Latest / Saberian History Lectures / Run up to World War I

Transcript

Run up to World War I · Saberian History Lectures

0:00
Wires on, can everyone hear me? Yes. Alright,
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so, for those of you listening by podcast, we
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are having class in the out of doors. Just as
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a matter of experimentation, instead of the usual
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place, which has been by our flagpoles, we are
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now taking instruction under an old oak tree.
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Okay, so... Kind of skipping ahead, we left off
0:26
with the election of Wilson. I'm kind of leaving
0:28
it up to you to read about Wilson's progressivism.
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He does enact a number of progressive legislation,
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but I want to maintain the timeline, which is
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America's uneasy neutrality entering into World
0:42
War I. So, a couple of things to keep in mind.
0:48
First of all, does World War I mark the beginning
0:53
of the United States as a world power? No. Well,
0:57
it did mark the beginning of the United States
0:59
as a world power. America's occupation of the
1:04
Philippines and really the open door notes is
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where we first have this hint of the United States
1:09
as a world power. They're able to do that because
1:12
of the forward operating base in the Philippines,
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but anyway. You have a number of things that
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happen after the election of 1912. The election
1:22
of 1912 is a multi -party race. You have Wilson,
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the Democrat, running against Teddy Roosevelt,
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who was running as a third -party bull moose,
1:37
and William Howard Taft running as a Republican.
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Roosevelt... splits the Republican coalition,
1:45
allowing Wilson to come in and win a large chunk
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of the states. So for the first time since Grover
1:53
Cleveland, the United States has a Democratic
1:54
president. But also, Wilson is himself altogether
1:58
interesting. He is the first Southern Democrat
2:01
to sit in the White House since before the Civil
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War. Wilson himself, a true son of the South.
2:10
He remembers Reconstruction. And he is taking
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some of those Southern attitudes with him, for
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lack of a better word. He is, in many ways, some
2:22
have called him our first philosopher king. He
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got his degree at UVA. He got... He was a professor
2:33
of political science at Princeton. I've often
2:36
said if he maybe had a degree in history, things
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might have gone a little bit differently, but
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anyway. And so he is a scholar of this newfangled
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political science thing, but again, he styles
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himself as an intellectual that he knows better.
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And he... couched a lot of his campaign rhetoric
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not on the issues of foreign policy in 1912,
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but rather in America's new freedom. And again,
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keeping in vain of that progressive mentality.
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Now, what Wilson, who is a foreign policy novice,
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finds himself dealing with is a world that is
3:19
rumbling into chaos. Now, before I get into the
3:23
substance of the text, I actually want to deal
3:25
with some stuff that the text doesn't deal with.
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And y 'all, since we're in the out of doors and
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I don't have my whiteboard and I don't have my
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projector, you will need to bear with me. So
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I'm going to drop a few words on you. The first
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is the Great War. Okay, so there are going to
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be some terms that are going to be interchanged
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that mean the same thing. So Great War, First
3:48
Great War. First World War and World War I are
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all the same thing. So if you see someone talking
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about the Great War, they are talking about what
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we talk about as World War I. The reason they
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call it the Great War is because at that point
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in history, had World War II happened? No. So,
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anytime you see the Great War all by itself,
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that's World War I. World War II is sometimes
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called the Second Great War. World War III hasn't
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happened yet, but then again, you know, it's
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only February. And World War IV will be fought
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with sticks and stones, according to Albert Einstein.
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Y 'all never heard that joke? Albert Einstein,
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reflecting on his role that his theory of relativity
4:29
had played with the development of the atomic
4:31
bomb, said, I do not know what weapons World
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War III will be fought with, but World War IV
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will be fought with sticks and stones, saying
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that it would have totally annihilated humanity,
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that it would be knocking us back in time. Okay,
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it's a funny joke, but not really. Okay, so,
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neutrality. Neutrality is a legal state. War
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is a legal state between nations. So when you
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have two nations at war and you're a civilized
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country, you have what is called a declaration
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of war. If you are a neutral party, are you involved
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in the war? Now, what's interesting, and we've
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seen this a lot in American foreign policy, is...
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There are rights of a neutral country that their
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commerce, that their shipping, that their people
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should not be interfered with as a matter of
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the war because technically they're not part
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of it. And yet sometimes neutral parties find
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themselves in a war. Now, there's another word,
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and this one you may not actually know. Most
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of you know how to spell neutrality. But a word
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that comes up in both the text and in other sources
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regarding World War I is the word belligerent.
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B -E -L. L -I -G -E -R -E -N -T. Belligerent.
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A belligerent is one of the warring parties.
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So anytime you see the word belly like belligerent
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or bellicos, it means warlike or it means war.
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Bellum bella in Latin is war. Now, I say this
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with a student named Bella. That name actually
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means beautiful. So, Bellum is war. Bella is
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beautiful. So, no, you were not named after a
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war goddess, although maybe you might want to
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be. And her friends are like, no, no, she's got
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a mean streak to her. Yes? Okay. So, a belligerent
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country is a country in the war. So, one of the
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things that comes up are the rights of the belligerent
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and the rights of the neutral country. So, I'm
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doing this as vocab. Okay. Moving on. A couple
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other terms. One of the things that really sucks
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about World War I is people use different terms
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for the same people. So, the Triple Alliance.
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Triple Alliance. Write it down. They are also
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called the Central Powers. So, Triple Alliance,
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Central Powers are the same countries. Which
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implies how many countries are there? Three of
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them. These are Germany, the Austro -Hungarian
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Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. Let me say that
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again. The central powers are Germany, the Austro
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-Hungarian Empire, or Austria -Hungary, and the
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Ottoman Empire. By the way, where is the Ottoman
7:30
Empire? Turkey, Greece, and the Balkans. But
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the... primary seat of power is Turkey. Turkey,
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kind of ironic. When we think of Turkey, we think
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of Anatolia. That is where they live. Linguistically,
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Turkish is not Indo -European. It's actually
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the Turkish ancestral homeland is closer to Mongolia.
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Y 'all caught some of that in world history,
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yes? Okay. So, that's your central powers. That's
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your triple alliance. Then you have the triple
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entente. Now, that is the allied powers. At the
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start of the war, that is France, England. Now,
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I don't just mean England. I mean the British
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Commonwealth, which, if that includes the British
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Commonwealth or the British Empire, what else
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does that include? India, Pakistan, Canada. Australia.
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Remember, the British Empire is vast and gross,
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yes? And Russia. Russia at this point is Tsarist
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Russia. We have not had the switch over to the
8:38
Soviet Union. Okay? So that's your three allied
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powers. You have three central powers. These
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are people who don't like each other very much.
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The United States will ally with these people,
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but not yet. Okay? So, A couple of things you
8:56
need to keep in mind as part of the background.
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1866 to 1871. Up next I'm going to give you all
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a timeline. This timeline is kind of important
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because it gives context to why the war got started.
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1866 to 1871. You have the Franco -Prussian War.
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Franco -Prussian War. Anybody want to guess who
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the major parties were in the Franco -Prussian
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War? France and Prussia, the French and the Prussians.
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Now, the Prussians, and again, to us who are
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Americans, we get Prussians and Russians confused.
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Don't do that. Prussia, auf Deutsch, Preußen,
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is the German -speaking peoples in the area surrounding
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Berlin. Prussia is the, for lack of a better
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word, the dominant hegemon among the Germanys.
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So this Franco -Prussian war occurs before the
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unification of Germany. Now we talked about this
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earlier. You had a major migratory wave of Germans
9:59
to the Americas, part of which was because the
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German -speaking states were at war with one
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another before the creation of modern Germany.
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Modern Germany is forged out of iron and violence.
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So through a combination of diplomacy, statecraft,
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and warfare, Prussia, which is the German state
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around Berlin, creates modern Germany, incorporating
10:26
all the other states, Holstein, Bavaria, etc.,
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etc. Does that make sense? So part of that Prussian
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unification comes out of that Franco -Prussian
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War. So 1871, you have the creation of the German
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Empire, with Prussia now dominating all of what
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is now modern -day Germany. And in 1871, that
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new German empire annexes the Alsace -Lorraine.
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The Alsace -Lorraine is this area around, it's
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the borderland between France and Germany. The
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Alsace -Lorraine had actually been a contested
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territory between Germany and France. or rather
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the German, the peoples of what is now Germany
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and France, going all the way back to Ariovistus
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in the first century. It's actually kind of funny.
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In Caesar's Gallic War, he's talking about the
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tension between the Germanii and the Celtic -speaking
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peoples of Gaul. And so this has been a contested
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territory that's gone back and forth. 1871, Germany
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annexes the Alsace -Lorraine. Okay. So, 1905,
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and actually, let me go back to 1871. Literally,
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Franco -Prussian War, France got their butts
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handed to them. They were summarily trounced
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by the Prussian military apparatus. Now, a couple
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of things about Prussian society, and I kind
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of want to bring this up because it's germane
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to World War I, and it makes World War II make
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a whole lot more sense, is... If you were in
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Prussia, you were a servant of the state. Their
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entire state apparatus was devoted to their military
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-industrial complex. So, for example, it's the
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Prussians who are the first among the Germans
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to have graded schools. The reason you have graded
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schools is because it allows you to organize
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your society into age -ability groups. And so
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after having the kids in school for about, oh,
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10 or 11 years, how old are you if you start
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school at 6? 17, 18, and auf die Schule, aus
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die Wehrmacht. From the school to the army. You
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would be in the army, the men would, not the
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women. The men would be in the army from about
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the age of 16, 17, 18 to about the age of 22
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to 24. You would do mandatory military service
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six years. After six years in the army, you would
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retire to the Freikorps. The Freikorps is their
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military reserve. And so you are pretty much
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under some aspect of their military industrial
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complex until you're like 40. What does that
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do if you have so many more people in arms? Your
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army is better. Even your personnel in your rail
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industry, in your industrial complex, in your
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industries, they are devoted to the state, to
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the expansion of the state, to Prussia, and then
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to this German Empire. So really, this is the
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storm behind the Zweiten Reich, the Second Reich.
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Of course, the Nazis are the third one. We'll
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get there soon enough. 1905. Russo -Japanese
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War. We talked about this in the context of Roosevelt.
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By the way, who won the Russo -Japanese War?
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The Japanese. If you're Germany and you see that
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the Russians just got their butts handed to them
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by the Japanese, what do you think? The Russians
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are weak. And so if you think the Russians are
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weak, what might you think you might be able
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to do? Attack and to take territory in their
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periphery, things under their control. And so
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in 1906, von Schlieffen starts developing a plan
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for military action against both the French and
14:34
the Russian, against France and Russia. Now,
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this is not the first time... Germany had actually
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gotten into a war with both France and Russia
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at the same time. There was actually, and I forget
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which war it was, I think it was the Russo -Prussian
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War, where literally France and Russia are both
14:56
in a state of declared war against Germany. The
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Prussians take their army... And I forget which
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one they attack first, but they take their entire
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army, slam it into one side of their country,
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knock the first guy's army out of the game, then
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take their entire army, slam it to their eastern
15:13
front, knock the Russians out of the game. And
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so, again, people talk about, oh, the Germans
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found themselves in a two -front war, oh, this
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was stupid. No, they had done that before. By
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the way, why are you able to do that? railroads
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over your own territory, and by the way, you
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probably couldn't pull it off now in the era
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of satellite communication, but in the era of
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time where you're relying on either telegraph
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or messengers and your country is in between
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the two people you don't like, do they have instant
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communication? No. So, again, that works 1840s,
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1850s, even into the 1860s. Doesn't work 20th
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century, doesn't work 21st century. Okay. 1911.
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There is an uprising in Morocco. Now, Morocco
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and Northern Africa is part of the French Empire
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in Africa. And what the Germans do is they send
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a warship. Mainly as a show of force, but they
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do engage in a diplomatic communication with
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one of the people leading the uprising. So in
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1911, the German ship Panther arrives in Argadir.
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Argadir is A -R -G -A -D -I -R, and that's in
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Morocco. Now, one of the things I don't have
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here, because you decided to hold class outside,
16:39
is I don't have a map of colonial Africa. I will
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probably try and post some image of it somewhere
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intelligent for you to find it. Okay, well, no,
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this is not in the text. This is something I
16:52
had to dig up. But basically, Africa is being
16:56
carved up by the Germans, the French, and the
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British. Now, the British and the French have
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also negotiated the creation of a country called
17:06
Belgium. Belgium is essentially Britain's jumping
17:09
-off point into the continent. Belgium is an
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ally of England and neutral when it comes to
17:15
relations between Germany and France. Now, Belgium
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is a French -speaking people who have had independent
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notions, again, going back to the 1st century
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BC. The Belgae is one of the first tribes that
17:26
Caesar references in his book, The Gallic War.
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Anyway, so you have rivalries in Africa. You
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have rivalries in... Eastern Europe. And so you
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have these deep -seated national tensions, you
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have these deep -seated rivalries between powers,
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and it all comes to a head June 28, 1914. So,
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June 28, 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian nationalist...
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assassinates the Austro -Hungarian Archduke Franz
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Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, who was pregnant
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with child. Now, a couple of things going on.
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Serbia is a Slavic -speaking Orthodox country
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that had fallen under the Austro -Hungarian Empire.
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Now, the Austro -Hungarian Empire, the capital
18:33
of which is in Austria, Austria is German -speaking,
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and I want to say that Austria is majority Catholic.
18:40
Okay? So you have, in these empires, people with
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a separate language, separate culture, separate
18:50
sense of history, who are beginning to assert
18:52
their independence over their imperial overlords,
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and in the case of Gavrilo Princip, he does it
18:58
violently. Germany insists that they have the
19:08
right to... The Austro -Hungarian Empire is allied
19:12
with Germany. The Austro -Hungarians... take
19:18
great umbrage at this, they want to police this
19:20
area more severely. The Russians have ethnic
19:24
ties to Serbia, and so you have existing national
19:28
tensions that are exacerbated by this assassination,
19:32
but those national tensions were already there.
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August 1st, Germany declares war on Russia. So
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that's August 1st, 1914. Germany declares war
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on Russia. August 3rd, Germany declares war on
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France. Why? Because France is an ally of whom?
19:52
Russia. Why is France an ally of Russia? To screw
19:57
with the Germans. The enemy of my enemy is my
20:00
friend. Now, the French were not caught by surprise.
20:07
They fully anticipated that the Germans would
20:10
attack them. They had beefed up their defenses
20:13
between Germany and France. However, the French
20:20
did not account for the Von Schlieffen Plan,
20:26
which actually called for the Germans to invade
20:30
France by going through Belgium. And so with
20:36
most of the French army... At the German -Russian,
20:40
or sorry, at the German -French border, when
20:43
the, and it's a lot easier for me to show you
20:45
on a map, basically the German army goes through
20:47
Belgium and attacks the French line from the
20:50
rear. Because again, most of the French fortifications
20:53
are facing towards Germany. They were not planning
20:55
on being attacked from the rear. Now, so, Germany
21:05
violates Belgium's neutrality. This precipitates
21:09
the English declaring war on Germany. So, when
21:15
we look at our timeline, there are two timelines
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we have to keep in mind. The first timeline is
21:20
World War I for Europe. World War I for Europe
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goes from August 1914 to November of 1918. Okay?
21:32
Now, the U .S. doesn't immediately enter the
21:38
war. The United States is only at war from April
21:44
of 1917 with the declaration of war and then
21:48
the United States is involved all the way through
21:51
November of 1919 with the peace. Now the armistice
21:57
is 1918 but the peace treaty is 1919. Does that
22:00
make sense? So first you stop shooting each other,
22:03
and then you have a negotiated peace. Does that
22:06
make sense? So, in short, you have three things
22:14
going on. You have the rise of nationalism in
22:18
these territories that were part of the Austro
22:20
-Hungarian Empire, which would be the Balkans.
22:23
You have these people with their different language,
22:25
their different customs, their different sense
22:27
of history being ruled over by foreign people.
22:31
You have imperial rivalries between England,
22:36
France, Germany, and Russia. And especially those
22:40
rivalries are really exquisite in Africa, in
22:44
the Alsace -Lorraine. And then also you have
22:46
tension between Germany and Russia over a land
22:50
which will become Poland. Poland is not independent.
22:53
Now, when I talk about Poland, think about this
22:56
for a moment. It is the land of the Poles. What
22:59
are the Poles? They're Polish people. They are
23:03
religiously Catholic and linguistically, I don't
23:07
know what they are. I don't think they're Slavs.
23:10
You may. But they're not linguistically German.
23:15
You get what I'm saying? But what you're running
23:18
into is in these places, you have villages of
23:25
Polish -speaking people living next to villages
23:27
of German -speaking people being ruled by people
23:30
in Vienna. And so we tend to look at lands as
23:35
either linguistically or culturally homogeneous.
23:38
They're not. You get what I'm saying? Well, yes,
23:44
but what type of a language group Polish is?
23:49
It's not Germanic. I know it's not Germanic.
23:52
I don't know if it's Slavic. Now, the thing I
23:54
was going to say is we maybe have a better sense
23:57
of this. If you want to get a feel for what the
23:59
Alsace -Lorraine is like, I think the U .S.-Mexico
24:03
border is kind of close because you have English
24:08
-speaking peoples and Spanish -speaking peoples
24:10
that are more similar. In other words, people
24:13
on opposite sides of the river are more similar
24:15
to each other than they are to the people at
24:17
their capitals. You get the idea? Alright, moving
24:22
on. You also have a naval arms race going on
24:26
between England and Germany. So that's kind of
24:29
fun. So, getting back to the uneasy neutrality.
24:37
Woodrow Wilson has limited foreign policy experience.
24:40
He's a progressive. He did not, you know, sign
24:44
up to be president to lead a nation at war. He
24:48
is an unabashed idealist, and in many ways, the
24:50
declaration of war took the United States by
24:53
surprise. Now, a couple other things about World
24:57
War I. World War I for the Europeans is their
25:00
first major industrialized war. For the United
25:03
States, what was the first major industrialized
25:05
war? Civil War. So in some ways, the United States,
25:09
in terms of combat experience, in terms of doctrine,
25:15
is in some ways ahead of the game. Moving on.
25:21
Okay. So, a couple of things going on. And there's
25:31
a saying in sci -fi, in a sci -fi series I had
25:36
read, it said, well, I hadn't read it, it's a
25:38
show I had seen, and one of the sayings is, is
25:40
war good for business? But peace is also good
25:44
for business, it just depends on what business
25:46
you're in. So let me give you an example. Star
25:52
Trek Deep Space Nine. It was one of the several
25:57
rules of acquisition. One of them is war is good
25:59
for business, but the other one is peace is good
26:01
for business. It just depends on what business
26:03
you're in. So if you're in the business of war,
26:07
what might be making money if war is good for
26:11
business? Weapons and munitions, yes? Cloth.
26:18
Food. Now think about this for a moment. Now,
26:25
remember the agricultural improvements that we
26:29
had talked about earlier. What is the breadbasket
26:32
of the United States? The Midwest into the Great
26:36
Plains, yes? When the Great Plains begins to
26:41
fall under cultivation, the Great Plains isn't
26:43
just the breadbasket of the United States. It's
26:47
the breadbasket of the world. So the United States
26:51
is shipping food overseas. Now, might the U .S.
26:55
also be shipping raw materials or finished goods
27:00
for ammunition? Also, what's the virtue of having
27:03
your munitions plant not in the war zone? You
27:08
don't have to worry about it being blown up,
27:10
right? So you have the United States shipping
27:14
food and arms to England on credit. And also,
27:21
some American vendors are also selling to the
27:24
Germans. So the United States gave $2 billion
27:28
in... U .S. industries gave $2 billion in credit
27:32
to the Allies and $27 million in credit to the
27:38
Central Powers. And so you have the U .S. as
27:41
a neutral party playing both sides of the field
27:44
in terms of its industry. Good for us. Bad for
27:49
them. But here's the thing. How do those goods
27:56
get there? You have to ship them. Now, if I am
28:05
selling wheat to either England or to Germany,
28:10
wheat's grown, let's say it's in Nebraska, Gets
28:16
on a train in Nebraska. Where does it go? Chicago.
28:20
From Chicago it gets on another train to probably
28:24
what's the closest east port if I'm headed to
28:26
England? New York. Gets on a ship in New York.
28:31
Going down the standard sea lanes of New York.
28:35
What can possibly happen between New York and
28:39
London or between New York and Bristol? A lot.
28:46
Now, one of the things that is kind of interesting
28:49
about the technology. So, a couple of things
28:53
happen. The lane from New York to Bristol and
28:58
the lane from New York to, and I forget the major
29:03
German ports, but to get to the continent, you're
29:05
pretty much on the same lane the whole time.
29:07
It's actually most ships travel down a very set
29:09
lane. The reason you travel down a very set lane
29:12
is, and they call these the sea lanes. Originally,
29:14
these were the sea lanes because that's where
29:15
the winds carried you, but even in the days of
29:18
screw propellers, you would still stay in those
29:19
lanes. Why would you stay in those lanes? So
29:23
you don't get lost. It's a well -traveled path.
29:26
Also, you expect other ships to be on the lane,
29:29
too. So if your ship is disabled, if you have
29:32
to abandon ship, you know someone else is going
29:35
to come along and help you out. It's sort of
29:38
like, okay, some of you may have off -road vehicles,
29:41
but, you know, you don't often take your 4x4
29:44
when you can take a road because if you break
29:46
down, someone else will be along to help you
29:48
out. Yes? Okay. Now, a couple of things. November
29:53
of 1914, the British start searching neutral
29:57
ships. Who is among the neutral ships? The U
30:00
.S. Now, think about this for a moment. You are
30:05
the captain of an American flagged cargo ship.
30:11
A British dreadnought. Dreadnought. Dreadnought.
30:17
Okay, so let me tell you what a British dreadnought
30:19
is. First, let me spell it for you. D -R -E -A
30:23
-D, dread, not N -O -U -G -H -T, because this
30:28
is English. Okay, and they have to make it complicated?
30:31
Right, they have to make the spelling different.
30:34
So, you come upon a British dreadnought. Let
30:37
me tell you what a British dreadnought is. It
30:39
is the first modern battleship. How many of you
30:42
have been to the USS Texas? What? USS Texas.
30:46
Remind me which port. It's in Houston? Or is
30:49
it in Corpus? Lexington's in Corpus. Alright.
30:54
You're talking 16 inch deck guns that can shoot
30:58
a projectile that weighs as much as a Volkswagen
31:00
bug. It is a heavily plated floating death machine.
31:09
So you're... the captain of an unarmed American
31:12
cargo ship. You're headed to your destination
31:15
and you come across a British dreadnought and
31:18
they tell you to pull over because they're going
31:20
to search your cargo. What do you do? You're
31:25
not going to outrun them in a cargo ship. Actually,
31:27
it might not have even been a dreadnought, although
31:29
I use the dreadnought just because those are
31:31
fun little death machines. You also have the
31:33
use of cruisers. Destroyers are coming about.
31:37
Again, cruisers and destroyers. Cruisers are
31:39
lighter weight ships that can move more readily.
31:41
They still have deck guns. Nowadays, cruisers
31:43
have guided missiles, so they can really reach
31:46
out and touch you. Destroyers were primarily
31:49
anti -submarine ships. We'll get to those in
31:51
a moment. But anyway, you have an armed British
31:54
ship telling you to pull over because they're
31:56
going to search you. Now you're going to do it
31:58
because you enjoy life. However, do they have
32:02
the right to? They have the right to because
32:05
they have 16 -inch guns that can put large holes
32:08
in you, but under international law, really,
32:10
they don't. Thus, you begin to recognize one
32:13
of the major conventions of international law,
32:15
which is people do what they can. Right? So you
32:20
get searched, and if you're found to have been
32:25
carrying contraband, now what might the British
32:27
government consider contraband? Weapons. Not
32:31
food. Why? Food for them. They may permit you
32:38
to go on your way if you're carrying food because,
32:41
again, you're dealing with Europeans who still
32:43
have European notions of chivalry. Yes, food
32:46
is helpful to my enemy, but I don't want my enemy's
32:48
children starving to death because that would
32:50
be ungentlemanly. Well, no, the Europeans haven't
32:55
yet discovered total war. In many ways, World
32:58
War I is the last of the heroic wars. And also...
33:02
For the Europeans, they're still doing Napoleonic
33:04
assault columns. And for those of you who remember
33:08
my lesson on the Civil War about Napoleonic assault
33:10
columns, that's where you have badly trained
33:13
people following the leader, making a charge
33:16
at a fixed fortification. Now, back during the
33:20
days of the musket, crazy train worked. Right?
33:27
In the days of the Mini Rifle, Crazy Train didn't
33:30
work that well. In the days of the Machine Gun,
33:32
Crazy Train don't work at all. By the way, what
33:38
weapons advancement hits Europe just in time
33:40
for World War I? Machine Gun. When did the Machine
33:43
Gun get actually started? After the Civil War
33:47
Gatling. But now you go from crank -operated
33:50
machine gun to belt -fed machine gun. This is
33:54
where we get the expression. How many of you
33:56
have heard the expression, I went through the
33:57
whole nine yards? Whole nine yards is not a football
34:01
reference. That's how long the belt was for the
34:06
machine gun. They did, but you know, a lot of
34:15
military things are a matter of trial and error.
34:18
You hope you're not on the error side of the
34:20
trial. You're hoping you're in the one that works.
34:23
I say that to my student in JROTC, but anyway.
34:28
I also say this to an online class where I do
34:31
have a large number of veterans, but anyway.
34:35
So, Britain starts searching neutral ships. Now,
34:38
technically, if you pull over somebody else's
34:40
ship, that's an act of war. Now, did the United
34:42
States want to go to war with England? No, we
34:45
had cultural ties to them. We liked the English.
34:48
Why did we like the English? Trade. And common
34:54
language custom sense of history. We had sort
34:57
of, you know, the last time the U .S. fought
34:59
a war against the English was, you know, 1812.
35:02
You get the idea. Right, I mean, it's gotten
35:05
better. So, here's the thing. The British have,
35:09
on the high seas, they have surface control.
35:12
They have a very powerful surface fleet. The
35:15
Germans have developed the Unterseeboot, or the
35:21
U -boat. Submarine. Now, one of the things about
35:25
submarines, submarines are cheap, but submarines
35:29
are highly effective. What are submarines really
35:31
effective at doing? Sinking ships. So here's
35:35
kind of the fun thing about submarines at the
35:36
time. Okay, submarines, they go under the sea.
35:39
By the way, what powers a submarine? How many
35:42
of you are familiar? What powers submarines now?
35:46
Nuclear fission. Basically, you have nuclear
35:49
fission creates a heat source, powers the turbine.
35:52
Does nuclear fission burn oxygen? No. What powers
35:58
a submarine in 1914? Diesel fuel. What's the
36:04
horrible thing about diesel? Diesel burns the
36:08
air that you're using. So what you have with
36:12
these submarines is they would... ride along
36:16
the surface so they could take in air for standard
36:18
operations, and then they would submerge when
36:21
they felt they were under threat or when they
36:23
had to go into combat mode. Now, one of the things
36:25
that the Germans used to do in their submarine
36:27
attacks is, and again, keeping in the custom
36:32
of gentlemanly warfare, is, okay, you're like,
36:36
okay, I'm coming up on this cargo ship. Let's
36:40
say it's an American cargo ship bound for England.
36:43
I don't want unnecessary civilian casualties.
36:45
So here's what the German U -boats would do.
36:48
They would pop the top. They would come up. They
36:52
would surface. They would signal. They say, hi,
36:54
we're going to sink you now. Go head to the lifeboats.
36:58
What? Rip. That's sweet. I know. No, so they
37:02
would go, so, you know, and they would give you
37:04
a chance to go phone somebody to come pick you
37:07
up. It's like, hi, we're going to sink you. Why
37:08
don't they do that anymore? That's so sweet.
37:10
Because warfare got a lot more uncivilized. Okay.
37:13
Now, also because nowadays, if a submarine surfaces,
37:17
they're also at risk for attack. Well, the other
37:21
side was just as nice. Right, I mean, and so,
37:24
no, but this is very much age of chivalry, just
37:27
with modern weapons. That's so nice. Yeah, so
37:31
anyway, so the Germans would surface, they would
37:34
let them know. Also, the German subs had deck
37:37
guns, so it's like, oh, you think you're going
37:39
to do something fun? We're not just going to
37:41
use the torpedo. Okay, so keeping on because
37:43
I'm running out of time here. Okay, now, May
37:48
1915, the Germans do what's called unrestricted
37:50
submarine warfare, which means they will fire
37:53
on anyone who's got the other guy's flag without
37:55
warning. That really upset people. Okay, so May
38:00
7, 1915, the Lusitania, which is a passenger
38:05
ship, is sunk without warning by the German U
38:09
-boats. September 1915, the Arabic is also sunk.
38:12
And so now the United States is thinking, wait,
38:15
wait, American citizens are dying on the high
38:18
seas. We may want to take some preparations.
38:21
And so there's a Revenue Act in 1916. which raises
38:26
the tax rate to all of 2%, and there's a 12 .5
38:30
% tax on munitions. 1916 runs for re -election
38:34
on a campaign to keep the U .S. out of this world
38:37
war. He makes a narrow win against Evan Hughes.
38:41
In his second term, Germany resumes unrestricted
38:46
submarine warfare January 1917. February of 1917,
38:50
the U .S. severs diplomatic ties. Here's where
38:52
it gets interesting. Don't go away for this.
38:55
In March of 1917, a communication between the
39:00
German government and Mexico is intercepted.
39:04
Basically, the German government urges Mexico
39:08
to attack the United States if it should declare
39:12
war on Germany. So now, all of a sudden, the
39:15
war over there is where? Over here. Five U .S.
39:20
ships are then sunk off the English coast, and
39:23
in April 4th, 1917, the United States declares
39:27
war on Germany. So if I look at the causes of
39:32
America's intervention in the war, you have resumption
39:38
of unrestricted submarine warfare, threatening
39:40
American commerce and American nationalism, but
39:43
the straw that broke the camel's back was...
39:46
The idea that a foreign government would attack
39:49
the United States on its southern border.