World War Zero: 3 Conflicts That Foreshadowed WW1 (Full Documentary)

00:00 Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905
28:43 Italo-Turkish War 1911-1912
57:47 Balkan Wars 1912-1913

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»CREDITS
Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Mark Newton, Jesse Alexander
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Director of Photography: Toni Steller
Sound: Toni Steller
Editing: Jose Gamez, Toni Steller
Motion Design: Elise Hersink
Research by: Mark Newton, Jesse Alexander
Fact checking: Florian Wittig, Jesse Alexander

Channel Design: Yves Thimian

Contains licensed material by getty images and AP Archive
Maps: MapTiler/OpenStreetMap Contributors & GEOlayers3
All rights reserved - Real Time History GmbH 2023

[metekarayaka]

If you count the Italo-Turkish war, Balkan wars, World War 1 and Greco-Turkish war all together, Ottomans were at war continuously for 12 years. I'm not surprised Turkey tried to avoid World War 2 no matter the cost.

[johnsanko]

You did a real kindness to the Baltic Fleet by understating how disasterous their trip to Tsushima was. Theirs is a roller coaster story all on its own.

[kamilkardel]

I have seen a Polish newspaper from early 1914 with a brief note about the Second Balkan War (accompanied by an image of a firing cannon). The author wrote how destructive it was, but stated that such a conflict would be impossible in our part of Europe.

[PakBallandSami]

“On the news that the Tsar had sent the troops icons to boost their morals, General Dragomirov quipped: 'The Japanese are beating us with machine-guns, but never mind: we'll beat them with icons.”
― Orlando Figes,

[fazole]

I was in a California ghost town, Bodie, a few yrs ago. There was an issue of a latev1800's newspaper in a museum there. An article actually predicted that the machine gun and cannons would lead to a great loss of life with a war originating in the Balkans!

[rashkavar]

For anyone who heard about the Baltic Fleet's arrival in poor condition and such and wants to know more, there's a couple of really well done videos on that voyage. I particularly enjoy Drachinifel's one.

Long story short, calling it a naval fleet is almost absurd, the crews were that bad. The commander's propensity to getting so mad at this poor performance that he threw his binoculars at them with some regularity (to the point where his crew knew to keep the ship extremely well supplied with replacements) just adds to the absurdity, it's an absolutely astounding story of naval incompetence.

[jessealexander]

For everyone wondering: the title says 3 Conflicts that Foreshadowed WW1, not ALL conflicts that foreshadowed it. ;)

[r_rumenov]

My great-grandfather was from Macedonia, back when it was considered a geographical term, not an ethno-nationalistic one. He was born in a small village deep within the borders of the modern day North Macedonian state, whose majority population - like him - considered themselves to be Bulgarians, as evident by the Ottoman ethnographic and ethno-religious maps of the period. It's where the poet Peyo Yavorov that you mentioned fought with his irregulars - to help bring Macedonia back into the homeland. He's my favorite poet, by the way, and I purposefully bought a home close to his old house in Sofia.
He, my great-grandfather, had gone away to study in Austria when the First Balkan War broke out. Immediately, he dropped his studies, came to Sofia and volunteered for the Bulgarian army. He got sent to a fast-track officer school and then spent the next 6 years on the front in Thrace and then in Macedonia. I still have his bayonet, binoculars and the Turkish ceremonial sword that he personally received from a Turkish officer that surrendered to him near Odrin (Edirne) after a flanking attack that captured a key Turkish position, opening up the North-East sector of the defense line for the rest of General Vazov's formations to start pouring into the city.
Unfortunately, due to petty squabbles with Greece over Salonika and the vicinity, which was never populated with a Bulgarian majority anyway, just like most coastal areas in Thrace, we lost all of Macedonia to the Greeks and Serbs, with hundreds of thousands fleeing the lands they'd been living in for a thousand years, and hundreds of thousands more remaining to be "serbified" and then "macedonified" over the next decades.
Anyway, though we Bulgarians are still bitter over all of this and the way it turned out with the North Macedonian "nation" and all, and will probably be bitter about it for generations to come, thankfully, we live in the big European family and I sincerely hope these territorial wars are behind us, at least in the Balkans. Many "Macedonians" now have Bulgarian citizenship (we recognize all of them as having Bulgarian ancestry). The only real shame is that they keep trying to rewrite recent history, claiming people such as Yavorov, Dame Gruev, Gotze Delchev and other IMRO leaders and activists were "Macedonian", even though they publicly and repeatedly identified as Bulgarians during their lives and always talked about the "Macedonian cause" in terms of unification wit the Bulgarian homeland.

Thanks for the great and objective documentary. I love your channel and have been following it since the Indy days and I'm glad to see it flourish way after WWI week by week ended, together with your great efforts on Real Time History.
Cheers and peace to all :)

[tommy-erhh]

A timeline from 1900 to 1914 when WWI started:
1901
January 1: The Australian colonies federate. Dervish War with Mad Mullah in Somali has started, will not end until post WWI.
January 22: Edward VII becomes King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India upon the death of Queen Victoria.
March 2: Platt Amendment limits the autonomy of Cuba in exchange for withdrawal of American troops.
June: Emily Hobhouse reports on the terrible conditions in the 45 British concentration camps for Boer women and children in South Africa during the 2nd British-Boer war.
September 6: Assassination of William McKinley. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt assumes office as President of the United States following McKinley's assassination on September 14.
September 7: Boxer Rebellion defeated by international coalition. They impose heavy financial sanctions on China.
December 12: Guglielmo Marconi receives the first trans-Atlantic radio signal.
First Nobel Prizes awarded.
1902
January 13: Unification War of Saudi Arabia begins, will not end until post WWI.
May 20: Cuba given independence by the United States.
May 31: Second Boer War ends in British victory.
July 12: Arthur Balfour becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
July 17: Willis Carrier invents the first modern electrical air conditioning unit.
Venezuela Crisis, in which Britain, Germany and Italy impose a naval blockade on Venezuela in order to enforce collection of outstanding financial claims.
1903
February 15: The first teddy bear is invented.
June 11: Pro-Austrian King Alexander I of Serbia and his wife Queen Draga, and all family including children are brutally assassinated in a military coup. An Anti-Austria pro-Russian King is put in.
July 1: The first Tour de France is held.
July – August: In Russia the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks form from the breakup of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party.
August 4: Pius X becomes Pope.
November 18: Independence of Panama, the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty is signed by the United States and Panama. USA can build the Panama Canal.
December 17: First controlled heavier-than-air flight of the Wright Brothers.
The Ottoman Empire and the German Empire sign an agreement to build the Constantinople-Baghdad Railway.
1904
February 8: A Japanese surprise attack on Port Arthur (Lushun) starts the Russo-Japanese War.
April 8: Entente cordiale signed between Britain and France.
May: U.S. begins construction of the Panama Canal and eradication of yellow fever.
June 21: Trans-Siberian railway is completed.
Herero and Namaqua Genocide, the first genocide of the 20th century, begins in German South-West Africa.
Roger Casement publishes his account of Belgian atrocities in the Congo Free State.
1905
January 22: The Revolution of 1905 in Russia erupts.
March: The First Moroccan Crisis begins between Germany and France, going until May 1906.
June 7: The Norwegian Parliament declares the union with Sweden dissolved, and Norway achieves full independence.
September 5: The Russo-Japanese War ends in Japanese victory.
September 26: Albert Einstein's formulation of special relativity.
October 16: The British Indian Province of Bengal, partitioned by the Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, despite strong opposition.
December 5: Liberal Henry Campbell-Bannerman becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Secret Schlieffen Plan proposed in Berlin to defeat France.
The Persian Constitutional Revolution begins.
1906
April 18: An earthquake in San Francisco, California, magnitude 7.9, kills 3, 000.
July 13: Alfred Dreyfus is exonerated and reinstated as a major in the French Army; the Dreyfus Affair ends.
August 16: An earthquake in Valparaíso, Chile, magnitude 8.2, kills 20, 000.
September 28: The US begins the Second Occupation of Cuba.
October 23: Brazilian inventor Alberto Santos-Dumont takes off and flies his 14-bis plane to a crowd in Paris.
December 30: The Muslim League is formed by Nawab Salimullah Khan of Dacca.
The Stolypin reform in Russia creates a new class of affluent kulaks.
1907
February – April: A peasants' revolt in Romania kills roughly 11, 000.
March 15 – 16: Elections to the new Parliament of Finland are the first in the world with woman candidates, as well as the first elections in Europe where universal suffrage is applied.
July 24: Japan–Korea Treaty of 1907. Korea is forced become a protectorate.
The Indian National Congress splits into two factions at its Surat session, presided by Rash Behari Bose.
Persian Constitutional Revolution ends with the establishment of a parliament.
The Anglo-Russian Entente bring an end to The Great Game in Central Asia.
Bakelite, the world's first fully synthetic plastic, invented in New York by Leo Baekeland, who coins the term "plastics".
1908
April 8: Liberal H. H. Asquith becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
May 26: First commercial Middle-Eastern oilfield established, at Masjed Soleyman in southwest Persia.
June 30: The Tunguska asteroid impact devastates thousands of square kilometres of Siberia.
July: Young Turk Revolution in the Ottoman Empire.
July 26: Founding of the Bureau of Investigation (BOI)
October 1: The Ford Motor Company invents the Model T.
early October: Austria-Hungary annexes Bosnia-Herzegovina, triggering the Bosnian Crisis. Serbia tries to reverse it with terrorism.
October 5: Independence of Bulgaria from Ottoman Empire which does not fight, due to chaos Young Turk Revolution .
December 2: Pu Yi, the last Emperor of China, assumes the throne.
December 28: The 1908 Messina earthquake in southern Italy, magnitude 7.1, kills 70, 000 people.
Herero and Namaqua Genocide by Germany in E Africa ends.
First commercial radio transmissions.
The coldest year since 1880 according to NASA.
1909
March 4: William Howard Taft is inaugurated as President of the United States; deep divisions in his Republican Party over tariffs.
March 10: Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909 signed (effective on July 9). Thailand loses land in Malaya.
March 12: Indian Councils Act passed.
April 6: Robert E. Peary claims to have reached the North Pole though the claim is subsequently heavily contested.
April 13: A counter-coup fails in the Ottoman Empire.
July 16: A revolution forces Mohammad Ali Shah, Persian Shah of the Qajar dynasty to abdicate in favor of his son Ahmad Shah Qajar.
Japan and China sign the Jiandao/Gando Treaty.
United States troops leave Cuba.
1910
February 8: Boy Scouts of America is founded.
April: Halley's Comet returns.
May – July: Albanian Revolt of 1910 lose vs Ottoman Empire. Rebels were supported by the Kingdom of Serbia.
May 6: George V becomes King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India upon the death of Edward VII.
May 31: Union of South Africa created.
August 28: Kingdom of Montenegro is proclaimed independent.
August 29: Imperial Japan annexes Korea.
October 5: The 5 October 1910 revolution in Portugal vs King and proclamation of the First Portuguese Republic.
November 20: Beginning of the Mexican Revolution (Plan of San Luis Potosí).
1911
January 18: Eugene B. Ely lands on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania stationed in San Francisco harbor, marking the first time an aircraft lands on a ship.
March 25: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City results in the deaths of 146 workers and leads to sweeping workplace safety reforms.
April – November: Agadir Crisis between Germany and France over Morocco.
September 29: The Italo-Turkish war which led to the capture of Libya coast cities by Italy, begins. Libya internally is under control of Sensusi tribes.
October 10: Xinhai Revolution, which overthrew the Qing dynasty of China, begins.
November 3: Swiss race car driver and automotive engineer Louis Chevrolet co-founds the Chevrolet Motor Company in Detroit with his brother Arthur Chevrolet, William C. Durant and others.
December 12: New Delhi becomes the capital of British India.
December 14: Roald Amundsen first reaches the South Pole.
Ernest Rutherford identifies the atomic nucleus.
1912
February 8: The African National Congress is founded.
February 12: End of the Chinese Empire. Republic of China established. Yuan Shikai soon asked to be President.
February 14: Arizona becomes the last state to be admitted to the continental Union.
March: Captain Scott and his companions die in a blizzard on their way back from the South Pole.
March 30: Morocco becomes a protectorate of France.
April 15: Sinking of the RMS Titanic.
May : Italians capture Rhodes Island from Ottomans.
July 30: Emperor Meiji dies, ending the Meiji Era; his son, the Emperor Taishō, becomes Emperor of Japan.
August 25: The Kuomintang, the Chinese nationalist party, is founded.
October 8: The First Balkan War begins due to Italian invitation of Montenegro. Next day the Italo-Turkish war ends.
Banana Wars: United States occupation of Nicaragua begins.
1913
January 23: In the 1913 Ottoman coup d'état, Ismail Enver comes to power.
February 9 – 19: La Decena Trágica in Mexico City. Mexican Revolution continues until post WWI.
March 4: Woodrow Wilson is inaugurated as President of the United States.
May : The First Balkan War ends. Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria are dissatisfied with results.
May 29: Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring infamously premiers in Paris.
May 30: Treaty of London.
June – August: Second Balkan War. Bulgaria tries to get land, but fails as Greece, Serbia, Romania and Turkey win.
August 10: Treaty of Bucharest.
October 7: Ford Motor Company introduces the first moving assembly line.
December 23: The Federal Reserve System is created.
Yuan Shikai uses military force to dissolve China's parliament and rules as a dictator.
Niels Bohr formulates the first cohesive model of the atomic nucleus, and in the process paves the way to quantum mechanics.
1914
June 28: Gavrilo Princip, Serbian trained terrorist, assassinates Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo, triggering the start of World War I.

[extrahistory]

Theee of my favorite videos all in one. Thanks! This mini series of pre-WW1 documentaries were all excellent

[brianknapp]

The parallels between the Russo-Japanese War and the beginning of Japan's war with America are striking...

[fredklein]

This was one of the best videos you've ever done .Kudos to you. Keep up the great work.

[kyrgyzsanjar]

Hands down the greatest history channel on YouTube! Much love to you guys!

[VulpseiusFox]

I think there’s been several conflicts that could be argued to be considered as “world war 0’s” throughout history, because despite The Great War being called World War 1, there’s actually been multiple wars before that could be arguably labeled as world wars.

[johnnyreno]

Your videos are fantastic. Attention to detail is unparalleled

[podemosurss]

The Mauser Model 1893 was also used by the Spanish Army. The soldiers nicknamed it "Mosquetón" (Big Musket) due to its large size, but despite of the bulkiness it was extremely reliable and accurate. It was used until the WW1 years, in which it was replaced by a modified version, the Mauser C93/16, with a shorter barrel but still as reliable as the original. That new version was known by subvariant names after the locations of the Spanish factories that produced them under license, namely the military arsenals at Oviedo (Mauser Oviedo) and Coruña (Mauser Coruña). The C93/16 was kept until the 1950s, when it was replaced by the CETME series of assault rifles.

[johnpantelakis]

This is such an amazing documentary. Historical sources, great story telling and visual depictions as well as accurate content. I applaud you for this effort. I have always wanted a look into the balkan wars as a Greek, since in our history books we only learnt of 'the victory' in general and land/population acquisitions.

[bigsarge]

Very informative AND entertaining documentaries. Thank you!

[mohammedsaysrashid]

Really, it was a remarkable episode..full of historical values, super informative episode about previous years before WW1. How modernized youth empires flexed 💪 their's muscles and old empires accepted humbled compromise during peaceful negotiations...(the greatwar) channel, you are a great one 👍🏻

[maggoli]

I love how that line comes up in Wheel of time: "Duty is heavier than a mountain, death is lighter than a feather."