9:40 Greece ordered two dreadnoughts of their own, the irony of the situation is that Greece ordered them from Germany, while the Ottomans from Britain, and both ended up fighting on the opposite side of the war than the owners of the shipyard they ordered their dreadnoughts from.
The entente had eyes on the middle eastern territories of the ottomans, they never wanted or thought there's even a need for an Ottoman entry on their side. They did everything in their power to make Ottomans fight against them.
In part 3 you should do Japan, USA and Belgium Edit: if you enjoy making content you could also do a Part 4 explaining the wishes of people groups without their own nations such as the Poles and the Czechs. It would be interesting to see what land they wished to receive in their nation and who they fought (for example if Poles rebelled in Russia after they signed their peace treaty with Germany)
@@ЧылгычыОндар-ю1о Actually you could be surprised by the ambitions of some political parties in Belgium at the time. They wanted to take all german territory west to the Rhine river after the war... They didn't.
The Italians were also promised dramatic amounts of land in Chad & Egypt, albeit mostly desert (Article 13 of Treaty of London) This land was rumored to have valuable metals in it, however it was just simply... useless desert. However, even though it was useless desert, the allies would only give a token of it to Italy, and would keep a land in particular known as the Aozou Strip, which they would be forced to give to Italy in the first act of Appeasement prior to WW2. Also, you may've had a research error, as they did not promise Italy a protectorate. Article 7 of the Treaty of London says that Italy - if they receive Dalmatia - promises to recognize the total partition of Albania between Montenegro & Greece. Italy would establish a protectorate over Albania, however it wasn't by any treaty obligations, and would be used to open a new southern front against Austria. They actually received international condemnation for such occupation.
Yes, the African clauses I knew about, but have avoided as with the previous video for brevity. On Albania, ah ok that’s very interesting. I’ll try to check my notes as to where I got the information from tomorrow. But if I can’t find a suitable response I’ll be happy to include a correction in the pinned comment. Thank you very much.
Division of Albania between Montenegro and Greece? Thats absurd. Italy claimed Vlore at least. They hated Greece, and provoked unrest in Smyrna during Greco-Turkish war as example.
@@OldBritannia Snow worries, mate. I'm just glad you actuslly made the videos to begin with! I would have waited many more months for quality such as this.
Entente: Lets bribe Italy to join the war so they can open a front in one of the most mountainous places in Europe! This will allow us to crush the Central Powers! Also the Entente: Damn why Italy not pushing through the big mountains?
@@belittekleiner1 I'm pretty sure the several million American troops flooding into France with superior arms and supply and the fact that German civilians at this point in the war had no concept of food being available were more decisive factors
@@kidfox3971 No, americans arent the living incarnation of GOD, the germans were still holding onto belgium and northern france, while us italians won the war a week earlier with the armistice of villa giusti.
@@kidfox3971 That had literally nothing to do with the Austrian collapse, most of the Austro-Hungarian Army mutinied and disintegrated during and after the battle of Vittorio Veneto, while the rest was busy getting routed by the Entente in the Balkans.
@@OrsoBart7734 So you are saying Entente didn't defeat Austra-Hungary? So all those millions of soldiers who died fighting against Austra-Hungary died for nothing?
I hope you enjoy the long overdue second part of this war aims series. This is the first video I've made where I wrote the script without a good grounding in the subject already. Thus, whilst I have tried to be as rigorous as possible in my research, I am sure there will be a few omissions/mistakes apparent to those of you with a better knowledge of specific countries. As such, I will try and include in this pinned comment any corrections/additions those of you with more expertise than me feel ought to have been included in the video. Nonetheless, I hope to any that watch, you are able to derive some enjoyment from the video. Thank you for watching. Corrections: 7:30 This should be ‘Northern’, rather than ‘Southern Dobruja’.
If you do another video concerning Balkan history like the Balkan wars and stuff that would be brilliant. You also missed a tiny talking point about northern Epirus and Greco Albanian relations
The best way to be balanced and fair is to have everyone equally unhappy with you - seems to be the strategy of the Entente with the minor powers. :) Love your maps by the way - beautiful.
I'm suprised how much you knew about the Romanian hopes and goals, as well as the fact about Regele Ferdinard never signing the treaty of Bucharest. Very cool!
Great video! Just to mention that the fact that Italy's claims were not accomplished became known as "Il mito della vittoria mutilata" or the mith of the mutilated victory. It was popularized by the man who inspired Mussolini, Gabriele D'Annunzio.
Si, però D’Annunzio non lo credeva un mito, lo credeva un fatto, ma si, e poi, un po’ è pure vero, ma in ogni caso, perdemmo buona parte di quei territori dopo il sequel
@@secretname4190 yeah, like, the Americans ignored the humans rights violations and attempts at Italy’s existence done by Jugoslavia just because they were a potential ally, and the English propaganda had no mercy on Italy either during ww2
Great video! I'd really like to see a third part covering other nations such as the US, Belgium, maybe even Japan, aswell as stateless nations such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Arabia...
Thanks for all your work man, my only criticism is out of greed as I want more longer videos, if possible just talking over a still image would be more than adequate with your illuminating takes.
Haha, thank you that’s very flattering. I’ve had quite a lot of work recently. But much of it is done now, so hopefully the upload rate will pick up a bit.
Venizelos favored the British because Greece's position was mostly a maritime power seated at the eastern center of the the Mediterranean Sea, which was mainly controlled by the Entente powers (Britain). Geography played an important role in the conflict, as British supremacy could have shaped Greece's future if it answered accordingly. Going against them or favoring neutrality was like challenging a sea god. Sooner or later, the territorial claims that had been won from the Balkan wars would have been taken away by the very powers (British) who gave them in the first place. King Constantine I and his royal court favored the Central Powers due to the existing notion of "divine rule" in autocratic societies (e.g. Germany, Russia), the king's ties with the Germans (his wife was the sister of the Kaiser Wilhelm II), the near invisibility of the German Imperial Army on the front at that time, and the fear of retaliation of neighboring countries who had a previous beef against Greece (including the Greeks from Asia Minor suffering reprisals from the Turks). Political division played a major impact on Greek society even after the end of WWI. Even Ioannis Metaxas (then an officer in Constantine's army, and later the future dictator of Greece), had a strong disbelief that both WW1 and the subsequent Greco-Turkish war would end in success for the Greeks.
The royal family of Greece was literally German, all of their ancestors and descendants from that point of time were German or Danish, I only managed to find one Russian member but I'm not sure how Russian she was considering the Romanovs were pretty much Germans themselves.
Enver Pasha's thought actually make sense when you think about it, the only thing that keep the Ottoman Empire still an empire at that time was because great powers of Europe want a balance of power by keeping it on weaken position, if one side lost as the video said it would be partition evantually by which ever side win. It's just Turks choose wrong side or more accurately got Shanghaied by the Germans.
2:15: Only 3 British divisions were sent to Italy. Italy sent more troops to the Macedonian front than the British did to the Italian one. You should also mention that in 1917 the Bolsheviks publicated the (at the time secret) treaty of London.
@@Princeofbelka you mean the front that wasn't able to push a single centimeter into Germany and fought the entire war within France and Belgium? On the other hand the Italians singlehandedly occupied Innsbruck, Dalmatia and Albania... But I mean what can an Australian know of wars when you were defeated by emus
@@Bolognabeef The war was won on the sea which as an Anglo we won it by a country mile. The Italians only managed to occupy those territories AFTER the collapse of resistance and met little to no actual Austrian defenders. So yeah you captured ALBANIA (lmfao its like bragging about being a janitor) But no one was there to fight you. Emu war joke? Go back to reddit your 14 yr old pedo lol.
As a Bulgarian i was taught that we picked the axis because their promises were more plausable. The Entante's promises meanwhile would have been harder to act on and were seen as less likely to be fulfilled.
Creating Yugoslavia was a mistake for Serbia. I wish we followed the London agreement even if we did not participate directly in it's making, it was far better for us than Yugoslavia. Serbs remaining outside of those borders could have been moved to Serbia via population transfer or something like that. And we would have avoided Jasenovac and other Croat concentration camps in WW2. All those sacrifices for nothing.
@@robert9016 Replying to you from this account, hopefully algorithm will see nothing wrong with it. "Failed experiment* Brotherhood never existed. Check out Croat and Muslim anti-Serbian riots. And Croat anti-Serbian riots long before the WW1. The famous term "Serbs on w_illows" was also coined by the Slovenian politician. And in the end, during the initial stages of invasion of Serbia, it was the Croat units(which Tito was a part of), who comitted most of the crimes on Serb civilians, while at the same time Muslims had militias in Bosnia who persecuted Serbs under the patronage of Vienna. Failed and pointless experiment Yugoslavia was.'
@@OldBritannia No problem. It seems it's my account that is getting targeted, so I'll be replying from this one. And yes, YT makes it hard to have decent conversation in the comments for some time now.
On the subject of northen dobrudja it was mostly because it was co-occupied by Bulgaria and Germany . The reasoning for it was the germans were exporting the wheat from the region to germany. Bulgaria fully occupied northen dobrudja very soon before the war ended
TBH i think Italy was a winning point for everyone: A position like that in the Mediterranean was one of the best, if they joined the Central Power the french would have to fight even more Austrians and Italians in another front, they would have to fight in Africa and the same for the UK
Haha thank you, audio quality is honestly the bane of my life. I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing with anything in the back end. Maybe one day it will actually be passable.
The Greeks had also occupied Northern Epirus in 1914, a region with significant Greek presence today and at the time a Greek majority. The Greek Navy was significantly superior to the Turkish one, so most of the fighting was concentrated on the Macedonian front. The Battle of Skra was an astounding Greek victory against unfavorable odds, paving the way to the union with Thrace. At the same time, Greece had hoped to gain Eastern Thrace and Constantinople, the Ionia and Bithynia regions in Anatolia, a settlement for Northern Epirus, Dodecanese and Cyprus (British holding that was promised to Greece for entering the war, but was retained by Britain) and also to support the Greeks of Pontus. Initially, the Prime Minister Venizelos did not support an independent Pontic Greek Republic in North Eastern Anatolia, opting for an autonomy in the new Republic of Armenia. However later, both Wilson and Venizelos, as well as many other international representatives, changed their opinion at the Paris Peace Conference, after they were convinced by Archbishop Chrysanthos of Trapezounda.
Don’t have much love for latter Ottoman empire when they became more religious and began oppressing the balkan people, but even if Britain has supported Greece 100% and given istanbul to greece then Turkey would have become communist or fascist and joined ww2 to rectify it some way or the other, probably ending with even more ethnic cleansing. So yeah hurra for Mustafa Kemal.
@@Zyzyx442 I agree with you here in 95% of what you said. But I would just not say I would support Mustafa Kemal. After all, he extended the Greek genocide to the Propontis and Ionian Greeks, leading to an extra 600 thousand Greek deaths than the sultans were responsible for. In fact, the Venizelos government, being more open to dialogue, had invited Kemal to Constantinople in 1920 for dialogue, to make a deal against Italian, French and British colonizers, with the plan that at least this way the Greek genocide would stop, but Kemal refused. From then on, Turkey essentially decided to fight everyone at once, and they would have lost if it weren't for Soviet support and the restoration of the pro-German monarchy in Greece. That's all.
@@georgios_5342 Didn’t know that, zeitgeist of the time was genocide it seems, I have turk friend that has explained that armenians also did genocide, ofc he says they started the ethnic cleansing and the turks just responded in kind. No side is perfect but should be very careful with praising nationalist leaders that never compromise so thanks for that, and isnt that what politics is supposed to be? Compromises that is, we evolved in small tribes so even our modern brains simplify conflicts into rooting for your own kind/people/race and tbf if you dont support your home team then youre kinda a douche. Greeks and Turks will definetely get their chance one more time probably soon.
Portugal just entered to avoid having its colonies used by the big powers as barganing chips in a peace treaty. We gathered that if we were oficially an Ally, Britain would not offer our colonies to Germany in a deal. It worked but ours and the Belgium Congo were on the table in the 30's as an offer for a "final settlement" with Hitler instead of returning the German former colonies.
To all Italians out there I apologize for the mistake of Serbian politicians to take more land and form Yugoslavia. This not only brought a dark faith to the Serbs but the Italians as well. Lands should have been divided as per the 1915 London treaty.
When some south slavs are sorry for what happened to italy after ww2 you understand why they hate eachother so much lmao Also to be fair the border should have been drawn and set on the old "littoral" region + the islands of krk, cres and losinj without majority slovene areas such as adelsberg/postomja. Italy was greedy in wanting dalmatia and old krain (kranjska) but tito was even greedier as he tried to take even trieste (trst) that never was majority slav and in fact at the peak slav population (1910 census so biased against italians) it was 20% slovene and 5% german. And what happened to italians living in istria is really saddening, around 450k were forcefully expelled (75% of the istrian population) while 20k were chained in groups and heavily beaten right next to sinkholes so when someone fell everyone would as well. Another sucky thing is these atrocities were banned from schools till 2004 as italy had to remain a loyal american puppet and so knowing about atrocities committed on italians was forbidden
@@Tommi414 We were furthering Croatian claims due to "Brotherhood" And they repaid us by having Italians nearly going to war with the Independet state of Croatia in WW2 after witnessing the atrocities. Hell Italians supplied Serbian Chetnik groups to fight the Croats in ww2 and offered safe haven in Italian occupation zones for Serbs. I forgot which politician of that time said that it was a mistake to alienate Italy and that instead Serbia and Italy should have become the closest of allies and keep the adriatic as their pond against all other powers.
Yes but this wasn't actually meant to go through. The British made this promise to the Royalist government which was pro-German. Therefore they knew they'd have to reject, they only made it so that the Greeks would support Venizelos more
Why! That's how every video on historical topic should start and that's the whole idea of this one. Very well presented, analysis was good and accurate, on extremely sensitive topic as I guess we all agree that all the 20-21 century problems started there. P. S. What surprises me a lot are the civil and friendly comments below the video. That's rare, especially when Balkan nations are involved. Respect for that! 🙂
WW1 isn't an example of that, that's a totally anachronistic viewpoint ignoring the fact Britain moderated the demands (such as confirming German, Hungarian and Austrian territory) of both sides and ignoring the fact that their discontent and malice towards each other which contributed to the dismantling of the peace treaties and the following status-quo as well as ignoring the fundamental struggle of Britain and France and their empires to defend themselves and the balance of power, hence getting their say.
@@Masterchief_Tito Yeah, as far as I remember the Entente wasn't the one who declared war on France, invaded through Belgium and moreover sought to inflame tensions by having a naval arms race and preplanning for an outbreak of a World War. No one wonders why WW2 happened, it's quite evident. I am simply saying that the peace terms were rational but old enmity existed that tore up Versailles. Boohoo the losers lost some territory (that aren't ethnically theirs) and had to pay reparations in name only, it's better than the result of WW2.
@@omperial9870 lmao at least we are not the ones who lost a war in 46 days, enslaved half of africa, surrendered 5 times in a century and still wonder why everyone hates them You entente fanboy thinks the peace treaties were fair but just to remind you that English was created by us and that france was technically established by us
2:08 really? The rest of the Entente basically served as cannon fodder throughout the war while the real defeat of the central empires was the Piave/ Mt. Grappa victories done by the Italians. Muh Caporetto is hilarious when you see angloids and frogs squirm and squeal at the words "Marne", "Verdun", "Gallipoli", etc.. We won the war IN Austria, they won it in in France, a few km away from Paris matter of fact.
Funny, but it s actually Italy who got cheated. The Triple alliance had article saying "If one country advances in the Balkans, another one may demand compensation" . During annexation of Bosnia which angered Russia and Serbia, italians came to Vienna telling "we absolutely support you, if you give us Trent" - they were denied. During july crisis 1914 Italy made no secret about their claims over Trent and Triest, but Austria-Hungary started the war without consulting them. Germans tried to pull of something as they needed additional forces in the West, offering French lands and colonies as prize, but after siege of Przemysl it looked like Austria-Hungary is close to collapse, so Italians choose the Entente as winners bandwagon .
@@gachibass3639 We are not hungarians, in 1848 enemies with imperial austrians in 1867 best friends. Why they don't teach you in hungary about the Operation Margarette and Panzerfaust? Why you don't know about the radio transmision from 1944 of the war-criminal called horthy? This after Germany close double-sized hungary without being a single shot fired.
The Romanians did manage to take a part of Transylvania in the Romanian Campaign of 1916 which was also according to the plan of Z Hypothesis but the Germans did actually take Romania entering the war very seriously so both Falkenhayn and August Von Mackensen was sent to deal with it. Romania had about 523.000+ Casualties already and their army got reduced from 658.000 to 400.000+ but thanks to the Russians Romania managed to hold for another year and the Romanian army managed to win three Heroic battles but when the Russian revolution started Romania signed a armistice in 1917 (Armistice of Focoşani) and in 1918 had no choice but to make a peace treaty with the Central Powers. Romania was literally cut off of the rest of Entente and they were running out of supplies and moral. So they signed the treaty of Bucharest In 1918 but rejoined the war and declared war on the Central Powers and defeated also Hungary in the Romanian-Hungarian war.
@@gigikontra7023 Without the King's signature it was paper and ink and little more. Not a peace treaty. And the CP diplomats knew it (the romanian consitution was public and pretty standard for the time).
I know that King Ferdinand the First refused to sign the Treaty but the Prime Minister Alexandru Marghiloman did sign it. And the Senate and Chamber of Deputies ratified it. Now, I don't know exactly how this works but I'm sure that for the Treaty to be valid the King must sign it. Which he didn't, but Historical speaking the Treaty of Bucharest was a Treaty which the King didn't sign.
@@InAeternumRomaMater Well, I am sure because I've read the constitution in power at the time. For a treaty to be made, it needed to have the King's signature. No king's signature = no treaty.
I feel like the section about Italy doesn't really provide an objective description of the role played by Italy during WW1 and the Entente perception of their war contribution. First off, the idea that Britain and France had to keep Italy fighting by sending a somewhat significant number of their troops to the Italian front after Caporetto is simply false, there were no French or British divisions on the Italian front when the Austro-German Army was first stopped at the Battle of Monte Grappa, and there were just 5 during the second battle of the Piave River, which were mostly kept in reserve and obviously played a limited role compared to the 52 Italian ones. And what about the 7 German divisions which had to be moved from other theaters to the Italian one just a few moths prior? The fact that German had to deploy a relatively large number of divisions at Caporetto compared to the planned scale of the operation (the Austrian deployed just 8) to avoid an early Austrian collapse is something that should be worth mentioning. Regarding the idea that France and Britain felt that the Italians didn't deserve the territories which they were promised due to their poor "performance" during the war (basically they spent years launching one costly offensive after another before going on the defensive after Caporetto), skimming over the the fact that this sounds almost comical today considering what the war was like on the Western front, it must be said that while it's understandable that many French and British diplomats felt this way, especially after Cadorna had literally accused a part of his own troops (a whole Army corps) of cowardice in his war bulletin after Caporetto, blaming them for his incompetence and making this absurd idea spread through the press worldwide, this doesn't really give you the full picture of what were the major causes of the outcome of the conference. The problem is that the public perception of Italy's participation in the war doesn't really explain anything about the actual strategic reasons the other Entente powers had to keep Italy from getting most of what they wanted. Namely, the fact that Wilson's 14 points clashed with the idea of Italy controlling the Dalmatian coast and other majority slavic territories and could have easily led to the Slavic states getting out of the Entente grasp during the confusing post-war period of strife and civil wars. Other than that, it must be noted that French and British interests and strategic aims had changed significally since 1915. Especially considering the fact that with a united Southern Slavic state having emerged from the war, it was now possible to prevent Italy from gaining full control over the Adriatic Sea and the Danube commercial traffics. And to briefly mention the bizzarre and arrogant requests of the Italian delegation, which were another cause of the results of the Paris peace conference, the Italians literally asked France to cede most of their equatorial African possessions to Italy in order to connect their colony in Libya with German Kamerun, or alternatively to cede them their holdings in the Horn of Africa (which would have meant giving Italy control over the Bab-el-Mandeb), and when these and other requests weren't granted, they simply left the conference altogether, causing the collapse of the Italian government at home. Regarding the idea of Italy not being a "Great Power" at the beginning of the XX century. I think that giving an objective judgment on this subject is simply not possible if we keep considering this "Great Power" status, a somewhat abstract concept often based on the subjective judgment of culturally biased XIX-XX Century British diplomats and historians, as a product of a (non-existing) objective method. Today quantitative measurements can be easily applied to modern and contemporary history, so if we measure some factors which clears distinguished the so called "Great Powers" (ex. raw resources, manpower, industrial capacity, fleet, diplomatic weight...) I would say that Italy seems to be much closer to the other so called "Great Powers" than to Greece, Romania or Bulgaria, and seeing them and the Ottomans grouped with those minor countries today looks a bit prejudiced.
I appreciate your critique, but I'm afraid I disagree with much of it. Your first paragraph effectively asks me to account for much of Italy's military history in WW1 in the video. I tend to only mention battles so as to show their impact on diplomacy/ the overall course of the war. I did not say allied troops stopped the German advance after Caporetto. I said that troops had to be sent to Italy after the battle which as you say is true. The point I was making was that this caused much bitterness among the British and French. Whether or not the bitterness was justified isn't my concern (though I say the critiques were unfair in the video). No the German divisions would not be worth mentioning, as they had little impact on Britain and France's diplomatic thinking. Again, this is not a military history. Caporetto and the subsequent Anglo-French redeployment was only mentioned because it impacted Anglo-French thinking, even if that thinking was unjust and shortsighted. The diplomacy during the actual peacemaking process is only meant to serve as a very brief conclusion, not a full history of it. Much of it comes from Paul Hayes' Modern British Foreign Policy. I agree not wanting to alienate the slavs was a factor, and probably one you are right to say I should have mentioned in hindsight. But I don't think it invalidates what was said in the video. Measuring a Great Power is a tricky business, but basically every diplomatic historian I have read does not class Italy as one. Indeed most explicitly say that whilst she was moving towards that rank, she never quite attained it. Ultimately it's somewhat arbitrary, and like all history, dependent on who is writing the analysis. Since this is my channel, it's going to have to be my arbitrary ranking. I include Italy with other minor powers not to serve as a comparison, but simply because I do not think she was a great power to be included in the previous video. Nonetheless, thank you for commenting, I appreciate your arguments.
@@OldBritannia you don’t remember though that also Italy “had” to send troops on the western front, to put it simply a great power was cheated for a series of reasons, end of story. P.S. you can’t disagree on someone(the first comment) and procede to not mention or disprove a single fact
@@Marco-1997 I’m talking about the mentality of British diplomats, recorded in Paul Hayes’ Modern British Foreign Policy. They are not my personal opinions, which are fairly positive of Italy’s overall war effort. When I did give my opinion in the video it was to say that Rumbolds critique was unfair and that Italy was unfortunate the Austrians held the best defensive position in Europe.
Logically as always Bulgaria would be skipped in the comment section. I would say that it was a great explanation if any but to be fare for all the clip would have been too long maybe. The army wasn't really defeated but there was no food and the line was broken, flags of regiments are taken after defeat and Bulgaria hasnt given any to this day. The bulgarian army had great reputation since 1878 to WW1.
That is indeed true, we do fight for our nation as long as we possibly can, we mobilised 1/4 of our population (over a million men from a country of 4 million) to fight, but our allies broke first.
@@notreheros Germany was the last country left to surrender and that was when all of it's population was starving dur to the 5 year blockade imposed on it. Bulgaria did fight really well though especially for it's size.
@@cqpp Something people tend to ignore is that we relied heavily in terms of material and supplies. Mobilising 1/4 of the population obviously had some serious negative effects on our economy, especially as we still had peasant style agriculture and our industry wasn't that sizeable at all in comparison to what we were taking on. What happened in bulgaria especially as you've already said was that it only surrendered once it's population started starving, the same with us.
@@cqpp Also as was brought up in the video our allies held us back and down, we could've destroyed all four of the armies (serbs, french, british and greece potentially depending on if the government sides with the king or not once the latter mentioned armies are gone) and shored up a lot of men for the eastern front which wouldve allowed for atleast a couple hundred thousand to be moved from the east to the western front. Bulgarian warfare is an offensive and aggressive style, not defensive. In the large majority of our history we've been the ones to start the attack in battles and even when we're on the backfoot we ambush the enemy. It really is a shame the outcome of this war.
@@notreheros yeah the outcome of the war was really shit. No self determination for Germans and Germans divided into several countries and also Czechslovak invasion of German-Austria taking Sudetenland in the process. Bulgaria losing access to Aegean, Hungary being fucked over by all sides in an opportunistic land grab by all it's neighbours, Ottoman Empire being divided and broken up in the most retarded way possible and thus being a huge reason for a majority of the wars in the middle east.
The more I read about him, the more I admire him. By the end of the video I was wishing I had gone a bit more in depth into him here. I’m thinking of doing a video on the Greco-Turkish naval race prior to WW1 though, so think I’ll use that as an opportunity to include a bit more about him.
@@OldBritannia He is indeed a very smart and foreseeing politician and diplomat, a man who understood global geopolitics as if it was his game. You can read more about him in the establishment of the Cretan State. Venizelos was arguably the most important figure in modern Greek history, as it was essentially his successful diplomacy that lead to the establishment of the Cretan State, massive successes in the Balkan Wars, the establishment of the Autonomous Republic of Northern Epirus, and the Treaty of Sevres. As long as he was in charge, the situation was all going according to plan. After the 1920 death of King Alexander by a monkey bite though, he needed to proclaim elections. This he said, was probably his biggest and unforgivable mistake. The new lands acquired by the Sevres and Neuilly Treaties were also allowed to vote, which had minorities, and especially the Jewish and Turkish ones, vote against him en masse. Even though he had more votes than the Gounaris royalist coalition, Venizelos lost the elections and was forced to leave Greece. From then on, everything went downhill. The Royalists did everything different from Venizelos just for the sake of being different, and ended up making terrible mistakes. This is what lead to the Anatolian Catastrophe as we call it in Greece, which is essentially the utter destruction of the Greek community in Anatolia.
@@georgios_5342 respect to venizelos from turkey,no matter what his opinion might be on us he was still a respectable and brilliant diplomat and leader
@@ykdm-wf8ju Merhaba komşu! Just so you know, Venizelos wasn't against Turkey, he was just against the Ottoman Empire ruling Greek lands. He believed that an ethnic Turkish nation and country should still exist in Anatolia, but not have Constantinople or Smyrna (Istanbul and İzmir) this is unlike the pro-German king Constantine, who wanted the restoration of Byzantium and essentially the eradication of Turkey (most Greeks did not like this king and still today we recognized that it was a grave mistake to put him in charge, because he committed crimes in Anatolia and also conducted a stupid foreign policy that leas Greece to destruction). Essentially, from 1920 to 1923 Venizelos was in exile in Paris. When I say I support Venizelos, it does not mean I am against Turks. Peace bro ✌️
@@OldBritannia I think many of us can agree that Venizelos was indeed a bright leader for Greece and Hellenic Nationalism but Ataturk was one step ahead of him in every move that have occured during the Greco-Turkish War.
You're wrong about Romania, the Entente promised the border up top the Tisa (all of Banat and important cities like Debrecen) and all of Transcarpathia, so no, it didn't get what it was promised.
We need a Part 3. The USA, but also Japan, China, Belgium, Portugal and Siam might be interesting. Also the Dominions for a Part 4. "Paris 1919" by Margaret MacMillan details some of the more interesting demands from the Dominions. For instance South Africa wanted to annex half of Mozambique and compensate Portugal by giving it much of German East Africa. Canada wanted to annex the Alaskan Panhandle and compensate the USA by getting the British to surrender Belize and the Bahamas. Stuff like that.
Hi, great video as always. I understand but was still disappointed that Japan was not included in the list of the nation's war aims you described. I was wondering if you ever thought about covering the Anglo-Japanese alliance. I feel like there is an exciting story to tell there as the Yellow-peril was in full swing around that time. Many nations as you know were fearful of the rise of an eastern country: Kaiser Willhelm in particular. But I remember reading somewhere that King Edward didn't share that opinion or not to the extent of the other leaders. Cheers.
@@secretname4190 Why do you even think I'm asking for Portugal? Of course they fought, they weren't neutral, they entered in 1916 and fought in the western front for the Entente.
1:00 Did Austria-Hungary ever offer Trieste as this map appears to suggest? My understanding was that Trentino was about the most they were willing to cede
Correct me if I'm wrong but Albania was recognised as independent from the Ottoman Empire by the major powers on 29 July 1913 by the treaty Treaty of London, so technically it wasn't an still an Ottoman territory by the start of WW1. Admittedly it took until the Protocol of Florence in 17 December 1913 for them to determine the exact borders, but by the start of WW1 the Ottomans had no European territory except Eastern Thrace, also losing Crete to the Greeks. As for the Ottomans entering, maybe 'decision' is too strong a word. It was more a conspiracy between the Germans and certin Young Turk figures to create the conditions where it had no choice. Unlike the other minor powers who entered seeking mercenary gains Germany probably gained more from their entry than vice-versa, especially as it created a major headache and distraction for Britain, although the Kaiser's hope that Britain's Muslim subjects would rebel under the authority of the Caliph was wildly optimistic given how discredited the Ottoman sultans were by this stage of their decline.
Say what you want of each country's performance but I find it hypocritical from the entente to deny Italy the land they were promised with the excuse they were not as effective as hoped, despite keep fighting until the very end, while tripling Serbia's size despite them being entirely occupied by the central powers. I am of course not trying to insult neither Italy nor Serbia but this feels very much like a double standard, and in the end it was since France really wanted to avoid Italy from being hegemonic over the Adriatic, thus allowing Serbia to have Dalmatia. By the way interesting video
It’s because Italy was not a minor nation, unlike what the video is saying. As the smallest of the Great Powers, the other powers obviously were wary of it growing too much, and unlike France which was solidly allied with Britain or Austria-Hungary which was inevitably with Germany, Italy wasn’t really on either side but its own.
@@mrclean29 no doubt, as I said Italy was denied it's promised land because it would have allowed them to obtain a slightly more influential role in the Mediterranean, which France and Britain didn't want. However the creation of yugoslavia really makes one feel like the Entente were hypocritical. "Self-determination" and then half the balkans become serbian
@@PersonOfEarth117 yeah but unlike Italy they got entirely occupied Italy on the other hand managed to stay fighting until the end that is the difference I mean it's like if after ww2 they gave Belgium the rhineland
I hope this part gets a remake just like part 1. As Old Brittannia went into more interesting analysis breaking down the war aims of each great powers.
So most of these nations, in pursuit of glory power and prestige ended up defeated and humiliated. It really is a lesson of how the blind pursuit of power leads to disaster. Ps: Have been waiting long for this video. Was absolutely worth the waiting.
@@aa6dcc by the outcome. 1,5% of population is dead, industry/infrastructure destroyed (all 4 years war was going on French territory) , wargoals not achieved...USA and UK standed firmly against creation of buffer state between Germany and France and even annexation of Saar by France.
@@alexzero3736 and France stood firmly against some of the US and UK’s resolves at Versailles? The commander in chief of all Entente forces was French (Foch), American troops were more of a liability (more died of disease after the war than of combat, classic American revisionism to make it look like they even fought, most troops arrived after the conflict ended) since they were trained and equipped, Rethondes and Versailles were signed in France, France recuperated most of the war indemnities. Taking large casualties isn’t « humiliated » you visibly dont understand the words you’re using, France won the war and was the major ally (took way more casualties, fought on more fronts and won more battles than the Brits), in fact there were more French troops on the Western front at any given moment than there were British troops around the world at its peak. Even Britain wanted its troops to be put under unified French control. So what’s humiliating is not winning the war, it’s hiding across the Atlantic and the Channel. What’s even more humiliating is being so openly ignorant about a topic and still waffling about it on TH-cam comments, spreading lies. Be thankful the French won WW1, have a bit of gratitude for those who lost their lives fighting alongside you guys.
Ehhhh come on, the entante could have offered us bit more and persuade us to join them. Bulgarian forces would have been a game changer had we been given a better offer.
About Romania, aside from what was already pointed out by others: - First note would be that you show the Danube Delta as occupied by the Central Powers. They never took control of it! Their attacks were stopped by the Romanian Navy and they never crossed into the Delta. You probably know it from that West Point map, but it's wrong. If you check original maps you'll see. - Romania was in the Centeal Powers' "sphere of influence" because Carol I was from a German family, and to defend against the Russians who were seen as a threat since 1878 (following the war of independence). For the same reason Romania built strong fortifications around Bucharest and the Focșani-Nămoloasa-Galați line, which was aimed at Russia. The pact signed with the CP was defensive again, against Russia, where if any nation were to be attacked (by Russia) all others would step in. But since Austria-Hungary attacked Serbia first, the country chose neutrality. - Romania didn't enter the war so opportunisticly, both sides wanted the country on their side, especially the Central Powers for its oil fields. After long negotiations with Entente who promised a fair representation at the peace talks (unlike in 1878), Romania joined the war. But the talks took too long and Romania joined at a later date than planned. Even more, the CP knew Romania would join the Entente, but at a later date so it took them by surprise. - Romania was defeted so quickly in 1916 because it did not receive the promised support. The promosed support was another Russian offensive and an offensive at Salonika against the Bulgarians. Russia was also to send troops in Dobrudja to help, but they didn't send the ammount they promised and coordination between the two armies was bad (duh, see above). Only after the Romanian defeat in the 1916 campaing did the Russians see how critical Romania's position was. The animosity between the leadership of Russia and Romania still continued until the end of the war though.
România did not gain what it had aimed for. It desired more territory from Hungary than it got. Notably the city of Beceskcaba (I don't know how to type it correctly) was seen as the ultimate officially claimed aim. You can see the exact frontier Romania claimed at the Wikipedia article Treaty of Bucharest (1916). Notably Romania also demanded all of Banat but only received 2/3 as French-backed Serbian troops managed to enter the region first. Conflict was close to erupt between these two nations as a result. Romania also had aims for Northern Maramureș but these were developed as the war ensued. They were also given up as Czechslovakia demanded the area.
The claim Romania got everything they wanted is from Margaret Macmillan. I’m very sorry, I’ve never heard of some these claims, but thank you for pointing them out. Beceskcaba is East of the Tisza no? I mentioned Romania claimed land up to the Tisza in a note in the video. I would be happy to include an addition to the pinned comment nonetheless. Would something like: ‘Romania also claimed all of Banat and Northern Maramures’ suffice?
You are right about Serbia, I can say that since I am Serbian. Not only did Serbia had horrific loses in the war, but it also invested it's victory in Yugoslavia, which turned out to be the greatest mistake of our entire history.
@@ivankopernika536 typhoid epidemic was the major reason of the mortality, not some German backed tartar dogs that failed to hold the mountains in Macedonia.
@@zmajooov you're right! the tartar dogs did fail to hold the mountains of macedonia, leading to their surrender in 1915. later, in 1940, they also failed to hold belgrad against 7 soldiers, must be quite embarrassing for them!
@@zmajooov I'm Belarussian. I don't need a good clapback when you're so full of hatred your barbaric self will think about me and bulgaria for the rest of the week anyway. Literally rent free.
The British also promised to hand Cyprus to Greece if they joined during their galipoli campaign, but the king refused. After galipoli the french and British tried to open up a new front in Macedonia to relieve the serbs (though in reality, the true reason was so that french general Sarrail, who was favoured by the socialists, who had taken power in France in 1915, could have a command independent of Joffre in the western front) but in doing so, they violated Greek neutrality, nearly occupying the upper half. From letters to the kaiser, it seems that the king of Greece was intending to join the central powers eventually, but until he was exiled, the Greek army would see no fighting, even letting the Bulgarians occupying Greek territory. There was also an incident where a Greek army corps took refuge in Germany to avoid confrontation with the Bulgarians.
There was also talk that Greek neutrality violated the Greco serbian defensive alliance. At first the royal Greek government used the pretence that Austria wasn't a regional power in the Balkans, so an attack by them wasn't covered in the treaty, however when Bulgaria joined Greece should have as well under the treaty.
@@OldBritannia I'm Sorry to disagree with you, but this joke isn't funny. Many Italians died in WW1 and we lose at Caporetto, but also we crushed the Austro-Hungarian Army at Vittorio Veneto. So please, next time don't do these jokes. P.s. we fought alone on our front
@@fabio_robymagio1929 It wasn’t a joke? It’s a quote from a diplomat, meant to show why the British and French weren’t prepared to give Italy all of the territories promised in the Treaty of London.
@@fabio_robymagio1929 Italy did not crush the Austro-Hungarians alone at all! The spearhead for the Vittorio Veneto offensive was five experienced British and French divisions who lead the breakthrough. It is far from certain that Italy would have prevailed against the Austro-Hungarians alone.
Do you think you could finish this series with a video about the other powers such as the USA, Portugal, China and Japan? OR maybe a series about WW2? I'd be really interested to see their ambitions as they were either not in Europe or thousands of miles away from any conflict.
The Bulgarian one is not quite true. We didn't want that much of Serbia, just the parts where there was Bulgaria majority. The Serbian territory given to Bulgaria in this video was actually occupied by Bulgaria, but only because Austria-Hungary couldn't do that itself.
There is a error Italy was able to anter Austrian territory at the and of the war, Italy olso was promes a lots more then what in the video is show, in fact all of the croecian cost and Montenegro were promesse. This is the rison why Italy felt cheated at the and. Most importantly inglamd instead of helping a ally necione they wanted alll the money back that they give to Italy during the war.
About Greece.The king was right about the start of the war.Had Greece joined early we would have been overrun by the Central Powers who had already beaten Serbia.It would be an 1 vs 4 and 2 of them would be great powers
The Italian front was the most difficult to cross, the Austrians remained in defense above the mountains for most of the war, making it very difficult for the Italian troops to break through (even if they still managed to take some strategic points), but the effort it was in vain, 1.5 million dead for territories that were not given to us, it must also be said that Italy, (together with Japan), was the only state in the whole war to be able to conquer enemy territory, instead the British, the Belgians and the French remained in the defensive area, honor to Italy and honor to the fallen
The disrespect towards Italy in WW1 is insane. The alpine front was easily the most unforgiving and toughest frontline of the war and conducting a successful offensive through frozen mountains and valleys is harder than doing it in northern France. Caporetto was not an austrian victory but a german one. And most of Italy's WW1 shortcomings were thanks to professional idiot and part time general Cadorna. Once he was replaced by Diaz the Italians turned the tide against Austria in a year and crushed them at Vittorio Veneto
Stop blaming Cadorna so much, he was the one that set fortification on the mount Grappa fearing german intervention and and offensive to get Venice, he predicted It perfectly and we managed to stop them at mount Grappa mostly thanks to his works
"The alpine front was easily the most unforgiving and toughest frontline of the war and conducting a successful offensive through frozen mountains and valleys is harder than doing it in northern France." So, why did they do it then lmao. Especially after losing so many troops. This kinda stuff is why Italy is made fun of so much
Serbia claimed territory well beyond the London Treaty borders - which include a half of Albania which Serbia would have gotten. It would have also lost territory according to treaty, the same territory that was captured in the fighting against the Bulgarian occupators. That is why the treaty was never talked about after the war, because Yugoslavia was already a concept that the West had forced us to go with, after they saw the 1915 occupation and complete failure to end the war as soon as possible - because that’s the only situation in which Serbia could have expanded its territory to create a majority Serbian State for the first time since the Middle Ages. The Serbs were not fully satisfied with their future land gains, neither was Italy. That is why the treaty itself was not proposed to Serbia itself. It was meant to be a secret treaty that would end the power era of Austria-Hungary, which the Allies would have forced Serbia to accept in case victory in the awaited successful Balkan campaign.
9:40 Greece ordered two dreadnoughts of their own, the irony of the situation is that Greece ordered them from Germany, while the Ottomans from Britain, and both ended up fighting on the opposite side of the war than the owners of the shipyard they ordered their dreadnoughts from.
Like imperial puppet.
The entente had eyes on the middle eastern territories of the ottomans, they never wanted or thought there's even a need for an Ottoman entry on their side. They did everything in their power to make Ottomans fight against them.
One was ordered from Germany, the other was ordered from France. None of them were finished and were scrapped after the war.
@@janeza382 Not really puppets since each contries war aims went against the both Britain and Garmany.
tbh the ottomans entered the war because britain refused to give the battleship iirc
In part 3 you should do Japan, USA and Belgium
Edit: if you enjoy making content you could also do a Part 4 explaining the wishes of people groups without their own nations such as the Poles and the Czechs. It would be interesting to see what land they wished to receive in their nation and who they fought (for example if Poles rebelled in Russia after they signed their peace treaty with Germany)
USA was involved because Germany sunk alot of US merchant ships.
Belgium in WWI is basically
Objective: Survive
and add Portugal, that joined the war in 1916 and fought both in france and in africa agains the germans...
dont forget Montenegro lmao
@@ЧылгычыОндар-ю1о Actually you could be surprised by the ambitions of some political parties in Belgium at the time.
They wanted to take all german territory west to the Rhine river after the war...
They didn't.
The Italians were also promised dramatic amounts of land in Chad & Egypt, albeit mostly desert (Article 13 of Treaty of London) This land was rumored to have valuable metals in it, however it was just simply... useless desert. However, even though it was useless desert, the allies would only give a token of it to Italy, and would keep a land in particular known as the Aozou Strip, which they would be forced to give to Italy in the first act of Appeasement prior to WW2. Also, you may've had a research error, as they did not promise Italy a protectorate. Article 7 of the Treaty of London says that Italy - if they receive Dalmatia - promises to recognize the total partition of Albania between Montenegro & Greece. Italy would establish a protectorate over Albania, however it wasn't by any treaty obligations, and would be used to open a new southern front against Austria. They actually received international condemnation for such occupation.
Yes, the African clauses I knew about, but have avoided as with the previous video for brevity.
On Albania, ah ok that’s very interesting. I’ll try to check my notes as to where I got the information from tomorrow. But if I can’t find a suitable response I’ll be happy to include a correction in the pinned comment. Thank you very much.
@@OldBritannia Super! Also, great video, really enjoyed it.
Division of Albania between Montenegro and Greece? Thats absurd. Italy claimed Vlore at least. They hated Greece, and provoked unrest in Smyrna during Greco-Turkish war as example.
@@alexzero3736 it is quite absurd but that is what the treaty said so apparently it was some plan
Italy was a 2 cent whore, really disgusting foreign policy
when part 1 is in the beginning of summer and part 2 is at the end
I know, outrageous really.
@@OldBritannia Snow worries, mate. I'm just glad you actuslly made the videos to begin with! I would have waited many more months for quality such as this.
@@OldBritannia I started crying
I think I like that.
What if the third part will be about major countries of the Russian Civil War? It is a part of WWI
Entente: Lets bribe Italy to join the war so they can open a front in one of the most mountainous places in Europe! This will allow us to crush the Central Powers!
Also the Entente: Damn why Italy not pushing through the big mountains?
We did technically also end the war by marching on vienna in 1918 after vittorio veneto
@@belittekleiner1 I'm pretty sure the several million American troops flooding into France with superior arms and supply and the fact that German civilians at this point in the war had no concept of food being available were more decisive factors
@@kidfox3971 No, americans arent the living incarnation of GOD, the germans were still holding onto belgium and northern france, while us italians won the war a week earlier with the armistice of villa giusti.
@@kidfox3971 That had literally nothing to do with the Austrian collapse, most of the Austro-Hungarian Army mutinied and disintegrated during and after the battle of Vittorio Veneto, while the rest was busy getting routed by the Entente in the Balkans.
@@OrsoBart7734 So you are saying Entente didn't defeat Austra-Hungary? So all those millions of soldiers who died fighting against Austra-Hungary died for nothing?
I hope you enjoy the long overdue second part of this war aims series. This is the first video I've made where I wrote the script without a good grounding in the subject already. Thus, whilst I have tried to be as rigorous as possible in my research, I am sure there will be a few omissions/mistakes apparent to those of you with a better knowledge of specific countries.
As such, I will try and include in this pinned comment any corrections/additions those of you with more expertise than me feel ought to have been included in the video.
Nonetheless, I hope to any that watch, you are able to derive some enjoyment from the video. Thank you for watching.
Corrections:
7:30 This should be ‘Northern’, rather than ‘Southern Dobruja’.
Great video! That wait was well worth the good quality.
Part 3 with America, Japan, and Portugal?
If you do another video concerning Balkan history like the Balkan wars and stuff that would be brilliant. You also missed a tiny talking point about northern Epirus and Greco Albanian relations
I think Greece had occupied the southern half of Albania before and during the war but I could be mistaken
@@DSpace1 They did and it was a complicated diplomatic process during and after the war
The best way to be balanced and fair is to have everyone equally unhappy with you - seems to be the strategy of the Entente with the minor powers. :)
Love your maps by the way - beautiful.
I'm suprised how much you knew about the Romanian hopes and goals, as well as the fact about Regele Ferdinard never signing the treaty of Bucharest. Very cool!
Serbia lost around 25% of its whole population not just mobilised population.
Source?
@@hannibalburgers477 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_campaign#:~:text=The%20estimates%20of%20casualties%20are,Western%20historians%20put%20the%20number
@@hannibalburgers477
The source is serbian propaganda
Shouldn't have started it then
@@alexanderspear9464ahh collective punishment, nice
Great video! Just to mention that the fact that Italy's claims were not accomplished became known as "Il mito della vittoria mutilata" or the mith of the mutilated victory. It was popularized by the man who inspired Mussolini, Gabriele D'Annunzio.
esatto !
Si, però D’Annunzio non lo credeva un mito, lo credeva un fatto, ma si, e poi, un po’ è pure vero, ma in ogni caso, perdemmo buona parte di quei territori dopo il sequel
@@secretname4190 yeah, like, the Americans ignored the humans rights violations and attempts at Italy’s existence done by Jugoslavia just because they were a potential ally, and the English propaganda had no mercy on Italy either during ww2
Great video! I'd really like to see a third part covering other nations such as the US, Belgium, maybe even Japan, aswell as stateless nations such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Arabia...
Perhaps the most underrated history Channel on TH-cam. For the quality of the work and astonishing lack of subscribers
Thanks for all your work man, my only criticism is out of greed as I want more longer videos, if possible just talking over a still image would be more than adequate with your illuminating takes.
Haha, thank you that’s very flattering. I’ve had quite a lot of work recently. But much of it is done now, so hopefully the upload rate will pick up a bit.
Venizelos favored the British because Greece's position was mostly a maritime power seated at the eastern center of the the Mediterranean Sea, which was mainly controlled by the Entente powers (Britain). Geography played an important role in the conflict, as British supremacy could have shaped Greece's future if it answered accordingly. Going against them or favoring neutrality was like challenging a sea god. Sooner or later, the territorial claims that had been won from the Balkan wars would have been taken away by the very powers (British) who gave them in the first place.
King Constantine I and his royal court favored the Central Powers due to the existing notion of "divine rule" in autocratic societies (e.g. Germany, Russia), the king's ties with the Germans (his wife was the sister of the Kaiser Wilhelm II), the near invisibility of the German Imperial Army on the front at that time, and the fear of retaliation of neighboring countries who had a previous beef against Greece (including the Greeks from Asia Minor suffering reprisals from the Turks). Political division played a major impact on Greek society even after the end of WWI. Even Ioannis Metaxas (then an officer in Constantine's army, and later the future dictator of Greece), had a strong disbelief that both WW1 and the subsequent Greco-Turkish war would end in success for the Greeks.
Plus, it was unthinkable for Venizelos to side with the Ottomans and Bulgaria, both of them had antithetical strategic interests with Greece
The royal family of Greece was literally German, all of their ancestors and descendants from that point of time were German or Danish, I only managed to find one Russian member but I'm not sure how Russian she was considering the Romanovs were pretty much Germans themselves.
Germany was not autocratic
Enver Pasha's thought actually make sense when you think about it, the only thing that keep the Ottoman Empire still an empire at that time was because great powers of Europe want a balance of power by keeping it on weaken position, if one side lost as the video said it would be partition evantually by which ever side win. It's just Turks choose wrong side or more accurately got Shanghaied by the Germans.
2:15: Only 3 British divisions were sent to Italy. Italy sent more troops to the Macedonian front than the British did to the Italian one. You should also mention that in 1917 the Bolsheviks publicated the (at the time secret) treaty of London.
Yes this video is full of bullshit
There is a reason why he quoted 0 sources whatsoever
Yeah which is more than the amount of troops Italy sent to the front that actually did anything
@@Princeofbelka you mean the front that wasn't able to push a single centimeter into Germany and fought the entire war within France and Belgium?
On the other hand the Italians singlehandedly occupied Innsbruck, Dalmatia and Albania... But I mean what can an Australian know of wars when you were defeated by emus
@@Bolognabeef The war was won on the sea which as an Anglo we won it by a country mile. The Italians only managed to occupy those territories AFTER the collapse of resistance and met little to no actual Austrian defenders. So yeah you captured ALBANIA (lmfao its like bragging about being a janitor) But no one was there to fight you. Emu war joke? Go back to reddit your 14 yr old pedo lol.
@@PrinceofbelkaYou anglo Saxon scum really can't help but hating Italy can't you? It must be hard to feel such an unrequited sense of inferiority.
Nice vid bud
Can’t wait to watch!
Edit:Amazing video!!!
As a Bulgarian i was taught that we picked the axis because their promises were more plausable. The Entante's promises meanwhile would have been harder to act on and were seen as less likely to be fulfilled.
The Central Powers. Axis was in Ww2
@@Fabioonn Right. Sorry I forgot
You did good
Brilliant work. Have been watching the playlist. Excellent. Cheers from Tennessee
Great to see this video come out been looking forward to it for a while. Great job 👏👍
Creating Yugoslavia was a mistake for Serbia. I wish we followed the London agreement even if we did not participate directly in it's making, it was far better for us than Yugoslavia. Serbs remaining outside of those borders could have been moved to Serbia via population transfer or something like that. And we would have avoided Jasenovac and other Croat concentration camps in WW2.
All those sacrifices for nothing.
It was a beautiful experiment in brotherhood
Ahhh, my comments get shadowbanned again...
@@praefectus2599 Ah sorry about that, I’ve removed all restrictions on my end, but TH-cam seems determined to purge random comments. Very frustrating.
@@robert9016 Replying to you from this account, hopefully algorithm will see nothing wrong with it.
"Failed experiment*
Brotherhood never existed. Check out Croat and Muslim anti-Serbian riots. And Croat anti-Serbian riots long before the WW1. The famous term "Serbs on w_illows" was also coined by the Slovenian politician. And in the end, during the initial stages of invasion of Serbia, it was the Croat units(which Tito was a part of), who comitted most of the crimes on Serb civilians, while at the same time Muslims had militias in Bosnia who persecuted Serbs under the patronage of Vienna.
Failed and pointless experiment Yugoslavia was.'
@@OldBritannia No problem. It seems it's my account that is getting targeted, so I'll be replying from this one. And yes, YT makes it hard to have decent conversation in the comments for some time now.
Quick correction. The territory Bulgaria had occupied is Northern Dobruja. Not Southern Dobruja as the video says.
they occupied half of it, the tulcea region that exists rn was under german control
On the subject of northen dobrudja it was mostly because it was co-occupied by Bulgaria and Germany . The reasoning for it was the germans were exporting the wheat from the region to germany. Bulgaria fully occupied northen dobrudja very soon before the war ended
Yes. In the Berlin Protocol of 1918, Bulgaria annexed all of dobruja below the danube delta
Thanks for this video, was looking towards this one since the first part.
TBH i think Italy was a winning point for everyone: A position like that in the Mediterranean was one of the best, if they joined the Central Power the french would have to fight even more Austrians and Italians in another front, they would have to fight in Africa and the same for the UK
YOU RELEASED LES GO!!!!!!
Great video like always, love seeing your channels growth!
Finally!
Thanks for making this series!
Great video! Nice breakdown.
I hear you got a better mic, much better quality. Good video!
Haha thank you, audio quality is honestly the bane of my life. I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing with anything in the back end. Maybe one day it will actually be passable.
I'm a simple man
I see venizelos on the thumbnail, I click and like.
Awesome video man
The Greeks had also occupied Northern Epirus in 1914, a region with significant Greek presence today and at the time a Greek majority. The Greek Navy was significantly superior to the Turkish one, so most of the fighting was concentrated on the Macedonian front. The Battle of Skra was an astounding Greek victory against unfavorable odds, paving the way to the union with Thrace. At the same time, Greece had hoped to gain Eastern Thrace and Constantinople, the Ionia and Bithynia regions in Anatolia, a settlement for Northern Epirus, Dodecanese and Cyprus (British holding that was promised to Greece for entering the war, but was retained by Britain) and also to support the Greeks of Pontus. Initially, the Prime Minister Venizelos did not support an independent Pontic Greek Republic in North Eastern Anatolia, opting for an autonomy in the new Republic of Armenia. However later, both Wilson and Venizelos, as well as many other international representatives, changed their opinion at the Paris Peace Conference, after they were convinced by Archbishop Chrysanthos of Trapezounda.
Wow thank god 🙏 for Mustafa Kemal🇹🇷
Don’t have much love for latter Ottoman empire when they became more religious and began oppressing the balkan people, but even if Britain has supported Greece 100% and given istanbul to greece then Turkey would have become communist or fascist and joined ww2 to rectify it some way or the other, probably ending with even more ethnic cleansing. So yeah hurra for Mustafa Kemal.
@@Zyzyx442 agree
@@Zyzyx442 I agree with you here in 95% of what you said. But I would just not say I would support Mustafa Kemal. After all, he extended the Greek genocide to the Propontis and Ionian Greeks, leading to an extra 600 thousand Greek deaths than the sultans were responsible for. In fact, the Venizelos government, being more open to dialogue, had invited Kemal to Constantinople in 1920 for dialogue, to make a deal against Italian, French and British colonizers, with the plan that at least this way the Greek genocide would stop, but Kemal refused. From then on, Turkey essentially decided to fight everyone at once, and they would have lost if it weren't for Soviet support and the restoration of the pro-German monarchy in Greece. That's all.
@@georgios_5342 Didn’t know that, zeitgeist of the time was genocide it seems, I have turk friend that has explained that armenians also did genocide, ofc he says they started the ethnic cleansing and the turks just responded in kind. No side is perfect but should be very careful with praising nationalist leaders that never compromise so thanks for that, and isnt that what politics is supposed to be? Compromises that is, we evolved in small tribes so even our modern brains simplify conflicts into rooting for your own kind/people/race and tbf if you dont support your home team then youre kinda a douche. Greeks and Turks will definetely get their chance one more time probably soon.
Great job dude! You never fail to impress me!
4:55 the more i hear about this man the more respect i have for him. What a legend
Portugal just entered to avoid having its colonies used by the big powers as barganing chips in a peace treaty.
We gathered that if we were oficially an Ally, Britain would not offer our colonies to Germany in a deal. It worked but ours and the Belgium Congo were on the table in the 30's as an offer for a "final settlement" with Hitler instead of returning the German former colonies.
To all Italians out there I apologize for the mistake of Serbian politicians to take more land and form Yugoslavia. This not only brought a dark faith to the Serbs but the Italians as well. Lands should have been divided as per the 1915 London treaty.
When some south slavs are sorry for what happened to italy after ww2 you understand why they hate eachother so much lmao
Also to be fair the border should have been drawn and set on the old "littoral" region + the islands of krk, cres and losinj without majority slovene areas such as adelsberg/postomja.
Italy was greedy in wanting dalmatia and old krain (kranjska) but tito was even greedier as he tried to take even trieste (trst) that never was majority slav and in fact at the peak slav population (1910 census so biased against italians) it was 20% slovene and 5% german. And what happened to italians living in istria is really saddening, around 450k were forcefully expelled (75% of the istrian population) while 20k were chained in groups and heavily beaten right next to sinkholes so when someone fell everyone would as well. Another sucky thing is these atrocities were banned from schools till 2004 as italy had to remain a loyal american puppet and so knowing about atrocities committed on italians was forbidden
Damn, what a refreshing take from a Serb.
@@Tommi414 Majority of the Serbs who are interested in this topic shares this opinion as NekiLik has written.
@@Tommi414 We were furthering Croatian claims due to "Brotherhood"
And they repaid us by having Italians nearly going to war with the Independet state of Croatia in WW2 after witnessing the atrocities.
Hell Italians supplied Serbian Chetnik groups to fight the Croats in ww2 and offered safe haven in Italian occupation zones for Serbs.
I forgot which politician of that time said that it was a mistake to alienate Italy and that instead Serbia and Italy should have become the closest of allies and keep the adriatic as their pond against all other powers.
@@Tommi414 Refreshing might not be the right word considering that he's sorry about present day Croatian and Slovenian lands😀
The Greeks were also offered Cyprus and North Epirus by the British in 1915 if they joined the war.
Yes but this wasn't actually meant to go through. The British made this promise to the Royalist government which was pro-German. Therefore they knew they'd have to reject, they only made it so that the Greeks would support Venizelos more
Brilliant work man, your videos are excellent and truly insightful
ah, i didnt see there was a second part, glad i found this, thanks! now i know more about the smaller nations!!
Why! That's how every video on historical topic should start and that's the whole idea of this one.
Very well presented, analysis was good and accurate, on extremely sensitive topic as I guess we all agree that all the 20-21 century problems started there.
P. S. What surprises me a lot are the civil and friendly comments below the video. That's rare, especially when Balkan nations are involved. Respect for that! 🙂
Eyy new video! You love to see it.
Also Venizelos in the thumbnail 👌
Funfact: any time france and UK said
"I think its the best if we draw the borders" it ended up in a disaster
*ww1 is a good example*
WW1 isn't an example of that, that's a totally anachronistic viewpoint ignoring the fact Britain moderated the demands (such as confirming German, Hungarian and Austrian territory) of both sides and ignoring the fact that their discontent and malice towards each other which contributed to the dismantling of the peace treaties and the following status-quo as well as ignoring the fundamental struggle of Britain and France and their empires to defend themselves and the balance of power, hence getting their say.
@@omperial9870 yea
"defend" themselves
But later they cry because ww2 still happened and are wondering why
@@Masterchief_Tito Yeah, as far as I remember the Entente wasn't the one who declared war on France, invaded through Belgium and moreover sought to inflame tensions by having a naval arms race and preplanning for an outbreak of a World War. No one wonders why WW2 happened, it's quite evident. I am simply saying that the peace terms were rational but old enmity existed that tore up Versailles. Boohoo the losers lost some territory (that aren't ethnically theirs) and had to pay reparations in name only, it's better than the result of WW2.
@@omperial9870 lmao at least we are not the ones who lost a war in 46 days, enslaved half of africa, surrendered 5 times in a century and still wonder why everyone hates them
You entente fanboy thinks the peace treaties were fair but just to remind you that English was created by us and that france was technically established by us
@@Masterchief_Tito Cope and seethe, Kaiserboo
Always the forgoten Montenegro :D we were small, but we fought as well! Great video.
Ah I’m so sorry, was on the list but I decided to cut it. If I make a third part I’ll be sure to include it.
@@OldBritannia could you share what you discovered in your research? It would be really interesting to know.
After watching these 2 videos, youre going up there with my go to youtubers when i need info on history.
2:08 really? The rest of the Entente basically served as cannon fodder throughout the war while the real defeat of the central empires was the Piave/ Mt. Grappa victories done by the Italians. Muh Caporetto is hilarious when you see angloids and frogs squirm and squeal at the words "Marne", "Verdun", "Gallipoli", etc..
We won the war IN Austria, they won it in in France, a few km away from Paris matter of fact.
Oh dear!
Tbh most people dont even know about ww1, let alone the Alpine front which is a niche in an already niche war (compared to ww2 obv)
@@stylesheetra9411 the dolomites were the harshest front of ww1. I wouldn't call it niche tbh.
@@jon2067 i meant niche as "not having Mass appeal"
Nice video. Well done
Yo man, your videos great! The quality of your editing and story telling punches way above your current sub count. Keep up the good stuff!
Never knew the reasons for Italy and Romania switching sides, had heard italy felt cheated but never the concrete details. Thanks.
Funny, but it s actually Italy who got cheated. The Triple alliance had article saying "If one country advances in the Balkans, another one may demand compensation" . During annexation of Bosnia which angered Russia and Serbia, italians came to Vienna telling "we absolutely support you, if you give us Trent" - they were denied. During july crisis 1914 Italy made no secret about their claims over Trent and Triest, but Austria-Hungary started the war without consulting them. Germans tried to pull of something as they needed additional forces in the West, offering French lands and colonies as prize, but after siege of Przemysl it looked like Austria-Hungary is close to collapse, so Italians choose the Entente as winners bandwagon .
Romania always betrays its alies its his habit..
@@gachibass3639 We are not hungarians, in 1848 enemies with imperial austrians in 1867 best friends. Why they don't teach you in hungary about the Operation Margarette and Panzerfaust? Why you don't know about the radio transmision from 1944 of the war-criminal called horthy? This after Germany close double-sized hungary without being a single shot fired.
Italy didn't change sides
@@NoName-hg6cc It is said that Italy if ends a war on the same side then it must have switched sides twice!
Watched the entire video while eating popcorn, the wait was worth it
The Romanians did manage to take a part of Transylvania in the Romanian Campaign of 1916 which was also according to the plan of Z Hypothesis but the Germans did actually take Romania entering the war very seriously so both Falkenhayn and August Von Mackensen was sent to deal with it. Romania had about 523.000+ Casualties already and their army got reduced from 658.000 to 400.000+ but thanks to the Russians Romania managed to hold for another year and the Romanian army managed to win three Heroic battles but when the Russian revolution started Romania signed a armistice in 1917 (Armistice of Focoşani) and in 1918 had no choice but to make a peace treaty with the Central Powers. Romania was literally cut off of the rest of Entente and they were running out of supplies and moral. So they signed the treaty of Bucharest In 1918 but rejoined the war and declared war on the Central Powers and defeated also Hungary in the Romanian-Hungarian war.
Signed, but not ratified :)
@@gigikontra7023 Without the King's signature it was paper and ink and little more. Not a peace treaty.
And the CP diplomats knew it (the romanian consitution was public and pretty standard for the time).
I know that King Ferdinand the First refused to sign the Treaty but the Prime Minister Alexandru Marghiloman did sign it. And the Senate and Chamber of Deputies ratified it. Now, I don't know exactly how this works but I'm sure that for the Treaty to be valid the King must sign it. Which he didn't, but Historical speaking the Treaty of Bucharest was a Treaty which the King didn't sign.
@@InAeternumRomaMater Well, I am sure because I've read the constitution in power at the time.
For a treaty to be made, it needed to have the King's signature.
No king's signature = no treaty.
@Tovalokodonc If you take a better look on Wikipedia, both nations had the same amount of soldiers on the Battle field. We just proved ours better
omg just what I needed. i really like your voice btw
I feel like the section about Italy doesn't really provide an objective description of the role played by Italy during WW1 and the Entente perception of their war contribution. First off, the idea that Britain and France had to keep Italy fighting by sending a somewhat significant number of their troops to the Italian front after Caporetto is simply false, there were no French or British divisions on the Italian front when the Austro-German Army was first stopped at the Battle of Monte Grappa, and there were just 5 during the second battle of the Piave River, which were mostly kept in reserve and obviously played a limited role compared to the 52 Italian ones. And what about the 7 German divisions which had to be moved from other theaters to the Italian one just a few moths prior? The fact that German had to deploy a relatively large number of divisions at Caporetto compared to the planned scale of the operation (the Austrian deployed just 8) to avoid an early Austrian collapse is something that should be worth mentioning.
Regarding the idea that France and Britain felt that the Italians didn't deserve the territories which they were promised due to their poor "performance" during the war (basically they spent years launching one costly offensive after another before going on the defensive after Caporetto), skimming over the the fact that this sounds almost comical today considering what the war was like on the Western front, it must be said that while it's understandable that many French and British diplomats felt this way, especially after Cadorna had literally accused a part of his own troops (a whole Army corps) of cowardice in his war bulletin after Caporetto, blaming them for his incompetence and making this absurd idea spread through the press worldwide, this doesn't really give you the full picture of what were the major causes of the outcome of the conference.
The problem is that the public perception of Italy's participation in the war doesn't really explain anything about the actual strategic reasons the other Entente powers had to keep Italy from getting most of what they wanted. Namely, the fact that Wilson's 14 points clashed with the idea of Italy controlling the Dalmatian coast and other majority slavic territories and could have easily led to the Slavic states getting out of the Entente grasp during the confusing post-war period of strife and civil wars. Other than that, it must be noted that French and British interests and strategic aims had changed significally since 1915. Especially considering the fact that with a united Southern Slavic state having emerged from the war, it was now possible to prevent Italy from gaining full control over the Adriatic Sea and the Danube commercial traffics.
And to briefly mention the bizzarre and arrogant requests of the Italian delegation, which were another cause of the results of the Paris peace conference, the Italians literally asked France to cede most of their equatorial African possessions to Italy in order to connect their colony in Libya with German Kamerun, or alternatively to cede them their holdings in the Horn of Africa (which would have meant giving Italy control over the Bab-el-Mandeb), and when these and other requests weren't granted, they simply left the conference altogether, causing the collapse of the Italian government at home.
Regarding the idea of Italy not being a "Great Power" at the beginning of the XX century. I think that giving an objective judgment on this subject is simply not possible if we keep considering this "Great Power" status, a somewhat abstract concept often based on the subjective judgment of culturally biased XIX-XX Century British diplomats and historians, as a product of a (non-existing) objective method.
Today quantitative measurements can be easily applied to modern and contemporary history, so if we measure some factors which clears distinguished the so called "Great Powers" (ex. raw resources, manpower, industrial capacity, fleet, diplomatic weight...) I would say that Italy seems to be much closer to the other so called "Great Powers" than to Greece, Romania or Bulgaria, and seeing them and the Ottomans grouped with those minor countries today looks a bit prejudiced.
I appreciate your critique, but I'm afraid I disagree with much of it.
Your first paragraph effectively asks me to account for much of Italy's military history in WW1 in the video. I tend to only mention battles so as to show their impact on diplomacy/ the overall course of the war. I did not say allied troops stopped the German advance after Caporetto. I said that troops had to be sent to Italy after the battle which as you say is true. The point I was making was that this caused much bitterness among the British and French. Whether or not the bitterness was justified isn't my concern (though I say the critiques were unfair in the video).
No the German divisions would not be worth mentioning, as they had little impact on Britain and France's diplomatic thinking. Again, this is not a military history. Caporetto and the subsequent Anglo-French redeployment was only mentioned because it impacted Anglo-French thinking, even if that thinking was unjust and shortsighted.
The diplomacy during the actual peacemaking process is only meant to serve as a very brief conclusion, not a full history of it. Much of it comes from Paul Hayes' Modern British Foreign Policy. I agree not wanting to alienate the slavs was a factor, and probably one you are right to say I should have mentioned in hindsight. But I don't think it invalidates what was said in the video.
Measuring a Great Power is a tricky business, but basically every diplomatic historian I have read does not class Italy as one. Indeed most explicitly say that whilst she was moving towards that rank, she never quite attained it. Ultimately it's somewhat arbitrary, and like all history, dependent on who is writing the analysis. Since this is my channel, it's going to have to be my arbitrary ranking.
I include Italy with other minor powers not to serve as a comparison, but simply because I do not think she was a great power to be included in the previous video.
Nonetheless, thank you for commenting, I appreciate your arguments.
Least Nationalist Italian
@@mahari893 i mean we get disrespected all the time obviously then we get nationalistic
@@OldBritannia you don’t remember though that also Italy “had” to send troops on the western front, to put it simply a great power was cheated for a series of reasons, end of story.
P.S. you can’t disagree on someone(the first comment) and procede to not mention or disprove a single fact
@@Marco-1997 I’m talking about the mentality of British diplomats, recorded in Paul Hayes’ Modern British Foreign Policy. They are not my personal opinions, which are fairly positive of Italy’s overall war effort. When I did give my opinion in the video it was to say that Rumbolds critique was unfair and that Italy was unfortunate the Austrians held the best defensive position in Europe.
great video once again
Logically as always Bulgaria would be skipped in the comment section. I would say that it was a great explanation if any but to be fare for all the clip would have been too long maybe. The army wasn't really defeated but there was no food and the line was broken, flags of regiments are taken after defeat and Bulgaria hasnt given any to this day. The bulgarian army had great reputation since 1878 to WW1.
That is indeed true, we do fight for our nation as long as we possibly can, we mobilised 1/4 of our population (over a million men from a country of 4 million) to fight, but our allies broke first.
@@notreheros Germany was the last country left to surrender and that was when all of it's population was starving dur to the 5 year blockade imposed on it.
Bulgaria did fight really well though especially for it's size.
@@cqpp Something people tend to ignore is that we relied heavily in terms of material and supplies. Mobilising 1/4 of the population obviously had some serious negative effects on our economy, especially as we still had peasant style agriculture and our industry wasn't that sizeable at all in comparison to what we were taking on. What happened in bulgaria especially as you've already said was that it only surrendered once it's population started starving, the same with us.
@@cqpp Also as was brought up in the video our allies held us back and down, we could've destroyed all four of the armies (serbs, french, british and greece potentially depending on if the government sides with the king or not once the latter mentioned armies are gone) and shored up a lot of men for the eastern front which wouldve allowed for atleast a couple hundred thousand to be moved from the east to the western front. Bulgarian warfare is an offensive and aggressive style, not defensive. In the large majority of our history we've been the ones to start the attack in battles and even when we're on the backfoot we ambush the enemy. It really is a shame the outcome of this war.
@@notreheros yeah the outcome of the war was really shit.
No self determination for Germans and Germans divided into several countries and also Czechslovak invasion of German-Austria taking Sudetenland in the process.
Bulgaria losing access to Aegean, Hungary being fucked over by all sides in an opportunistic land grab by all it's neighbours, Ottoman Empire being divided and broken up in the most retarded way possible and thus being a huge reason for a majority of the wars in the middle east.
Subscribed because of your nice maps and quotes you add for context.
World war one , the European scramble for Europe.
This channel is so good
Okay. This analysis is amazing. 😀😀
I'm a simple man. I see Eleftherios Venizelos, I click.
By the way, amazing video, very in depth work.
The more I read about him, the more I admire him. By the end of the video I was wishing I had gone a bit more in depth into him here. I’m thinking of doing a video on the Greco-Turkish naval race prior to WW1 though, so think I’ll use that as an opportunity to include a bit more about him.
@@OldBritannia He is indeed a very smart and foreseeing politician and diplomat, a man who understood global geopolitics as if it was his game. You can read more about him in the establishment of the Cretan State. Venizelos was arguably the most important figure in modern Greek history, as it was essentially his successful diplomacy that lead to the establishment of the Cretan State, massive successes in the Balkan Wars, the establishment of the Autonomous Republic of Northern Epirus, and the Treaty of Sevres. As long as he was in charge, the situation was all going according to plan. After the 1920 death of King Alexander by a monkey bite though, he needed to proclaim elections. This he said, was probably his biggest and unforgivable mistake. The new lands acquired by the Sevres and Neuilly Treaties were also allowed to vote, which had minorities, and especially the Jewish and Turkish ones, vote against him en masse. Even though he had more votes than the Gounaris royalist coalition, Venizelos lost the elections and was forced to leave Greece. From then on, everything went downhill. The Royalists did everything different from Venizelos just for the sake of being different, and ended up making terrible mistakes. This is what lead to the Anatolian Catastrophe as we call it in Greece, which is essentially the utter destruction of the Greek community in Anatolia.
@@georgios_5342 respect to venizelos from turkey,no matter what his opinion might be on us he was still a respectable and brilliant diplomat and leader
@@ykdm-wf8ju Merhaba komşu!
Just so you know, Venizelos wasn't against Turkey, he was just against the Ottoman Empire ruling Greek lands. He believed that an ethnic Turkish nation and country should still exist in Anatolia, but not have Constantinople or Smyrna (Istanbul and İzmir) this is unlike the pro-German king Constantine, who wanted the restoration of Byzantium and essentially the eradication of Turkey (most Greeks did not like this king and still today we recognized that it was a grave mistake to put him in charge, because he committed crimes in Anatolia and also conducted a stupid foreign policy that leas Greece to destruction). Essentially, from 1920 to 1923 Venizelos was in exile in Paris. When I say I support Venizelos, it does not mean I am against Turks.
Peace bro ✌️
@@OldBritannia I think many of us can agree that Venizelos was indeed a bright leader for Greece and Hellenic Nationalism but Ataturk was one step ahead of him in every move that have occured during the Greco-Turkish War.
I was waiting for this part for REALLY long. Glad it came
You're wrong about Romania, the Entente promised the border up top the Tisa (all of Banat and important cities like Debrecen) and all of Transcarpathia, so no, it didn't get what it was promised.
We need a Part 3. The USA, but also Japan, China, Belgium, Portugal and Siam might be interesting. Also the Dominions for a Part 4.
"Paris 1919" by Margaret MacMillan details some of the more interesting demands from the Dominions. For instance South Africa wanted to annex half of Mozambique and compensate Portugal by giving it much of German East Africa. Canada wanted to annex the Alaskan Panhandle and compensate the USA by getting the British to surrender Belize and the Bahamas. Stuff like that.
Finally part 2 is there, much love from serbia 🇷🇸
Hi, great video as always. I understand but was still disappointed that Japan was not included in the list of the nation's war aims you described. I was wondering if you ever thought about covering the Anglo-Japanese alliance. I feel like there is an exciting story to tell there as the Yellow-peril was in full swing around that time. Many nations as you know were fearful of the rise of an eastern country: Kaiser Willhelm in particular. But I remember reading somewhere that King Edward didn't share that opinion or not to the extent of the other leaders. Cheers.
Ah sorry about that. Japan and the US were so important I felt they should get a separate video. Might do a part 3 with them both at some point.
Ñ
@@OldBritannia Will you include Portugal in a part 3?
@@secretname4190 Why do you even think I'm asking for Portugal? Of course they fought, they weren't neutral, they entered in 1916 and fought in the western front for the Entente.
1:00 Did Austria-Hungary ever offer Trieste as this map appears to suggest? My understanding was that Trentino was about the most they were willing to cede
Where’s the source for this? I’ve been trying to find it
Correct me if I'm wrong but Albania was recognised as independent from the Ottoman Empire by the major powers on 29 July 1913 by the treaty Treaty of London, so technically it wasn't an still an Ottoman territory by the start of WW1. Admittedly it took until the Protocol of Florence in 17 December 1913 for them to determine the exact borders, but by the start of WW1 the Ottomans had no European territory except Eastern Thrace, also losing Crete to the Greeks.
As for the Ottomans entering, maybe 'decision' is too strong a word. It was more a conspiracy between the Germans and certin Young Turk figures to create the conditions where it had no choice. Unlike the other minor powers who entered seeking mercenary gains Germany probably gained more from their entry than vice-versa, especially as it created a major headache and distraction for Britain, although the Kaiser's hope that Britain's Muslim subjects would rebel under the authority of the Caliph was wildly optimistic given how discredited the Ottoman sultans were by this stage of their decline.
What’s the music in the Romania and Greece sections?
Good video
I do hope you make a part three of this. Japan, the USA, Belgium, and Portugal are ones I know you haven't done yet.
Japan got everything they wanted, idk about Italy and Belgium tho
Great content you should really make content about napoleon iii and the second French empire
Say what you want of each country's performance but I find it hypocritical from the entente to deny Italy the land they were promised with the excuse they were not as effective as hoped, despite keep fighting until the very end, while tripling Serbia's size despite them being entirely occupied by the central powers.
I am of course not trying to insult neither Italy nor Serbia but this feels very much like a double standard, and in the end it was since France really wanted to avoid Italy from being hegemonic over the Adriatic, thus allowing Serbia to have Dalmatia.
By the way interesting video
It’s because Italy was not a minor nation, unlike what the video is saying. As the smallest of the Great Powers, the other powers obviously were wary of it growing too much, and unlike France which was solidly allied with Britain or Austria-Hungary which was inevitably with Germany, Italy wasn’t really on either side but its own.
@@mrclean29 no doubt, as I said Italy was denied it's promised land because it would have allowed them to obtain a slightly more influential role in the Mediterranean, which France and Britain didn't want.
However the creation of yugoslavia really makes one feel like the Entente were hypocritical.
"Self-determination" and then half the balkans become serbian
@@casteddu6740 absolutely agree with you.
Well, to be fair, Serbia lost 20% of their population.
@@PersonOfEarth117 yeah but unlike Italy they got entirely occupied
Italy on the other hand managed to stay fighting until the end that is the difference
I mean it's like if after ww2 they gave Belgium the rhineland
I hope this part gets a remake just like part 1. As Old Brittannia went into more interesting analysis breaking down the war aims of each great powers.
So most of these nations, in pursuit of glory power and prestige ended up defeated and humiliated. It really is a lesson of how the blind pursuit of power leads to disaster.
Ps: Have been waiting long for this video. Was absolutely worth the waiting.
Even victorious nation were humialated (Italy, France, Russia...)
@@alexzero3736 how the fuck was France humiliated
@@alexzero3736 France won the war, was the dominant ally and carried the Entente, how were they humiliated ? More like they humiliated Germany
@@aa6dcc by the outcome. 1,5% of population is dead, industry/infrastructure destroyed (all 4 years war was going on French territory) , wargoals not achieved...USA and UK standed firmly against creation of buffer state between Germany and France and even annexation of Saar by France.
@@alexzero3736 and France stood firmly against some of the US and UK’s resolves at Versailles? The commander in chief of all Entente forces was French (Foch), American troops were more of a liability (more died of disease after the war than of combat, classic American revisionism to make it look like they even fought, most troops arrived after the conflict ended) since they were trained and equipped, Rethondes and Versailles were signed in France, France recuperated most of the war indemnities. Taking large casualties isn’t « humiliated » you visibly dont understand the words you’re using, France won the war and was the major ally (took way more casualties, fought on more fronts and won more battles than the Brits), in fact there were more French troops on the Western front at any given moment than there were British troops around the world at its peak. Even Britain wanted its troops to be put under unified French control. So what’s humiliating is not winning the war, it’s hiding across the Atlantic and the Channel. What’s even more humiliating is being so openly ignorant about a topic and still waffling about it on TH-cam comments, spreading lies. Be thankful the French won WW1, have a bit of gratitude for those who lost their lives fighting alongside you guys.
Ehhhh come on, the entante could have offered us bit more and persuade us to join them. Bulgarian forces would have been a game changer had we been given a better offer.
Romania’s claim to stretch all the way to the Tisza river was truly a stretch lol
What about Portugal? Sure they didn’t have many goals but I heard one was relating to the Ovamboland
About Romania, aside from what was already pointed out by others:
- First note would be that you show the Danube Delta as occupied by the Central Powers. They never took control of it! Their attacks were stopped by the Romanian Navy and they never crossed into the Delta. You probably know it from that West Point map, but it's wrong. If you check original maps you'll see.
- Romania was in the Centeal Powers' "sphere of influence" because Carol I was from a German family, and to defend against the Russians who were seen as a threat since 1878 (following the war of independence). For the same reason Romania built strong fortifications around Bucharest and the Focșani-Nămoloasa-Galați line, which was aimed at Russia. The pact signed with the CP was defensive again, against Russia, where if any nation were to be attacked (by Russia) all others would step in. But since Austria-Hungary attacked Serbia first, the country chose neutrality.
- Romania didn't enter the war so opportunisticly, both sides wanted the country on their side, especially the Central Powers for its oil fields. After long negotiations with Entente who promised a fair representation at the peace talks (unlike in 1878), Romania joined the war. But the talks took too long and Romania joined at a later date than planned. Even more, the CP knew Romania would join the Entente, but at a later date so it took them by surprise.
- Romania was defeted so quickly in 1916 because it did not receive the promised support. The promosed support was another Russian offensive and an offensive at Salonika against the Bulgarians. Russia was also to send troops in Dobrudja to help, but they didn't send the ammount they promised and coordination between the two armies was bad (duh, see above). Only after the Romanian defeat in the 1916 campaing did the Russians see how critical Romania's position was. The animosity between the leadership of Russia and Romania still continued until the end of the war though.
România did not gain what it had aimed for. It desired more territory from Hungary than it got. Notably the city of Beceskcaba (I don't know how to type it correctly) was seen as the ultimate officially claimed aim. You can see the exact frontier Romania claimed at the Wikipedia article Treaty of Bucharest (1916). Notably Romania also demanded all of Banat but only received 2/3 as French-backed Serbian troops managed to enter the region first. Conflict was close to erupt between these two nations as a result. Romania also had aims for Northern Maramureș but these were developed as the war ensued. They were also given up as Czechslovakia demanded the area.
The claim Romania got everything they wanted is from Margaret Macmillan. I’m very sorry, I’ve never heard of some these claims, but thank you for pointing them out.
Beceskcaba is East of the Tisza no? I mentioned Romania claimed land up to the Tisza in a note in the video.
I would be happy to include an addition to the pinned comment nonetheless.
Would something like: ‘Romania also claimed all of Banat and Northern Maramures’ suffice?
You got more than enough from france transylvania is and will ever be hungarian
@@zoltan6451 no we should have gotten Becesckaba lol
@@zoltan6451 POV Transylvania being Romanian majority.
greedy Jackal just like Italy.
Waited the whole summer and it was worth it
You are right about Serbia, I can say that since I am Serbian. Not only did Serbia had horrific loses in the war, but it also invested it's victory in Yugoslavia, which turned out to be the greatest mistake of our entire history.
I wonder how good of a life those 25% of soldiers wouldve had if they had accepted giving eastern macedonia back to bulgaria
@@ivankopernika536 typhoid epidemic was the major reason of the mortality, not some German backed tartar dogs that failed to hold the mountains in Macedonia.
@@zmajooov you're right! the tartar dogs did fail to hold the mountains of macedonia, leading to their surrender in 1915. later, in 1940, they also failed to hold belgrad against 7 soldiers, must be quite embarrassing for them!
@@ivankopernika536 is that your attempt of a comeback? i knew bulgarian tartars were dumb but you just win the prize. you even got the dates wrong lol
@@zmajooov I'm Belarussian. I don't need a good clapback when you're so full of hatred your barbaric self will think about me and bulgaria for the rest of the week anyway. Literally rent free.
The British also promised to hand Cyprus to Greece if they joined during their galipoli campaign, but the king refused. After galipoli the french and British tried to open up a new front in Macedonia to relieve the serbs (though in reality, the true reason was so that french general Sarrail, who was favoured by the socialists, who had taken power in France in 1915, could have a command independent of Joffre in the western front) but in doing so, they violated Greek neutrality, nearly occupying the upper half. From letters to the kaiser, it seems that the king of Greece was intending to join the central powers eventually, but until he was exiled, the Greek army would see no fighting, even letting the Bulgarians occupying Greek territory. There was also an incident where a Greek army corps took refuge in Germany to avoid confrontation with the Bulgarians.
There was also talk that Greek neutrality violated the Greco serbian defensive alliance. At first the royal Greek government used the pretence that Austria wasn't a regional power in the Balkans, so an attack by them wasn't covered in the treaty, however when Bulgaria joined Greece should have as well under the treaty.
do you have the source for your Horace Rumbold quote?
I would very much like to read the full texte
Thanks for the video, very educationnal
A bit late here, but will their be a part 3 with Japan, China and the USA?
At some point yes. Japan and the US's war aims were so consequential I think they need a video to themselves. Wont be for a bit now though.
@@OldBritannia thank you for your answer, and take your time, no stress.
China didnt do anything in ww1
@@ayaankhan-eh1xy-g3e true, but it would have been fun to know what they wanted
"Better employed selling ice cream" jeez that's a bit harsh XD
Yeah very. I thought it offered a fairly clear reason as to why Italy ended up being so poorly treated at Versailles though.
@@OldBritannia I'm Sorry to disagree with you, but this joke isn't funny.
Many Italians died in WW1 and we lose at Caporetto, but also we crushed the Austro-Hungarian Army at Vittorio Veneto.
So please, next time don't do these jokes.
P.s. we fought alone on our front
@@fabio_robymagio1929 It wasn’t a joke? It’s a quote from a diplomat, meant to show why the British and French weren’t prepared to give Italy all of the territories promised in the Treaty of London.
@@OldBritannia ah ok
@@fabio_robymagio1929 Italy did not crush the Austro-Hungarians alone at all! The spearhead for the Vittorio Veneto offensive was five experienced British and French divisions who lead the breakthrough. It is far from certain that Italy would have prevailed against the Austro-Hungarians alone.
Do you think you could finish this series with a video about the other powers such as the USA, Portugal, China and Japan? OR maybe a series about WW2? I'd be really interested to see their ambitions as they were either not in Europe or thousands of miles away from any conflict.
The Bulgarian one is not quite true. We didn't want that much of Serbia, just the parts where there was Bulgaria majority. The Serbian territory given to Bulgaria in this video was actually occupied by Bulgaria, but only because Austria-Hungary couldn't do that itself.
There is a error Italy was able to anter Austrian territory at the and of the war, Italy olso was promes a lots more then what in the video is show, in fact all of the croecian cost and Montenegro were promesse. This is the rison why Italy felt cheated at the and. Most importantly inglamd instead of helping a ally necione they wanted alll the money back that they give to Italy during the war.
5:09 Serbia actually accepted all points of the ultimatum but one, which thoroughly baffled the Austrians who had expected them to completely refuse.
Britain: Promise everything, deliver nothing.
Britain delivered victory over the Central Powers in the end.
About Greece.The king was right about the start of the war.Had Greece joined early we would have been overrun by the Central Powers who had already beaten Serbia.It would be an 1 vs 4 and 2 of them would be great powers
The Italian front was the most difficult to cross, the Austrians remained in defense above the mountains for most of the war, making it very difficult for the Italian troops to break through (even if they still managed to take some strategic points), but the effort it was in vain, 1.5 million dead for territories that were not given to us, it must also be said that Italy, (together with Japan), was the only state in the whole war to be able to conquer enemy territory, instead the British, the Belgians and the French remained in the defensive area, honor to Italy and honor to the fallen
Whill you put Montenegro In part 3?
Portugal was too , pls can you do a video of it?
U helped me write story
Where there is wilson, fuckery occurs
Very accurate, especially the maps.
The disrespect towards Italy in WW1 is insane.
The alpine front was easily the most unforgiving and toughest frontline of the war and conducting a successful offensive through frozen mountains and valleys is harder than doing it in northern France.
Caporetto was not an austrian victory but a german one.
And most of Italy's WW1 shortcomings were thanks to professional idiot and part time general Cadorna. Once he was replaced by Diaz the Italians turned the tide against Austria in a year and crushed them at Vittorio Veneto
Stop blaming Cadorna so much, he was the one that set fortification on the mount Grappa fearing german intervention and and offensive to get Venice, he predicted It perfectly and we managed to stop them at mount Grappa mostly thanks to his works
@@stylesheetra9411 Ok, but his tactic was dumb
@@NoName-hg6cc yes most of the tactics in ww1 were dumb tbh
@@stylesheetra9411 True. It doesn't make Cadorna's better though
"The alpine front was easily the most unforgiving and toughest frontline of the war and conducting a successful offensive through frozen mountains and valleys is harder than doing it in northern France." So, why did they do it then lmao. Especially after losing so many troops. This kinda stuff is why Italy is made fun of so much
Part 3 when?
Serbia claimed territory well beyond the London Treaty borders - which include a half of Albania which Serbia would have gotten.
It would have also lost territory according to treaty, the same territory that was captured in the fighting against the Bulgarian occupators. That is why the treaty was never talked about after the war, because Yugoslavia was already a concept that the West had forced us to go with, after they saw the 1915 occupation and complete failure to end the war as soon as possible - because that’s the only situation in which Serbia could have expanded its territory to create a majority Serbian State for the first time since the Middle Ages.
The Serbs were not fully satisfied with their future land gains, neither was Italy. That is why the treaty itself was not proposed to Serbia itself. It was meant to be a secret treaty that would end the power era of Austria-Hungary, which the Allies would have forced Serbia to accept in case victory in the awaited successful Balkan campaign.
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_the_Serb_population,_1862,_H._Thiers.png