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Modern World History 3.11 Unions: the People Who Brought You Weekends
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Today we're tackling unions, a.k.a. the people who brought you weekends, a.k.a. the greatest people who have ever existed. We'd send them a thank y...

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Modern World History 5.2 Rising Tensions 21 Views


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Description:

Leading up to WWI, Europe got a little complicated. Looks like imperialism will come back to bite you.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:00

while Europe's leaders were stitching a false piece together by

00:06

making alliances left and right, other forces were at work driving the [heads of state pictured]

00:11

continent slowly but inexorably toward war. those forces were, nationalism

00:18

imperialism, and militarism. and those are three of the big isms.

00:24

fortunately botulism is notably absent from this list. okay so let's start with

00:29

nationalism. way back in unit 2 we talked about how in the early 1800s various

00:36

people's across Europe wanted to join together to form their own countries. at

00:40

last the Nationalists thought, everyone who spoke the same language sang the

00:45

same songs and ate the same food would be able to do all of those things

00:49

together just in a little nation state of their very own. [men waving bread smile]

00:53

while nationalism got squashed after Napoleon's defeat it displayed cockroach

00:58

like tendencies and rose from the dead again and again throughout the 19th

01:03

century. by the 1870s several areas of Europe were ripe for a nationalistic

01:08

resurgence . you had the Austrian and Ottoman empires which covered a lot of

01:12

territory in which featured a whole bunch of different ethnic and cultural

01:16

groups. and on the other hand you had Germany in Italy. as we mentioned in unit

01:21

2. many of the aristocrats ruling Europe were not wild about nationalism. like at [members of ruling class pictured]

01:26

all .if they could have killed it with fire they would have. instead they pulled

01:30

that every trick in the book to try and contain nationalist sentiment. the

01:34

Austrian Empire for example gave itself a new name by sticking the word

01:38

Hungarian in between Austria and Empire the ruling Habsburg family hoped like

01:44

heck people of Hungary would simmer down and not stage a revolt. again.

01:50

austria-hungary also reconfigured itself so that while the Austrian and Hungarian

01:54

states controlled their own domestic affairs a single ruler oversaw all [compromise of 1867 pictured]

01:59

foreign and economic ones. just like every other man in Europe at the time,

02:03

well dude had a huge mustache .well father East Tsar Alexander ii

02:09

implemented a program of Russification - that he hoped would

02:13

magically turn all of his empires minority citizens from rebels into

02:18

russet potato into Russians. other European nations were less terrified of

02:24

nationalism. in fact they did their best to make national pride via in thing. well

02:30

the British expanded voting rights and started paying their elected

02:33

representatives. the French created a new constitution that called for a republic

02:39

with a president and a bicameral legislature . all right well the Germans [legislative document pictured]

02:44

started providing financial aid to the sick and disabled, while retired workers

02:48

gained access to a pension system. after finishing up all those reforms at home

02:53

Europe's leaders began to ask themselves what else they could do to make their

02:57

citizens feel, you know proud. well the answer was to subjugate as many non

03:02

Europeans as possible. yay. for example Italy who really should

03:08

have known better after the whole Tunisia thing and we talked about in the

03:11

last lesson , tried to take over Ethiopia in 1890s and well promptly failed,

03:16

national pride was dented but not to worry third time's the charm! [painting of battle pictured]

03:20

in 1911 Italy snatched Tripoli from the Ottomans, and renamed it Libya. and so

03:25

Africa and Asia were made into Christmas dinner for the countries of Europe. at

03:29

last there was peace at home and you know kind of peace abroad. it was at this

03:34

point that Europe's leaders decided to build up their militaries because well

03:38

you never know when some Archduke is gonna go off and get himself

03:42

assassinated. well between 1890 and 1914 Europe's [picture of assignation shown]

03:46

military forces doubled in size and every country except Great Britain

03:50

instituted mandatory military service for its male citizens. of course this

03:55

increased militarism- meant that military leaders began to have more and more

03:59

power within national governments/ well if you've ever wondered why civilians

04:04

and not soldiers have ultimate authority over the military in many countries

04:07

today this this right here the lead-up to World War one is your answer/ because

04:14

what the German military did was designed these really complex plans for [map of France featuring invasion plans pictured]

04:19

invading France very quickly .once they had those plans and an opportunity well

04:24

went looking for a fight .by 1914 in spite of the alliances Europe's leaders

04:29

thought would keep everybody safe, while the continent was a toxic brew of

04:33

nationalism imperialism and militarism. all the situation needed now was a match-

04:39

or a bullet- you know -whatever works. [flaming cauldron pictured]

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