{"id":97913,"date":"2026-01-08T02:00:27","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T07:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=97913"},"modified":"2025-11-10T08:44:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T13:44:16","slug":"ww1-the-war-begins-ep-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2026\/01\/08\/ww1-the-war-begins-ep-1\/","title":{"rendered":"WW1: The War Begins&#8230; | EP 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"854\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/IQtMHK-0kC4?si=p677Uhul_Pxvzdsy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>The Rest Is History<\/strong><br \/>\nPublished 25 Aug 2025<\/p>\n<p>Following the declaration of war in 1914, how did the outbreak of the First World War unfold? What were the earliest military engagements of this terrible, totemic event? Who were its key political players and how did they respond? What was the attitude to the war in Germany? Were the allies unified from this early stage, or were they suspicious and frozen by indecision? And, how did the Germans, with the mightiest army in all the world, make its move on &#8220;plucky little&#8221; Belgium?<\/p>\n<p>Join Dominic and Tom as they launch into one of the most consequential events of all time: the outbreak of the First World War. <\/p>\n<p>00:00 \u2013 Germany: from peaceful nation to war machine<br \/>\n02:30 \u2013 Introduction to WWI series: scope and importance<br \/>\n04:16 \u2013 Was Germany uniquely responsible for the war? Historians&#8217; debate<br \/>\n06:12 \u2013 Fear versus aggression: German motivations<br \/>\n06:46 \u2013 The July Crisis: Sarajevo, blank cheque, Kaiser&#8217;s holiday, Austrian ultimatum<br \/>\n08:08 \u2013 Helmuth von Moltke the Younger: personality, melancholy, moustaches<br \/>\n12:01 \u2013 Germany&#8217;s strategic weakness: encirclement fears, manpower and GDP<br \/>\n13:45 \u2013 The Schlieffen Plan explained<br \/>\n18:06 \u2013 Von Moltke panics<br \/>\n19:00 \u2013 Kaiser signs mobilization order; emotional scene in Berlin<br \/>\n22:53 \u2013 The problem of Belgian neutrality and Britain&#8217;s obligations<br \/>\n23:47 \u2013 British cabinet debates: how far into Belgium would justify war?<br \/>\n25:04 \u2013 German ultimatum to Belgium: demands for railways and fortresses<br \/>\n26:14 \u2013 Belgium rejects ultimatum; King Albert&#8217;s defiance<br \/>\n27:59 \u2013 &#8220;A scrap of paper&#8221;: German gaffe fuels British propaganda<br \/>\n28:35 \u2013 King Albert\u2019s speech to parliament: &#8220;Determined at any cost&#8221;<br \/>\n29:52 \u2013 <em>Total War Rome<\/em> (Creative Assembly)<br \/>\n30:37 \u2013 German invasion begins<br \/>\n36:18 \u2013 German reprisals in Belgium<br \/>\n50:00 \u2013 Comparisons with Allied conduct in Ireland, colonies, and elsewhere<br \/>\n50:47 \u2013 The Leuven library fire: destruction of manuscripts, global outrage<br \/>\n52:12 \u2013 Germany&#8217;s reputation collapses: admired culture turned to &#8220;barbarism&#8221;<br \/>\n53:28 \u2013 Fall of Brussels: German army enters the capital<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Animator: Michael Sherdyts &#8211; YT:    \/ mercenarycamp<br \/>\nProducer: Theo Young-Smith<br \/>\nAssistant Producer: Tabby Syrett &#038; Aaliyah Akude<br \/>\nVideo Editor: Harry Swan + Jack Meek<br \/>\nSocial Producer: Harry Balden<br \/>\nHead of Digital: Sam Oakley<br \/>\nExecutive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Rest Is History Published 25 Aug 2025 Following the declaration of war in 1914, how did the outbreak of the First World War unfold? What were the earliest military engagements of this terrible, totemic event? Who were its key political players and how did they respond? What was the attitude to the war in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,62,1117,1118,7,5,1119,246],"tags":[173,418,523,432,1095,269,1608,1575,1604,1228],"class_list":["post-97913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-europe","category-france","category-germany","category-history","category-military","category-russia","category-ww1","tag-assassin","tag-austria","tag-belgium","tag-diplomacy","tag-fortification","tag-propaganda","tag-schlieffenplan","tag-strategy","tag-therestishistory","tag-warcrimes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-ptf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97913"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97914,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97913\/revisions\/97914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}