story of how Masaryk and why he wanted Czechoslovakia together is actually kind of sweet!
I agree; it’s kind of naive though.
@@jonathanwebster7091did work out tho at least!! they got along pretty well, and even when slovakia wanted to gain independence they were able to do so peacefully
@@real-lacey still friends to this day
@@real-lacey yeah; not like what happened with Yugoslavia.
@@jonathanwebster7091which ironically,is a better idea on paper
As half Czechs and half Slovaks, we saw this as an absolute win
Nice
2/3 CHzech 1/3 slovak
Waiting for that one german from Czechia to come in the reply section
Why not unite again?
@@denizmergen418how did that work mathematically?
Because James Bisonette convinced them to unite
Average James Bisonette W
Doubt it
Don't forget that Kelly Moneymaker was also an important figure in the unification!
Extremely common james bisonette w
Bisonette said: you don't want to unite? u and what army (Bisonette has an army of 690.420 ppl)
Three video suggestions:
1.) Why wasn’t Thailand colonized?
2.) Why did Texas and California want to be annexed?
3.) Why is Western Sahara still disputed?
Thailand was pretty much treated as a buffer state between British India and French Indochina. It’s also why Afghanistan was allowed to exist and have that weird panhandle so the British and Russian empires didn’t share a direct border between each other.
3. Cause there still exist people willing to fight for their own land.
@@nerrler5574 and do you feel like winning that fight?
California was already a territory when it became a state, and for Texas, I think there's a previous video by him.
As for western Sahara, it was given independence from Spain and it was annexed by Morocco before any future decision would be made.
@@cavemanomarSpain did not give independance to western Sahara. The UN asked them to do it, but instead they signed à treaty with Morocco and Mauritenia to split the land between the 2.
Czech person here: One of the main reason that the Czechoslovakia was created, and all people got a Czechoslovakian nationality was.. that there was actually more Germans than there was Slovaks. So if we wanted to separate Czechs and Slovaks into two nationalities Slovaks would be 3rd in the country so we would have to be called something like Czecho-German-Slovakia. So they created this artificial nationality of Czechoslovaks to suppress German minority.
That's correct. The Czechoslovak government always officially said Germans were equal, but in reality there was often racism against German speakers. This culminated in the Germans being mass murdered, hunted and thrown out after WW2.
So what happened next? Why did it divided? What happened to German minority and Ruthenians?
@@metternich_999 Germans were forcefully moved out after WWII and Ruthenia were occupied by USSR and became part of Ukraine
@@LightgreenLP what happened before they did that? i am just curious
@@sqoerrel Idk, I heard 500K+ Czechoslovaks died, maybe not.
"But as many of you will know, the czechs and the slovaks were both separate during their time under the hapsburgs."
Yep. That was background information I definitely, already knew. I definitely never assumed they were always grouped together.
Slovakia was a completely integrated part of Hungary, while Czechia (Bohemia) was in a very different situation. It was a part of the Austrian half of the empire, where they had their own diet and also sent representatives to the imperial council.
Educated people know.
@@sweiland75 Sure, but not knowing this fact that is ultimately unrelated to most peoples' histories or lives also doesn't make them uneducated.
Before 1918 the last time Czech and Slovaks were "grouped together" was in... 906 (nine-zero-six, without a one in the front). Since then Czech and Slovaks lived under completely different administrative regimes*.
*honorary mention for Bolesław I the Brave who in 1003 effectively united Poland, Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia, but he lost control over Bohemia after a year, while he and his son managed to control Moravia and Slovakia up to 1031 (or 1025, depending on source).
@@atruv2089 Both ways are true. There is simply no way for the guy to know this, unless he has specifically been interested in A-H internal politics. There are some facts which if you've been interested enough in History, it is essentially inevitable not to know them (the first one we all learn is "Colombus wasn't the first in America" and "Vikings didn't where horned helmets", those are like the 'entry facts' in history, the first ones you learn, and you are essentially uneducated if not knowing them. There are different "everybody/every history nerd knows this fact" fact for ever level of history knowledge, and you can tell peoples' history knowledge by them; after those two the next level of history is "I know the emu war" stage, the "the Dutch ate their prime minister" and so on as history knowledge progresses. If you have high history knowledg, the facts I stated should be the first you learn)
Czechs did not have enough of a majority in their own country, and Slovaks were too small to survive alone. We needed eachother.
Czechs did have 2/3 majority in Czechia.
@TovalokodoncWe were not, there were 2 000 000 Slovaks and about 650 000 Hungarians in 1920. Don't lie...
@Tovalokodonc Hi, could you post a source/link for this statistic that Hungarians were majority in 1910 census? Thanks.
@Tovalokodonc But you said the comment that 650k Hungarians was a lie, I only ask for a source because I genuinely am interested in the history. I've been trying to find it myself but only have found source supporting the 650k hungarians in 1920 claim :/
@Tovalokodoncbro, just post the link to the source or stop being an asshole
Always fascinating to hear about the interwar period. So much focus on WWI and WWII itself, that the immediate aftermath of WWI gets overlooked. I like hearing about things like this. I would’ve figured some type of Pan-Slavic idea being the main reason (much like Yugoslavia), but the answers are never so simple. Great video!
I agree. SO much happened in the years immediately after WW1, it made my head spin when I finally learned about it. Basically the western front of WW1 stopped fighting with Treaty of Versailles, but fighting continued all over the rest of Europe.
One thing that I didn't hear mentioned is that Czech and Slovak are very very similar as languages, to the point you can regard them as dialects of each other.
Of course, that doesn't count for squat in the case of the Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, etc. Even Montenegro has created its own version of the language.
Then again, mutual intelligibility of language didn't stop Australia's gross betrayal of New Zealand in the infamous under-arm bowling incident, next to which all the war crimes of the former Yugoslavia pale into insignificance.
Just because you can understand an Aussie is no reason to trust him/her.
@@cv990a4 All Slavic languages are very similar when we compare them with other language families. It is quite unique phenomenon in Slavic languages how little they change over vast geographical distribution. If you lumped together Poland and Slovakia there would also be very little problem in understanding (Polish and Czech is a little more different, but in UK they are dialects of English harder to understand by Londoner compering to understanding between two random Czechs and Poles).
There's definitely a strong myopia caused by primacy of English, American and French perspectives on the interwar period. For Americans, Brits and French the war ended in 1918 and then things were basically fine until crash in 1929 and were at least peaceful until 1939. But in Germany and literally everywhere east and southeast of Germany the entire period of 1918 to 1923 was a shitshow with massive wars, chaos, anarchy, millions of deaths and was often more deadly than even WW1.
@@Dendarang especially so in Russia. WWI is just an apetizer before the main course that is the civil war that followed it.
It is nice that besides pragmatic reasons the guy who proposed the state of Czechoslovakia was because he saw the similarities between the two peoples. In an era of Nationalism and ethic repression the first thing this man thought was 'Let both of our peoples work together', the end result is....not as wholseome. But, still.
Ditto with the South Slavs and Yugoslavia.
If it stayed at Czechs and Slovaks, maybe it would've worked out. Instead they took Germans, Hungarians, Ukrainians and Poles with them. That worked about as well as can be expected.
I'd say they had a pretty good run in the fist 20 years. During Communist times, they had other concerns to worry. And also now as separate nations, they get along well.
13 years earlier Norway demanded and got independence from Sweden, although Swedes and Norwegians are even more similar than Czechs and Slovaks. Sometimes narrow minded "patriotism" wins.
@@eljanrimsa5843 I’d argue that the communist era gave Czechoslovakia another 45 years of existence (as it did Yugoslavia).
If that (and WW2) had never happened, I think both would have inevitably split apart not long after about 1940.
This made me understand why their breakup was so smooth and the two countries remained close. They had literally nothing to feud about and united due to common threats then broke up when those threats had abated.
They are also very "smooth" people. Nothing like the "I have a giant stick up my arse" Germans, or the "Everyone should be as miserable as I" Russians.
Very nice people!
I don't even think it made headlines when it happened because they split up like civilized peoples.
Yeah frankly the breakup was mostly due to disagreements at the top rather than ethnic tensions, and most people didn’t care one way or the other if it stayed or dissolved
@@ryansearle6157 im fairly certain most people wanted it to stay together for purely familiarity reasons but didn’t really care either way
2:10 this is something that's very underappreciated, especially nowadays with the EU. The collapse of four empires after WW1 led to the creation of large number of small successor states that each had a small share of resources of the larger empires and they frequently had large imbalance, for example Hungary was producing something like 5x more food than it needed to feed itself and Czech industry was massively oversized for it's small population. What made this much worse is that post-WW1 was the first time that borders were strictly enforced, passports required and export and import tightly controlled in Europe. So trade and movement of people was difficult and countries generally had to be more self sufficient than they'd been used to being for centuries (for example, even the 17th century Dutch Republic imported most of its grain from Poland-Lithuania).
I wouldn’t say their industry was oversized if you want to keep your sovereignty and smaller than your neighbors, it helps to have a big industry.
@@emberfist8347 No, it was oversized for the population, in short, too much goods for too few people.
A country is not an economic zone. It's a homeland for a nation. If you need resources then use diplomacy and trade. Don't give up your national sovereignty.
@@johnwilson6324 Part of national sovereignty is being able to enforce a national economic zone through customs and tariffs. Diplomacy and trade don't always work as well as simply controlling resources outright.
"Homeland" and "nation" have meant different things. Prior to the Napoleonic era, homelands and nations were identified with ruling families who controlled cosmopolitan areas. After Napoleon, homelands and nations generally referred to ethnic, linguistic, and religious homogeneity. This homogeneity was also occasionally defined by an economic system (democracy/republicanism, constitutional monarchy/parliamentary system, communism, fascism, etc). All of this was enclosed within well-defined, yet fluctuating and disputed borders.
The modern world is once again returning to large cosmopolitan blocs defined by economic and political systems (mainly constitutional monarchy/parliamentary democracy/republicanism and free market capitalism). The EU embodies this, but its growing transnational power contradicts the old ethnic/linguistic/religious homogeneity model. Hence nativism and Brexit.
@@AAAA-lt9hq "Part of national sovereignty is being able to enforce a national economic zone through customs and tariffs. Diplomacy and trade don't always work as well as simply controlling resources outright."
Trying to control them outright leads to far too many problems in the long run.
""Homeland" and "nation" have meant different things. Prior to the Napoleonic era, homelands and nations were identified with ruling families who controlled cosmopolitan areas. After Napoleon, homelands and nations generally referred to ethnic, linguistic, and religious homogeneity. This homogeneity was also occasionally defined by an economic system (democracy/republicanism, constitutional monarchy/parliamentary system, communism, fascism, etc). All of this was enclosed within well-defined, yet fluctuating and disputed borders."
Ruling families could draw whatever lines they wanted on the map, but people have understood the notion of ethnic groups and certain ethnic groups inhabiting certain places for thousands of years. Many place names started out as a reference to this.
"The modern world is once again returning to large cosmopolitan blocs defined by economic and political systems (mainly constitutional monarchy/parliamentary democracy/republicanism and free market capitalism). The EU embodies this, but its growing transnational power contradicts the old ethnic/linguistic/religious homogeneity model. Hence nativism and Brexit."
The modern world isn't. The West is. Much of the world including lsraeI isn't being subjected to this.
Some additional background (from a Czech person): Before WW1, Masaryk and most Czechs didn't want an independent Czech state. Instead they were advocating for gradual improvement of their position within Austria. Contrary to the slogan depicting Austria as "prison of nations" (which was actually mainly popularised as a wartime propaganda against Austria-Hungary), Austria in the late 19th and early 20th century gave a pretty remarkable representation to the different nations it was composed off (Hungary was much worse, though, especially for Slovaks and Romanians) and often supported their culture. This was always partly politically motivated of course: the Austrian Empire didn't have one clear national majority, so instead of forcing the metropole's nationality onto all the people in the state (like the French did), the Austrians were trying to balance all the national movements against one another. By supporting the Ukrainian national movement in Galicia, they were trying to weaken the Poles (which is why Ukrainians still remember Austria very fondly, especially those from Lviv); by supporting Slovenes around the key city of Trieste, they were weakening the Italians etc. But compared with the situation of Bretons and Occitans in France, Catalans and Basques in Spain, or the Irish and Welsh in the United Kingdom, Austria was actually pretty liberal towards its national minorities. But most importantly, however imperfect, Austria was seen as a guarantor of the Czech statehood and nationality. The Czechs said "If Austria didn't exist, we would have to invent it." They realised that an independent Czech state would be too small and weak to survive in Europe in the age of empires. And if given a choice of an empire, Austria was a relatively good one.
This changed during the First World War. The Czechs (and others nations of Austria) realised that whatever the outcome of the war, their national fate would only become worse. If Austria and Germany were to win, Austria as the obviously junior partner would slowly be subjugated by Germany, and the Czechs would be Germanised. But if Austria were to lose, it would be even worse, because it would be only a matter of time before some other empire would conquer the Czechs by force. Whether a renewed German Empire or perhaps some reincarnation of Russian Empire, Czechs would soon be swallowed by a larger neighbouring state. Unless they could create a large enough state for themselves. Which is why Masaryk and his friends spent the entire war trying to recreate the Austrian state for the Czechs in its biggest possible form. That's why they invented the Czechoslovak nation (which also helped to have a clear majority over the Germans in the newly created state). At one point, they were considering joing Slovenes and Croats, but in the end, Czechoslovakia was the biggest they could get.
This was not by any means automatical. While the WW1 in Western Europe ended in 1918, in central and eastern Europe, it continued for another two years as the states newly created from the disintegrated Austrian, Russian and Ottoman empires were fighting over their borders and sometimes for their very existence. So the Soviets were fighting with the Poles over Ukraine and the Soviet Army was marching towards Western Europe, attempting to bring the communist revolution in the entire world, until the Poles stopped it on the Vistula (for which they absolutely never get the credit they deserve!). The Hungarians were fighting with the Romanians. The Greeks were figting with the Turks. Etc etc. And the Czech army was fighting with Hungary over southern Slovakia (which was mostly populated by Hungarians, but which was strategically important because of the Danube, which was important commerically and as a militarily defensible border) and with Poland over Zaolzie (which was again populated mostly by Poles but which was commercially important and a regional rail hub). This of course proved extremely shorthsighted because Czechoslovakia made bitter enemies of its two neighbours, and at least Poland would have otherwise been a good ally against Germany.
The tragic irony of history is that Masaryk was very soon proven right but his acomplishment was not enough. Outside of the Austrian state, Czechoslovakia remained independent only for two decades. In fact, none of the states newly formed after WW1 from Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire, remained existing and sovereign for more than two decades. All of them were first destroyed by Germany or turned into German puppets. And then almost all of them were subjugated by Soviet Russia or turned into Soviet Russia's puppets. This is true for all the states that originated from the disintegrated Austrian, Ottoman and Russian empires: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Yugoslavia, Greece, Austria and Finland (although for the last five, only the subjugation by Germany is true, they managed to escape the Russian subjugation, but often at a great cost and through special circumstances).
"If Austria didn't exist, we would have to invent it!" In modern times, we did invent such an Austria! Today, it is the EU that guarantees the security and sovereingty of central and eastern European states. I really hope we all realise it! The Ukrainians for sure do.
Thank you. This was very informative.
that was an accurate and through general description of what happened after WW1 in Eastern and Central Europe from my point of view, good job!
I have studied modern history at university, attended conferences, read books ... But I've never seen the topic summarized and explained so well. I applaud you, sir.
I do feel there's a tendency for modern Czechs to "over-vilify" Austrian rule to a certain extent. While Habsburg rule was certainly a far cry from self-determination, and the period around the Thirty Years' War was certainly bloody, there's a tendency to act as if the repression of Czechs was equivalent to the repression endured by the Poles under Russian rule, which is frankly absurd. It's understandable why this vilification happened, though, due to World War II and the occupation of Czechia by the unified German-Austrian NSDAP dictatorship. Drawing parallels between the struggle against Germany in WWII and the Winter King fighting a hopeless battle against the forces of the Catholic League is certainly romantic and was easy fodder for Benes and the Communists who deposed him to justify eradicating the legacy of Habsburg rule like the Sudeten Germans and Catholicism, but it has no real basis in historical reality. The Dichotomy between Sudeten Germans and Czechs was largely false to begin with, since the two ethnicities lived side by side for so long they basically shared everything except a language by WWI.
Nice to hear an honest talk on the Austrian Empire instead of the usual badmouthin
As a Slovak a love this video you help people understand the history of other nations thank you 🇸🇰🇨🇿👍👍
1:55 "It punished Hungary which was always nice"OMG😭😭
Does the truth hurt?
Brilliant timing! Last week (28.10.) we celebrated the 105th anniversary of the creation of independent Czechoslovakia. Much love to your channel and all the people from Czechia and Slovakia. 🇨🇿❤️🇸🇰
Why did you guys split up again after the fall of Communism?
Gross
@@OptimusWombat petty reasons
also, the scare of other countries carving us up wasnt quite there anymore
Hello! Is the Czech Republic a good country to live and work as an emigrant from latin America?
@@colombianguy8194 as someone living closeby, I think yes
they are pretty progresive and many smoke weed
I’ve gotta say. The topics you come up with are questions I would never think to ask, and they end up incredibly fascinating. Thanks for all you do!
Agreed 👍
Yet another video that answers a question that I never thought of, but now I'm happy I know. The Interwar Period is criminally underrated, and I'm glad that this channel covers this era, from big to small events.
E
Why does Serbia fight so hard to maintain control over Kosovo and yet just grant Montenegro an independence referendum(despite the fact it made them landlocked)?
Kosovo was given Autonomy under Serbian SR whille Montenegro was its own SR. It was done by Communists since Montenegrians where already a nation with a century or two of having their own country whille Albanian Kosovars wanted some political representation which turned into wanting their own country because of certain things Serbs did in Kosovo in late 90s
Montenegro was not the posession of Serbia in Serbo-Montenegrin Federation, they were the other partner.
The serbs beat back the turks in what is now kosovo in the 1400s. To say it has historical importance to them would be an understatement. That, combined with the fact that serbs are pissed at the hypocricy of Kosovo being given the right to national self determination while bosnian and croatian serbs weren't.
Imagine if the Canadians became a majority in Pennsylvania, declared independnace and took Gettysburg with them.
Montenegro never was part of Serbia. They were both part of what remained of Yugoslavia until finally dissolving into two countries in 2006.
@@highgrounder5238 It would make more sense with Mexicans in Texas
This and an old YT channel called 10 Minute History are my favourite history channels
They're the same channel, they just changed the name a bit back
@@Mariojinn2 That's the joke
Well, I usually hit the like button after seeing the whole new History Matters video but considering it's about my country, I guess it has to be done IMMEDIATELY. Great work.
The history of czecho-slovakism starts at least at 1895, when the CzechoSlavic Ethnographic Exhibition was organized in Prague, where Czechs and Slovaks presented themselves as one nation within Austria-Hungary. The nationalism of the 19th century was built a lot around language, and Czechs and Slovaks understand each other well, so many people already in the 19th century understood themselves as one nation with separate history.
We also formed common communities in a foreign environments, for example in America or Vienna.
So you guys just huddle together in places and not fight? The opposite of Britain and France or Sweden, Denmark and Norway.
As someone from Carpathian Ruthenia (Modern-day Zakarpattya), I always tell the story of my grandparents that lived in 5 countries without ever moving from their village. My home region switched hands so many times that until now it is such a mix of different ethnicities, languages, religions and cultures.
Do most of you guys (The non-Hungarian ones) see yourselves as Rusyns or Ukrainians?
@@johnwilson6324 I don't know a single person who would say that they are Rusyn and not Ukrainian. Some do say that to underline their origin but none reject belonging to the Ukrainian family
@@BlazingLizardmanor Belarusian?
@@itsblitz4437 Sorry, no, Zakarpattya region has very little in common with Belarus - historically, politically or culturally
as a Slovak, I am glad you talked so much about the Slovak reasons to join!
I just wanna say from someone who has been watching your videos since around the time you got started, it's amazing to see your purposefully simple art style become way more intricate as your videos have progressed with gradually more and more detail on the blocky guys and in the background.
Tomas Masaryk is a totally underrated statesman. He was instrumental is the creation of not only Czechoslovakia, but also Israel, where he is fondly remembered. One of the greatest politicians of the early 20th Century whom many have never heard of.
His political heritage is kinda complicated. But he is definitely really interesting personality.
Czechs and Slovaks got such a long and interesting history
actually not really we have like 110 years
@@d3js
A certified Tót Cygány comment.
@@d3js You mean over a 1000 years you troll?
@@JarinCOD czechs have 1000years history with germans and polaks
@@d3jsYeah nothing from 890 happened here there was clearly a void and sudenly in 1918 Czechoslovakia appeared everyone knows that. Also That Czech emperor of HRE yeah fake news. Beating crusade with literal sticks, basically creating first ever tank in world, holding whole transsiberian railway just because we wanted to go home and russians said nah. Yeah nothing happened and our history is boring you are right sir.
0:44 I like the new city label! It better signifies that it’s a small, specific location than the old visual style! Definitely a keeper ❤
It's actually incredible how much this channel has been helping with my National 5 History course like wow
Can everyone just appreciate the level of detail in the newspaper articles that are on screen for 0.5 seconds, they're actually funny
Where?
@@potato_nugget not in this video, but in a lot of the others
As a Slovak I'd like to thank you for this short, funny and very accurate video on the origin of Czechoslovakia (there was the anniversary of its' independence on October 28). You even put General Štefánik in it, who is higly regarded as our national hero. I really like your work.
I always thought the Allies just wanted a buffer state so that Germany could not easily unite with Austria. Because to finish Germania proper, Czechia would simply be swallowed up by any German imperial force that tried to annex lands. This video was super interesting, and it is cool that Masaryk had a "home calling" and saw how both people-groups worked well together. Very interesting! As always, sir, your videos are amazing, I watch them all the time. :)
Lol that suggests that the lands were populated by peoples that had no national identity so that outside powers could just shape them according to their whim.
Both Bohemia and Slovakia were at that time more than a 1000 years old kingdoms that had a strong idea about what future they want to have…
That doesn't mean that they had the power or ability to make that future a reality. Look at Poland, the Polish Nation-State is so young today though Poland-Lithuania had treasured and gifted dreams of what it could be. They had a rich and ancient culture, though German, Austrian, and Russian hegemonies crushed them under their heels. @@jankopecky8227
I'm not sure but I think I missed as another pragmatic reason that both Czech and Slovakian languages have very *very* much in common.
Slavic languages, especially if they're all from west/east/south slavic language group are always similar. Czech, Slovak, Pole aven Sorb (slav living mostly in german silesia) could hold conversation without knowing each other's language
@@Protontthat’s not entirely true. Czech and Slovak are fully mutually intelligible, but Polish and Sorbian are only partially mutually intelligible with other West Slavic languages. Slovaks and Czechs can hold fluent conversations with each other, but not with Poles and Sorbs.
Language similarities and cultural similarities don’t stop anyone lol look at serbia croatia and bosnia all three of those speak almost the same language with minor differences have similar enough cultures the only difference is religion and they all hate each other its more than just language tbh
Very interesting and great as always.
No clue whether all of this is correct but this is one of the best episodes of the channel so far. You could follow through all of the details. Great job.
Best history channel imo
Genuinely so nice to learn such a significant nugget of history. This channel is great!
Thank you.
Someone finally answered this question for me after so many years of wanting to learn why.
I just noticed you've started uploading in 4K. Highly appreciated!
I’ve always wondered: How did Ethiopia and Liberia avoid colonization during the scramble for Africa?
I’m sure there are videos already on TH-cam that’s answered this question but a History Matters version would be awesome (And a lot more funnier too)
Edit: I’ve been informed that a video already exists and I somehow missed it. Now I feel silly. But thank you though to everybody in the replies for the answers 🤙
Because they didn't. They are simply autonomous Mongolian provinces. 🙂🇲🇳🇲🇳🇲🇳🐎🐎🐎
It already exists: The title is: How did Ethiopia survive the Scramble for Africa?
liberia was colonised by americans: specifically afro-americans
Oh hey Mr. SpongeBob guy.
They didnt.
Liberia was first colonized by the french i think, who then sold it to the US wich at some point gave them independence (i dont know the date).
Ethiopia was assigned to Italy during the Berlin conference, the thing is when Italy tryed to conquer it (First Italo-Ethiopian war) they lost, so until Mussolini invaded in 1935 (Second Italo-Ethiopian war) they were independent. Italian colonization lasted short beacause of ww2
Nice video man, also good jokes as always
Keep up the good work :D
There is also the fact the Czech leadership decided they would be united, by themselves, and after the declaration of their new statehood was made they got really lucky that the Slovak leaders upon finally being asked their own input on this matter went “ok.”
Well, Slovak state with its level of industrialization and other massive problems would be kind of fucked up on its own anyway...
1:14 I like how it says "minorities have rights" and theres Napoleon in the background
It's there because this is Wilson in the Paris Peace Conference, in the Palace of Versailles, so obviously
0:15 Technically, two states. The Kingdom of Bohemia (a large, western portion) and the Margraviate of Moravia (a small, southern eastern portion). Both were separate crownlands
But both were (at least on paper) part of the Crown of Bohemia. So they were both Austrian (Austrian Empire) and Bohemian (Crown of Bohemia) crownlands.
@@Gosudar Austrian government did everything that "Bohemian Lands" was the most symbolic title and waste of paper only. Kingdom of Bohemia, Margraviate of Moravia and Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia where three different states that answering directly to Vienna. They really did not wanted have a "second Hungary" in their empire. :P
@@Hadar1991 Yep, thats what I meant by "on paper". :) Reuniting the Crown of Bohemia was one of the main goals of the Czech politics pretty much throughout the whole long 19th century until the war.
No, one state with three land under the Czech Crown, Bohemia, Morava and Silesia. Margraviate Moravia was always (with minor exceptions)par of the Czech kingdom.
I am so happy you continue to prosper as a channel with these history bites.
1:49 is funny, because that's exactly what happened right after the German occupation of the Czech half in 1939.
Cool, allways happy to see history of my country on this channel
And many Slovaks already studied in Czechia because the languages are pretty similar. So the politicians, lawyers, priests, doctors and other high qualified part of the Slovak nation had lots of buddies in Czechia already. And this practically remains the same to this day.
One of the best from a channel that always has great content, M
One thing worth mentioning. The mother of T.G.Masaryk was from Moravia, his Father was Slovak and he was speaking Czech.
Your videos are always so interesting and informative, it always amazes me how much information you fit in to a 3-4 min video, and still have time for some of your regular jokes! :)
Just to clarify to others: The happy guy in French uniform is Slovak Milan Rastislav Stefanik (also from czech-slovak mixed region as Masaryk) which life was one a hell rollercoster... due to health always on the edge of death, but climb Mt. Blanc to observe stars, that travel to Tahiti to observe sun, and than came back to ww1 in Europe and died in aircraft crash when first time arriving to his dreamland Czechoslovakia... Still cannot believe he was real and not Jara Cimrman...
I’m loving the progress you have been making on the style of your animations. Awesome !
Btw you might notice that modern day Czech Republic has held onto the old symbols and heraldry of the Kingdom of Bohemia. Even the currency is called a "crown" which is rather strange for a republic. This was at least partially done to support the claim of the new Czechoslovak government in 1918 that they were THE successor state to the Kingdom of Bohemia and therefore "inherited" all of its territories...including the ones populated mostly by ethnic Germans. Btw what the nationalist optics always fails to capture is the level of mixing and mingling that had been going on within the Austrian Empire for quite a while before the 20th century. The ethnicities were hostile to each other mostly on the elite level whereas the common folk managed to live together quite well... all things considered.
Always nice to see a History matters video about us.
Some of these aren't just a collegiate class, but sometimes even a History major focus in itself, compressed into under 3 minutes!
Yes why did Czechoslovakia lose Ruthenia?
Another great video, like always
A side-argument, which I don't see mentioned is that the Pannonian lands were mostly Slavic before the arrival of Hungarians (mostly under Great Moravia and related subjects), so there was the underlying idea of re-creating the state again / reconnecting the Slavic people together. The former idea was to also include Yugoslavia with a lang bridge, however it quickly failed - look up "Czech Corridor" on Wikipedia for example.
We have no information about exact ethnic relation but many factor refer the non slavic population was also significant otherwise the immigrating hungarians would have sinked the slavic see. The fragmented ethnic structure (slavs, avars germans perhaps small romanized groups) in 9th century and the lack of strong state save us (hungarians). Of course it is likely the different slavic groups were the biggest.
Sometimes I just marvel at how beautiful your maps look
The simple and obvious thing not mentioned is that Czech and Slovak are closely interrelated cultures and mutually intelligible languages. It seems some 65% of the vocabulary of each is shared. Their differences are due to the fact that the Czech culture flourished relatively under Austrian control while Slovak culture suffered under the more onerous oppression of Hungarian domination.
Languages are very similar, but culturaly, we are not that close as some people think, since 15th century, we are on hussite/protestant side (and beying forced to switch back to catholicism later), while Slovaks were always catholics and they are still much more religious even today, while religion in Czechia pretty much died completely. And today, Slovaks are very proRussian and constantly talk about some LGBT things and how it should be everything banned and bad EU.....here in Czechia, we don't care about such things that much, I would say we are much more tolerant.
Very good episode as usual 👍🏻
1. There was no such thing as a Kingdom of Bohemia and Moravia. It was the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Margraviate of Moravia and the parts of Silesia that remained part of the Habsburg monarchy after 1742. Together they formed the Lands of the Bohemian Crown.
2. Since you tried to show the regions within Czechia where Germans held the majority i would especially consider the map at 1:03 as wrong. There where large parts of southern Moravia at the border to Austria as well as some islands entirely surrounded by Czech population that where inhabited mostly by Germans (or more precise: by German speaking people). So the problem for Czechoslovakia wasn´t some Germans near the western border but rather a significant German population just everywhere and especially surrounding the Czechs by inhabiting almost all borderlands
Good points. Block colors on maps are very misleading. Uninformative. Easy for mapmakers, but offering O facts.
Germans - Ashkenaz, + their associated Ashkenazi in "island" towns in a sea of Nationalists / Natives.
Lots of colored dots could give better info, but tedious and time consuming, perhaps, for PC screens.
Same in the Volga region and the Balkans. So there were Germans. It was not Deutschland nor GroBdeutschland. Block colors or dots ?
Same in West Poland, Danzig Corridor and South OstpreuBen. Block colors do not make Germland. Statistics for 1900 show dots.
I did enjoy this episode. As usual;) TY
0:58 As a Pole, my heart began to beat faster when I saw this wonderfully done map. II Republic borders, with Free City of Danzig/Gdańsk and Zaolzie. Perfect borders, I truly wish we had reached and kept them until today.
Also, I think it's worth to mention few things about "mild disagreements" we had with Czechoslovakia. It was about Zaolzie, a part of Silesia. It is a small piece of land, but it's industrialised. For this reason, Czechoslovakia invaded it in 1919. They chose the moment well, because Poland was busy with various wars on the east, which eventually evolved into a Polish-Bolshevik War. When League of Nations was deciding on the solution for the dispute, Red Army was carrying out its 1920 offensive and everyone thought that Poland would fail soon. Hence they granted Zaolzie to Czechoslovakia.
Its population was mostly Polish and wished to live in Poland. Also, as I said, it was economically important. For this reason, Poland and Czechoslovakia had rather unfriendly relations throughout 1920s and 1930s. It's untrue, however, that Polish minority was repressed. Czechoslovakia respected Poles and allowed them to cultivate their culture. Regardless, in 1938 Polish soldiers entering Zaolzie were welcomed with cheers - local population still preferred to live in Poland
This leaves out imporant information about why the conflict sparked. The Poles and Czech people agreed that the land would be subject to vote which nation to join. Until this vote both nations were forbiden to: a. organise elections there and b. mobilise people there. Both of those things the Polish goverment did. The Czechoslovak goverment saw this as a breach of this agreement and thus attacked and started the seven day war. I cannot speak to the situation there, if the population wanted to be part of Poland or Czechoslovakia, but what i know is that in the region there were parts with more Czechs and parts with more Poles.
that oversimplifies the situation of the region. Before major population transfers that were a result of this conflict it was a messy blend of Poles, Czechs, Germans and Jews that lived there next to each other for centuries. It's not like nowadays where you have Poles on one side and as soon as you cross the river you have Czechs and a Polish minority, there was a multiethnic mix in every village and every town with no clear border between "the Polish part" and "the Czech part" - and the ethnic composition of the region also evolved over time. This is why it was not possible to simply draw a border and divide the area fairly.
The reasons for Czechoslovak invasion were bit more complex than mere industrialization of the region. One, the region had steel mills Czechoslovakia wanted. Two, there was a critical railway connection between Czech and Slovak part of the country. So both the economic and military factors played a role. Another factor was that Czechoslovak government had no inclinations to allow the right to self-determination of any minority to threaten historical borders of the Czech Kingdom. The reasoning was that if Poles got away with it, Germans would get ideas. So the cheeky Czechs played self-determination card to become independent and then also played the indivisibility of "historic territories" card.
You are wrong sir. The Duchy Cieszyn was divided between Czechoslovakia and Poland after the Seven-day war won by Czechoslovakia that sparked after the polish government broke the preliminary treaty and started to organise election in that region, that was subject to the Kingdom of Bohemia for centuries (as recognised in Visegrad Conference in 1335).
Plus, please note that term Zaolzie is quite offensive and factually inaccurate.
@@ondrejnejedly9455maybe we decided to moblilize people there bc I don't know... We were fighting a full scale war against the soviet union a d were extremely desporate for any kind of manpower and resources?
Expecially considering the fact that we were very likely to vin that vote anyway due to the fact that majority of the population there was Polish.
Again, you do a video on a question I never thought of and make it very interesting.
2:31 he doesn’t change his inflection, but there was so much disdain in that “The Polish”
this guy is the most calmest history guy i have ever learned from. most history people make it dramatic and this guy is just here existing. 😭😭😭😭😭
You should make a video on how Poland was partitioned 5 times. It would be funny.
Like if you agree.
Dude.. You are awesome at explaining.. love the content..
1:55 "it punished Hungary which was always nice"
This was painful on a spiritual level
edit: painfully true
I really did enjoy this episode
This enraged the Austrian-Hungarians, who punished the Czechs and the Slovaks severely.
No they got their state. Adolf was enraged and punished them severely.
Ah never a time when a quote from oversimplified won’t do.
@@emberfist8347austrians and hungarians were part of Adolf's army so it works.
@@mojewjewjew4420 Except they did annex the nation he did.
Terrific work. I'm mostly posting this to help with the algorithm.
We must remember that Czech and Slovak are mutually-intelligible languages, and also that was the medieval state of Great Moravia which covered most of the territory that would become Czechoslovakia about a thousand years later. Czechs, Slovaks and Ruthenians lived in different administrative units, but ruled from the same crown for many centuries.
It was coherent at the end of World War I that the lands of Czechoslovakia would unite around a single country, which would be stronger against menaces of the neighbors.
But then came Hitler and his support for the separatist Sudetenland parties…
I can mentally process most YoutTube videos at 1.5x speed, and listen to them thus. I often listen to this channel at .75x speed, in order to absorb everything, including the fleeting witty graphics.
Worth mentioning that Ruthenians are just another name for Ukrainians. And in early 1938 they declared Carpatho-Ukraine state which existed for 3 months.
Another amazing video
There were more Germans in Czechoslovakia than Slovaks
😭
Learning about my German and Slovak speaking ancestors, I was so confused. This helped.thanks.
As a Ukrainian, I appreciate the mention of Ruthenians ☺️
You are in ucraine?
While Ruthenians don't appreciate Ukrainian efforts to Ukrainianize Ruthenians. xD :D
@Tovalokodonc Probably after the war. There was critiques of current legislation by other countries as well, and it will be adressed when survival of the state is not at stake. I do believe they will be adressed cause that's the guys we wanna be friends with.
@Tovalokodonc ukrainians are rusyns, how they can recognise people with the same name as different?
@Tovalokodoncno one asked a mag*ar
Just wanted to let u know ur animation and character models look very clean
This is spooky. I was holidaying in Vienna and then Prague until yesterday and had been wondering exactly this.
I love your videos.❤💪
1:41 bro I have heart attack 💀
What a Wednesday night (Thursday morning in NZ) - B1M, History Matters, Stuntpegg, Company Man, Barry McCockiner all coming out with new vids.. Just needed Johnny Harris but he did say he is working on another vid but life is good!!
Thank you Aaron the White!
nice video
Great video and this has been a question I've asked many times
My wife's grandfather was a Hungarian living in Slovakia. At the end of WWII my in-law's company was nationalized by the Soviet "occupiers" and so they decided to leave Budapest. My mother-in-law took the 2 kids and went to visit grandpa in Slovakia. From Slovakia they took a train to Vienna pretending to be Germans. (Mother-in-law spoke 5 languages, including German, and the kids were drugged to remain asleep). Father-in-law bribed a farmer with some wine and money to hide in a hay wagon and cross into Austria. From a Vienna refugee camp they selected Chile to emigrate to where they became medium wealthy until the communists took over; whereupon they moved to Los Angeles and bought the apartment building I was living in...
Thank you for sharing this. I always find fascinating the stories of individual people in the face of big historical events.
Damn, your in-laws were resourceful
@@rumkeg919 Father-in-law landed in Chile and started out selling Christmas tree ornaments. Later became a iron ore mining manager up in the Andes selling ore to the Japanese to make cars. Having delt with communism in Hungary, as soon as Allende (communist) won the election, they left for LA the next day.
Kinda doubt the soviets nationalised they property . I mean they were just army , they have no byrocracy here
But the Czechoslovak authorities did take away property of many Hungaryens living in Slovakia after the WWII
In fact a Slovakization program was establish fór like 7 years the goverment tried to force them to be Slovaks , eventualy they gave Up on that
@@niccolorichter1488My father-in-law's business was machining and tipping metal cutting blades sold mostly to the Germans. He had 20+ employees. A Russian captain and his orderly were billeted in my father-in-law's apartment. Daily on his walk to work he was stopped and inspected by Russian soldiers. On a particular day he arrived at work and was told that all businesses with more than 20 employees were now owned by the government. He made plans and emigrated soon after. All of these events were in downtown Budapest. In 2002 my in-laws hosted us in Budapest for a tour.
Love this channel
As a 1st generation Canadian-Czech, I really appreciate this video! Thanks!!
come back... we need you to farm potato...
@@averagebohemian5791do you accept people from latin America? I really like the Czech Republic and I'm learning the language.
@@colombianguy8194 There are a lot of foreigners in Prague and not many outside of Prague. I live in west Bohemia and sometimes drink with some guys from Colombia so there are some people from latam. You have a better chance at being socially accepted in Prague than elsewhere and moving here is as difficult as moving to the rest of Eastern Europe so its not an easy process but not impossible.
Very interesting.
Thank you.
✌️
Without the Ruthenians, the Czechs and the Slovaks might become Ruthless.
That is a solid joke, should be upvoted more! ::D
@@Hadar1991 this is not the reddit place
We can always count on History Matters to deliver answers to interesting questions no one asked
Rip Czechoslovakia
What a coincidence that you did this video when a game inspired by the Czechoslovak Legion is weeks away from release. I can't say I was ever expected a game like Last Train Home to be announced.
Czechs and Slovaks also served together in the Czechoslovak Legion during the war.
I love this channel. I genuinely do.
Good video, but at 1:37 it would have been worth mentioning that the situation among the Ruthenians in the Carpathians was a bit more complex. Yes, there were the Russophiles who sent a delegation to the Paris Peace Conference requesting to join a future non-Bolshevik Russia. At the same time, however, there were Ukrainophiles (particularly active in the city of Khust) who participated in the West Ukrainian People's Republic in Galicia and the wider Ukrainian People's Republic. complicating matters was the existence of Magyarophiles, who tried to transform Subcarpathia into an autonomous province of Hungary. It was actually the diaspora in the United States which, after some nudging (to put it most charitably) from the Wilson Administration, voted on unification with Czechoslovakia
ukrainophiles and magyarophiles were outvoted in all of the councils bar the yasinya council which was split, thus creating the hutsul republic. russophiles and rusynists were still the biggest groups
@@Popotixovonope, Ukrainians were the biggest group as history has proven.
I like the enhanced sharpness of the images
In my history class, I saw History Matters on my teacher’s recommended and I literally jumped and shouted MISS CLICK THAT RIGHT NOW!
Watching your videos before schoo