Why World War 2 Was So Much Deadlier Than WWI
Why World War 2 Was So Much Deadlier Than WWI
When we compare wars, it’s easy to see why World War 2 was such a destructive and devastating event in history that has no equal. Find out what made WW2 so deadly in today’s epic new video.
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Content
0.24 -> 85 million casualties versus 16 million. World
War 2 was the most disastrous conflict ever
6.56 -> waged on earth- but how was it many times
more deadly than the previous world war?
11.2 -> To understand the incredible loss of
human life between the two world wars,
14.56 -> it's important to know where fighting
actually took place in both wars.
18 -> World War 1 was so called because it
involved all the major European powers,
22 -> who dragged their colonies into the fighting
along with them. It would have been more fair
25.92 -> to simply call it 'Europe's Great War', but thanks
to colonialism everyone got invited to the party.
31.28 -> Still, the vast majority of the
fighting took place in Europe,
34.08 -> with all of the costliest battles of the
war taking place on the continent. And it
37.68 -> was a brutal affair too- if you were a British
soldier you had about an 11% chance of never
42.8 -> coming home again. But the scope of the heaviest
fighting was really rather geographically limited.
48.08 -> When World War 2 came around, the world was
more interconnected than ever up to that point.
52.8 -> This by necessity meant that fighting had to be
more global- defeating major European powers no
57.68 -> longer meant keeping the war in Europe. While much
of the fighting still took place on the continent,
62.32 -> Africa saw a fair share of fighting with the Axis
push to cut the Allies off from Middle Eastern and
67.44 -> African oil. All along northern Africa still
remain the rusted hulks of tanks and armored
72.16 -> vehicles that clashed in massive battles, all
in a bid to starve the Allies of precious oil.
77.28 -> But this World War didn't just include European
players. Japan had invited itself into the chat,
82.08 -> and its ambition to rule the Pacific put
it on a collision course with the Allied
85.68 -> European powers who still maintained
very lucrative colonies in the region.
89.52 -> These colonies produced everything from
food, to all-important rubber, to once more:
94.24 -> oil- and Japan didn't just want these resources
for itself, it needed them. As an island nation,
99.6 -> Japan is relatively resource poor and depends
on importing vital resources from other nations.
104.96 -> This meant that the west would always have
a leash on Japan, preventing it from rising
109.12 -> as a major power by keeping its ambitions
in check via threatening trade embargoes.
113.68 -> The launch of hostilities in Europe was the
115.52 -> opportunity that Japan needed to take
these lucrative colonies for itself,
119.36 -> kick the west out of the Pacific, and establish
the empire of the rising sun over Asia.
123.68 -> Japan had already launched an invasion of
China, which itself had been preoccupied
127.68 -> with bitter infighting between the
nationalists and the communists.
131.04 -> The two sides temporarily set their differences
aside and tried to repel the Japanese invaders,
135.28 -> but Japan was better equipped and trained than
the disheveled Chinese forces. China had after all
140 -> just endured a century of humiliation where it was
purposefully weakened and exploited by European
144.8 -> powers- despite absolutely dwarfing Japan, it was
in no position to resist Imperial Japanese forces.
150.8 -> China would provide much of the raw
materials and manufacturing power
153.92 -> that Japan needed to fuel its empire, but
there was still one western power who could
158.48 -> ruin all of Japan's ambitions:
the United States of America.
162.08 -> The United States had maintained a strong
Pacific presence for decades due to the area's
166 -> importance to international trade. Despite
being the world's fourth largest country,
169.76 -> the United States has always been a maritime
power. That's because of its unique position on
173.84 -> the face of the earth- it is the most important
nation between the Atlantic and the Pacific,
178.4 -> making it the balancing point
between European and Asian powers.
181.28 -> But US national security strategy hinged
on being a powerful maritime power,
185.36 -> and the nation was committed to tolerating zero
incursion into its hemisphere of the earth from
189.6 -> any other major power- European or Asian. By the
time that the second world war rolled around,
194.56 -> the United States' Navy was rivaling the vaunted
Royal Navy, with the express purpose of ensuring
199.2 -> that conflict was always far from home. Much
of this firepower was stationed in the Pacific,
204 -> where the United States was
keeping a very close eye on Japan.
207.44 -> Japanese expansionism had seriously
disrupted US trade in the region,
211.28 -> and relations between the two powers were
strained at best. The US held the superior
215.52 -> strategic position with its forces capable
of defending all-important Pacific rubber
219.92 -> plantations and oil fields. Japan also was heavily
reliant on American oil and industrial exports,
225.68 -> and as long as this remained the status quo the US
would always hold the leash on Japanese ascension.
231.04 -> Thus on december of 1941, the Imperial Japanese
Navy struck Pearl Harbor in a bid to inflict
236.08 -> catastrophic losses on the US Navy and keep it
out of the Pacific for good. At the same time,
240.88 -> it launched an invasion of the American-held
Philippines, looking to ensure that the US had
244.96 -> no base of operations in the region
from which to counterattack from.
247.92 -> The addition of the Pacific theater
had just made the second world war the
252.08 -> first truly global conflict, and now fighting
raged across the entire face of the planet.
256.88 -> In the Pacific alone, it's estimated that
there were about 25 million casualties-
260.96 -> more than total casualties for World War I. Only
six million of these casualties were combatants,
266.08 -> the rest, a whopping 19 million were civilians.
While both sides targeted civilians, with the
271.36 -> Chinese and Allies inflicting an estimated
1.2 million civilian casualties on Japan,
276.08 -> the Japanese empire killed
Chinese civilians for sport,
279.12 -> much like Russia in Ukraine today. Most of
the civilian casualties were Chinese, with
283.92 -> between 7 and 8 million killed by the Japanese
in mass slaughters, indiscriminate bombardments,
289.12 -> or just falling prey to the ravages of war
itself. An estimated 200,000 Chinese civilians
294 -> were killed over six weeks in Nanjing alone, as
the Japanese army turned killing into a contest.
299.44 -> The addition of an entire new theater of war
skyrocketed the total casualties for the second
303.84 -> world war, but technology would also turn this
into the bloodiest conflict in human history.
308.48 -> At the onset of World War I, the airplane
was a curiosity that most military commanders
313.04 -> didn't quite know how to deploy. They knew
it could make for a handy scout though
317.12 -> and thus it replaced observation balloons
in both armies, giving commanders a true
321.12 -> bird's eye view of enemy positions for the
first time. Information is power though,
325.84 -> and soon both armies started trying to
shoot each other's planes out of the sky.
329.36 -> The first aerial duels took place with
pistols, and achieved very little, but soon
333.84 -> machine guns were being loaded onto airplanes
as their engines became increasingly powerful.
338.24 -> Some enterprising minds saw the potential of the
airplane for directly attacking enemy positions
342.64 -> from the air though, and while machine guns were
nice, if you really wanted to have an impact on
347.36 -> the front you needed to deliver mass death from
the sky. Airplane engines were still pretty weak
352.48 -> so the first aerial bombardment weapons were
sharpened darts, carried aloft by the hundreds and
356.72 -> dropped over the front. These sharp darts would
fall from great distance, and if they scored a
360.96 -> hit could be lethal for a soldier, creating deep,
wide wounds that were impossible to stop bleeding.
366.24 -> However, the darts were inaccurate, and very
few of them actually ever found a target- if a
370.64 -> dart missed, like most did, it presented little
more than a tripping hazard for enemy soldiers.
375.28 -> Grenades were soon being chucked out of the
open cockpits of airplanes, but engineers dreamt
379.68 -> of more. Bigger airplanes capable of carrying
much more bombs- enough to have a significant
384.8 -> impact on enemy units. The first bombers could
only carry between 55 and 120 pounds of bombs,
390.64 -> but soon aircraft like the Russian Ilya Maurometz
could carry as much as 1500 pounds of bombs.
395.84 -> The future was clear- airplanes would become the
most important weapons of the next world war.
400.48 -> When World War 2 broke out, Hitler's armies made
excellent use of fighter and bomber aircraft as
405.12 -> part of their blitzkrieg, 'lighting warfare'.
Pummeling enemy defenses from the air before
409.92 -> ground forces arrived helped to soften them
up for ground attack. In the Pacific, Imperial
414.16 -> Japan proved that the age of the battleship was
at an end, when it nearly succeeded in defeating
418.4 -> the United States of America in a single
strike with aircraft launched via carriers.
422.96 -> The airplane allowed massive bomb
loads to be carried hundreds- even
426.16 -> thousands of miles- and in numbers planes
could put entire cities under siege.
430.64 -> Today the accepted way of fighting modern war is
to engage enemy troops and destroy military and
436 -> economically important targets.
Civilian populations are off-limits,
439.76 -> and it’s no longer acceptable to target
them purposefully as part of your strategy
443.44 -> to defeat the enemy. In World War
2, the mass slaughter of civilians
447.76 -> was the strategy for defeating the enemy. If
a civilian population could be eradicated,
452.48 -> the economic fallout would make it difficult
or impossible to continue prosecuting a war.
457.52 -> Mass killing of civilians also demoralized
the enemy, prompting nations to sue for peace.
463.04 -> Thus in World War 2, the targeting
of cities was not just fair game,
467.12 -> but key to success. In the first World War,
civilian deaths numbered at around 10 million.
473.2 -> Civilian deaths on the other hand were twice as
high as military deaths at around 50-55 million.
478.56 -> And the airplane made much
of that slaughter possible.
481.84 -> During World War I, the artillery piece was the
upper limit of how far one could threaten an
485.92 -> enemy- typically to a range of a few miles.
With most fighting in World War I happening
490.4 -> outside of population centers, this put civilians
at low risk from direct combat deaths- with many
495.76 -> of the deaths occurring due to the follow-on
effects of war, namely starvation and disease.
500.24 -> However, in the second world war airplanes
could threaten cities an entire nation over- or
505.04 -> even further. And they could bring
with them thousands of pounds of bombs.
508.8 -> With bomber formations sometimes numbering in
the hundreds, indiscriminate bombing campaigns
513.12 -> leveled entire cities. But special types of
bombs made the killing much more efficient.
517.44 -> Often cities were targeted with incendiary
munitions, or bombs designed to create little
521.6 -> blast damage and instead fuel massive fire storms.
The German city of Dresden was one of many victims
527.12 -> of World War 2 fire bombing, and turned the
city into a concrete skeleton covered in ash.
532.56 -> Incredibly, the city was reduced
nearly to rubble in just three days,
535.92 -> with 3900 tons of high explosives and incendiary
devices dropped on the city by the British Royal
541.6 -> Air Force. Such massive devastation in such a
short period of time was unheard of in World War
546.88 -> 1, and would have surely shaken both Allied and
Central power commanders to the core. But in the
551.6 -> second World War, the deaths of 25,000 civilians
in three days was just par for the course.
557.28 -> In the Pacific Theater though, air raids on
civilian cities reached new catastrophic heights.
561.68 -> While more civilians died in Europe, Japanese
civilians were particularly vulnerable to
565.84 -> air raids by the time that the strategic
bombing campaign of Japan began in 1944.
570.72 -> With Japan refusing to surrender, the Allies
began to plan an invasion of the Japanese islands.
575.44 -> To weaken Japan for the coming invasion, and to
attempt to convince the stubborn Japanese into
580.16 -> surrender before such an invasion, unrestricted
bombing of the Japanese islands was approved.
585.12 -> At first, air raids took place against military
and industrial targets. However, major Japanese
589.84 -> industrial centers were quickly reduced to rubble.
By now, Japanese forces were so starved of fuel,
594.96 -> trained pilots, and planes, that they couldn't
mount much if any resistance against air raids.
600 -> Anti-aircraft guns on the ground were nearly
useless, as they had difficulty reaching the
604.4 -> high flying American B-29s. With the loss of major
industrial centers, the Japanese dispersed their
609.68 -> industrial efforts across their cities to homes
and small workshops. This made them much harder to
614.32 -> target and neutralize- which prompted the approval
of mass bombing of the civilian population.
619.44 -> Japanese cities were not just poorly defended
from the air, but were particularly vulnerable
624 -> to bombing. Very quickly on, the United
States realized that using conventional high
628.32 -> explosives was not very effective against
Japanese cities due to the fact that most
633.28 -> buildings were constructed out of wood. High
explosives were designed to destroy brick
637.44 -> and mortar European cities, but Japanese cities
were much more vulnerable to incendiary devices.
642.64 -> Thus, US bombers began to drop incendiary
devices by the thousands over Japanese cities,
647.44 -> sparking massive fire storms that
razed cities nearly entirely.
651.36 -> It wasn't just the massive volume of bombing
carried out by the US, but also poor organization
656.56 -> of civil defense that led to the massive
destruction of japanese cities and loss of life.
661.2 -> Bomb shelters had never been created in large
numbers in Japan, and it's unlikely the nation
665.52 -> ever believed it could be subjected to the same
massive bombing it was carrying out against
669.92 -> Chinese cities. Without bomb shelters, civilians
had nowhere to shelter from the flames that
674.32 -> spanned entire cities, and they were incinerated
in the streets. But Japanese fire fighters were
679.44 -> also poorly trained and equipped for combating
blazes, and this led to fire raging completely out
684.48 -> of control with no hope of stopping them. People
may remember the nuclear bombs dropped on Nagasaki
689.68 -> and Hiroshima, but massive aerial campaigns
had so dwarfed the killing of the atomic bombs
694.8 -> that when news of the total casualties from
the bombings reached Imperial Japanese command,
699.36 -> they were mostly unperturbed. They had, after
all, already suffered far worse. It was only
702.16 -> the realization that a single bomb had caused
so much devastation that gave them any pause.
707.28 -> On the ground, the development of mobile warfare
also helped fuel the massive casualties of World
711.44 -> War 2. Before World War 2 troops moved largely
on foot, and this limited both the speed and
716.4 -> scope of an advance. Forces couldn't spread out
as widely, or move as quickly, as when warfare
721.52 -> became mechanized. The marriage between tanks
and mechanized infantry allowed warfare to become
726.4 -> much faster and cover much more ground. This in
turn meant that more territory could be covered,
731.68 -> spreading the scope of the fighting and putting
more of the civilian population at risk.
735.76 -> And nowhere did mobile warfare have as
dramatic an impact as in the eastern front.
740.48 -> In the first world war, Russia was defeated
relatively early and the German army didn't
744.56 -> require an invasion to force its exit
from the war. The violence resulted in
748.48 -> an estimated 8-10 million dead, with many more
that number wounded. In the second world war,
753.84 -> the eastern front saw a staggering 40 million
dead- about four times World War 1's figures.
759.44 -> The invasion of Russia opened up
an entire new front of the war
762.56 -> that had been very limited in the first world
war, and Hitler's brutal push to Moscow ended
767.04 -> up making it the deadliest theater of the
war. But Hitler was also busy pumping up
771.2 -> his numbers by engaging in one of the
greatest atrocities in human history.
775.04 -> Hitler dreamt of a 'pure Europe', one free of
any race but the Aryan race, with perhaps a token
780.8 -> number of survivors of other races to be used as
slave labor. To make his sick fantasy a reality,
786.4 -> he initiated wholesale industrial slaughter of
anyone he deemed undesirable. To make his list,
791.76 -> one only needed to be of another race
or an undesirable political ideology,
795.68 -> or be disabled. Hitler's dreams of a pure Third
Reich left no room for anyone who wasn't whole
801.04 -> in body and mind, prompting the mass
slaughter of individuals with special needs.
805.28 -> The best known victims of the Holocaust are
the Jewish people, who suffered between 5 and 6
809.76 -> million of their number killed in concentration
camps and mass slaughters across Germany and
814.48 -> occupied territories. As the German army conquered
new lands, they began the systemic removal of all
819.6 -> undesireables, herding them into ghettos where
they were quarantined until transportation could
824.32 -> be arranged to either work camps, where they would
live as slave labor, or to extermination camps.
829.36 -> While inside cramped ghettos, they would be
walled off from the outside world by barbed wire,
833.92 -> armed guards, and often hastily erected concrete
enclosures. Food was sparse, and mass starvation,
839.44 -> along with disease, led to the death of many
long before the trucks and trains arrived.
843.76 -> Often, populations would be sorted either before
being loaded onto trains or shortly after.
848.32 -> From there, some selects deemed healthy or
skilled enough, would be sent to labor camps to
852.72 -> work on German industrial and military goods. The
rest, what the Nazis considered human 'chattel',
858.56 -> were marked for extermination and sent directly
to their deaths. This would often happen by
862.88 -> instructing prisoners to strip nude and enter
massive shower facilities. This was for their
867.76 -> own health they were told, but once they were
inside the doors were locked and all ventilation
871.92 -> sealed. Then deadly gas was pumped into the room,
often causing agonizing death via asphyxiation.
877.92 -> Dying inside a Nazi death chamber could take
up to 15 minutes, and some even survived after
883.12 -> being buried alive by corpses- only to
be shot to death by Nazi guards after.
887.84 -> But while the Jews suffered the most from the
Nazi extermination efforts, they were far from
892 -> the only populations the Nazis killed en masse.
As the Nazi armies poured into the Soviet Union,
897.12 -> Hitler wanted to wipe out the indigenous
population completely, so that Russia could
901.52 -> be turned into one giant, pure, German colony. To
that end, he ordered a whopping 5.7 million Soviet
908 -> civilians be put to death, with many of them
simply lined up and gunned down in vast rows.
913.04 -> Massive pits would be dug in front of which the
Soviet prisoners were lined up, and as machine
917.76 -> guns mowed them down, they would fall inside. Then
a new row of prisoners would be lined up to meet
922.48 -> the same fate. When the pit was near full, the
Germans ordered dirt to be spread out over it.
927.04 -> The next group to suffer at the hands of the
Germans were Soviet POWs. While the rules
931.28 -> of war dictated that POWs were to be treated
humanely, and the Germans treated Western POWs
936.48 -> relatively well- in the east German armies engaged
in wholesale slaughter of captured Soviet forces.
942.08 -> An estimated 2.8 to 3.3 million Soviet POWs
were killed during the German invasion.
948.24 -> Poland, which had been the first nation
to suffer Germany's wrath, also saw up
952.24 -> to 3 million of its citizens put to death. As
many as 600,000 Serbs, half a million Romani,
959.04 -> 25,000 Slovenes, and 3500 Spanish Republicans
fighting against Hitler were also exterminated.
965.28 -> Hitler's drive to purge undesirables also
spread to the disabled both at home in
969.36 -> Germany and in occupied territories. Approximately
270,000 disabled people were killed by the Nazis.
975.04 -> Political or religious ideology was also a
reason for extermination, with as many as
979.44 -> 200,000 Freemasons exterminated alongside up to
5,000 Jehovah's Witnesses. Hitler also targeted
985.92 -> homosexuals in Germany and the territories
he conquered, killing as many as 25,000.
991.52 -> The wholesale slaughter of entire populations is
one of the major reasons why the second world war
996.64 -> was far deadlier than the first. For the first
time in history, mankind had industrialized mass
1001.68 -> murder, and had the war lasted longer these
casualty numbers would be astronomically higher.
1006.8 -> In fact, it was Germany's later troubles in the
war that actually prevented even more killing.
1011.36 -> As war materials began to run short, Germany
could no longer afford to transport hundreds
1015.68 -> of thousands of would-be victims to
waiting extermination camps, and the
1019.36 -> drain on manpower and resources caused by the
actual fighting spared many from Nazi killings.
1024.64 -> Now go check out How Nazi Gas Chambers Actually
Worked, or click this other video instead!
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFmleysfejI