CAUSES of World War I [AP World History] Unit 7 Topic 2 (7.2)

CAUSES of World War I [AP World History] Unit 7 Topic 2 (7.2)

CAUSES of World War I [AP World History] Unit 7 Topic 2 (7.2)

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In this video Heimler walks you through Unit 7 Topic 2 (7.2) of AP World History, which is to say the causes of World War I.

The easiest way to remember the four main causes of the conflict is as follows: MAIN. Militarism refers to the build up of military personnel and weaponry. Alliances are the defensive treaties that several countries entered into. Imperialism caused an awful lot of tension between imperial powers as they raced to claim any available land to establish colonies. Nationalism is a strong identification with one’s own nation, often at the expense of others.

With all of these causes swirling around and mounting, all it took was the assassination of archduke Franz Ferdinand at the hands of a Serbian nationalist group called the Black Hand, and we had ourselves a world war.

If you have any questions, leave them below and Heimler will answer them forthwithly.


Content

0.11 -> Hi and welcome back to Heimler’s History.
1.11 -> In the last video we began Unit 7 of our AP World History curriculum.
4.45 -> In this video and the next we’re going to be dealing with World War I, in this video,
8.43 -> the causes of the war, and in the next one, the war itself.
11.049 -> So if you're ready, I’m ready.
12.539 -> Let’s get them brain cows milked.
13.799 -> Now I don’t think it’s too much to say that every major event in the rest of the
17.36 -> 20th century has direct or indirect connections to World War I.
21.02 -> So, it’s kind of a big deal.
22.4 -> And if that’s the case, then we need to understand what caused such a conflict.
25.96 -> The best way I know to explain the causes of the war is to tell you about the MAIN causes
30.68 -> of World War I: militarism, alliances, imperialism, and nationalism.
35.89 -> So let’s start with militarism.
37.3 -> By definition, militarism is the desire of a state to develop and maintain a powerful
41.44 -> military in order to aggressively advance their own interests.
44.92 -> In the couple decades prior to the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Britain and Germany
49.56 -> especially had invested huge sums of money into bulking up their militaries.
53.48 -> Each of these countries swelled the ranks of their ground forces through heavy recruitment,
57.399 -> they built up their navies, they developed new weapons.
59.85 -> And this massive stockpiling of weapons is, of course, brought to you by the Industrial
63.829 -> Revolution.
64.829 -> The Industrial Revolution—when you need lots of things to kill people with… fast.
69.28 -> Alright, second cause: alliances.
71.76 -> Because of all the tension between these military powers, they began to make secret alliances
75.49 -> with other nations.
76.49 -> Essentially, an alliance is when one country recruits other countries into an agreement
80.05 -> of mutual self-defense.
81.47 -> What that basically means is that if I’m country A and I forge an alliance with country
84.81 -> B, and then country X attacks me, then country B is going to come to my defense.
89.08 -> Third cause: imperialism.
90.09 -> So imperialism is when one country brings another country under its political dominion,
95.77 -> or sometimes economic dominion.
97.08 -> And so if you’ve been following these videos from Unit 6 you’ll remember that from 1750-1900
101.81 -> there was a metric buttload of empire building going on around the world.
105.24 -> Europeans fought like toddlers to carve up their slice of Africa.
108.049 -> Japan and the United States joined the toddler party when China was on the table.
111.172 -> And in this long-standing quest for global dominance and colonial holdings all over the
115.46 -> world, bitter rivalries had developed between these powers.
117.99 -> Fourth cause: nationalism.
119.59 -> By definition, nationalism is a strong identification with one’s own nation and people, often
124.689 -> to the exclusion of other people.
126.15 -> Now, I should hasten to add that patriotism is different from nationalism.
129.979 -> Patriotism really only has to do with the first part of that definition: a strong identification
133.98 -> with one’s own people.
135.81 -> Nationalism takes it one step further and jams on the second part of the definition:
139.79 -> to the exclusion of other people.
141.47 -> So if you’re American and enjoy giving bald eagles a high five, that’s patriotism.
145.7 -> However, if, after applying said high five, your desire is for that eagle to go chew the
150.319 -> face off of anyone who does not like giving bald eagles a high five… well, that’s
155.18 -> nationalism.
156.18 -> And so this rising surge of nationalism going on during this time, combined with the other
160.11 -> three causes, means that the world is a powder keg about to explode.
163.709 -> And what’s really interesting, is that these causes aren’t just apparent to us as we
167.03 -> are looking backwards on history.
168.459 -> These four causes that I’ve mentioned also had people during that time worried as well.
172.64 -> And my favorite example is from economist Frederick Passy, who in 1895 almost twenty
177.769 -> years before the outbreak of world war one, had this to say:
180.8 -> “The entire able-bodied population is preparing to massacre one another; though no
185.1 -> one, it is true, wants to attack, and everybody protests his love of peace and
189.42 -> determination to maintain it, yet the whole world feels that it only requires some
194.65 -> unforeseen incident, some unpreventable accident, for the spark to fall in a flash…and
201.08 -> blow Europe sky-high.”
202.29 -> And now I get to tell you what that spark turned out to be.
205.39 -> It happened on June 28, 1914.
207.5 -> And this story is legitimately unbelievable.
210.2 -> Like, if it were written up as a movie script, and then submitted to a Hollywood studio they
214.14 -> would reject it because this kind of stuff just doesn’t happen.
217.58 -> But I assure you, this is exactly how it happened.
219.93 -> So on that day in June the archduke of Austro-Hungarian Empire, a guy by the name of Franz Ferdinand
225.11 -> was in a car in the middle of a parade winding through the streets of Sarajevo.
229.129 -> Unknown to him, a Serbian nationalist group called the Black Hand had made plans to assassinate
233.68 -> him as a symbol of their desire to rid Bosnia of Austrian influence.
238.08 -> So five members of the Black Hand were chosen to carry out this deed.
241.04 -> They were given bombs and pistols to carry it out, and they spread themselves out along
245.54 -> the parade route.
246.54 -> So as Ferdinand’s car passed by the first assassin, he chickened out and did nothing.
250.78 -> And then his car passed by the second assassin, who also chickened out and did nothing.
255.319 -> He passed by the third assassin, and this guy actually mustered his courage, threw the
260.019 -> bomb that he had at the car, but as it turns out it was on a timer and it was set a little
264.19 -> bit too late so it bounced off the car and didn’t explode until it hit the ground over
268.509 -> here, injuring the people but not the archduke.
271.099 -> And at this the driver sped away down the road passing the last two assassins who also
275.259 -> did nothing.
276.259 -> One of those last two was a guy by the name of Gavrilo Princip.
280.029 -> And maybe because he was feeling bad about himself because he was such a terrible assassin,
283.74 -> he went to a cafe around the corner, sat on the patio and began to drink a beer.
287.849 -> Now, once the archduke was at a safe distance away, they sat around and decided what to
291.389 -> do.
292.389 -> And what they decided was that they should go visit the people in the hospital who were
294.889 -> injured by the bomb blast.
295.949 -> And in order to be safe, they decided that the archduke and his driver should take a
299.789 -> different route to the hospital, which is to say, a less crowded route.
303.11 -> But the problem is, nobody ever communicated that to his driver.
306.719 -> And so when the first two drivers of the motorcade took a turn into the crowded part of the city,
311.669 -> the archduke’s driver went right along with them.
313.96 -> Alarmed, the front two drivers stopped on the street, ran back to the archduke’s car,
318.719 -> said to the driver, “what in the world are you doing?''
321.009 -> And here’s where it gets unbelievable.
322.639 -> It just so happened that they stopped the cars and were having their discussion right
326.439 -> in front of the cafe where failed assassin Gavrilo Princip was sitting and drowning his
332.009 -> sorrows.
333.009 -> And so seeing the situation, Princip got up off his stool, walked over to the car, and
338.639 -> shot the archduke and his wife.
340.479 -> And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you get a world war started.
343.249 -> About a month after the assassination occured, the whole alliance system lit up.
347.33 -> Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.
348.699 -> Germany came to Austria Hungary’s aid.
350.28 -> Russia came to aid Serbia.
351.569 -> So Germany declares war on Russia.
353.129 -> Then Germany declares war on France a few days later.
355.15 -> A few days later Britain declares war on Germany.
357.21 -> And a few days later, Austria declares war on Russia.
359.61 -> As exhausting as all that is to say, it was more exhausting to live through it, but that’s
363.419 -> the topic of the next video.
364.449 -> That’s what you need to know about AP World History Unit 7 Topic 2.
367.41 -> If you want to know the main causes of getting an A in your class and a five on your exam
373.387 -> If you want to form a non-militaristic alliance with me, then subscribe and I’ll keep making
377.708 -> videos for you.
378.708 -> Heimler out.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWhHniv7MKo