WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.960 Welcome to the show. We are we are so thrilled 00:00:02.960 --> 00:00:05.620 you could join us today. Now, if you're listening 00:00:05.620 --> 00:00:07.900 to this, you probably already know, you know, 00:00:08.060 --> 00:00:10.439 a fair bit about the First World War. Right. 00:00:10.519 --> 00:00:12.740 The endless trenches, the barbed wire. Exactly. 00:00:12.900 --> 00:00:16.920 The just. unbelievable tragic scale of the battlefield. 00:00:17.780 --> 00:00:20.379 But today we are going on a deep dive into a 00:00:20.379 --> 00:00:24.339 really comprehensive source, specifically a massive 00:00:24.339 --> 00:00:27.280 Wikipedia article detailing the diplomatic history 00:00:27.280 --> 00:00:29.519 of World War I. Yeah, we are taking a look far 00:00:29.519 --> 00:00:31.920 beyond the mud of the artillery today. Our mission 00:00:31.920 --> 00:00:35.000 today is to uncover the hidden non -military 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:37.140 chess game that was being played in the shadows. 00:00:37.560 --> 00:00:41.200 We're talking about a game of smoke -filled back 00:00:41.200 --> 00:00:44.500 rooms, weaponized bank accounts, and secret telegraphs 00:00:44.500 --> 00:00:46.539 that quite literally drew the borders of the 00:00:46.539 --> 00:00:48.560 modern world you live in today. It's a completely 00:00:48.560 --> 00:00:50.000 different way of looking at the conflict. I mean, 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:52.240 it really is. And to really understand that subterranean 00:00:52.240 --> 00:00:54.179 chess game, we actually first need to correct 00:00:54.179 --> 00:00:57.340 a very persistent historical myth that the article 00:00:57.340 --> 00:00:59.439 tackles right up front. Oh, right, the cheering 00:00:59.439 --> 00:01:02.000 crowds. There's this... incredibly common image. 00:01:02.159 --> 00:01:04.120 You've probably seen it in, you know, old black 00:01:04.120 --> 00:01:06.519 and white news reels or historical documentaries. 00:01:06.659 --> 00:01:10.379 Yeah, European crowds in August 1914, cheering 00:01:10.379 --> 00:01:12.659 enthusiastically in the streets, waving hats 00:01:12.659 --> 00:01:16.420 and flags and just joyfully welcoming the outbreak 00:01:16.420 --> 00:01:19.340 of war. But reading through this historical analysis, 00:01:19.379 --> 00:01:22.859 it makes it very clear that this is. largely 00:01:22.859 --> 00:01:25.920 a manufactured myth. Right. The reality on the 00:01:25.920 --> 00:01:28.599 ground was a deep pervasive sense of foreboding 00:01:28.599 --> 00:01:31.019 across the continent. People were absolutely 00:01:31.019 --> 00:01:34.480 terrified. The idea of war fever was highly exaggerated 00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:38.480 by later propaganda and that famous overly optimistic 00:01:38.480 --> 00:01:41.079 slogan. The boys will be home by Christmas. Yeah, 00:01:41.079 --> 00:01:43.719 that one. The historical record shows that the 00:01:43.719 --> 00:01:45.959 phrase over by Christmas wasn't actually coined 00:01:45.959 --> 00:01:48.079 until three years into the meat grinder. Right. 00:01:48.379 --> 00:01:50.659 Very few people in power actually expected a 00:01:50.659 --> 00:01:52.799 short, happy conflict. It was a nightmare from 00:01:52.799 --> 00:01:55.040 the start. And because it quickly devolved into 00:01:55.040 --> 00:01:58.060 a total war, wartime diplomacy fundamentally 00:01:58.060 --> 00:02:00.739 changed. It wasn't just about negotiating peace 00:02:00.739 --> 00:02:03.700 treaties. anymore, diplomacy was entirely weaponized. 00:02:04.060 --> 00:02:06.500 OK, let's unpack this because weaponized diplomacy 00:02:06.500 --> 00:02:09.819 sounds like an oxymoron. Usually we think of 00:02:09.819 --> 00:02:13.020 diplomats trying to stop the shooting. Not here. 00:02:13.699 --> 00:02:16.680 In this context, diplomacy was used to actively 00:02:16.680 --> 00:02:19.919 subvert enemy nations from the inside out. Yeah. 00:02:20.060 --> 00:02:23.039 It was used to lure neutral countries into the 00:02:23.039 --> 00:02:25.680 conflict with lavish promises of other people's 00:02:25.680 --> 00:02:28.520 land. Right. And it was used to finance the total 00:02:28.520 --> 00:02:31.099 economic destruction of rival empires. It was 00:02:31.099 --> 00:02:33.479 an instrument of war, just as much as a machine 00:02:33.479 --> 00:02:35.439 gun. Which is wild because when the war kicked 00:02:35.439 --> 00:02:38.479 off in 1914, it was so sudden and unexpected 00:02:38.479 --> 00:02:41.400 that neither side even had long -term goals. 00:02:41.560 --> 00:02:43.680 They were just reacting. Exactly. But as the 00:02:43.680 --> 00:02:45.840 stalemate set in, government suddenly had to 00:02:45.840 --> 00:02:47.699 figure out what they were actually sacrificing 00:02:47.699 --> 00:02:51.250 millions of lives for. The Allies, Britain, France, 00:02:51.370 --> 00:02:54.110 Russia came up with these very ad hoc sort of 00:02:54.110 --> 00:02:56.110 on -the -fly goals. They wanted to break German 00:02:56.110 --> 00:02:58.449 military power. Right. Break German power, restore 00:02:58.449 --> 00:03:00.689 the independence of Belgium, and unsurprisingly 00:03:00.689 --> 00:03:03.830 for the era, carve up Germany's overseas colonies. 00:03:04.270 --> 00:03:06.830 But then you contrast that with Germany's ambitions, 00:03:07.210 --> 00:03:10.490 which were chillingly specific. In September 00:03:10.490 --> 00:03:14.650 1914, a senior German aide sketched out what 00:03:14.650 --> 00:03:17.469 historians now call the September program. And 00:03:17.469 --> 00:03:19.590 this wasn't some pre -war master plan, right? 00:03:19.710 --> 00:03:21.009 No, not at all. It wasn't something they had 00:03:21.009 --> 00:03:24.250 been plotting for decades. It was rather ideas 00:03:24.250 --> 00:03:26.389 formulated on the run once they thought they 00:03:26.389 --> 00:03:28.870 might actually win quickly. And the goals were 00:03:28.870 --> 00:03:31.629 staggering. Germany wanted to turn all of Central 00:03:31.629 --> 00:03:34.349 and Western Europe into a German controlled common 00:03:34.349 --> 00:03:37.229 market. basically a forced economic union under 00:03:37.229 --> 00:03:39.849 military threat. Exactly. They plan to reduce 00:03:39.849 --> 00:03:42.669 Belgium to a mere vassal state, stripping it 00:03:42.669 --> 00:03:45.789 of its sovereignty. And as for France, they demanded 00:03:45.789 --> 00:03:48.889 financial indemnity so crippling, so astronomically 00:03:48.889 --> 00:03:51.530 high that the French economy would become entirely 00:03:51.530 --> 00:03:54.110 dependent on Germany forever. So it wasn't just 00:03:54.110 --> 00:03:56.289 about moving a border a few miles. It was an 00:03:56.289 --> 00:03:58.889 attempted economic takeover of the entire continent. 00:03:59.030 --> 00:04:01.550 Yeah. But to pull off those massive ambitions, 00:04:01.990 --> 00:04:03.669 both sides realized pretty quickly that they 00:04:03.669 --> 00:04:05.830 needed more troops. They needed allies to throw 00:04:05.830 --> 00:04:07.830 into the trenches. And that is when they turned 00:04:07.830 --> 00:04:10.210 to this secret chessboard. They started making 00:04:10.210 --> 00:04:13.210 secret treaties to entice neutral nations to 00:04:13.210 --> 00:04:15.409 join the war. But how do you even keep something 00:04:15.409 --> 00:04:18.170 like that a secret when it involves whole nations 00:04:18.170 --> 00:04:20.589 and shifting borders? Well, they tried their 00:04:20.589 --> 00:04:23.069 best usually by keeping the negotiations limited 00:04:23.069 --> 00:04:26.189 to a tiny handful of aristocrats and ministers. 00:04:26.569 --> 00:04:29.250 Look at the Treaty of London in 1915. The one 00:04:29.250 --> 00:04:31.790 with Italy. Right. The Allies desperately wanted 00:04:31.790 --> 00:04:33.990 Italy to join their side and open up a new front. 00:04:34.449 --> 00:04:37.490 So they secretly promised Italy massive slices 00:04:37.490 --> 00:04:40.589 of the Austro -Hungarian Empire. They were essentially 00:04:40.589 --> 00:04:43.589 using an enemy's land as the ultimate bribe. 00:04:43.649 --> 00:04:45.730 Wow. Then you have the Treaty of Bucharest in 00:04:45.730 --> 00:04:49.449 1916. Romania was promised huge territorial gains 00:04:49.449 --> 00:04:52.750 in exchange for attacking Austria -Hungary. But 00:04:52.750 --> 00:04:56.009 Article 16 of that treaty explicitly stated the 00:04:56.009 --> 00:04:58.310 deal had to be kept an absolute secret. They 00:04:58.310 --> 00:05:00.370 were just sitting in drawing rooms carving up 00:05:00.370 --> 00:05:03.189 the map of Europe like a pie with zero input 00:05:03.189 --> 00:05:05.329 from the people who actually lived on that land. 00:05:05.750 --> 00:05:07.089 And honestly, they probably would have gotten 00:05:07.089 --> 00:05:08.930 away with it if it weren't for the Russian Revolution. 00:05:09.129 --> 00:05:11.939 Oh, this part is incredible. It's one of my favorite 00:05:11.939 --> 00:05:14.839 details. When the Bolsheviks took power in Russia 00:05:14.839 --> 00:05:18.139 in November 1917, they marched into the Imperial 00:05:18.139 --> 00:05:20.579 archives and found all these secret treaties. 00:05:20.860 --> 00:05:22.800 And what did they do? They just published them. 00:05:22.899 --> 00:05:24.680 Dumped them right in the newspapers. Yeah, for 00:05:24.680 --> 00:05:27.279 the entire world to see. What's fascinating here 00:05:27.279 --> 00:05:30.399 is the massive ripple effect of that exposure. 00:05:31.459 --> 00:05:34.319 By publishing those documents, the Bolsheviks 00:05:34.319 --> 00:05:38.069 exposed all these Imperial land grabs. It completely 00:05:38.069 --> 00:05:40.850 validated what socialists and anti -war activists 00:05:40.850 --> 00:05:43.259 had been screaming about all along. That it wasn't 00:05:43.259 --> 00:05:45.779 a noble war for freedom. Exactly. That it was 00:05:45.779 --> 00:05:48.100 just a cynical capitalist plot for territory 00:05:48.100 --> 00:05:50.779 and wealth. It was a catastrophic PR disaster 00:05:50.779 --> 00:05:53.060 for the allies. Which forced the United States, 00:05:53.079 --> 00:05:55.040 who had just recently entered the war, to heavily 00:05:55.040 --> 00:05:57.579 pivot. President Woodrow Wilson realized he had 00:05:57.579 --> 00:05:59.680 to regain the moral high ground. So in January 00:05:59.680 --> 00:06:03.519 1918, he issued his famous 14 points. And it's 00:06:03.519 --> 00:06:05.699 no coincidence that his very first point was 00:06:05.699 --> 00:06:08.480 a direct reaction to those Bolshevik leaks. Right. 00:06:08.810 --> 00:06:11.850 He demanded, quote, open covenants of peace, 00:06:12.189 --> 00:06:15.149 openly arrived at. He was trying to publicly 00:06:15.149 --> 00:06:18.250 outlaw the exact kind of secret backdoor diplomacy 00:06:18.250 --> 00:06:20.790 that had dragged half the globe into the mud. 00:06:21.069 --> 00:06:22.850 If a perfect illustration of how differently 00:06:22.850 --> 00:06:24.990 the two sides were starting to view strategy. 00:06:25.199 --> 00:06:28.000 The Allies, despite the embarrassment of the 00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:31.040 secret treaties, were increasingly relying on 00:06:31.040 --> 00:06:34.519 a complex web of soft power, while Germany was 00:06:34.519 --> 00:06:37.120 doubling down on raw, unfiltered military might. 00:06:37.199 --> 00:06:39.360 Yeah, reading the historical analysis, it feels 00:06:39.360 --> 00:06:41.079 like they were operating from two completely 00:06:41.079 --> 00:06:43.779 different playbooks. How did Germany's diplomatic 00:06:43.779 --> 00:06:46.560 strategy become so militarized? It happened from 00:06:46.560 --> 00:06:49.000 the top down. In Germany, the diplomatic steering 00:06:49.000 --> 00:06:51.279 wheel was essentially hijacked by the military 00:06:51.279 --> 00:06:53.720 high command. Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg 00:06:53.720 --> 00:06:56.649 and his deputy General Erich Ludendorff effectively 00:06:56.649 --> 00:06:58.889 took control of the country. They just bypassed 00:06:58.889 --> 00:07:01.209 the civilian government. Completely. They worked 00:07:01.209 --> 00:07:03.410 around the Kaiser. They completely ignored the 00:07:03.410 --> 00:07:05.850 warnings of civilian politicians. And they treated 00:07:05.850 --> 00:07:08.389 diplomacy as an afterthought. They didn't care 00:07:08.389 --> 00:07:11.269 about diplomatic nuance or international public 00:07:11.269 --> 00:07:13.589 opinion. They gambled the fate of their empire 00:07:13.589 --> 00:07:17.389 on quick, decisive military supremacy. And that 00:07:17.389 --> 00:07:20.129 arrogance led to one of the most disastrous decisions 00:07:20.129 --> 00:07:23.279 of the entire war. unrestricted submarine warfare. 00:07:24.019 --> 00:07:26.959 By early 1917, the German military decided to 00:07:26.959 --> 00:07:29.620 just start torpedoing every single merchant ship 00:07:29.620 --> 00:07:31.800 headed to Britain. Regardless of whether it was 00:07:31.800 --> 00:07:34.040 a neutral ship or not. Right. The civilian leaders 00:07:34.040 --> 00:07:36.680 in Berlin were practically begging them not to 00:07:36.680 --> 00:07:38.740 do it. They knew full well it would drag the 00:07:38.740 --> 00:07:40.759 United States into the war. But the military 00:07:40.759 --> 00:07:43.759 made a cold, calculated gamble. They looked at 00:07:43.759 --> 00:07:45.920 the spreadsheets and bet that their U -boats 00:07:45.920 --> 00:07:48.439 could starve Britain into submission before the 00:07:48.439 --> 00:07:50.720 Americans could mobilize, train an army, and 00:07:50.720 --> 00:07:53.579 ship them across the Atlantic. A fatal miscalculation 00:07:53.579 --> 00:07:55.680 because what they completely underestimated was 00:07:55.680 --> 00:07:58.639 the Allied mastery of soft power, specifically 00:07:58.639 --> 00:08:02.300 finance, diplomacy, and global trade. The Allies 00:08:02.300 --> 00:08:04.160 weren't just fighting in the trenches, they were 00:08:04.160 --> 00:08:06.199 fighting in the global markets, and the mechanics 00:08:06.199 --> 00:08:08.720 of this are just brilliant. The whole situation 00:08:08.720 --> 00:08:11.079 with the cotton industry is such a wild example. 00:08:11.160 --> 00:08:13.350 It really is a masterpiece. class in economic 00:08:13.350 --> 00:08:16.170 statecraft. Explain how the British handled the 00:08:16.170 --> 00:08:19.269 cotton problem. Right, so cotton is vital for 00:08:19.269 --> 00:08:21.810 a war effort. You need it for uniforms, sure, 00:08:22.050 --> 00:08:24.709 but you also need massive amounts of it to manufacture 00:08:24.709 --> 00:08:28.310 explosives. Britain knew this, so they set up 00:08:28.310 --> 00:08:31.709 a naval blockade to completely cut off all shipments 00:08:31.709 --> 00:08:34.210 of cotton reaching Germany. Makes sense strategically. 00:08:34.309 --> 00:08:37.830 Right, but there was a huge problem. The American 00:08:37.830 --> 00:08:40.879 South relied on selling that cotton. If Britain 00:08:40.879 --> 00:08:44.039 just blocked the trade, they risk infuriating 00:08:44.039 --> 00:08:46.799 the rural American South, which could push the 00:08:46.799 --> 00:08:49.379 neutral United States to oppose the Allied war 00:08:49.379 --> 00:08:51.960 effort. So what do they do? While blocking Germany, 00:08:52.159 --> 00:08:54.480 the British government... simultaneously starts 00:08:54.480 --> 00:08:57.320 making massive subsidized purchases of American 00:08:57.320 --> 00:08:59.980 cotton themselves. They literally bought up the 00:08:59.980 --> 00:09:02.860 supply at inflated prices just to keep the American 00:09:02.860 --> 00:09:05.440 agricultural sector happy and financially stable. 00:09:05.759 --> 00:09:08.500 They bought political goodwill with cotton subsidies. 00:09:09.019 --> 00:09:10.759 Which is incredibly clever, but it brings up 00:09:10.759 --> 00:09:13.440 the elephant in the room. Buying up global commodities 00:09:13.440 --> 00:09:15.840 to wage an economic war is insanely expensive, 00:09:16.399 --> 00:09:18.580 and that transitions us into the sheer financial 00:09:18.580 --> 00:09:21.799 scale of World War I, which fundamentally shifted 00:09:21.799 --> 00:09:24.980 global power dynamics forever. The numbers are 00:09:24.980 --> 00:09:27.460 staggering. The total direct cost of the war 00:09:27.460 --> 00:09:31.940 was about $80 billion in 1913 U .S. dollars. 00:09:32.539 --> 00:09:35.019 The historical data translates that to roughly 00:09:35.259 --> 00:09:38.200 two trillion dollars in modern currency. Two 00:09:38.200 --> 00:09:41.460 trillion. Two trillion dollars spent on artillery 00:09:41.460 --> 00:09:44.480 shells, rations and buying up American cotton. 00:09:44.860 --> 00:09:46.460 How on earth were these countries paying for 00:09:46.460 --> 00:09:49.059 this? Well, following the money reveals the true 00:09:49.059 --> 00:09:51.919 hierarchy of the alliances. Initially, Great 00:09:51.919 --> 00:09:54.779 Britain acted as the bank. They generously bankrolled 00:09:54.779 --> 00:09:58.000 the weaker allies, Russia, Italy, France, keeping 00:09:58.000 --> 00:09:59.639 their economies afloat. But they couldn't do 00:09:59.639 --> 00:10:01.519 that forever. No, Britain couldn't do it alone. 00:10:01.600 --> 00:10:03.769 They had to rely on Wall Street. The Bank of 00:10:03.769 --> 00:10:05.970 England struck a deal with JP Morgan and Company 00:10:05.970 --> 00:10:08.389 to be their sole underwriter for war bonds in 00:10:08.389 --> 00:10:10.549 the United States. Through that arrangement, 00:10:10.789 --> 00:10:14.350 JP Morgan loaned about $1 .5 billion, which is 00:10:14.350 --> 00:10:17.169 roughly $28 billion today, to the Allies. But 00:10:17.169 --> 00:10:19.250 eventually, the spending was so catastrophic 00:10:19.250 --> 00:10:22.090 that even the lighty British empire ran out of 00:10:22.090 --> 00:10:25.190 cash. And when Britain finally went broke, the 00:10:25.190 --> 00:10:27.710 United States government had to step in, replacing 00:10:27.710 --> 00:10:31.029 private banks with even larger state loans. And 00:10:31.029 --> 00:10:33.929 this is a massive historical insight. Yeah. This 00:10:33.929 --> 00:10:37.090 exact financial crisis is the moment the US shifted 00:10:37.090 --> 00:10:39.809 from being merely a massive industrial power 00:10:39.809 --> 00:10:42.690 to becoming the undisputed financial superpower 00:10:42.690 --> 00:10:45.490 of the world. London handed the crown to New 00:10:45.490 --> 00:10:47.750 York because they needed to buy more bullets. 00:10:48.230 --> 00:10:51.389 Precisely. But while the Allies were busy weaponizing 00:10:51.389 --> 00:10:53.429 global finance and shifting the center of the 00:10:53.429 --> 00:10:56.230 economic world, Germany was weaponizing information 00:10:56.230 --> 00:10:59.190 in ways that feel incredibly modern, almost like 00:10:59.190 --> 00:11:02.470 a 21st century cyber warfare campaign, but played 00:11:02.470 --> 00:11:04.690 out with trains and gold. Here's where it gets 00:11:04.690 --> 00:11:07.000 really interesting. Germany realized that if 00:11:07.000 --> 00:11:09.059 they couldn't break the stalemate purely on the 00:11:09.059 --> 00:11:10.659 battlefield, they could subvert their enemies 00:11:10.659 --> 00:11:13.539 from the inside. They basically invented state 00:11:13.539 --> 00:11:16.019 -sponsored regime change as a tactic for this 00:11:16.019 --> 00:11:18.600 war. The German Foreign Ministry recognized the 00:11:18.600 --> 00:11:21.220 immense value of subversion. They spent over 00:11:21.220 --> 00:11:24.840 50 million gold marks secretly funding the Bolsheviks 00:11:24.840 --> 00:11:27.500 in Russia. They were essentially bankrolling 00:11:27.500 --> 00:11:30.600 a radical revolutionary group inside their enemy's 00:11:30.600 --> 00:11:33.159 borders, using neutral banks to funnel the money. 00:11:33.279 --> 00:11:35.700 And then they took it a step further in 1917. 00:11:36.279 --> 00:11:38.700 They executed one of the most audacious diplomatic 00:11:38.700 --> 00:11:42.159 moves in history. Vladimir Lenin, the radical 00:11:42.159 --> 00:11:44.480 Bolshevik leader, was living in exile in Switzerland. 00:11:45.059 --> 00:11:47.399 The Germans secretly loaded him and his top aides 00:11:47.399 --> 00:11:50.519 onto a sealed train, guarded it and transported 00:11:50.519 --> 00:11:52.879 him right across German territory, ultimately 00:11:52.879 --> 00:11:55.340 dropping him off at the Russian border. Winston 00:11:55.340 --> 00:11:57.539 Churchill later described it as transporting 00:11:57.539 --> 00:12:00.059 a plague bacillus. They literally imported a 00:12:00.059 --> 00:12:03.039 revolution. And from a cold strategic standpoint, 00:12:03.399 --> 00:12:06.580 it worked flawlessly. Lenin arrives, sparks the 00:12:06.580 --> 00:12:09.299 October Revolution, overthrows the Russian government, 00:12:09.440 --> 00:12:11.259 and immediately knocks Russia out of the war. 00:12:11.679 --> 00:12:15.120 And Germany then forces the new, fragile Bolshevik 00:12:15.120 --> 00:12:18.059 government to sign the brutal Treaty of Brest 00:12:18.059 --> 00:12:20.980 -Litovsk. And the scale of this treaty is hard 00:12:20.980 --> 00:12:24.019 to fathom. Russia surrendered massive amounts 00:12:24.019 --> 00:12:27.059 of its own territory, giving up Ukraine, the 00:12:27.059 --> 00:12:29.779 Baltics, and Poland to German control. It was 00:12:29.779 --> 00:12:32.440 a huge win for Germany. It was a strategic masterstroke 00:12:32.440 --> 00:12:35.179 by Germany in the short term, absolutely. But 00:12:35.179 --> 00:12:36.820 we have to acknowledge that Germany's success 00:12:36.820 --> 00:12:38.899 there was only possible because of the catastrophic 00:12:38.899 --> 00:12:42.190 failure of Russian leadership. The Tsar... Nicholas 00:12:42.190 --> 00:12:45.149 II was entirely out of touch with reality. He 00:12:45.149 --> 00:12:47.529 just refused to listen. We consistently ignored 00:12:47.529 --> 00:12:49.750 the need for civilian military coordination. 00:12:50.250 --> 00:12:52.049 He even took personal command of the army at 00:12:52.049 --> 00:12:55.009 the front, despite having incredibly poor strategic 00:12:55.009 --> 00:12:57.769 judgment, which meant every military defeat was 00:12:57.769 --> 00:13:00.129 blamed directly on him. Meanwhile, the home front 00:13:00.129 --> 00:13:02.590 was a disaster. He allowed the home front to 00:13:02.590 --> 00:13:04.909 completely collapse. The economy was stretched 00:13:04.909 --> 00:13:07.509 beyond its limits. Soldiers in the trenches literally 00:13:07.509 --> 00:13:10.009 lacked rice holes and labor strikes were rampant 00:13:10.009 --> 00:13:12.639 in the cities. Nicholas II created a massive 00:13:12.639 --> 00:13:15.080 power vacuum and Germany just used Lenin to fill 00:13:15.080 --> 00:13:18.179 it. But Russia wasn't the only empire rotting 00:13:18.179 --> 00:13:20.279 from the inside out. The central powers were 00:13:20.279 --> 00:13:22.200 completely falling apart, too. Let's look at 00:13:22.200 --> 00:13:24.740 Austria -Hungary. Their leadership was desperate. 00:13:25.299 --> 00:13:27.940 Emperor Charles X of Austria actually trying 00:13:27.940 --> 00:13:30.759 to make secret peace overtures to the allies 00:13:30.759 --> 00:13:34.399 behind Germany's back to save his crumbling empire. 00:13:34.700 --> 00:13:37.299 He saw the writing on the wall. He did. And he 00:13:37.299 --> 00:13:40.000 was willing to compromise. But the deal was vetoed 00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:43.259 by Italy. Why? Because Italy wanted the land 00:13:43.259 --> 00:13:45.679 they were promised in that secret treaty of London 00:13:45.679 --> 00:13:47.740 we talked about earlier. And the fallout for 00:13:47.740 --> 00:13:50.759 Emperor Charles was humiliating. Oh, it was a 00:13:50.759 --> 00:13:53.259 disaster. Charles's secret letters negotiating 00:13:53.259 --> 00:13:55.460 peace were eventually leaked to the press by 00:13:55.460 --> 00:13:57.000 the French prime minister. Could you imagine? 00:13:57.120 --> 00:13:59.240 It completely destroyed his credibility. Right. 00:13:59.360 --> 00:14:01.639 It infuriated the Germans. And it ironically 00:14:01.639 --> 00:14:03.860 ended up binding a totally weakened Austria. 00:14:04.009 --> 00:14:06.070 even closer to German control because they had 00:14:06.070 --> 00:14:08.809 nowhere else to turn. And then, alongside Austria 00:14:08.809 --> 00:14:11.490 -Hungary, you have the Ottoman Empire. Their 00:14:11.490 --> 00:14:13.889 entry into the war was highly consequential. 00:14:14.409 --> 00:14:16.929 According to the memoirs of German General Ludendorff, 00:14:17.289 --> 00:14:19.730 the Ottoman entry prolonged the global conflict 00:14:19.730 --> 00:14:23.600 by an estimated two years. Wow. two extra years. 00:14:23.840 --> 00:14:26.399 Yes, but the internal actions of the Ottoman 00:14:26.399 --> 00:14:29.200 government during this time were horrific. The 00:14:29.200 --> 00:14:31.440 historical source we're looking at outlines the 00:14:31.440 --> 00:14:34.039 systematic extermination of their Armenian subjects, 00:14:34.620 --> 00:14:39.159 the Armenian genocide. Approximately 1 .5 million 00:14:39.159 --> 00:14:41.860 Armenians were murdered through state -sponsored 00:14:41.860 --> 00:14:44.879 massacres and brutal death marches into the Syrian 00:14:44.879 --> 00:14:48.350 desert. It's an incredibly grim reality of this 00:14:48.350 --> 00:14:50.070 period. And we should note here for you listening, 00:14:50.169 --> 00:14:52.470 we're just impartially reporting what the historical 00:14:52.470 --> 00:14:54.690 analysis and our source lays out about these 00:14:54.690 --> 00:14:56.929 events. We aren't taking sides, just sharing 00:14:56.929 --> 00:14:59.570 the documented history. But what's notable from 00:14:59.570 --> 00:15:01.809 a diplomatic perspective is how the international 00:15:01.809 --> 00:15:05.549 community reacted. Yes. In 1915, the Allies actually 00:15:05.549 --> 00:15:07.970 issued a joint public denunciation of the mass 00:15:07.970 --> 00:15:09.970 murders. They officially called it a crime against 00:15:09.970 --> 00:15:13.070 humanity. But after the war ended, despite bringing 00:15:13.070 --> 00:15:14.990 the matter to the Paris Peace Conference and 00:15:14.990 --> 00:15:17.500 demanding justice, the Allies ultimately didn't 00:15:17.500 --> 00:15:19.840 follow through. By the time the post -war Treaty 00:15:19.840 --> 00:15:23.000 of Lausanne was signed in 1923, geopolitical 00:15:23.000 --> 00:15:25.440 priorities had shifted and the treaty effectively 00:15:25.440 --> 00:15:28.159 granted amnesty to the perpetrators. It's a stark 00:15:28.159 --> 00:15:31.759 reminder of the often cynical nature of wartime 00:15:31.759 --> 00:15:34.960 diplomacy, where moral outrage is frequently 00:15:34.960 --> 00:15:38.220 sidelined by post -war geopolitical maneuvering 00:15:38.220 --> 00:15:41.750 and the desire for regional stability. And speaking 00:15:41.750 --> 00:15:44.070 of the complexities of regional stability, we 00:15:44.070 --> 00:15:46.210 have to examine how British diplomacy operated 00:15:46.210 --> 00:15:48.750 in the Middle East during the slow collapse of 00:15:48.750 --> 00:15:51.389 the Ottoman Empire. Right. And this is a section 00:15:51.389 --> 00:15:53.669 where the historical analysis highlights some 00:15:53.669 --> 00:15:56.429 highly debated interpretations of events. Again, 00:15:56.629 --> 00:15:58.549 impartially reporting the source material here, 00:15:58.889 --> 00:16:00.529 we're just going to look at how the historians 00:16:00.529 --> 00:16:02.950 frame the deeply conflicting promises that were 00:16:02.950 --> 00:16:05.789 made, because those promises created the geopolitical 00:16:05.789 --> 00:16:09.000 reality of the Middle East today. The diplomacy 00:16:09.000 --> 00:16:11.860 there was a tangled web of completely contradictory 00:16:11.860 --> 00:16:15.159 commitments. First, the British promised Arab 00:16:15.159 --> 00:16:18.399 leaders, specifically Hussein Ben Ali, the Sharif 00:16:18.399 --> 00:16:20.940 of Mecca, that Britain would support the creation 00:16:20.940 --> 00:16:23.779 of a sovereign Arab state. In return, the Arabs 00:16:23.779 --> 00:16:25.960 agreed to launch a military revolt against the 00:16:25.960 --> 00:16:28.580 Turks. Which they did. But almost simultaneously, 00:16:28.860 --> 00:16:30.440 the British and French governments were holding 00:16:30.440 --> 00:16:33.240 completely different secret meetings. Two diplomats, 00:16:33.460 --> 00:16:36.580 Marc Sykes and Francois Georges Picot, basically 00:16:36.580 --> 00:16:39.500 sat in a room with a map and a ruler, literally 00:16:39.500 --> 00:16:42.080 drawing arbitrary lines across the Middle East. 00:16:42.639 --> 00:16:45.259 This was the Sykes -Picot agreement, secretly 00:16:45.259 --> 00:16:47.639 carving up the region into spheres of French 00:16:47.639 --> 00:16:50.340 and British control after the war. So they promised 00:16:50.340 --> 00:16:53.000 the land to the Arab leaders, but secretly planned 00:16:53.000 --> 00:16:55.639 to keep it for themselves. And then... It gets 00:16:55.639 --> 00:16:58.059 even more complicated with the Balfour Declaration 00:16:58.059 --> 00:17:01.659 in 1917. The third promise. Yes. The British 00:17:01.659 --> 00:17:04.539 government issued an official statement promising 00:17:04.539 --> 00:17:06.640 the establishment of a national home for the 00:17:06.640 --> 00:17:09.440 Jewish people in Palestine. The declaration also 00:17:09.440 --> 00:17:11.400 stated that nothing should be done to prejudice 00:17:11.400 --> 00:17:13.740 the civil and religious rights of existing non 00:17:13.740 --> 00:17:15.900 -Jewish communities in Palestine. So they were 00:17:15.900 --> 00:17:18.619 essentially making massive sweeping promises 00:17:18.619 --> 00:17:21.619 concerning the exact same territory to entirely 00:17:21.619 --> 00:17:23.640 different groups of people. And this is exactly 00:17:23.640 --> 00:17:25.960 where our source highlights how historical views 00:17:25.960 --> 00:17:27.960 on the American endorsement of this declaration 00:17:27.960 --> 00:17:31.119 vary wildly. When President Woodrow Wilson endorsed 00:17:31.119 --> 00:17:33.539 the Balfour Declaration, historians are deeply 00:17:33.539 --> 00:17:36.819 split on his motivations. Right. On one hand, 00:17:36.940 --> 00:17:39.619 Some historians argue that Wilson supported it 00:17:39.619 --> 00:17:42.380 out of a deep Christian sentiment, genuinely 00:17:42.380 --> 00:17:45.299 seeking a peaceful, governing role in the region 00:17:45.299 --> 00:17:48.369 based on his own moral framework. But on the 00:17:48.369 --> 00:17:50.450 other hand, the article notes that pro -Palestinian 00:17:50.450 --> 00:17:52.730 historians argue Wilson and the U .S. Congress 00:17:52.730 --> 00:17:55.529 actually ignored democratic values to push this 00:17:55.529 --> 00:17:57.630 through. They point out that the U .S. State 00:17:57.630 --> 00:17:59.589 Department heavily opposed the endorsement at 00:17:59.589 --> 00:18:02.289 the time, explicitly fearing it would alienate 00:18:02.289 --> 00:18:05.069 Arab populations. But those internal government 00:18:05.069 --> 00:18:07.750 fears were ultimately ignored in favor of a strong 00:18:07.750 --> 00:18:12.230 pro -Zionist lobby. of how decisions made in 00:18:12.230 --> 00:18:14.829 the chaotic, high -stakes diplomatic back rooms 00:18:14.829 --> 00:18:17.890 of World War I are still directly shaping the 00:18:17.890 --> 00:18:20.250 geopolitics and the conflicts of our world over 00:18:20.250 --> 00:18:22.609 a century later. Which brings us finally to the 00:18:22.609 --> 00:18:25.170 massive pivot that changed the entire trajectory 00:18:25.170 --> 00:18:27.470 of the 20th century, the entry of the United 00:18:27.470 --> 00:18:30.109 States into the war. This shift in American public 00:18:30.109 --> 00:18:33.089 opinion from 1914 to 1917 is just one of the 00:18:33.089 --> 00:18:35.690 most radical transformations in history. In 1914, 00:18:35.950 --> 00:18:37.549 Americans wanted absolutely nothing to do with 00:18:37.549 --> 00:18:39.390 this European bloodbath. They were completely 00:18:39.390 --> 00:18:41.910 isolationist. They were so utterly disconnected 00:18:41.910 --> 00:18:44.970 from the geopolitics of Europe that future President 00:18:44.970 --> 00:18:47.609 Herbert Hoover actually had to lead a massive 00:18:47.609 --> 00:18:51.609 private effort just to repatriate over 100 ,000 00:18:51.609 --> 00:18:54.150 American tourists who were stranded in Europe 00:18:54.150 --> 00:18:56.450 completely oblivious when the shooting started. 00:18:57.230 --> 00:18:58.789 President Wilson was adamant at the time that 00:18:58.789 --> 00:19:01.250 the U .S. must remain impartial in thought as 00:19:01.250 --> 00:19:03.869 well as in action. But maintaining that neutrality 00:19:03.869 --> 00:19:06.309 became structurally impossible. The triggers 00:19:06.309 --> 00:19:08.809 just kept piling up. First, you have the sinking 00:19:08.809 --> 00:19:11.710 of the Lusitania. in 1915 by a German U -boat, 00:19:12.049 --> 00:19:13.990 where over a hundred American civilians died. 00:19:14.730 --> 00:19:16.970 Then, as we mentioned earlier, Germany's desperate 00:19:16.970 --> 00:19:20.190 gamble in 1917 to resume unrestricted submarine 00:19:20.190 --> 00:19:23.069 warfare, knowingly sinking American merchant 00:19:23.069 --> 00:19:25.769 ships. And you cannot forget the German espionage 00:19:25.769 --> 00:19:27.990 network operating inside the U .S., which the 00:19:27.990 --> 00:19:29.950 historical record describes almost like a dark 00:19:29.950 --> 00:19:32.170 comic opera. You had German agents desperately 00:19:32.170 --> 00:19:34.849 trying to sabotage American factories, but doing 00:19:34.849 --> 00:19:37.150 it with staggering incompetence. The briefcase 00:19:37.150 --> 00:19:40.250 incident. Yes. The best example is the German 00:19:40.250 --> 00:19:43.789 diplomat Heinrich Albert, who literally fell 00:19:43.789 --> 00:19:46.589 asleep on a train in New York City and left his 00:19:46.589 --> 00:19:49.289 briefcase on the seat. An American Secret Service 00:19:49.289 --> 00:19:52.470 agent just grabbed it. And inside were all the 00:19:52.470 --> 00:19:54.970 documents proving Germany was funding sabotage 00:19:54.970 --> 00:19:57.509 and labor strikes across the country. They published 00:19:57.509 --> 00:20:00.730 it and the American public was furious. It created 00:20:00.730 --> 00:20:03.809 a deep, pervasive paranoia regarding national 00:20:03.809 --> 00:20:07.240 security. But the absolute final straw, the thing 00:20:07.240 --> 00:20:10.680 that made war inevitable, was the Zimmerman Telegram. 00:20:10.779 --> 00:20:13.319 The sheer audacity of this telegram. The German 00:20:13.319 --> 00:20:15.819 foreign minister, Arthur Zimmerman, sends a secret 00:20:15.819 --> 00:20:18.680 message to Mexico, offering them a military alliance 00:20:18.680 --> 00:20:21.440 against the United States. Germany actually promised 00:20:21.440 --> 00:20:23.880 that if Mexico attacked America, Germany would 00:20:23.880 --> 00:20:26.119 reward them by helping them reconquer Texas, 00:20:26.259 --> 00:20:28.559 New Mexico, and Arizona. It's unbelievable. I 00:20:28.559 --> 00:20:30.440 mean, asking a neighboring country to invite 00:20:30.440 --> 00:20:33.720 Texas in 1917 is just a comical strategic wonder. 00:20:34.160 --> 00:20:36.279 But once British intelligence intercepted that 00:20:36.279 --> 00:20:38.279 telegram and the American public found out, the 00:20:38.279 --> 00:20:41.799 outrage was absolute. was. But this raises an 00:20:41.799 --> 00:20:44.759 important question. How did Wilson take a deeply 00:20:44.759 --> 00:20:47.400 isolationist country and convince them to send 00:20:47.400 --> 00:20:50.200 millions of young men across an ocean to fight 00:20:50.200 --> 00:20:52.480 and die? So what does this all mean? How did 00:20:52.480 --> 00:20:55.240 he pull off that psychological shift? He did 00:20:55.240 --> 00:20:58.119 it by brilliantly turning a geopolitical conflict 00:20:58.119 --> 00:21:01.480 over borders, resources and sea lanes into a 00:21:01.480 --> 00:21:04.119 grand moral crusade. He didn't tell the public 00:21:04.119 --> 00:21:06.480 they were fighting to protect British loans or 00:21:06.480 --> 00:21:08.920 to maintain French borders. He told them they 00:21:08.920 --> 00:21:11.420 needed to fight a war to make the world safe 00:21:11.420 --> 00:21:13.819 for democracy. If we connect this to the bigger 00:21:13.819 --> 00:21:17.700 picture, Wilson elevated the conflict. He convinced 00:21:17.700 --> 00:21:20.019 Americans that they possessed a superior moral 00:21:20.019 --> 00:21:23.059 position and that true lasting peace required 00:21:23.059 --> 00:21:25.960 a world based on free democracies, not secretive 00:21:25.960 --> 00:21:28.680 empires. It was a vision that entirely shaped 00:21:28.680 --> 00:21:30.720 America's role in world affairs for the rest 00:21:30.720 --> 00:21:32.759 of the century. It really did. And really, for 00:21:32.759 --> 00:21:35.380 you listening, understanding this hidden diplomatic 00:21:35.380 --> 00:21:38.730 war changes everything. The world map you look 00:21:38.730 --> 00:21:41.009 at today was drafted in these smoke -filled back 00:21:41.009 --> 00:21:43.569 rooms, the borders of the Middle East, the very 00:21:43.569 --> 00:21:46.170 existence of Eastern European nations like Poland 00:21:46.170 --> 00:21:49.190 and the Baltic states, the modern financial dominance 00:21:49.190 --> 00:21:52.250 of Wall Street over London. All of it was forged, 00:21:52.529 --> 00:21:54.750 not just with artillery and bayonets, but with 00:21:54.750 --> 00:21:57.730 checkbooks, propaganda, and secret backdoor deals. 00:21:58.230 --> 00:22:00.589 It's incredible to realize how much of the war 00:22:00.589 --> 00:22:03.410 was actually fought miles away from the trenches, 00:22:03.730 --> 00:22:05.569 which leaves us with a final thought for you 00:22:05.569 --> 00:22:08.509 to mull over. If the real lasting turning points 00:22:08.509 --> 00:22:10.549 of the First World War were orchestrated through