A History Teacher Reacts | Oversimplified - WW2 (Part 1)

hey youtube this is mr terry um today we're checking out oversimplified world war ii video uh part one so we're gonna check this out uh of course world war ii is by the most popular war that uh people know um but even even as a history teacher i'm always learning new things and um love doing that because uh it's such i mean really a big part of history so let's go ahead and check this out um right now it's 1902 a young man by the name of benito mussolini was from italy to switzerland to avoid military service he gets big into socialism working for trade unions writing for socialist newspapers advocating a violent overthrow of european monarchies the whole shebang this gets him in a bit of trouble with the swiss police so he gets arrested sent back to italy set free returns to switzerland is arrested again goes back to italy again completes his military service previously avoiding it and then after a brief elementary school teacher he finally returns to work as an avid socialist his speeches and journalistic abilities made him famous among italian socialists he was anti-war so in italy colonized libya in 1910 he rioted and got arrested then world war one came along and once again he protested italy's involvement but then he thought wait a minute this war could bring about the social climate needed to overthrow european monarchies and bring about the socialist revolution everywhere so we all know who mussolini is going to become later and a lot of us know about hitler you know and they're going to talk about him i'm sure here soon but it's amazing what world war ii taught us about what ward does to potentially change people many of benito mussolini is an anti-war activist um and of course we know the the dictator that he's going to become um but it's yeah again truly amazing what war can do to people um and totally change their outlook on a lot of things so of course we want to find out with people like hitler mussolini what is it about war or whatever that is going to change them into the people they are going to become after because they're obviously going to be very different people so um hopefully they get into that and suddenly he was pro-war but his fellow socialists didn't like his new pro-war stance so they kicked him out of the party so then he said you know what i'm done with socialism we need something new not based on class divisions tearing us apart but based on unity through nationality we'll conquer the mediterranean and reunite all italian peoples just like the days of the roman empire i'll call it fascismo and it will guide the italian nation to greatness that's all good what kind of haircut am i giving you let's go with bold [Music] you know when you're losing your hair eventually you just got to embrace it go full blow uh full full bald alright here we go italy had been on the winner's side in world war one and they hoped they were going to get a lot out of it but in the end they only got a little and they felt cheated on top of that a bad economy and weak governments meant that the italian people were a little unhappy so when mussolini came along and said that he could fix everything his fascist movement gained a lot of support in 1922 he went to the king and said make me prime minister or i'll make me prime minister and the king said you and what army this army fair enough then he went about establishing a dictatorship with himself at its center europe had its first fascist dictator next up germany germany had been on the losers side and they got absolutely wrecked by the treaty of versailles they lost territory had to demilitarize the rhineland had to reduce their army to just 100 000 men couldn't have an air force had to pay the allies a huge amount of money that it didn't have and a new rule was established that every englishman withheld the right to walk into the center of berlin pick out any german they wanted and spank the hell out of them i made that last one up but it helps you understand how all this felt to germans okay so treaty of versailles right if you know about world war ii you understand that there were so many leftover problems that the treaty of versailles created that ended world war one and what you saw here which is uh important to understand is italy was on the winning side and germany was on the losing side but both felt that because of what happened after the war that they were on the losing side with italy having kind of flip-flopped during world war one and then eventually joining the allied side because of a promise to gain new territories you saw a few frames ago and not getting that after the war which you know upset a lot of people like mussolini who had fought and died and felt like it was kind of for nothing then of course germany has by far the biggest reason to be upset because um there's a statement in the treaty that says that they take full blame for the war as well as pay for the war which of course they don't have the money for that after the war and you know it's easy to make to um see that they would feel victimized here but uh people often forget with italy um what had happened there so but yep the germans they definitely feel like this poor stick figure is right now on top of that a bad economy and weak governments meant that when a small angry man with a silly mustache came along and said that he could fix everything the german people loved it hitler had been a soldier during world war one and he was crazy patriotic and nobody was better than him about germany's humiliation he helped start a new political party and in 1923 attempted a march on munich with his boys and then he got arrested but his popularity grew and grew and in 1933 the president made him chancellor he believed he was germany's great destined savior and he went full megalomaniac establishing a dictatorship with himself at its center europe had fascist dictator number two hitler and mussolini had a lot of the same ideas but more let's go and look at these real quick because this is uh important to look at when you look at the the two who both uzi saw claim that they can fix the problems that are created after world war ii or uh world war one um and hitler is very influenced by mussolini who you know he tried to emulate some is kind of the senior fascist but you saw with a few seconds ago how mussolini's takeover went pretty well right he had the military behind him he had much longer support larger support than hitler did in the 20s and yeah he was influenced by that hitler was and tried to do his own little military overthrow but the german government was having none of that of course he gets thrown in jail they didn't they kind of they didn't really talk about that where he also writes mineconf and kind of outlines a lot of these things as you're seeing on the left hand of the screen here so yeah you can see see these two guys are going to be gaining popularity with again similar things now fascism is hard to sometimes define and the things you're seeing right here on the screen is often what historians will say are kind of features of fascism so that's what we kind of have to go for but it's still a very debatable term about what it's used and it gets thrown around so much these days and people don't really understand it but uh if we're looking in the historical sense we're kind of looking here on the screen sorry my webcam is blocking the left side but the left side is the same as the right side here so anyway importantly they had the same enemies and they started to get along anyone else want to be friends franco no you good i do who's that it's japan and they've taken over northern china let's rewind a bit already japan had isolated itself from the rest of the world for over 200 years until the americans showed up and said you're gonna trade with us and you're gonna like it then the western powers imposed a bunch of unequal treaties meaning japan's economy was bust they also had no natural resources so they decided to go get some they went to war with china to gain a sphere of influence over korea and they took a bunch of china's stuff but then the west said hey cut that out and since japan couldn't take on the west they said okay i guess we'll just go home wait a minute what are you doing taking advantage of a week in china and setting up spheres of influence but i was the one who weakened them we know and you guys didn't let me have anything we know that seems unfair we don't think so okay see ya so japan go ahead and add japan then to the list of people that were pissed off after world war one japan joins in the allied side because um they're hoping to get colonial possessions you know out in in asia and had done so but uh were kind of denied by the other allies this kind of blessing to to have these or keep these these colonies there so they add that to germany add that to now to italy japan adding the third part of that are people that are upset and kind of feel they have to take matters into their own hands if they want to be a power nation which of course all three want to do thought screw this and went to war with russia and stunned everyone by actually winning then they fully annexed korea but they didn't stop there in world war one they took germany's colonies and islands in asia and then in an incident that was maybe staged by the japanese army a bomb block with japanese train and manchurians giving them an excuse to launch an invasion and take over so here's the situation nazi germany fascist italy and japan all believe they're racially superior all feel hostility towards the allies and all want to militarize and take over more stuff and so they did let's start with germany hitler hated the treaty of versailles and now he was ready to begin on doing it in complete violation of the treaty the first luftwaffe squadrons were set up conscription was introduced and he pimped up his army the allies did nothing then hitler sent his you did this in secrecy at first using you know to make these these factories for war materials which again was was illegal according to the treaty versailles or would hide them in factories and things that were disguised as like schools for example to keep this kind of underwrap so he's kind of had had been doing this then you see here the first time he really unleashes i guess this new military has been building is here with the rhineland which was a territory here on if you can see my mouse kinda on the border here of germany and france that was a demilitarized zone that germany was not allowed to have military in but hitlerfeld was vital to the future of germany to have this region back so you see it and then yep they're going to talk about how uh the allies kind of do nothing about it this army back into the demilitarized rhineland giving orders to immediately retreat if the allies showed up the allies did nothing with his military re-strengthened he could now move on to step two he wanted to rapidly increase the aryan population and to do so he needed levin's wrong or in other words he would have to take over the world but for now a good portion and he began eyeing up his neighbors the allies finally started to get worried so they implemented a fairly useless diplomatic strategy called appeasement and it went a little something like this hitler would say i want that thing and the allies would say you can't have that thing okay you can have that thing but no more i want that thing and repeat in 1938 hitler's army marched into austria and just took it with no resistance boom this is germany now next he demanded to be given the sudetenland an area of czechoslovakia with many ethnic germans the allies held a meeting with hitler and munich and said look we're going to give you hang on this meeting is about my territory shouldn't i come to the meeting too anyway we're going to give you what you want really yeah just like that yep what's the catch just sign this piece of paper promising you won't invade the rest of czechoslovakia then chamberlain returned home victorious waving his signed piece of paper in the air declaring crisis to be averted and the continuation of world peace and we built a statue of chamberlain in his honor and every day on the 30th of september we celebrate chamberlain hitler's invading the rest of czechoslovakia what he's invading the rest of czechoslovakia oh you lied to me what do you expect i'm hitler not to be outdone mussolini now history has definitely put prime minister neville chamberlain in this really bad light of course because of course in hindsight we understand that this this policy of appeasement and you know basically trying to make hitler promise that okay you can have these areas that are majority ethnic german but you can't go any further than that and again chamberlain gets a bad rap for that now understand at this time that if the allies had actually militarily intervened with germany the public probably would not have supported at this time because again you got to think world war one ended less than 20 years ago and people are not wanting to of course to go to war people thought that nobody would ever want to go to war um so you know it's easy again to to put chamberlain as this like a foolish figure in history but at the same time you know he didn't think anybody necessarily would want to go to war and again that would probably would have been popular opinion but in hindsight of course this is a bad policy um and the allies are going to pay for it you know um here shortly and he also wanted to get in on the action he thought to himself isn't there a not yet colonized nation somewhere which is so underdeveloped that the people would be defending themselves against our tanks with literal bows and arrows and wooden spears oh there is fantastic and so he took it italy also wanted to control the entrance to the adriatic sea so they occupied albania then in another incident which was maybe staged by the japanese gunfire was exchanged by japanese and chinese troops at the marco polo bridge and the japanese launched yet another invasion against china they swept through beijing and shanghai and then advanced through the yangtze valley to china's then capital nan king it was here that saw the worst of japan's shocking atrocities committed against the chinese people back in europe germany the rape of nanking as they uh as it's called now is something that i think in the west would have been or would be today way more popularized if not for the holocaust right and unfortunately i think it's got swept under the rug especially by western culture but don't tell that to the chinese because it was a very awful time period for the chinese italy made their relationship status official by signing the pact of steel then hitler turned his eyes towards poland and the hated polish corridor splitting germany in two at this point the allies really had to put their foot down and they warned him that an invasion of poland would mean war hitler had planned to continue his advance eastward but he didn't want to end up fighting a war on two fronts so for now he made an alliance with stalin saying how about we both invade poland and split it between the two of us and i definitely won't not refrain from not betraying you sometime in the future sounds good this new line stunned the west on the first of some historical context it's very interesting um poland as you see right here uh did not exist until after world war one at least not in the sense that it does now um it used to be part german territory and part russian territory right and after world war one um these areas were granted self-determination or the ability to basically create their own nations so this was an easy i think bargaining piece here that hitler was able to make with with uh was stalin there and that hey we both have something that historically has been ours would be very hard to convince stalin you know to do this sort of thing and of course hitler would love this too because if there is going to be a war you know having to fight two fronts was something that he knows as a former world war one soldier that was very difficult especially early on in world war one having to fight two fronts so if there is going to be a war not having to fight russia in the east would be a very very helpful thing so kind of everyone wins with this situation you're talking about germany and russia but unfortunately poland itself is going to see itself as you see here invaded by two countries so that is how this thing's whole this whole thing is going to start here as far as the military intervention september 1939 german troops entered poland and britain and france declared war on germany the poles fought hard but there were no match for the two giants crashing down on them from either side then came a period known as the phony war where everyone just sort of sat around not doing much the french had launched a small invasion into the sarland but they maintained mostly defensive positions and after a while decided to just turn around and call it a day speaking of france the french were still super proud of their victory in world war 1 and they hadn't really moved on from it they still used horses they dispatched messages by motorbike instead of using radio orders from the commander-in-chief were usually pretty vague and the troops were rarely inspected they built a line of defenses along their german border but didn't bother extending it all the way to the channel and they wouldn't launch artillery strikes against germany out of fear of being retaliated against so the maginot line right here france of course gets a bad rap as well in this war because they were technologically inferior when it came to the military to to germany who had been advancing their military right in world war one to get the introduction of tanks and machine guns and airplanes which were again all in their kind of infancy especially tanks and airplanes and throughout this interwar period these couple decades germany had advent advancing that technology the tank and air air war technology way faster than anybody else and when this war breaks out france is still in basically world war one mode which doesn't work in the modern war era that that germany has now brought in so you see with them they they invest for their kind of post-world war one you know response to world war uh or to the war they invest in a defense system now the maginot line is one of the greatest defense structures ever built i mean it's really a marvel um however like you see here you see how the maginot line which again is just it's defensive fortifications look into it more if you want to learn more really is fascinating but you can see the the defense only goes across the french and german border now of course what we know in world war one is that germany avoided this border anyways by going through belgium which is easier to travel than the more forested mountainous areas right here but again the maginot line did not extend all the way up north and i believe they had plans to possibly extend that down the road but they felt you know the german french border would be far more important than building you know the most fortified defensive structure ever along a border of a nation you're friendly with with belgium which i don't know maybe give some bad vibes off if you're doing that sort of thing against or with a border with an ally but nevertheless um this is not going to really do much in in the end the way to the channel and they wouldn't launch artillery strikes against germany out of fear of being retaliated against in a war they didn't want to attack the enemy and at first the uk wasn't much better chamberlain still naively hoped that the war could be ended diplomatically instead of bombing raids the raf dropped propaganda leaflets over german cities which one air marshal said likely did nothing but provide the continent with toilet paper for the duration of the war they also only sent 200 000 men to france while the french had mobilized millions both britain and france wanted to avoid a repeat of the first world war and so they wanted to keep the war as far from home as possible so they turned their eyes north towards norway neutral sweden was exporting iron ore to germany through neutral norway so the allies asked them if they could please stop exporting iron ore to germany but this request was refused then the soviet union failed so the allies said how about we land troops in norway and move them across sweden to go help out your good pal finland and along the way maybe take control of all your own fields but norway and sweden still said no so the uk mined the waters around norway to force any transport ships into international waters and they also attacked a german tanker they found in the area hitler realized what the allies were up to and he quickly moved to secure his supply of iron ore he launched an invasion through denmark into norway the allies rushed to land troops at keyboards along the coast but germany had taken control of norway's airfield and their heir superiority decided to fight the allies had to retreat after the slightly embarrassing failure chamberlain resigned and was replaced with winston churchill who had a slightly different approach to dealing with the germans hitler's overall strategy was similar to yeah winston churchill had been one of the very few voices in in europe here on the allied side that wanted to take a much stronger stance to hitler early on and opposed appeasement and um you know from the from the from the get-go uh because he's you know he thought you can't appease someone like hitler if you're just you're you're giving your whole hand away and you're um you'll you'll never be able to appease hitler someone like that once you give them something they're gonna want more and more so this made of course churchill look like a war monger and was dismissed now now that appeasement has failed all of a sudden people are going hey that churchill guy i think he was right you know what i mean so he's going to now be in charge but his worry of course is is it too late um to to do anything here so let's continue germany's first world war strategy attack france defeat france knocking out the uk in the process then turn on the soviet union and win the war during the phony war the allies had given hitler time to prepare his forces now he was ready to attack the allies had wanted to place troops in belgium but belgium had refused and in a move that surprised pretty much no one hitler launched an invasion to get around france's defenses the allies charged into belgium at full speed to meet the german invasion head-on and it looked like a repeat of the first world war was coming this time hitler had a trick up his sleeve blitzkrieg as the germans advanced they sent thousands of refugees westward slowing down the allies then to the south the french had left the ardennes an area full of hills and forests pretty underdefended because they thought it was naturally impenetrable while the germans were about to penetrate it with everything they had they smashed 50 vermont divisions through and encircled the allied armies at lightning speed the best of the allied forces were now trapped the germans squeezed in from all sides taking out france's best armies and nearly wiping out the british too but they managed to make a desperate last minute escape at dunkirk with british civilian ships even making the perilous journey to bring their young men home with most of the french forces depleted the germans breezed through taking paris and france fell what the germans couldn't do in world war one hitler had done just like that yep really when it comes down to invading france and basically western europe in general mainland western europe is it's paris everything is paris um if europe you know has a has a center a a power center as a continent paris is kind of it especially with france i mean if you take paris france is kind of done and that's what in world war one the germans are trying to do is you know invade in the north there to try to get paris and to get very close but never do but now it has happened here within a matter of weeks and without paris uh france is basically gone so at this point very early in the war which is still early in the war um they have made more progress germany has than by far all of of world war one on the western front so from here on out you know it's not going to be a repeat of world war one hitler hoped that with the fall of france the uk would also lose hope and sue for peace but quite annoyingly it didn't and he needed to secure the western front so he tried to force them into submission with mind games the uk were now all alone and hitler wanted to emphasize that first of all just before france fell italy finally declared war on the allies making the uk situation even worse next instead of just occupying all of france killer occupied the coastal areas for defense but allowed france to continue its existence as a german puppet state this way it looked like the uk's old allied had decided to switch sides hitler also hoped that the uk wouldn't attack any of her old alleys navy bases or colonies in africa giving hitler an extra line of defense to the south but the uk made sure to respond to this by sailing down to france's navy base in algeria and wrecking a bunch of ships so have at it hitler then began laying down plans for an invasion of great britain before german troops could land on british soil he would first need air and naval superiority across the channel waves of german bombers came while the completely outnumbered raf worked bravely around the clock in an attempt to quell the german attacks at first the luftwaffe targeted british ports and coastal facilities then it attacked raf bases crippling the raf's ability to defend the nation and it looked like hitler's great british invasion was coming but then churchill ordered a small pretty insignificant bombing raid over berlin it didn't do much damage but hitler was furious and he immediately ordered the luftwaffe to refocus its attacks on civilian targets in london children were sent off to the countryside away from their parents to avoid danger and frequent trips to airaid shelters became a daily occurrence but british morale held firm smiling knitting lounging casually these people have balls of steel this refocusing on london also gave the raf breathing space to reorganize so hitler kind of shot himself in the foot there just a foot for now finally at the liftoff ascension massive all-out attack on london and the raf successfully repelled it destroying many of the german aircraft and placing air superiority firmly in british hands hitler's invasion had to be postponed but the bombing of british cities continued for some time yeah the blitz as it's called here bombing of london and other areas was a major major test for the british because the germans are launching blitzkrieg right now blitzkrieg is in three basically three waves um the first thing of course is the air war um it's you bomb round the clock um on military sites as you know primarily and you can go on civilian sites like he's going to do here and you have to soften up the the land i guess in a way that eventually you can safely land or invade with on land now the next phase after you conduct the uh with the luftwaffe for the air raids is to of course land your uh mechanized warfare right your tanks and stuff like that now this is of course a big challenge for with britain because it's an island right where it worked basically seamlessly in france and in poland this is different this raid has to be successful otherwise you can't get to the third and final phase which is against to to put troops eventually on ground so they have to withstand this if they can withstand the bombing then really the germans will not be able to progress with an actual invasion so they had to you know stand firm here otherwise it could be over and england could go the way of france if they don't okay looks like that's it now i want to make sure credit gets you know to the oversimplified uh people here this channel um this is the first time i've seen this video but i know this channel is very popular and i really like what they did there it's always great to you know add the humor and the visuals and the the animations are are great so i think this is a great way to introduce yourself you know into a topic here so but i want to make sure that you go to their video and like and subscribe there much more important that you do that than for me i didn't make this content i'm just reacting to it and talking about it so we got to make sure to give credit where it's due so if you only want to do one like today do it to the oversimplified people okay all right well pretty soon here we'll do part two and uh we'll look at that now if you have any other history related videos that you would like me to uh to check out be sure to leave them in the comments and i'll try to get to it and uh we'll go ahead and uh we'll see you next time

Channel: Mr. Terry History

Views: 2,466,672

Rating: 4.8757625 out of 5

Keywords: react, history, world war 2, ww2

Id: --DFJ_rOXWo

Length: 27min 20sec (1640 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 10 2019