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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/p8l5a2/was_there_anyone_in_europe_and_america_during_the/ | p8l5a2 | 4 | t3_p8l5a2 | Was there anyone in Europe and America during the Industrial Revolution who went back to nature to live off the land? | My history is terrible so sorry if this question doesn't make sense. During the Industrial Revolution in Britain and the Americas when there were terrible working conditions did anyone go back to nature to live off the land instead of submitting themselves to horrible conditions? | 1 | 0.57 | null | false | 1,629,520,726 | [
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"body": "Not terribly certain about \"going back to,\" but I can certainly say that Argentina definitely had a rough time after the early 1900's. \n\nTheir logic was, \"Why spend lots of money on stuff that might not work, rather than just pouring out cash cows that have always worked for centuries?\" Turns out, because that stuff *did* work.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/37xksx/how_accepted_is_the_theory_that_most_humans/ | 37xksx | 122 | t3_37xksx | How accepted is the theory that most humans practiced "segmented sleep" prior to the Industrial Revolution? | This page seems to suggest that one historian has proposed this, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep, but is this the consensus among historians? Would, say, Lincoln have slept in segments? | 1,427 | 0.95 | null | false | 1,433,052,616 | [
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"body": "Follow-up: if segmented sleep is accepted, has their been any studies or theories about how it differed between people in different latitudes? My pre-industrial ancestors here in Finland had much different natural light patterns than someone in North Africa, for example.",
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"body": "It's the accepted view. When they was very little artificial light you were dictated by the hours of sunlight available to you. Until the modern era people \"on most evening experienced *two major intervals of sleep* bridged by up yo an hour or more of wakefulness\", getting up and doing an hour or twos work, socialising, having sex, drinking, etc, etc. There are diary extracts, contemporary novels talk about them, and wood carvings about them. Willaim Harrison, in his mid-16^th century *Description of England* referred to \"the dull or dead of night, which is midnight, when men be in their first or dead sleep.\"\n\n Not only was sleep segmented, \"napping during the day appears to have been common, with sleep less confined to nocturnal hours than it is in Western Societies today\".\n\nWhen modern lighting was invented the enormous physiological impact of it - and it's absence - was widely agreed upon by contemporary scientists. Charles A. Czeisler, chronobiologist, commented \"we are inadvertently taking a drug that affects how we sleep\". \n\nIn regards to the the theory that the industrial revolution put an end to segmented sleep, we can see that artificial lighting was indeed to blame because of how it decreased in frequency among the upper classes first as \"there was a shortage of artificial lighting... [that] feel hardest on the lower and middle classes.\" Tallow candles were an expense that many could not afford too regularly. This class divide becomes increasingly evident by the late 17th century \"when both artificial lighting and the voge *late hour* grew more prevalent among affluent households\" and saw the death of their second sleep. \n\nA.R. Ekirch wrote an article in the *American Historical Review* April 2001, called **\"Sleep we have lost: Pre-Industrial Slumber in the British Isles\"** and it is a great read for this topic. ",
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"body": "You might be interested in a previous answer I wrote about [polyphasic sleep among modern Amazonian foragers](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2mylim/how_did_nomadic_tribes_deal_with_crying/cm94l00). \n\nUnfortunately, there has not been a tremendous volume of work conducted on the anthropology/ecology of sleep. [Carol Worthman's work](http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2003-04411-006) might be your best bet for more information, but I don't know if she has published much recently. Also, check out this [Discover article](http://discovermagazine.com/2007/dec/sleeping-like-a-hunter-gatherer) for a brief overview of cultural variation in sleep patterns, specifically modern foragers. ",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2ti7yb/a_historian_called_eve_fisher_has_calculated_that/ | 2ti7yb | 277 | t3_2ti7yb | A historian called Eve Fisher has calculated that before 1750 and the onset of the industrial revolution a shirt would have cost around £2,000 in today's money. Is this statement true? | Quote inside an article - [BBC.com - Viewpoint: The hazards of too much stuff ](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30849473)
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"body": "Hi, I'm historian Eve Fisher, and I did indeed say this. Actually, it's based on hours of labor, multiplied by the minimum wage. Here's how it works: to sew a shirt with long sleeves, yoke, wristbands, collar, all hemmed and finished inside and out - to sew this by hand would take about 7 hours. But you have to get or make the cloth. Weaving a shirt like this would take about 4 yards of cloth, and it would be a fine weave: the Knoxville Museum of Art estimates two inches an hour. So 4(yards)*36(inches)/2 = 72 hours. Spinning the thread for all that cloth would take about 400 hours. That adds up to 479 hours, multiply that by minimum wage, and it actually adds up to $3,472.75, or about 2,200 pounds. See this article for a complete breakdown of the figures: http://www.sleuthsayers.org/2013/06/the-3500-shirt-history-lesson-in.html ",
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"body": "A man's shirt for most of history until the mid 19th century takes 10-40 hours on average to construct depending on the quality of the fabric. It also requires about two yards of fabric for construction and minimal enough supplies to not need to be counted. These shirts are easily constructed by unskilled labor, since they are nothing but squares and rectangles. By the 18th century they're mass produced in warehouses and sold by the 6 or 12. The pay for unskilled labor is relatively low compared to the \"middle class\" of tradespeople. So, even for the lower sort, a shirt is 1-3 days of pay (12-14 hour days) and they're probably going with the coarser shirt at about 1 days pay. For merchants, tradesmen, or anyone with a trained skill it would be much less. If someone is so poor as to not be able to afford that, the church in many areas provides the basic garments like that. It can be made in the home, being of simple shapes, but the 10 hours to make a course one is usually better spent earning money.",
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"body": "If we paid everyone involved in the process of making a shirt today a living wage, how much would it cost? (Serious question)",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1id83b/how_far_away_was_the_roman_empire_from_an/ | 1id83b | 156 | t3_1id83b | How far away was the Roman Empire from an Industrial Revolution? | Something along the lines of discovering and implementing practical uses for coal and gas, similar to Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries.
EDIT: a word | 510 | 0.93 | null | false | 1,373,923,441 | [
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"body": "Hi Basskicker,\n\nThe technologies needed to develop the machinery necessary for the initial rounds of the Industrial revolution were nowhere near the capabilities of the Roman Empire (steam engines, etc.), their demographic breakdown (urban/rural) was not conducive to Industrialization (you would have needed an Agricultural Revolution first, to free up rural labor), and (most importantly), their \"frame of mind\" (so to speak) was completely different than the one in North Western Europe almost 2000 years later-- that is, the way they conceived of space, efficiency, leisure, labor, productivity, etc were completely different to those in England in the 1750s.\n\nSo, I'd guess-- pretty far?\nHope this helps!",
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"body": "The biggest roadblocks to the industrial revolution in every culture that was advanced throughout history have always tended to be socio-cultural and economic rather than strictly technological.\n\nScience and technology are so potent because they are feedback loops (on each other as well). A single scientific discovery lays the groundwork for additional scientific discoveries, and it's an accelerating process. And a single technological advance lays the groundwork for additional advances. For example, gains in the ability to do metalwork translate directly into the ability to make geared machines and a host of other inventions. And the steam engine enabled everything from railroads to steam driven ships to lumber yards and so forth.\n\nBut all of this is meaningless independent of the human element. Human beings need to have the ability and motivation to learn, experiment, and tinker. And in order for there to be a critical mass of scientists and inventors you need to have some sort of socio-cultural and/or economic value placed on those activities. In many ancient societies it was very difficult to rise to power except through land ownership and collecting passive income (through rent or taxation). Because of the limitations of trade it was difficult, if not impossible, to make a significant fortune off of inventions. This created a separation between the folks with wealth and power and craftspeople who made things and worked with their hands, and a general desire for those at the \"bottom\" who gained wealth to simply become idle upon doing so.\n\nTrade was a difficult and very indirect industry then. It's important to remember that most major inventions need to go through several cycles of refinement in order to come into their own. So inventors without a patron were pretty much unable to be rewarded for their work, and many inventions were stalled from being refined into things that were actually of practical benefit. Moreover, because of the nature of society people with intelligence and ambition had no desire to invent or discover, and instead focused their sights on becoming wealthy and powerful through conventional means (politics, warfare, land ownership, etc.) These both put a huge roadblock in the feedback loop of science and technology, making progress far slower than it could have been.\n\nIf you look at history prior to about 1500 you'll see that almost all discoveries in science and technology that weren't merely iterations of things that were already omnipresent and of practical use (like, say, manufacture of better swords) came about due to systems of patronage. Either government sponsorship (such as the Mayan study of astronomy) or the wealthy taking an interest in art or curiosities (such as Da Vinci, Archimedes, or Eratosthenes). And in a few rare cases there are examples of wealthy individuals who took an interest in science or technology.\n\nIt wasn't until the late renaissance in Europe where population and agricultural surplus (and wealth) had risen to a sufficient level to where it was possible for a great many people to work as craftspersons and where it was possible for people selling *things* could rise to significant levels of wealth as well as social status. Once it was possible for a critical mass of scientists and inventors to exist then you get that positive feedback loop which creates runaway progress.\n\nBut it didn't come easy. There was a lot of resistance to the social and economic changes that paved the way for the industrial revolution, and not just in the extreme cases such as the Catholic Church fighting against Galileo and his astronomical discoveries. But it was difficult for European society to change from a mode of basically everyone sharing the same beliefs, assumptions, and knowledge of the world (at least publicly) to a \"marketplace of ideas\" sort of world where people discussed, reasoned about, interrogated, and experimented with every aspect of the world and the relationship of mankind to it. In many ways the culture shock of that transition was far greater than of the more recent transition around the turn of the 20th century to electric lighting, indoor plumbing, automobiles, air travel and so forth.\n\nEventually the idea that inventions could have short-term value became well understood and more and more people chose to be inventors and more and more people chose to spend their personal fortunes (or to try convincing others to spend theirs) pursuing scientific advances. The Wright Brothers are perhaps the best example of this. They started with a print shop then switched to the bicycle business, building up a fair amount of wealth along the way. Then they decided to tackle the problem of heavier than air flight and they approached it in a very scientific manner, building the first ever wind tunnels and making many discoveries in aerodynamics. Then they used the best materials and equipment available to iteratively develop an airplane, building first a series of gliders then a series of powered airplanes until they finally built practical aircraft.\n\nThis is an interesting case study because they had no patron, they used only their own funds, and it took about a decade of work to go from starting to work on flight to actually producing aircraft which the world universally agreed were practical and useful. Imagine that series of events occurring in any pre-industrial society, whether ancient Rome or Greece or China or the Caliphate. Firstly it would be difficult for ordinary craftsmen to attain enough wealth to effectively retire for a decade, secondly only the most eccentric persons would spend a decade toiling in obscurity on an invention that may not even pan out. Rather than simply dumping their wealth into buying land and then living a life of high status luxury. It's possible that there are some ancient examples of this sort of thing happening but during the industrial revolution there were a great many.",
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"body": "Something not mentioned by the other posters -\n\nThe Romans did not possess the printing press.\n\nIn my view the printing press was instrumental to all subsequent technological and scientific revolutions (and many other things too) because it allowed scientific and technological information to be widely disseminated cheaply. Additionally, the larger amount and lower cost of written material improved the utility of literacy to many people leading to much higher literacy rates and much broader consumption of all forms of information. \n\nThe ferment of ideas and the evolving international discussion brought on by the printing press launched science and technology forward and made the steam engine, etc. possible.\n\nA question I do not know the answer to - Where there any technological obstacles to the effective realization of a printing press by the Romans or did they just not think of it?",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/mzrt0c/why_the_industrial_revolution_and_renaissance/ | mzrt0c | 2 | t3_mzrt0c | Why the Industrial revolution and Renaissance happened in Europe and not in Asia? | 6 | 1 | null | false | 1,619,539,454 | [
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"body": "​\n\nYou can check out this answer from the FAQ...\n\n [Why did European powers, in particular, start dominating and developing at a rate which other powers of the time (Ottoman Empire, Ming Dynasty in China, Saffavids in Persia and the Moghul Empire in India) could barely keep up with?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1pzf28/why_did_european_powers_in_particular_start/cd7n7j1?context=3) by [*/u/profrhodes*](https://www.reddit.com/u/profrhodes) \n\n...but unfortunately, the answer to your question will be a deeply unsatisfying, \"Because that's where it happened.\"",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/bdv5mc/did_the_people_of_the_18th_and_19th_centuries/ | bdv5mc | 15 | t3_bdv5mc | Did the people of the 18th and 19th centuries realize that they were living through the "Industrial Revolution" and understand the enormity of what was happening as it happened? | 190 | 0.95 | null | false | 1,555,428,022 | [
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"body": "My main focus in my research is the British Victorian age, so that is what I will draw from. For the Victorians, not only were they aware of the massive changes going on around them, for many it was the defining characteristic of their age. Some heralded it, some cursed it, some saw it as inevitable. \"Progress\" was one of the watchwords of the era. In 1833, now Edward Bulwer Lytton (now remembered for having written what is called the worst first line of all time) wrote \"Every age must be called an age of transition - the passing-on, as it were, from one state to another never ceases; but in our age the transition is *visible*.\" The tremendous changes in technology and lifestyle was accompanied by huge population shifts. Between 1801 and 1901, the population went from about 9 million to 41 million. London went from 1 million to 6.2 million.\n\nI can't overstate just how different city life was from what people had experienced before, and the Victorians documented it widely. Compassion and shock at the deplorable conditions in the cities was widespread, and efforts to alleviate some of the suffering occurred throughout the century. City slums were unspeakably filthy (with open cesspools, vermin-infested, and covered in animal droppings), and immensely overcrowded. There were high levels of prostitution, dangerous both for sex workers and their clients because of violence and disease, including the dreaded syphilis. Alcoholism and neglect were rampant, to the point that some people called baby farmers made a living being paid to raise other people's babies. One thing about the Victorians is that not only did they recognize these things, they worked to stop them. Charity societies, led especially by middle-class women, brought both religion and alms to the slums, though this coincided with \"slum tourism\" of people from privileged classes being shown around the worst parts of London the way people visited zoos.\n\nEnglish physician John Snow was horrified by the death toll of cholera in London, and he recognized that contemporary science knew nothing about the source of the illness, so he took it on himself to take voluminous notes on who was dying where. This allowed him to pinpoint some of the sources of disease, even down to an individual communal water pump (he famously removed the handle of the Broad Street water pump to stop people using it). Unfortunately, the general scientific consensus at the time was that \"bad air\" (miasma) caused disease, and not much was done on a broader level. The Great Stink of 1858, when hot weather combined with the waste in the city and Thames, finally led to a massive overhaul of the waste water systems of the city, helmed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette, that created much of the modern London sewerage system and drastically lowered the incidents of disease. This might seem like a small story, but it shows three key things to understanding the Victorian attitude towards their own age: the rise in horrible conditions caused by changes, the recognition and study of these, and large-scale steps taken to address them.\n\nIn some ways, factories allowed for high levels of employment and a regular wage, causing unprecedented opportunities for women to be independent and have a steady income. I won't go into too much detail about this, but the effects of factory work on people also caused a lot of outrage and demands for change. Newspapers carried stories of children whose bodies were mutilated by the machines they worked around, such as steam-powered looms that children would have to crawl inside of to clean out discarded material even while the machine was running. Long hours and cramped conditions led to permanent disfigurement, such as twisted spines, stunted growth, and cardiovascular problems from breathing in particles. Labor reform and child labor laws were put in place to try to control this.\n\nAccording to David Newsome in *The Victorian World Picture,* the Victorians were very much aware that they were living in an age of massive change in economics, politics, technology, religion, culture, and society. A series of Reform Acts through the 19th century extended the right to vote from just the most privileged to all adult men, transforming the political landscape. The overthrow of Napoleon at Waterloo meant that Britain was the unrivaled power in Europe, though the rise of first Russia and later a unified Germany later in the 19th century would come to challenge this. The British struggle with Russia, especially over influence in India, would define much of their foreign policy, including the Crimean War of 1853-1856. The widespread colonies gave Britain unprecedented global influence, and the abuses and famines of the colonies were news and topics of debate throughout Britain. The other poster briefly touched on Karl Marx, and it's worth emphasizing that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels gained much of their experience upon which they founded their theories in Victorian London. Ideas of race, class, and gender were widely debated (largely, but not exclusively, by university-educated white men). Charles Darwin's theories caused a profound shock to traditional notions of what humanity is and its place in the universe, and a decline in traditional churchgoing religion also saw an upsurge in interest in reformism and spiritualism.\n\nPerhaps no event quite captures the spirit of the early Victorian age like the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park. The brainchild of Prince Albert, himself personally responsible for encouraging technology and trade in many ways, the exhibition was a combination of demonstrating the latest technologies and showing the vast range of products available through the trade steam power and naval domination allowed. Countries from all over the world sent products to be displayed, and the whole exhibition occurred under a huge ~~steel~~iron-and-glass structure enclosing even full-grown trees. Among the items exhibited were the electric telegraph, the first modern toilets, and the huge Koh-i-Noor diamond, symbolic of British domination of India. Demonstrating typically Victorian attitudes towards both making things available to everyone and separating the classes, some days the tickets were one shilling and others as much as five. If you could pay it, you could avoid rubbing elbows with the working classes, but other days you could come see the most cutting-edge technology and products from around the world for an affordable fee. It's worth quoting Prince Albert's words at the opening of the exhibition at length. Note not only his pride in technological changes but also in the continued separation of people into classes, one of the bedrocks of Victorian society:\n\n>I conceive it to be the duty of every educated person closely to watch and study the time in which he lives.... Nobody... who has paid any attention to the peculiar features of our present era, will doubt for a moment that we are living at a period of most wonderful transition, which tends rapidly to accomplish that great end, to which, indeed, all history points — the realisation of the unity of mankind. Not a unity which breaks down the limits and levels the peculiar characteristics of the different nations of the earth, but rather a unity, the result and product of those very national varieties and antagonistic qualities. \n \n>The distances which separated the different nations and parts of the globe are rapidly vanishing before the achievements of modern invention, and we can traverse them with incredible ease; ... thought is communicated with the rapidity, and even by the power, of lightning. On the other hand, the great principle of division of labour, which may be called the moving power of civilisation, is being extended to all branches of science, industry, and art. \n \n>... [W]hilst formerly discovery was wrapt in secrecy, the publicity of the present day causes that no sooner is a discovery or invention made than it is already improved upon and surpassed by competing efforts. The products of all quarters of the globe are placed at our disposal, and we have only to choose which is the best and the cheapest for our purposes...\n\n>So man is approaching a more complete fulfilment of that great and sacred mission which he has to perform in this world. His reason being created after the image of God, he has to use it to discover the laws by which the Almighty governs His creation, and, by making these laws his standard of action, to conquer nature to his use; himself a divine instrument. \n\nI will close briefly by writing that, by the end of the century, the optimism and hunger for new technologies, new colonies, and new ideas that had marked the Great Exhibition had largely worn out. There is a parallel nostalgia for the past that can be found throughout the Victorian period, from the longing for idyllic nature to the love of history and stories of old, such as King Arthur, seen nowhere more than in the works of the poet Lord Tennyson. The sense that the period of greatness was coming to a close pervaded the 1880s and 1890s, when a series of economic depressions, the rise of Germany and Russia, and the setbacks and horror of the Boer Wars contributed to a sense that Britain was in decline. Some of this was expressed in the Decadent movement, as fashionable young people such as Oscar Wilde replaced the earnestness of the past with ironic detachment. To some degree, however, people still believed the British society in particular and humanity in general was progressing towards a better, brighter future. It has been said that, in many ways, the Victorian faith in progress was finally shattered in the trenches of First World War.\n\nI hope that answered some of your question. Yes, this was a topic of massive public conversation and debate. If you have follow-up questions, I hope I can answer those, too!",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/f6aair/why_did_the_industrial_revolution_happen_so_late/ | f6aair | 8 | t3_f6aair | Why did the industrial revolution happen so late in civilization? | Why did it take so long for civilized people to mechanically industrialize. I mean the great ancient civilizations had copper, gold and iron, and most had a class of scholars and inventors. Why did it take so long for humans to harness electricity and start building machines? What kept mankind from making earlier breakthroughs? | 27 | 0.92 | null | false | 1,582,116,897 | [
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"body": "Lots of reasons. I'd start by asking **\"Why not later?\"** in return, because if we start by just focusing on the first industrial revolution, then what most (reasonable) literature^1 will agree on is that it's all pretty complicated, and the conditions in which it occurred were quite special. Nobody is 100% sure *which* of the conditions it happened in are actually causes and which are non-causal (correlations), and to what extent. But some of things often credited (correct or not) for the first industrial revolution are: \n\n*The laissez-fair government attitude in Britain, other government policies, the well-developed academia, the scientific method, the international trade and competition, war, geography and deposit locations, agricultural innovation, dependence of an island nation on agricultural imports, colonization/exploitation, urbanization and overall population level, religion, culture and other social aspects, and last but not least the actual hard/physical technology already present*. \n\nAnd that's just what I can think of of the top of my head; there's more. Of these colonization is -I think- the most disputed topic. There's historians who argue that the colonial empire was crucial for allowing Britain to develop new industries by through things like amassing capital and relieving the island of certain production burdens, and on the other extreme there's historians who argue that the use of underdeveloped, low productivity lands actually inhibited industrial development as well as being an enormous burden on the government. We'll probably never be able to put into numbers how much of a cause any of these were, but that's okay because it's history, and the situation was completely unique and it's never going to happen again. There's plenty of patterns that can still be discerned or argued for.\n\nSo there was a *very large foundation* for the first industrial revolution to happen. And this foundation had been centuries in the building. And this is the pivot of the answer to all your questions I think. The industrial revolution is called that: a \"revolution\", yes. And it was revolutionary. But the 16th and 17th century before it hadn't exactly been static either, nor had the middle ages or the ever-depreciated dark ages!^2\n\nSo what was required and why didn't the ancients *just do it*? Well, for many reasons: For one, the oft-mentioned trade institutions were completely undeveloped in ancient Rome and Greece as compared to the 18th century. This includes not just to trade laws and tariffs, but also to crucial banking and credit methods that just *did not exist* at the time and wouldn't exist for over a millennium. The 'soft' inventions of investments, lending, stock exchanges, insurances et cetera has made a huge impact on how production was done and how both companies and countries could function and grow. Most of these institutions precede the revolution by quite some time, as pretty enormous companies and factories were already established all over Europe long before the first train rode. \n\nI deliberately say *factories*, because that's what the large textile plants and extensive ironworks by all means were. What comes to mind with the word 'factory' nowadays might be a giant reinforced concrete hall with a very tall roof, lots of conveyor belts and immense work distribution. But that's really 20th century stuff. The factories that arose at the end of the 18th century weren't immediately all *that* different from what was already present, which were the many industries that had been slowly but quite steadily increasing the productivity and raw output of each worker over the decades. Distribution of work and mass production had not really been properly applied up to the industrial revolution, but they weren't applied much in most of the 19th century either. The same can be said for myriad measures that we associate with industrial production now and seem obvious to us, but had to be *developed* over time then.\n\nI'd like to focus more on the mechanical/physical aspect of the industrialization and machinery, because I like it more, and because you also basically asked why they didn't *\"just mechanize already, with the iron and copper they had\"*. Well, put simply, it's because there's a couple hurdles:\n\n1. **Building it**. You need **much** more than basic iron working to build a practical steam engine, or other post-1800 industrial machinery.\n\n2. **Use.** Just having a practical steam engine, isn't all *that* useful on its own.\n\n3. **Maintenance.** A higher-tech industry requires a higher-tech industry to support it.\n\nTo start with #1, it just so happens that /u/half3clipse [wrote a little on this last week](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/f4pijr/did_the_greeks_ever_use_their_steam_engines_for/fhw9d2n/). He mostly mentions the lack of theoretical basis for the design of a practical steam engine, but that's not even all there is to it. Ancient metallurgy was also *multiple steps* behind that of the Renaissance and beyond. It's ironic how the popular image of the Middle Ages is a knight in shiny full plate, and also that the Middle ages were more backwards and stagnant than the Classical period, yet this (late) plate armour was metallurgically vastly superior to what the best smithies in the Classical period could produce. Now it's not actually *impossible* to build some sort of low-pressure steam engine with shitty iron, but it's going to be less efficient, less durable, **much** less powerful for the same weight and size, and **more costly** if your society hasn't developed the smelting techniques that allowed iron and steel to become stronger and cheaper at the same time. All that alone is enough to practically ruin your chances, not so much of having such a machine invented, but rather especially of it being *used in a reliable and productive way*. \n\nPut differently: There was *nothing* literally stopping a hypothetical roman metalworker from grabbing a ton of iron, casting or shaping it into a set of rails and wheels, and produce a more energy-efficient transport system using a horse-pulled train to get iron ore from a mine to a smelter. Except... he'd be using iron that was horrendously expensive at the time, using many more work-hours per meter of track than an industrial worker in 1800 would, to produce at best a rails that wouldn't last for more than a couple days of use... and finally the actual economic gain/productivity increase of the mine-smelter complex would be so low that it's entirely conceivable that it wouldn't even make up for the investment of the material and man-hours. Even with the idea or execution there, there were no blast furnaces around, nor were the shaping techniques and tools to get it done in a profitable manner.\n\n#Part 2 below",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/g6em1l/weird_question_could_rome_have_entered_an/ | g6em1l | 7 | t3_g6em1l | Weird Question:- Could Rome have entered an industrial revolution | Hello, I’m an aspiring writer and I am working on a story to make into a movie.
It’s an alt history piece where Rome didn’t fall and discovered steam power.
Now it isn’t meant to be totally realistic, it’s more of a steampunk style.
I’m just wondering what could have realisticly lead to a steam powered Roman Empire, and if not possible what changes to the history could have.
Thank you for reading and I hope you will get to see the labor of your answers one day. | 21 | 0.78 | null | false | 1,587,608,835 | [
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"body": "Hi there. I think [this answer](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/f6aair/why_did_the_industrial_revolution_happen_so_late/) from u/LuxArdens is a fascinating write-up of why one *didn't* occur. You'd have to extrapolate quite a bit to portray how one *could*, but it might be possible within your criteria.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ev75xo/how_close_were_romans_and_greeks_to_the/ | ev75xo | 8 | t3_ev75xo | How close were Romans and Greeks to the Industrial Revolution? | 59 | 0.86 | null | false | 1,580,226,677 | [
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ml51mj/why_were_the_americas_so_underdeveloped_prior_to/ | ml51mj | 5 | t3_ml51mj | Why were the americas so underdeveloped prior to colonization compared to Europe? From the Spaniard’s accounts they barely passed the Stone Age meanwhile Europeans were almost to the industrial Revolution, why? | 0 | 0.44 | null | false | 1,617,689,381 | [
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"body": "I advise you to reframe your assumptions and consider [this section of the FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/nativeamerican), the first two sections of which are relevant. If I were to name 'barely passed the Stone Age' as 'problematic', I would be very, *very* charitable to your words.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ephij3/what_was_the_reason_for_frances_slow_population/ | ephij3 | 7 | t3_ephij3 | What was the reason for France's slow population growth in the Industrial Revolution? | I've always wondered how France, a country that during the 100 years war, was home to roughly the same amount of people as that of the HRE and one that vastly outmatched the English during this same time period could end up by WW1, with a population that was now not much bigger than England and now smaller than Germany. When I found these [statistics during the 19th century](https://dmorgan.web.wesleyan.edu/materials/population.htm) where France, in comparison to the other countries listed, had the lowest population growth. So why did France's population stagnate (in comparison to the rapid growth seen across an industrialising Europe) during this period? | 66 | 0.94 | null | false | 1,579,169,963 | [
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"body": "Indeed historians and demographers have long noted the sluggish performance of the land of joie de vivre. France's population rose by only 39% over the 19th century while all Europe's more than doubled, the country’s share of the European total (including the British Isles and European Russia) falling from over 15% to under a tenth, with French annual growth averaging only 0.33% against a European 0.78% (0.71% leaving out Russia). \n\nThe immediate cause is a halving of fertility (by the usual measure, children born per woman completing her childbearing span, at the age-specific rates prevailing at the time) resulting from a still more severe drop in marital fertility (children born per woman within marriage, likewise assuming contemporary age-specific rates), but the ultimate reason remains unclear. The marriage rate itself remained fairly normal at around 8 per thousand, and female age at marriage even fell from a fairly high early 18th-century average in excess of 26 to a spritelier 24 years by 1900. People were marrying and surviving at ages conducive to robust growth, but they just weren’t having the children to go with it. \n\nMortality remained at moderate levels, expectation of life closely following Britain’s and rising from around 39 years over most of the century to 47 at its end (against a world average of barely 31), a vast improvement over the terrible 28 years or so of the mid-18th century. But marital fertility plunged from the time of the Revolution, general fertility following at a more leisurely rate a decade or so later owing to a temporary rise in marriage in the 1790s. The crude birth rate halved from 38 per thousand c.1780 to 19 per thousand by 1913, barely above the death rate which fell from 34 to a healthier 18. One explanation has been seen in the Revolution's preference for partble inheritance in place of eldest-son-takes-all primogeniture, leading couples to limit births to prevent minute subdivision of holdings. That would matter in a still predominantly rural population where 19th-century urbanisation rose from 18% to just 40%, only half England's level. Wrigley sees fertility as having replaced nuptiality (fewer children per marriage, rather than fewer or later marriages) as the family limitation mechanism. \n\nA recent comparative treatment is Timothy W Guinnane, The historical fertility transition: a guide for economists, in *Journal of Economic Literature* 49:3 (2011): see also David R Weir, New estimates of nuptiality and marital fertility in France, 1740–1911, *Population Studies* 48:2 (1994), and EA Wrigley, The fall of marital fertility in nineteenth-century France: exemplar or exception? *European Journal of Population* 1:1 (1985). Jean Bourgeois-Pichat, Note sur l'evolution general de la population francaise depuis le XVIII siecle, *Population* 7:2 (1952) remains a valuable source of long-run movements, though some of the data (notably for the 18th century) have been revised by subsequent studies.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/llgr4q/1800s_fashion_before_the_industrial_revolution/ | llgr4q | 3 | t3_llgr4q | 1800s Fashion Before The Industrial Revolution | I know this has been probably asked before but what was the general fashion through the 1800s before the Industrial revolution? I've seen it range from Southern Belle, pioneer, Civil war soldier and sometimes cowboy but there have been pictures I've seen where the fashion was almost like that in England at the time. Was it like a regional thing with different fashion styles? | 4 | 1 | null | false | 1,613,518,610 | [
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"body": "This is actually a pretty huge question, as fashion was constantly changing during the nineteenth century. The styles you're talking about are stereotypes that relate more to pop cultural ideas than actual regional difference.\n\nThere is an extensive collection of links to past answers I've written on nineteenth-century fashion [in my profile](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/profiles/mimicofmodes#wiki_the_nineteenth_century) which you may be interested in.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/jak6ot/what_was_so_bad_about_domestic_service_work_that/ | jak6ot | 3 | t3_jak6ot | What was so bad about domestic service work that women preferred factory jobs during the Industrial Revolution? | I'm reading "A History of Women in America" and it mentions how during the Industrial Revolution women started leaving domestic work to take factory jobs in the city instead. I think that's the second time I've come across a reference to factory work being preferable to domestic labor. Considering the long hours, severe restrictions, and horrible work conditions of factories back then, I'm wondering what was so unappealing about domestic jobs or life in the country that people would prefer the misery of factory work? | 7 | 0.89 | null | false | 1,602,616,289 | [
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"body": "\"Long hours, severe restrictions, and horrible work conditions\" also kind of describes domestic service! While the relative horribleness of the conditions is debatable, the length of the workday and the severeness of the restrictions were in many cases worse in domestic service.\n\nOral histories from people in service in the early twentieth century offer the most information about what it was like to participate in that part of the labor force (where accounts from earlier periods are often filtered through observers or have to be pieced together), and they show a thoroughly unpleasant set of working conditions. Women describe starting their first full-time jobs in a stranger's house at the age of fourteen, being given unending tasks, and facing harsh attitudes from not just employers but older staff members (who don't seem to have had a class consciousness with younger generations, and sometimes even allied with older employers against teenage staff). The workday could start before the employer's family got up in the morning, and end after they went to bed, since there was no concept of working in shifts for this kind of job.\n\nMany oral histories relate degrading treatment faced by those in service, done as a way to remind servants (who by definition were around employers constantly and saw them at their least dignified and most vulnerable) that they were outsiders and socially beneath their employers. Lucy Delap reports in *Knowing Their Place: Domestic Service in Twentieth-Century Britain* that \"Lady Astor made a habit of offering her maid Rosina Harrison a chocolate, but only after biting into it herself, to establish whether it was a flavour she liked.\" Even more middle-class employers could change a servant's name within the household or require her to kneel on the floor to take off his boots. There might be household rules about not having friends from outside or any sweethearts, or how the tiny amount of free time could be spent, or how they dressed when out of uniform. Where earlier generations seem to have been psychologically prepared to show deference in the face of toffee-nosed employers, by the 1890s (when the shift that you asked about was in full swing) there was a strong sense that this was humiliating and unfair.\n\nBy contrast, a late nineteenth-century factory job would start after breakfast and end before dinner, and the factory foreman's authority extended only to the work and workday itself. The work would be continuous, but delineated by the factory bell/whistle. There was a great deal more freedom for a factory worker and less subservience.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/iwkogu/from_what_i_know_working_conditions_and_living/ | iwkogu | 2 | t3_iwkogu | From what I know working conditions and living standards in the cities during the industrial revolution were absolutely terrible, especially for poor people. So why did people migrate from the countryside into the cities? | I'm by no means a historian, but from what I know about 18th and 19th century cities they don't seem like a particularly nice place to live in. Especially for poor people. 16 hours work days, pollution, high population density and problems with disease. And yet urban population during that period exploded. Swaths of people were abandoning their farming lifestyle and migrating into the cities.
What was motivating these people to migrate? Was the pay from factory work that much higher than from farming? Did the cities offer more freedom than countryside? Or was farm work so bad that even factory work seemed like an improvement? | 20 | 0.89 | null | false | 1,600,631,001 | [
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"body": "Many who moved from farms to the city moved because of employment opportunities. Farmers were producing so much during the Industrial Revolution that crop prices were low. New developments for large industries produced booming business for the steel industry and other industries providing living wages for Americans and immigrants.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/hzzyq8/imperialism_and_the_british_industrial_revolution/ | hzzyq8 | 5 | t3_hzzyq8 | Imperialism and the British industrial revolution | [This piece](https://medium.com/@sudharshan_2000/i-have-oft-seen-observations-that-the-industrial-revolution-flowed-thusly-1661bd7e7b83) amongst other things, claims that the industrial revolution was the result of imperialism.
How true is this? Are the other claims true too?
Thank you. | 3 | 1 | null | false | 1,596,026,256 | [
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"body": "It's a rather simplistic take, overlooking Britain's exceptionally developed state before the classic industrialisation age or European domination of Asian markets.\n\nIndia was indeed the 18th-century world's foremost exporter of cotton textiles, but that's because it was big and the crop grew there, unlike in Britain which until the 1780s had under a twentieth as many people. But India wasn't a major exporter of woollen cloth which as early as 1700 earned Britain some £2½m (91% of it in sales to Europe) or 3% of GDP, a greater share of national income than India's cotton shipments. By that (or as it happens any other) measure, Britain was more industrialised than India 70 years before the innovations of Watt or Arkwright, despite the outstanding scale and quality of India’s cotton textile output. (British imports from the whole of Asia at this time reached only £¾m, half of it cottons.) \n\nColonies and oceanic trade were important to British development, as was the protectionism cited in the piece. Slave labour provided Lancashire with the raw material for the revolution in cotton manufacture, but the cotton sector itself accounted for only 5% of British GDP in its heyday, at most a sixth of industrial output. The slave trade itself earlier contributed both material and strategic capital to British growth, but its gross annual value amounted to under 1% of GDP at its height, and cumulative profits over the 18th century totalled a like proportion of national wealth: Caribbean slave plantation produce made a similar or slightly greater contribution, the gross value of all imports from the region exceeding 2% of GDP in the century’s later decades. \n\nEmpire sustained Victorian prosperity as British industrial leadership eroded, but that's a different matter to saying it – or slaves, or distant commercial predation – \"caused\" the industrial revolution. Europe took 85% of British exports in 1700 and half 70 years later, with the bulk of the rest going to North America: to the extent that Britain was already a world economic leader with a large manufacturing export, viewing industrialisation trough the lens of 19th-century exports to Asian or African territories is to look down the wrong end of the telescope. \n\nThat isn’t to say that Britain’s motives or conduct were exemplary, even by the standards of the age: three million Africans suffered forced transportation across the Atlantic in British ships, perhaps a tenth dying en route. The East India Company’s takeover of Bengal and depletion of the provincial treasury was followed in a few years by millions of deaths in possibly the worst famine in Indian history. And discrimination against Indian producers first stalled and later decimated traditional textile manufacture, a fate later to be suffered by Chinese handicraft spinners. \n\nIt’s appropriate that we should recognise past injustices and seek to redress them. But to view past economic growth through the prism of overseas exploitation and expropriation while overlooking endogenous factors risks reducing complex development processes to a zero-sum game. There was more to Britain’s growth than colonies – or for that matter just cotton or coal. \n\nTrade data are from Ralph Davis, English foreign trade 1700-1774, *Economic History Review* 15:2 (1962) and BR Mitchell, *British historical statistics*; cotton industry output and GDP derived from Deane & Cole, *British economic growth 1688-1959*.",
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"body": "The question is not entirely settled, and the piece linked touches on too many issues to deal with in depth. I'll focus here on the question of cotton textiles and protectionism, along the lines highlighted by Sven Beckert. The mysterious Pseudoerasmus wrote a fascinating essay on the question of the Calico Acts as industrial protectionism [here](https://pseudoerasmus.com/2017/01/05/ca/). They give a wonderful examination of the main questions, and an overview of the debate, though they sit quite firmly on the No side. Here are my thoughts, if not a final answer.\n\nThere is a common rhetorical argument that goes like: \"India had a large **share** of world GDP/cotton exports/whatever else until colonialism, and then Britain's share increased, ergo, Britain must have taken this share from India.\" This point comes up frequently in critiques of industrialisation, especially those launched from an Indian nationalist perspective. But it fails to account for the radically changing shape of the global economy across time. The size of the global economy is not fixed across time, indeed, it grows exponentially. Having a large share of the global textile trade in, say, 1700 is nothing like having the same share in 1850, because overall trade grew so enormously. In 1700, global trade was small and concentrated on luxury products; in 1850, it was enormous, and included a wide range of everyday items. The industrial requirements to dominate the global trade in cottons in 1700 was to be able to produce small amounts of high-quality cloths with desirable patterns at low prices. This meant small workshops run by master craftsmen employing cheap labour. By 1850, it meant being able to produce truly enormous quantities of standardised product, which meant giant factories packed with expensive, technologically sophisticated machines powered by non-human energy. Being able to succeed at the former is not meaningfully connected to success at the latter.\n\nComparative advantage in manufacturing thus changed with industrialisation; what would have been counter-factually necessary for India to have maintained its high trade share is not an absence of protection in Britain, but an Indian industrial revolution. The question then is, did tariff policy cause the industrial revolution in Britain? And would a different set of policies have produced the same effect in India? The analogy with the East Asian Developmental State model and Hamilton/List industrial policy makes the idea seem very tempting. But it has serious flaws in this context. These examples involve \"follower\" countries catching up and overtaking world leaders by copying existing technology. But the key technologies of the British industrial revolution simply did not exist before, neither in India nor anywhere else. While British manufacturers were shameless about copying Indian styles and patterns, and techniques for printing and dying, they did not generally copy Indian production methods. Indian artisanal methods produced high quality exportable cotton textiles, but did so at small scales, using a combination of handicraft expertise and an enormous amount of labour. British producers would have gone broke trying to produce in this way. These methods also do not exhibit economies of scale, do not become more lucrative with larger markets, and do not seem to have much to do with mechanisation.\n\nAs a side note, the argument \"The Indian producer, for millenia \\[sic\\] held great control on the levers of production (a Marxian dream), he decided who to sell to, at what rates and the volumes he sold.\" is just strange. There was no single Indian producer, but thousands and thousands of artisans producing in small workshops, and competing with one another. India was not even a single unified political entity, let alone a giant cartel fixing global prices and volumes. The British East India Company might plausibly have had the scale to change (some) prices and volumes, though probably not in the case of cottons, but that certainly does not mean that Indian producers had that power before them.\n\nThe argument goes that Britain protected their home markets, which allowed their infant industries to prosper. But this does not explain the particularly British origin of the industrial revolution; many countries had protection for domestic manufactures, and indeed India did not even need such protection prior to the 19th century, as domestic cotton cloth was simply better and cheaper than imported cloth. It can't be about growing cotton, since many places can and did grow raw cotton. The trade was not monopolised, and Britain had no particular advantage. Any region that wanted to import the raw materials for cotton textiles could easily do so, and with no particular disadvantage against Lancashire textile manufacturers.\n\nSo, why did India itself not industrialise in the 18th century? It can't just be competition from Britain, because British cottons were simply not competitive in Indian markets until around the 1840s, according to Broadberry and Gupta. It can't just be British tariff policy, because there was an entire world to sell textiles to, including the enormous Indian domestic market; without mechanisation, Britain is just a cold, wet island in the North Atlantic. The author of the piece cites a decline in Indian textile sales to France, but French markets were not under British tariff control, and neither was most of the world; the reason Indian textiles sold less in France 1820 than 1720 is that European production had substantially mechanised, driving prices down such that Indian cottons had difficulty competing. \n\nThe reason India did not industrialise must lie in other factors. We do not have a comprehensive theory of industrial development, but the most popular is Allen's factor prices argument: industrialisation happens because there is an incentive to substitute workers with machines, and that incentive is created by high wages and cheap capital. India had among the cheapest workers in the world, and relatively scarce capital, and so the incentives to industrialise were low. One could tell other stories, about education, about craft organisation, political authority, and so on, and the debate is not over. Empire more broadly might have played a role in Britain by changing the optimal scale of production, though it could also be the case that expanding domestic markets were more important. But in general, it is hard to see how the Calico Acts, widely-undermined commercial policy from the 1720s in Britain, is the reason that Indian textiles declined in relative importance, or that British textiles came to dominate world export markets from Napoleon until WWI (though neither before nor after).",
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"body": " u/davepx and u/IconicJester have already given you wonderful answers. I wonder if I may add another?\n\n> Indian producer, for millenia [sic] held great control on the levers of production (a Marxian dream), he decided who to sell to, at what rates and the volumes he sold\n\nThis apart from being strange isn't even true. As Habib has shown the weaver depended on credit for his subsistence. The prices weren't decided by him and whatever he got was less than market price.\n\nEraly citing Moreland amongst others further speaks of the poverty and wretched state of the weavers who could seldom afford to finance their production and depended on credit. He further speaks of weavers being forced to labour for the elite for a pittance.\n\nMichael J Twomey also mentions that the weavers were often remarked upon as a poverty stricken lot well before the British had gained the upper hand.\n\nKN Chaudhuri in his book speaks of how vulnerable the weavers were and that when things started worsening in the eighteenth century, they migrated to Company towns.\n\nAgain there's general agreement that the weaver depended on advances to not only begin production but also to sustain himself. \n\n\nNext we get to the export sector. Bear in mind, as per Ahuja that the experiences of weavers engaged in export oriented manufacture 'cannot be assumed to be representative even for all artisanal occupations'.\n\nFurther more the export trade in itself was tiny. As per Roy the proportion of textile export to total textile production was very small, at its peak not more than 1 to 2%.\n\n\nTo give a sense of scale, around 1795, India's net export of cotton cloth was 22 million yards, and domestic production was 1102 million yards. These calculations are from Roy's paper in Australian Economic History Review. \n\n\nIn a new paper Gupta states unambiguously 'the thriving world of Indian trade and commerce barely touched the vast majority of people'.\n\nSo even if one were to assume the very worst of the fate of Indian weavers who were in engaged in the export trade, one must bear in mind that they were not in any way representative of the Indian weaver at largen nor even the vast majority of the Indian textile industry. They were but a tiny part of that industry.\n\nGupta in a recent paper speaks of the interaction between the Companies and the weavers. As her paper outlines Indian exports of textiles increased massively with the arrival of the European Companies. The companies made profits from the trade. So destroying the industry was not in their interest. The Companies (mainly English and Dutch East India company) signed contracts with the weavers through Indian intermediaries to buy textiles.\n\nWhile Gupta is sure that some of the examples of harassment by the companies is correct, she however cites documented archival evidence of weavers defaulting on the contract and the companies not being able to do anything because they wanted to contract with them again. \n\nAccording to her, it would make no sense for the trading companies destroy the weaving industry, which was the basis of their trade and their prosperity.\n\nSo what really happened? One could look at Indrajit Ray's comprehensive study.\n\nRay doesn't discount the negative impact of British commercial polices. However he points out that the tariffs were annulled in 1826, and thus British commercial policies cannot explain the industry’s downfall which started in the mid-1820s and perpetuated through 1860. \n\nHe further shows that, British policy was in no way responsible for the massive inflow of British cotton textiles into India that *actually* devastated the industry in Bengal.\n\nHe attributes this to Britain's comparative advantage in certain lines of production by via technological innovations.\n\n\nAccording to him continuous reductions in the raw material costs and improved weaving technologies, allowed British fabrics to sweep the market at home and abroad, including the domestic market of Bengal.\n\nBritish industry he says, gained further competitive strength with the spread of weaving machinery in the 1830s and its improvement in the 1840s, causing catastrophe to the Bengal industry.\n\nHe thus concludes that technological innovations in Great Britain led to the decline of Bengal’s cotton textile industry during the first half of the nineteenth century.\n\nFor another more general perspective there's the famous study by Clingingsmith and Williamson which attributes India's industrial decline to the destructive effects of wars (not all British caused) and climate shocks.\n\n\n**Sources:**\n\nHabib, I. (1964). *Usury in Medieval India. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 6(04), 393.*\n\n\nAbraham Eraly, *The Mughal World*.\n\nTwomey, M. J. (1983). *Employment in nineteenth century Indian textiles. Explorations in Economic History, 20(1), 37–57.*\n\n\nKN Chaudhri, *The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company: 1660-1760*\n\nAhuja, R. (2002). *Labour Relations in an Early Colonial Context: Madras, c.1750–1800. Modern Asian Studies, 36(04).*\n\nRoy, T. (2002). *Economic History and Modern India: Redefining the Link. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 16(3), 109–130.*\n\n\nRoy, T. (2012) *Consumption of Cotton Cloth in India, 1795-1940, Australian Economic History Review, 52(1), 61-84.*\n\nGupta, B. (2019). *Falling behind and catching up: India’s transition from a colonial economy. The Economic History Review, 72(3), 803–827.*\n\nGupta, Bishnupriya, ‘Competition and Control in the Market for Textiles: Indian Weavers and the English East India Company in the Eighteenth Century’, in Riello and Roy (eds), *How India Clothed the World,* pp. 281–305.\n\nRay I. (2009). *Identifying the woes of the cotton textile industry in Bengal: tales of the nineteenth century. The Economic History Review, 62(4), 857–892.*\n\nClingingsmith, David, and Jeffrey G. Williamson. *Deindustrialization in 18th and 19th century India: Mughal decline, climate shocks and British industrial ascent. Explorations in Economic History 45.3 (2008): 209-234.*",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/irf0md/how_did_the_industrial_revolution_look_like_in/ | irf0md | 3 | t3_irf0md | How did the industrial revolution look like in the Ottoman Empire? | As the title might imply, I am wondering when, why, where and how did the industrial revolution happen in the centuries-old Ottoman Empire. Did it occur late? Did it occur early but on a very small scale? Did industrialization ever even take place?
So far, I'm aware that the Ottomans never industrialized to the same degree as Western and Central European nations like Germany, the UK, Austria, France, et cetra. But that's about the full extent of my meager knowledge on this topic.
All responses, no matter how short or meager, are greatly appreciated.
Also, if it's not too much of a bother, if anyone who happens to pass by here knows of any good source, article, book or a similar question about the industrialization of the Ottomans, it would also be greatly appreciated if you would mind mind sharing them.
Thanks | 3 | 1 | null | false | 1,599,925,937 | [
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"body": "I'll try to answer your question, sorry if it doesn't satisfy you\n\nNow, as far as i know the matter of Ottoman industrialization is quite a mess, and there are a lot of arguments and nuances that had been put forth, like Ülgener's Ottoman disindustrialization (the adoption of free trade in 1838 opened the Ottoman market to an influx of British factory goods, which destroyed the Ottoman manufacturing) and Pamuk's Ottoman de-industrialization (labour in the Ottoman Empire moved out from manufacturing to agriculture). My answer is focusing on the emphasis that the Ottoman industry, though couldn't reach the level that were their European counterpart, is by no means declined or stagnated, but rather experienced growth and remained fairly competitive in primarily domestic markets\n\nForeign observers and traveller's accounts (which in some ways shaped a lot of how we think of the Ottoman Empire even today) claimed that the Ottoman industry are 'doomed', 'failed', or 'backwards'. This was because their assumption was that big mechanized factories are essential for large-scale industrial production, and in the Ottoman case, there were few of it - outside of big cities like Istanbul and Salonica, there were few mechanized factories. This, however does not meant that the Ottoman industrial scene stagnated or declined, but rather experiencing growth. Though manufacturing was done mostly with artisanal methods, and performed in households or workshops rather than mechanized factories, the number of domestic manufacturers and workshops overall increased and had their output increased because of imported cost-cutting technologies, low wages, and new markets pushed by the free trade. For an example of this, in Arapgir, imported British cotton yarn replaced local hand spinning, freeing the same labor for more profitable work in hand weaving, creating a new industry that occupied several thousand households and lasted for the rest of the century.\n\nThis was seen in may parts of the Empire, as domestic manufacturers was faced with realities of a new era, they adjusted accordingly. The silk weaving and cotton spinning of Bursa was facing difficulties, and consequently many silk weavers switched to weaving cotton with British yarn or replacing silk weaving with silk reeling. At the same time, increasing European demands for silk because of the rise of the middle-class and contemporary epidemic among silkworms led to soaring demands for Ottoman raw silk exports. Bursa non-Muslim and Muslim entrepreneurs established workshops where workers, mostly girls and young women reeled and twisted raw silk. From being a producer of silk cloth, the region was thus reduced to supplying largely semi-finished inputs to French manufacturers until the First World War.\n\nBetween 1840 and 1877, Bulgarian textile industry grew because of both internal and external demands. Far from being unable to compete, Bulgarian woolens were so competitive that \"European goods were largely restricted to the fashion trade\". The volume of Bulgarian woolens brought to Uzundzhovo fair rose between 1857 and 1869 from 1.03 million piastres to 4.7 million, with their costumers were mostly from Anatolia and the Levant. The modernization of Ottoman institutions during the Tanzimat and access to the empire's large internal market is responsible for Bulgaria's growth in this era as Bulgaria, regressed economically after independence\n\nMacedonia was another Balkan region which had a flourishing textile industry. Véroia were especially noted for spinning and weaving towel and shirts of linen for Balkan and Levantine markets and dyed cotton yarn for Central European markets. In the late 1850s, Véroia, Salonica and Edhessa exported 574,000 francs worth of cotton towelling, mainly to Levantine markets. The suburbs of Salonica produced 4.2 million francs worth of textile, while the textile centres of Pella produced 1.7 million francs worth of woollen cloth, which were exported throughout the Balkans. Further south, Litochoron and Livadia specialized in woolen skirts, exporting 1.2 million francs into maritime Mediterranean markets.\n\nOttoman carpet industry from East Anatolia and the Levant also experienced growth. Between the 1870s and 1890s, exports nearly doubled in value, rising from 17 to 32 million kuruş in value. This was caused by overall production increase as chemical dyes replaced natural dyes, production moved from houses to workshops, and imported sewing machines were started to be used. Exports from the city of Alexandretta for example, increased from 235 tons, worth 113,000 pounds in 1889, to 649 tons, valued at 285,000 pounds in 1907.\n\nMoving away from workshops to factories, even with their small numbers, they are also an important marks of Ottoman industrial growth during this time. The number of privately owned factories increased after 1870 as the government adopted many stimulative policies, primarily tax exemptions. Cities like Salonika, Sliven, Izmit and Istanbul possessed several factories, producing goods from cigarettes, textiles, distilled spirits, soap, bricks, nails, and tile. Arguably one of the biggest and most influential of this was the Régie des tabacs, a company which holds the monopoly over purchase and sale of Ottoman tobacco, the profit of which were divided between the OPDA, shareholders, and the Ottoman government. Its poor working conditions and anti-labour laws in the early 20th century amongst other factors turned Salonica into a center of labour and socialist activism in the Ottoman Empire. [(See here for my writing on women in Regie factory)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/a7bc63/tuesday_trivia_history_that_passes_the_bechdel/ec46v9e?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)\n\n**Recommended Readings:**\n\n*An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1914* by Halil Inalcik and Donald Quataert still has a good and comprehensive look at Ottoman economy, especially manufacturing and trade in the later eras.\n\n*Artisans of the Empire* by Suraiya Faroqhi is a good analysis of Ottoman artisans and manufacturers from the 16th to the 20th Century. It also includes the social and economic aspects of artisanry and manufacturers in the age of industrial revolution\n\n*Ottoman Manufacturing in the Age of the Industrial Revolution* by Donald Quataert is my main source, he details how Ottoman manufacturers survived the industrial revolution by adapting to new realities and took advantage of new markets and technologies.\n\n*The Balkan Economies, 1800-1914* has a sober look on the economy of Balkan regions during Ottoman times and its economic growth in the 18th and 19th century\n\n*Turkey, Islam, Nationalism, and Modernity* is a good general history of the late Ottoman Empire and early Turkish Republic, and it especially contained a comprehensive summary of Faroqhi's and Quataert's argument regarding Ottoman manufacturing and industry",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ezwwbk/before_the_industrial_revolution_india_and_china/ | ezwwbk | 5 | t3_ezwwbk | Before the Industrial Revolution, India and China were the two biggest economies in the world. 1) How evenly was the wealth distributed in these two countries, 2) What was the purchasing power of the common people (masses) like? | 12 | 0.88 | null | false | 1,581,015,057 | [
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"body": "[This previous answer](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/cl842u/in_precolonial_india_where_european_explorers/faz3xxn/) might be what you're looking for.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/l06h7c/did_child_labor_exist_before_the_industrial/ | l06h7c | 2 | t3_l06h7c | Did child labor exist before the industrial revolution? Was this labor more or less lethal than industrial labor? | 6 | 0.8 | null | false | 1,611,011,846 | [
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"body": "We have quite a few pre-industrial texts that contain routine mentions of child labor. For one of the best known:\n\n\n> The child grew up. One day, he went out to his father among the reapers. [Suddenly] he cried to his father, “Oh, my head, my head!” He said to a servant, “Carry him to his mother.” He picked him up and brought him to his mother. And the child sat on her lap until noon; and he died.\n\n\n> Then Samuel asked Jesse, “Are these all the boys you have?” \nHe replied, “There is still the youngest; he is tending the flock.” \nAnd Samuel said to Jesse, “Send someone to bring him, for we will not sit down to eat until he gets here.”\n\n\n> But Saul said to David, “You cannot go to that Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a warrior from his youth!” David replied to Saul, “Your servant has been tending his father’s sheep, and if a lion or a bear came and carried off an animal from the flock, I would go after it and fight it and rescue it from its mouth. And if it attacked me, I would seize it by the beard and strike it down and kill it. Your servant has killed both lion and bear; and that uncircumcised Philistine shall end up like one of them, for he has defied the ranks of the living God.\n\nThis was actually David admitting that he goes the extra mile, as hired shepherds were not required to fight off predators, but here we have a child (probably an early adolescent) casually noting that he had a job where he killed a bear. This would not have been included if children his age never worked as shepherds in pre-industrial society.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/jm9nui/british_industrial_revolution_and_the_working/ | jm9nui | 2 | t3_jm9nui | British industrial revolution and the working class | A common view is that the industrial revolution was a disaster for the working class in Britain. Workers suffered poverty wages, dreadful working conditions, long hours and bosses who treated workers like dirt. Is this portrayal completely accurate. The link below argues the standard view of the industrial revolution is not correct. The linked article is from a right wing pro capitalist group. Is there a divide among historians whether the industrial revolution harmed or benefited the working class. Do left wing anti capitalist historians regard the industrial revolution as harmful to the working class to show how bad capitalism is and right wing pro capitalist historians regard the industrial revolution as beneficial to the working class to show how beneficial capitalism was.
https://fee.org/articles/a-myth-shattered-mises-hayek-and-the-industrial-revolution/ | 3 | 1 | null | false | 1,604,263,420 | [
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"body": "This is a topic of lively debate amongst economic historians (which tends to mean several year gaps while everyone goes and digs through archives). \n\nThe latest paper I know of is Gallardo-Albarrán and de Jong (2020), who have put together various measures of real wages, working hours, health and income inequality. They estimate that worker's welfare in 1850 was 22% higher than in 1760, and see two broad periods in this, from 1760 to 1800 where working hours and income inequality increased but so did life expectancy (by 5 years), and 1800 to 1850 where real wages rose, income inequality fell slightly, and working hours, after rising until 1830, declined. \n\nNote that the focus on real wages means that they don't include welfare paid through the poor rates, which was a significant form of welfare in 18th century England & Wales. George Boyer, in an article for the eh.net website on the poor laws writes:\n\n>Real per capita expenditures more than doubled from 1748-50 to 1803, and remained at a high level until the Poor Law was amended in 1834 (see Table 1). Relief expenditures increased from 1.0% of GDP in 1748-50 to a peak of 2.7% of GDP in 1818-20 (Lindert 1998).\n\nBoyer also describes a relative shift in aid towards recipients who were aged 20-59, rather than older, and to men. This may explain rising life expectancy without a rise in real wages from 1750 to 1800. \n\nThis sort of complexity is why I don't tend to find 'capitalism' useful as a term for historical analysis. \n\nAs for masters who treated workers like dirt, I don't know of any research indicating that pre-18th century employers were noticeably nicer. Startlingly, [Scottish coal miners](http://www.scottishmining.co.uk/429.html) (colliers and salters) were legally bound to their workplace by a 1606 Act \"Anent Coalyers and Salters\", until 1799 (following an earlier reform act being passed in 1774). While that's a fairly specific regulation, the fact that it was passed and lasted nearly 200 years makes me skeptical about the general employer attitude to their employees. And wage labour was widespread well before the industrial revolution, Penn and Dyer (1990) estimated:\n\n>At least one-third of the population of late medieval England gained all or a part of their livelihood by earning wages.\n\n So many people would be employed one way or another. \n\nAll this said, the debate about the living standards of the working class isn't at an ideological impasse, there's a lot of argument but there's sufficient data involved that it seems to me likely that an overall consensus will be formed one day (subject of course to the normal considerations about the conditional nature of all such knowledge). \n\n**Sources**\n\nBoyer, George. “English Poor Laws”. EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. May 7, 2002. URL http://eh.net/encyclopedia/english-poor-laws/\n\nDaniel Gallardo-Albarrán, Herman de Jong, *Optimism or pessimism? A composite view on English living standards during the Industrial Revolution*, European Review of Economic History, https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/heaa002, copy at https://academic.oup.com/ereh/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ereh/heaa002/5827898\n\nSimon A. C. Penn, & Dyer, C. (1990). Wages and Earnings in Late Medieval England: Evidence from the Enforcement of the Labour Laws. The Economic History Review, 43(3), new series, 356-376. doi:10.2307/2596938, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2596938?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ae80ed/is_there_any_consensus_among_historians_on_why/ | ae80ed | 11 | t3_ae80ed | Is there any consensus among historians on why Britain, in particular, became the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution? | 42 | 0.87 | null | false | 1,547,048,597 | [
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"body": "This is a difficult question and my reasoning could be subjective in many aspects, I will cite my sources to justify my reasoning. For the industrial revolution to occur, people such as land and business owners had to be incentivised to invest in newer technology, otherwise there would be no reason to invent.\n\n**Starting the Revolution:**\n\nThat incentive came with the [British Agricultural Revolution](http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/agricultural_revolution_01.shtml) (Which I will try to summarise), which saw rich people acquire the communal land which peasant farmers often used. The most efficient method of farming until the 1700's was the three year crop rotation plan, which saw a plot of land divided three, two used to grow crops and one given a years rest to revitalise the soil, usually occupied by grazing animals of perhaps another farmer (Grazing animals generally boosted the crop productivity of the plot).\n\nThe Second Viscount of Townsend, Charles Townsend served as the British ambassador to the Netherlands from 1709-1711, where he observed Dutch farmers using a four year plan of wheat, turnips, barley and clover, where the turnips would re-nitrate the soil doubling the productivity of the plot, and clover would be used as pasture resulting in high yields for the next few years. When he came back to Britain, he popularised the widespread use of the technique. It's important to note that the technique was used in Britain, just not widely.\n\n[Enclosure](https://www.britannica.com/topic/enclosure) was essentially the privatisation of the communal land which the farmers used. As an analogy, imagine you and a few other people each control a small plot of land, each of you plant crops by hand because it would not be cost effective to acquire technology to help as your revenues simply aren't high enough and your plot is too small to make it worthwhile. Now a wealthy individual acquires the land which you and a number of others use and merges them into one farm. it would be simply too hard for that individual to seed it all by hand, so they employ the use of technology, specifically the [seed drill, refined by Jethro Tull](http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/tull_jethro.shtml) in 1700.\n\nSomeone is using technology, food output is dramatically increasing population, and suddenly you and those few other people are out of work, resulting in massive amounts of urbanisation throughout the 1700-1800's, travelling to cities to work in textile (England monopolised cloth into Europe from the 1500s) and steel mills, as well as coal mines for very small wages (pretty much, lots of people are very cheap to hire) - it's no coincidence that some of the most [populous cities in Britain](https://about-britain.com/tourism/main-cities.htm) are built atop of [coal](https://www.nmrs.org.uk/mines-map/coal-mining-in-the-british-isles/collieries-of-the-british-isles/coal-mines-england/) and iron fields and had a large manufacturing sector.\n\n**Sustaining the Revolution:**\n\nWealth and materials are required for invention;\n\nImperial preference was employed by the British upon her colonies - free trade within the empire, and tariffs when trading outside the empire. Now I must direct you to historian and politician *Shashi Tharoor's Inglorious Empire,* where he, although not the main point of the book, argues that \"Britain's industrialisation was built on India's de-industrialisation.\" for two thousand years India had been the producer of exquisite cloths, originally produced in Bengal, which sent wealth from Europe and the Middle East to India through trade. With the \"colonisation\" of India, she could no longer export her manufactured goods favourably (Britain banned the importing of Indian cloth, putting many out of business), and became an exporter of raw materials and an importer of manufactured goods, now including British textiles which soon overwhelmed the Indian markets and sent hundreds of years of wealth in the region back to Britain, as well as endless amounts of raw materials. Wealth and raw materials being siphoned to Britain also applies to her other colonies, but I'd argue that India was the most important, being the populous, industrialised and \\[formerly\\] wealthy - the Jewel of the Empire. (**Edit:** This said, please read the important points u/ReaperReader has mentioned below)\n\nBritain maintained political and economic stability, her heartland being protected by The Channel from foreign threats such as Napoleon.\n\n**Why not ...?**\n\nIberia lacked resources. Spain primarily produced goods with high retail value, like sugar, and gold to finance wars in Europe rather than to build economic power. They also suffered political instability following their bankruptcies. While they were an agricultural economy, they really lacked the incentive (slavery, very little industry).\n\nFrance had a religious intolerance, and many great thinkers were protestants. There was a bit more religious freedom in Britain, in the case of Denis Papin, he left France for Britain and ended up inventing the precursor to the pressure cooker (Originally used to create fertilisers such as bone meals). They also suffered political instability through the 1700s.\n\nIt's very well a possibility that the [Dutch](https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.northwestern.edu/dist/3/1222/files/2016/06/The-Industrial-Revolution-and-the-Netherlands-Dec-1999-279qng9.pdf) could've hosted the revolution. The Republic of the Seven United Netherlands were the first to industrialise after Britain, however they had a relatively small population and high wages.\n\nIndia (Various princes). The fall of the Mughals created regional instability and the East India Company's invasion didn't help the situation financing themselves with Indian plunder.\n\nChina had stability wealth and population, but the people were not concerned with increasing economic output, was more concerned with philosophies and culture, nor had the thinkers of the time.\n\nTo sum it up, a population boom and high urbanisation made allowed the production of enough goods and made them large enough for businessmen/farmers to invest in inventions, high amounts of wealth, materials and need for better efficiency increased the output of ideas and inventions, as well as the fact that Britain was highly educated and had public libraries.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/goftof/how_uniform_was_the_british_industrial_revolution/ | goftof | 4 | t3_goftof | How uniform was the British Industrial Revolution? Were Steam engines being used for 'cottage industries' at the same time as the 'satanic mills'? | This question was inspired by the Foreword to the 2nd edition of Lord of Rings in which Tolkien reminisces about [Sarehole Mill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarehole_Mill) in his childhood (circa 1900). This means that his bucolic memories of the mill would have occurred *after* the industrial revolution and after the mill had installed a steam engine in 1852. Yet evidently Sarehole was not a [satanic]https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/dark-satanic-mills-listed-as-world-heritage-sites-9247390.html) factory system with hundreds of exploited workers crammed into a building. It was apparently a family industry with two corn millers.
I've been reading E.P. Thompson's Making of the English Working Class, and he does talk about how the *satanic* Cotton Mills were the "pace making industry of the industrial revolution" (chapter 6). How common was it that steam power was put in service of smaller industries like Sarehole, which were located very close to the heartlands of the industrial revolution (Birmingham)?
Were all 'satanic' mills (i.e. mass labourers working in poor working conditions) powered by steam engines, If so, is there a narrative of history that says that technology led to different social/economic relations? However, Sarehole seems to contradict this, as an example of steam technology that didn't alter the social logic of the mill.
I hypothesized that the difference may be because Cotton was subject to a global market (and thus producers needed to exploit workers more to get more profit and compete with other producers) whereas the corn mill would presumably be selling to a local and stable market. On the other hand, Thompson notes that "In the early 1830s the cotton hand-loom weavers alone still outnumbered all the men and women in spinning and weaving mills of cotton, wool, and silk combined". Would the hand weavers and the factory mills be selling to the same market? | 4 | 1 | null | false | 1,590,137,997 | [
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"body": "Steam engines were a source of power that was mobile. The first ones ( Newcomen) of the first half of the 18th c. were inefficient, but solved the difficult problem of pumping out water from coal mines. They succeeded because they could use coal \"fines\" for fuel, the tiny bits of coal that were hard to transport and so hard to sell, and tended to pile up near the mine. As steam engines were improved ( James Watt) their use started to spread to other places, like tin mines in Cornwall. Towards the end of the century they began to be used for something other than pumps: like powering steamboats ( James Rumsey, John Fitch, William Symington) or [stamping coins](http://www.sohomint.info/) .\n\nBut though a steam engine were modernized and improved to be a very good source of power that could be placed where needed, water mills stayed very important as well. Over-shot wheels became breast wheels, and then after 1830, became turbines. Businessmen building mills- especially textile mills- would try to take advantage of water power whenever they could. The textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts were water powered, and the shops building guns at the armory at Harper's Ferry were water powered. And of course there were far more people who knew how to build water mills than who knew how to build steam engines.\n\nThe adoption of steam engines for industrial power grew during the 19th c. , and it was pretty uneven for the first forty years. The greatest determining factor seems to have been, logically enough, the distance from the coal face. The further a lump of coal had to travel, the more expensive it was to use a steam engine. When railroads greatly improved transport of fuel, steam engines became more useful . Because they were mobile, it was easier to site and design a factory to use one- running a mill with water required getting the water to the mill, whereas running it with stem meant carrying coal to the steam engine. And sometimes it was risky depending upon water: a river could freeze in the winter, run dry in the summer, and flood high enough in the spring to damage things: Harper's Ferry would see multiple floods smash up its equipment.\n\nBut water power did not go away. Water mills could be quite cost effective, especially for small operations, and sometimes operated into the 20th c.. They could mill grain , and do other tasks, even be modernized with turbines, become small hydroelectric plants.. An interesting example of a small waterpowered shop in England would be the [Finch Foundry,](https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/finch-foundry) now a museum ( and, for what it's worth, well worth the small detour to see if you're taking a trip to see Stonehenge) , which used a fairly small stream to power the tilt hammers and grinding wheels needed for manufacture of things like shovels, hoes, and rakes, which were then packed into wagons and sold by traveling salesmen direct to farmers.\n\n[Rex Pope: Atlas of British Social and Economic History Since c,1700](https://books.google.com/books?id=Zv6JAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false)",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/gr7t5i/was_there_an_industrial_revolution_in_the_early/ | gr7t5i | 3 | t3_gr7t5i | Was there an industrial revolution in the early Islamic World? | I was looking on the wikipedia article on the History of Islamic Economics and noticed that in the section titled "Industrial Development" it states that in the early Islamic World there were multiple industrial uses of hydropower, tide mills, wind power and fossil fuels such as petroleum - and that by the 11th century every islamic province had industrial mills in operation. Is this accurate? I was lead to believe that the first and only industrial revolution happened in Europe, but then again I do understand that the Islamic Golden Age catalysed many scientific revolutions. However, I'm not sure about the validity of the sources and don't really have the time available to scrutinise their accuracy. Any help would be much appreciated. | 16 | 0.94 | null | false | 1,590,534,351 | [
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"body": "I got interested by this question and did some research. \n\nIn terms of your first question, yes, it does appear to be generally agreed that the early Islamic world made extensive use of industrial mills and other machinery. (\"Industrial mills\" is used in contrast to \"agricultural mills\": agricultural mills mill grain, industrial mills do other things like saw wood or make paper pulp). The Ancient Romans used mills for sawing and forging, and the Chinese were automating bellows for iron furnaces in the 1st century BCE. There is extensive evidence of industrial mills for a wide variety of uses in the Middle East by the time of the Crusades, and it appears that improvements were circulating across the Mediterranean, the Middle East and out to China, and these improvements were conveyed to Western Europe (Lucas, pages 8-11). \n\nBeyond mills specifically, to the best of my knowledge, the evidence is that the Islamic world saw economic growth over medieval times, though the topic is only starting to receive the sort of detailed quantitative work that has been going into the economic history of western Europe and Japan for decades. Of course, the scientific and literary output of the Islamic world has been known about for centuries, but there is evidence too of rising use of money, agricultural output, trade, finance and manufacturing, not just in terms of increased inputs but in terms of techniques (see Shatzmiller, 2011). On the other hand, Shatzmiller doesn't claim that GDP per capita in the early Islamic world was increasing at anything like the rate that it did in Britain from 1750-1850: the early Islamic world was prosperous in the way that China or the Mediterranean or France was at a similar time. \n\nWas this an industrial revolution? The term \"industrial revolution\" has, to the best of my knowledge, never been given a widely accepted technical definition, unlike the term 'recession'. The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics for example talks not about what is is, but what the term has [come to mean](https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_1034-2). \n\nLucas's paper, with its discussion of the history of mills, was written to criticise claims of other historians of an Industrial Revolution in Medieval Europe: after surveying the evidence, he disagrees with the claim of a medieval European industrial revolution on the basis that there's a shortage of evidence that Europe generally was ahead of the Islamic or Chinese areas in this area, arguing instead that, if anything, Europe was behind, with the exception of some regions in France. This is consistent with my general understanding of how the term \"Industrial Revolution\" is used: it is more impressionistic and relative than precise. \n\nPerhaps a useful metaphor here is architectural drawings of a house: you can look at the floor plan or the front elevation or the electrical wiring plan or a perspective drawing. They all show different information but none of them are wrong and each view has its uses. Similarly you can think of early Islamic economies (or Chinese, or French, or wherever) as being like 18th century Britain's or different to. Neither view is necessarily better than the other. Just one should always be aware of the chance of having picked up the plans for the wrong house. \n\n\n**Sources**\n\nShatzmiller, M, 2011, Economic Performance and Economic Growth in the Early Islamic World, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 54 (2011) 132-184\n\nLucas, A. (2005). Industrial Milling in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds: A Survey of the Evidence for an Industrial Revolution in Medieval Europe. Technology and Culture, 46(1), 1-30. Retrieved May 27, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/40060793",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9hyhba/out_of_all_pre1700_societies_the_ming_dynasty_was/ | 9hyhba | 6 | t3_9hyhba | "Out of all pre-1700 societies, the Ming Dynasty was one of the closest to having their own industrial revolution." How true is this statement? | I've heard it said that the Ming Dynasty had the potential to be the kick-off point for the industrial revolution, centuries before it developed in England. What is the accuracy of this? | 58 | 0.83 | null | false | 1,537,609,039 | [
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"body": "Completely false. Although Ming receives favorable treatment in some traditional histories of China, economic historians today have concluded its its economic policy was nothing short of completely destructive and that it was inferior to both Song and Yuan that preceded it and Qing that replaced it. More importantly, economists have done a lot of work on what it takes to have an industrial revolution, and found that the very specific, and often counter-intuitive, ingredients were nonexistent in Ming.\n\nMing had a disastrous economic policy, especially during the reign of the first two emperors. Almost all trade, overseas and overland with Mongolia and Manchuria, was legally monopolized. After the 15th century, private businesses illegally circumvented the law and began trading with Japan in larger numbers, but overland trade to the North remained government-dominated. The Ming during their early years hyper inflated their paper currency into near worthlessness, creating massive economic disruption. The Ming used a system called Lijia in which commoners could perform duties instead of paying certain taxes, regulated by their communities. Only those with an imperial examination degree were exempt in any community. Most rural landlords did not have this degree, but their wealth and influence allowed them to evade taxes far better than the commoners, as the local bureaucrats would be in charge of what duties were assigned to whom. This resulted in an inefficient tax system which punished small landowners, and over time consolidated the countryside into a series of large states, with the majority of the labor pool being tenants.\n\nAs we can see, Ming policy, especially that of Hongwu and Yongle, was economically self-destructive. However, more importantly, Ming would have lacked the critical ingredients to produce an industrial revolution even if they had done none of the above policies.\n\nIndustrial \"revolution\" is somewhat of a misnomer. Growth rates in Northwestern Europe, the heartland of the industrial revolution, averaged 1-2% over the course of the First and Second industrial revolutions. Austria Hungary's early 20th century growth rate, which barely exceeded 2%, was considered alarmingly fast by contemporaries. Those numbers pale in comparison to growth rates in the developing world, and even parts of the developed world, today. However, the Industrial Revolution was so amazing and awe-inspiring to contemporaries because, prior to the period, real GDP per capita growth throughout history was *zero*. That's right: zero. A Sumerian farmer in 3000 BC was no poorer than an English farmer in 1714, on average. While agricultural techniques did increase, they always corresponded with an increase in population. In other words, growth was slow enough that it could be outpaced by population growth at any time.\n\nThe reasons for this were twofold. First, the level of technology available in agriculture at the time meant that it was most often a labor intensive, not capital intensive process. In other words, a landlord might become richer by buying more land, but would benefit little from investing in a new kind of fertilizer. In the 17th century in the Low Countries, there *was* an agricultural revolution resulting from better technique, but this was due to an increase in knowledge, not capital invested. Second and more importantly, prior to the early 18th century, there was absolutely no way to deposit funds in a bank and expect with certainty to see them back.\n\nEconomists broadly believe that in any modern economy, savings = investment. Nations where more income is saved, such as Singapore and China, grow faster in a near-perfect correlation than in nations where less is saved. However, this equation only holds true if savings actually *do* equate to investment, which, throughout most of human history, they did not.\n\nPrior to 1694, government defaults were near-universal among the states of Europe. Interest rates on government bonds exceeded 10% in the vast majority of recorded loans between banks and governments. Spain, the most powerful empire in the world at the time, notoriously defaulted four times under the reign of a single monarch. In England under the Stuart Dynasty, the government was forced to *oblige* lords to loan to them, the so-called \"forced loans\", which were seen as a tax in all but name.\n\nTwo developments in late 17th century England led that country to create the Bank of England in 1694, the first oversight organization handling state debt. First, England faced the prospect of continental war, given its recent takeover by the Dutch Stadtholder William of Orange, whose country was embroiled in disputes with the Habsburgs and France. A relatively weak country at the time, England needed a way to borrow funds reliably to finance wars. Second, the 1688 Glorious Revolution had decisively ended the crown-parliament dispute in favor of parliament, giving local gentries the power to create the equivalent of an oversight committee for royal finances. Almost all loans had specific revenue earmarked from areas of tax revenue towards their payoff. In the early 18th century, interest rates for government debt in England plummeted from over 15% in some cases to less than 3%. This low interest rate persisted even after the Napoleonic Wars, when Britain's debt to GDP was over 250%, officially making it one of the most indebted nations in history. This low interest rate in spite of a vast increase in borrowing suggests vastly improved credibility in government debt. This benefited the financial sector greatly, as now there existed a *safe investment* with guaranteed returns, vital to the stable operation of any bank. This in itself proliferated other financial ventures - joint stock companies, imperial companies like the South Sea and East India Companies, and industrial ventures, who now found it easier to borrow money at lower rates.\n\nThe 18th century saw the governments of Western Europe attempt to copy the English system, which later historians termed the \"fiscal-military state\". Taxes in Britain during this period were some of the highest of any country worldwide. Some estimates place the share of British GDP going towards the state budget, the effective tax rate, at over 50%-70%. This represents a vast increase in the efficiency of tax collection and financial institutions in that country - the British state had become a veritable revenue-generating machine. Not all the money was raised through pure land taxation - Britain had mastered the art of raising revenue through commerce and overseas trade. A huge section of British revenues came from customs and trade dues, which the state *invested* to increase by backing the East India Company, among other colonial ventures. France was the second most successful at copying this model, creating wide-ranging financial institutions itself, but it ultimately failed to perfectly duplicate. During the Napoleonic Wars, the British interest rate - despite a much smaller economy and population than that of the French Empire - was less than half of France's. Strikingly, effective tax rate during the fiscal-military state period and speed of industrialization **are nearly perfectly correlated**. The industrial \"revolution\" was a **financial revolution** - the first time in history that governments and private banks could mobilize huge amounts of capital to re-invest. This was the first time that economic growth could exceed population growth, where enough money was being invested year over year to exceed the birthrate.\n\nChina was nowhere close to a financial revolution, because it never had to be. While earlier historiography claims that many Chinese dynasties fell due to over-taxation, modern historians have proven the Chinese effective tax rate was almost always under 20%, and in many cases under 10% of GDP. There was a perception among the common people of over-taxation, however, due to exemptions on scholars and the ability for the rich to evade taxes. Thus, the Chinese imperial tax system, throughout almost every dynasty, taxed those who could least afford it, but was entirely inept at collecting taxes from the rich. This problem recurred from the Han Dynasty all the way to Qing, and was never fully solved, because **it was a problem China could afford to have**.\n\nWithout a doubt, comparatively low tax rates in Ming and Qing China made the lives of the average peasant family better there than in Britain during the Fiscal-Military state period. China was the unquestioned superpower of the East, and had no rival. Therefore, reforming taxation to make it more efficient was a largely pointless adventure. There were periods of intense revenue shortfall in China - especially during the beginning of Ming - but these shortfalls were too short-term to respond to with systematic tax reform, as reform's effects would come too late.\n\nIt should be noted that this all does not mean Ming and Qing were bumbling and inept, simply that they had a different reality. Northwest Europe *stumbled* into the industrial revolution. A small England was forced to punch above its weight, and saw its gentry win a struggle for power against the King. Therefore, they created a debt management system, which led to a deficit requiring ever-increased taxes, *earmarked* to pay off specific loans, and financial innovations that created the world's most complicated financial system to date. Not one parliament member in 1694 would have known the oversight institution on royal debt would eventually change the global economy. In order for Ming or Qing to develop financial institutions advanced enough to facilitate industrial growth, China had to borrow immense amounts of money - maybe even in excess of its GDP. There was absolutely no foreseeable reason for either dynasty to do so.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/iq2yry/were_there_divisions_of_labor_before_industrial/ | iq2yry | 5 | t3_iq2yry | Were there divisions of labor before Industrial revolution? | context: I was watching this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6UXRZ2XwgU
And it is said there that each household were pretty much self-sufficient, and society didn't have the opportunity to do division of labor. | 1 | 0.67 | null | false | 1,599,743,366 | [
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"body": "The industrial revolution is typically dated back to the mid 18th century, around 1750 or so. There absolutely was division of labour before then, Shakespeare for example was an actor, a playwright and a land speculator, his father was a glovemaker. \n\nStepping back to medieval times, there was definitely division of labour. Those medieval cathedrals weren't built by farmers in their slow seasons, nor was the amazing artwork in them. \n\nMore systematically, there has been considerable research into the economic history of England, motivated in part by debates over the causes of the Industrial Revolution, and this has dug up enough evidence of the lives of ordinary people to conclude that there was division of labour. To quote for example from Penn & Dyer (1990):\n\n>At least one-third of the population of late medieval England gained all or a part of their livelihood by earning wages.\n\nThere's also evidence that farming was a market orientated activity. To quote from the economic historian Gregory Clark (2015): \n\n>Yet we will see below that as early as 1208 the English grain market was both extensive and efficient. The market was extensive in that transport and transactions costs were low enough that grain flowed freely throughout the economy from areas of plenty to those of scarcity. Thus the medieval agrarian economy offered plenty of scope for local specialization. The market was efficient in the sense that profit opportunities seem to have been largely exhausted. Grain was stored efficiently within the year. There was no feasting after the harvest followed by dearth in the later months of the year. Large amounts of grain was also stored between years in response to low prices to exploit profit opportunities from anticipated price increases. \n\n> ... There is indeed little evidence of any institutional evolution in the grain market between 1208 and the Industrial Revolution.\n\nGoing back further in time to Ancient Rome and Greece, our literacy sources are full of mentions of specialised occupations (most famously, Jesus as the son of a carpenter, but Julius Ceaser, Cicero, and Socrates were hardly self-sufficient). There is extensive evidence of [sophisticated banking and financing in Ancient Rome](https://eh.net/book_reviews/banking-and-business-in-the-roman-world/).\n\nAnd finally, 4000 years ago, we have evidence of the [division of labour, wages and land transactions](https://eh.net/book_reviews/the-heqanakht-papyri/) in Ancient Egypt. \n\nAnd this is a very short overview, of only a few countries, at a few points in time. We have evidence of division of labour from everywhere (e.g. Polynesian navigators were a highly skilled and specialised group). In short, yes there was division of labour before the industrial revolution. \n\n**Sources**\n\nGregory Clark, 2015. \"Markets before economic growth: the grain market of medieval England,\" Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 9(3), pages 265-287, https://ideas.repec.org/a/afc/cliome/v9y2015i3p265-287.html \n\n Simon A. C. Penn, & Dyer, C. (1990). *Wages and Earnings in Late Medieval England: Evidence from the Enforcement of the Labour Laws*. The Economic History Review, 43(3), new series, 356-376. doi:10.2307/2596938, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2596938?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents",
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"body": "Smith's example of making a pin through many different steps in order to maximize production was actually not very far off from the craft strategies of the time. Even before Smith, craftspeople would specialize. A locksmith, gunsmith and cutler would all be working iron and steel, forging and filing. That cutler could specialize further, having forgemen, filers, and grinders, as well as boys to supply the charcoal or coke. Even the forgemen might be divided, with a lead man directing the hammer blows and the assistants hitting where he directed. If the shop had a tilt hammer for forging , water driven, then there would be someone to manage the pond, flume, waterwheel. A gunsmith shop would have stockers, who fit the metal pieces into the wood stock, and carved it. But even there, a gunstock might have carving, inlays, wire inlay- other things that could be done by specialists. In the finest shops, doing truly exquisite work, those specialists might be very very skilled, and the result [quite ornate.](https://en.empirecostume.com/la-manufacture-d-armes-de-versailles-et-nicolas-noel-a4641.htm)\n\nIn the Thirteen Colonies, in Adam Smith's time, there was a scarcity of labor and fewer customers, so a gunsmith might have to make most of a gun himself: he would not be able to employ stockers, engravers, etc and expect to sell enough guns to pay for them. But even in that case, there would specialization: shops in England- especially Birmingham- specialized in making gunlocks, so could make them cheaper, cheap enough to be able to export them to the colonies. They were small and easy to transport. Most colonial guns, therefore, had imported locks.\n\nSmith's insight was to realize that division of labor really grew wealth, that by dividing even simple things like pins into different steps, production would increase. The Birmingham shops had an advantage in production of locks over the American gunsmiths. Because Birmingham could produce them more cheaply, it made economic sense for the American shops to buy locks, rather than make them. Both Birmingham shops and American gunsmiths benefited- Birmingham sold locks, and the American gunsmiths could make their guns with less labor and time.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/aalos8/what_were_the_most_important_contributions_to_the/ | aalos8 | 7 | t3_aalos8 | What were the most important contributions to the industrial revolution/machine tool design, and when were they in common use? | I'm a mechanical engineer by trade and in my day to day life I use complex mechanical elements which today are considered commodity items - roller bearings, screws, flat surfaces, measuring equipment, bar stock, and so on.
Now we learn in engineering school how important flat surfaces and precision screws were to the industrial revolution, and we learn a few of the big players' names like Whitworth, and then a few methods like the 3-plate grinding method for flat surfaces, but the curriculum doesn't go into much detail on the history beyond those brief shout-outs.
I'd like to look more in depth into the development of modern machine tools and their construction elements, manufacturing methods, and how long it took these machines/methods to be commonplace (subjective, I know). | 41 | 0.85 | null | false | 1,546,094,451 | [
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"body": "This is a very broad, detailed question. You are talking about not only the innovations in machine tools, by inventors like Joseph Whitworth, Henry Maudsley and Joseph Bramah but innovations in manufacturing that drove them and were driven by them.\n\nFor the men and the machines themselves, there's a decent site for biographies , with some useful links, [here](https://web.archive.org/web/20070702214437/http://www.pioneers.historians.co.uk:80/beginning.html) . To get into the fine details of the machines, there are also fortunately period manuals on machining: some of these , and articles from machinist magazines of the 19th c. and later, have been reprinted by Lindsey Publications. These are increasingly hard to get since Lindsey himself retired, but you can browse old stock at [Your Old Time Bookstore](https://www.youroldtimebookstore.com/). Some of these old machining books are now digitized and available online. Project Gutenberg, for example, has the 1887 [Modern Machine Shop Practice](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39225), by Joshua Rose and the 1919 [Turning and Boring](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34030) by Franklin Day Jones. Digging through these, you can trace the small improvements: for example, see an evolution from carbon steel cutting tools being standard, in 1887, to high-speed tool bits becoming common, in 1919 ( and shortly after this in the 1920's the Germans would discover and develop [carbide tools](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0263436895926716?via%3Dihub)). If you are in the US, the building of the old Robbins and Lawrence shop is now the [American Precision Museum](https://www.americanprecision.org/) in Windsor, VT. Their collection is worth a look: it includes an early 19th c. metal lathe - with a granite bed ( easier to make a 6 foot bed from granite than cast iron, I guess) .\n\nFor an overview of manufacturing, Hounshell's *From* t*he American System to Mass Production* and Merrit Roe Smith's *Harper's Ferry and the New Technology* are classics, exploring how reputability in production of arms components spread to the manufacturing of other things...or perhaps I should say, how the drive for repeatability in production of them influenced other manufacturers.\n\nImportant to the achievement of repeatability was the development of special cutters, gauges, jigs and fixtures. These don't get enough attention- perhaps because they were, for the most part, disposed of when the product changed and so most don't survive in collections. But you can get an idea at the AP Museum, which has an old Robbins and Lawrence milling cutter that was to profile one half of a lock plate for an Enfield rifle, and the Springfield Armory Historic Site still has some of the old gauges used there in the 19th c. and 20th c.\n\nAlso important is the gradual standardization: of things like tapers and screw sizes, in the 19th c., resulting from agreements among engineers, engineer societies. I regret that I don't have a good source for that.\n\n​",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9euf4a/is_it_true_that_canals_in_britain_caused_the/ | 9euf4a | 6 | t3_9euf4a | Is it true that Canals in Britain caused the industrial revolution.... By interbreeding? | I have an economics professor who likes to pretend he is a historian, a anthropologist, and a sociologist all in one. He said today that these canals caused breeding from more geographically dispersed communities, which helped the industrial revolution take off
Sorry to ask weird questions, but is this bullshit? | 56 | 0.83 | null | false | 1,536,640,200 | [
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"body": "It's not far off the mark to say canals were an important precursor to the Industrial Revolution, but because they carried coal, not amorous Britons. For more information, I highly recommend Richard Rhodes' new book *Energy*, which discusses this matter in depth.\n\nIf it were true that canals caused industrialization, then we would expect to see the great canal builders of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China to have undergone similar industrial revolutions in their heydays. Since they did not, one should look at what was different about eighteenth century Britain. Coal, carried by canals, is more likely a cause than the canals themselves for the industrial revolution.\n\nAny industry needs fuel, and prior to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in England, that was wood. A growing population on the island burned wood for heat, lighting, and cooking. By the early 1700s, deforestation had made wood less cost-efficient because of high prices and high travel costs for merchants. Fortunately, there were great stores of bituminous coal in Wales, the Midlands, and Scotland which rose to fill the gap in the market. The problem then became transporting heavy coal to cities like Birmingham, London, and Manchester.\n\nAlthough it was not the first, the Bridgewater canal deserves pride of place when discussing early industrialization. (Side note: it was built by the third Earl of Bridgewater, who in a lovely bit nominative determination, built a canal that at one point bridged OVER a river). As the owner of a coal mine, and inspired by earlier examples in Ireland and France, the earl commissioned a canal that could move coal from his mines to the city of Manchester. Using barges drawn along the canal by horses on a towpath, thirty times more coal could be moved compared to a traditional horse-and-cart. This caused a drop in the price of coal in Manchester, dethroning wood as the fuel of choice in that city.\n\nCoal would also cause the next leap in the industrial revolution with the invention of the Newcomen engine. Mines flood, and pumping out water using animal power was laborious and inefficient. The Newcomen engine, on the other hand, was able to pump greater quantities of water out, allowing for deeper and more productive mines. They were also maddeningly inefficient by modern standards, and were really only practical at sites with a ready store of fuel, like a mine. Fortunately, later innovators like Watt, Savery, and Boulton, made considerable advances in steam engines, leading to their use for industry and transportation- the industrial revolution.\n\nSOURCES:\n\nRhodes, Richard. *Energy.* Simon & Schuster, 2018.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/68pwbu/i_always_hear_that_our_sleep_cycles_are_all_wrong/ | 68pwbu | 13 | t3_68pwbu | I always hear that our sleep cycles are all wrong compared to what they should be in nature, and it's always attributed to the industrial revolution. Before the 8 hour work day, what was the normal sleep patterns like for people? | When did the normal person wake up centuries ago? When did they go to sleep? I assume there would be a difference from rural people and urban, as well as rank in society, and the culture surrounding sleep and work. Which, I guess worded like that are the same factors for today. | 167 | 0.92 | null | false | 1,493,685,051 | [
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"body": "Sleep is perhaps the most mysterious part of the human experience, and also one of the most ubiquitous. For what's apparently meant to be 8 hours a day, it seems like most people turn off our minds, relax, and float downstream. We lose consciousness of our surroundings, and intermittently experience odd and sometimes very vivid hallucinations called dreams. This is a weird thing to do, but it's only relatively recently that people have been researching the physiology, psychology, and history of sleep. As a result, it's difficult to tell whether what we do now is natural or has been influenced by electric lights and *de rigueur* city living. Maybe sleep was different before modern life?\n\nThe historian of sleep who is prominently pushing the hypothesis that modern sleep patterns are due to the industrial revolution is Roger Ekirch. He wrote a 2001 article called [Sleep We Have Lost: Pre-Industrial Slumber In The British Isles](http://ahr.oxfordjournals.org/content/106/2/343.full.pdf+html) (the journal seems to have made this article freely available, which is nice of them) and extended his thesis geographically and temporally into a 2005 book, *At Day's Close: Night In Time's Past*. And to cut a long story short, Ekirch finds a wide range of references in historical texts to what he calls 'biphasic sleep' or 'segmented sleep'. \n\nEkirch's argument is that in the past, people experienced 'biphasic sleep': according to Ekirch, numerous bits of pre-Industrial revolution writing discuss 'first sleep' and 'second sleep'. 'First sleep' would start reasonably soon after nightfall, and would continue until around the middle of the night - midnight. Then, people would wake up, and would do things (rather than just lie there trying to get back to sleep) - socialising, sex, talking, etc. After this waking period, there would be 'second sleep', which would last into the morning.\n\nTo give an example which features a post-Industrial Revolution person wondering at the practice of people living outside of cities and gaslight or electricity, Ekirch in his 2001 article quotes from an 1878 journal of Robert Louis Stevenson (the author of *Treasure Island*). Stevenson is the product of an industrial society - he was born in Edinburgh, Scotland - and wrote this journal while journeying through the not-very-industrial French countryside. He marvels at the sleep habits of the people around him:\n>\"There is one stirring hour,\" he later recorded in his journal, \"unknown to those who dwell in houses, when a wakeful infiluence goes abroad over the sleeping hemisphere, and all the outdoor world are on their feet.\"\n\nStevenson also points out that this mid-night phenomenon is so taken for granted in the French countryside that nobody even bothers to try and explain it:\n>\"At what inaudible summons are all these sleepers thus recalled in the same hour to life?....Even shepherds and old country-folk, who are the deepest read in these arcana,\" he marveled, \"have not a guess as to the means or purpose of this nightly resurrection. Towards two in the morning they deciare the thing takes place; and neither know or inquire further.\" \n\nThe philosopher Isaiah Berlin famously argued that some scholars were 'hedgehogs' and some scholars were 'foxes'; for Berlin, 'hedgehogs' believe that there is one big thing that explains everything, while 'foxes' tend to draw on a wider range of experiences and resist boiling everything down to some ways. In some ways, Ekirch seems like a classic hedgehog - it seems like he sees the biphasic sleep everywhere. This might well be because it actually was everywhere. It also might be that everything he sees just *looks* like biphasic sleep, but he's taking things out of context or interpreting them in ways favourable to his argument.\n\nIn [a 2015 paper in *Current Biology*](http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822\\(15\\)01157-4), Jerome Siegel and colleagues went to test Ekirch's pre-Industrial biphasic sleep hypothesis by examining the sleep cycles of 'pre-industrial societies' in Tanzania, Namibia, and Bolivia. I'm a bit dubious about calling people whose behaviour was investigated for a 2015 paper 'pre-Industrial' - 2015 is definitely post-Industrial revolution. For a bunch of reasons, I'm also dubious about assuming that these cultures are representative of the lifestyles of pre-Industrial societies. Nonetheless, Siegel's participants apparently didn't have electricity or battery-powered devices. Anyway, Siegel found that sleep cycles changed over the seasons, but that their participants generally didn't have biphasic sleep, and didn't sleep much more than current people - 5.7-7.1 hours of sleep was the average. Siegel appears to believe that his data might mean that Ekirch's examples are specific to Northern Europe, with its much-colder temperature than you might get in Tanzania.\n\nHowever, in [a letter in the editor in the journal Sleep](http://www.history.vt.edu/Ekirch/sleep_39_03_715.pdf) essentially replying to Siegel and colleagues, Ekirch points out some evidence of Europeans interacting with various non-European societies and referring to 'first sleep' and 'second sleep', including in Brazil in 1555, and Oman in the early 18th century. Ekirch also points out that some of his examples came from Spain, which is famously warmer in climate than England. Ekirch, finally, points out examples of native South American languages with different words for first and second sleep.\n\nSo there does appear to be historical and linguistic evidence of biphasic sleep occurring, though we can't be entirely sure of its prevalence, especially considering Siegel and colleagues' research in Tanzania, Namibia and Bolivia; the overall picture might be more complex than Ekirch is portraying it to be.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7fimel/song_dynasty_china_was_said_to_be_close_to_an/ | 7fimel | 12 | t3_7fimel | Song Dynasty China was said to be close to an industrial revolution. Was there anything "lost" during periods afterwards? Was the Song really more likely to industrialize than it's successors? | The Song dynasty is said to have been approaching an industrial revolution, with the implication that possibility for a full blown industrial revolution ended with the fall of the dynasty. However, my understanding is that many technologies pointed to as evidence of an industrial revolution such as printing presses and mass produced iron remained after the fall of the Song. Are there any factors that are pointed to as reasons why the Song could have undergone an industrial revolution that disappeared upon the collapse of the song?
Should be obvious that the successors I'm refering to in the title are the Yuan, Ming, and Qing. | 99 | 0.92 | null | false | 1,511,650,030 | [
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"body": "I would point you to the answers that others and I made in this [thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/700tbq/were_the_forms_of_state_institutions_a/) regarding Song state institutions, the role it played in the Song's tremendous economic growth, and how later dynasty's diverged from the Song model. \n\nI would also add that the Song was birthed from a unique period of time in Chinese history - the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. After the Anshi Rebellion, the military governors (*fanzhen*) carved out semi-independent fiefdoms for themselves and deprived the central government of the land tax revenue. This forced the state to become more creative in its taxation policies and the state began to rely increasingly on indirect taxation. The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, during which China was divided into several competing states, accelerated this process. Much of the Song's policies and practices can be traced from this period in time. Interstate competition did not disappear with the rise of the Song, as it faced strong enemies to the north and west (Khitans, Jurchens, Tanguts), and this competition paved the way for innovations in finance, economic policy, and military technology. By contrast, the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties never faced strong adversaries and therefore lacked the need to innovate. ",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/cefk3l/how_important_were_indian_markets_to_the/ | cefk3l | 10 | t3_cefk3l | How important were Indian markets to the industrial revolution in Great Britain? Also, was Indian deindustrialization a prerequisite to British industrialization? | 16 | 0.85 | null | false | 1,563,382,720 | [
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"body": "In short, all trade was pretty unimportant, let alone merely Indian trade, and to the extent that Indian trade was important, Indian deindustrialisation was harmful. \n\n*The British Industrial Revolution and Trade*\n\nThe causes of the British Industrial Revolution are highly debated, mainly because it just happened once, while there's a myriad of different things happening with an economy at any one point in time. However there's a fairly clear line of argument that trade in general wasn't that important to the British industrial revolution. The economic historian Deirdre McCloskey argues that historians, economists and policy-makers tend to over-value the importance of trade for economic development. Back as early as 1981 she (then under the name Donald McCloskey), along with C. K. Harley, estimated that if Britain had had no trade at all (not just not with India, but not with anyone), then in 1860 British national income would have been only about 6 percent lower than it was. \n\nMore recently, in 2014, Clark, O'Rourke and Taylor published a paper estimating that the impact of trade was significantly larger than Harley and McCloskey's 1981 estimate, estimating the impact in 1850s of 25%-30% - but that is for all trade, including with the USA and France, not just trade with India. And even they estimate that in the 1760s the welfare impact of cutting off all trade would be only 3-4% of national income. While 25-30% sounds large, GDP per capita in Britain had doubled over this time period. At the moment, the debate in economic histography over the causes of the British revolution is over R.C. Allen's 'high wage economy view', which argues that the industrial revolution happened in Britain because of relatively high British wages (this isn't consensus, eg Humphries and Schneider have just published a critical article - it's just to give an illustration of the current state of debate). \n\n*Indian Deindustrialisation*\n\nAs for Indian deindustrialisation being a prerequisite for British industrialisation, it was probably instead a (small) harm. All else being equal, it is better to have a richer trading partner than a poor one, as they can supply you with more goods in return for your exports (this argument dates back to at least Adam Smith, in *The Wealth of Nations, 1776). Indian colonialism, as actually practiced, was destructive, of physical capital (in wars), of social capital (colonial officers have limited knowledge of the country they are governing), and of people's lives (dead people can't work in factories). And, on the contrary side, clearly Dutch prosperity didn't stop Britain industrialising, nor did British industrialisation stop the USA, or Germany, or Switzerland from industrialisation, nor did the industrialiation of the US and European countries stop Japan from industrialising. To quote Deidre McCloskey (2006) (speaking of empires generally):\n\n>But is the average British person worse off now than when Britain ruled the waves? By no means. British national income per capita is higher than ever, and is among the very highest in the world. Did acquisition of Empire, then, cause spurts in British growth? By no means. Indeed, at the climax of imperial pretension, in the 1890s and 1900s, the growth of British real income per head notably slowed.\n...\n> Rich countries are rich mainly because of what they do at home, not because of foreign trade, foreign investment, foreign empire, past or present. If the Third World moved tomorrow to another planet, the economies of the First World would scarcely notice it. So too in the 20th century: when after World War II the Europeans lost their empires their incomes per head went sharply up, not down. \n\n[Note, Deidre McCloskey was writing before China's share of world trade had grown so strongly.]\n\nColonialism was harmful to both its victims and to the home country's economy. The former is the more important matter morally, but I suspect the latter is a more useful argument for stopping it from happening again, sadly. \n\n*Sources*\n\nClark, O'Rourke and Taylor, 2014, *The growing dependence of Britain on trade during the industrial revolution*, Scandinavian Economic History Review (working paper publicly accewssible at https://www.economics.ox.ac.uk/materials/papers/13258/clark-et-al-new-world.pdf)\n\n \"Foreign Trade: Competition and the Expanding International Economy, 1820-1914,\" Chapter 17 in Floud and McCloskey, *The Economic History of Britain, 1700-Present* (1981), Vol. 2, pp. 50-69; reworked in the second edition; Harley used it in the third edition by Floud and Johnson, eds. http://www.deirdremccloskey.com/docs/graham/britain.pdf\n\nAcemoglu, Daron, et al. “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation: Reply.” The American Economic Review, vol. 102, no. 6, 2012, pp. 3077–3110. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41724682.\n\nJane Humphries, Benjamin Schneider, *Spinning the industrial revolution*, The Economic History Review v72 n1 (February 2019): 126-155\n\nWhite, Colin, *A History of the Global Economy: The Inevitable Accident*, 2019 http://eh.net/book_reviews/a-history-of-the-global-economy-the-inevitable-accident/\n\nDeidre McCloskey *Keukentafel Economics and the History of British Imperialism*, South African Economic History Review 21 (Sept 2006): 171-176. http://www.deirdremccloskey.com/docs/imperialism.pdf",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/hz24ls/prior_to_the_industrial_revolution_how_did_rulers/ | hz24ls | 2 | t3_hz24ls | Prior to the industrial revolution, how did rulers have the industrial capacity to arm all their forces? | I’m thinking especially after the introduction of gunpowder. Something like the Napoleonic wars must have had more than a million armed men fighting at one time. Where did the guns come from?
Were there quasi-factories set up? If not, was each gun created by a craftsman? That seems very inconsistent. Obviously though this question is general enough that it can apply to any era, it’s something that’s always bothered me. | 3 | 0.8 | null | false | 1,595,887,990 | [
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"body": "More can always be said on this matter, especially since the linked answer only covers one country and is a general overview, so a closer look at the matter will be quite welcome.\n\nWhile we wait for that, u/PartyMoses has [a general view on how England did it](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/hvfb35/did_the_europeannapoleonic_era_have_famous_small/), also touching a bit on France.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/jlxj08/why_did_the_industrial_revolution_begin_in/ | jlxj08 | 3 | t3_jlxj08 | Why did the Industrial Revolution begin in Britain and not somewhere else? | 2 | 0.67 | null | false | 1,604,209,823 | [
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"body": "You could check out these posts:\n\n[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ae80ed/is\\_there\\_any\\_consensus\\_among\\_historians\\_on\\_why/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ae80ed/is_there_any_consensus_among_historians_on_why/) (good answer from /u/ActualTax)\n\n[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/48h6hr/why\\_did\\_the\\_industrial\\_revolution\\_occur\\_in/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/48h6hr/why_did_the_industrial_revolution_occur_in/) (good answer from /u/Leocletus)\n\n[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1e2kcl/what\\_is\\_your\\_preferred\\_explanation\\_for\\_the/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1e2kcl/what_is_your_preferred_explanation_for_the/) (good answers from /u/lukeweiss and /u/anchovy_)",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/75ywnb/why_did_the_industrial_revolution_begin_in_the_uk/ | 75ywnb | 15 | t3_75ywnb | Why did the Industrial Revolution begin in the UK and not elsewhere? I have seen several theories, including colonialism, natural resources, Protestantism, capitalism and the rule of law. Is there any historical consensus on this? | 34 | 0.84 | null | false | 1,507,832,467 | [
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"body": "No, there really isn't a complete consensus; there's even an entire group of people out there that believe it was a pure accident. But there is one very popular theory out there: Institutional Development Theory, which I take after.\n\nThe general conclusion drawn from the theory that the small european states developed laws and institutions fostering innovation and entrepreneurship. Sparsely populated and fiercely competitive, European states had no choice but to maximize efficiency, culminating in industrialization. If you'd like to get into some examples, u/restricteddata and I wrote two answers [in a thread earlier today](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/75sw5z/with_3000_years_of_history_a_system_of_writing/) answering a very similar question as to why a country like Egypt *didn't* industrialize. I'm also sure there is an AMA or feature thread on this, but I can't seem to find it anywhere.\n\nIn any case, within that framework, you can then get into the specifics of the British Isles: historically less populous than the rest of Europe, there was a significant upward pressure on wages. This means that English workers could enjoy a higher standard of living, while English employers were always on the lookout to keep their costs down. There are also a number of other factors though, like the presence of coal, England's seafaring heritage facilitating the foundation of colonies where raw materials could be obtained, and the presence of a relatively weak monarchy that had to rely on a consensus-based governmental system, fostering consistent and fair rule of law. Different authors will stress different variables, but I don't think it's accurate to emphasize one over the other. All culminated to make the industrial revolution happen. \n\nEntire books on the topic have been written, and this post could go on for ages. Suffice it to say, you could look at:\n\nS. Broadberry, \"British Economic Growth 1270-1870\" \n\nM.W. Kirby, “Institutional rigidities and economic decline: Reflections on the British experience” (for completion's sake)\n\nAnd more general texts like: \n\nS. Broadberry and K. O’Rourke (eds.), \"The Cambridge Economic History of Europe\"\n\nJ.L. Rosenthal, R.B. Wong, \"Before and beyond divergence. The politics of economic change in China\nand Europe\"\n\nA. Greif, \"Institutions and the path to the modern economy\"",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/fz3w3d/during_the_industrial_revolution_in_a_typical/ | fz3w3d | 3 | t3_fz3w3d | During the industrial revolution, in a typical area, what came first, the industry, or the railway? | Considering that factories required railways to transport materials in and out of them, what came first? Were the factories first, because then there was an economic incentive to build a railway to that area or was it the railway that suddenly allowed the condition for a factory to be opened? | 9 | 1 | null | false | 1,586,607,187 | [
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"body": "You're right, that a factory owner would find mass transport useful. A factory is taking advantage of economies of scale, is trying to do mass production in order to lower the price per item. That means, as you note, lots of material and supplies have to be transported in, and lots of finished goods have to be transported out.\n\nBefore the Industrial Revolution, whenever anyone needed to move a lot of stuff over the longest distance for the least money, if they could they used a boat. A boat is a quite amazing machine, really: at very slow speed it has almost no friction. A pair of mules can easily pull 50,000 pounds of canal boat along a canal for days, and so canals were considered quite early. The Midi Canal in France was started in 1666, dug during the reign of Louis XIV.\n\nIn some very important ways, the Industrial Revolution started in England in the middle of the 18th c.. It was before any practical steam-powered transportation. There was, therefore, in the middle of the 18th c., a lot of interest in England in canals. A good example of a factory owner involved in this would be Josiah Wedgewood, who had managed to mass-produce pottery in his shops at Stoke on Trent that imitated higher-priced imported porcelain. Hauling it in wagons over the usual rough roads resulted in a lot of breakage. Wedgewood and engineer James Brindley started digging the first of what would be a whole series of canals in 1766, which by the end of the century became a network of over 365 miles, connecting the Midlands with the Thames and Mersey rivers.\n\nSteam transport would come into this picture rather late. Although steam-powered boats would be demonstrated before the end of the century, steamboats would not become common until after Fulton in 1809. A gravity-powered rail system was in use in coal mines somewhat earlier, but the first steam railroad began with Richard Trevithick, in 1804. By then, canals had been important in England for decades,\n\nCanals would be a very important means of transport for bulk materials throughout the 19th c. Most of New York City's grain and coal would come in on the Erie Canal, then be brought down the Hudson River. However, canals could not go everywhere- hard to run one up a mountain, or through a desert- and so as the network of railroads increased canals became more and more marginalized. A few continue to be commercially viable. Some, like the C& O Canal became unprofitable and mostly abandoned ( it's now a National Park) and some, like the Erie Canal, are in use but have become more useful for recreation than mass transportation.\n\nSamuel Smiles: [The Lives of the Engineers](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/27710/27710-h/27710-h.htm)",
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"body": "In most of the United Kingdom, the industry was followed by the railways which in turn helped the industry grow. A very good example of this is the village of Coalbrookdale in Shropshire, which is also a very good microcosm of England and a good gauge for the whole country (it's a fascinating area and one whose fortunes almost perfectly parallels the country's).\n\nFro context, Iron was the industry of Coalbrookdale and the area had been renowned both nationally and internationally for the high quality metal that was produced there. This very fact is reason that Abraham Darby moved from Bristol to Shropshire to develop his latest smeling methods and his grandson built the World's first Iron bridge there in 1779. The area was growing but not at a particularly fast rate nor particularly prosperous. Despite the first working, reliable steam locomotive being built there in 1802, the company wasn't worth a huge amount, but industry was there. \n\nThe railway first came to the gorge in 1849, and over the next 17 years 4 lines were built nearby, two with direct access to the village. This period also sees the value of the company, the size of the village both grow and the demography of the area experience it's greatest change of the 19th century. \n\nBut what also came with it was new industries. People from other large manufacturing areas, especially those with links to metal work and specifically Sheffield, came to live and work in Coalbrookdale, bringing with them new expertise. Smaller, at-home workshops were set-up for plasterers, glass-blowers, as well as more iron companies. \n\nThe railway followed the industry and enhanced it. Faster goods travel, more reliable personal transport, and greater speed of news, all brought a boost to small, regional industries. \n\n**Sources**\n\nLeaflet, *‘the Works of the Coalbrookdale Company: Mercantile Gazette*’, 1878, Ironbridge Gorge Museum Library and Archive, 669.1(085)/CBD\n\nG. Best, *Mid-Victorian Britain: 1851- 75*, (Fulham: 1985)\n\nB. Trinder (ed.),* A Description of Coalbrookdale in 1801 A.D*.,(Wolverhampton: 1987)",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3khyew/technologically_was_ancient_rome_comparable_to/ | 3khyew | 17 | t3_3khyew | Technologically, was Ancient Rome comparable to the Renaissance Era Europe? How far was Rome from say, an industrial revolution? | 103 | 0.92 | null | false | 1,441,943,193 | [
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"body": "Very broadly speaking, one could say that the technological capabilities of ancient Rome were comparable and in certain ways exceeded the capabilities of the Renaissance Europeans. For example, good quality concrete was not rediscovered until much later (depending on the definition, in the 1700s or even in the 1800s), and the technologies of sanitation and battlefield medicine equalled Roman standards only in the 1800s or even later. (I recall seeing a claim that it was not until the First World War when armies generally were on the Imperial Roman levels in deaths from poor hygiene and medicine, but cannot remember the source and in any case this is a contentious claim.) On the other hand, Renaissance Europe was ahead of Rome in certain other ways - gunpowder, the construction of ocean-going ships, navigation (e.g. compass, rudimentary tables of ephemera, etc.) and, perhaps most importantly, printing press - come first to my mind.\n\nAs far as your second question is concerned, it is important to understand that the question cannot be answered by looking only at technologies and technological artifacts. (Note that I'm using the word \"technology\" here in a very broad sense, as is common in technology studies, to refer not just to artifacts but also practices and processes. The art of navigation, for example, is much broader set of capabilities than just having compasses or octants, important as though they were.) There seems to be consensus among technology scholars (I count myself as one, albeit still doing my PhD) that institutions and the environment play a much greater role in the process of invention and innovation than is generally acknowledged. \n\nBy \"institutions\" we refer not so much to formal institutions such as universities or patent offices, but more to practices, laws and customs that influence how attractive (for example) inventing and adoption of new innovations are to individuals; and by \"environment\" we refer to more than natural environment, being usually more concerned with the economic backdrop against which the inventors operate. \n\nIn this light, a very good recent summary and argument regarding the roots of industrial revolution - an issue that has been hotly debated for more than a century and likely will be debated long after I'm gone - was put by William Rosen in his book *The Most Powerful Idea in the World* (2012). I think he makes a fairly good case arguing that the key reason why industrial revolution started in Great Britain in the 1700s was that by that time, Britain had \"democratized\" the process of invention and sustained that democratization. Industrial revolution was not work of a single individual but rather demanded a steady supply of inventors eager on improving on each other's designs, and the only way to ensure a steady enough supply was to mobilize not just the idle rich but the middle and even lower classes in the effort. The way this happened - and not by design but more by chance - was through patent protections (although other institutions played a part), which meant that an inventor would also be a stakeholder for the success of invention. \n\nThis, in part, resulted to a steady stream of inventions. Among them were few very important \"macro inventions\" like the first steam engine; but in the long run, perhaps even more importantly the democratized invention resulted to numerous \"micro inventions.\" These were by themselves almost invisible to the general public (and still are), but over time their cumulative effects could amount to radical improvements in e.g. efficiency and hence usability of steam engine. Of course, such minor improvements had been made by individual craftsmen through the ages, but for a large part prior institutions had encouraged those craftsmen to keep their inventions secret; hence, the build-up of small inventions was much slower to accumulate. \n\nAnother important reason why the industrial revolution took so long a time was that manufacturing processes and measuring instruments had to catch up with great ideas. Newcomen and Watt were far from the first to suggest harnessing the power of steam; but as long as large cylinders (for example) were difficult to manufacture with required tolerances, such ideas were exceedingly difficult to put into practice. The manufacture of cylinders and other precision parts from metal owed a lot to gunsmith practice, in particular to the boring of cannon; hence it could be argued that pre-gunpowder cultures would have been unlikely to invent a useful steam engine.\n\nNevertheless, I tend to agree with Rosen's main point: the industrial revolution required the suitable *institutions* such as patent protection and popular press (to spread the ideas, including the idea of being rewarded from an useful invention, among the population). Nothing comparable existed in the Roman Empire, and to me it is hard to see how such institutions could have risen in the imperial period. Had there been no Migration Period, it's possible that over the centuries similar institutions would have developed; on the other hand, the Byzantine Empire survived until 1453 but was no closer to the Industrial Revolution than other early Renaissance principalities. So I would answer to the second question, \"the Ancient Romans were about 1500±200 years from the Industrial Revolution.\" \n",
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"body": "The idea that Rome was a beacon of high technology never equalled for many centuries is pretty far from reality. Let's look at a few instances:\n\nAgriculture: many advances, even by the Middle Ages. The ancient Romans had moldboard plows; medieval and Renaissance Europeans had heavy plows, which are much better at cultivating uncoöperative soil. They also introduced the three-field system, which uses crop rotation to get much better efficiency from farmland. The introduction of the horse collar was also helpful.\n\nArchitecture: the Romans were very good at this, but so were people of the Renaissance and before. Rome had its massive basilicas; later periods had their soaring Gothic (and, later, neoclassical) cathedrals and carefully planned castles. Rome acquits itself well, but the Renaissance still wins this one handily.\n\nMilitary: the only aspect of military in which the Romans can hold their own is the fielding of huge, well-disciplined armies. That's very important, but it's logistics, not technology. Renaissance-era fortifications, cavalry, and armor were light-years ahead of their ancient Roman counterparts, and that's not even considering the fact that the Renaissance had firearms. The Spanish *tercio*, for instance, was as deadly a unit as any in history, and would have torn a Roman legion to shreds. Romans had no stirrups, no cannon, no plate armor...the list goes on.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/gk2yp8/at_what_point_in_western_history_did_hygiene_stop/ | gk2yp8 | 2 | t3_gk2yp8 | At what point in western history did hygiene stop becoming a priority, in the timeline from the ancient period to industrial revolution? | Thinking how ancient Rome there was an importance of hygiene to a degree but in the Middle Ages and even after it seems to be a hygiene less waste land in many part or Europe. Or was it that the dominant cultures prevailed in their stinky ways over time? | 4 | 0.67 | null | false | 1,589,519,491 | [
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"body": "I'm afraid your question rests on a false premise; the importance of hygiene didn't drop in Europe after the Romans went. The following previous answers are most instructive on this matter, and any and all further input is most welcome.\n\n* u/BRIStoneman covers [the topic of bathing](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/bqjfh7/what_was_the_reason_for_the_decline_of_basic/), for the Early Medieval era;\n* u/sunagainstgold covers [the topic of bathing](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5tzvng/is_it_true_that_baths_and_personal_hygiene_were/ddqi4ol/) in the Late Middle Ages;\n* and u/Somecrazynerd examines [bathing and attitudes to hygiene](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/do0iof/what_level_of_hygiene_was_expected_of/) in a general Medieval sense.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8jvvir/what_did_most_people_do_for_work_in_urban_areas/ | 8jvvir | 6 | t3_8jvvir | What did most people do for work in urban areas before the Industrial Revolution? | 65 | 0.9 | null | false | 1,526,484,981 | [
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"body": "As a related question: \"before the Industrial revolution\" is a long time period, but is it possible to generalize what percentage of the urban population in, say, Europe, or the Roman Empire, would have primarily received their income from being prostitutes?",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/11q9vk/being_a_redditor_for_11_months_i_would_like_to/ | 11q9vk | 30 | t3_11q9vk | Being a redditor for 11 months I would like to say this is the best,informative,civil,and best subreddit i have seen . Are we living in a time with the longest life expectancy in human history ? Is cancer something that came from from the industrial revolution or always been with us ? | 151 | 0.8 | null | false | 1,350,617,479 | [
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"body": "Take a look at the beginning of \"The Emperor of All Maladies\" for a brief summary of what is known about the occurence of cancer in human history.\n\nIt is a wonderful book and you may end up reading it in its entirety.",
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"body": "An initial quick search has failed to find a linkable article (damn journal paywalls, grrr), however ... \n \n[Paleopathology of malignant tumours supports the concept of human vulnerability to cancer.](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17593933) \n \ncontains the snippet (thanks google!) \n> \"medical reports and paleopathological studies ... do tell us that cancer existed 2,000 years or more ... but do not provide cancer ... \n \nThere's a book: \n[The Archaeology of Disease](http://www.amazon.com/The-Archaeology-Disease-Charlotte-Roberts/dp/0801484480) \n \nand the [Full-text of Chapter 1 deposited, ’The study of paleopathology. Paperback version published 2010](http://dro.dur.ac.uk/6005/1/6005.pdf) of said book available as a 21 page PDF. \n \nand the closely related area of interest: \n[Medicine in the Ancient World](http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/daily-life-and-practice/medicine-in-the-ancient-world/) \n \nA *similar* broad area of study is that of ancient plants, grains, microbes, small organic bits. \nThere's overlap between this field and that of ancient health and disease and they're both fascinating areas of research for seemingly vast amounts of information that can be gleaned about ancient lifestyles in the absence (or as a supplement to) other traditional evidence such as artefacts, buildings, bodies, etc. \n \n",
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"body": "Cancer has been around a long time, but it wasn't really classified. Autopsies were unheard of unless there was a religious reason like the Egyptians taking the organs and putting them in jars. Because of this no-one knew if it was because of a tumor or what when you died. All they knew was that it was a \"wasting disease\". Aside from that cancer is far more common in older people so increased life expectancy would increase incidence of cancer.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/22dk9w/why_did_portugal_and_spain_fall_so_far_behind_the/ | 22dk9w | 17 | t3_22dk9w | Why did Portugal and Spain fall so far behind the other major European powers in the Industrial Revolution? | 178 | 0.95 | null | false | 1,396,822,422 | [
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"body": "This is something we discussed in my military history class briefly but it was during the 17th century and after that Spain and Portugal really began to fall behind despite massive amounts of windfall wealth coming in from their colonies. \n\nFirstly there was a slight population crisis as large numbers of men left Europe for the colonies or were killed in warfare.\n\nsecondly Wars took a huge toll on the economy. Unlike the system of long term, low interest loans developed by the dutch, then later the enlgish parliament (which allowed them to raise huge amounts of money for war and pay it back slowly over time- see \"the sinews of power\" by brewer) the spanish were only able to borrow short term high interest payments and this left the government straddled with ever increasing debt. \n\nas the others said, money was the issue",
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"body": "Answer in one word? War. Continual war since the mid 16th century that consumed the country's resources and left the people in poverty until the 1960's. Even today, the Spanish economy is still suffering the effects of a prolonged war state.\n\n\"Really?\" you ask. \"War, war and more war?\" **Yes.**\n\n*****\n\nIt all starts at the height of the Spanish empire. Carlos V (and later his son, Felipe II) were Kings and emperors over a vast empire that extended across Europe, over huge swaths of land in North and South America, and also the Philippines. At that time (~1555) the Portuguese throne was also part of the Spanish empire, and since the Portuguese had holdings along practically every coastline from Brazil to the Philippines, the Spanish empire had holdings that were at least as considerable as that of the British Empire years later. The trouble? The Spanish empire was under siege from a variety of fronts:\n\n* The Moors in the east had always posed some threat; they were the \"barbarian infidels\" who were a thorn in the empire's side from its inception. Moorish pirates terrorized ships in the region, especially in the south Mediterranean, and periodic raiding parties were not uncommon.\n* France smarted over the fact that Carlos V had been made emperor, and they were afraid of being surrounded practically on all sides by the Spanish empire, and there were number of wars that broke out between the French and Spanish in this time.\n* Martin Luther's reformation slowly swelled, and Spain reluctantly fought against the protestants per the pope's request (this may be controversial, but it was Carlos V that insisted that the catholics and protestants meet on several occasions, and reluctantly fought the protestants due to fact that \"Spain is Catholic\" and not because he wanted to).\n\nSo, fighting off the French in the west, the Turks in the south and southeast, and the protestants in the east and north, the empire was under considerable strain from fighting essentially **three wars at once** and was borrowing money like crazy to fund all these campaigns. When Felipe II took over from his father, he found some success against the Moors, but ultimately was unable to resolve the other conflicts quite as well.\n\nThen the English, deciding they were no longer catholic, went and killed their \"Catholic princess\" and possible heir to the throne, Mary, Queen of Scots. Once again, Catholic Spain came to the rescue by declaring **war** and assembling the infamous, \"Invincible\" Spanish armada. The English did some cutesy things with fire ships, and as the armada roiled around trying to avoid them, they got scattered, just as a massive storm hit and decimated the fleet. Protestants hailed this as a great victory, where they really just got lucky, but the result was the same: Spain again lost a *lot* of power and money.\n\nFelipe's son, Felipe III, inherited an altogether-not-too-great situation, and unfortunately for Spain, was not capable of it. He was a weak, unispiring king and he spent money partying while the empire fell apart. Felipe IV did little better, and his son, Carlos II, was completely medically incapable of ruling. Court intrigues, increasingly spurred on by foreign powers, ignored the throne almost entirely by this point, and the only thing that Carlos II of any importance was to name a French prince as his successor, and since the rest of Europe felt threatened by a potential French - Spanish alliance, this was contested and led to the Spanish **War of Succession**, which *further* decimated the Spanish treasury and holdings.\n\nThis pattern continues with:\n \n* another **war with England** in 1762\n* yet **another** in 1779\n* yet **another this time with France** (again) in 1793 after the French Revolution. \n* 1807, Napoleon invades and occupies Spain until 1814.\n\nSpain is completely knocked off the bucket at this point, and has been decimated as an empire, losing most of its European holdings.\n\nThen the **american colonies start declaring independence** in 1821, and Spain loses all but Cuba and Puerto Rico by 1832.\n\nThen there's a series of **three Carlist wars** from 1832 to 1876. These were civil wars, fought between factions within Spain, to decide who should take the throne.\n\nThey decide finally to ask an italian prince if he'll rule for them, but Amadeus of Savoy doesn't really want to rule, and abdicates in 1873. So they try a republic instead of a monarchy. That lasts even less time, and they go back to having a king, Alfonso XII, who **fights off rebels in Cuba**, which causes the people to breathe a sigh of relief at having retained at least a little of of their colonial holdings. In their minds, they still have at least a small piece of something to call \"an empire\".\n\nThen in 1898 the **Spanish-American war** starts due to trigger-happy America and their Manifest destiny; they lose Puerto Rico and Cuba here and with it any idea of being an empire. Until this point there was a lot of popular denial of the bad things that had happened in the country; the Spanish people clung to their memories of better times and a hope of becoming great again, but this was the final straw in the national psyche, and the people became completely disillusioned with their gov't, and depressed with their current state.\n\nI should point out here that in the Basque and Catalan regions of Spain that there were some inklings of industrialization during this mid to late 18th century period. Barcelona and Madrid had some factorization occur as well, so they weren't *completely* un-industrial. Spain proper though had always been very agriculturally based, and this coupled with their poverty due to their continued wars left them without much industrial impulse.\n\nThe 20th century went down like you might expect, with a lot of war. Besides the **first** and **second World Wars**, the Spanish had their **civil war** in the late 30s, which was a result of more unstable rule (I'm paraphrazing **a lot**; their civil war was really, really terrible. EDIT: maybe check out /u/tobbinator's comments on the subject for more info). They tried a republic again in the early 30s, but that didn't work any better than the first time.\n\nUltimately, Francisco Franco, a fascist dictator, ruled from 1938 to 1975. While he helped reestablish Spanish national pride by hearkening back to imperial days, he also did some very terrible things, and he did have totalitarian control, which restricted personal freedoms. In the later years of Franco, Spain finally hit its industrial revolution, and caught up in a lot of ways with the rest of Europe and the West.\n\n*****\n\nSo there you have at least **18 major conflicts and wars since 1555**, and I doubt that's completely accurate; that's just what I informally counted here. That's pretty bad. These weren't \"oh, let's go save Iraq/Afghanistan from evil rulers (and secure our standings and oil in the Middle East while we're at it)\" wars where the nation is relatively left out of it. These were wars where Spanish soil is involved and an incredible amount of national GDP is being spent almost every time. You can't go through that and *not* suffer an incredible setback.\n\nHonestly, Spain's history after the death of Franco is fairly incredible - Juan Carlos I does a *lot* of fairly unselfish things for the country, and they are finally able to give the people more freedoms, even minorities. He's kinda a hero of mine, even though I'm not Spanish myself. Spain is still divided in a lot of ways and smarting from centuries of war and political turmoil, but their situation today is loads improved, and is really remarkable if you know a bit of their history. If you have time and are interested, check it out!\n\n[Source.](http://www.amazon.com/Civilizacion-cultura-Espa%C3%B1a-5th-Edition/dp/0131946382)",
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"body": "Non-Historian here, but Portuguese that likes history.\n\nOne major problem the Portuguese economy had during the discoveries and then the Industrial revolution was the dependence of the State (King). There weren't many Portuguese rich-man that were available to invest in the new business, and later the investments were made with the help of the State. For example, the discoveries in Portugal were sponsored by the State and I think in England and the Netherlands, there was a company for that (The Easter Indies Company or similar). \n\nPortugal was also a catholic devote country and in many regions you still find people averse to innovation. If things were running well enough, there was no need for inventing. This is something cultural, and you can still notice the differences between the Portuguese and other European countries population.\n\nPortuguese colonies offered good resources for Portuguese elite, if you had the money in Portugal you could just invest in guaranteed investments with good return in the colonies, such as S. Tomé e Principe, Angola, Moçambique.\n\nPortuguese market was also an obstacle, contrary to big countries as France and the UK, Portugal had a population of 3 million in 1800, England had almost 8. However if you notice the difference on the capital, Lisbon had 200k and London had almost a million.\n\nAdditional to these obstacles we also had other problems during the years of the industrial revolution. \n*French invasions during Napoleon reign (1807) that lead to a flee of the court to Brazil.\n*Brazil independence in 1820, it was our richest colony and different from the US.\n*Relation with England, with many business in Oporto (Portuguese second biggest city) being owned by Englishman.\n\nI also remember that the first Portuguese coal electricity producer was dependent on the English, our coal was of inferior quality so we had to import.\n\n\nSorry I can't help about Spain.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8tde3i/did_usa_and_england_drug_the_chinese_for_world/ | 8tde3i | 9 | t3_8tde3i | Did USA and England Drug the Chinese for World Economic Dominance? Industrial Revolution. | Saw a comment thread on a site many scientists contribute to and wanted to check with a historian for accuracy.
The claims:
>The correlation of the rise of Europe/US and the decline of China/India (55% of world gdp at the time) is directly tied to a massive amount of illegal drugs pumped by US/England/France into China for a 100 year period.
>
>The reaction of a society to a forced drug epedemic will create 2nd and 3rd order effects (like a closed society) that are very easy to criticize today by people who are unaware of one of the largest poisonings in modern history (done by Roosevelts and Forbes family)
>... colonizing all of Africa, South America, India, and drugging China (at about the same time) did a lot to boost GDP...
>
>Industrial revolution works even better if all prevailing exporters all of a sudden fall off a cliff.
>
>"Mean reversion", word of the century.
>
>Interesting bonus fact for economic historians, in 1890, 30% of Britain's GDP was illegal opium smuggling to China.
>
>Would be interesting to see the numbers for the USA (by some accounts, the biggest exporter by that point)...
Screen cap of full original post: [https://i.imgur.com/QVr0UdR.png](https://i.imgur.com/QVr0UdR.png)
Sources from original post:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell\_%26\_Company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_%26_Company)
[https://imgur.com/a/eGdznWP](https://imgur.com/a/eGdznWP)
[https://www.c-span.org/video/?290682-1/the-imperial-cruise](https://www.c-span.org/video/?290682-1/the-imperial-cruise)
[https://www.jstor.org/stable/3112527](https://www.jstor.org/stable/3112527) | 7 | 0.66 | null | false | 1,529,792,151 | [
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"body": "The premise of this statement rests on five elements, at least as far as economics are concerned (social issues are a different kettle of worms): \n\n1. That the opium trade damaged the Chinese economy;\n2. That the opium trade was intended for Western profit;\n3. That the opium trade was desirable for the West;\n4. That opium was a purely West-to-East arrangement; and\n5. That damage to China was intentional – that it was, in effect, a conspiracy.\n\nAll of these can be refuted.\n\nThe first of these points, that the opium trade damaged the Chinese economy, simply does not line up with the facts. From the 1820s onwards, opium imports rose annually (see [this table](https://i.stack.imgur.com/EGAR7.png)),^1 yet China ran up a trade *surplus* from the mid-1850s until 1886,^2 by which point domestic opium production was outstripping imports.^3 Indeed, domestic production of opium proved vital to the *recovery* of local economies, bankrolling both anti-rebel and reconstruction efforts from the 1850s to the end of the 1880s.^2 ^3 At the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1945, 40% of the revenues in China's Communist-held regions originated from so-called 'special product'.^4\n\nThe second, that the opium trade was for Western profit, is again questionable. For sure, opium exports from British India increased markedly from the 1820s onwards, but had remained generally stable at 4000 ± 1000 chests before then. As early as 1719, it was known that opium fetched a high price in China – Daniel Defoe's sequel to *Robinson Crusoe* sees the titular character taking the good to Macao from India,^5 and so if the opium trade was a deliberate way of gaining profit, the EIC would likely have been increasing exports long before. Instead, opium trading was merely intended to cover the costs of imports, making up for a deficit originating from declining demand for Indian cotton.^6 Further, when opium was most valuable, it was also an extremely risky venture. James Matheson, one of the most successful opium traders, faced bankruptcy more than once due to frequent price fluctuations before the end of the EIC monopoly.^7\n\nThe third, that the West desired an opium trade, is more contentious. Sure, those who gained direct profits (traders like Jardine and Matheson being chief among them) were keen to emphasise the innocuousness of opium smoking and the legitimacy of the trade,^7 but back home, people were far less kind. One Irish newspaper in 1841 denounced the British *casus belli* for the First Opium War, ridiculing the lack of a new Anglo-Chinese deal.^8 The terms of the Treaty of Nanjing were designed largely to render the opium trade obsolete through the opening of new ports, and pro-war agitators often then went on the condemn opium trading and call for the cession of Indian opium production.^9\n\nThe fourth, that the opium trade was purely a case of opium being produced by the West for consumption in China, is patently false. Aside from the fact that China was producing opium domestically, drugs in general were being sold over-the counter all over Britain. High street shops stocked huge quantities of laudanum (opium tincture) for consumption by polite British society in the 1860s,^10 and even at the turn of the 20th century, various narcotics could be procured over-the-counter on both sides of the Atlantic, including hashish derivatives and morphine.^11 The actual exchange was not actually as clear-cut as the standard narrative claims.\n\nThe fifth, that there was some kind of deliberate anti-Chinese conspiracy, is what it is – a conspiracy theory, and not a very good one at that. Opium had been recognised in China as a medicine since the 8th century, gained some recognition as a recreational narcotic in the 11th, and became actively used recreationally when it supplanted tobacco in the 18th.^12 The Anglo-Chinese opium trade, however, didn't take off until, as noted before, the 1820s. Aside from that, there was (and to some extent still is) a general lack of consensus as to whether opium has appreciably life-damaging side effects at all – and, given the relatively moderate nature of opium usage, it is likely that few people in China were actually that badly affected by it.^13 ^14 Further, this does not gel at all with Western policy in China. When dealing with the Taiping, for example, the decision to either intervene or remain neutral depended largely on which would be more *beneficial* to China, not what would better enable their own conquest of it.^15\n\nSo in conclusion, no. The opium trade, whilst certainly part of the Western imperial enterprise in China, was never part of a grand destructive conspiracy. I'm in no way trying to justify it – few at the time did, either – but I am pointing out that it was probably far less devastating than it is usually made out to be.\n\n**Sources, Notes and References:**\n\n* ^1 Nick Robins, *The Corporation That Changed the World: How the East India Company Shaped the Modern Multinational* (2012), p. 157\n* ^2 Julia Lovell, *The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of Modern China* (2011), p. 37\n* ^3 Frank Dikötter, Zhou Xun and Lars Laamann, *Narcotic Culture: A History of Drugs in China* (2016; 1st ed. 2004), p. 42\n* ^4 Lovell (2011), pp. 31, 331\n* ^5 Stephen Platt, *Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China’s Last Golden Age* (2018), pp. 183-184 \n* ^6 Ibid., p. 187\n* ^7 Lovell (2011), pp. 24-25\n* ^8 Ibid., p. 175\n* ^9 Platt (2018), pp. 406-410\n* ^10 Lovell (2011), p. 269\n* ^11 Dikötter et al., (2004), p. 3 \n* ^12 Lovell (2011), pp. 21-23\n* ^13 Lovell (2011) – see chapter 1, *Opium and China*, and chapters 16 and 17, *The Yellow Peril* and *The National Disease* \n* ^14 Dikötter et al. (2004)\n* ^15 Stephen Platt, *Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War* (2012)",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5kz5wl/occasionally_i_see_projections_of_the_year_2000/ | 5kz5wl | 6 | t3_5kz5wl | Occasionally I see projections of the year 2000 that were written at the turn of the twentieth century. What did projections of the future look like before the Industrial Revolution? | 145 | 0.93 | null | false | 1,483,044,582 | [
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"body": "Ah, I love the history of the future!\n\nHere's an [earlier answer of mine](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3vovzs/before_around_1700_where_there_any_books_or_plays/) that looks at literary visions of a futuristic world from the Middle Ages through the 18th century, with a strong focus on the technological rather than social side of things.\n\nOutside of religious prophecy, it actually took Western writers a surprising amount of time to turn the nascent ideology of progress into visions of the actual future. Instead, they spend a couple of centuries primarily projecting their idealized or futuristic technologies onto alternate worlds--parallel universes (Margaret Cavendish), the moon (Johannes Kepler), faraway islands (Francis Bacon).",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/fph9b5/what_aside_from_knowledge_of_how_to_useextract/ | fph9b5 | 2 | t3_fph9b5 | What, aside from knowledge of how to use/extract coal and oil, prevented an industrial revolution from occurring earlier in history? | I’ve heard (and I’m not sure if this is reliable) that in the late Roman Empire, technology was reaching a point that an industrial revolution of sorts could have happened, and that it was the turmoil following the fall of Rome that prevented it. Regardless of whether that is true, what historically did keep such a technological boom from occurring before the 19th century? | 3 | 1 | null | false | 1,585,248,789 | [
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"body": "There's always more that can be said but while you wait you might enjoy some of these older posts on the topic. As you'll quickly see, its actually a pretty complicated discussion.\n\n/u/Daeres and a deleted user discuss [Why didn't we get an industrial revolution during Antiquity ?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/119wcv/why_didnt_we_get_an_industrial_revolution_during/)\n\n/u/AlviseFalier talks about [Why did the Industrial Revolution begin in the UK and not elsewhere? I have seen several theories, including colonialism, natural resources, Protestantism, capitalism and the rule of law. Is there any historical consensus on this?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/75ywnb/why_did_the_industrial_revolution_begin_in_the_uk/)\n\nand a particularly good post from /u/LuxArdens on [Why did the industrial revolution happen so late in civilization?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/f6aair/why_did_the_industrial_revolution_happen_so_late/)",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3rubmd/what_was_china_doing_when_the_industrial/ | 3rubmd | 11 | t3_3rubmd | What was China doing when the industrial revolution started? | Also, what was the state of China in the early-late 1700s? What changed in China when the industrial revolution was in swing?
Cheers | 129 | 0.92 | null | false | 1,446,862,088 | [
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"body": "Hmm. That's a pretty big question. \n\nSo, what was China doing when the Industrial Revolution started? Taking the question from a broad economic perspective:\n\nThe second half of the 1600’s saw various economic difficulties in China, which began to let up in the late 1680’s and 90’s, and by the beginning of the 1700’s, the Qing empire was in growth mode. The population boomed, growing from 150-200 million in 1700 to 320 to 350 million in 1800. Many of these new people moved to frontier areas, including into areas just conquered by the Qing state in the north and west of China. However, population densities also increased significantly in the already densely population areas around the major rivers and in the southern economic core.\n\nCommercialization and long-distance internal trade became very significant elements of the Chinese economy. Kenneth Pomeranz believes that health and living standards were pretty similar between the core regions of China and England during this century. Meanwhile, maritime trade with Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Americas was bringing in huge quantities of silver. For example, China was bringing in about 6.4 million taels (Chinese ounces) of silver a year during the 1760’s (mostly in exchange for tea, but also silk, and porcelain). This definitely helped with the development and commercialization of the economy, with monetization spreading thoroughly to nearly all parts of society. \n\nIn other words, while the Industrial Revolution was getting going in England, things were pretty good in China as well. Kenneth Pomeranz’s The Great Divergence looks pretty carefully at the economic situation in China during the 18th century, if you’re interested. It also takes a stab at answering questions about why the Industrial Revolution didn’t happen there. Victor Lieberman’s Strange Parallels volume 2 also considers Pomeranz’s arguments in brief, as well as some criticisms of them. \n\nWhat was the state of China in the 1700’s?\n\nGovernmentally, the whole period was covered by basically three emperors: the Kangxi emperor, the Yongzheng emperor, and the Qianlong emperor. The Qianlong emperor technically abdicatated in 1796, but continued effectively running the country until he died in 1799. The Kangxi and Qianlong emperors are generally seen as good, strong emperors, and the Yongzheng emperor as being not bad. All in all, the country was pretty stable. \n\nHowever, G. William Skinner points out that the administration basically stagnated in size during the early modern period. For example, there were 1180 counties in the Han dynasty and 1360 in the Qing, about 1700 years later and with seven times the population. Likewise, the number of official posts remained virtually stagnant from the Ming, around 20,000. Since the population kept expanding, this had a number of effects. One of them was that increasing numbers of Chinese literati, whose class status was based on passing the imperial exams and getting a bureaucratic post, couldn’t do so. By the 1700’s, your chances of getting an imperial post in any given year were minute. This meant that a lot of literati turned to other pursuits - teaching, secretarial work, and conspicuous consumption - to establish their class status. Likewise, as the number of people in each county increased, the effective responsibilities of the government shrunk. Consider that the subject to official ratio in 1600 was about 9000:1 but by 1850 it was about 21750:1. Activities that were once seen as government responsibilities (firefighting, water control and public works, famine relief, public security, moral indoctrination, etc.) were increasingly passed on to local gentry and literati. It has been argued that this marks a decline in the long-term effectiveness of the Chinese state that was to become a serious problem in the 1800’s. \n\nIn the face of this situation, the imperial government focused (relatively) more and more resources on the north and west, where China’s traditional steppe enemies lived. The administration of the south and east was more and more left to lower level officials. Perhaps the most important example of this would be in terms of maritime trade with Europeans, which occupied a muddled sort of legal and moral grey zone in the mind of the imperial court. However, the court allowed local officials in Canton and their merchant allies to keep the trade going basically so long as the customs kept getting collected and the bribes kept making their way up the hierarchy. This would, of course, lead to other problem later, but the Qing probably couldn’t have reasonably foreseen them.\n\nHopefully that answers the question you asked there.\n\nWhat changed in China when the industrial revolution was in swing?\n\nWell, during the 1700’s, propagation of western ideas and technologies to China certainly did occur. Western mapmaking techniques, for example, were spread by Jesuit missionaries to the Qing court, and they did important work creating a series of massive atlases of China for the government. China also imported substantial quantities of English woolens, a classic early industrial manufactured product. By the 1790’s, this was occurring to the tune of about a million taels a year. European clocks and clockwork were fashionable amongst the literati and political elite — this was known as the singsong trade. Take a look at China and Maritime Europe, 1500-1800 for coverage of this sort of interaction. \n\nHowever, after a certain point, the history of what changed in China during the Industrial Revolution becomes basically a history of China in the 1800’s. I’m not going to try to cover it all here, but I can recommend some books. A really good recent history of the interaction between China and the West is Hevia’s English Lessons: The Pedagogy of Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century China. Opium occupies a notorious place in this story: for that I would recommend The Social Life of Opium in China, by Zheng Yangwen. ",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/f7u91g/when_did_europe_become_ahead_the_rest_of_the/ | f7u91g | 3 | t3_f7u91g | When did Europe become ahead the rest of the world? Was it only after industrial revolution? | And what lead to that, just lucky or a complex sequence of events? | 3 | 0.71 | null | false | 1,582,386,654 | [
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"body": "This is (understandably) a very hot topic of historical debate, and there is by no means a consensus in the answer. \n\nOne of the most significant works that deals with this question is Kenneth Pomeranz's *The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy* (2000). In this work, Pomeranz argues that up until even the late 18th century, Europe and specifically China were equal in production, productivity, industry, commercialization, technology, economy and more. They even faced similar ecological issues, leading all of Eurasia too be on equal footing. He argues that Europe (specifically north west Europe) only began to pull ahead due to the positioning of coal in Europe, which grew in importance as timber diminished. The 'New World' also relied more heavily on commodities from Europe than Asia, and East Asia's economy stopped growing due to the inability to continue to export to Indian regions with the rise in manufacturing and population. Historian Paul Bairoch particularly stresses this last point, as England's growing influence in India also prohibited China and Japan's expansion here. So in some ways, yes, it happened with the Industrial Revolution and was largely based on luck in resources. \n\nHowever, these views are argued against extensively, and it would take forever to go through all of them. It is also important to note, that views that \"Europe was better than the rest of the world\" are very Eurocentric, with many global historians, such as Jack Goldstone and Arif Dirlik trying very hard to overcome these ideas that Europe was the center of the world at any time in history.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9o0cm5/prior_to_the_industrial_revolution_were_many/ | 9o0cm5 | 5 | t3_9o0cm5 | Prior to the industrial revolution, were many civilizations exhausting their sources of natural resources such as ore? | In modern times, despite rapidly using up resources, there is constant improvement in technology. This means that new sources become available as older ones are depleted. However, before the industrial revolution, the pace of technological progress was very slow, and most civilizations did not have the ability to import large quantities of bulk goods from distant parts of the world. I know that in this period, individual mines were often exhausted. If that happened, it seems there would be no way to replace that lost source of resources, forever.
Is this something that's been studied? Were ancient and medieval societies concerned about running out of mines entirely at some point in the future? If industrial civilizations collapsed today, would we have no access to many types of ore because all of the stuff that was easily accessible has run out? | 28 | 0.83 | null | false | 1,539,493,560 | [
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"body": "Deforestation has been a major issue in England starting from around the end of the 15th century - this is what lead to their use of coal (the substitute). Rome had a similar issue, but their substitute was similar to the gold mine issue - invasion and capture of resources.",
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"body": "Can you restate this question? \" If industrial civilizations collapsed today, would we have no access to many types of ore because all of the stuff that was easily accessible has run out? \" Didn't realize understand the wording.\n\n​\n\nI'm curious to the exhausting of mines pre-modern era as well, or before the 21st century, or before the 1900's. My guess is that it's limited to their man power, and how much they can mine. I don't know how they made steel out of the Iron ore. I was just reading a Classical Greek thread and it was said that Silver Ore was the #2 export of BC Athens, which is a lot. I wonder how they mined that, and how it was so abundant, because it was a major economy factor for them and did not seem to run out. We should also check what people used to build. Iron Ore and Steel for building roads, railroads and trains, factories and skyscrapers, when did it become more important?",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/fg3lmi/how_did_factories_during_the_industrial/ | fg3lmi | 3 | t3_fg3lmi | How did factories during the Industrial Revolution attract workers? | During the IR the working conditions were pretty horrible, the wages were extremely low, even the living conditions in the cities weren't really promising. The workers had a tough working schedule with strict rules.
Despite alle that, many people moved from the land, where they probably had their farms, to the cities to work under these conditions.
How did that happen? Was living on a farm much worse than I expect right now? Or did the factories/cities have other advantages, I just don't see? Were my assumptions at the beginning wrong?
This questions just popped into my mind when reading a text about the revolution. I'm mainly thinking of the UK in the 18th and 19th century now, but appreciate all answers. | 1 | 0.6 | null | false | 1,583,794,462 | [
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"body": "Not to discourage further discussion but you may be interested in [an answer](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/f6xpdy/comment/fi9dlvd?context=1) I wrote to a similar, more UK focused, question a bit over two weeks ago.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/13lz9t1/in_world_war_i_during_the_constructiondigging_of/ | 13lz9t1 | 21 | t3_13lz9t1 | In World War I, during the construction/digging of the trenches and bunkers did soldiers/engineers etc. discover ancient/medieval artefacts or ruins of archaeological/cultural interest? | With the sheer amount of digging in the ground going on during that war, surely many smaller things like coins, buckles, etc would have been unearthed, but were there any notable finds that were discovered at that time? Perhaps that were followed up post-war? | 1,312 | 0.97 | null | false | 1,684,511,156 | [
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"body": "We have a previous answer to this [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/trzm1g/did_the_soldiers_during_ww1_and_ww2_ever_find_any/i2ruzv4/) by /u/gerardmenfin.\n\nMore answers are always welcome.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/13zgyld/how_did_the_eastern_front_during_world_war_i/ | 13zgyld | 2 | t3_13zgyld | How did the Eastern Front during World War I compare to the Eastern Front during World War II? | Growing up, during my schooling, the focus on World War I history primarily revolved around the Western Front, with the Eastern Front receiving comparatively less attention. Even today, the Western Front continues to receive greater emphasis. While my primary interest lies in World War II, I do possess a smaller but significant interest in World War I. Consequently, I am particularly intrigued by the comparison between the Eastern Front during World War I and World War II.
The Eastern Front during World War II is widely recognized as a nightmarish Hellscape where some of the most devastating battles occurred. Moreover, it was the primary theater of death and destruction during the war. The intense animosity between the Germans and Russians fueled relentless and brutal warfare in this region.
However, my knowledge of the Eastern Front during World War I is limited. I am unaware of any parallels that may exist between the two conflicts in terms of the nature of warfare. I would appreciate any insights into whether there were similarities in terms of tactics and brutality compared to the Eastern Front in World War II. | 22 | 0.86 | null | false | 1,685,807,749 | [
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"body": "As a good primary source, I would recommend The Burning of the World by Béla Zombory-Moldován. It’s a first person account of the first six months of fighting on the Eastern Front in the Honvéd, the Royal Hungarian Army. \n\nWhat I learned from that book was that the initial stages of fighting on the Eastern Front was much like the mobile war in the West—no entrenchment. Like the Nazis in WW2, the Hungarians made the mistake of assuming that it would take the Russians months to mobilize their troops. They force marched to the Galician border ill-prepared and ill-trained, with a motley crew of Austrian and Hungarian officers leading Hungarian and Pole and Czech and Slovak and Croat and Romanian-speaking enlisted. The Russians used rail effectively to move men and artillery into position at breakneck speed. The Austro-Hungarians thought they could strike quickly into Russia, but they ended up getting bogged down and slaughtered; the Germans had to bail them out.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/11wr5as/in_world_war_i_why_didnt_the_armies_attack_each/ | 11wr5as | 12 | t3_11wr5as | In World War I, why didn't the armies attack each other while they were digging the trenches? | I'm a history teacher. Today, as I was explaining why the armies dug the trenches as a means of protecting themselves against the new, more fatal weapons, a student asked this question, and I was at a loss. I'm also having a hard time searching for an answer. Any guidance is appreciated. | 8 | 0.75 | null | false | 1,679,337,303 | [
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"body": "I'm going to answer this as though I would if the question was asked by someone without any knowledge on the topic so forgive me if I say anything you already know.\n\nFew saw the conditions of the First World War coming. There were some hints as to what might be expected from prior conflicts such as the Boer War and the Russo-Japanese War but the sheer scale of the destruction was predicted by few.\n\nWhen the Entente and the Central Powers went to war, no one was expecting to be digging large networks of trenches. The clearest evidence of this was the lack of steel helmets until later in the war and the lack of the provision of entrenching tools to soldiers, soldiers had to scour farms and villages for picks and shovels.\n\nWhen it became apparent to the soldiers at the coalface that the safest place for them to be when confronted by the killing power of modern artillery, rifles and machine guns was below ground level, the trench systems emerged organically. When one side came up against the other, the volumes of lethal material flying through the air led any sane soldier to seek shelter wherever they could, shell holes, irrigation ditches, sunken roads etc. Because moving around above ground was virtual suicide, connecting the makeshift below ground shelters was the natural alternative. What emerged was a makeshift network of interconnected fighting positions. When it became apparent to the other side that attacking such defensible positions without adequate artillery or the not yet developed tools such as hand grenades, mortars etc was incredibly difficult and costly, that side tended to dig in as well to shelter them for the other side's artillery and machine guns. As the war continued, the trench networks became more elaborate as the soldiers occupying them tried to make them more hospitable, digging deeper, constructing firing steps, shoring up the trench walls with whatever could be scrounged from rear areas, adding sand bags, digging dugouts for sleeping and of course extending and expanding the network to connect to reserve trenches.\n\nSo the answer to your question is that trenches, or at least the occupied positions that would become become the trench systems, were dug or occupied under fire. Sometimes trench positions were established in anticipation of an enemy attack such as that at Mons but in those early days trenches were not intended to be permanent but rather temporary positions for opposing enemy advances and were to be abandoned when the enemy was repelled and the defending soldiers counterattacked.\n\nSource:\n\nThe First World War by John Keegan\n\nEdit: Corrected the expression coalface",
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"body": "They very much did. This has been written about in the past but the reddit search function leaves some things to be desired so I'll do a quick write-up anyway. However, exactly in what form depends on which phase of the war and can broadly be defined as during and after the \"Race to the sea\".\n\n**During the race to the sea** \nAfter the German attack at Marne and Allied counter attack at Aisne in September the German army still had the initiative. Since attacking head on into entrenched positions was largely understood to be a futile endeavor attempts were made at out-flanking the Allied armies. The terrain south of the main area of engagement becomes gradually less suitable for rapid troop movement with progressively denser forests and higher terrain all the way to the Swiss alps so the initial moves were made north towards the relatively flat and open terrain. The flanking movements were generally conducted by the German cavalry with infantry following as fast as possible but shadowed on the French side by cavalry and infantry. During this phase there were *numerous* encounter battles in which neither side managed to gain a decisive advantage (as is often the case when neither side is really prepared for it). These usually ended in the cavalry from both sides retreating and infantry moving in to occupy the ground on both sides. This pattern continued all the way to the shores of the English channel.\n\nSince troops in WW1 were generally limited in strategic mobility by the capacity of the railroad system any significant breakthrough would have to rely on capturing a railway intact as this was the only way in which an advance could be sustained and supplied for any significant period of time. This was a lesson the French had absorbed in the Franco-Prussian war when Germany demonstrated a surprising (to the French) ability to move a lot of troops really *really* quickly. Consequently, these areas were usually fortified first. If a unit was attack while preparing a defensive position it would *usually* fall back to the next suitable position and the line would shift a little. Often only by a few hundred meters but typically during this period the majority of the battles were encounter battles and the major battles that did occur (Picardy, Albert, Arras, La Bassée and Armentières etc) usually followed the same pattern which can *very roughly* be summarized as \"cavalry advances and forces the enemy forward positions to retreat, this takes time, allowing infantry to arrive in force and entrench, often during the night, cavalry is unable to progress further and withdraws, lines settle into a entrenched stalemate, cavalry withdraws and repeats procedure further north\". This pattern repeated itself with local variations during the entire race to the sea. Limited mobility of the attacking side allowed the defenders to move troops into position and entrench before a breakthrough could be achieved.\n\nThere were cases where attacks were successful but generally these areas stablizied around some terrain feature the defenders could fall back to. A river, a canal, a series of heights, something that gave a decisive defensive advantage.\n\n**After the race to the sea** \nOnce the lines had settled in the situation developed into a grueling stalemate but trench works were still being built. Either to secure a new position or to further improve an existing one. There are three primary ways of doing this. Entrenching, sapping or tunneling. What's that?\n\n*Entrenching* \nTake a unit, line them up, tell them to dig. This is the fastest way to create a trench as it allows every man to work at the same time. The disadvantage is that you are very exposed while doing it. It was fairly common during the race to the sea as units would arrive and entrench quickly before the enemy infantry could arrive. It was also common after the race to the sea *but* only when building rear area defenses or at night when the odds of being spotted and targeted by artillery or attack was low.\n\n*Sapping* \nThis is basically where you stand at the end of a trench and dig, gradually lengthening the trench. This is slow work as only a very limited number of men can dig at the same time but the advantage is that you are not exposed while you do. This is how observation trenches were dug or how saps were prepared into no mans land before an attack.\n\n*Tunneling* \nThis is pretty self-explanatory. It's basically sapping with a roof. Dig a tunnel just under the surface where you want your trench to be. When you're done, remove the roof. You now have a trench. It is even slower than sapping and was relatively rare as a method of trench building.\n\nIn all cases above the other side would usually try to spot and target your efforts. Either with artillery or raids. During the day this would be done with observers, aircraft or balloons which is why the majority of this work would have been done at night when listening or flares was basically the only way to detect your efforts.\n\nEdit: Just saw the excellent post by u/TheWellSpokenMan but I'll let this stand anyway since we cover two slightly different approaches.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/11ifygd/in_his_1935_book_war_is_a_racket_majorgeneral/ | 11ifygd | 2 | t3_11ifygd | In his 1935 book War is a Racket, Major-General Smedley Butler said 21,000 Americans became millionaires as a result of World War I? Was he right? | And is there a quantifiable figure for those who scored bigly from World War II? | 240 | 0.95 | null | false | 1,677,970,453 | [
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"body": "Check out the discussion from this older thread: \n\nhttps://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4nhb9l/in_smedley_butlers_famous_essay_war_is_a_racket/",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12cvnkx/can_someone_help_me_find_primary_sources_from/ | 12cvnkx | 3 | t3_12cvnkx | Can someone help me find primary sources from World War I? | Help locating primary sources from World War 1
Hello,
I am currently student teaching at a high school and am preparing an activity for our unit on WW1 in world history. Ideally I want to put together a packet of sources for my students to analyze. I am have trouble trying to find sources from the very start of the war from the varying perspectives. (Since i am in America my searches are dominated by American primary sources) I am also struggling to find some from the home front, ideally i would like to have a couple from the turnip winter in Germany, as well as some from the either the colonial troops or the colonies themselves. If anyone can help point me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated! Thank you and enjoy your day! | 0 | 0.5 | null | false | 1,680,724,000 | [
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"body": "Canada has it's WW1 records digitized and online - here [https://library-archives.canada.ca/eng/collection/research-help/military-heritage/first-world-war/pages/fww-personnel.aspx](https://library-archives.canada.ca/eng/collection/research-help/military-heritage/first-world-war/pages/fww-personnel.aspx) They would all be primary source material. Pick a common name and see what you find.\n\nCanada as part of the commonwealth wasinvolved with WW1 for much longer than the US.\n\nMy great grandfather fought in WW1 and through the above link I'm able to access his attestation paper from when he joined the CEF in 1915. \n\nI'm away right now but my niece who worked at Vimy ridge as a guide last year was able to pull his full record for me - in a couple of days I'll post how she did that.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/11ck2xi/herman_kahn_once_said_world_war_i_broke_out/ | 11ck2xi | 2 | t3_11ck2xi | Herman Kahn once said, “World War I broke out largely because of an arms race, and World War II because of the lack of an arms race.” How true is this statement? | Though I’ve been unable to locate the exact source of the quote, the point still remains. AFAIK, events like the Naval Arms Race and the general military buildup vastly increased international tensions to the point where Franz Ferdinand’s assassination was able to cause a massive wider escalation. In World War II, many have asserted that Chamberlin’s appeasement strategy was aimed at buying the Allied powers time to mobilize and match German war production given their relative state of disarmament.
As such, is Kahn’s statement relatively true? Or, considering his background as a nuclear strategist during the Early Cold War, is it a biased statement that is more a product of its time? | 6 | 0.8 | null | false | 1,677,425,715 | [
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"body": "Herman Kahn was a fan of pithy, oversimplified quips that even he, I am sure, did not really believe encapsulated the truth of things. (A favorite of mine, which he said to a friend of mine after my friend suggested his policies led to overkill: \"There have always been two hands for every throat.\") This one does have a nice have-your-lunch-and-eat-it-too quality for a defense-consulting-creature like Kahn: war can break out no matter what you do — so you might as well be planning for it. (Or create alternative conditions for preventing it, which is more likely his pitch; the problem with the WWI arms race, for someone like Kahn, was that it was insufficiently horrifying enough to make the consequences of war unacceptable. Nuclear weapons, someone like this would argue, make a qualitative difference in that calculation, if done right.)\n\nAs for it being an accurate summation of the causes of either World War I or World War II... I mean, of course not. It is far too oversimplified. There are a million theses on the various causes of both World Wars. Neither can be summed up to a singular cause or slogan with any accuracy worth talking about, unless one is just trying to make some kind oversimplified political point that has nothing to do with the complexities of history (if you are against diplomacy, the lesson of World War II is \"appeasement is bad\"; if you are in favor of diplomacy, the lesson of World War I is \"secret treaties are bad,\" etc.). \n\nOne can find many other answers on here about the origins of either war; there is no need to hash them over to just note that no historian would accept such pithy statement of causes. And I doubt Kahn would have, either. He was a creature of his times but he was not so overly simplistic in his view of the world, or of history. This is the kind of quip that sticks in the mind and makes him look clever, but I wouldn't take it as a serious expression of an historical argument.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/11iaqqq/aside_from_world_war_i_were_there_other_wars/ | 11iaqqq | 2 | t3_11iaqqq | Aside from World War I, were there other wars where spontaneous "Christmas truces" occurred among troops? | 2 | 0.58 | null | false | 1,677,958,168 | [
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"body": "Yes. I detailed one occasion previously in a different sub and will post that response in full below, but first let's add a bit of context. McClellan was replaced in Nov of 1862 by Burnside who sought a stronghold around Fredericksburg, Virginia. Over 100,000 Union soldiers were poised to cross the Rappahannock into Fredericksburg but their pontoons were late, delaying this crossing and allowing the Confederate forces an opportunity to entrench. The Union army was peppered with sniper fire from the cities buildings while attempting to cross, eventually securing (and raiding/sacking) the town of Fredericksburg. Just west of town, however, an army had dug in and was waiting for them. The battlefield can almost be described as an amphitheater, with Confederate artillery in the \"lawn\" section and a stone wall at the base of the hill (our \"mezzanine\") on which they sat, that wall lined three deep with every rifle baring man Longstreet could find. This is what the Union was faced with overcoming as they approached from the \"stage\" of our amphitheater. In military strategy, it was an ideal situation for the Confederacy - their canons rained down furiously upon the advancing army while those men at the wall fired endlessly into the approaching ranks. Just south from this engagement Franklin tangled with Stonewall, briefly pushing his forces through the lines before they were devastated by a counterattack launched by Jackson, pushing the Union soldiers back. Franklin had undercommitted his troops and this position was vital as it was the zipper planned to roll up the Confederate flanks as they faced a major frontal assault on the batteries and battalions on Marye's Heights. With this effort stalled the attacking soldiers to the north, too far advanced from their own artillery to recieve any support, were marching into a defined kill zone. Of the ~100,000 Union soldiers and ~75,000 Confederate soldiers over 12,000 Union soldiers and roughly 6,000 Confederate soldiers would perish on these fields, most being killed in the action on Dec 12, 1862. The Union soldiers piled up on the plains of Fredericksburg, the place that the Confederate artillery commander had informed Longstreet a \"chicken could not survive\" upon once his batteries thundered to life. He was right; 7,500 of the Union casualties happened here and no Union soldier made it close enough to touch the stone wall. These same men would soon be wishing one another a Merry Christmas.\n\n---\n\nUS Civil War, Christmas on the Rappahannock, 1862, just after Fredericksburg;\n\n>It was Christmas Day, 1862. “And so this is war,” my old me said to himself while he paced in the snow his two hours on the river’s brink. “And I am out here to shoot that lean, lank, coughing, cadaverous-looking butternut fellow over the river. So this is war; this is being a soldier; this is the genuine article; this is H. Greely’s ‘On to Richmond.’ Well, I wish he were here in my place, running to keep warm, pounding his arms and breast to make the chilled blood circulate. So this is war, tramping up and down this river my fifty yards with wet feet, empty stomach, swollen nose.”\n\n>Alas, when lying under the trees in the college campus last June, war meant to me martial music, gorgeous brigadiers in blue and gold, tall young men in line, shining in brass. War meant ot me tumultuous memories of Bunker Hill, Caesar’s Tenth Legion, the Charge of the Six Hundred, – anything but this. Pshaw, I wish I were home. Let me see. Home? God’s country. A tear? Yes, it is a tear. What are they doing at home? This is Christmas Day. Home? Well, stockings on the wall, candy, turkey, fun, merry Christmas, and the face of the girl I left behind. Another tear? Yes, I couldn’t help it. I was only eighteen, and there was such a contrast between Christmas, 1862, on the Rappahannock and other Christmases. Yes, there was a girl, too, – such sweet eyes, such long lashes, such a low tender voice.\n\n>“Come, move quicker. Who goes there?” Shift the rifle from one aching shoulder to the other.\n\n>“Hello, Johnny, what are you up to?” The river was narrow, but deep and swift. It was a wet cold, not a freezing cold. There was no ice, too swift for that.\n\n>“Yank, with no overcoat, shoes full of holes, nothing to eat but parched corn and tabacco, and with this derned Yankee snow a foot deep, there’s nothin’ left, nothin’ but to get up a cough by way of protestin’ against this infernal ill treatment of the body. We uns, Yank, all have a cough over here, and there’s no sayin’ which will run us to hole first, the cough or your bullets.”\n\n>The snow still fell, the keen wind, raw and fierce, cut to the bone. It was God’s worst weather, in God’s forlornest, bleakest spot of ground, that Christmas Day of ’62 on the Rappahannock, a half-mile below the town of Fredericksburg. But come, pick up your prostrate pluck, you shivering private. Surely there is enough dampness around without your adding to it your tears.\n\n>“Let’s laugh, boys.”\n\n>“Hello, Johnny.”\n\n>“Hello, yourself, Yank.”\n\n>“Merry Christmas, Johnny.”\n\n>“Same to you, Yank.”\n\n>“Say, Johnny, got anything to trade?”\n\n>“Parched corn and tabacco, – the size of our Christmas, Yank.”\n\n>“All right; you shall have some of our coffee and sugar and pork. Boys, find the boats.”\n\n>Such boats! I see the children sailing them on small lakes in our Central park. Some Yankee, desperately hungry for tobacco, invented them for trading with the Johnnies. They were hid away under the backs of the river for successive relays of pickets.\n\n>We got out the boats. An old handkerchief answered for a sail. We loaded them with coffee, sugar, pork, and set the sail and watched them slowly creep to the other shore. And the Johnnies? To see them crowd the bank and push and scramble to be the first to seize the boats, going into the water and stretching out their long arms. Then, when they pulled the boats ashore, and stood in a group over the cargo, and to hear their exclamations, “Hurrah for hog.” “Say, that’s not roasted rye, but genuine coffee. Smell it, you’uns.” “And sugar, too!”\n\n>Then they divided the consignment. They laughed and shouted, “Reckon you’uns been good to we’uns this Christmas Day, Yanks.” Then they put parched corn, tobacco, ripe persimmons, into the boats and sent them back to us. And we chewed the parched corn, smoked real Virginia leaf, ate persimmons, which if they weren’t very filling at least contracted our stomachs to the size of our Christmas dinner. And so the day passed. We shouted, “Merry Christmas, Johnny.” They shouted, “Same to you, Yank.” And we forgot the biting wind, the chilling cold; we forgot those men over there were our enemies, whom it might be our duty to shoot before evening.\n\n>We had bridged the river, spanned the bloody chasm. We were brothers, not foes, waving salutations of good-will in the name of the Babe of Bethlehem, on Christmas Day in ’62. At the very front of the opposing armies, the Christ Child struck a truce of us, broke down the wall of partition, became our peace. We exchanged gifts. We shouted greetings back and forth. We kept Christmas and our hears were lighter of it, and our shivering bodes were not quite so cold.\n\n*Reverend John Paxton, a member of the 140th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry recalling his service in Harper's Weekly, 1886*\n\nA few miles up the Rappahannock, in a separate instance, the Johnny's (southerners) invited the Billy's (northerners) to come celebrate Christmas in their camp (they were likewise celebrating victory at Fredericksburg). Some did, and on the New Year the Billy's returned the favor, inviting Johnny's to come to their camp. They did, and after an officer came to investigate the noise from that camp he had the Johnny's arrested. Being responsible for the situation, the Billy's of that regiment escorted the Johnny's to the command tent and demanded they be allowed to leave as they came by invitation and under truce - the command agreed and they were released, after both sides promised not to do it anymore.\n\nIn another somewhat interesting twist of war, Gen Blackjack Logan was approaching the Flint River near Jonesboro, Ga, when a concealed confederate cannon battery opened fire on then from the trees. They responded with cannon fire of their own but quickly noticed a man outside a cabin waving a yellow flag, an indication of a medical area. Logan sent a dispatch which returned asking for assistance. When they arrived they found an old man and old woman along with the man's daughter in law, who was in labor on the bed. A cannonball had hit the cabin and a second flew through the roof, hit the wall, hit the headboard of the bed (splitting it), landed on the mattress, then came to rest on the floor. This prompted the man to come out with the flag. Logan quickly ordered his men to disengage with the confederates and make hasty repairs to the cabin as best they could. He also ordered the surgeon to assist in the delivery. The chaplain was brought forward to christen the child \"marvelous escape from a shell\" which translated as \"Shellanna Marvilier\", and Logan became the child's godfather, gifting her his gold pocket watch. Her father, Thomas, and her uncle, David, were both in Elmira Prison camp when this happened. \n\nThomas was my ggg-grandfather.\n\n(E for typo)",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/xzq87q/in_backing_a_return_to_unrestricted_submarine/ | xzq87q | 8 | t3_xzq87q | In backing a return to unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917, General Ludendorff said "We must spare the troops a second Somme." I had always thought of the Somme looming large over British memory of World War I, but did Germans also remember it as one of the great tragic battles of the war? | 169 | 0.98 | null | false | 1,665,334,092 | [
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"body": "The attitude of the German Army towards what happened on the Somme might best be summed up by an oft-quoted remark made by a German officer on the Somme; that it was:\n\n> [The Somme] was the muddy grave of the German Army.\n\nThis may come as a surprise to those more familiar with the popular Anglo memory of the Somme - which in turn is arguably defined more by the First Day then the entire (titanic) campaign - but the Somme, whilst it wasn't able to inflict a decisive defeat and breakthrough against the German Army in France, was nonetheless acknowledged by German officers and soldiers as a severe setback, and every bit as much a human tragedy for them as it was for their opponents. The Somme cost the Germans somewhere between 465,000 and 600,000 casualties - compared to 370,000 at their other titanic struggle in 1916 in the West, Verdun. Those losses could also not be easily replaced - although manpower issues would effect all armies, the British and French had their dominions to recruit from. The Germans also lost a high number of experienced officers, NCOs and other ranks, whose skill and experience could also not be easily replaced, with Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria commentating: \n\n> What remained of the old first-class peace-trained German infantry had been expended on the battlefield.\n\nThe conclusion drawn by Ludendorff was that the German High Command had to\n\n> bear in mind that the enemy's great superiority in men and material would be even more painfully felt in 1917 than in 1916. They had to face the danger the 'Somme fighting' would soon break out at various points on our fronts, and that even our troops would not be able to withstand such attacks indefinitely, especially if the enemy gave us no time to rest and for the accumulation of material\n\nApart from leading to Ludendorff to back unrestricted submarine warfare, the Somme was also an impetus for the Germans to began the withdrawal towards the Hindenburg Line.\n\n**Sources**\n\nSheffield, Gary - *Forgotten Victory - The First World War: Myths and Realities*\n\nSheffield, Gary - *The Somme*\n\nPhilpott, William - *Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme*",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/t2olpb/a_common_narrative_is_that_world_war_i_was_the/ | t2olpb | 44 | t3_t2olpb | A common narrative is that World War I was the result of cascading mutual defense pacts drawing ever more nations into the war. Yet NATO with its Article 5 was created just decades later. Are there any notable differences between the WWI treaties and Article 5? | 1,757 | 0.96 | null | false | 1,645,969,740 | [
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"body": "Yes, many, and I'm sure I'll miss something but I shall try to give a good overview here. \n\nThe main point I would make is in regards to the basis/wording of your question. You ask about the \"WWI treaties\" as compared to \"Article 5\" instead of the the entire North Atlantic Treaty of 1949 which has 14 Articles. At least one of these articles (Article 8) can be seen as a direct response to the problem of overlapping (or sometimes) conflicting alliances that pulled so many nations into WWI and it probably more relevant than Article 5. Article 8 verbatim\n\n>Each Party declares that none of the international engagements now in force between it and any other of the Parties or any third State is in conflict with the provisions of this Treaty, and undertakes not to enter into any international engagement in conflict with this Treaty.\n\nContrast Article 8 and generally the single, clear 1949 North Atlantic Treaty with the hodepodge of treaties, alliances, and informal agreements between and amongst members of the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente that built up over decades from the time of Bismarck and the 1870 Franco-Prussian war up until hostilities in 1914. Bismarck engineered the League of 3 Emperors between, Germany, Russia and Austria-Hungry against the perceived threat of France. Later through Austria-Hungary saw Russia as the main threat and that alliance dissolved. Italy was added later to to the German-Austrian \"dual alliance\" forming the triple alliance. \n\nOn the other side, the entente started with France trying to counter-balance Germany with a treaty with Russia in 1894 followed by the Entente Cordial with Britain in 1904 and only LATER became the Entente in 1907 when Britain and Russia had the 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention.\n\nNote also that the majority of these treaties, alliances, or informal (sometimes secret) agreements were generally bilateral in nature (i.e. France-Russia, then France-UK, then UK-Russia) and each could have it's own stipulations or requirements. NATO, however is the result of ONE treaty that, at its founding, was negotiated by ALL signatory parties at the same time. They were, quite literally, all on the same page. Any country joining later would, within the terms of the alliance at least, be subject to the same terms AND obligations. \n\nWe should also note the collective security arraignment that came about 'NATO' as it's own institution/organization instead of just the \"North Atlantic Treaty\" is hugely consequential in the alliance's endurance and success. NATO has it's own headquarters in Belgium, it's own command and staff with dedicated personnel etc. NATO members work to standardize equipment as much as possible, train together, and have a unified command structure under SACEUR, who is always an American Officer and incidentally is also the Commander of US European Command (EUCOM). (Incidentally, this is why it was such a huge deal when France withdrew from the integrated command structure in 1966, although notably NOT out of the North Atlantic treaty or 'NATO' as some might incorrectly state). Nothing even remotely close EVER existed either with the Triple Alliance or the Entente. \n\nThe last salient point I would bring up is that NATO, and it's mirror in the now defunct Warsaw Pact, had clear, hegemonic leader as it's security guarantor / backer (the US or the USSR). While one can see that Germany was he clear hegemon of the Alliance, it was still (at least on paper) first among equals up until war actually broke out. The entante, however was 3 great powers of near-peer status (or so each would claim), none of whom would subordinate their troops to a foreign commander as NATO member states do to SACEUR.\n\n​\n\nI don't know if I've helped, made things more confused, or not answered your question at all. Sorry...I tried...",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/zft8n4/did_japanese_forces_ever_fight_alongside_us/ | zft8n4 | 2 | t3_zft8n4 | Did Japanese forces EVER fight alongside US forces in World War I? | My knowledge of the Japanese involvement in WWI is minimal but I know they were mostly a diplomatic ally rather than a provision of force for the West. I want to know if Japanese and American soldiers ever fought in the trenches side by side during this war? | 1 | 0.56 | null | false | 1,670,487,931 | [
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"body": "The extent of Japanese Army ground operations were limited to the Far East. [This thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/cetbj0/with_regards_to_the_first_world_war_most_sources/) by myself and /u/thefourthmaninaboat goes into more details on Japan during the war, but at no point were Japanese soldiers deployed on the Western Front, either prior to the US arrival or during.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/xsuo0a/world_war_i_who_first_said_the_war_that_will_end/ | xsuo0a | 3 | t3_xsuo0a | [World war I] Who first said, "The war that will end all wars"? | "The war that will end all wars" is a fairly well-known phrase referring to World War I, especially for the tragic irony that can be read there in hindsight.
But is it really a phrase uttered at the beginning of the conflict? By whom? Was it a propaganda phrase to convince people to fight, or did it contain sarcasm even then? | 13 | 0.77 | null | false | 1,664,629,091 | [
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"body": "The originator of the idea was H.G. Wells, in his monograph \"The War that Will End War\" 1914 ([text](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/57481/57481-h/57481-h.htm)):\n\n>It aims straight at disarmament. It aims at a settlement that shall stop this sort of thing for ever. Every soldier who fights against Germany now is a crusader against war. This, the greatest of all wars, is not just another war—it is the last war! England, France, Italy, Belgium, Spain, and all the little countries of Europe, are heartily sick of war; the Tsar has expressed a passionate hatred of war; the most of Asia is unwarlike; the United States has no illusions about war. And never was war begun so joyously, and never was war begun with so grim a resolution. In England, France, Belgium, Russia, there is no thought of glory.\nWe know we face unprecedented slaughter and agonies; we know that for neither side will there be easy triumphs or prancing victories. Already, in that warring sea of men, there is famine as well as hideous butchery, and soon there must come disease.\nCan it be otherwise?\nWe face, perhaps, the most awful winter that mankind has ever faced.\nBut we English and our allies, who did not seek 15this catastrophe, face it with anger and determination rather than despair.\nThrough this war we have to march, through pain, through agonies of the spirit worse than pain, through seas of blood and filth. We English have not had things kept from us. We know what war is; we have no delusions. We have read books that tell us of the stench of battlefields, and the nature of wounds, books that Germany suppressed and hid from her people. And we face these horrors to make an end of them.\nThere shall be no more Kaisers, there shall be no more Krupps, we are resolved. That foolery shall end!\n\nThat was in 1914. British prime minister David Lloyd George was not impressed, supposedly quipping in private that “This war, like the next war, is a war to end war.” Others echoed this sentiment, but by 1914 there was little choice but to fight, and to pour every ounce of material and every breathing soul into the mess that had been created.\n\nThere is an interesting article by Nordlund on HG Wells and his thoughts in 1914 in *Modern Intellectual History* 15.3 , November 2018 , p747 - 771, in which it is argued that HG Wells was being much less prophetic and much more pessimistic in his words than most now realize.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/x3kkso/did_the_alliedgerman_armies_in_world_war_ii_ever/ | x3kkso | 3 | t3_x3kkso | Did the Allied/German armies in World War II, ever have to worry about going through the old Western Front battlefields of World War I? | As many know, the cleanup of WW1 is still an ongoing process, with tons of munitions still being found or defused every year. The area that contained the main Western Front battlefields contains the *Zone Rouge* (Red Zone), and in some places is still off-limits because of the dangers there.
When the Germans invaded the area again in 1940, and then the subsequent allied push following the Normandy landings in 1944, did the armies ever go through the Somme, Ypres, Verdun, or any other major WW1 battlefield? Did it effect them in any way either because of the warped terrain, unexploded ordnance, or residual chemicals left by the gas shells? | 7 | 1 | null | false | 1,662,071,335 | [
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"body": "More can always be said, but [this older answer](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/kjp6dg/were_the_battlefields_of_the_first_world_war/ggyo49k/) might be of interest for you.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/vzvpq8/did_black_british_soldiers_fight_on_the_western/ | vzvpq8 | 3 | t3_vzvpq8 | Did Black British soldiers fight on the western front during World War I? | I have heard that colonial troops were barred from serving on the western front however what about a black man who lived or was maybe born within the United Kingdom at the time? Any answer is appreciated. | 4 | 0.67 | null | false | 1,657,909,863 | [
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"body": "They were allowed and did fight. See my previous answer here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/er280e/in_the_film_1917_british_units_were_mixed_with/",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/orxwmh/monday_methods_a_shooting_in_sarajevo_the/ | orxwmh | 23 | t3_orxwmh | Monday Methods: A Shooting in Sarajevo - The Historiography of the Origins of World War I | **The First World War. World War I. The Seminal Tragedy. The Great War. The War to End All Wars.**
In popular history narratives of the conflict with those names, it is not uncommon for writers or documentary-makers to utilise cliche metaphors or dramatic phrases to underscore the sheer scale, brutality, and impact of the fighting between 1914 - 1918. Indeed, it is perhaps *the* event which laid the foundations for the conflicts, revolutions, and transformations which characterised the “short 20th century”, to borrow a phrase from Eric Hobsbawm. It is no surprise then, that even before the Treaty of Versailles had been signed to formally end the war, people were asking a duo of questions which continues to generate debate to this day:
**How did the war start? Why did it start?**
Yet in attempting to answer those questions, postwar academics and politicians inevitably began to write with the mood of their times. In Weimar Germany, historians seeking to exonerate the previous German Empire for the blame that the *Diktat von Versailles* had supposedly attached to them were generously funded by the government and given unprecedented access to the archives; so long as their ‘findings’ showed that Germany was not to blame. In the fledgling Soviet Union, the revolutionary government made public any archival material which ‘revealed’ the bellicose and aggressive decisions taken by the Tsarist government which collapsed during the war. In attempting to answer *how* the war had started, these writers were all haunted by the question which their theses, source selection, and areas of focus directly implied: ***who*** started it?
Ever since Fritz Fischer’s seminal work in the 1960s, the historiography on the origins of World War I have evolved ever further still, with practices and areas of focus constantly shifting as more primary sources are brought to light. This Monday Methods post will therefore identify and explain those shifts both in terms of methodological approaches to the question(s) and key ‘battlegrounds’, so to speak, when it comes to writing about the beginning of the First World War. Firstly however, are two sections with the bare-bones facts and figures we must be aware of when studying a historiographical landscape as vast and varied as this one.
#**Key Dates**
To even begin to understand the origins of the First World War, it is essential that we have a firm grasp of the key sequence of events which unfolded during the **July Crisis** in 1914. Of course, to *confine* our understanding of key dates and ‘steps’ to the Crisis is to go against the norm in historiography; as historians from the late 1990s onwards have normalised (and indeed emphasise) investigating the longer-term developments which created Europe’s geopolitical and diplomatic situation in 1914. However, the bulk of analyses still centers around the decisions made between the **28th of June** and the **4th of August**, so that is the timeline I have stuck to below. Note that this is *far* from a comprehensive timeline, and it certainly simplifies many of the complex decision-making processes to their final outcome.
It goes without saying that this timeline also omits mentions of those “minor powers” who would later join the war: Romania, Greece, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire, as well as three other “major” powers: Japan, the United States, and Italy.
**28 June:** Gavrilo Princip assassinates Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Duchess Sophie in Sarajevo, he and six fellow conspirators are arrested and their connection to Serbian nationalist groups is identified.
**28 June - 4 July:** The Austro-Hungarian foreign ministry and imperial government discuss what actions to take against Serbia. The prevailing preference is for a policy of immediate and direct aggression, but Hungarian Prime Minister Tisza fiercely opposes such a course. Despite this internal discourse, it is clear to all in Vienna that Austria-Hungary must secure the support of Germany before proceeding any further.
**4 July:** Count Hoyos is dispatched to Berlin by night train with two documents: a signed letter from Emperor Franz Joseph to his counterpart Wilhelm II, and a post-assassination amended version of the Matscheko memorandum.
**5 July:** Hoyos meets with Arthur Zimmerman, under-secretary of the Foreign Office, whilst ambassador Szogyenyi meets with Wilhelm II to discuss Germany’s support for Austria-Hungary. That evening the Kaiser meets with Zimmerman, adjutant General Plessen, War Minister Falkenhayn, and Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg to discuss their initial thoughts.
**6 July:** Bethmann-Hollweg receives Hoyos and Szogyenyi to notify them of the official response. The infamous “Blank Cheque” is issued during this meeting, and German support for Austro-Hungarian action against Serbia is secured.
In Vienna, Chief of Staff Count Hotzendorff informs the government that the Army will not be ready for immediate deployment against Serbia, as troops in key regions are still on harvest leave until July 25th.
In London, German ambassador Lichnowsky reports to Foreign Secretary Grey that Berlin is supporting Austria-Hungary in her aggressive stance against Serbia, and hints that if events lead to war with Russia, it would be better now than later.
**7 July - 14 July:** The Austro-Hungarian decision makers agree to draft an ultimatum to present to Serbia, and that failure to satisfy their demands will lead to a declaration of war. Two key dates are decided upon: the ultimatum’s draft is to be checked and approved by the Council of Ministers on 19 July, and presented to Belgrade on 23 July.
**15 July:** French President Poincare, Prime Minister Vivani, and political director at the Foreign Ministry Pierre de Margerie depart for St. Petersburg for key talks with Tsar Nicholas II and his ministers. They arrive on 20 July.
**23 July:** As the French statesmen depart St. Petersburg - having reassured the Russian government of their commitment to the Russo-Franco Alliance - the Austro-Hungarian government presents their ultimatum to Belgrade. They are given 48 hours to respond. The German foreign office under von Jagow have already viewed the ultimatum, and express approval of its terms.
Lichnowsky telegrams Berlin to inform them that Britain will back the Austro-Hungarian demands only if they are “moderate” and “reconcilable with the independence of Serbia”. Berlin responds that it will not interfere in the affairs of Vienna.
**24 July**: Sazonov hints that Russian intervention in a war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia is likely, raising further concern in Berlin. Grey proposes to Lichnowsky that a “conference of the ambassadors” take place to mediate the crisis, but critically leaves Russia out of the countries to be involved in such a conference.
The Russian Council of Ministers asks Tsar Nicholas II to agree “in principle” to a partial mobilization against only Austria-Hungary, despite warnings from German ambassador Pourtales that the matter should be left to Vienna and Belgrade, without further intervention.
**25 July:** At 01:16, Berlin receives notification of Grey’s suggestion from Lichnowsky. They delay forwarding this news to Vienna until 16:00, by which point the deadline on the ultimatum has already expired.
At a meeting with Grey, Lichnowsky suggests that the great powers mediate between Austria-Hungary and Russia instead, as Vienna will likely refuse the previous mediation offer. Grey accepts these suggestions, and Berlin is hurriedly informed of this new option for preventing war.
Having received assurance of Russian support from Foreign Minister Sazonov the previous day, the Serbians respond to the Austrian ultimatum. They accept most of the terms, request clarification on some, any outrightly reject one. Serbian mobilization is announced.
In St. Petersburg, Nicholas II announces the “Period Preparatory to War”, and the Council of Ministers secure his approval for partial mobilization against only Austria-Hungary. The Period regulations will go into effect the next day.
**26 July:** Grey once again proposes a conference of ambassadors from Britain, Italy, Germany, and France to mediate between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. Russia is also contacted for its input.
France learns of German precautionary measures and begins to do the same. Officers are recalled to barracks, railway lines are garrisoned, and draft animals purchased in both countries. Paris also requests that Vivani and Poincare, who are still sailing in the Baltic, to cancel all subsequent stops and return immediately.
**27 July:** Responses to Grey’s proposal are received in London. Italy accepts with some reservations, Russia wishes to wait for news from Vienna regarding their proposals for mediation, and Germany rejects the idea. At a cabinet meeting, Grey’s suggestion that Britain may need to intervene is met with opposition from an overwhelming majority of ministers.
**28 July**: Franz Joseph signs the Austro-Hungarian declaration of war on Serbia, and a localized state of war between the two countries officially begins. The Russian government publicly announces a partial mobilization in response to the Austro-Serbian state of war; it into effect the following day.
Austria-Hungary firmly rejects both the Russian attempts at direct talks and the British one for mediation. In response to the declaration of war, First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill orders the Royal Navy to battle stations.
**30 July:** The Russian government orders a general mobilization, the first among the Great Powers in 1914.
**31 July:** The Austro-Hungarian government issues its order for general mobilization, to go into effect the following day. In Berlin, the German government decides to declare the *Kriegsgefahrzustand,* or State of Imminent Danger of War, making immediate preparations for a general mobilization.
**1 August:** A general mobilization is declared in Germany, and the Kaiser declares war on Russia. In line with the Schlieffen Plan, German troops begin to invade Luxembourg at 7:00pm. The French declare their general mobilization in response to the Germans and to honour the Franco-Russian Alliance.
**2 August:** The German government delivers an ultimatum to the Belgian leadership: allow German troops to pass the country in order to launch an invasion of France. King Albert I and his ministers reject the ultimatum, and news of their decision reaches Berlin, Paris, and London the following morning.
**3 August:** After receiving news of the Belgian rejection, the German government declares war on France first.
**4 August:** German troops invade Belgium, and in response to this violation of neutrality (amongst other reasons), the British government declares war on Germany. Thus ends the July Crisis, and so begins the First World War.
#**Key Figures**
When it comes to understanding the outbreak of the First World War as a result of the “July Crisis” of 1914, one must inevitably turn some part of their analysis to focus on those statesmen who staffed and served the governments of the to-be belligerents. Yet in approaching the July Crisis as such, historians must be careful not to fall into yet another reductionist trap: Great Man Theory. Although these statesmen had key roles and chose paths of policy which critically contributed to the “long march” or “dominoes falling”, they were in turn influenced by historical precedents, governmental prejudices, and personal biases which may have spawned from previous crises. To pin the blame solely on one, or even a group, of these men is to suggest that their decisions were the ones that caused the war - a claim which falls apart instantly when one considers just how interlocking and dependent those decisions were.
What follows is a list of the individuals whose names have been mentioned and whose decisions have been analysed by the more recent historical writings on the matter - that is, those books and articles which were published between 1990 to the current day. This is by no means an exhaustive introduction to all those men who served in a position of power from 1900 to 1914, but rather those whose policies and actions have been scrutinized for their part in shifting the geopolitical and diplomatic balance of Europe in the leadup to war. The more recent shift in approaches and focuses of historiography have spent plenty of time investigating the influence (or lack thereof) of ambassadors which each of the major powers sent to all the other major powers up until the outbreak of war. The ones included on this list are marked with a (*) at the end of their name, though once again this is by no means a complete list.
The persons are organised in chronological order based on the years in which they held their most well-known (and usually most analysed) position:
###Austria-Hungary:
* Franz Joseph I (1830 - 1916) - Monarch (1848 - 1916)
* Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1863 - 1914) - Heir Presumptive (1896 - 1914)
* Count István Imre Lajos Pál Tisza de Borosjenő et Szeged (1861 - 1918) - Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Hungary (1903 - 1905, 1913 - 1917)
* Alois Leopold Johann Baptist Graf Lexa von Aehrenthal (1854 - 1912) - Foreign Minister (1906 - 1912)
* Franz Xaver Josef Conrad von Hötzendorf (1852 - 1925) - Chief of the General Staff of the Army and Navy (1906 -1917)
* Leopold Anton Johann Sigismund Josef Korsinus Ferdinand Graf Berchtold von und zu Ungarschitz, Frättling und Püllütz (1863 - 1942) - Joint Foreign Minister (1912 - 1915) More commonly referred to as Count Berchtold
* Ludwig Alexander Georg Graf von Hoyos, Freiherr zu Stichsenstein (1876 - 1937) - Chef de cabinet of the Imperial Foreign Minister (1912 - 1917)
* Ritter Alexander von Krobatin (1849 - 1933) - Imperial Minister of War (1912 - 1917)
###French Third Republic
* Émile François Loubet (1838 - 1929) - Prime Minister (1892 - 1892) and President (1899 - 1906)
* Théophile Delcassé (1852 - 1923) - Foreign Minister (1898 - 1905)
* Pierre Paul Cambon* (1843 - 1924) - Ambassador to Great Britain (1898 - 1920)
* Jules-Martin Cambon* (1845 - 1935) - Ambassador to Germany (1907 - 1914)
* Adople Marie Messimy (1869 - 1935) - Minister of War (1911 - 1912, 1914-1914)
* Joseph Joffre (1852 - 1931) - Chief of the Army Staff (1911 - 1914)
* Raymond Nicolas Landry Poincaré (1860 - 1934) - Prime Minister (1912 - 1913) and President (1913 - 1920)
* Maurice Paléologue* (1859 - 1944) - Ambassador to Russia (1914 - 1917)
* Rene Vivani (1863 - 1925) - Prime Minister (1914 - 1915)
###Great Britain:
* Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830 - 1903) - Prime Minister (1895 - 1902) and Foreign Secretary (1895 - 1900)
* Edward VII (1841 - 1910) - King (1901 - 1910)
* Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour (1848 - 1930) - Prime Minister (1902 - 1905)
* Charles Hardinge, 1st Baron Hardinge of Penshurst* (1858 - 1944) - Ambassador to Russia (1904 - 1906)
* Francis Leveson Bertie, 1st Viscount Bertie of Thame* (1844 - 1919) - Ambassador to France (1905 - 1918)
* Sir William Edward Goschen, 1st Baronet* (1847 - 1924) - Ambassador to Austria-Hungary (1905 - 1908) and Germany (1908 - 1914)
* Sir Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon (1862 - 1933) - Foreign Secretary (1905 - 1916)
* Richard Burdon Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane (1856 - 1928) - Secretary of State for War (1905 - 1912)
* Arthur Nicolson, 1st Baron Carnock* (1849 - 1928) - Ambassador to Russia (1906 - 1910)
* Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith (1852 - 1928) - Prime Minister (1908 - 1916)
* David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor (1863 - 1945) - Chancellor of the Exchequer (1908 - 1915)
###German Empire:
* Otto von Bismarck (1815 - 1898) - Chancellor (1871 - 1890)
* Georg Leo Graf von Caprivi de Caprera de Montecuccoli (1831 - 1899) - Chancellor (1890 - 1894)
* Friedrich August Karl Ferdinand Julius von Holstein (1837 - 1909) - Head of the Political Department of the Foreign Office (1876? - 1906)
* Wilhelm II (1859 - 1941) - Emperor and King of Prussia (1888 - 1918)
* Alfred Peter Friedrich von Tirpitz (1849 - 1930) - Secretary of State of the German Imperial Naval Office (1897 - 1916)
* Bernhard von Bülow (1849 - 1929) - Chancellor (1900 - 1909)
* Graf Helmuth Johannes Ludwig von Moltke (1848 - 1916) - Chief of the German General Staff (1906 - 1914)
* Heinrich Leonhard von Tschirschky und Bögendorff (1858 - 1916) - State Secretary for Foreign Affairs (1906 - 1907) and Ambassador to Austria-Hungary (1907- 1916)
* Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg (1856 - 1921) - Chancellor (1909 - 1917)
* Karl Max, Prince Lichnowsky* (1860 - 1928) - Ambassador to Britain (1912 - 1914)
* Gottlieb von Jagow (1863 - 1945) - State Secretary for Foreign Affairs (1913 - 1916)
* Erich Georg Sebastian Anton von Falkenhayn (1861 - 1922) - Prussian Minister of War (1913 - 1915)
###Russian Empire
* Nicholas II (1868 - 1918) - Emperor (1894 - 1917)
* Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin (1862 - 1911) - Prime Minister (1906 - 1911)
* Count Alexander Petrovich Izvolsky (1856 - 1919) - Foreign Minister (1906 - 1910)
* Alexander Vasilyevich Krivoshein (1857 - 1921) - Minister of Agriculture (1908 - 1915)
* Baron Nicholas Genrikhovich Hartwig* (1857 - 1914) - Ambassador to Serbia (1909 - 1914)
* Vladimir Aleksandrovich Sukhomlinov (1848 - 1926) - Minister of War (1909 - 1916)
* Sergey Sazonov (1860 - 1927) - Foreign Minister (1910 - 1916)
* Count Vladimir Nikolayevich Kokovtsov (1853 - 1943) - Prime Minister (1911 - 1914)
* Ivan Logginovich Goremykin (1839 - 19117) - Prime Minister (1914 - 1916)
###Serbia
* Radomir Putnik (1847 - 1917) - Minister of War (1906 - 1908), Chief of Staff (1912 - 1915)
* Peter I (1844 - 1921) - King (1903 - 1918)
* Nikola Pašić (1845 - 1926) - Prime Minister (1891 - 1892, 1904 - 1905, 1906 - 1908, 1909 - 1911, 1912 - 1918)
* Dragutin Dimitrijević “Apis” (1876 - 1917) - Colonel, leader of the Black Hand, and Chief of Military Intelligence (1913? - 1917)
* Gavrilo Princip (1894 - 1918) - Assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1914)
#**Focuses:**
##Crisis Conditions
**What made 1914 different from other crises?**
This is the specific question which we might ask in order to understand a key focus of monographs and writings on the origins of World War I. Following the debate on Fischer’s thesis in the 1960s, historians have begun looking beyond the events of June - August 1914 in order to understand why the assassination of an archduke was *the* ‘spark’ which lit the powderkeg of the continent.
1914 was not a “**critical year**” where tensions were at their highest in the century. Plenty of other crises had occurred beforehand, namely the two Moroccan crises of 1905-06 and 1911, the Bosnian Crisis of 1908-09, and *two* Balkan Wars in 1912-13. Why did Europe not go to war as a result of any of these crises? What made the events of 1914 unique, both in the conditions present across the continent, and within the governments themselves, that ultimately led to the outbreak of war?
Even within popular history narratives, these events have slowly but surely been integrated into the larger picture of the leadup to 1914. Even a cursory analysis of these crises reveals several interesting notes:
* The Entente Powers, not the Triple Alliance, were the ones who tended to first utilise military diplomacy/deterrence, and often to a greater degree.
* Mediation by other ‘concerned powers’ was, more often than not, a viable and indeed desirable outcome which those nations directly involved in the crises accepted without delay.
* The strength of the alliance systems with mutual defense clauses, namely the Triple Alliance and the Franco-Russian Alliance, were shaky at best during these crises. France discounted Russian support against Germany in both Moroccan crises for example, and Germany constantly urged restraint to Vienna in its Balkan policy (particularly towards Serbia).
Even beyond the diplomatic history of these crises, historians have also analysed the impact of **other aspects** in the years preceding 1914. William Mulligan, for example, argues that the economic conditions in those years generated heightened tensions as the great powers competed for dwindling markets and industries. Plenty of recent journal articles have outlined the growth of nationalist fervour and irredentist movements in the Balkans, and public opinion has begun to re-occupy a place in such investigations - though not, we must stress, with quite the same weight that it once carried in the historiography.
Yet perhaps the most often-written about aspect of the years prior to 1914 links directly with another key focus in the current historiography: **militarization**.
##Militarization
In the historiography of the First World War, militarization is a rather large elephant in the room. Perhaps the most famous work with this focus is A.J.P Taylor’s *War by Timetable: How the First World War Began* (1969), though the approach he takes there is perhaps best summarised by another propagator of the ‘mobilization argument’, George Quester:
>“World War I broke out as a spasm of **pre-emptive mobilization schedules.**”
In other words: Europe was ‘**dragged**’ into a war by the great powers’ heightened state of militarization, and the interlocking series of mobilization plans which, once initiated, could not be stopped. I have written at some length on this argument here, as well as more specific analysis of the Schlieffen-Moltke plan here, but the general consensus in the current historiography is that this argument **is weak**.
To suggest that the mobilization plans and the militarized governments of 1914 created the conditions for an ‘inadvertent war’ is to also suggest that the civilian officials had “**lost control**” of the situation, and that they “capitulated” to the generals on the decision to go to war. Indeed some of the earliest works on the First World War went along with this claim, in no small part because several civilian leaders of 1914 alleged as such in their memoirs published after the war. Albertini’s bold statement about the decision-making within the German government in 1914 notes that:
>“At the decisive moment the **military took over the direction of affairs** and imposed their law.”
In the 1990s, a new batch of secondary literature from historians and political scientists began to contest this long standing claim. They argued that despite the militarization of the great powers and the mobilization plans, the civilian statesmen remained firmly in control of policy, and that the decision to go to war was a conscious one that they made, fully aware of the consequences of such a choice.
The generals were not, as Barbara Tuchmann exaggeratedly wrote, “pounding the table for the signal to move.”. Indeed, in Vienna the generals were doing quite the opposite: early in the July Crisis Chief of the General Staff Conrad von Hotzendorf remarked to Foreign Minister Berchtold that the army would only be able to commence operations against Serbia on August 12, and that they would not even be able to mobilise until after the harvest leave finished on July 25.
These rebuttals of the “inadvertent war” thesis have proven to be better substantiated and more persuasive, thus the current norm in historiography has shifted to look further within the halls of power in 1914. That is, the analyses have shifted to look beyond the generals, mobilization plans, and military staff; and instead towards the diplomats, ministers, and **decision-makers.**
##Decision Makers
**Who occupied the halls of power both during the leadup to 1914 and whilst the crisis was unfolding? What decisions did they make and what impact did those actions have on the larger geopolitical/diplomatic situation of their nation?**
Although Europe was very much a continent of monarchs in 1900, those monarchs did not hold supreme power over their respective apparatus of state. Even the most autocratic of the great powers at the time, Russia, possessed a council of ministers which convened at critical moments during the July Crisis to decide on their country’s response to Austro-Hungarian aggression. Contrast that to the most ‘democratic’ country of the great powers, France (in that the Third Republic did not have a monarch), and the confusing enigma that was the foreign ministry - occupying the Quai D’Orsay - and it becomes clear that understanding what motivated and influenced the men (and they were all men) who held/shared the reigns of policy is tantamount to better understanding how events progressed the way they did in 1914.
A good example of just how many *dramatis personae* have become involved in the current historiography can be found in Margaret Macmillan’s chatty pop-history work, *The War that Ended Peace* (2014). Her characterizations and side-tracks about such figures as Lord Salisbury, Friedrich von Holstein, and Theophile Delcasse are not out of step with contemporary academic monographs. Entire narratives and investigations have been published about the role of an individual in the leadup to the events of the July Crisis, Mombauer’s *Helmuth von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War* (2001) or T.G Otte’s *Statesman of Europe: A Life of Sir Edward Grey* (2020) stand out in this regard.
Not only has the cast become more civilian and larger in the past few decades, but it has also come to recognise the plurality of decision-making during 1914. Historians now stress that disagreements *within* governments (alongside those between them) are equally important to understand the many voices of European decision-making before as well as during 1914. Naturally, this focus reaches its climax in the days of the July Crisis, where narratives now emphasise in minutiae just how divided the halls of power were.
Alongside these changes in focus with the people who contributed to (or warned against) the decision to go to war, recent narratives have begun to highlight the voices of those who represented their governments abroad; the ambassadors. Likewise, newer historiographical works have re-focused their lenses on **diplomatic history** prior to the war. Within this field, one particular process and area of investigation stands out: the **polarization** of Europe.
##Polarization, or "Big Causes"
Prior to the developments within First World War historiography from the 1990s onwards, it was not uncommon for historians and politicians - at least in the interwar period - to propagate theses which pinned the war’s origins on factors of “mass demand”: nationalism, militarism, and social Darwinism among them. These biases not only impacted their interpretations of the events building up to 1914, as well as the July Crisis itself, but also imposed an overarching thread; an omnipresent motivator which guided (and at times “forced”) the decision-makers to commit to courses of action which moved the continent one step closer to war.
These overarching theories have since been refuted by historians, and the current historiographical approach emphasises case-specific analyses of each nation’s circumstances, decisions, and impact in both crises and diplomacy. Whilst these investigations have certainly yielded key patterns and preferences within the diplomatic maneuvers of each nation, they sensibly stop short of suggesting that these *modus operandi* were inflexible to different scenarios, or that they even persisted as the decision-makers came and went. The questions now revolve around *why* and *how* the diplomacy of the powers shifted in the years prior to 1914, and how the division of Europe into “two armed camps”
What all of these new focuses imply - indeed what they necessitate - is that historians utilise a **transnational** approach when attempting to explain the origins of the war. Alan Kramer goes so far as to term it the *sine qua non* (essential condition) in the current historiography; a claim that many historians would be inclined to agree with. Of course, that is not to suggest that a good work must not give more focus to one (or a group) of nations over the others, but works which focus on a single nation’s path to war are rarer than they were prior to this recent shift in focus.
Thus, there we have a general overview of how the focuses of historiography on the First World War have shifted in the past 30 years, and it would perhaps not be too far-fetched to suggest that these focuses may very well change in and of themselves within the next 30 years too. The next section shall deal with how, within these focuses, there are various stances which historians have argued and adopted in their approach to explaining the origins of the First World War.
#**Battlegrounds:**
##**Personalities vs. Precedents**
To suggest that the First World War was the fault of a group of decision-makers is leaning dangerously close to reducing the role that those officials played in the leadup to the conflict - not to mention to dismiss outright those practices and precedents which characterised their country’s policy preferences prior to 1914. There was, as hinted at previously, no dictator at the helm of any of the powers; the plurality of cabinets, imperial ministries, and advisory bodies meant that the personalities of those decision-makers must be analysed in light of their influence on the larger national, and transnational state of affairs.
To then suggest that the “larger forces” of mass demand served as invisible guides on these men is to dismiss the complex and unique set of considerations, fears, and desires which descended upon Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg, London, Vienna, and Belgrade in July of 1914. Though these forces may have constituted some of those fears and considerations, they were by no means the powerful structural factors which plagued all the countries during the July Crisis. Holger Herwig sums up this stance well:
>“The ‘big causes,’ by themselves, did not cause the war. To be sure, the system of secret alliances, militarism, nationalism, imperialism, social Darwinism, and the domestic strains… had all contributed toward forming the *mentalite,* the assumptions (both spoken and unspoken) of the ‘men of 1914.’\[But\] it does injustice to the ‘men of 1914’ to suggest that they were all merely agents - willing or unwilling - of some grand, impersonal design… No dark, overpowering, informal, yet irresistible forces brought on what George F. Kennan called ‘*the* great seminal tragedy of this century.’ It was, in each case, the work of human beings.”
I have therefore termed this battleground one of “personalities” against “precedents”, because although historians are now quick to dismiss the work of larger forces as crucial in explaining the origins of the war, they are still inclined to analyse the extent to which these forces influenced each body of decision-makers in 1914 (as well as previous crises). Within each nation, indeed within each of the government officials, there were precedents which changed and remained from previous diplomatic crises. Understanding *why* they changed (or hadn’t), as well as determining how they factored into the decision-making processes, is to move several steps closer to fully grasping the complex developments of July 1914.
##**Intention vs. Prevention**
Tied directly to the debate over the personalities and their own motivations for acting the way they did is the debate over intention and prevention. To identify the key figures who pressed for war and those who attempted to push for peace is perhaps tantamount to assigning blame in some capacity. Yet historians once again have become more aware of the plurality of decision-making. Moltke and Bethmann-Hollweg may have been pushing for a war with Russia sooner rather than later, but the Kaiser and foreign secretary Jagow preferred a localized war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. Likewise, Edward Grey may have desired to uphold Britain’s honour by coming to France’s aid, but until the security of Belgium became a serious concern a vast majority of the House of Commons preferred neutrality or mediation to intervention.
This links back to the focus mentioned earlier about how these decision-makers came to make the decisions they did during the July Crisis. What finally swayed those who had held out for peace to authorise war? Historians now have discarded the notion that the generals and military “took control” of the process at critical stages, so now we must further investigate the shifts in thinking and circumstances which impacted the policy preferences of the “men of 1914”.
Perhaps the best summary of this battleground and the need to understand how these decision-makers came to make the fateful choices they did is best summarized by Margaret Macmillan:
>"There are so many questions and as many answers again. Perhaps the most we can hope for is to understand as best we can those individuals, who had to make the choices between war and peace, and their strengths and weaknesses, their loves, hatreds, and biases. To do that we must also understand their world, with its assumptions. We must remember, as the decision-makers did, what had happened before that last crisis of 1914 and what they had learned from the Moroccan crises, the Bosnian one, or the events of the First Balkan Wars. Europe’s very success in surviving those earlier crises paradoxically led to a dangerous complacency in the summer of 1914 that, yet again, solutions would be found at the last moment and the peace would be maintained."
##**Contingency vs. Certainty**
>“No sovereign or leading statesmen in any of the belligerent countries sought or desired war - certainly not a European war.”
The above remark by David Llyod George in 1936 reflects a dangerous theme that has been thoroughly discredited in recent historiography: the so-called “slide” thesis. That is, the belief that the war was not a deliberate choice by any of the statesmen of Europe, and that the continent as a whole simply - to use another oft-quoted phrase from Llyod George - “slithered over the brink into the boiling cauldron of war”. The statesmen of Europe were well aware of the consequences of their choices, and explicitly voiced their awareness of the possibility of war at multiple stages of the July Crisis.
At the same time, to suggest that there was a collective responsibility for the war - a stance which remained dominant in the immediate postwar writings until the 1960s - is to also neutralize the need to reexamine the choices taken during the July Crisis. If everyone had a part to play, then what difference would it make if Berlin or London or St. Petersburg was the one that first moved towards armed conflict? This argument once again brings up the point of inadvertence as opposed to intention. Despite Christopher Clark’s admirable attempt to suggest that the statesmen were “blind to the reality of the horror they were about to bring into the world”, the evidence put forward *en masse* by other historians suggest quite the opposite. Herwig remarks once again that this inadvertent “slide” into war was far from the case with the statesmen of 1914:
>“In each of the countries…, a coterie of no more than about a dozen civilian and military rulers weighed their options, calculated their chances, and then made the decision for war…. Many decision makers knew the risk, knew that wider involvement was probable, yet proceeded to take the next steps. Put differently, fully aware of the likely consequences, they initiated policies that they knew were likely to bring on the catastrophe.”
So the debate now lies with ascertaining at what point during the July Crisis the “window” for a peaceful resolution to the crisis finally closed, and when war (localized or continental) was all but certain. A.J.P Taylor remarked rather aptly that “no war is inevitable until it breaks out”, and determining when exactly the path to peace was rejected by each of the belligerent powers is crucial to that most notorious of tasks when it comes to explaining the causes of World War I: placing blame.
##**Responsibility**
>“After the war, it became apparent in Western Europe generally, and in America as well, that the Germans would never accept a peace settlement based on the notion that they had been responsible for the conflict. If a true peace of reconciliation were to take shape, it required a new theory of the origins of the war, and the easiest thing was to assume that no one had really been responsible for it. The conflict could readily be blamed on great impersonal forces - on the alliance system, on the arms race and on the military system that had evolved before 1914. **On their uncomplaining shoulders the burden of guilt could be safely placed.**”
The idea of collective responsibility for the First World War, as described by Marc Trachtenberg above, still carries some weight in the historiography today. Yet it is no longer, as noted previously, the dominant idea amongst historians. Nor, for that matter, is the other ‘extreme’ which Fischer began suggesting in the 1960s: that the burden of guilt, the label of responsibility, and thus the blame, could be placed (or indeed forced) upon the shoulders of a single nation or group of individuals.
The interlocking, multilateral, and dynamic diplomatic relations between the European powers prior to 1914 means that to place the blame on one is to propose that their policies, both in response to and independent of those which the other powers followed, were deliberately and entirely bellicose. The pursuit of these policies, both in the long-term and short-term, then created conditions which during the July Crisis culminated in *the* fatal decision to declare war. To adopt such a stance in one’s writing is to dangerously assume several considerations that recent historiography has brought to the fore and rightly warned against possessing:
* That the decision-making in each of the capitals was an autocratic process, in which opposition was either insignificant to the key decision-maker or entirely absent,
* That a ‘greater’ force motivated the decision-makers in a particular country, and that the other nations were powerless to influence or ignore the effect of this ‘guiding hand’,
* That any anti-war sentiments or conciliatory diplomatic gestures prior to 1914 (as well as during the July Crisis) were abnormalities; case-specific aberrations from the ‘general’ pro-war pattern,
As an aside, the most recent book in both academic and popular circles to attempt such an approach is most likely Sean McMeekin’s *The Russian Origins of the First World War* (2011), with limited success.
To conclude, when it comes to the current historiography on the origins of the First World War, the ‘blame game’ which is heavily associated with the literature on the topic has reached at least something resembling a consensus: this was not a war enacted by one nation above all others, nor a war which all the European powers consciously or unconsciously found themselves obliged to join. Contingency, the mindset of decision-makers, and the rapidly changing diplomatic conditions are now the landscapes which academics are analyzing more thoroughly than ever, refusing to paint broad strokes (the “big” forces) and instead attempting to specify, highlight, and differentiate the processes, persons, and prejudices which, in the end, deliberately caused the war to break out. | 158 | 0.98 | null | false | 1,627,303,341 | [
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"body": "**Sources and Further Reading**\n\n“Massive” is a word that comes to mind when describing the sheer volume of writing (primary, secondary, and tertiary) on the origins of the First World War, but perhaps even that descriptor does not do justice to the 50,000+ recorded articles, books, memoirs, and multi-volume texts which have explored an equally staggering number of aspects about the events which led to the cataclysm in 1914. For the sake of accessibility and readability, I have included in this list the sources used in writing this Monday Methods post, and a “Further Reading” section with books which accurately represent the current historiographical norms and investigative/analytic approaches to this most perplexing of questions about the past. Feel free to ask any follow-up questions as you see fit, pm me about anything at all within this MM post or even the topic, and happy travels on AskHistorians!\n\n**Sources**\n\n* Andrew, Christopher. \"France and the Making of the Entente Cordiale.\" The Historical Journal 10, no. 1 (1967): 89-105. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/2638063](http://www.jstor.org/stable/2638063).\n* Clark, Christopher. *The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914*. London: Penguin Books, 2012.\n* Howard, Michael. *The First World War: A Very Short Introduction*. Very Short Introductions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.\n* Herwig, Holger H., and Hamilton, Richard F., eds. *The Origins of World War I.* Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.\n* Kaiser, David E. \"Germany and the Origins of the First World War.\" The Journal of Modern History 55, no. 3 (1983): 442-74. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/1878597](http://www.jstor.org/stable/1878597).\n* Kramer, Alan. \"Recent Historiography of the First World War (Part I).\" Journal of Modern European History / Zeitschrift Für Moderne Europäische Geschichte / Revue D'histoire Européenne Contemporaine 12, no. 1 (2014): 5-28. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/26266110](https://www.jstor.org/stable/26266110).\n* MacMillan, Margaret. *The War That Ended Peace: How Europe Abandoned Peace for the First World War*. London: Profile Books Ltd., 2014.\n* Maurer, John H. \"Arms Control and the Anglo-German Naval Race before World War I: Lessons for Today?\" Political Science Quarterly 112, no. 2 (1997): 285-306. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2657942](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2657942).\n* Martel, Gordon. *The Origins of the First World War*. 4th ed. Seminar Studies in History. New York: Routledge, 2017.\n* Stevenson, David. \"Militarization and Diplomacy in Europe before 1914.\" International Security 22, no. 1 (1997): 125-61. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2539332](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2539332).\n* Trachtenberg, Marc. \"The Meaning of Mobilization in 1914.\" International Security 15, no. 3 (1990): 120-50. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2538909](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2538909).\n* Turner, L. C. F. \"The Russian Mobilization in 1914.\" Journal of Contemporary History 3, no. 1 (1968): 65-88. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/259967](http://www.jstor.org/stable/259967).\n* Wesseling, Henk. \"Imperialism & the Roots of the Great War.\" Daedalus 134, no. 2 (2005): 100-07. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/20027981](http://www.jstor.org/stable/20027981).\n* Williamson, Samuel R. \"The Origins of World War I.\" The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 18, no. 4 (1988): 795-818. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/204825](https://www.jstor.org/stable/204825).\n\n**Further Reading (Books):**\n\n* *The Origins of the First World War: Controversies and Consensus* by Annika Mombauer (2003)\n* *The Origins of the First World War: Diplomatic and Military Documents* by Annika Mombauer (2013)\n* *Decisions for War, 1914-1917* (abridged ed.) by Richard Hamilton and Holger Herwig (2004)\n* *The Origins of the First World War* (4th ed.) by James Joll and Gordon Martel (2006)\n* *The Origins of the First World War* by William Mulligan (2010)\n* *The Russian Origins of the First World War* by Sean McMeekin (2011)\n* *July 1914: Countdown to War* by Sean McMeekin (2014)\n* *July Crisis: The World’s Descent Into War, Summer 1914* by T.G Otte (2014)",
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"body": "Thanks! This was super interesting to read!\n\nI do have a question: When it comes to my field of study, which involves a lot of going what Maria Todorova calls Balkanism, there still is a lot ofreference to WWI and a basic narrative of Serbia or alternatively \"ancient Balkan hatreds\" at fault. This narrative is present from Kaplan's \"Balkan Ghosts\" to, more recently, Christopher Clark, who in his first edition draws a line from the shots at Srajevo to the Balkan wars in the 90s as proof of the power of Serb irredentism. Is this a noticeable subset in the historiography? You lay out that historiography has moved away from a \"blame game\" to a more differentiated narrative but I still find the narrative of Serbian / Balkan fault noticeable albeit this being not my field.",
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"body": "Super neat stuff, thanks for the great write up!",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/n1db1l/why_is_world_war_i_potentially_the_most_important/ | n1db1l | 32 | t3_n1db1l | Why is World War I, potentially the most important set of events in human history, glossed over or ignored in the American public educational system? | It’s up there with the invention of the wheel, the fall of the Roman Republic, the birth of Christ, and the creation of laws. It completely changed almost everything in almost every sense, and very rapidly.
I’m not sure if it’s this way in European schools, but in American ones, the First World War is functionally taught in passing, or almost ignored altogether, despite it being the set of events that almost singlehandedly changed the perception of the USA from a minor power to a major one on the world stage.
I apologize if this question would be better suited to another subreddit, but I really wasn’t sure which one to ask. My girlfriend’s sister is doing a project on it for school, where she is supposed to do her own research on the topic and give a presentation. She asked me to help her with it, knowing that it’s sort of my area of historical expertise, and I was stunned when she told me that has never learned about it and doesn’t even know what countries fought in it, or why, and maybe the Nazis had something to do with it. My own father told me that he was under the impression we simply “fought Hitler the first time.”
Is it the brutality of the combat that makes it a difficulty to teach to children? The potential to germinate thoughts that go against the America-good-guy-world-police narrative like “if the ‘bad guys’ had won,(and they almost did) the world might be a better place because there would be no Nazis and no Holocaust, and no Soviet Union and no Cold War, and therefore my country is not infallible”? Or is the complex geopolitical scenario at that time simply too difficult or boring to teach to kids?
I’d like thoughts from any educators that might be out there if possible as well. This is so disheartening to me. We’re talking about the birth of the modern world, a complete revolution in technology, politics, science, philosophy, medicine, the complete and utter destruction of the old order of things. Our reality hangs on a single bullet fired by the son of a mailman in a tiny European minor most people couldn’t find on a map, and 99.9% of Americans don’t know that these events even happened and if they have some idea, they don’t know why, or to who. Can anyone shed light on this for me? | 337 | 0.83 | null | false | 1,619,727,755 | [
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"body": "Welcome to /r/AskHistorians. **Please [Read Our Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules) before you comment in this community**. Understand that [rule breaking comments get removed](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/h8aefx/rules_roundtable_xviii_removed_curation_and_why/).\n\n#Please consider **[Clicking Here for RemindMeBot](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5Bhttps://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/n1db1l/why_is_world_war_i_potentially_the_most_important/%5D%0A%0ARemindMe!%202%20days)** as it takes time for an answer to be written. Additionally, for weekly content summaries, **[Click Here to Subscribe to our Weekly Roundup](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=AHMessengerBot&subject=Subscribe&message=!subscribe)**.\n\nWe thank you for your interest in this *question*, and your patience in waiting for an in-depth and comprehensive answer to show up. In addition to RemindMeBot, consider [using our Browser Extension](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/d6dzi7/tired_of_clicking_to_find_only_removed_comments/), or getting the [Weekly Roundup](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=subredditsummarybot&subject=askhistorians+weekly&message=x). In the meantime our [Twitter](https://twitter.com/askhistorians), [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/askhistorians/), and [Sunday Digest](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/search?q=title%3A%22Sunday+Digest%22&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) feature excellent content that has already been written!\n\n\n*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskHistorians) if you have any questions or concerns.*",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/tfes57/archives_with_newspapers_about_world_war_i_and_ii/ | tfes57 | 6 | t3_tfes57 | Archives with newspapers about World War I and II? | Hi everyone, I was wondering if someone knows and could link me some sites that have online archives with original newspapers published during World War I and II. I need the headlines and texts for a linguistic research. Thanks in advance! | 5 | 0.79 | null | false | 1,647,427,483 | [
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"body": "For more targeted suggestions it would be helpful to know whether you need from a specific country, in a specific language, etc- but in the meanwhile, definitely check with your local library, particularly if you have access to a university library! They often have newspaper archives.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/skpwbf/why_werent_the_allies_in_world_war_i_able_to/ | skpwbf | 4 | t3_skpwbf | Why weren't the Allies in World War I able to force the Dardanelles with their superior naval power? | We've heard the story plenty of times about what a disaster the Gallipoli landings were, but I'm curious why they were necessary at all. Certainly the Allies had the larger and more advanced fleet compared to the Ottomans. Why did attempts to force the straits from the sea fail? Couldn't they have at least used naval bombardment from the near side to soften some of the land defenses and make the landings less treacherous? | 6 | 0.75 | null | false | 1,644,012,687 | [
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"body": "While more can always be said, [I've previously answered a similar question](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/g4ucp7/why_did_the_british_land_at_gallipoli_in_1915_it/fnzrep3/).",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/sq806f/are_there_any_strategies_or_tactics_which_could/ | sq806f | 2 | t3_sq806f | Are there any strategies or tactics which could have been used during World War I which would have been significantly more successful than the ones used? How would a general from today handle the trench warfare and meat grinders of WW1? | 19 | 0.77 | null | false | 1,644,609,263 | [
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"body": "A lot more can be said on this, but I'll direct you to some previous answers that you may find of interest.\n\nAs I explain in [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/cnjy8v/how_was_possible_that_men_in_wwi_continue_with/) casualty rates in the Great War were not unprecedented, and the war itself did not last for an unusually long time.\n\nOverall, and without the benefit of hindsight, the Generals used the doctrine and tactics that were appropriate to the technology and resources available to them.\n\nThose resources and technologies changed at an unprecedented pace over the course of the war, with some observing that the style of warfare being practised in 1918 was closer that of 1940 than 1914.\n\nProbably the single most important advance was in the application of artillery, which I discuss in depth [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/30kpx8/artillery_shells_in_wwi/cpte4j8/), indeed there is an argument that artillery was both the cause and solution of the deadlock on the western front. One might make the argument that the British could have implemented the artillery techniques first used at Cambrai somewhat earlier, but again, that's hindsight.\n\nThe war also saw the introduction of mechanised armour in the form of the tank. Though I argue [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2rc3aa/how_did_tanks_change_ww1_warfare/cnf1hhq/) that that tanks were a useful adjunct to infantry and artillery but were not decisive in and off themselves.\n\nNumerous other innovations were implemented in the course of the war, some of which I discuss [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/buyiog/why_were_soldiers_sent_over_the_top_in_ww1/epmdh9x/) in the context of the common accusation that the Generals were cruel, incompetent, moribund, luddites. \n\nu/Rob-With-One-B also gives an excellent riposte to the common accusation that the Generals were somehow [universally incompetent](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/jzgsxd/did_any_of_the_highlevel_officers_in_ww1_express/gdc1kx9/)\n\nThis is, of course, a massive subject but hopefully the above answers will give you some insight. I'd be happy to field any follow-up questions you may have.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/o9hbmh/how_has_the_greater_emotional_distance_to_world/ | o9hbmh | 6 | t3_o9hbmh | How has the greater emotional distance to World War I shaped the way historians have looked at the conflict? | As time has passed and World War I has moved from living memory, how has this changed the historiography of the Great War? | 21 | 0.92 | null | false | 1,624,875,143 | [
{
"body": "Greetings! What an interesting question this is, and one which definitely speaks volumes about just *how* much of a deal the First World War remains in its historiographical treatment. This response shall focus more on the historiography regarding the **origins** of the war, so if any other AH travelers would like to weigh in on other aspects of the war, then please do so! A note before we begin however: for the purpose of this response, \"living memory\" shall be defined as the contemporary memory of the war as told by those who experienced it, lived through it, and even those who were educated on it in the immediate postwar years. Whilst the memorialisation and commemoration of the Great War continue to occupy a significant place in historical remembrance events, we shall be focusing moreso on how the historiography of the war's origins have evolved and changed *in tandem* with the societies which produced them. Let's begin.\n\n**Wartime Justification, Postwar Ponderance**\n\n>\"The understanding of the First World War is connected more than that of any other modern conflict with the war's historiography. Even before the armies marched, the respective combatants were compiling document collections **justifying their innocence** in the run-up to war and the initiation of hostilities.\" \n> \n>\\- Historian Dennis Showalter, writing in a 2006 general survey of First World War historiography\n\nThe claim made by Showalter's quote above is (if a little bold), entirely in-step with the development of First World War historiography even *while* the war was ongoing. As the armies began their march to the front lines, governments called on their academia (historians in particular) to present their \"cases\" for going to war to the larger populace as a **moral and just one**, in which the popular (and somewhat propagandistic) sentiment was a \"war of self-defense\" against the aggression of external threats.\n\nFor an example of just how sudden these historical justifications were, consider the example of British historiography on Germany at the war's outbreak. As early as September 1914, the Oxford modern history faculty published *Why We Are at War: Great Britain's Case*, in which the harmonious Anglo-Saxonism that had marked prewar writings **disappeared entirely**, and the Germans were portrayed as the barbaric and uncivilised Hun. Herbert Fisher wrote his own article titled *The War*, condemning Prussian militarism and the Germans' expansionist desires. Here is an extract from that work, and below that a *postwar* quote from Fisher on the prewar admiration by British historians of Germany:\n\n>\"Prussia has been made by the sword...That is one of the unalterable facts of history graven upon the mind of every German schoolboy, and **shaping his whole outlook on the world**.\" \n> \n>\"To sit at the feet of some great German Professor... was regarded as a valuable, perhaps as a necessary passport to the highest kind of academic career...The names of the German giants, of Ranke and Mommsen, of Wilamowitz and Lotze\\*\\*, were sounded again and again by their admiring disciples in British lecture-rooms.\"\\*\\*\n\nHistorians, much like the soldiers and working classes, were mobilised in their government's wish to occupy the moral high ground and present the war as a just one for the cause (or defense) of the country's interest. Yet in the immediate postwar years, these justifications were **shattered,** as the Treaty of Versailles gave way to new debates (intercontinental ones at that) about *who* and *what* had actually caused Europe's four years of bloodshed, brutality, and battles.\n\nHere we ought to return to those collections of archive documents and government correspondence which were *still* being amassed even as the ink was drying on the peace settlement. Chief among those collections were the ones being published in the Weimar Republic, owing to the fact that the German Empire which had come before had been the target of **majority of the blame** for the war. In the Weimar Government following the war, the Foreign Office contained a \"War Guilt section\" (or *Kriegschuldreferat*), whose publications of evidence from before the war influenced academic discussions in Britain and America. The monumental **forty-volume** ***Die Grosse Politik*** (1922-1927) contained extensive materials from the German Foreign Office from 1871 all the way to 1914.\n\nThese new primary source documents, previously inaccessible during the war itself, gave rise to new strains of historiography, which began to re-assess the \"justifications\" produced by each nation at the beginning of the war. In Britain, these collections of sources generated debates on the extent to which the German nation could be blamed for the First World War. This crusade's most prominent leader was **George Peabody Gooch**, a former Liberal M.P and author of distinguished historical works (despite never holding academic office himself). One of the first revisionists on the First World War, he argued alongside William Harbutt Dawson (another prominent historian on German), Raymond Beazely, and a few other British historians that **the Germans were not the sole arbiters of war**, and as such the peace treaty of Versailles was a flawed one. Unsurprisingly, liberal parties in the Weimar Republic (and followers of a rising Nazi party) cheered the rise of these revisionist \"**Collective War Guilt**\" theses. German historians for their part, were re-mobilised to support and propagate these theses (with noticeably more nationalistic overtones). As Showalter describes:\n\n>\"Strongly nationalistic and patriotic in orientation, matchless researchers and unrivaled polemics - controversy has long been an art form among German intellectuals - the pundits and professors rallied behind a cause lost by the soldiers. Given a previously unheard of access to government documents and frequently supported by government money, a generation of revisionists **challenged and denied** Germany's sole responsibility \\[for the war\\].\"\n\nSo to sum up this section of the response, we might observe that during the war itself and in the immediate aftermath, historiography was heavily attached to the national agendas of each country. Whilst the historians were quick to rally to their respective flags and defend their country's status as a belligerent, they were equally quick *after the war* to about-face and reassess their previously nationalistic narratives. The following quote from Catherine Ann Catherine Ann Cline (writing in 1988) which sums up this first part of the response with regards to British historiography:\n\n>\"During the war, they \\[British historians\\] saw Britain as fighting in defense of international law and Germany as guilty of having wantonly provoked the conflict. In the post-war years, Germany's guilt for having caused the war was **transferred to the allies** for having dictated an 'unfair' peace.\n\nIn the next part, we shall investigate how the Second World War and the following Cold War gave rise to whole new historiographical debates, even as the public began to reshape its memories of the horrors of the War To End All Wars.\n\nPart 1 of 3",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/r0lx5n/did_combat_activities_during_world_war_i_reveal/ | r0lx5n | 2 | t3_r0lx5n | Did combat activities during World War I reveal or destroy any previously undiscovered archaeological sites? | With all the digging of trenches and destruction from artillery shelling, a lot of earth was moved during WW1. I'm just curious whether there were reports of archaeological findings along the various fronts. | 6 | 0.81 | null | false | 1,637,697,958 | [
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"body": "Hello, I think you asked this question a while back (or else a similar question was asked). This sent me down a rabbit hole and I did quite a bit of reading around this question, but was not able to find anything definitive for Europe. I know that a great deal of ancient material was found during trench-digging in Greece, including the discovery by ANZAC forces of the \"lost\" Greek city of Alopekonnesos on Gallipoli, and with it a slew of ancient Greek and Roman artefacts, including Roman-era inscriptions. \n\nI think it was very likely that new materials were unearthed during the war in Europe also, either by the very extensive trenchwork or else by the sheer excavatory power of the larger artillery pieces. There were certain men with an eye for such finds there on the battlefields--a good example being [Francis Buckley](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10761-020-00572-6). I just can't find anything concrete as far as sources with the limited resources available to me at the moment. Here's hoping someone with a WW1 expertise might have a lead. If this book does not exist, it certainly should!\n\nOn a side note: it is very difficult to search for this question, since you get a lot of results for \"archaeology *of* World War 1 trenches\" instead of \"archaeology *resulting from* World War 1 trenches.\"",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/cg4oxj/in_world_war_ii_a_third_of_native_american_men/ | cg4oxj | 29 | t3_cg4oxj | In World War II a third of Native American men aged 18-35 served, with some tribes seeing 70% of that population go join the armed forces. How did this compare to Native Americans serving during World War I, the Spanish-American War or any of America's expeditions after the end of the "Indian Wars" | 2,467 | 0.98 | null | false | 1,563,746,411 | [
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"body": "I don’t have a whole lot of resources at my disposal and I’m on a phone, but the Native population is credited with exemplary and dedicated service to the US military. Bear in mind that the “Indian Wars” weren’t exactly faded from memory. The S-A War began in 1898. Massacres such as Wounded Knee (1890) and Little Bighorn (1876) were fresh in the minds of many, particularly the Natives. Speaking in relatives, it is the equivalent of the end of WWII and the end of the Korean War - not exactly ages ago. Many of the veterans from the Indian Wars were now becoming ranking military officials such as Nelson Miles, who would eventually become Commanding General. I mention this because it added to tensions on both sides.\n\nDespite resentment from both sides, Native participation was strong and the military was receptive for a few reasons. First, being a warrior was ingrained into Native culture. It was almost expected to serve in a fighting capacity in the name of honour and pride. Second, many wanted adventure. Thirdly, joining the US military could potentially have socio-economic benefits, as well as potential earned respect, so many sought to improve social and economic standings. For the government, assimilation was key. This began in the early 1890s by recruiting nurses for $30/month and scouts with specialty military training- again for assimilation. Even Teddy Roosevelt was mostly unsympathetic towards the plight of the Native peoples. He is quoted as referring to Indians as “savages” on multiple occasions and praising pioneers for their “righteous” conquest. Still, he confessed that some white men were responsible for butchery and that certain Indian leaders deserved recognition as courageous and possessing integrity. Teddy would also rather see the Native tribes assimilate than to become extinct.\n\nAccording to Jon Ault, who authored information for the S-A War Centennial:\n\n>> Formally mustered on 30 April, two hundred Arizonans reported for duty at the regiment’s training grounds, Camp Wood in San Antonio, Texas. Other officers culled recruits for the unit from neighboring territories. 340 men came from the New Mexico Territory. Among them were two brothers, Joseph and Frank Brito of the Yaquí Tribe, who became privates in Troop H of the New Mexico contingent. From Indian Territory came 170 men, under the command of Allyn Capron, Jr. Among them were Thomas Isbell, of partial Cherokee descent, and William Pollock, a full-blooded Pawnee\n\nThat is at least 710. According to the US Census for 1890, there were 248k. So about 0.28% of all Indians for these regiments alone. During WWI, it is suggested that about 12,000 served according to the Naval History and Heritage Command. The 1910 Census shows that there were 291,018. That’s 4% of all Natives serving.\n\nWhile you asked about participation since the Spanish-American War, I will also note that they have been documented serving during the War of 1812, the Civil War, etc. These numbers may seem low, but the recent history with the government and perhaps inadequate data might skew this. Hope this was what you’re looking for!\n\nSources:\n\nhttps://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1910/volume-1/volume-1-p4.pdf\nhttp://www.spanamwar.com/NativeAmericans.htm\nhttps://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/t/american-indians-us-military.html",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/qncwfs/what_were_the_geopolitical_reasons_for_us/ | qncwfs | 3 | t3_qncwfs | What were the geopolitical reasons for US involvement in World War I? | Looking at the events that led up to the start of World War I, it seems like it would have been strictly a European affair. The US seemed to be content with just isolating themselves to the Western Hemisphere. What were the interests that the US was trying to protect? Was it just because their allies in UK and France asked for aid? | 3 | 0.81 | null | false | 1,636,124,161 | [
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"body": "Whilst more can always be said with regards to the development of geopolitical arguments which contributed to the decision by Wilson's government to join the war in April 1917, these three older writeups should be of some interest to the question at hand - as there were of course, other reasons which must be taken into account for the US entry:\n\n*Note that these posts in of themselves have links to other relevant discussions on AskHistorians, so get ready for a fair bit of (fun) history reading as you delve into this most fascinating of historiographical rabbit holes.*\n\n* [On the assertion that the US joined the Entente for geopolitical and economic reasons](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/m27zfz/is_there_any_truth_behind_the_assertion_that_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)\n* [Three part response and three part follow-up on why America \"really\" entered the First World War](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/m9loxp/why_did_the_usa_really_enter_ww1/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)\n* [On American neutrality at the outbreak of World War I, and its reasons for joining the conflict in 1917](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/mqu3hm/why_was_america_neutral_towards_wwi_and_what/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)\n\nFeel free to ask any follow-up questions about what is discussed in any of the linked posts, and hope this helps!",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/n2iqf1/the_cause_of_world_war_i_is_often_boiled_down_to/ | n2iqf1 | 6 | t3_n2iqf1 | The cause of World War I is often boiled down to "Germany", despite having very complex origins. Was this a popular perception in the interwar period, or did it only emerge post World War II? | 27 | 0.78 | null | false | 1,619,877,070 | [
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"body": "A *Reductio ad Germania* for all of the First World War's causes has been a popular one almost from the start of the war. It's one that started as an act of propaganda that started as far back as the fall of 1914, mostly in the British and French press, and it only grew in popularity through the course of the war as they vilified the German occupation of Belgium and northern France. This popular perception was then all but enshrined in the various articles of the treaties that came out of the Paris Peace Conference. While the Treaty of Versailles is the most famous of the treaties, and it is the treaty that is generally believed to be the one that ended the First World War, each of the belligerent Central Powers signed their own separate treaties. And each and all of these treaties had what was considered in later years to be a guilt clause that helped create a sense of responsibility on the Central Powers for those unfamiliar with the nuances of the article in question.\n\nEach of these treaties that came out of the Paris Peace Conference, between January 1919 and June 1919, the Treaty of Versailles (which dealt with Germany), the Treaties of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (Austria), of Trianon (Hungary), of Sévres (The Ottoman Empire), and of Neuilly-sur-Seine (Bulgaria), were all very similar, with regards to their structure and format, as well as their intent. On the whole these treaties were designed to do the same thing for all of the defeated belligerents: to reduce their territorial extents, to limit their warmaking capacities, and to ensure that reparations and other indemnities were made to the victorious parties, while also refuting any future claim to the redrawn boundaries. Reading through the the five treaties, one will see nearly identical language and structure. Included in these similarities is the so-called War Guilt Article, though it was never called as such at the time, nor intended to be framed as such, at least as it was written. This article (231 in Versailles, Article 175 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Article 120 in Neuilly, 161 in Trianon) simply laid the legal framework for the reparations scheme that the Entente had agreed to amongst themselves.\n\nIt reads as follows (I quote from Article 231 in Versailles, but the wording is identical, with the appropriate national substitutions being made for the other treaties):\n\n>\"The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies.\"\n\nThis wording, written by Norman Davis and John Foster Dulles (in 1919, the American delegation's legal council and an aid to Robert Lansing, the American Secretary of State, and Dulles's uncle), was carefully phrase in such a way that there was no actual declaration of guilt in this article that is generally perceived to be the War Guilt Clause. Instead, Article 231 and its ilk were carefully crafted in such a way that the various belligerents simply acknowledged their culpability in the damages caused by the war, as the loser of the war. This is not a statement of guilt, as written and phrased (though Dulles would later write of a certain degree of guilt surrounding the clause, this was done much later after the longer-term consequences of it would be more apparent). Instead, it is an acknowledgement, that lays the legal foundation for the claiming of reparations. Without establishing responsibility for destruction, these reparations would be functionally unenforceable. These sorts of articles were part and parcel to countless peace treaties. \n\nThese articles were neither new, nor particularly harsh. And on the whole, with the exception of Germany, there was no wild backlash, no outrage, no...nothing, really, surrounding the reparations articles in the associated treaties. These largely went unremarked-upon, and most of the popular and national backlash in those countries surrounded many of the other articles, such as the military restrictions, or the territorial reductions, population transfers in line with the new political borders, and other associated matters. It was only in Germany that Article 231 really became a hotbed of resentment in and of itself.\n\nNow, the reason for this perception of Germany being the cause is several-fold. Firstly, there is some truth that Germany pushed for war. There is truth too in the fact that the Blank Check, laid out by the German government to the Austro-Hungarian government as it was drafting the ultimatum to Serbia in July 1914 likely gave Austria the political stiffening required to see that it went through with a much more hardline approach on Serbia. It was also true that there was an acknowledgement in the German military that if war was to come, the sooner it happened, the better, before Russian population growth and military-industrial modernization (begun in 1912) would overwhelm Germany, especially as she was simultaneously squeezed from the west by France, and in the east by Russia, and that projections suggested that by 1916 or 1917, there was no hope for a German victory if a war were to start at that time, or later on.\n\nHowever, beyond that, it is largely acts of British propaganda as it rallied around \"Gallant Little Belgium\" as it was overrun by the German advance, that captured the public's attention and began to start solidifying Germany as the root cause of the war. It is also acts of French propaganda as the Germans occupied vast swathes of territory in northern France, and that the French government began to see the war as an opportunity to reclaim what was lost in 1871, that Germany quickly became the primary villain of the war. This was not helped at all by the fact that except for a few token units in the south, near Switzerland, there were very few Austro-Hungarian soldiers in the West, and German forces fought not only in the West, but also in the East along Germany's own border with Russia, but also were extended significantly into Austria-Hungary's border with Russia as Germany was forced to give aid to the collapsing Austrian army. Further, more German forces were sent into Serbia as well to aid there. Thus, while Austria-Hungary may have been initially responsible for the war, it proved itself to be spent offensively in mere weeks, and was on the back foot in the span of months. An enemy that can't even be called a paper tiger is not a very good enemy to drum up propaganda against. Least of all when the Anglo-French alliance was fighting in the West primarily, and against the Germans, and not the Austrians. The Austrians were simply not compelling enemies in a lot of ways during the war from a propagandistic perspective. Further, the initial declarations of war by Britain and France were against Germany alone.\n\nBritain and France did not declarer war on Austria-Hungary until August 12. In contrast, the French declaration of war against the Germans was announced 3 August; and the British declared on Germany on 4 August with the violation of Belgian neutrality. As such, in the Anglo-French perspective, which is what drove much of the post-war perception due to Russia succumbing to revolution in 1917 and civil war thereafter, and a general Western European bias in history to begin with, the First World War was a war against Germany.\n\nIn short, German guilt for the Firs World War neatly fits into the popular expectations of the period, fitting with the lived experiences, as the death of Franz Ferdinand in June 1914 was a tragedy, but barely went remarked on, and the July Crisis was something that was likewise considered to be a thing that would soon pass, as these things tended to do, with a bit of saber rattling before the world went back to normal. War, if it happened, would be a localized affair, and just another conflict in the Balkans. Remember, the Balkans had been perennially at war since 1911 and these kind of conflicts had become routine. It was only when German troops crossed the borders in the West that things \"got real\" for a lot of people, and when it is German, not Austrian, troops doing the crossing, and it is these events in the West that suddenly capture the rapt attentions, that German guilt can start to be appreciated as the perception in the time period.\n\nAdditionally, this view of what I termed at the opening *reductio ad Germania* is not just an act of popular perception, but also very real political perception, primarily in France and Britain. I touched earlier on how Dulles and Davies had written the final wording. This wording comes from a stern compromise between American views on wanting no reparations, and an Anglo-French view that Germany should pay for \\*all\\* war costs, not just civilian damages. This view stemmed largely from that popular sentiment and outlook on responsibility. These French and British politicians had genuine concerns on their political futures if they did not sufficiently lay the blame at Germany's feet after such a costly war, because it was the Germans that had been the enemy in the popular imagination.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/pea16i/was_a_second_world_war_an_inevitability_after_the/ | pea16i | 4 | t3_pea16i | Was a second world war an inevitability after the end of World War I? Were there any major attempts by the major nations of that time to prevent another large conflict? | 6 | 0.75 | null | false | 1,630,293,958 | [
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"body": "It absolutely was not inevitable even though it has often been presented as such. To which degree differs. I've seen a lot of history books, often intended for use in schools, that simply present it as an inevitable result of WWI without ever elaborating on why but it really doesn't stop there. There are actually real historical models that to varying degrees consider WWI and WWII to be parts of the same war. Primarily they are;\n\nThe Long War-theory (as proposed by Philipp Bobbitt in *The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History*) which considers virtually the entire 20th century as a single continuous conflict starting with WWI and ending with the decline of the Soviet Union.\n\nThe Second Thirty Year's War-theory (Sigmund Neumann in *The Future in Perspective*, but also popularized by among others Charles deGaulle and Winston Churchill) which presents WWI and WWII as a single war with the intermittent years explained through colonial and regional conflicts that tie into WWII. \n\nThe European Civil War-theory (which was formalized by Paul Preston in *The Republic Besieged: Civil War in Spain 1936–1939* but has been talked about and mentioned long before Preston's work) which sees virtually all the European conflicts between the Franco-Prussian war and the end of WWII as a single tumultuous civil war in Europe. \n\nWhile all these theories do have their merits they do not represent the mainstream view among historians today. They might help you understand how conflicts tie into each other from a certain perspective but in my opinion they all rely on gros over-simplifications or intentionally ignore all manner of facts that don't support their case. \n\nAaaaanyway, back to the main question here. Was WWII the inevitable result of WWI? The oft-presented case is that the terms set by the victors of WWI were so harsh that another war was essentially unavoidable. However, this theory completely disregards the fact that everyone in the interwar years were *well* aware of this and renegotiations of the reparations and restrictions imposed on Germany in the Treaty of Versailles were well under way by the mid 1930's. I won't go super far into the details here but between the Young-plan and the Dawes-plan the reparations owed by Germany had been reduced from 132 billion gold marks to 713 million (or by 99,5% to put it in perspective). \n\nAdded to this there were also substantial loans granted to Germany, primarily by Wall Street to help with reconstruction. When Hitler passed what amounted to the \"Liberty Law\" proposed by the conservative block in the Weimar Republic (essentially renouncing all war guilt and defaulting on future reparations and loans) the US had actually paid more money to Germany than Germany had paid to the victors. \n\nSo was war inevitable? Abso-fucking-lutely not. The war was intentionally brought on by the policies and decisions of Hitler and the Nazi party and to my mind, any attempt at presenting it as \"inevitable\" is often tied to right wing revisionism.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/eb1b18/why_was_war_considered_a_grand_adventure_in_the/ | eb1b18 | 21 | t3_eb1b18 | Why was war considered a “grand adventure” in the years leading up to World War I? | Essentially title. In watching the documentary They Shall Not Grow Old, I noticed that many of the soldiers mentioned how they thought they would be “home by Christmas,” and that this thought was perpetrated by their ancestors’ experiences in wars from the previous century. Teddy Roosevelt even referred to the Spanish-American war as a “splendid little war” when describing his experiences as a soldier. Yet, wars have always been terrible and traumatic experiences for most involved, so where did this popular view of war come from? | 156 | 0.94 | null | false | 1,576,429,093 | [
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"body": "To put it simply, European thought and culture, and I’d include the US in this, at the end of the 19th century saw war differently than we do today. For them the concept of war was tied up in thoughts and concerns with nationalism, class, manhood and Social Darwinism. There were also some more practical reasons for people’s view of war as adventure, namely mass media and fiction. \n\nThere was a prominent Social Darwinist point of view that saw war as a way of keeping the nation and its citizens strong. There was a great concern with virility, manliness and strength that found its best expression in war. This is also coupled with a worry about the “degeneration of the race” caused by the industrial revolution and the explosion of the working class. Robert Baden-Powell (creator of the Scouts) was one very explicitly concerned about the quality of men coming from the new industrial cities and towns. He wrote, saying that he wanted “manhood, unmoved by panic or excitement, and reliable in the tightest of places. Get the lads away from this [loafing, drinking, gambling, masturbation, etc.] – teach them to play the game and not be merely onlookers and loafers.”\nField Marshal Garnet Wolseley, who fought in Crimea and was commander in chief of British forces at the turn of the 20th century demonstrates a common view in this area. “Any virile race can be come paramount… if it possesses the courage, the constancy of purpose and the self sacrifice to resolve that it will live under a stern system of Spartan military discipline, ruthlessly enforced by one lord and master, the King.” His concern, like Baden-Powell, was about “unmanly vices and overcivilised nations” and felt that only war could “restore manliness and virility.” Sir Walter Knox, another British general argued that the “physically deteriorated race of town-bred humanity was getting dangerously low on the scale of virility.” Only war could turn around the ‘degeneration of the race’ by inculcating the proper manly virtues in those who participated and culling the weak. It must be noted that while this view was probably most strongly held in the upper classes of British society it was reflected further down the class hierarchy as well, particularly in the middle classes. \n\nThe late 19th and early 20th century was also unique for its very prominent print culture. There were hundreds of newspapers, magazines, journals and periodicals and books that reached an enormously wide audience. Adventure fiction and war stories have always been a very popular genre and this is as true of 1900 as it is of today. The series of magazines, newsletters and papers called Boy’s Own was one of the most popular of this kind, with its contents of adventure, crime, military and science fiction. It was outwardly and openly nationalist, pro-empire and racist in its viewpoints, and was very popular for nearly a century. Millions of boys from across the British empire and the US read and took on the virtues heralded by the papers. There were also writers such as Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Conan-Doyle and Jack London whose writings perpetuated the same kinds of romantic or at least glorious view of war. \nAlthough there was much writing of war in the early 20th century there were comparatively few firsthand accounts of large conventional wars. Europe had been largely peaceful since the Franco-Prussian War, and the wars that the major powers did fight were out on the fringes of empire in Africa and Asia. These colonial wars tended to be very one sided and were easily represented in a propagandist style for consumption by audiences at home. Even the slaughter of the Russo-Japanese War failed to make much of a public impression, despite the large number of foreign observers. \n\nSo concerns about the potential degeneration of the race and nation, class views about manliness and virtue and an unrealistic representation of war all combined to create a particular view of what war was and what it meant in the early 20th century. The new kind of war introduced, with its dreadful losses and horrific material conditions as well as its unique scale eroded that view. \n\nQuotes are from Tim Travers – The Killing Ground",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/kmz7jf/how_was_the_bulgarian_army_so_large_during_world/ | kmz7jf | 2 | t3_kmz7jf | How was the Bulgarian Army so large during world war I? | How did Bulgaria menage to raise such a big army during world war I with 1.2 million men when their population at the time was just 4.8 million. Not to mention that they had just lost the 2nd balkan war. Did they even have the capability to equip all their troops or build an effective army? | 63 | 0.95 | null | false | 1,609,320,738 | [
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"body": "Where are you actually getting that number? I've never heard it being that many men. Actual numbers I found (from Krapchanski^\\[1\\]) are 15 908 officers and 600 772 sergeants and soldiers at the end of September, 1915, and 855 175 men total by 1 September 1918, and after those last numbers he writes that \"there was no opportunity for refreshing the army\" (well, in Bulgarian, but hopefully I didn't mess up the translation, \"refreshing\" sounds kind of awkward).\n\nThe wikipedia article on the mobilization has this massive 1.2 million number, and cites *The European Powers in the First World War: An Encyclopedia*^\\[2\\], more specifically a table on pg. 173, but:\n\n- this 1.2 million number is in the column *Total Force Mobilized*, so it doesn't necessarily mean these 1.2 million men were all mobilized at the same time - around 600 000 were mobilized at first, and as time went on, more people were mobilized, but obviously some of the initial 600 000 weren't in the army anymore (dead or injured).\n\n- it's explicitly stated that \"many of these figures ... are approximations or estimates\", so it might not be a fully accurate number.\n\nThe first source I cited is from the government military publisher (don't know if there's a proper term for that in English), and while it's from 1961, the figures seem to be based on documents the military had, which I assume are reasonably accurate. So the 1.2 million number might simply be incorrect.\n\n[1] В., Крапчански (1961). Кратък обзор на бойния състав, организацията, попълването и мобилизацията на българската армия от 1878 до 1944г. военно издателство, Sofia, p. 112, p. 114\n\n[2] Spencer Tucker. The European Powers in the First World War: An Encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis, 1996, p. 173\n\nHopefully I cited things properly. Note that the first source is in Bulgarian, so it might not be very useful if you can't speak the language, although you can still read the numbers. The title translates to \"A short survey on the combat composition, organization and mobilization of the Bulgarian Army from 1878 to 1944\".",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1pyrtc/historians_how_did_world_war_i_and_its_aftermath/ | 1pyrtc | 164 | t3_1pyrtc | Historians, how did World War I and its aftermath affect the development of radical Islamic philosophy? | 539 | 0.93 | null | false | 1,383,676,166 | [
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"body": "Let me just start by saying that you're asking an EXTREMELY complicated question, and this is really the type of thing that you'd need a 6 volume book series to even begin to answer comprehensively. That said, I'll give it a shot.\n\nSo one of the casualties of WW1 was the Ottoman Empire, which was essentially carved up into different regions, some of which were administered by the French, some by the British, and then there was Turkey. \n\nOver the next 60 or so years (and this is obviously an INCREDIBLY abridged history,) you had a number of major events.\n\n**Independence and messy borders.** The British and French gave up their holds on the Muslim world, leaving behind states with boundaries that they drew. The problem with this was that the boundaries drawn didn't make any sense. You had Alawites and Sunnis living under one roof. Sunnis and Shias, Turks and Kurds, Kurds and Arabs, etc. The borders simply didn't correspond to any sort of nation state. These societies were still very much tribal, so this matters a lot to these people. A Sunni doesn't want to be ruled by an Alawite, a Kurd doesn't want to be ruled by a Turk, etc.\n\nThis is part of the reason why you keep seeing these \"secular/moderate\" dictators like Gadaffi, Hussein, the Assads, etc. These people consolidate power and base their legitimacy upon the need for an authoritarian arm to rule over the warring tribes. These authoritarians then cut off any source of peaceful legitimate opposition (although a lot of the opposition wasn't peaceful to begin with) which caused it to move underground, into the mosques. One of the best examples of this is Iran in the 70s-- the Shah's authoritarian grip made any sort of political dissidence impossible, so organized religion quickly became the only outlet for opposition against authoritarian rule. This of course led to the 1979 Islamic uprising.\n\n(While I'm here let me quickly plug /r/MidEastRegionalWar, a subreddit dedicated to exploring how the faulty borders in the region are playing out today)\n\n**Israel.** I'm going to be brief here because this is a really emotionally charged topic, but... the formation of Israel and the failure of Arab leaders to \"deal with it\" in 49, 67, 73, was and remains easily one of the biggest reasons behind and one of the biggest outlets for distrust of authority, peddling of conspiracy theories, and the rising of a feeling of a need for a pan-Arab or (when that failed) pan-Muslim identity.\n\n**Oil.** During both the first and second World Wars, the allies quickly discovered how much they needed oil to fight, and were willing to do pretty much anything necessary to ensure the safety of their oil supply from the well to their engines. This is a large part of the reason why the US has been a backer of the Sauds, why the French, British, and Israelis fought Egyptians in 1956, why the US/UK overthrew Mossadegh in 53, and overall why regional security is so important to the US. This has led a lot of Arabs/Muslims to feel that they are not in control of their own destinies and that it is the American/British/Israeli puppet masters that are pulling the strings, which has brought more and more people into extremism.\n\nOn top of that, Oil wealth causes massive inequality because some people get the profits, while others simply don't. This is evident all over the world in energy producing countries, but even in countries that use oil revenues for welfare, there is both massive inequality, and almost more importantly, the oil revenues prevent the necessary economic structures that would create an actual functional economy from forming. This keeps youths poor and disenfranchised, without much of a hope of a future, which orients them toward extremism. \n\nOil wealth has buoyed the House of Saud which took control of Saudi Arabia in the 30s into a regional powerhouse, and one of the driving forces in global Islam. The House of Saud is rooted in Wahhabism, (the Sauds and the Wahhabis aligned in the 1700s,) an extremist/literalist interpretation of Islam that promotes religious violence against anyone who isn't a hardline Islamist. Osama Bin Laden is probably the world's most famous Wahhabi warrior. The Sauds have used their oil money to promote Wahhabism around the world, most notably in the 1979-1989 resistance against the Soviets in Afghanistan, where the Sauds spent billions of dollars to both arm the rebels and to build Wahhabi madhrasahs (religious schools)\nin Pakistan, where many would-be terrorists ended up being radicalized. While it isn't clear whether Bin Laden attended one of these schools, he was definitely a recipient of Saudi money while he was in Afghanistan, building a network of religious fighters that would eventually form the beginnings of al-Qaeda. \n\nThere is so, so much more that I should say to give you a more thorough background on this, but I think that for the most part this is a decent overview. I would recommend looking into things like the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, and things that Bin Laden has actually said.\n\nLet me know if you have any questions, and I hope this helped.\n\n[These ares some good books.](http://www.reddit.com/r/booksuggestions/comments/1lfsib/book_that_explains_islamic_conflicts_in_the/cbyv74y)",
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"body": "I just wrapped up *Laurence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East.* The author, Scott Anderson, claims that Britain and France's failure to support a pan-Arab state - instead carving the Middle East into imperial possessions - created an opportunity for Wahhabis under the leadership of Abdul-Aziz bin Saud (or Ibn Saud) to seize power in Arabia. Anderson writes about how different British colonial administrations actively worked to undermine each other, and while British Egypt developed a close relationship with the Hashemites in Hejaz, the Indian colonial government worked with the Hashemites' chief rival, the Al Sauds. Between this support, the over-extension of the Hashemites in the wake of the war (trying to consolidate rule over Arabia, Iraq, and the Levant all at once), and the confusion created with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Ibn Saud was able to seize Mecca in 1925. The Al Sauds managed to secure British recognition of their rule over central Arabia, and a Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was declared in 1932. They established a government in line with the tenets of Wahhabism, instituting strict social policies and tearing down a huge number of historic mosques dating to the time of Muhammad (Wahhabi beliefs finger these as potentially leading to idolatry) and pouring funding into the dissemination of radical Islamic ideals - including, Anderson notes, Osama bin Laden, a devout Wahhabi whose family had close ties to the Saudi royal family.\n\nI can't comment on how the war effected radical Islamist *philosophy,* but its geopolitical impact on spreading Wahhabism was immense.",
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"body": "Also we can not ignore how After WWI the way lines were simply drawn in the Near East. This line placed different sect together and separated others, like the Kurds. This spreads the idealism of Pan Arabism but obviously that does not work because not all Arabs are Muslims, just like not all Muslims are Arabs with Pan Islamism. In response different groups developed. The Wahhabist led by the Sauds in what is now Saudi Arabia were ( and are) the most conservatives. Being barren desert made them extremely poor. But we all know what happened after the Bristish arrive in response of its protectorate status after WWI. This brought in Westerners whom the clerical Wahabisst saw as ill.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7goub5/did_people_in_1913_and_1938_see_world_war_i_and/ | 7goub5 | 29 | t3_7goub5 | Did people in 1913 and 1938 see World War I and II coming? | When you're in history class and you learn about these things it seems so obvious that they were bound to end badly. In hindsight it seems obvious that the powder keg in WWI was going to explode and that Hitler in WWII wasn't going to just stop invading countries, and the temptation is to think "how did people not see that coming," but obviously that's very different when you're living through it. So did they see it coming? Obviously not every single person thought the same thing but was there a general sense that something really bad was about to happen or did they just think it was business as usual?
The reason I am asking this question is in relation to people saying now that we're on the brink of WWIII. I'm not asking anybody to discuss, support, or deny this, but when I responded to a friend of mine that I don't actually think that's going to happen, he responded "that's what they said in 1913." So I was wondering if that was really the case. These are the two most recent cases of mass destruction so did people see the tensions and events as separate one-offs that would eventually resolve themselves or did they realize that the world was on the brink of disaster? | 519 | 0.95 | null | false | 1,512,069,765 | [
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"body": "Otto von Bismarck, the principal statesman behind the unification of Germany, and the architect of a political balance that led to relative peace in Europe for 40 years, saw it coming from very far away indeed. In 1897, a year before his death, he predicted both a great defeat for Germany 20 years after he died and that the \"great European war\" would \"come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans\". \n\nIn fact, he explicitly warned the new emperor who had forced him to resign, Wilhelm II, that deriving government policy based on the intrigues of his diplomats and officers would be dangerous, and that it would only work as long as he still had the officers cultivated by Bismarck. This was *extremely* prescient; during the July Crisis in 1914, every politician and officer involved knew that a great war was imminent if the situation was not defused. If Wilhelm II had maintained a cohesive policy and listened to his own instincts, the Great War could have been averted, at least for the time being; he wanted Austria-Hungary to stand down after Serbia complied with the ultimatum provided to it, as further aggression could not possibly be justified by this point. However, because of his militarist officers and diplomat corps, especially one Helmuth von Moltke, he was ultimately coerced into signing the order to mobilize, which was as good as declaring war. \n\nBy all accounts, von Bismarck was a political genius, and you asked about 1913, not 1897. What about people who weren't von Bismarck? Well, as I touched on in when discussing the July Crisis in the context of von Bismarck's predictions, the statesmen involved knew what was going to happen. The German militarists, in particular, very specifically *wanted* a world war. Both France and Russia were not prepared for war, especially Russia which was in the midst of a massive modernization program, and they expected that by 1917 they would no longer be able to assert their dominance over Russia, but that they would win if they were able to start a justified war before then. The Austrians did not necessarily want a world war, but were notoriously indecisive and the German \"blank cheque\" for support effectively encouraged them to push the limits with Serbia, as they felt a great victory was needed to hold together their country in the midst of its decline. It was especially feared that if Austria continued to show indecisiveness that Germany would not continue to support her.\n\nThe Russian, French, and British diplomats all knew that war in Serbia would lead to a world war, and tried very hard to defuse the situation throughout the month of July. The French president and prime minister held a summit with Russia, and many parties worked frantically to try to find a solution. British diplomats, in particular, were deceived into believing that German diplomats were genuinely negotiating for peace as well, and that peace might yet be achieved. Russian diplomats suspected otherwise, and rightfully so, as although German diplomats tried to put on appearances of working to resolve the Austro-Serbian crisis, they were exploiting it to start war. Nicholas II, last tsar of Russia and third cousin of Wilhelm, desperately tried to convince Wilhelm on a personal level to avert war, but ultimately Wilhelm's officers pushed him into it. Serbia went so far as to accept the humiliating ultimatum that was intentionally crafted to be rejected, but this was in vain as Austria and Germany were at this point committed to causing war. \n\nThe July Crisis was when things came to a boil, but the situation was simply the spark to light the kindling, which people were fully aware of. The aforementioned German officers and diplomats had been planning and itching to make the war happen since at least 1912. Austria-Hungary had been planning for a war with Serbia since 1912 as well, long before the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. You could say that they were not only aware of the kindling, but actively preparing for a spark that would not make them the obvious arsonists. The triple Entente knew of the potential for war and the scope of it, but the general thinking was that peace could be mediated to prevent it from actually happening. \n\nWhen war did break out, the gravity of what was about to unfold was fully understood; for example British diplomat Edward Grey remarked days after it began that \"the lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time\". Not only among statesmen but also the populace; author H.G. Wells described it first in newspaper articles and then a book as \"the war to end all wars\", within the first month of the war, and this phrase was widespread throughout the public consciousness. \n\nIn short, people saw it coming and tried to prevent it to the best of their abilities, but it's difficult to prevent a powderkeg from exploding when one party is deliberately, discreetly trying to light it because they think the explosion will work to their benefit.\n\nSources: \n*Germany's Aims in the First World War* Fritz Fischer 1967 \n*Europe's Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914?* David Fromkin 2004",
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"body": "Certainly. Many people saw WWI coming, since it was obvious that the arms races that were happening (Dreadnoughts, artillery, machine guns, airplanes, etc.) combined with the growth of expansive mutual defense alliances between great powers weighed against those powers being brought into increasing conflict with one another due to scrambles for empire made it fairly obvious that some sort of war was inevitable.\n\nMoreover, it's important to keep in mind that prior to WWI war between European powers was *common*, *normal*, and *routine* and thus *expected*. It was expected that great powers would come into conflict, it was expected that warfare would be used to resolve said conflict, it was expected that the resolution of the warfare would involve changes in relative power between great powers, and so forth. The 19th century was replete with European conflicts, as was the 18th, 17th, 16th, 15th, 14th, etc. Just highlighting the main conflicts of the century prior to WWI you have the Napoleonic Wars, you have the Crimean War, you have the Franco-Prussian War, you have the various conflicts around the rise of Prussia and the unification of Germany as well as the unification of Italy. And those are just the extreme highlights. If you dig into the period there's practically a fractal pattern of conflicts that show up. What was unanticipated about The Great War (though obvious to anyone who really looked at the matter closely) was the degree to which it was all encompassing and the vast amount of destruction it caused. But that's what happens when you bring fully industrialized world class economies in conflict with one another and you flood the battlefield with millions of soldiers fighting with artillery and machine guns (millions die, normal life grinds to a halt, millions more die from starvation and disease, etc.)\n\nAs for WWII, people saw it coming as well, but this time they had the recent trauma of WWI and so were deathly afraid of a similar conflict erupting. They tried to avoid it or convince themselves it wasn't inevitable. You see a lot of coverage of Hitler, for example, trying to find a way to imagine his ascent to power as less alarming than it actually was, trying to pick and choose examples of his actions that indicated he was somewhat of a reasonable or civilized individual, able to listen to reason, unlikely to act overly rashly or violently, etc. Additionally, during the 1920s especially there were many attempts to forestall the sorts of arms races and international conflicts that had led to WWI. There was the development of the Washington Naval Treaty, keeping a lid on naval development. There was the League of Nations, providing a venue for working out conflicts through diplomacy rather than war, and so forth. And many of the actions in the run up to WWII were done due to a fear of igniting a new Great War. When Germany remilitarized the Rhineland the French and British did not respond militarily, because they didn't want to start a war, they hoped instead that the actions were the end of something rather than the beginning. When Japan used a false flag attack on itself to justify an invasion of China the truth was discovered and openly reported, but nothing of substance was done about it through the League of Nations. In the end none of the temporizing or exercises of diplomacy and soft-power (such as the American boycott of Japan) could put the brakes on the world conflict.\n\nHowever, in both cases exceptionally few people seriously foresaw the wars that were to come. In the case of WWI even though many people saw the conflict as inevitable, many people were welcoming of the conflict, thinking it would be short and beneficial to \"their side\". In contrast, a great many people saw WWII coming, and saw that it would be as disastrous as The Great War, but precisely because of that sentiment, which they felt every civilized individual felt as well, they thought that no one would be crazy enough to plunge into such a calamitous conflict and would strive to avoid it, thus thinking the actuality of another great war to be unlikely.",
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"body": "Considering one specific event, two US Navy Admirals did foresee the successful Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Japan had long been considered a serious potential rival in the Pacific and detailed plans for war against them had been in the work for decades. (Plan Orange)\n\nIn 1932, Admiral Harry E. Yarnell proved in war games that Pearl Harbor was vulnerable to Japanese carrier-born attack - at a time when few even accepted that a plane could sink a major ship. But his warnings were dismissed. In 1938, Admiral Ernest J. King confirmed Yarnell's findings, which were again dismissed.\n\nThe attack three years later was no surprise for these two, of course. At the time Yarnell had retired, while King was Commander in Chief of the Atlantic Fleet. Roosevelt soon raised King to Commander in Chief of the Navy and Chief of Naval Operations, and Yarnell was brought out of retirement and eventually served on King's staff in 1943. ",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/cvy55e/during_world_war_i_since_the_trenches_were/ | cvy55e | 8 | t3_cvy55e | During World War I, since the trenches were interconnected, wouldn't the capture of one section of the trench compromise the areas of trench behind and adjacent to it, potentially resulting in a breach that would compromise the entire front line? | I've never really understood this, Since all trenches had connections that eventually lead back to the line, wouldn't the capture of one section of trench potentially cause a breach of the entire line? Or was there a backup trench too? | 203 | 0.97 | null | false | 1,566,873,051 | [
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"body": "Trenches were much, much more complicated than a simple linear line. Even so, a battle in a trench is still a battle, the attackers may have an advantage due to surprise, initiative, and special weapons but the trench is still full of armed enemy soldiers, there's no guarantee here. More to the point, trenches typically zig zagged, which gives an inherent defensive advantage around corners. This was for multiple purposes. For one, if an artillery shell lands in a long linear trench then it can do a maximum amount of damage, flinging shrapnel out across the whole line and hitting a huge numbers of soldiers. If the trench has zig zags then an artillery shell will mostly only damage its individual \"zag\". This also, of course, applies to lines of fire. You don't want enemy soldiers to be able to drop into the end of a long trench line, set up a machine gun, and be able to cover the whole stretch with a minimal number of men.\n\nBut, of course, if you want to defend a trench you will want to put in plenty of fixed machine gun emplacements which cover parts of the trench to protect against it being taken. Which was exactly what was done. Within the trench system there would be lots of strong points where defenders could fire their rifles or fixed machine guns on attackers who had taken a section of trench. Additionally there were bunkers and even fortresses within the trench system, which were much more difficult to take.\n\nTaking a section of enemy trench was incredibly dangerous. You and your squad are now cutoff from support from your own forces, while your enemy has a supply line that basically runs right up to the back of the nearest enemy soldier to you. This is why it was so difficult to move the front line on the Western Front, you needed to take a big chunk of enemy trench all at once for it to actually be a feasible endeavor, otherwise your cutoff group of soldiers will just fall victim to a counterattack, but doing that would take a tremendous amount of resources, careful coordination between different groups (combined arms tactics), and special weapons, something that only developed near the end of the war. Prior to that the tactic of choice (other than massive ill-fated frontal assaults) was trench raiding, sending a group of highly trained and specially equipped soldiers to attack and take a trench, complete an objective (destroy enemy equipment, kill enemy troops, collect intelligence, etc.) then abandon the trench before a counterattack and return.",
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"body": "So there's a few things to unpack here. \n\nFirstly, while trench systems on the western front were extensive, they weren't all interconnected. \n\nSecondly, trench systems were, especially as the war progressed, composed of multiple lines of trenches - a front line and then additional support lines, redoubts and communications trenches running perpendicular to the front. Early in the war it was common to have a single front line trench that was densely packed with troops. It was quickly learned that this arrangement was quite brittle and exposed troops to artillery fire. So as the war progressed trench systems became more and more elaborate. \n\nLater in the war, while trenches continued to exist, a much deeper system of defense developed that was composed of connected trench lines, but also concrete bunkers and other types of redoubts. Frequently the \"front line\" was lightly held with additional troops positioned to the rear and able to move to reinforce threatened sections of the line. Machine guns were positioned in concrete bunkers as well as in shell holes in order to create large zones that could be swept by fire. The idea was to create a \"defense in depth\" that would expose attackers to continuous fire as they tried to advance. Rather than having a single trench line or even a series of trench lines separated by only a few hundred meters, the \"zone of battle\" was a deep network of defenses that could stretch backwards a half mile or more.\n\nThis sort of defense in depth was designed to bog down attackers, reduce the number of defenders needed overall and provide time for the defenders to counterattack. While the French and British employed defense in depth, the Germans, who mostly stood on the defense, created the most elaborate systems of defense.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8bn9dj/given_the_horrors_experienced_in_world_war_i_and/ | 8bn9dj | 32 | t3_8bn9dj | Given the horrors experienced in World War I and Chamberlain's desire to avoid conflict in Europe, why weren't more countries neutral during World War II? | 146 | 0.96 | null | false | 1,523,504,379 | [
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"body": "Many countries did actually declare neutrality during WWII but several of them were not allowed to preserve that status and were occupied. In particular, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia all declared their neutrality but were occupied by both German and Russian forces on several occasions throughout the war.\n\nBy contrast, Switzerland aggressively defended its border and remained neutral throughout the war although it famously still offered banking services to the Nazis and continued to trade with them.\n\nSo neutral status was a combination of desire to remain out of the war and the ability to do so. Countries in non-strategic locations like Ireland and Chile were able to do so simply because they chose not to enter the war (although Ireland was bombed several times ostensibly by German accident) while countries like Portugal, Switzerland and Sweden were aggressive in maintaining their neutrality as they were in close proximity to territory held by the Nazis.\n\nAdditionally, many nations (chief amongst them the USA) were initially neutral and only entered the war after the attack on Pearl Harbour. These nations included almost all of Central & Southern America.\n\nAlso, nations like Czechoslovakia, Austria, Greece, Poland and ~~France~~, China and the Phillipines were given no choice in neutrality as they were invaded or annexed very early on in the war. Those actions by Germany, Italy and Japan forced more nations into the war as they each attempted to extend their own spheres of control.\n\nTo summarise, nations needed both the desire and the ability to maintain neutrality. That combination was quite rare and therefore WWII expanded to include virtually every nation on the planet.\n\nEDIT: My mistake, France did actually declare war on Germany prior to being invaded.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/b8m320/what_impact_did_the_united_states_really_have_in/ | b8m320 | 12 | t3_b8m320 | What impact did the United States really have in World War I? | After watching Peter Jackson's documentary earlier today, I went on a bit of a binge on YouTube into WWI footage. The American films seem to give significant weight to Americans joining the war with respect to the eventual Allied victory. Would the War have actually been winnable if the United States had chosen to remain neutral?
Thanks to all the historians who are active here! I find all of your answers enormously fascinating. | 130 | 0.93 | null | false | 1,554,225,439 | [
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"body": "It's contentious and there are many ways to cut this cake. There were many times the war looked winnable for the German Empire, especially after the collapse of Russia and the military riots France had to quell in 1917, but the disparity of material production under the blockade and more than anything, the ability of defenders to re-allocate men and material with railways while offensive infantry were limited by marching speed (so at most around 20 miles per day) meant that any kind of a breakthrough eventually petered out because of human exhaustion, at which point material and manpower attrition and sapping the will to fight was the only means of anyone ending the war, and the British blockade effectively dictated the course of material production/trade after Jutland by ensuring American trade with the Allies continued and stopped for the Axis powers. America had an immense role to play in shoring up British and French industry, American trade with Allied countries tripled during the wartime years while it absolutely stopped with Germany as the blockade would turn back merchant ships seeking to trade with Germany, however, the impact of American soldiers was fairly limited in direct combat (and unusually costly for the short duration and time they arrived to the war), however, the number of Americans waiting to arrive was daunting and in some sense forced the Germans' hand.\n\nThe United States lost a *lot* of soldiers for its very brief time in the war. The American Expeditionary Force wasn't assembled until July 1918, there hadn't been enough recruits sent over and properly assembled to warrant it, those Americans who had been fighting in France had been operating under joint command under the Allies. There were a million American recruits in France in May 1918, but more than half weren't anywhere near the front lines or anywhere near ready to be deployed, most of the American soldiers we sent missed all but the tail end of the last major offensive by the Germans in spring of 1918 (the Kaiserschlacht), after which the Germans had essentially exhausted their manpower and material in that last offensive, and the US *still* had 150k deadly casualties and 300k wounded and sick, bearing in mind the last handful of months only had token offensives on either side as the conclusion was negotiated.\n\nA part of that is because American soldiers were notorious for being more... earnest? than their European allies, especially by 1918, because at that point American forces simply didn't have the morale fatigue Europeans armies had endured for 3 years of war. American officers were still implementing some of the same tactics that Europeans had been using in 1914 and 1915 yet by the later years of the war Europeans had effectively abandoned. The famous quote by an American officer, Daniel Daly, \"Come on you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?\" is probably the smallest encapsulation for how much less war weary Americans and more gung-ho Americans were compared to their European counterparts, as the same eagerness for combat had existed in Europeans at the outset of the war. Even so, when the US declared war in December of 1917, volunteers were practically non-existent, in part because news of how awful the war had been in Europe had been in the press for 3 years at that point, and in part because America was notoriously isolationist before WW1 and the idea of a European war was anathema to early American doctrines (the Monroe Doctrine). The American public was still on the fence about participating and we had to implement the draft to get anything resembling a worthwhile army to contribute. There are some historians who make Wilson less of an idealist and proponent of international order and instead argue he's much more calculating, that America's hedged neutrality that still offered material support to Britain and France while not trading with Germany made American involvement in WW1 Wilson's war, not the American people's war.\n\nDespite all the vast preparation and immense mobilization of Germany, the blockade effectively strangled German production in a way that French and Anglo industry wasn't, and the only German recourse after the naval battle in Jutland failed to break the blockade was the U-boats, and, for practical reasons there was no way for the U-boats to distinguish American (non-combatants) from \"combatant\" shipping. After Jutland, the U-boats were the only option remaining to break Allied industrial advantages from the blockade (as I previously mentioned, American trade with Allies tripled during the war years and effectively dropped to zero with Germany for all trade goods that Britain declared \"wartime materials\", which was practically everything). There's a quote from Admiral Beatty, \"The real crux lies in whether we blockade the enemy to his knees, or whether he does the same to us\". Because the US remained a major shipping ally of the Allies, it was pretty unavoidable that the US Congress would respond in some fashion to escalating German U-boat activity indiscriminately attacking Allied shipping (although the Zimmermann telegram did far more to harm American neutrality in the view of the American public).\n\nIn contrast, Great Britain and France had the manpower of their vast colonial empires to draw upon to finance their war machines and pay Americans for their goods - as much as British and Commonwealth soldiers complained of poor rations (endless plum jam and beggarly strips of bacon), they ate comparatively well. There are accounts of German soldiers breaking British lines in 1916 and 1917 in night raids during the Turnip Winters just to raid much more plentiful Allied stores before returning to their own bunkers (so called Turnip Winters because Germany was so short-handed for labor that the only food for civilians was turnips imported from Sweden). I remember reading a diary account of a German officer during the first push of the Kaiserschlacht, Operation Michael, when the Germans had actually and truly broken the French trenches, they were in open country, bombardment of Paris (only 70 km away) had begun again, German soldiers saw French depots and little villages that seemed untouched by the war, and a colonel or major drove up to some village that had a railway to assess the situation and commandeer the trains when he realized the village was just being looted, german soldiers were carting off pigs and gooses and running around in women's dresses rather than fortifying or advancing. The major began berating a captain who had survived the assault and was drinking a bottle of wine (officers had some of the highest attrition in the war) and who was nominally in control of the situation to continue the advance, and the captain said something to the effect of \"I can do nothing, if I should lift a finger to stop this I'll be shot dead\". That's how desperate German soldiers were for food and supplies. The Kaiserschlacht effectively failed because A. mechanized mobile infantry didn't exist yet and the French were able to redeploy soldiers to cauterize breakthroughs, even [dramatically effective ones](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Western_front_1918_german.jpg) B. there was nothing left for Germany to throw at the war, the blockade had worked and the army was running on fumes that it had burnt out for the Kaiserschalcht, especially in veteran frontline soldiers who did infiltration work and were essential to armies in preparing recruits for the reality of trench warfare.\n\nTo give some sense of how bad things were, the German navy mutinied in 1918, Allied advances in fall 1918 were characterized by German surrenders en masse (whole divisions) in the hope of just getting food, and war production had very nearly stopped because of mass labor strikes over food. Everything was poured into the Kaiserschlacht, and it worked to decimate allied trenches, but it was just too easy to rebuild defenses and redeploy soldiers, and too hard to make serious advances before mechanized infantry in an era of mechanized rail, and the Kaiserschlacht was over before America had even sent enough forces to justify having its own command.\n\nThe other side of the story however is that France was dealing with army riots in 1917 and England had a democratic government that still owned an incredibly unpopular war that at least initially it had, on paper, had the option to sit out of, whereas Germany was in the process of ending the eastern front and the kaiser didn't have an electorate to answer to. Germany *might* have been able to negotiate an advantageous truce in mid 1917, however, because they had begun unrestricted submarine warfare early in 1917 and with the Zimmerman telegram, there was just enough public support in the US to encourage the Allied governments to hold off on a truce, even though that had a great deal of popular support and growing demand, especially among the lower classes, in the hope the US would come in, which did happen by December 1917.\n\nTL:DR after failing to break the blockade at Jutland, Germany needed *some* kind of relief in shipping or to even the production scale, the only way that was really possible was with U-boats, and that basically sealed American involvement in the war. While the threat of additional american manpower was daunting, by the time it was on the scene the war had mostly been played out, and while American forces would have guaranteed a victory, their role was small - it was mostly the guarantee of material strength from American industry, basically implicitly from the beginning of the war but openly by the end, that was America's principal contribution and which forced the end of the war.",
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"body": "A lot of the answers here are about the US military contribution to World War I. Fair enough (and good answers!). But in some ways that overlooks other contributions that the US made to the Entente/Allied war effort, even before the United States officially became a combatant in April 1917.\n\nThe United States provided massive amounts of supplies and credit to the Entente powers over the course of the war, both before the US entry as a combatant and after. Before US entry, these loans were privately raised by the British and French governments on Wall Street, especially through JP Morgan. Some $500 million was borrowed in 1915, and $1.5 billion in 1916, before the American government stepped in as a lender and provided some $4 billion in 1917-1918.\n\nMost of that financing was in turn spent on US purchases. While World War II would see the United States became a major supplier of finished industrial goods such as tanks and airplanes, in World War I, most of the goods provided to Entente powers were agricultural materials such as grain and beef, or munitions. The US Army itself had to use French and British tanks, rifles and even helmets on entry into the war.\n\nAnyway, this was all at a time when Germany and the Central Powers, with the exception of a few cargo U-Boat shipments, were largely cut off from American finance and trade and under blockade. Even before the US military made itself a presence on the battlefield, US food and ammunition, paid for by US credit, were making themselves a presence on the frontlines. \n\nSource:\n\nAdam Tooze, *The Deluge*.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1eu8mn/weekly_ama_mexican_revolution_and_world_war_i/ | 1eu8mn | 153 | t3_1eu8mn | Weekly AMA: Mexican Revolution and World War I | **Hello and welcome to my AMA on the Mexican Revolution and World War I.**
My name is Heribert von Feilitzsch. I grew up in Germany, only yards from the East German border, the "Iron Curtain." In 1988 I came to the United States as a student. Fascinated with the "Tortilla Curtain," the Mexican-American border, I pursued a Masters Degree in Latin-American History with focus on Mexican-American relations at the University of Arizona. The Mexican-American border still constitutes a barrier that divides two cultures, two distinct national identities, and creates a complicated economic and political framework worth studying. Last year, after 20 years of research, I published a book about the German spy Felix A. Sommerfeld, who became a very influential actor in the Mexican Revolution and the German intelligence organization in the USA during World War I.
As a historian I believe in three basic premises: Let the information lead you to the story, do not use hindsight to judge historical actors, and triangulate all available information to form your theses.
I will answer any questions that concern the time period of 1906 to 1918 that have to do with Mexico, the United States, and Germany. My special interest is intelligence history and German involvement in U.S. and Mexican relations in that time period.
If you are interested in the book, go to www.in-plain-sight.info and use the code “sommerfeld” for a special 50% discount.
**Edit:** Thank you for all your great questions. I could do this for all eternity except that my typing fingers are turning to mush. Please follow my blogs on www.in-plain-sight.info and on [facebook](http://www.facebook.com/pages/In-Plain-Sight-Felix-A-Sommerfeld-Spymaster-in-Mexico-1908-to-1914/346919455389747). Contact me anytime. I will be back here sometime soon.
Heribert | 310 | 0.92 | null | false | 1,369,237,641 | [
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"body": "In regards to the Zimmermann Telegram, how plausible do you think Mexico would have agreed with Germany and attack the U.S.? I know the Border War from 1910-1919 definitely caused tension between the two, but was there enough sentiment among the general population of Mexico to go to war? How large of a military could Mexico muster at the time?",
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"body": "I'll ask something of an obvious question: Pancho Villa. I've heard him romanticized and villified, labeled a rotten bandit and a near folk hero. What are your own thoughts on Villa and his campaigns? Did they have significant political/social ramifications for Mexico? ",
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"body": "What was Mexico's participation during the World War I? \nHow was Mexico-Germany relationship at the time?",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/15hxxw/the_seven_years_war_had_a_theater_in_every/ | 15hxxw | 92 | t3_15hxxw | The Seven Year's War had a theater in every continent and involved all of the major powers at the time -- why don't we refer to it as World War I? | 598 | 0.96 | null | false | 1,356,575,779 | [
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"body": "The difference between WWI and WWII, and the Seven Years' War is mass conscription/mobilization and mechanization. These changes created wars that led to enormous loss of life and destruction, unlike anything in the past. Hence, you can understand why people previously called WWI the Great War or the war to end all wars. The 'democratization' of war, so to speak, really begins to take hold in the 19th century, after France notably employed the [*levée en masse*](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levée_en_masse) (basically large scale conscription of able bodied males) in the 1790s. Prior to this, war was relatively separate and disconnected from society, and not subject to popular political pressure--thus the demands on the population were smaller--which is why many states used mercenary forces to wage war in Europe prior to the 1800s. Literally, conflicts occurred with 10,000 Swiss troops battling 10,000 Swiss troops, each fighting for a different state. This means that, on par, war was less devastating since it was limited in scope and size.\n\nThe most direct answer to your question is that WWI was only named that later, and that the name is more a reflection of unprecedented destruction brought on by a geographically large conflict, which was compounded by the fact that mechanized warfare and large-scale mobilization of society, sometimes termed 'total war' (though this is a much more complex concept) created an unprecedented wave of destruction.\n\nEDIT: For a great book on how warfare changed over the centuries, see Charles Tilly, [*Coercion, capital, and European states, AD 990-1992*](http://books.google.com/books?id=b1FzvFLSBBUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=charles+tilly+coercion&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Y8XbUIfZO4Kq8ASMmYCYDQ&ved=0CDkQ6AEwAA)",
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"body": "I think a lot of the reasons people refer to the two world wars from the twentieth century as World Wars has a lot to do with the idea of total war. Was as it was fought during the eighteenth century was dramatically different than war fought during the twentieth century. And, to a certain extant, war in the nineteenth century was the transforming ground. If you think especially on the Civil War where the United States is beginning to use not only new weapons but new forms of warfare. Two very good books that touch on different aspects of this are Royster's *The Destructive War* and Faust's *This Republic of Suffering*. Both of these books detail how war changed to ravage a country, think Sherman's March to the Sea and how a country in turn dealt with the death that occurred from this new type of warfare. You have old ways of fighting with new developments of technology.\n\nThis leads into World War I. World War I is a continuation of belligerents\nusing new technology to fight a war, except now it is on an international stage. Prior to 1914 the world was largely globalized, but most of the power was centered in Europe. There are a whole series of treaties before the war that forces many European countries into conflicts that none of them want. After the war starts, colonization means that countries like Great Britain can call on there reserves of troops in a way that was not done during the Seven Years War. The stories behind the mobilization of Indian troops as well as Australian and New Zealand troops are important to know, but the detail is not necessary for your answer. Suffice to say that they had their own needs and learned similar lessons from what it meant to help their \"Mother\" country. Yet, while all this is happening, there are new alliances being formed between the United States, France, and Great Britain, but for the United States to even think about getting into any kind of the negotiating power that existed between Great Britain and France (i.e. Sykes-Picot Agreement) the US needs to be in the war. Thus, Woodrow Wilson seeking ways to gain clout through combat. It works and because of the ravaging of Western Europe, America becomes an important world power with great influence in shaping the peace after the war. MacMillan's *Paris 1919* follows the story of Wilson, Clemenceau, and Lloyd George and the peace that followed. (I apologize if I gave too much information, and not enough at the same time, on The Great War). \n\nThere is a huge difference in how countries interact before, during, and after the war. Wilson's Fourteen Points and his desire for a League of Nations is important in driving the future of international diplomacy. It creates a, largely unsuccessful, grouping of nations designed to influence one another ethically on the world stage, but many of their early attempts at sanctions failed, because the United States was not a member and because the charter had no teeth. \n\nWar would continue to change in World War II. Unfortunately, I don't have a whole lot to offer here because my expertise comes close to nil during the second World War. But, an excellent look at how war changed in the twentieth century comes from Ferguson's *The War of the World*. Check out this book if you are interested in examining this idea in greater depth.\n\n**tl,dr: The world experienced a transformation from traditional rules of engagement into a new type of total war with newer technology and more powerful weapons while leading into World War I international diplomacy changed dramatically because of colonization prior to and during the war and the United States coming of age as a world power after the war.**",
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"body": "All of the major powers at the time? Did it involve China? (China was in an expansion phase but didn't become involved in the conflict; the \"Seven Year War\" refers to something else in Chinese history.) As for continents, I think the transfer of Sant-Louis in Senegal was the only major activity in Africa despite Ottoman suzerainty over the north clear to Algiers. Conflict in South America itself was also relatively limited in scope, and Australia/Antarctica, well...\n\nSo it was a war that had global events and activities, among powers that had global holdings, but it did not involve anything like the mass dislocations that would accompany the First World War. You might make a case that it was a world war on the basis of its powers' ability to travel on virtually every sea on Earth, but the only powers really involved were European with the local exceptions of the Mughals in South Asia and various Native American nations in North America who had their own reasons largely unrelated to the broader geopolitics internal to Europe. For the majority of human beings, the war did not affect them in any way because they did not mobilize for it. You'd have a far harder time saying that for the 1910s.\n\nEverything else I might add, rvn-drv already has touched on (and a lot else besides).",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/iqqubd/how_did_royalty_nobility_participate_in_world_war/ | iqqubd | 4 | t3_iqqubd | How Did Royalty & Nobility Participate In World War I? | I know the various monarchs & princesses and whatnot were nominally in total command of the military, but how many of them actually were officers and whatnot serving in the armed forces? Were dukes & whatnot actually going to see battle, or was it all cushy general staff positions? | 8 | 0.84 | null | false | 1,599,832,225 | [
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"body": "I can tell you that from an Austro-Hungarian view, military service was not really the popular route for the nobility by the time of the first war. I'll have to specify \"real\" nobility, as there was a practice of \"ennobling\" long serving high ranking officers as a reward for their time in uniform, and the title would be hereditary. So, Franz Conrad \"von Hötzendorf\" had a noble title but, really, he wasn't noble. He was great-grandson of Franz Conrad who earned the \"von Hötzendorf\" appellation via this military service route. This type of nobility is called the Deinstadel (\"service nobility\"). They are not who you are interested in. \n\nOf course, the Austrians had Archduke Joseph Ferdinand, a poor-to-mediocre general who initially commanded the 14th Corps against the Russians, then commanded the 4th Army. Archduke Joseph, an apparently competent general who initially commanded the 31st Infantry Division and then the 7th Corps (mostly against Italy along the Osonzo. Archduke Friedrich, who \"commanded\" the army but really was expected to stay out of the way of Conrad. Archduke Eugen started the war with no active command but was given the broken 5th Army after the opening Serbian debacle and ended up doing a reasonable job commanding much of the Italian front.\n\nHowever... as of 1896, less than 14% of regular army officers were of the real aristocracy (excluding Deinstadel). This percentage continued to decline as the war approached. Further, 89% of general staff officers were of middle class origins and 75% of those of General rank. Even among the most \"aristocratic\" force in the army, the cavalry, only 9 of 42 regiments were commanded by actual \"nobility\" by 1914. So the overall numbers of nobility in the military were dwindling. The Austro-Hungarian officer corp had a significant element of \"caste\" to it, where many of the new officer candidates were sons of older officers, and most of those who were not of military families came from the middle classes not nobility. The noble sons of Austria had been finding more interest in industry, finance, and arts than military since at least 1867.\n\nThere were examples of nobles, even high ranking nobles, fighting at the front though and not just commanding from some theater HQ. \n\nArchduke Karl Albrecht began the war as Oberleutnant in an artillery regiment. Although he was pulled from the combat area for general staff work by the end of 1914, he did return to command an artillery regiment for 1916-1917 which is still what I would consider a combat area command. Then he commanded the 23rd Infantry Brigade until the end of the war, which I would also consider a combat area command as regimental commands could easily find themselves in the action.\n\nArchduke Joseph Franz entered the war in 1915 as an ensign in the Honved 7th Hussar regiment. He remained with that regiment for the course of the war, being promoted in early 1918 to Rittmeister (equivalent to Captain for a US/UK analog).\n\nIt's certainly possible politics played a role in the various medals and promotions these two had, but... they were still there with the unit!\n\nSo the answer is, yes, nobles did fight at the front... just, not that many of them, and certainly not as many as you might have seen 100 years before.\n\nSources of interest\n\n*Fall of the Double Eagle* by John Schindler\n\n*The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary* by Holger Herwig\n\nThere's also a couple web sites that... well, I wouldn't cite them blindly in a paper but they are really good for leads or tid bits. I would be very sad if either site would disappear.\n\n[www.austrianphilately.com](https://www.austrianphilately.com) has some incredibly niche detail that has been hugely useful to me in a project I've been working on. I'm already talking about Austro-Hungarian history of WW1, so this is niche information for a niche topic. It's a hairline fracture in history.\n\n[www.austro-hungarian-army.co.uk](https://www.austro-hungarian-army.co.uk) has much info as well. They list a large bibliography, but often don't specify what info comes from what source.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3odigg/ama_why_was_the_united_states_so_afraid_of/ | 3odigg | 73 | t3_3odigg | AMA: Why Was the United States So Afraid of Radicalism? (Loyalty and Liberty: American Countersubversion from World War I to the McCarthy Era) | Hi there! My name’s Alex Goodall, and I’m a historian at University College London, where I teach twentieth-century US history. I have a particular interest in the history of radicalism, antiradicalism and countersubversion in the United States. My book, [*Loyalty and Liberty*] (http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/62hst7ka9780252038037.html), explored the politics of countersubversion in the United States in the decades before the McCarthy era. It explored subjects including:
- political repression during World War One
- the post-war Red Scare and the Palmer Raids of 1919-1920
- popular antiradical groups in the 1920s, including ultrapatriotic organizations, the Ku Klux Klan and the American Legion
- early (and mostly unsuccessful) efforts at communist spy-hunting
- fascism and antifascism in the 1930s, and
- the growth of anticommunism in the 1930s and 1940s, including the creation of the House Committee on un-American Activities (HUAC), which played such an important role in fuelling Cold War McCarthyism.
My aim was to pull together a wide variety of different subjects in order to chart the deeper origins of countersubversive politics in American life. Among other things, I hoped to challenge the popular understanding of “McCarthyism” as being associated with just a short period in the early Cold War years, and showing instead its deeper roots.
As a result, the book looks at lots of different groups and figures, including antiradical businessmen like Henry Ford, anticommunist figures in the labor movement, antiradical elements in various religious denominations, and counter-subversive political factions in both the major political parties.
Rather than there being a singular counter-subversive movement, these different groups and individuals constantly argued about the nature of the threat that they believed was out there, and over the best ways of responding to it. More generally, American countersubversives struggled to balance their desire to engineer national loyalty with longstanding US commitments to constitutional liberties such as the freedom of speech and assembly. Indeed, I argue it was the tension between these two goals that gave the debate over “subversives” in American life such fury.
I’d be happy to field questions about any of these subjects, so please fire away!
**Hi everybody. I'm going to log off now as it's nearing my bedtime (in the UK)! I just wanted to say thanks to you all for asking some great questions, and for being so friendly and polite all the way. This is a great community you have here. I'll try and have a look in again tomorrow in case there's any straggler questions that come in overnight, but otherwise I hope that you've found this discussion interesting and look forward to engaging with AskHistorians more in the future.**
**If anybody wants to know more about my book or related subjects, you're very welcome to email me at alex.goodall@ucl.ac.uk, or my twitter address is @dralexgoodall** | 159 | 0.9 | null | false | 1,444,598,478 | [
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"body": "Was there really a coup plotted by fascist sympathizers in the 1930s? ",
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"body": "We're early unionists and union sympathizers accusedbof beig disloyal citizens because of their work? Did the Ludlow massacre have an effect on this?",
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"body": "A relative of mine (long dead, now) was accused on multiple occasions of being a spy for Communist China, where he lived and worked during and after WW2 (and he would eventually move back to live out his life there). We certainly don't believe he was a spy and he left the US (never to return) before anything came of it (and I think he lost his American passport) but he lost a lot and suffered a lot as a result of the accusations. There were reasons why he fell under suspicion, I suppose, he was left leaning, he loved China deeply, he wasn't a natural born US citizen and the department he worked in had close contact with a Chinese spy agency or something like that, but I've also always been told that a motivating reason for him being accused of espionage was antisemitism. \n\nI never studied much American history at school so I don't know much about the 'communist spy hunting' apart from family stories, so I was wondering, was antisemitism ever a factor in accusations of espionage etc during the 1940s? \n\nTo add more information: he left the us in 1949 after an investigation, but resigned before anything came of it. He was denaturalised when his passport expired a few years later I believe. And then 11yrs after he left the US, he moved to China.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2wu9yo/i_just_listened_to_dan_carlins_latest_hardcore/ | 2wu9yo | 52 | t3_2wu9yo | I just listened to Dan Carlin's latest Hardcore History podcast. In it he claimed that most of the armies on the Western Front in World War I trained their soldiers in how to kill a wounded comrade to end his suffering. Is there any truth to this? | 377 | 0.92 | null | false | 1,424,667,641 | [
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"body": "It's entirely new to me. I can't say definitively that it was never done (hell, it probably occurred a few times), but I have never read of a 19th or 20th century army systematically training its men to execute wounded comrades. It makes very little sense. For one, how is an infantryman with no medical training supposed to know when to perform such a mercy killing? The armies maintained aidmen, surgeons, field hospitals, and so on for the purpose of saving those who could be saved; it would be grossly inefficient to have thousands of moderately to severely wounded men killed at the front. For another, there's the morale factor. Men are not going to enjoy the prospect of mass killing of wounded friends, never mind actually having to implement it.",
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"body": "Hello everyone, \n\nUnfortunately, we have already had to remove a number of poor quality responses in this thread, including many asking about the deleted comments, which merely compound the issue. Keep in mind that in /r/AskHistorians incorrect, speculative, or otherwise disallowed comments are removed by the mod-team. So please, before you attempt answer the question, keep in mind [our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules) concerning in-depth and comprehensive responses. Answers that do not meet the standards we ask for will be removed. \n\nAdditionally, it is unfair to the OP to further derail this thread with off topic conversation, so if anyone has further questions or concerns, I would ask that they be directed to [modmail](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAskHistorians&subject=Question%20Regarding%20Rules), or a [META thread](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/submit?selftext=true&title=[META]). \n\nThank you!",
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"body": "Slightly off topic but related, I apologize if I'm breaking any rules.\nI listen to his podcasts in my driving job and I think he is amazing at many levels. But sometimes he does get carried away with narration, nothing wrong with that, and makes some claims that boggles your mind. I ocasionally wonder to myself, really?\n\n\nWhat do historians think of Dan Carlin, accuracy of facts wise? ",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/42xahg/missions_of_the_german_secret_service_in_north/ | 42xahg | 55 | t3_42xahg | Missions of the German Secret Service in North America during World War I | **Hello and welcome to my AMA on the German Secret Service in America during World War I.**
My name is Heribert von Feilitzsch. I grew up in Germany close to the border to East Germany and Czechoslovakia. My grandfather who was born in the 1880s fought in the Austro-Hungarian army as a cavalry officer in World War I. I remember being fascinated by the colorful uniforms, the spiked helmet, and crank powered field telephones in his closet. I wished I had been old enough to ask him questions about a war that is now 100 years past.
I came to the United States in 1988 and studied history at the Universities of Arizona and Virginia. For the last 20 some years I have studied the role of the United States and Mexico in World War I. While I found several good books on the topic, I realized quickly that they were written many years ago, before the Internet and the opening of many archives to the public. In the last four years I have published four books on the topic. Two deal with the role of Mexico just before and during World War I, two with the role of the United States in the same time period.
I am an independent scholar and author. Because I have no affiliations I self-finance my research, writing, and publishing. This gives me the chance of scholarly work that claims to be as objective as humanly possible. I am guided by documents and evidence. My conclusions are derived from where the facts take me. Although I cannot be certain that I am correct in my argumentation 100% of the time, I am trying to keep the highest standards of documentation. My books typically contain 800 to 1,000 endnotes, my sources are listed, and, as fellow researchers know, I am perfectly happy to share scanned original documents.
I will answer any questions that concern the time period of 1908 to 1918 that have to do with Mexico, the United States, and Germany. I am especially well-versed in intelligence history and German involvement in U.S. and Mexican relations.
If you are interested in my books and historical blogs, please visit www.felixsommerfeld.com or www.facebook.com/secretwarcouncil. All my books are available on either www.felixsommerfeld.com or www.amazon.com. For today only, I introduced special discounts for all of you.
**Edit:** Thank you all for participating. I will be back sometime in the near future. In the meantime, check for the many events I am attending this year, including a presentation at UNAM, San Antonio on March 4 and a speech in Columbus, New Mexico on March 12. My newest book, *The Secret War Council: The German Fight against the Entente in America in 1914* is available since last week. *Maestro de Espias*, the Spanish translation of *In Plain Sight* is on the stands all over the U.S. and Latin America on February 11. Thank you again for your great questions. So long, Heribert | 170 | 0.91 | null | false | 1,453,898,523 | [
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"body": "Hello and thank you for this AMA! I've had the pleasure of reading the first book (*In Plain Sight*) in your series on Felix Sommerfeld and I was impressed by the amount of research that went into the book. A fascinating book and I can't recommend it enough.\n\nMy question is regarding the Villa raid on Columbus, New Mexico in 1916. Pancho Villa appears to have gotten rid of any good feelings towards the US by fall of 1915 which coincided with a need to put on a display to get national attention and revive the Villinista cause; to what extent did Germany or German elements influence Villa to target the US? ",
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"body": "Thanks for doing the AMA. I know nothing of the involvement of the German Secret Service in North America (or your other topics), so I am asking as a novice:\n\nGiven your research, have you reached different conclusions or do you perceive your subject in a radically different way that diverges from previous scholarship? And if so, how is your work being received, particularly since you are unaffiliated?\n\nThanks in advance for your answer. ",
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"body": "I'm curious what you know about the Black Tom explosion in Jersey City in 1916. I've read the Wikipedia article and quite a few other sources on the internet. Germany did pay for damages, but whether they were the cause or not seems to be pretty sketchy. Does this kind of operation fit with other operations Germany was doing at the time? I've looked up Johann Bernstorff, the German ambassador to the US. He appears to have been involved in quite a bit sabotage activity in the US, although nothing really proven. In one case, the 1915 bombing of the Vanceboro bridge between US and Canada, a German agent was caught basically red handed (literally, he had frost bite from being out in the cold setting up the explosives). Apparently he only got some jail time because he changed into a German Army uniform before being arrested. Otherwise he would have been shot as a spy.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/eolnbs/world_war_i_contemporary_public_sentiment_and/ | eolnbs | 7 | t3_eolnbs | World War I - Contemporary public sentiment and popular literature/film. | The genesis of my question was an argument over whether 1917 was an accurate depiction of war and from those who fought within it. The other guy thinks that World War I wasn't really all that different from other wars and that it wasn't until after World War II that some of the 'modern' sense of war being hell really crept into the picture.
>"Watch any war movie made in that era. Every war movie made then. Read the books, look at the art, merchandise, poetry, the sermons. There are only heroes never cravens shown. "
My sense is that at the beginning of the war people lionized war and thought it glorious to be a part of it, but as it dragged out for years and years people largely became sick of it and thought of it as pointless slaughter. A lot of that comes from books and movies both fiction and non, but most of them were written well after the war was over.
All Quiet on the Western Front (1928), Johnny Got His Gun (1939), Goodbye To All That (1929), etc. Most of the depictions I've seen have been largely anti-war. Was this the case, or have the works that have stayed over time been chosen because of modern sentiments to war?
Were there popular works of fiction that glamorized the war as being something other than a hellish churn of death?
​
Is there a middle truth that neither of us are touching on? | 8 | 0.91 | null | false | 1,579,010,541 | [
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"body": "I love questions like this because there's actually loads to break down within it.\n\nTo begin with I'm going to suggest a few pieces of general reading around the portrayal of the First World War culturally and through various media. This will be a bit Anglocentric but then I get the feeling that the question is primarily interested in British understandings of the war.\n\nSo the following books might be useful to you:\n\n'The Great War: Myth and Memory' by Dan Todman\n\n‘Mud, Blood, and Poppycock' by Gordon Corrigan\n\n'The Last Great War' by Adrian Gregory\n\n'The First World War in Computer Games' by me (sorry).\n\nHowever, before we can really even get into the portrayal of the war in media, there's some aspects that we need to deal with first.\n\n**The War**\n\nPrimary with this is the idea that the war was welcomed in 1914 (something worthy of being lionised). Part of that is true but, at the same time, the idea of a huge popular 'rush to the colours' isn't entirely true. Most of the major protagonists often saw the war as something being inflicted upon them and that to lose it would be apocalyptic to their society. As a result it becomes a righteous cause to save France/Germany/Britain/etc from its enemies but it was an enthusiasm in the face of annihilation.\n\nThat being said, in order to get people to fully buy into the war (a concept that John Horne refers to as 'self mobilisation') socieities had to go through various procedures which often involved putting on hold their own existing political differences and rallying around the national cause. I wrote a bit about that in regards to France, [here] (https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/edt2fi/how_did_the_french_left_respond_to_the_outbreak/)\n\nNow part of producing that national support and consensus was through the use of patriotic poetry and media espousing the necessity of the war and the glory of serving in it. But given that Britain was the only country that didn't have compulsory military service, a lot of these attempts were aimed at getting men into the army.\n\nSo if you look at poetry (for example) from 1914 and 1915 a fair portion of it will be about the potential for heroism but also the benefits to Britain and civilisation for standing up against German aggression.\n\nBut, as the war goes on, and any initial hopes for an early victory dissipate the portrayal of the war does begin to change, but it's not quite in the manner you predict here:\n\n>but as it dragged out for years and years people largely became sick of it and thought of it as pointless slaughter.\n\n1916 is a particularly important year for this, especially for Britain and France. For the British the huge volunteer armies that were raised in 1914 & 1915 are deployed to the Western Front for the first time and fight en masse at the Somme. For the French they fight almost all year in a huge attritional battle at Verdun which sees almost the enitre French army cycle through the area and becomes a huge national effort.\n\nBoth of these battles see huge casualties and neither, at least immediately, seem to end the war. The opening of the Battle of the Somme is captured by documentary makers and screened in cinemas back in Britain almost immediately afterwards. The film (famously) includes staged scenes of men going over the top and seemingly dying but it also repeatedly features dead bodies of British and German soldiers lying around all over the place and is edited in a manner that, at times, makes it look like living soldiers march to the trenches, go over the top, and die.\n\nIn the first 6 weeks of its release 20 million tickets were sold for it. Britain at the time had a population of around 48 million, so a significant proportion of the population see it. But it doesn't cause support in the war to collapse and people don't see the conflict as a pointless slaughter after seeing it. Nor do those French families who lost men at Verdun. \n\nWhat this period does is harden the resolve towards the war rather than weaken it. The only way the war becomes 'pointless' now is if the British or the French lose. Then all these sacrifices were for nothing.\n\nNow it's true that as the war continues through 1917 and into 1918 you see the beginnings of unrest at home and in the various armies. There are strike actions on the British homefront, and the French army mutiny in 1917 but I would argue these acts are not a rejection of the war, more a rejection of the difficult conditions faced in waging it. But morale in the allied armies never collapses to a point where the British or the French think the conflict is pointless. Right up until the end they believe not only is it a war that can be won but it is one worth winning.\n\nObviously during this time-period you do also see poetry and prose being created which espouse the horrors being faced in the trenches by these soldiers, but a lot of this writing does not gain traction until the interwar years...",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/jjyus3/why_was_saarland_deemed_important_enough_to/ | jjyus3 | 2 | t3_jjyus3 | Why was Saarland deemed important enough to warrant separate occupations after both World War I and II? | 6 | 1 | null | false | 1,603,927,426 | [
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"body": "Saarland, despite being a relatively small area in terms of territory and population, has a major strategic and economic significance (even more so in the 20th century) in that it is chock-full of coal mines. These coal mines were not just significant in their own right, but because they lay close to iron ore fields, mostly in France, that stretched between Verdun, Metz and Luxembourg. The coal was a necessary component in coking to produce pig iron (and ultimately steel). \n\nIn the fall of 1918, during the retreat of the German army prior to the armistice, there was widespread destruction of coal mines on the French side of the border, in an attempt to handicap French war industries should the conflict continue. As it was, the armistice held, and the French demanded outright annexation of the Saarland as compensation, despite it being overwhelmingly ethnically German.\n\nBritain and the US opposed this annexation at the Versailles Conference (as obviously did the German delegation), and so a compromise was reached - the *mines* were ceded to France in \"full and absolute possession\", and free of debts, but the territory itself was turned into a trustee territory administered under the League of Nations. The territory was administered by a five-man commission (a chairman, who was first French, then Canadian or British, a native Saarlander, and three other non-French and non-German nationals), and after 15 years (so in 1935) it was eligible for a plebiscite for reunification with Germany. In the event such a reunification was approved (as indeed happened), Germany would have to buy out the French interests in the coal mines to the tune of 900,000,000 gold French francs. The plebiscite was held in 1935, overwhelmingly supported reunification, and the territory was returned to Germany, with the payments from Germany consisting of some transfers from the International Bank of Settlements to France, plus coal exports to France that continued right up to the Second World War (with some 855,300,000 French marks paid overall).\n\nSaarland, heavily devastated by the Second World War, was occupied by US forces in March 1945, and turned over to a French military occupation (as part of the French Sector) in July 1945. The French came with priorities similar to those after the First World War - keeping Germany from remilitarizing, and rebuilding the French economy, so again Saarland was a major strategic asset on both counts (the Second World War *Westwall* defenses ran through the territory, and of course it had its coal mines and iron industry). The territory was administered as part of the overall occupation zone, but from the summer of 1946 (and despite criticism of other occupying Allies), Saarland was increasingly economically unified with France and separated from the rest of the French occupation zone. A protectorate was established (with the mines under the control of the French government), and a French High Commissioner appointed to oversee the territory. A constitutional commission was appointed which published a final draft in September 1947, proclaiming the territory's separation from Germany. The economic union actually benefitted the region, as coal and iron production soared, unemployment fell and rationing ended in 1948-9, all at a time when the rest of Germany was still struggling to recover. \n\nHowever, once a Federal Republic of Germany was created out of the rest of the British, US and French occupation zones in 1949, it began to agitate for the return of Saarland, with the added international geopolitical complications of trying to integrate West Germany into a Cold War Europe giving the issue greater weight. The formation of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 also took some of the weight out of the arguments that France needed to control Saarland in particular for its economic recovery. France initially offered to \"Europeanize\" the territory, but a 1955 referendum in the territory rejected this proposal by 2-to-1. As a result, France and West Germany agreed to a treaty in 1956 to reunite the territory with West Germany (again with financial compensation for France), which the Saarland legislature approved on January 1, 1957.\n\nSources:\n\nUS Department of State [website](https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1919Parisv13/ch12subch4), \"Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, The Paris Peace Conference, , 1919, Volume XIII, Section IV.—Saar Basin (Art. 45 to 50)\n\nBronson Long, *No Easy Occupation: French Control of the German Saar, 1944-1957*",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/k1nvun/do_we_know_how_gavrilo_princip_and_the_rest_of/ | k1nvun | 2 | t3_k1nvun | Do we know how Gavrilo Princip and the rest of the Black Hand felt about the assassination of Franz Ferdinand leading to World War I? Did they ever express regret, or did they consider it a success? | 4 | 1 | null | false | 1,606,426,475 | [
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"body": "It's an interesting set of emotions that the conspirators admitted to. More can always be said on the matter if anyone would like to have a go at the fallout of that day in Sarajevo; for the meantime, OP, you may be interested in u/JDolan283's [previous answer to this question](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7sme6f/how_did_gavrilo_princip_feel_about_the_war_he/), with extensive quotes directly from the horses' mouths.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/hbg89j/during_world_war_i_german_colonel_paul_von/ | hbg89j | 4 | t3_hbg89j | During World War I, German Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck led a successful guerrilla warfare campaign in German East Africa against much larger allied forces and only surrendered 2 weeks after the armistice. How did his army manage to hold out for so long? | I got this info from Wikipedia so I don’t know how true it is, any additional info is greatly appreciated! I’d also love a book recommendation if you have one | 5 | 0.86 | null | false | 1,592,492,441 | [
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"body": "In short, it was a long fighting retreat relying on scorched-earth tactics. If you're interested in all the details (as well as the rest of WW1 in Africa), I'd recommend you check out *The Great War in Africa* by Byron Farwell.\n\n​\n\nLettow-Vorbeck's campaign consisted largely of rapid marches across the wilderness and regions with little European settlement punctuated by occasional ambushes of pursuing forces and scorched-earth tactics to deny the use of resources in the areas they passed through to the pursuing forces. In the absence of pack animals, they (as all participating armies in the region did) relied heavily on porters to carry their supplies that were often pressed into service. The tropical climate was hell on all involved, and attrition from disease and exhaustion took a huge toll on both Lettow-Vorbeck's troops and Entente forces. The scorched earth tactics Lettow-Vorbeck resorted to were certainly effective - it forced the significantly larger British forces pursuing them to rely on extended supply lines and huge numbers of porters as they couldn't rely on local supply - but it was certainly devastating to the local populations, who were either directly targeted (killed or pressed into service as porters) or indirectly impacted by the destruction of their homes and food supplies. Ultimately, the locals would suffer the most from the campaign, with some 350,000 civilians dying from famine caused by the campaign. \n\n​\n\nGetting back to tactics and strategy, Lettow-Vorbeck's army relied on their movement to keep supplied. Apart from artillery pieces scrounged off of the cruiser *Konigsberg* that had been trapped in the Rufiji Delta and an abortive attempt to receive resupply via Zeppelin that was abandoned after British artillery forced Lettow-Vorbeck to abandon the landing site, the German troops relied heavily on supplies they had captured from enemy forces. They ventured south out of German East Africa and into Portuguese Mozambique, where they were able to capture a fair amount of supplies before being forced to withdraw north, and by the time Lettow-Vorbeck surrendered, his forces had been equipped with captured British rifles. \n\n​\n\nUltimately, the goal of the campaign was never really to defeat the British - given the scale of the forces they were against and inability of Germany to keep the colony from being cut off by blockade, significant conventional resistance wasn't feasible. In fact, authorities in German East Africa originally hoped to avoid conflict altogether. Lettow-Vorbeck's strategy was instead to tie down as many Entente resources as possible for as long as possible by evading them and constantly raiding so as to force the British to continue pursuing him. In that respect, he was spectacularly successful. A peak of a quarter million soldiers and 600,000 porters were tied down in East Africa, and the scorched earth tactics meant that further resources would have to be diverted for humanitarian needs. At the end of the war, although his forces had dwindled to fewer than 1,500 men, Lettow-Vorbeck had lunged out into Northern Rhodesia (modern Zambia) with every intention of bringing the war deeper into Africa.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/kmrsjl/world_war_i_how_were_trench_networks_set_up/ | kmrsjl | 2 | t3_kmrsjl | World War I: How were trench networks set up behind the front trenches? | Sometimes it's hard to even know what to search to find answers, so maybe someone here can help me. I'll have a written thing (may be pretty confusing) and a makeshift 'diagram' that might be a bit simpler to understand for trench networks of WWI.
**TLDR: How were trench networks set up behind the front trenches? I know there were back trenches for various things (storing supplies/food/barracks/etc.). But were there completely separate (or somehow connected) trench networks behind the** ***trench network of the front line*** **constructed in case of needing to retreat and quickly be able to defend/counterattack effectively? \*\*I could be completely misunderstanding how trench networks were set up and/or constructed.**
**Simpler 'Diagram':**
Each letter = a trench network, complete with both front and back trenches/bunkers/barracks; A = a British trench network, B= another British trench network, C=German " ", D=" "; **space between B and C = no man's land; I'm unsure about whether there would have been a gap between A/B or C/D, or maybe they were connected via another trench/pathway?**
A B C D
The British assault from front trench of network B and take the front trench of the C network. Since C also includes back trenches, do the Germans set up shop again in the back trenches of C (*if they know they cannot retake the front trench of C*), or do they retreat to the farther back to the 'front' trench of D network to give themselves some breathing room?
**The probably confusing written question:**
Edit: For simplicity's sake, in this scenario the British are on offense, taking the front of the German trench network. The Germans are the defenders here.
So in general many times the initial objectives needing taken care of at the start of a British offensive was to take at least the *Germans' front trench* **and then hold it**. When this happened, was it common for the Germans to fall back to their back trenches (that are part of the **same** trench network as the front trench they just lost) and counterattack from those back trenches, or was it more common for the Germans/defenders to retreat even more and construct/utilize a new trench network farther back? Basically, did the Germans abandon the whole trench network to give themselves new space/breathing room from the British in the trench/trench network they just lost, instead of heavy fighting in their former front trench (if the front trench had been firmly taken by the Brits and the Germans were 100% unable to retake it)?
If there is anything I can clarify, please let me know. If I'm dumb please also let me know. | 2 | 0.67 | null | false | 1,609,291,286 | [
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"body": "I've tried to respond in several parts, first exploring how trenches developed to give some context, then how trenches were used, then the mentality surrounding networks.\n\nThe history of trench development varies across the different theatres of war. Typically, they evolved over time. The first scratches at the surface of the earth quickly developed into what were colloquially known as 'coffin pits' \\[see Nathan Wise, *Anzac Labour*\\]. Then, these deepened to larger holes, which were linked together to form a trench. Over time, a combination of regular infantry, with more skilled sappers, engineers, and dedicated labourers would work on that basic system to make it safer and more complex. But, the nature of that development varied from place to place, and varied between the forces undertaking the labour. On Gallipoli, in 1915, for example, all men were required to undertake all manner of trenchwork \\[see Wise '\"Dig, dig, dig, until you are safe\": constructing the Australian trenches on Gallipoli' - [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19475020.2012.652444](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19475020.2012.652444)\\]. In May, 1915, men with mining experience in the ranks were called on to volunteer for special mining work, but they were also joined in that work by others. The trenches were basically built all over the terrain, wherever there was room, including tunnels that connected various parts of the landscape, and at their closest points the two opposing lines of trenches were about 10m apart!\n\nOn the Western Front the situation was entirely different, and the Allied forces generally developed three types of trench lines \\[see Wise, *Anzac Labour* again\\]. The front lines, the support trenches, and reserves. Both sides learned that artillery tended to target the front lines, so they often held those with relatively minimal forces. Stronger forces were then held in the support trenches, which might be about 100m behind the front. A further 500-2000m behind those were reserve trenches, which were generally safer. There are various maps of the trenches showing these networks, and of course it varies immensely from location to location, and the spacing between trenches varies, and often there'll be additional lines here and there. So much of this merely developed over time, as situation and needs dictated.\n\nFront line trenches were generally designed with a firing step facing the enemy, but the back side of the trench wall \\[the side facing friendly ground\\] was designed to make it difficult for an enemy to fire from, thus making re-capture easier. \n\nSo, there was an expectation that in an attack, the front line would be hit by artillery, and possibly captured by the enemy. Friendly forces in the support trenches could then easily counter-attack and the enemy in those 'friendly' front line trenches would have trouble defending \\[as there was no fire step on the reverse side\\]. \n\nAttacks were obviously designed to advance quickly and capture as much ground as possible. Throughout 1914-1916 on the Western Front, many Allied officers maintained hope that the initial infantry advance could be followed up by a cavalry breakthrough \\[see for example analyses of the Somme, and the waiting role cavalry played in mid 1916\\]. However, the reality was that many attacks struggled beyond that first line. Support trenches linking the front and support lines could easily be collapsed, creating a new 'no man's land' between the former front and support lines. Attacking formations were broken up, and it was hard enough capturing one secure line of trenches, and *maintaining* that hold, let alone having to then push again onto a second, maybe even third line, often without artillery support/preparation, and typically more strongly held than that first line. \n\nReserve trenches were a third line of defence, and were generally considered the safer of the three, and they provided a third line of defence just in case.\n\nPatrols into no man's land and raids into enemy trenches \\[typically to capture prisoners for intel\\] were the most common form of activity, and they typically took place at night, and didn't press beyond the front lines.\n\nLarger attacks typically occurred at first light, or very early morning, and thus men would typically take a position every morning on their firing step ready for an attack \\[see Wise, *Anzac Labour*, for some descriptions of this\\]. Once the morning passed without an attack, they would be a little more relaxed \\[relatively speaking\\]. \n\nTo get to the latter part of your question, nobody gave up any ground without a very strong fight. The main occurrence of this was when the Germans withdrew to the Hindenburg Line in 1917. They recognised \\[moreso than the Allies\\], the power of defensive warfare, and established a very solid series of defensive lines in good defensive terrain, that also cut their salient in the area. Generally though, it was a lot of work to establish a trench line, and the preference was almost always to regather, and retake the trenches than fall back.\n\nFor this reason, the Germans established far more complex and comfortable trench networks with deep \\[and relatively comfortable\\] underground bunkers. The Allies tended to see their positions as temporary, and, whilst they laboured endlessly, they didn't put as much work into creating a permanent environment.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/htjtvm/when_did_we_go_from_calling_wwi_the_great_war_and/ | htjtvm | 3 | t3_htjtvm | When did we go from calling WWI the Great War and switch to World War I? How did it happen? (US) | 5 | 0.78 | null | false | 1,595,091,168 | [
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"body": "While more can always be written, you may be interested in [this previous answer of mine](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/b87nnu/whenever_a_world_war_happened_when_was_it_decided/ejx8y2k/) which talks about both the origins of the name of WWI and of WWII.\n\nThis sub's FAQ also has [a shorter answer of mine](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/wwi) which addresses the history of the name of the First World War alone.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7pjqvp/the_western_front_during_world_war_i_seems_like/ | 7pjqvp | 10 | t3_7pjqvp | The Western Front during World War I seems like hell on Earth. How widespread were attempts at desertion and how successful were they? What sort of obstacles would someone trying to desert face? | 155 | 0.93 | null | false | 1,515,626,854 | [
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"body": "Interesting question! There's a few ways we can go about looking at this.\n\nWe can look at the total number of deserters relative to the total manning of the army across the duration of the war. In the case of the British forces, this is fairly easy to find. They [list](https://search.findmypast.com.au/results/world-records/british-army-deserters-and-absentees-in-police-gazette-1914-1919) 13,301 deserters and absentees but it's harder to determine the total number of soldiers because some records were [lost](http://www.greatwar.co.uk/research/military-records/british-soldiers-ww1-service-records.htm). Total manning is 6-7 million. That means that the rate of desertion in the British army was around 0.2%. Interestingly, 276 of those British were [executed](http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/world-war-one/the-western-front-in-world-war-one/world-war-one-executions/) and 30 others from Canada & New Zealand; no soldiers from Australia were executed although some [466](http://search.ror.unisa.edu.au/media/researcharchive/open/9915885212001831/53111889390001831) were court martialled for being AWOL or for deserting and 121 of those had a death sentence applied but commuted (this was due to the Australian government's defense act which prohibited execution without permission of its governor-general - such permission was never given).\n\nIt's much harder to find desertion figures for other countries. France [executed](http://www.greatwar.nl/frames/default-shotatdawn.html) 600 soldiers, I cannot locate how many more actually deserted. The same source suggests that 150,000 German soldiers deserted but logic compels us to think that most of those would have occurred in the final stages of the war when German defeat was inevitable.\n\nSo, overall, the number of desertions was not high compared to the army sizes (Britain 6-7m, France ~8.3m, Germany ~11m) and there were many barriers to desertion. Those barriers would be:\n\n* peer pressure to stay with comrades at the front\n* difficulty of traversing open land near the trenches\n* poor transport options near the front\n* vigilant military policing of deserters\n* execution or the threat thereof\n* general devastation of the countryside\n\nTo summarise then, overall desertion numbers were very low compared to the size of the armies. Success was quite high if you count \"success\" as deserting without being executed.\n\nHowever, maybe there is another way of looking at things. There were many mutinies during WW1, the most famous of which occurred in French forces in 1917. You can find a concise list of other mutinies [here](http://sunnycv.com/steve/ww1/mutinies.html) (not all on the Western front). In addition, Australia had [several](https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/first_aif/mutinies) and the British also came in for their fair share (see [here](https://leftfootforward.org/2014/08/ww1-the-hidden-story-of-soliders-mutinies-strikes-and-riots/) and [Etaples](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89taples_mutiny).\n\nGermany famously had a naval mutiny (the [Kiel](https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/kiel_mutiny) mutiny) as well as other incidents as the war drew to a close.\n\nThe linking factor of most of the mutinies was that they generally occurred after the beginning of 1917. It was at that time that war weariness was increasing, supplies were short and a general feeling of hopelessness had set in across the Western front. The common soldier felt that his life was being spent to no purpose or, worse yet, to build the reputation of a general who had never seen the front. Famously Petain quieted the French mutiny in part by vowing that no further suicidal attacks against prepared positions would be undertaken and that soldiers' lives would be spent carefully.\n\nIn that context, soldiers were widely dissatisfied with their place on the front, their leadership and the conditions that they lived and fought under. Perhaps the only thing that kept mass desertions from happening was the sense of camaraderie that developed when standing literally shoulder to shoulder with others for months in appalling conditions.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ntfw5e/during_the_world_wars_i_ii_what_were_the_middle/ | ntfw5e | 4 | t3_ntfw5e | During the World wars (I & II), What were the middle aged civilian men (30's-50's) doing? | I often think about this topic.
We all know that during the world wars (I&II), the young men (Civilians) were conscripted and sent to the front line to fight the war. But we never hear about the role the middle aged men (Civilians) played in the combat. Were they too conscripted and send on the front line? or were they in the commanding position to command the young men?
(Note: Im talking about the men in the war torn countries/ Region of Europe and their colonies). | 18 | 0.96 | null | false | 1,622,962,923 | [
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"body": "Great question. The question has a couple of factors however. First off, it depends which countries are we talking about along with some socio-economics. Note every single nation in the war will be a case study and unique. \n\nWhen looking at this we need to understand that each nation needs to produce equipment and equip its troops. Troops need equipment and materials to fight. In this era and in most countries, middle aged men made up a large amount of the labor force and had training and specializations. You had miners, dockyard workers, steel plant workers ect and the most experienced men in these trades would be older. So it wouldn’t make sense to send them to war when you need their skills back in the places and trades they understand best. Not to say it didn’t happen. Just that no nation would want to do this. Also, don’t forget that Woman took over a large amount of rolls in the workforce in this era and they eventually became skilled laborers themselves, thus allowing the men to go overseas. \n\nLet me begin with the USA. The United States is unique to your question because it is heavily industrialized, has a large literacy rate ( compared to other nations in the war ) and has a massive population. These factors play a major roll. It had a large professional workforce with middle aged men making up a large chunk of the skilled laborers in the nation. Because the US had such a large population, it did not need to rely on middle aged men to fight the war and instead could focus on younger men filling the ranks of many units. The US still had a draft and middle aged men up to 35 and eventually 37 and even as high as 65 at a point. The selective service system varied and was not set in stone as the US had a lot of men volunteering. That being said, the US was fighting a war across the world and needed men specialized in certain trades to be across the seas so you’d find middle aged men in dockyards at Ulithi and aircraft engineers in Britain, just for example. \n\nGreat Britain faced a similar situation to the US but did not have the large population reserves to fall back, at least in the British isles. It had skilled laborers and trained workers but, much like every other power, wanted middle aged men in factories and other locations. Not the frontline. This was not the case though and the UK eventually started having manpower issues when it came to filling its military. Churchill had to tell FDR around June 1944 that they couldn’t really take the forefront of the war anymore because of this issue and the US would have to. \n\nGermany was also unique because it actually started having population issues around after the fall of France. The Germans had a philosophy of short and quick wars and this comes from cultural norms of old Prussia and also the fact that Germany does not have an empire and needs to end wars quickly before an opponent can outlast them through greater resources. German men at the times would work in factories, then go off to a campaign, then come back and work in the factories, then go campaign again. The system worked well against Poland and France but against the UK, US, and USSR they’re issues. Germany soon needed to raise the ages of conscription and eventually had to put whoever could fight in Milita units that had “old men and young boys” in them. German skilled workers were too needed elsewhere like the US but could oftentimes find themselves on the frontline. \n\nHere are 3 examples which I hope helps answer your question. Middle aged men were generally skilled laborers and trained workers and needed in factories or mines or plants back home gathering and building resources. Some men did join who were older and did lead troops, but it varies nation to nation and even front to front. The US for example did not need to worry while the UK and Germany had to worry a bit more.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/c4v3ax/presumably_nobody_involved_in_the_first_world_war/ | c4v3ax | 5 | t3_c4v3ax | Presumably nobody involved in the First World War actually called it World War I. But at what point did people decide that the 1939-45 conflict was World War II and start referring to the two events as such? | 44 | 0.82 | null | false | 1,561,408,124 | [
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"body": "More of course can be said, but /u/lord_mayor_of_reddit has covered this in the past [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/b87nnu/whenever_a_world_war_happened_when_was_it_decided/ejx8y2k/) which may interest you!",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/345l7x/why_did_world_war_i_soldiers_not_revolt_against/ | 345l7x | 55 | t3_345l7x | Why did World War I soldiers *not* revolt against or refuse orders to go over the top? | **Actual Question:**
I assume that at least some of the officers (eg the educated ones like JRR Tolkien?) in the trenches, recognised the futility and stupidity of charging over the top. So why did they not rebel against their superiors who ordered them and their men to go over the top? I apologise for any naivety, but if the majority of soldiers refused, then could the needless slaughter have been avoided?
Please observe that I already read [this Quora post](http://qr.ae/0Xps0).
--------
**Motivation for this question; Optional Reading:**
Portraying [the Battle of the Nek](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Nek#Battle), [the 16 minutes 30 seconds mark (of the total 1 hour 39 mins)](https://youtu.be/ixfRqDNOkag) of *[Deadline Gallipoli](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3458030/)* (a 2015 Australian two-part series) motivated this question. At that juncture, [COL Antill](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Antill_(general)) (portrayed by Colin Moody) receives and follows orders to go over the top. Then [LTCOL Alexander Henry White](http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/white-alexander-henry-9068) (portrayed by Simon Lyndon) volunteers to go over the top. Antill is shocked and even warns:
>... Don't be stupid. You're a colonel. ...
Colonel White, you'll be .... [The major means to say 'killed', but doesn't articulate it.]
>[At 20 minutes 10 seconds]: 1 second after climbing the ladder, an older soldier is hit immediately hit by 3 bullets and killed. He falls back into the trench, right before and in full view of Antill who ordered the assault.
Afterwards, LTCOL White declares to Antill that the frontal assault will be mistake, as if to voice a final objection before his imminent sacrifice. Antill retorts that he follows orders and will stick to the plan. Finally, two seconds after climbing over the top, LTCOL White is dispatched after shot thrice, with pistol in hand.
Footnote: I had to read the credits to learn of the names of the COL and LTCOL, and the actors who played them. | 64 | 0.87 | null | false | 1,430,230,201 | [
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"body": "What was futile about going over the top? The battles of trench warfare were quite bloody, but it must be said that in terms of casualty rates the battles of mobile warfare, in 1914, 1918 and on the eastern front were VASTLY more bloody. \n\nIn 1915 the French were able to achieve a break-in of the German lines at the Second Battle of Artois; soldiers of the XXXIII (?) Colonial corps captured Vimy Ridge, and it was only the failure of reserves to reach them that led to their being pushed back. Similarly, at Neuve Chapelle and Loos, British troops were very close to making at least a modest breakthrough.\n\nAt the Somme in 1916, the French took all of their objectives on the first day, and for the rest of the battle enjoyed consistent success against the German Army. XIII and XV Corps of the British Fourth Army also took their objectives, and the British were subsequently able to capture important ground, and inflict great losses on their enemies. Similarly, the French held their ground at Verdun, and under Robert Nivelle went on the offensive, taking back the ground they had lost.\n\nAt Arras in 1917, the British enjoyed even greater success; More ground was captured than in any other British offensive before, while the Canadian Corps took Vimy Ridge. Messiness Ridge was a stunning success, and even in the Battle of Third Ypres the British could say that they had inflicted great losses on their foe, seized Passchenadele-Staden Ridge, and I'd say come quite close to a breakthrough.\n\nSimilarly with the French; the Nivelle Offensive DID in fact lead to the French Army mutinies, but it did succeed in capturing parts of the formidable Chemin Des Dames Ridge. This lay the seeds for a stunning French victory at La Malmaison, which completed the capture of this formidable German position.\n\nAs to needless slaughter, I'll leave you this answer that I posted earlier in an ANZAC question (hence the references to Australia and New Zealand):\n\n>The losses make me sick to my stomach as well. With hindsight, I can see that mistakes were made and could have been avoided, as could some casualties, but in light of communications difficulties, the fickle nature of new technologies, and the general fog/friction of war, I can understand why mistakes, when they were actually made, were made. In the end, casualties are unavoidable in war; WWI was no exception. It should also be emphasized here that it wasn't easy BEING a commander, either an officer or a general. By the end of 1914, the Austro-Hungarian Officer Corps had suffered 50% losses, and losses among British Staff Officers were so bad that they were ordered NOT to go to the Front (most ignored this). 86 German, 78 British and at least 47 French Generals died for their countries in the Great War, and yet their kind are reviled as cowardly, repugnant human beings today.\n\n>However, one must ask oneself why they were fighting. Britain could not standby and allow Germany to exert hegemony over the continent, the High Seas Fleet resting in the Channel ports like a gun pointed at Britain's head. The Dominions relied on Britain for security and economic enterprises, and any threat to Britain was a threat to that empire of which they were a part. This was more pressing for the Aussies and the Kiwis, in light of German possessions in Samoa, the Mariannas and Marshalls, and Kaiser Wilhelm's Land, and the rising power of Japan.\n\n>As for the continent, was it not right for Belgium to be able to decide it's future, to remain an independent state and not be partially annexed or made an economic vassal as the Germans intended? How about the French? Was it not right to prevent the Germans from subjugating that country, the home of millions of 'Poilus', fellow soldiers of the French Army?\n\n>There's an Australian Historian that I recommend you look into; he died years ago, but his name was Trevor Wilson. He was no defender of the Generals, as his and his colleague Robin Prior's books on the Somme and Passchendaele can attest! In 1986, he published one of the best accounts of the British experience in WWI I've ever read, called 'Myriad Faces of War'. In the final section he asked that, if the First World War cannot apparently be dubbed a 'good war', unlike WWII, can it not at least be considered one of 'Freedom's Battles'? Would the democracies/mostly democracies of Britain, France, Italy and America, even the peoples of Russia, not pay a terrible forfeit in the event of a Central Powers Victory? Would not Democracy in Europe have been greatly curtailed, even more so than it was, by a triumphant Kaiserreich? Was there **REALLY** *so little at stake,* as most people assume?\n\n>Food for thought! :) I'll leave you with the final passage of his book, which references Field-Marshall Haig's 'Backs to the Wall' despatch, posted below:\n\n>http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/backstothewall.htm\n\n>\"This might be dismissed as the empty rhetoric of an impoverished command. Yet there are grounds for not doing so. For somewhat earlier in the same crisis an identical view was being expressed in a notably different quarter. A passage in the radical periodical the Nation, quoted on a previous occasion, deserves repetition here. Massingham wrote:\n\n>*In the full brunt of the German assault on France, the true character of the war stands revealed. Vain projects of imperialism obscured it, and vainer diversions of strategy. Both have disappeared... the war emerges from these mists not as a war of adventure, but morally and physically as a war of defence.... The war was not for colonies, Imperial Ambitions, or a balance of power. It was to teach militarism a lesson of restraint*.\n\n>What seems of particular note is the congruity between Haig's affirmation that the issue at stake was 'the safety of our homes and the freedom of mankind' and Massingham's characterization of the war as a 'war of defence', a war to 'teach militarism a lesson of restraint'. In short, despite their great differences in background and outlook, each was prepared to claim that this was in truth one of freedom's battles. \n\n>Perhaps in so perceiving the conflict, the traditionalist Field-Marshall and the radical journalist were both deluded.\n\n>Perhaps, on the other hand, they were not.\"\n\n**TL;DR:** They didn't rebel (at least not frequently) because they had a job to do (ie win the war) and most believed it was a job that needed to be done.",
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"body": "I'd recommend checking out Leonard V. Smith's *Between Mutiny and Obedience: The Case of the French Fifth Infantry Division During World War I.* Your question begs a very long multidisciplinary response and Smith's book is definitely the best book on the subject I've read.\n\nLong story short, Smith explains that command authority reflects \"a negotiated balance-of-power equation.\" Some of the things being \"balanced\" are the background of the troops- French soldiers with a long history of democracy vs. Russian conscript who were only 1 generation removed from serfdom. The strength of the unit's position is another factor to balance- the more secure the position, the stricter officers could enforce discipline because they could count on reinforcement in the face of mutiny. The attitude and ability of officers and NCO's are a factor. Conditions on the front obviously play a role- the greater the starvation, deprivation, danger, and general misery, the more discipline flags.\n\nThere's a lot more to it than can be summarized here. But Smith's work is one of the best things I've read on the nature of authority and power, and it just so happens to use a WW1 unit as his case study, so it should be right up your alley.",
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"body": "It may be worth pointing out that several of the major armies engaged did, at some point, suffer something like a mass mutiny, or refusal to attack. After the failure of the Nivelle Offensive, several French divisions refused to attack again; they were willing to hold their trenches but not to attack. The Italian Army more-or-less collapsed after the eleventh Battle of the Isonzo, and when the Austrians attacked with German support, were driven back in a near-rout as far as the Piave, with ten thousand killed and a quarter million (!) taken prisoner. Conversely, when the Italians (with French, British, and US support) counterattacked in the battle of Vittorio Veneto, there were several instances of Austrian troops refusing to obey orders to attack, which contributed to the Italian victory - though Austria-Hungary was by then pretty clearly dissolving. The Czarist army basically demobilised after the Revolution, and famously \"voted for peace with their feet\". Even the Germans had trouble with looting and indiscipline during their last-gasp Michael offensive, and in their retreat during the final British offensive in the fall of 1918, troops coming in to plug gaps in the line were greeted with cries of \"strikebreakers\" and \"scabs\". ",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/32t8bn/world_war_i_question_largescale_offensives_like/ | 32t8bn | 35 | t3_32t8bn | World War I question: large-scale offensives like Verdun and the Somme; fruitlessly wasteful or painful but necessary and even productive? | I'm a little confused after reading [Douglas Haig’s final dispatch](http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/haiglastdespatch.htm) and [David Lloyd George’s comments on the battle of the Somme.](http://www.gwpda.org/1916/llgsomme.html)
I'm just having trouble marrying [Erich von Falkenhayn’s justification of the Verdun Offensive](http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/verdun_falkenhayn.htm) and [Erich Ludendorff’s assessment of Verdun.](http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/verdun_ludendorff.htm)
Is an accurate, fair, unbiased assessment even possible at this point? Am I in need of a better source?
***EDIT***: Wow! Thanks for the amazing responses, especially the encyclopedic entry by /u/DuxBelisarius! This is why this sub has quickly become one of my favorites! This is incredible! | 133 | 0.92 | null | false | 1,429,196,678 | [
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"body": "**Part Four: Planning the Somme**\n\nWhen he took over the BEF from John French, Haig had been an army commander in charge of 100's of thousands. In July 1916, he commanded an Army group (essentially) of 5 Armies: the largest organizational body in the British Empire outside London and the Metropolitan Area!\n\nHe was in charge of a force that had not yet taken a leading role, having only played wingman for the French at Neuve Chappelle, Loos and Aubers Ridge. British industry was still going through growing pains, while the professional regulars and semi-professional Territorials of the old BEF were giving way to the volunteers of the 'Pals Battalions' and soon the Conscripts.\n\nHe would have liked to wait until 1917, when more of these new 'Tanks' would be available, his soldiers would be better trained, and the new doctrines developed from the experience of 1915 could be fully instilled. With regards to the latter, as Paddy Griffith notes in his book on BEF Tactics, it was only AFTER the Somme that an effective doctrine would be instilled, and it sure as hell showed at Arras and Vimy Ridge!\n\nNow, in June, Haig was being informed that rather than attack in August with one British Army in the supporting role, and 2-3 French Armies leading, the BEF would take on the MAJOR role in the offensive, with ONE army, and ONE French Army supporting! Haig knew his men needed more time, but he also knew that was time that the FRENCH might not have. Britain was the JUNIOR coalition member on the Western Front, thus Haig was obliged to carry out Joffre and Ferdinand Foch's instructions.\n\nThe men chosen to lead the Somme operations were Henry Rawlinson, GOC 4th army, and Emile Fayolle, commander of French 6th Army. Both had initially similar plans, use heavy artillery bombardments to smash the enemy's defences, and take each position one at a time: 'Bite-and-hold'.\n\nHowever, Haig had different plans, and this stemmed from it being his DUTY to factor in Strategic goals, and Rawlinson's JOB of focusing on tactical matters. The 'Operational' level of warfare wasn't really understood or acknowledged at this time; it would take WWII to cement it. Rawlinson's original plan was very small, and did not reflect the enlarged role of the BEF. The Front line was expanded to 20 km (Rawlinson originally planned for 15), and there would now be a role for the British cavalry.\n\nRemember, this WAS Haig's job. If the opportunity presented itself, the British cavalry should be on standby to advance on the German positions. Moreover, Haig's idea was pretty ingenious: the cavalry divisions of 4th Army were split up, regiments given to each attacking infantry division. They were instructed to cooperate with the infantry, almost like combined arms battlegroups, and move on the German second position IF THE COMMANDER FELT THIS WAS FEASIBLE!\n\nTo accommodate this, Haig had the artillery bombardment extended to the second position, north of the Albert-Bapaume road, where Rawlinson's main effort was to be made. Beyond this, everything else was Rawlinson: the decision to spread the infantry across the ENTIRE front, because he expected no breakthrough, so why develop a mass in one area? Rawlinson spread the Artillery across the entire front, rather than amass concentrations of guns against the most heavily fortified positions. It was Rawlinson who issued the recommendations that infantry should advance at a slow, steady pace: despite the popular image of the 1st day, this was virtually ignored entirely.\n\nIt was Rawlinson who also got Haig to agree to a lengthy, methodical bombardment; Haig wanted a short, hurricane bombardment, but knew this was unfeasible.\n\nThe British bombardment faced major issues: unlike the French, it was spread across 20 km, not 10. The French had roughly the same amount of Guns as the British, c. 1400, but had MORE heavy guns. French artillery observers, on the southern part of the front, had a better view than their British counterparts north of the Albert-Bapaume road. They were also more experienced, positioning themselves closer to the lines. The French guns were of a higher quality than the British, and fired more HE shells, and better quality HE shells at that! They were ONLY shelling the first line, whereas British artillery had to hit both lines, but this probably did not disperse their fire as much as most think.\n\nThe British plan, now, was to contribute to the Allied General Offensive by wearing down the enemy's forces, and to relieve the pressure on Verdun, and KEEP IT off Verdun. They would break into the enemy's lines and capture the Pozieres ridge, along with other areas of high ground nearby, aiming at Bapaume and Peronne. Depending on how events went, the Anglo-French would either dig-in in favourable positions for 1917, OR, if the enemy DID break, the British Reserve Army under Gough could role up the German lines to Cambrai; it ALL depended, and this Haig knew, on the reaction of the enemy, and the course of the battle. On July, 1st, 1916, The Battle of the Somme began...",
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"body": "**Part Three: Brusilov and the lead up to the Somme**\n\nThe French armies at Verdun came under Phillipe Petain's leadership, who sent increasingly desperate messages in June, as Fort Vaux and then Souville fell to German attack. While Joffre and General Douglas Haig, the commander of the BEF, hashed out strategy, the Russians made their move.\n\nBy early June, c. the 1st, Conrad's offensive in Italy had stalled, and by June 11th, a brief pause was allowed at Verdun (small consolation to the French!). In the First week of June, the Russian Southwest Front struck in Galicia. By September, Russian troops would be at the Carpathians as in 1914.\n\nAlexei Brusilov had been given priority for ammo. and guns, and had the elite Guards Army as a reserve. He struck the Austrian lines around Dubno, pushing on to Lutsk, while further south the Austrian lines unravelled. Losses in the first week for the Russians were c. 490 000 casualties, Austro-Hungarian losses in the first 12 days were c. 280 000 casualties. \n\nBy the time the offensive reached its high water mark in August, and ground to a halt in September, Austro Hungarian losses were about 1 million, a quarter of that prisoners. Russian losses were about 1.5-2 million, perhaps half of them killed. Romania entered the war, and the Austro-Hungarians were forced to: A) accept German forces and officers in many of their higher units; and B) accept German command on the Eastern Front. Conrad was sacked, and Falkenhayn was given the boot for Romania's entry.\n\nIn France, events on the Somme were unfolding...",
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"body": "**Part Two: Verdun**\n\nUnfortunately, the Germans struck first. Whereas the Allies aimed to combine their offensives, the Central Powers had different ideas. Conrad von Hotzendorff and Erich von Falkenhayn, the Austrian and German chiefs of staff respectively, each had their own pet projects: The Italian Front and the Western Front. \n\nFalkenhayn's plan was an offensive against Verdun, the Fortress city located in a salient in the west. Success here would be two fold: \n\nA) Taking the city would give the Germans control of the Meuse, and likely force an abandonment of the salient, shortening the western front. \n\nB) if the Germans could simply take the ring of outer forts, and seize the bluffs overlooking the city, it could be brought under heavy artillery fire, and from their defensible positions the German Fifth Army could 'Bleed the French White'. \n\nThe Austro-Hungarian aim was an offensive against the Italians. Falkenhayn (fatefully) okayed it, and both sides went off on divergent, separate campaigns. The Austrian position in the East was thus weakened, while Falkenhayn expected to crush a British 'spoiling' attack on the Somme with the German Sixth Army, poised for a counter offensive between the Somme and Arras.\n\nThe Germans (like Han solo) shot first, and the Allied plans had to change in the west, as the French army was sucked into bloody fighting around the 'Meuse Mill'",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2onrnk/after_world_war_i_france_was_the_most_powerful/ | 2onrnk | 32 | t3_2onrnk | After World War I, France was the most powerful country in Continental Europe. What specifically was it that allowed Germany to so easily crush the French military/ Frances heavily fortified border? | 236 | 0.9 | null | false | 1,418,057,843 | [
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"body": "It's a little simplistic to view France as the most powerful country on Continental Europe following WW1, yes they had emerged as a victor but at terrible cost with some 1.4 million Frenchmen losing their lives. This had a profound effect on the French people who obviously wanted to avoid another war of such cost and upon the French Military who looked for a way to win a war without incurring such loss. Interwar French military planning reflected these thoughts and as such proved inadequate in 1940.\n\nOne of the most important ideas that went into French thinking was the so called 'Verdun Factor'; the idea that even if the French were to enter a conflict with less than adequate equipment or preparation the inherently superior French soldiery would be able to provide France with a victory. Unfortunately parallel to this assumption of superiority was a moral quandary, was France prepared to suffer such terrible losses to deliver victory as they had in 1916? The answer was no, France's depleted population simply could not suffer such losses again and so another way to win had to be found. This led them to assess the trench warfare of WW1 and draw from it the conclusion that terrible losses could be avoided but only if they were to rely upon a network of fortifications that would act like the forts of Verdun and provide centres of resistance that would prove hugely difficult to capture. However unlike at Verdun when the forts had been neglected and so weakened this new line would not, it would be a continuous front from Switzerland to the Channel and thus nigh impenetrable.\n\nThe Maginot Line was born out of this thinking, in 1922 the French Army Commission concluded that a continuous line of defences would act as Frances shield, it would defend their territory (which with the recovery of Alsace and Lorraine no longer needed expanding) while simultaneously acting as a deterrent against German ambitions, they would surely not be willing to sacrifice so many lives attacking it. It was a direct reflection of their experiences in WW1 \"We had been haunted by the tenacity of the German machine guns, and the impossibility in which we found ourselves of breaking the enemy front\" wrote General Beaufre, France had not been involved in any of the more mobile campaigns in the East or Palestine and so had no people experienced in campaigns of manoeuvre.\n\nHowever the Maginot Line was undermined by the French desire to involve the Belgians in their defence, in 1934 Petain (then Minister of War) said that in the event of a War the French plan was to \"go into Belgium\". At the time this made sense, France still enjoyed a huge superiority over Germany and it obviously seems preferable for a war to be fought as far from French soil as possible.\n\nThis kind of defensive thinking allowed the French army to ossify but it was not the only thing that undermined it. The so called 'hollow classes' caused by the drop in births during WW1 hugely depleted French manpower, the class of 1915 in Germany amounted to 464,000 men while in France it was merely 184,000. Additionally a French soldier received much lower pay than private workers and with the supreme national goal, revenge for 1870, achieved there was little reason for a professional to pursue a military career. \n\nFrance was also undermined by the lack of funding made available for military spending, in 1936 (six years after the Maginot line was ordered) a fifth of spending was still on constructing and maintaining it. The French were also slow to adopt new technology, in 1924 the army decided to replace its infantry rifle, the new weapon was not selected until 1932 and by 1939 only a few hundred thousand had been issued. Mobile warfare was also not really ever accepted by the French Army, they took the approach of building a small number of prototype tanks each year but suspending mass production until a date when war seemed imminent which self-deception and appeasement delayed significantly this left them with a small number of tanks that were modern (depressingly the tanks they had, Somuas, were actually of very high quality) and a far greater number of obsolete relics.\n\nFrances position would then go on to be significantly undermined by the announcement of Belgian neutrality in late 1936, this crippled their plan of rushing into Belgium and left them with a Maginot line that, although hugely strong, was simply too short and could not be extended through the industrialised north without incurring a tremendous cost which politicians in the Third Republic simply could not afford with the rising tide of anti-militarism in France.\n\nI could go on about the political instability of France and how it undermined their ability to prepare effectively for war but I think I've set out a basic presentation of why Frances post war superiority is really only illusory and not reflective of their crippling instability and unpreparedness. ",
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"body": "The whole point of the Maginot Line had been to safeguard eastern France, where much of France's industry, coal and iron was located; these territories had largely been captured by the Germans in 1914. More importantly though, it would force the Germans to once again go through Belgium, thus resulting in Germany being at war with Belgium, France AND Britain (and probably the Netherlands), all in one fell swoop. The French and British armies being better equipped and supported by airpower, it was expected that the Allies would then be able to destroy the Germans in detail, and then go on the offensive with armoured forces (probably by 1941).\n\nThe only problem with this plan, was that when the Germans DID attack, they didn't attack as the Allies had believed they would. In January 1940, a German officer had crash landed in Belgium, carrying the German plans for the invasion of France and the Low Countries, that seemed to confirm Anglo-French assumptions. However, this prompted the Germans to radically change their plan: in a new offensive plan developed by General Erich von Manstein, the Germans would place almost ALL of their Panzer and Motorized Infantry Divisions under one command, Gruppe von Kleist, which would advance through the Ardennes Forest. The Ardennes was by far the weakest point of the Allied lines, but this was because the terrain, very hilly and mountainous, with only a few good roads, which could easily be blocked at key crossroads or attacked with aircraft, was NOT the kind of terrain through which one would send ALL of your tanks and motorized troops, unless you were mentally ill/reckless/had a serious death wish. Many generals, Franz Halder the head of the OKW (Armed Forces High Command) especially, were horrified, but the Fuhrer thought it was daring, and Hitler was nothing if not an avid gambler (especially with men's' lives).\n\nThe Germans ultimately got UNBELIEVABLY lucky. Lucky that the British and French never detected the advance through the Ardennes; lucky that the Luftwaffe gained a good degree of air superiority from day one, despite Polish warnings that the Luftwaffe would target Allied airfields; lucky that when they emerged from the Ardennes, which quickly became traffic-jam CITY, the only barrier in the way, the River Meuse, was guarded lightly and by second hand troops; lucky, most of all, that the Allies ultimate plan, to hold the Maginot Line along with the so-called 'Dyle Line', and send troops to help the Dutch, left them with no mobile reserve; if they had possessed such a reserve, potentially the French 7th Army if it hadn't been sent to help the Dutch, the break through would have been nowhere near as successful as it was. \n\nFinally, the Germans were aided by other factors, most notably a complete failure of the French High Command, and of Allied communications. Paul Gamelin, the French overall commander was completely out of touch with his forces, while communications eventually became a shambles as the Germans interrupted communications between the Armies. by June, 1940 French morale had all but plummeted, and with most of the French Army's best troops trapped in the low countries, or bogged down in heavy fighting along the Maginot Line, defeat was really only a matter of time.\n\nUltimately, the Germans 'luckily' 'crushed' the French Military/Frances heavily fortified border. Wherever the French and British could resist effectively, it showed, and the Germans suffered considerable losses. The fighting to clear the Maginot line was especially arduous, requiring many forts to simply be destroyed by explosives, trapping their garrisons inside, because the Germans simply couldn't dislodge them without incurring heavy losses. The campaign also exposed how insufficient the armour and armament of German tanks were, compared to those of the Anglo-French, something that was not really remedied until after Barbarossa, when the T-34 and KV-1/2 were encountered. The German tanks had benefitted from better communications, better leadership, greater maneuverability, and from better allocation of vehicles: tanks were concentrated in Panzer (armoured) Divisions, instead of being spread between Brigades and divisional battalions as they were under the British and French, though this had begun to change by summer 1940, albeit too little too late.\n\nIn fact, the French and British combined had MORE tanks than the Germans, it was how they were UTILIZED, again, that made the difference. The French had actually also spent a large amount of money outside of building the Maginot Line, and had accumulated formidable amounts of tanks, and a large and growing air force. The only problem was that French politics were chaotic, something really symptomatic of the French Third Republic in general. Funding was sporadic based on who was in control, production was made difficult by labour issues, and modernization took place in jumps and starts. Furthermore, the Germans had also been building considerable fortifications in the 30's, the Siegfried Line in the west, and the Ostwall in Pomerania and Silesia. ",
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"body": "[This post is, without a doubt, THE most comprehensive account of France's fall in /r/AskHistorians](http://np.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/292qj7/why_did_the_french_fall_in_wwii_what_factors_led/ciguz3n), highly recommended and it should answer your question directly.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/gl141v/at_what_point_did_world_war_i_gets_its_name/ | gl141v | 5 | t3_gl141v | At what point did World War I gets its name? | This is a question that I have been thinking about for awhile. We all know that World War I went by several different names (The Great War, The War to End all Wars, etc.) during the time it occurred but at what point did people start calling World I, World War I? Does it have anything to do with the emergence of World War II? | 2 | 0.67 | null | false | 1,589,658,652 | [
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"body": "While more can always be written, you may be interested in [this previous answer of mine](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/b87nnu/whenever_a_world_war_happened_when_was_it_decided/ejx8y2k/) which talks about both the origins of the name of WWI and of WWII.\n\nThis sub's FAQ also has [a shorter answer of mine](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/wwi) which addresses the history of the name of the First World War alone.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/16obi4/in_world_war_i_why_would_a_general_ever_order_his/ | 16obi4 | 64 | t3_16obi4 | In World War I, why would a General ever order his men to attack an enemy trench? Why not sit back on perpetual defense, eventually having millions of extra men due to an excellent casualty ratio? | 112 | 0.88 | null | false | 1,358,323,314 | [
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"body": "First, I will direct you to the [WWI Trench Warfare section](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/wwi#toc_3) of our FAQ -- the threads listed there may be of interest to you.\n\nIn answer to your question, though:\n\n1. Casualty ratios were not great even when one tried to remain on the defensive. Over half of all casualties (in fact, over half of all fatalities and something like two thirds of all injuries, depending upon whose stats you consult) came as a result of artillery fire, and such fire was most effectively directed against troops staying put in a single place. Even apart from this, there was plenty in day-to-day trench life that could be dangerous even if neither side went over the top. Sniper fire, disease, and self-inflicted harm were constant problems -- and I can well imagine the latter two become even more pronounced in a line that never did anything but stay put.\n\n2. The question as phrased seems to ignore the essential motives of all involved. If we look at the Western Front, for example, the notion of \"staying put\" would not serve any of the combatant powers involved very well. The Germans were in their trenches because they (or, I suppose more accurately, their domestic politicians) wanted to conquer France and Belgium. The French and British and colonial powers and eventually Americans were in their trenches because they wanted to prevent this from happening. Every day the Germans simply stayed in their trench was a day in which the ultimately goal of their efforts remained unfulfilled; every day in which their opponents stayed in their trenches was a day in which German occupation continued. This may be hard to appreciate nowadays, and even more so in comparison to the image we have of Nazi-occupied France twenty years thereafter, but it was still pretty goddamn awful. The French and Belgians behind German lines did not have some pleasantly inconsequential time of it, and the Allied troops -- who held their lines among the charred ruins of hundreds of French and Belgian towns -- were animated by a vengeful wrath.\n\n3. Letting troops \"atrophy\" (if the word may be used) is terribly dangerous. All sides involved in this particular sort of war understood the essential importance of maintaining \"a fighting spirit.\" This was accomplished in a variety of ways. The French had an officially-mandated \"spirit of the offensive\" that saw them always trying to attack, no matter what, and not building trenches \"to last,\" much to the discomfort of their troops. The British experienced this urgency largely at second-hand and as an ally to a country determined to enact it; most of their major offensives throughout the war were intended to either aid similar French initiatives or divert German pressure from areas of the French line that might otherwise collapse -- see the Somme (to relieve Verdun) and Passchendaele (to deflect German exploitation of the French mutinies that followed the catastrophic Nivelle Offensive) for more. To put the matter more bluntly and in a manner not entirely related to broader strategy, it is a very dangerous thing to brutally train men in the art of killing and then never give them the opportunity to kill. I never thought I'd make the comparison, but the problems encountered by the men in Anthony Swofford's memoir *Jarhead* (and the subsequent film, which may be more familiar to those reading this) offer a highly instructive example of this. It is worth noting that men were sent out to conduct raids on enemy trenches (usually at night) even when no large-scale \"over-the-top\" attack was being planned. These raids were seldom hoped to achieve anything strategically worthwhile; they were hoped, rather, to keep the men's hand in.\n\n4. Your numeration of the \"millions\" of extra men this would afford a given side is somewhat off (given the casualty problems I've already noted above), and ignores some considerable logistical problems. Most significantly, all combatant powers had such difficulties keeping the men who *were* alive supplied that it would be fair to say that each hovered on the brink of calamity even as each achieved success. It takes a lot of resources to feed a man every day, for example -- particularly to feed him the sort of stuff routinely handed out on the Western Front. Amazing as it may seem, French, German and British troops were issued an average of 4,000 calories a day worth of food. The food was not always of exceptionally high quality, but it *was* food and it had to come from somewhere. Each combatant power was so hard-pressed in keeping up the supply that the civilian populations back home had to undergo strict rationing to maintain it; how much worse would it have been to supply \"millions\" more men? \n\nIn a more general sense, the question does not adequately account for the enormously important naval aspect of the war -- whatever the men in the trenches were doing, the activities of Allied surface vessels and German submarines were of inescapable importance to how (or even if) essential supplies could be delivered. Even if every infantry general in the war had opted for a judicious defensive strategy, it would not have prevented him and his men from possibly being starved out by the consequences of events taking place on waters several hundred miles away.\n\nI hope this has helped answer your question in some fashion! If you'd like to have anything clarified or expanded upon, please let me know.",
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"body": "To add to NMW's answer (which is excellent), what you're asking also goes against nearly 20 years of military thinking. All combatants held the following three things to be true at the outbreak of World War I:\n\n1. After watching the Prussians crush the French in 1871, they all believed the coming war would be decided by offense, not defense.\n\n2. The first army to mobilize and strike against its enemies would be in an advantageous situation. This advantage was believed to be so great that the very act of mobilizing your troops was seen as a near declaration of war.\n\n3. The war would be short. Due to the enormous destructive power of artillery, machine guns, and other new weaponry, the war would likely be decided quickly in a series of extremely violent and bloody battles.\n\nSo, philosophically, no power believed that defense would win the day and Germany's successful invasion of Belgium and France seemingly reinforced that notion. \n\nIf you read memoirs of the military leaders involved on all sides, you'll see that they all still believed that a breakout was possible and all pinned their hopes on breaking out of the trenches and restoring mobility to the battlefield. Nobody was prepared to fight a war that favored defense (due to things like the machine gun) and nobody adapted very quickly to the reality that armies on the offensive lacked the firepower that defenders had.\n\nFinally, remember that WW1 wasn't a one-front war. There was a huge war in the east that never became entrenched and I firmly believe that many of the generals in the west looked longingly at the east and saw it as proof that mobility could be restored. In reality, geographic constraints precluded that from ever happening.\n\nAnyway, this answer is getting too long!",
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"body": "you don't defend by hiding in a bunker, any static defence can be manoeuvred around, ideally any defensive strategy will be about using offensive tactics to build a \"shield made out of swords\".\n\nHide in your bunker and the enemy will eventually plot a course around your defences. hide in your bunker while sending out carefully aimed attacks at enemy positions so they can never manoeuvre around to your weak points, that's different.\n\n Though you are still letting the enemy dictate the action, letting them decide when they want to press the attack, and letting them decide when they want to let you sweat for a bit. this gives them an advantage in timing and demoralizes your troops.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/40x0qy/i_read_somewhere_that_adolf_hitler_refused_to_use/ | 40x0qy | 21 | t3_40x0qy | I read somewhere that Adolf Hitler refused to use poison gas weapons on the Allies because he had experienced it during World War I. If this is true, did he have any problem with poison gas being used in concentration camps? | 127 | 0.88 | null | false | 1,452,766,418 | [
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"body": "You'll find the answer to your question in these two answers from the FAQ:\n\n1. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1e7zw6/why_is_it_that_even_though_the_germans_and/c9xo4k8/\n\n2. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/385ics/why_werent_chemical_weapons_used_in_world_war_2/crslz5l\n\nTo summarize: After WWI all sides felt they needed to rein in the unmitigated use of chemical weapons for humanitarian reasons. The Germans also felt rightly that if they used chemical weapons then the allies would use chemical weapons on them in turn: mutually assured destruction. After the allies gained air superiority it would have been suicide for the Germans to use them as now the allies could do the same, but from the air.\n\nAs to why they used them in concentration camps and not the front, the treaty banning chemical weapons had a ~~corollary~~ loophole for \"lesser races,\" which for the Germans certainly included the Jews and other unwanted peoples.",
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"body": "To add onto this would the allies use poison gas back? More as a defense?",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5kqqjc/did_japan_consider_sending_troops_to_the_western/ | 5kqqjc | 9 | t3_5kqqjc | Did japan consider sending troops to the Western Front during World War I | 271 | 0.91 | null | false | 1,482,938,768 | [
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"body": "Also did this happen at all during ww2/ did any German troops fight in the east? I know Japan wasn't at war with the ussr until the war was almost over so I'm guessing not.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/i9l9yq/when_did_wwi_and_wwii_start_becoming_referred_to/ | i9l9yq | 2 | t3_i9l9yq | When did WWI and WWII start becoming referred to as “World War I & II”. Was this something that happened at the beginning of World War II or afterwords? | 4 | 0.75 | null | false | 1,597,409,103 | [
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"body": "While more can always be written, you may be interested in [this previous answer of mine](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/b87nnu/whenever_a_world_war_happened_when_was_it_decided/ejx8y2k/) which talks about both the origins of the name of WWI and of WWII.\n\nThis sub's FAQ also has [a shorter answer of mine](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/wwi) which addresses the history of the name of the First World War alone.\n\n**TL;DR:** \"World War\" had become a common name for WWI even before that war had ended, competing for dominance with \"Great War\". \"World War\" had won out in the U.S. by the early 1920s, a little later in Canada, and by the mid-1930s, it was probably the more popular term in the U.K. as well. In any case, even by the late 1910s, \"the World War\" was *a* well-understood term if not the *only* term used to refer to WWI in the English-speaking world.\n\nIn the years leading up to WWII, predictions of a \"second World War\" began to appear in the press. Immediately upon Germany invading Poland in September 1939, and France and Great Britain declaring war, the war was referred to as \"the Second World War\" and \"World War II\". Some people (particularly those who didn't want the new war to develop into a global conflict) did push for alternate names, but no other name ever caught on. From the beginning of that conflict, it was always called the Second World War/World War II.",
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https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8sxktp/would_it_be_fair_to_argue_that_world_war_i_and/ | 8sxktp | 12 | t3_8sxktp | Would it be fair to argue that World War I and World War II was just one thirty year conflict? | I don't personally believe them to be so, but just for argument's sake. | 22 | 0.79 | null | false | 1,529,632,634 | [
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"body": "This question comes up quite a bit, here are some answers I managed to dig up\n\nThis on by [**u/faceintheblue**](https://www.reddit.com/user/faceintheblue) which brings up the point that since we are still so close to the two world wars in question we aren't comfortable with marking them as the same conflict.\n\n[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7dy21v/were\\_world\\_war\\_i\\_and\\_world\\_war\\_ii\\_just\\_a\\_second/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7dy21v/were_world_war_i_and_world_war_ii_just_a_second/)\n\nThis one by [**u/Commustar**](https://www.reddit.com/user/Commustar)\n\n[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5wmr6v/could\\_wwi\\_and\\_wwii\\_be\\_considered\\_a\\_second\\_thirty/dec83sd/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5wmr6v/could_wwi_and_wwii_be_considered_a_second_thirty/dec83sd/)\n\nI will also link this answer by [**u/AshkenazeeYankee**](https://www.reddit.com/user/AshkenazeeYankee) while it doesn't talk about the world wars, it does discuss what people of the 17th century called the Thirty Years War, which goes back to the first answer I linked as people who lived in the 17th century referred to it as multiple conflicts, meanwhile 400 years later we categorize it as a single conflict.\n\n[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6fl00x/what\\_was\\_the\\_thirty\\_years\\_war\\_called\\_before\\_the/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6fl00x/what_was_the_thirty_years_war_called_before_the/)",
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"body": "There are arguments that have been made for this. The book “The Origins of the Second World War,” (Taylor) for example, posits that it is essentially one long war with an intermission. The armistice created conditions that made further conflict inevitable since it essentially forced Germany to take full responsibility for WWI and crippled their industrial capability. He also paints a picture of overzealous allied powers wanting vengeance on Germany to a degree. He positions Germany as striving to get out from underneath the Treaty of Versailles, and it just so happened that Hitler was the one who was able to do it. I have seen similar arguments to the above elsewhere but I am away from home and don’t want to mix up sources. \n\nHowever, I also believe that this particular book has garnered a good amount of criticism, [even at the time](https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-origins-of-the-second-world-war-by-a-j-p-taylor/). Some felt that Taylor used distortions of history to help “prove” his clever ideas, and that he was more concerned with being clever than right. Others felt that by pointing the finger to various external forces (appeasement, Hitler’s nationalist ambitions being similar to other German politicians, the ToV, etc.), he was taking blame away from Hitler and others and deflecting from the evils brought about via events like the holocaust, among other things. \n\nI suppose it’s up to interpretation. Cases have been made both ways, probably louder (but not necessarily more correct) ones on the side of “one long conflict”. I like the post that Gasmask134 links in this thread that discusses how proximity to events shape our view of their distinctiveness. Perhaps it will merely be a question of time. ",
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