Historian Reacts // Oversimplified - WW2 (Part 1)

welcome back everybody to another reaction video and today we're going to be taking a look at part one of oversimplified world war ii and as always with these reaction videos i highly encourage you to support the original content creator make sure you subscribe to oversimplified they do some really good stuff it's just what they call it it's over simplified it's uh taking what is sometimes a very complex uh part of history and trying to simplify it as much as possible trying to break it down to the essence and give you kind of the highlights of things and do so in what i think is an entertaining way so i love their videos i always look forward to when a new one comes out they just had one come out recently about prohibition in the united states in the 1920s but today we're going to look at part one of world war ii and as always i encourage you to continue this conversation not only in the comments section below but also we can do that over on discord i've got different channels set up on our discord server about different historic events and there's one there for world war ii please click on the link in the description below and join us over there make sure you subscribe hit that notification bell so you never miss another video and we're trying to do daily content here on the channel and pretty soon i'm going to get back out there and get you some historic site videos let's take a look at oversimplified world war one or world war ii it's 1902 a young man by the name of benito mussolini is 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 after previously avoiding it and then after a brief stint as an elementary school teacher he finally returns to work as an avid socialist so can we stop and just contemplate this for a moment that benito mussolini was an elementary school teacher let's also contemplate the fact that he's got some hair going on there and that he was a pacifist he was a guy who actually opposed war opposed military service it's just it's really fascinating to look at a guy who we think of as il duche we think of as this fascist dictator really the first fascist dictator in europe uh and his early life was so very different now i confess i don't know a lot about mussolini's early life compared to what i know about hitler's upbringing in his life but uh i just find that really fascinating 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 which it does and so uh contrast this with hitler who actually enlists in the army and serves during world war one uh so very different kind of way of responding to world war one uh and at this point hitler's not thinking about this stuff mussolini's way ahead of hitler in terms of his activism and things like that it's only after world war one that hitler really gets into this bring about the socialist revolution everywhere 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 well and good mr mussolini but what kind of haircut am i giving you let's go with bald bold [Music] 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 so italy was eventually on the winner's side in world war one but they didn't start out that way it early on it could have gone either way and what it really came down to is what's in it for me they really didn't have a strong ideological uh favorite on either side so this was really about choosing the side that was going to give them the most and there was all this territory that they wanted from austria-hungary and since austria-hungary wouldn't turn it over they decided to jump in on the side of the antan 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 and that's again that's a lot like hitler i can fix everything you know coming in in the midst of a bad economy uh this is what happens a lot of times uh you know we find ourselves wondering why would people fall for something like this why would people choose to follow a leader who was so extremist like that and it boils down to desperation you know they were in italy yes but especially in germany it was a desperate situation where the economy was in bad shape and here comes somebody who says i can fix it and also there's somebody to blame um that was something a lot of people kind of subscribe to team 22 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 loser's 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 one hundred thousand 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 spike the hell out of them i made that last one up but it helps you understand how all this felt to germans yeah and let's be honest i did a video a while back about the worst mistakes in history treaty of versailles definitely one of the worst mistakes in history you can't understand world war ii without understanding the aftermath of world war one because the aftermath of world war one 100 responsible for world war ii uh it was directly related and the way that the allies punished germany contributed to the rise of hitler contributed to the rise of fascism in germany the rise of the anti-semitism which had already kind of always been there but kind of got kicked into overdrive because of the events after world war one 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 madder than him about germany's humiliation he helped start a new political party and in 1923 attempted a march on munich with his boys so let's talk about and i know there's an oversimplified video about hitler but for those of you who maybe haven't seen that one hitler ends up coming to familiarity with the nazi party because in the aftermath of world war one he's still in the army and the army actually assigned him to go keep an eye on them basically to kind of be a spy on this national socialist party that was uh kind of growing up out of the aftermath of world war one and as he was watching them he not only found himself agreeing with them but he found himself feeling like he could do it better and he started speaking at their rallies and a lot of these took place in in beer halls and things like that it was really kind of a very grass roots movement and he very quickly kind of rises to power within their ranks because of his oratory skills and then he got arrested but his popularity grew and grew and in 1933 the president made him chancellor he got arrested but he uh he kind of wasn't in jail for very long not nearly as long as he had actually been uh sentenced to and he you know when you see those movies where like mobsters um you know like these sicilian mobsters find themselves in prison but they like live the high life because they bought off everybody that's kind of how it goes with hitler he he's in prison but he's not really in prison like everyone else is in prison if you understand what i mean it was there that he was able to write mineconf i think he actually dictated it to rudolph hess if i remember right 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 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 so they he glosses over real quick the spanish civil war but um a lot like what happens later with vietnam korea afghanistan spain becomes kind of the proxy war for fascism and socialism and all these things because you have these two sides fighting you've got a fascist uh fighting against the royal family there and and uh so both sides are kind of uh being supported by other countries uh and you know it's it's a precursor to things like the korean war we have the communist north and the um democratic south being supported by other nations and they've taken over northern china let's rewind a bit japan had isolated itself from the rest of the world for over 200 years until the americans showed up and said you're going to 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 weak 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 yeah so uh this is a fair point to make uh that a lot of the issues that end up happening with japan uh in part happen because of the western countries in particular france the uk uh germany the united states uh basically kind of making japan open up to the world stage but then immediately kind of pushing them back in and uh you know we created the mess we really did just like we created the mess in europe okay see ya so japan 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 blew up a japanese train in manchuria 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 undoing 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 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 of europe would do 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 1995 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 gonna 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 okay 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 in our time 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 yeah so yeah absolutely right and uh you know this idea of appeasement did not work at all because hitler realized that he could get away with more and more and to be honest i think deep down hitler thought that when he invaded poland the same thing would happen the allies had demonstrated time and time again they weren't going to do anything and so i think when he invaded poland in september 1939 he thought the allies would do nothing and to an extent they really did nothing because they didn't really attack on the western theater uh they just kind of declared war and then sat back not to be outdone mussolini also wanted to get in on the action he thought to himself isn't there a not yet colonized nation somewhere which is so ethiopia 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 to 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 and if you want to learn more about that just look up the rape of nan king that's what they call it it was just absolutely brutal um and i agree 100 uh people when they think of world war ii and think atrocities they their minds usually go to the holocaust to what germany did in europe and i don't know if that's because uh as an american it's kind of the west and you know we associate ourselves more with europeans than we do with asian people or what i don't know why that is but the atrocities that took place in mainland china especially every bit as heinous and sometimes some cases even worse what the japanese army did there i encourage you to learn more about that germany and 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 good this new line stunned the west on the 1st of september 1939 german troops entered poland and britain and france declared war on germany and then didn't do it fought hard but they 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 starland 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 one and keep in mind i i'd have to double check this but i'm fairly certain that at this point in the war france had a bigger army than germany so it yeah this idea that france was just this push pushover that had no chance against the german army france lost because of tactics and lost because of preparation not because of might not because they didn't have a powerful army to defend with 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 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 two hundred thousand 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 attacked finland 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 the 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 keyports along the coast but germany had taken control of norway's airfield and their air superiority decided to fight the allies had to retreat and if you want to see a really intense scene um i think there's a movie called the king's choice which is about the invasion of norway and the scene uh and you can find it on youtube pretty easy it's the sinking of the the german i think it's a cruiser bleuker uh it's just phenomenal it's really really shot beautifully and really intense i encourage you to check it out this slightly embarrassing failure chamberlain resigned and was replaced with winston churchill who had a slightly different approach to dealing with the germans his overall strategy was similar to 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 but 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 well 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 oh and by the way the german troops were taking what we would today call uh meth to keep them awake and keep them alert and keep them fighting so that didn't hurt either 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 hitler and you have to imagine that really felt good to hitler because in his mind he's finally getting revenge for the treaty of versailles if i remember right they actually signed the surrender of france on the same railcar that they had signed the treaty of versailles i could be remembering that wrong but i think i remember that being the case i hope 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 it 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 hiller 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 ally had decided to switch sides yeah and in fact vichy france had a number of battleships that were now fighting for the axis and the british actually attacked french ships and sank them because they could have been used against them and they even warned them they said listen this is what we're going to do and they had no choice they had to so here you have britain actually attacking their old french allies miller also hoped that the uk wouldn't attack any of her old ally's 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 syria and wrecking a bunch of ships so have at it 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 rate over berlin it didn't do much damage but hitler was furious and he immediately furthered to refocus its attacks on civilian targets in london children so uh and one of the things about the battle of britain and i've mentioned this and some other things the 303rd squadron uh which was made up primarily of polish pilots a few checks as well was the highest scoring squadron during the battle of britain uh the polls shot down more uh germans than any of the british fighters did even though they didn't have as good a weaponry but they were just fantastic pilots and they had a lot of experience as well so uh not to be forgotten how much uh the polls and the checks and others helped in defending britain they were sent off to the countryside away from their parents to avoid danger and frequent trips to air raid 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 the foot for now finally for now all that 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 all right so we're gonna wrap it up right there let me know your thoughts about all that please don't forget to hit the like button and subscribe if you haven't already we'll come back in a few days with uh world war ii part two until then have a great week

Channel: Vlogging Through History

Views: 1,385,245

Keywords: world war 2, ww2 oversimplified reaction, oversimplified reaction, history reaction, ww2 reaction, oversimplified reaction ww2, ww2 oversimplified, oversimplified ww2 reaction, ww2 oversimplified part 1, reaction video, ww2 - oversimplified, ww2 oversimplified mr terry

Id: KNSnrBWa1So

Length: 22min 40sec (1360 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 15 2021