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This is a narrative history podcast that will cover the entire history of the First World War, from the geopolitical and cultural setup to the war in 19th century, all the way to the Treaty of Versailles which officially ended the war in 1919.
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Happy (late...) Halloween!Sources: Hart, Peter. The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.Herwig, Holger H. The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary 1914-1918, Second Edition. London: Bloomsbury, 2014.Keegan, John. The First World War. New York: Vintage Books, 1998.Marshall, Samuel Lyman Atwood. World War I. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.Meyer, G.J. A World Undone: The Story of the Great War 1914-1918. New York: Bantam Dell, ...
The climactic showdown of the First Battle of the Marne now comes to a decisive, bloody end.Please feel free to visit our sponsor, the WYLD Gallery!IMAGES FOR TODAY'S EPISODESources: Churchill, Winston. The World Crisis: Vol. I. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1923.Hart, Peter. The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.Herwig, Holger H. The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary 1914-1918, Second Edition. London: Bloomsbury, 20...
“Now, as the battle is joined on which the safety of the country depends, everyone must be reminded that this is no longer the time for looking back. Every effort must be made to attack and throw back the enemy. A unit which finds it impossible to advance must, regardless of the cost, hold its ground and be killed on the spot rather than fall back. In the present circumstances no failure will be tolerated.”Sources: Brose, Eric Dorn. A History of the Great War: World War One and the Inter...
We return to the narrative on the Western Front, to see how the French and British will plan their last desperate attempt to halt the German advance on Paris at the beginning of September, 1914.IMAGES FOR TODAY'S EPISODESources: Hart, Peter. The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.Keegan, John. The First World War. New York: Vintage Books, 1998.Meyer, G.J. A World Undone: The Story of the Great War 1914-1918. New York: Bantam Dell, 20...
In the course of less than a week, the Russians went from looking like they could take Berlin at their leisure to having half their invasion wiped out, with the other half falling back in panic. Now Hindenburg and Ludendorff turn their army against the Russian forces still in German territory to kick them out once and for all.IMAGES FOR TODAY'S EPISODESources:Buttar, Pritt. Collision of Empires: The War on the Eastern Front in 1914. Oxford, Osprey Publishing, 2014.Gozdawa Turczynowicz, Laura ...
Today we discuss one of the most pivotal battles of the First World War: the Battle of Tannenberg, as well as explore the personalities of and relationship between the rising team of Hindenburg and Ludendorff.IMAGES FOR TODAY'S EPISODESources:Hart, Peter. The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.Meyer, G.J. A World Undone: The Story of the Great War 1914-1918. New York: Bantam Dell, 2006.Tuchman, Barbara. The Guns of August. New York: The R...
Today, we watch as the Russian and German Armies on the Eastern Front begin to dance around one another in 1914, upon a land that had seen wars between these two peoples for centuries, in anticipation for the great climactic showdown that may very well determine the fate of the entire war.IMAGES FOR TODAY'S EPISODESources:Cartwright, Mark. Northern Crusades. https://www.ancient.eu/Northern_Crusades/Hart, Peter. The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War. Oxford: Oxford University ...
Today we take a look at the men who will lead the Russian Army at the outbreak of the First World War, as well as the Czar to whom they owed their allegiance. Long story short...they're not exactly the best and the brightest.Sources:Hart, Peter. The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.Meyer, G.J. A World Undone: The Story of the Great War 1914-1918. New York: Bantam Dell, 2006.Tuchman, Barbara. The Guns of August. New York: The Random Hous...
Welcome back! Today we watch the Allied Armies stumble back from their defeats of August, 1914, as they try to figure out how in the hell they can turn back the German advance on Paris.Sources:Hart, Peter. The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.Meyer, G.J. A World Undone: The Story of the Great War 1914-1918. New York: Bantam Dell, 2006.Tuchman, Barbara. The Guns of August. New York: The Random House Publishing Group, 1962.Horne, John N. ...
Listen as today the Germans march through Belgium, making...rather a mess of things for the civilians, while the British try to stop them.MAP FOR TODAY'S EPISODESources:Hart, Peter. The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.Meyer, G.J. A World Undone: The Story of the Great War 1914-1918. New York: Bantam Dell, 2006.Tuchman, Barbara. The Guns of August. New York: The Random House Publishing Group, 1962.Davis, Richard Harding. With the Allies...
As the war breaks out in earnest along the Western Front, French generals will be taught a bitter lesson about modern combat, paid for with the lives of thousands of their men.IMAGES FOR TODAY'S EPISODE.Sources:Doughty, Robert. Pyrrhic Victory: French Strategy and Operations in the Great War. Boston: Harvard University Press, 2009.Hart, Peter. The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.Meyer, G.J. A World Undone: The Story of the Great War 19...
A group of chocolate soldiers decide to humble the mighty German Army.IMAGES FOR TODAY'S EPISODESources:Doughty, Robert. Pyrrhic Victory: French Strategy and Operations in the Great War. Boston: Harvard University Press, 2009.Hart, Peter. The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.Horne, Charles F. Source Records of the Great War. Boston: Stuart-Copley Press, 1923.Meyer, G.J. A World Undone: The Story of the Great War 1914-1918. New York: Ban...
Boy, Europe sure had a lot of enormous armies in 1914, didn't they?IMAGES FOR TODAY'S EPISODESources:Davis, Tenney L. The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives. Boston: MIT Press, 1941.Hart, Peter. The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.Nosworthy, Brent The Battle Tactics of Napoleon and his Enemies. London: Constable, 1997.Westwell, Ian. An Illustrated History of the Weapons of World War One. Leicestershire: Anness Publishing, 2011.Willmott...
Damned are the peacemakers; for they shall doom the world to Armageddon.Sources:Tuchman, Barbara. The Guns of August. New York: The Random House Publishing Group, 1962.Gordon, Hal. The Fallen Monarch: Remembering Tsar Nicholas II. Highbrow Magazine, 2017. https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/7472-fallen-monarch-remembering-tsar-nicholas-iiManning, Scott. The Treaty of London, 1839: The Complete Text. https://scottmanning.com/content/treaty-of-london-1839/Schlieffen, Alfred von. The Schlieffen Pla...
1"The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."Portraits of the Players in the July Crisis.Sources:Clark, Christopher. The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914. New York: Harper Collins, 2012.Fischer, Fritz. Germany’s Aims in the First World War. English Translation: London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1967 (originally published in German, 1961).Grey, Sir Edward. Twenty-Five Years: 1892-1916, Vol. 1. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1925.Keiger,...
Boy, I sure do hope Austria-Hungary doesn't use the murder of their prince and princess to do something ridiculously aggressive and provocative.Sources:Clark, Christopher. The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914. New York: Harper Collins, 2012.Fischer, Fritz. Germany’s Aims in the First World War. English Translation: London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1967 (originally published in German, 1961).Keiger, J.F.V. Raymond Poincaré.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.Macmillan, Ma...
The heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary has been murdered. I sure do hope that nobody in Vienna or Berlin overreacts to this.Sources:Clark, Christopher. The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914. New York: Harper Collins, 2012.Fischer, Fritz. Germany’s Aims in the First World War. English Translation: London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1967 (originally published in German, 1961).Macmillan, Margaret. The War that Ended Peace. New York: Random House, 2013.Neiberg, Michael. Dance of the...
Today we cover what is probably the most famous assassination in history: the assassination of Archduke Franz FerdinandEmail: seminalcatastrophe@gmail.comIMAGES FOR TODAY'S EPISODESources:Macmillan, Margaret. The War that Ended Peace. New York: Random House, 2013.Neiberg, Michael. Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of World War I. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2011.Otte, Thomas G. The July Crisis: The World’s Descent into War, Summer 1914. Cambridge, UK: Cambri...
Today we discuss the history of 19th century European colonialism.IMAGES FOR TODAY'S EPISODEPatreon PageEmail: seminalcatastrophe@gmail.comSources:Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt Inc., 1968.Baumslag, Naomi. Murderous Medicine: Nazi Doctors, Human Experimentation, and Typhus. Westport, CT.: Praeger Publishers, 2005.Crankshaw, Edward. Bismarck. New York: The Viking Press, 1981.Greenlee, James and Charles Johnston. Good Citizens: British Missionaries & Impe...
Between 1871 and 1914, the Great Powers of Europe took a short break from trying to kill one another. Let's take a look at what they did to occupy themselves in the meantime, shall we?IMAGES FOR TODAY'S EPISODESources:Anderson, Margaret Lavinia. Practicing Democracy: Elections and Political Culture in Imperial Germany. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000.Cecil, Lamar. Wilhelm II, Volume 1: Prince and Emperor, 1859-1900. North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Pres...
Today we discuss the monumental clash between France and the German states in 1870 known as the Franco-Prussian War.IMAGES FOR TODAY'S EPISODESourcesClodfelter, Michael. Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures, 1492-2015, 4th ed. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2017.Crankshaw, Edward. Bismarck. New York: The Viking Press, 1981.Wawro, Geoffrey. The Franco-Prussian War: The German Conquest of France in 1870-1871. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003...
In the first supplemental of this series, today we take a look at the makeup, technology, and tactics of European armies roundabout 1870, at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War.IMAGES FOR TODAY'S EPISODESourcesGriffith, Paddy. Battle Tactics of the Civil War. U.S.: Yale University Press, 1989.Nosworthy, Brent The Battle Tactics of Napoleon and his Enemies. London: Constable, 1997.Wawro, Geoffrey. The Franco-Prussian War: The German Conquest of France in 1870-1871. New York: Cambridge Univ...
Today we discuss how and why a misread telegram will spark the most important war of the 19th century.MAPS FOR TODAY'S EPISODESources:Anderson, Frank Maloy. The Constitutions and Other Select Documents Illustrative of the History of France: 1789-1901. Minneapolis: The H.W. Wilson Company. 1904. (pages 544 and 559)Celestin, Roger and Eliane Dalmolin. France from 1851 to the Present: Universalism in Crisis. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.Crankshaw, Edward. Bismarck. New York: The Viking Pre...
This week we close our mini-saga on the Revolutions of 1848. Will the Springtime of the Peoples blossom into a flower of democracy, or be smothered by the winter of absolutism? Let's find out together, shall we?Sources:Rapport, Michael. 1848: Year of Revolution. New York: Basic Books, 2010.Schjerve, Rosita Rindler. Diglossia and Power: Language Policies and Practice in the 19th Century Habsburg Empire.Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2003.A 12 pont, avagy „Mit kíván a magyar nemzet. https://marcius...
Today, the Revolutions of 1848 begin in earnest. When people in Europe find out about the Revolution in France, everyone else will decide that they want to join in the fun.PICTURE FOR TODAY'S EPISODESources:Leipzig Correspondent. "Foreign Correspondence." The Economist. Volume VI, 1848. Marx, Karl. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Napoleon Bonaparte. London: 1869. Translated by Saul K. Padover. Molnár, Miklós. A Concise History of Hungary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Tra...
Starving people and angry soldiers had a thing or two to say about the government in France.PICTURE FOR TODAY'S EPISODESources:Coogan, Tim Pat. The Famine Plot: England’s Role in Ireland’s Greatest Tragedy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.Fortescue, William. France and 1848: The End of the Monarchy. New York: Taylor and Francis, 2005.Jenkins, David. From Unwritten to Written: Transformation in the British Common Law Constitution. Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, Vol. 36, Issue 863....
In 1815, Europe was dominated politically and militarily by five "Great Powers." In 1914, Europe would still be dominated by essentially these same great powers, who would launch the First World War. Who were these powers? What was their history, their culture, the political framework? Today, we take a look at these questions.PICTURES FOR TODAY'S EPISODESources:Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism.Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalita...
Today we discuss the diplomatic summit that was convened in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars to redraw the map of Europe. Will this Congress of Vienna solve all the problems it came to solve? Will it just screw things up and make everything worse? Is it actually really complicated? Let's find out together!Sources:Duke of Wellington, Field Marshall Arthur. Supplementary Despatches, Correspondence, and Memoranda of Field Marshall Arthur Duke of Wellington, K.G., Volume the Ninth (April, 181...
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This episode concludes our two week digression from the narrative. In it, we discuss some basic, fundamental military concepts and theories that have existed and been refined for millennia.NEW PAGE ON THE WEBSITESourcesClausewitz, Carl von. On War (Third Edition). London: N. Trübner & Co., 1873.Councell, Clara E. War and Infectious Disease. Public Health Reports Vol. 56, No. 12, March 21, 1941.Dodge, Ayrault Theodore. Alexander: A History of the Origin and Growth of the Art of War. Boston...
Instead of plowing ahead with the narrative, for the next couple weeks we're going to pull back and examine some fundamental concepts of military organization and practice. In this episode, we examine the unit structure and rank hierarchy of the Armies of the First World War.NEW PAGE ON WEBSITESourcesSteuben, Baron von. Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States. Boston: Thomas and Andrews, 1792.Boff, Jonathan. Military Structures and Ranks. British Museum, 20...
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