Texan Reacts to Otto von Bismarck Pt.6 by Extra History

Reaction video to the end of the war between Prussia and France, the peace treaty that comes from Prussia winning the war, and the founding of the German Empire.

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[theonlylauri]

Couple of thoughts. First is that in WW2 we see what happens when the modern firepower is unleashed against the civilian population without rules or a lot of scruples. It was obviously bad, and the onslaught of USA against Japan in '45 was outright terrifying, but it's not that easy to wipe out the civilian population of even a city. In Poland and USSR, which suffered the worst, probably the deadliest killers were the starvation, disease and smaller-scale atrocities by individual military units, all rather old-fashioned.

It's also interesting that emperor-level titles derive from Latin, but the word king is of Germanic origin. Makes sense considering the aftermath of Western Roman Empire's collapse, of course.

Lastly, Bismarck is kind of tragic figure. He was a man of unusual talent, and if I had him at gunpoint, five minutes later I'd realize he talked me into handing over the gun and my wallet, but his legacy wasn't all that great for Germany. It looks like to me that his successors tried to imitate his brinkmanship, but for it to work you need that unusual talent, knowing the value of restraint and careful timing, as well as some luck. Little of that was evident after him. If he had cultivated his replacement, perhaps it'd have been different, but he never did that. Perhaps he thought this made him irreplaceable, but failed to realize this doesn't stop people like Wilhelm II, and in any case he didn't have many years left even if he hadn't been forced to resign.

[melkor]

The seminal tragedy series is great but on the last part of that series don’t skip the music part at the end I don’t think you’ll get screwed over it others have included it just fine and it’s worth keeping in the reaction. You’ll understand why once you get to it.

[EmmettMcFly]

5:10 America (and a lot of other countries) to this day has senators in its government, which is a term derived from the Roman senators, who were around even several centuries before Caesar. And there are lots of other examples of officials whose titles were originally derived from ancient ones. So having 20th Century monarchs have a title which originally derived from the name of Julius Caesar (who is sometimes regarded as Rome's unofficial first Emperor) is hardly that strange. After all, just like with modern senators, few would argue that they were direct successors to the original.

[melkor]

Bismarck wanted to shell the city to hurry up the siege.