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It Was The Great War And It's End Came With Great Cost And The Seeds Of WWII · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: And here we go the third and final hour at
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  Speaker 1: least today of the Morning Show with Preston Scott and Preston.
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  Speaker 1: He's Jose. It is Thursday on the program, and it's
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  Speaker 1: time for a little more history. And joining me on
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  Speaker 1: the program is our resident historian, doctor Ed Morgan. Morning, sir,
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  Speaker 1: how are you?
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  Speaker 2: I'm doing okay? How you doing?
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  Speaker 1: I'm just wonderful, absolutely absolutely incredible.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I miss senior to fay here having a call
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  Speaker 2: in this morning, but always good to see you.
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  Speaker 1: Better safe than sorry for the both of us were
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  Speaker 1: at that we're at that, we're at that stage in life. Hey,
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  Speaker 1: for the sake of those who might have missed an
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  Speaker 1: earlier segment or two set the stage the United States
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  Speaker 1: world War One? Quickly? How did we get drawn into it?
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  Speaker 1: And what are the circumstances that led to its ending?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I guess we should go back to how that
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  Speaker 2: start and why did Germany basically start World War One?
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  Speaker 2: As we talked about last month, there were a lot
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  Speaker 2: of wars in the late eighteen hundreds in and amongst
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  Speaker 2: various countries in Europe fighting each other, and then the
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  Speaker 2: United States obviously in eighteen ninety eight sought Spain. You've
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  Speaker 2: got to remember that we were ending an era, almost
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  Speaker 2: at the end of an era of lots of oligarchies
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  Speaker 2: and royalty and czars and that kind of governance. So
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  Speaker 2: it was not a real stable situation in Europe at first.
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  Speaker 2: In August of nineteen fourteen, Germany decided to declare war
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  Speaker 2: on Russia, so you would think it was just another
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  Speaker 2: one on one kind of thing. But a few days later,
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  Speaker 2: now we're going to also declare war on France. And
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  Speaker 2: then they started ignoring what Russia by invading France, so
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  Speaker 2: they were at technically at war with Russia, but not
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  Speaker 2: really fighting Russia. At that point in time. They were
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  Speaker 2: going to focus completely on France. They wanted to influence
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  Speaker 2: all of Europe. Germany wanted and Austria, Hungary alliance wanted
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  Speaker 2: to assert their power and influence all over the continent.
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  Speaker 2: They invaded Belgium in order to attack France, thinking they
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  Speaker 2: could push the British troops that were in France back
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  Speaker 2: across the English Channel. Well, that invading Belgium brought England
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  Speaker 2: fully into the war, so now you've got a bigger conflagation.
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  Speaker 2: It's not I always founded a misnomer to call it
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  Speaker 2: a world war. It is a world war because each
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  Speaker 2: of those empires had people all the countries and areas
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  Speaker 2: all over the world that they controlled. But the war
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  Speaker 2: was a European war. That war was a European war,
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  Speaker 2: unlike World War two that we'll talk about in another episode,
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  Speaker 2: but it was a European war. That one side was Germany, Austria, Hungary,
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  Speaker 2: the Ottoman Empire which essentially was Turkey and Bulgaria area
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  Speaker 2: fighting against Russia, France, Britain, and then in nineteen eighteen
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  Speaker 2: the United States. Italy interestingly was initially allied with the
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  Speaker 2: German group, but then decided, now we're going to sit
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  Speaker 2: this one out, and then later actually came in on
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  Speaker 2: the side of the US and the Allies. Why did
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  Speaker 2: Germany do it, They were largely surrounded, i think by
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  Speaker 2: powerful countries and other armies, and they, i think probably
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  Speaker 2: felt that it was a preemptive strike. We're going to
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  Speaker 2: take care of the problems that might occur around us
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  Speaker 2: and Boyle boy. It caused a war that we'll talk
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  Speaker 2: another later about how many people died, but they were
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  Speaker 2: basically about eight or ten events that led to the
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  Speaker 2: end of World War Two. It started in nineteen fourteen
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  Speaker 2: August and ended in nineteen eighteen, nineteen nineteen with the armistice,
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  Speaker 2: and millions of people died because of arrogance, because of
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  Speaker 2: desire to take land that was not theirs, very unfortunate
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  Speaker 2: and circumstance.
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  Speaker 1: Eleven Minutes past the Hour with doctor Ed Moore at
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  Speaker 1: the The method of fighting a war in World War
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  Speaker 1: One was it was this transitional time, right. It was.
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  Speaker 1: It was the time from the Civil War and the
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  Speaker 1: Spanish American War where you just lined up and and
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  Speaker 1: you took your best shot, and then it became a
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  Speaker 1: little more sophisticated. But it was kind of a hybrid,
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  Speaker 1: wasn't it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was one of those weird circumstances around the battlefields.
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  Speaker 2: There'd be horses and carts pulled by horses and mechanized
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  Speaker 2: vehicles and all, you know, all kinds of there's some
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  Speaker 2: great movies about that. There was a movie about just
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  Speaker 2: about a horse that from World War One. Yep, it's
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  Speaker 2: you know, they had a long line that we'll talk
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  Speaker 2: about in a minute that kind of separated France from Germany.
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  Speaker 2: And when I look at these things, I'd like to
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  Speaker 2: think about what would happen. If the results had been different,
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  Speaker 2: you know what would have occurred in the world, says
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  Speaker 2: Germany had just attacked France only and France didn't have allies,
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  Speaker 2: and Germany took France. What would Europe look like now
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  Speaker 2: if the US hadn't gotten in the war, what would
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  Speaker 2: have happened in Europe? And the events that led to
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  Speaker 2: the end of the war, I think were really fascinating.
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  Speaker 2: There was a telegram called the Zimmermann Telegram from the
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  Speaker 2: Brits intercepted, and it was a telegram from the German
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  Speaker 2: foreign secretary to his counterpart in Mexico. Now think of that.
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  Speaker 2: They wanted Mexico to enter the war and attack the
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  Speaker 2: United States from below as a German ally, and the
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  Speaker 2: German promises were that they would be able to reclaim Texas,
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  Speaker 2: New Mexico and Arizona and come back being part of Mexico.
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  Speaker 2: And then they asked Mexico to enless Japan and the war.
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  Speaker 2: So they were trying to use all these other countries
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  Speaker 2: to further their aims. But it backfired on them because
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  Speaker 2: the United States saw that was not pleased with that.
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  Speaker 2: If you remember we were we had just been down
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  Speaker 2: on the Mexican border. My grandfather was one of the
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  Speaker 2: troops from Florida that went down there, chasing Ponto Villa
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  Speaker 2: all around in Mexico. The relations between the US and
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  Speaker 2: Mexico were strained at that point in time. Germany tried
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  Speaker 2: to take advantage of that. The second item was unrestricted
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  Speaker 2: submarine warfare that Germany began in nineteen fifteen because they
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  Speaker 2: declared all the waters around Great Britain to be war zones,
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  Speaker 2: and in doing that they were trying to limit supplies,
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  Speaker 2: particularly from the United States to England. So I started
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  Speaker 2: sinking ships that were some of them were chartered in
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  Speaker 2: the US and some in other countries. One of which was,
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  Speaker 2: if you recall, was the Lusitania. It was a Cunard
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  Speaker 2: line that had been a passenger line, big herald of
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  Speaker 2: it being the fastest way to get across the Atlanta
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  Speaker 2: from nineteen oh four to nineteen fourteen, but it started
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  Speaker 2: carrying troops and supplies and other equipment in addition to passengers.
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  Speaker 2: Just regular President Scott on the boat having a holiday
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  Speaker 2: in the middle of a war. Kind of unusual. When
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  Speaker 2: they sank the Lusitania off the coast of Ireland, right
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  Speaker 2: off of Old head on May May of fifteen, Tuesday
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  Speaker 2: at nineteen fifteen, almost twelve hundred people died in that
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  Speaker 2: boat being sunk right off the coast of Ireland, a
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  Speaker 2: big uproar in the United States that helped to add
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  Speaker 2: the war for in our country. A third item would
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  Speaker 2: be the Russian Revolution that occurred. Russia was in the
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  Speaker 2: war against Germany and then had a revolution on their own,
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  Speaker 2: going on the Bolshevik Revolution that occurred in Marsh of
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  Speaker 2: nineteen seventeen. They deposed this cizar, created a communist and
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  Speaker 2: socialist government, offered peace proposals, and Ukraine decided Russia wanted
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  Speaker 2: out of the world, that the people who now were
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  Speaker 2: running Rossia just didn't want to be bothered with it.
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  Speaker 2: Here you talk now with Russia and Ukraine at war, well,
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  Speaker 2: the Ukrainian Province of Russia. They proclaimed themselves to be
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  Speaker 2: an independent state allied with Germany, and Germany tried to
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  Speaker 2: occupy that area, but they got so busy on the
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  Speaker 2: Western Front they really couldn't control it at all. So
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  Speaker 2: now Russia and Ukraine and those areas aren't really engaged
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  Speaker 2: anymore in World War One. So there's a lot of
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  Speaker 2: changing players and people that were happening here. January nineteenth eighteen,
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  Speaker 2: You and I did a show on this about the
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  Speaker 2: flu planned pandemic. We just went through one of those,
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  Speaker 2: which it was called the Spanish Flu. Started really in
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  Speaker 2: the United States. I think it was a military base
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  Speaker 2: in Kansas. But when we started sending people over to Europe,
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  Speaker 2: we brought disease with US an estimated fifty to one
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  Speaker 2: hundred million people. They really didn't have good count on
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  Speaker 2: that died from that flu. Troop movements all across Europe
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  Speaker 2: spread it rapidly. That caused a lot of walls and
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  Speaker 2: fighting in some places, bigger fighting in other places, and
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  Speaker 2: people being sick all over the place.
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  Speaker 1: Our history segment today with doctor ed Moore, a little
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  Speaker 1: more history World War One, the Great War as it
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  Speaker 1: was called. Then, doctor Moore, how did we end this battle?
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  Speaker 1: How did it come to a close.
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  Speaker 2: There was a Spring offensive in March of nineteen eighteen
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  Speaker 2: that Germany did. They decided they were really going to
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  Speaker 2: hit France hard to push Great Britain back across the channel.
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  Speaker 2: Over five hundred thousand troops died in that Spring offensive
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  Speaker 2: between the Allies and the German side. Then there was
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  Speaker 2: a rebellion of Austria. Hungary had a military rebellion that
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  Speaker 2: screwed them all up. They were really interested in going
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  Speaker 2: down to the Balkans, but most of their military was
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  Speaker 2: comprised of Filoleens and Serbians and Czechs and Ruthenians. There
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  Speaker 2: were sort of conscripts. They didn't really have people who
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  Speaker 2: really wanted to be in the war. There was one
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  Speaker 2: hundred days offensive in August of nineteen eighteen. US is
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  Speaker 2: now in. We're pushing hard. We pushed German back, pushing
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  Speaker 2: back across the Hindenburg Line, which collapsed and had opened
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  Speaker 2: up the underbelly there of Germany. It gave the Allies
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  Speaker 2: momentum to move hard, and that the Russians at the
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  Speaker 2: same time were attacking that had what was called the
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  Speaker 2: Brussolava offenses. That really we totally weakened the Austro Hungary
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  Speaker 2: forces and Germany now had to fight on two fronts.
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  Speaker 2: The Russolava Offensive said over half a million people died
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  Speaker 2: in that spring offensis. Over a million troops like one
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  Speaker 2: point two million troops died between the Russian sides and
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  Speaker 2: the German side, huge casualties. Most of the fighting taking
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  Speaker 2: place again in northwest Ukraine. It brings us to today
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  Speaker 2: and the problem we still have. Then Germany had a
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  Speaker 2: revolution in the middle of a war. The people kind
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  Speaker 2: of overthrew the imperial government formed a republic. So Kaiser
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  Speaker 2: Wilhelm was second was forced to create a He tried
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  Speaker 2: to create a constitutional monarchy. The United States said no way,
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  Speaker 2: We're not negotiating with the Kaiser, so he exiled and
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  Speaker 2: moved in the Netherlands, and that created the Weimar Republic.
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  Speaker 2: Left us from the Soviet Union. That communism wasn't just
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  Speaker 2: in Russia. There were a lot of them throughout Europe
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  Speaker 2: and they formed a significant part of the coalitions that
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  Speaker 2: created the Weimar Republic and created problems. Key elements and
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  Speaker 2: ending the war really were the extreme economic burdens. They
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  Speaker 2: were running out of money and supplies. There were huge
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  Speaker 2: impacts of defeat on Germany in creation of the Weimar
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  Speaker 2: Republic and why it was weak, and huge social tensions
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  Speaker 2: between the general population and the former aristocratic elites. Royalty
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  Speaker 2: was on its way out. It was done really the
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  Speaker 2: mainland of Europe, and communism and socialism were attractive tonics
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  Speaker 2: for the downtroten. So those movements grow there was actually
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  Speaker 2: a group called the Spartacust Group, which was the German
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  Speaker 2: Communist Party called it was from the Spartacus League. I
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  Speaker 2: kip picture in Kirk Douglas running around Germany, but I'm
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  Speaker 2: not sure why it was put down. That socialist rebellion
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  Speaker 2: was put down by the corp Brey Corps excuse me,
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  Speaker 2: which was a paramilitary groups. Really a lot of uniform
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  Speaker 2: stilled soldiers in Germany post war, but we had limited
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  Speaker 2: them to only one hundred thousand troops total after the
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  Speaker 2: end of the war, so Germany was very shaky. In
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  Speaker 2: November nineteen eighteen, the Armiscist was signed to the Victor
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  Speaker 2: Goes to Spoils. The treaty defined German borders. Germany lost
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  Speaker 2: lots of territory. They had to pay war reparations one
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  Speaker 2: hundred and thirty two billion gold marks, which crippled, totally
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  Speaker 2: crippled their economy. They were forced to take responsibility for
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  Speaker 2: the entire war, had the humiliation of loss plus the
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  Speaker 2: economic burdens. They were respons held responsible for the entire
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  Speaker 2: loss and damage, all of which you're thinking this is
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: at the end of the teens heading into the roaring twenties. Well,
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: the roaring didn't happen so much there. Cabaret the movie
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  Speaker 2: kind of captured what the social life was at that point,
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  Speaker 2: and that led to the depression. In nineteen twenty nine,
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  Speaker 2: there was a worldwide depression, so a lot of the
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  Speaker 2: current or issues of post World War One. You could
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  Speaker 2: see the planet the seeds planted from how World War
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  Speaker 2: One ended and how the world treated Germany. It led
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  Speaker 2: to the rise of Hitler and the rise of German
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  Speaker 2: social movement social movement, and there was a new world
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  Speaker 2: order in the nineteen twenties. It was the end of
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  Speaker 2: royalty and czars in the beginning of republic governments, but
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  Speaker 2: with strong socialist ingredients in those republic governments that are
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  Speaker 2: still there. So when we see split elections and things
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  Speaker 2: going on in various countries across Europe, it's been that
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  Speaker 2: way since the end of World War One. The cost
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  Speaker 2: of war was huge and the huge burden on the economies,
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  Speaker 2: but people survived, except for the millions and millions of
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  Speaker 2: people that died because of ambition and desire to take
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  Speaker 2: land that was not theirs.
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  Speaker 1: Always good to visit with you, ad, Thanks for the
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  Speaker 1: history lesson and feel better and we'll talk again.
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  Speaker 2: Next month, you too, thank you.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you. Doctor Ed Moore with us a little more
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: history on the Morning Show with Preston Scott