What did Germany want in WW1? | Kaiser Wilhelm, German Empire, Germany WW1

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Yo, a storm destroying both the German and American fleets in samao in 1880 is kinda of a hilarious to bring peace.

9:54 'but the war was prevented as a cyclone destroyed both fleets' history has shown us again and again that imperial powers are no match for the Chad Cyclones

I'd love to mention that Germans "had ambitions" in Indochina too. During the Franco-Prussian war, Napoleon III's wife Eugénie proposed an alternative outcome of the war, in which instead of losing Alsace-Lorraine, they would lose Southern Vietnam, which would've ended up under German control.

I think, if Germany hadn't engaged in unrealistic and antagonizing (to both themselves and to other powers) colonial aims, that they would have succeeded in bringing Europe under their influence simply by existing; the Rhineland was (and still is) one of the biggest industrial centers in the Eastern Hemisphere, and the simple fact that Germany had this asset in their gunbelt made their economy one of the most prosperous. They were already projected to become the biggest industrial economy by the end of the 20th century simply because Britain and France's industries relied on colonies; things that were bound to disappear. Germany, meanwhile, basically had everything they'd ever need in their inventory as soon as the Prussians entered Paris in 1871; a united and proud people who were happy to work, happy to live, and overall loyal not only to their government but to their country. Combine that with the fact that Germany had 2 major industrial centers (Silesia and the Rhineland) and you get a booming economy; one that could easily bring all of the European economies around them. Bismarck's biggest blunder was engaging in colonial demands; one of Wilhelm II's many blunders was believing that Germany relied on them.

Lebensraum is pronounced like "Lay-bens-raum" - your pronunciation was Leebensraum - or Liebensraum is not only wrong but changes the meaning. what you said would mean "loving space" not "living space"

Funny how just the other day I was looking for uncommon knowledge concerning the attempts by Wilhelm II's German Empire to claim its "place in the sun." After not much avail, I stopped looking and then this gem comes out. Every Jabzy video is engaging and informative. Great work!

At 1:37 you wrote Ostiedlung. Maybe this is an older german term, used in the middle ages, but more likely it should be "Ostsiedlung". Ost as in east Siedlung as in settlement

I am not familiar with many of the discussed proposals for hypothetical German colonial expansion, so I don't know how serious they were, but some of them seem absolutely unhinged, even by the dubious standards of the time. Germany invading the US with 100,000 soldiers shipped across the Atlantic and staging a naval invasion of Boston? Even assuming the UK wouldn't defend the Americans, which at the time they absolutely would have, this is so unfathomably stupid that I'm at a loss for words. Or the proposed plan for making a colony of 30 million pure-blooded Germans in the span of a little over a generation in South America, when at the time Brazil, the continent's most populous country, boasted a comparatively measly 15 million, most of them of mixed heritage, after centuries of settlement. Or that hypothesis that Japan could realistically conquer the US in 1890s, which would require staging an invasion across the Pacific and supplying it, and that's after having barely emerged from centuries of isolation and stagnation. Or how the Germans planned to directly occupy a quarter of China.

Make "What did Russia want in WW1?" next pls

Correction on Finnish monarchy! Finnish parliament at the time wanted german ruler in Finland to have better relations with imperial Germany. It wasn't a tradeoff in a sense. Love your work keep the content coming!

This is pretty great, maybe the ambitions in the Great Game, attempts to unify Latin America under one flag, Japanese ambitions for WW2, and French/British colonial ambitions and/or the collapse of their empires next?

Amazing to think of the arrogance these monarchs of that era. That the world was their playground to lay claim to territory that was never theirs

I don't think anyone in Germany but Wilhelm knew what they wanted out of the war.

Keep up this series! Yesterday Italy, today Germany, and tommorow something else.

I had never realised how utterly nuts Kaiser Wilhelm was!

I wish Victoria 3 had a diplomacy system like this. Where you could make conditional alliances, it was possible to partition great powers etc

The Kaiser put out feelers towards the Belgian king, Leopold II, and proposed that if Belgium would join him in a war on France, he would restore the old Habsburg lands, South Flanders and the Franche-Comte, to Belgium, once France was defeated. As it turned out, Germany invaded Belgium and the above-mentioned territories are still French.

Amazing video. Helps linking so many little historical anecdotes together and everything fall into place at the end.

Kaiser Wilhelm II truly is an interesting character. His choice of words make him sound a bit insane with a delusion of granduer.