Uploaded August 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
This video is a summary of the historical event known as "the great war", "the war to end all wars" or simply "world war one". The unique spin about my version of the ww1 story is that I am a leftist and I approprately have a leftist point of view to tell this story from. This video is therefore slightly biased yet still factually correct at all points. I explain the related concepts of imperialism and nationalism which characterised the time before the great war.
Patreon: patreon.com/viki1999
Second channel: youtube.com/channel/UCtXcyUuCaUMY2GGU_8iM1hg
Subreddit: reddit.com/r/viki1999
Twitter: twitter.com/Viki1999Yt
E-Mail Address: viki1999mail@gmail.com
The song in the outro was produced by 08 (who gave me no way to credit them), you can listen to the whole remix on my second channel: youtu.be/jZOrMsIOZh0
Timestamps
0:00 Intro
0:44 Key players
5:38 Imperialism
8:14 Nationalism
10:41 Archduke is shot
14:11 The war
17:55 February revolution
20:33 October revolution
23:12 No war no peace
25:06 1918 surrender
27:59 The end of the civil war
29:39 Post war Europe
32:49 Outro
5 person discord invite. Hit the bell to catch it under the next video. And please only use it if you willbe active on the server, otherwise leave it for others: discord.gg/PCu9eCP8js
Transcript:
Hello everybody, this time we are talking about world war one from a leftist point of view, already demonetised for saying the word war. Living from YouTube is hard, please subscribe and donate and you know the deal.
This historical event is very interesting because it marks a huge transformation in the history of leftism. Before the war leftists were sizable parts of the electorate in most European countries, but they didn’t rule a single one. And of course after the war the USSR existed, marking the first time a major country turned socialist. On top of that socialists ruled in Austria and almost overthrew Germany.
To really explain World War two you need to start with the historical context. And I think looking at the state of the different countries is as good a place to start as any. There are 5 major players we will consider, starting with Germany.
The united German nation only started existing a few decades before the great war. It was the most industrialized nation on the whole world and arguably more powerful than all other single nations. They had a large industry and a very strong warrior culture left over from the days of Prussia.
But because Germany was such a young nation it wasn’t treated with the respect it thought it deserved. For example Germany got barely any lucrative colonies, more about that in the imperialism section. Germany was also of course ruled by an absolute ruler called the Kaiser and his friends who were landowners, nobles and industrialists. He was reportedly very insecure which may or may not have played a part in the start of the war.
The next largest player was the United Kingdom. It was the first country to industrialise and it owned a staggering 23% of the earth’s land mass, making it the largest empire in history. And pretty much since the defeat of Napoleon the UK was the single greatest superpower. Until Germany was united that is.
As an island country the UK didn’t have a great land army, but they had the royal navy, the largest and most powerful navy in history. This is where the saying “Britannia rules the waves” comes from, because for many decades they did. But as I mentioned before Germany wanted to prove that it is the new superpower.
So Germany started building a huge navy to rival the British one. For the brits this was a huge shock, because if Germany ruled the waves then they could invade the homeland, and the German land army was undoubtably stronger than the British one. So for national security reasons the Brits entered into an arms race with the Germans.
The next greatest country was France. They had a sizable industry and a notable colonial empire. They were really angry at Germany because they had lost the Franco Prussian war many years ago. They saw this as an insult to their honour so they were edging for a fight to prove their strength. Because they were aware that they could not defeat an industrialised modern Germany on their own they allied with the British to be able to hold their ground once the next war breaks out.
The next one is Austria Hungary. It had some problems. It was a state made up of many ethnicities which barely go along, on top of that it was an imperial monarchy under a man who was in charge since the communist manifesto was written, that’s over 60 years. Austria Hungary had little industry, a weak army and no colonies to exploit.
This video is a summary of the historical event known as "the great war", "the war to end all wars" or simply "world war one". The unique spin about my version of the ww1 story is that I am a leftist and I approprately have a leftist point of view to tell this story from. This video is therefore slightly biased yet still factually correct at all points. I explain the related concepts of imperialism and nationalism which characterised the time before the great war.
Patreon: patreon.com/viki1999
Second channel: youtube.com/channel/UCtXcyUuCaUMY2GGU_8iM1hg
Subreddit: reddit.com/r/viki1999
Twitter: twitter.com/Viki1999Yt
E-Mail Address: viki1999mail@gmail.com
The song in the outro was produced by 08 (who gave me no way to credit them), you can listen to the whole remix on my second channel: youtu.be/jZOrMsIOZh0
Timestamps
0:00 Intro
0:44 Key players
5:38 Imperialism
8:14 Nationalism
10:41 Archduke is shot
14:11 The war
17:55 February revolution
20:33 October revolution
23:12 No war no peace
25:06 1918 surrender
27:59 The end of the civil war
29:39 Post war Europe
32:49 Outro
5 person discord invite. Hit the bell to catch it under the next video. And please only use it if you willbe active on the server, otherwise leave it for others: discord.gg/PCu9eCP8js
Transcript:
Hello everybody, this time we are talking about world war one from a leftist point of view, already demonetised for saying the word war. Living from YouTube is hard, please subscribe and donate and you know the deal.
This historical event is very interesting because it marks a huge transformation in the history of leftism. Before the war leftists were sizable parts of the electorate in most European countries, but they didn’t rule a single one. And of course after the war the USSR existed, marking the first time a major country turned socialist. On top of that socialists ruled in Austria and almost overthrew Germany.
To really explain World War two you need to start with the historical context. And I think looking at the state of the different countries is as good a place to start as any. There are 5 major players we will consider, starting with Germany.
The united German nation only started existing a few decades before the great war. It was the most industrialized nation on the whole world and arguably more powerful than all other single nations. They had a large industry and a very strong warrior culture left over from the days of Prussia.
But because Germany was such a young nation it wasn’t treated with the respect it thought it deserved. For example Germany got barely any lucrative colonies, more about that in the imperialism section. Germany was also of course ruled by an absolute ruler called the Kaiser and his friends who were landowners, nobles and industrialists. He was reportedly very insecure which may or may not have played a part in the start of the war.
The next largest player was the United Kingdom. It was the first country to industrialise and it owned a staggering 23% of the earth’s land mass, making it the largest empire in history. And pretty much since the defeat of Napoleon the UK was the single greatest superpower. Until Germany was united that is.
As an island country the UK didn’t have a great land army, but they had the royal navy, the largest and most powerful navy in history. This is where the saying “Britannia rules the waves” comes from, because for many decades they did. But as I mentioned before Germany wanted to prove that it is the new superpower.
So Germany started building a huge navy to rival the British one. For the brits this was a huge shock, because if Germany ruled the waves then they could invade the homeland, and the German land army was undoubtably stronger than the British one. So for national security reasons the Brits entered into an arms race with the Germans.
The next greatest country was France. They had a sizable industry and a notable colonial empire. They were really angry at Germany because they had lost the Franco Prussian war many years ago. They saw this as an insult to their honour so they were edging for a fight to prove their strength. Because they were aware that they could not defeat an industrialised modern Germany on their own they allied with the British to be able to hold their ground once the next war breaks out.
The next one is Austria Hungary. It had some problems. It was a state made up of many ethnicities which barely go along, on top of that it was an imperial monarchy under a man who was in charge since the communist manifesto was written, that’s over 60 years. Austria Hungary had little industry, a weak army and no colonies to exploit.
