I've been scouring the net for lectures about how the war started, having absorbed a workable knowledge base on the events of the war. Cheers to the few who are likewise interested in these matters.

Christopher Clark is one of my favorite historians!!! Excellent mind concerning the issues pertaining to the Great War!!! Thanks for posting this!!!

both highly informative and humorous at the same time - always the best way to learn and retain information. most excellent :)

Read Clark's Sleepwalkers and even took notes. Couldn't put it down. This is my go-to reference while reading other books on WW1. I can remember as a youngster in the 1960s one older man whose eyes kept twitching. Someone told me that he had been gassed in WW1. I suspect that was true. My grandfather was a 15 year old teen in a village a bit south and east of Warsaw. He once told me the Russian army marched into his village on their way toward Galicia in August 1914 and impressed all the young males to forceable manual labor. They were not permitted to carry weapons to defend themselves and I remember my grandfather telling me he saw one of his friends being killed by a falling tree. I wasn't sure if his story was true until I found a book the West Point Military Academy published in the 1950s detailing which Russian army and its general had marched through his village.

Simply, THE man! Wonderful lecture.

Thanks for posting this. Quite informative lecture.Interesting.Christopher Clark is one of my favorite historians ....from Fresno, CA.

Christopher Clark is a great historian and speaker. Non-American historians Of WW1 seem to have a broader and more nuanced understanding of the war.

Quite informative..

good work

Definitely 👍🏾 worth listening to

Clark's subtle reference to Paul Keating's "its the economy stupid" (1.00:13), brilliant but lost on the audience.

Talk starts at 6:42

The huge book Folly and Malice by John Zametica uses genuine archived Serbo-Croat and German language documents to explain the build up to WW1. His conclusion is it was kick-started by an ailing Austria-Hungary which believed that waging a successful war was the only way it could remain a Great Power. This empire, with many squabbling nations, and with statesmen unwilling to contemplate any meaningful internal reform, was the real powder keg of Europe not squabbling groups in the Balkans. Franz Ferdinand was seeking to destroy the Dualist political compromise between Austria and Hungary and replace it with his own centralist autocracy so tension between Vienna and Budapest was huge. Meanwhile Gavrilo Princip was driven by his South Slav ( Yugoslav ) ideology rather than a Serbian one and even some of his co conspirators were from ethnic Croat and Muslim background . The assassination plot was conceived and propagated by Yugoslav ideologues in 'occupied' Habsburg Croatia and Bosnia. Meanwhile the Black Hand officers organisation in Serbia was more focused on overthrowing civilian rule in Serbia itself and replacing that with a military dictatorship .After two Balkan wars the last thing Serbia needed or wanted was a war with Austro Hungary and the Serbian warning to Vienna intended to prevent Franz Ferdinand's assassination and was the work of Apis the leader of the Black Hand. In July 1914, Vienna and Berlin wanted a war against Serbia to secure complete regional hegemony by removing any Russian influence in the area and thus paving the way to Turkey and the middle east . Because they thought Russia would stay out and Serbia would collapse in a matter of days or weeks ,the risk of a wider conflagration was so small it was worth taking.

Mr Clark has an outstanding ability to conceptualize.

Interesting

31:52, War was getting less likely.

There was a lecture he did to a bunch of students where they asked him questions afterwards pertaining to the Ukrainian crisis that has been removed within the last month, does anyone know where that lecture was held and if there are any other copies of it up?

9:17 - King Zog! What a dude. A very odd man.

21:17 ♫ I died ♫.....♫ I DIED♫...laughing.

21:15

After many hours of watching why WW1 happened I know less than I did before 😅.

26:09, the historical picture of the arrest of one of the conspirators, not Gavilo Princip.

Western historical writing begins with Herodotus of Halicarnasus, his Histories relates the Greco-Persian war, and so much more. Thucydides of Athens comes next, and relates the Pelopponesian war. Mr. Clark probably neglects Herodotus because of Thucydides more analytic approach. In defence of Herodotus, he had no precedent to fall back on besides chronicles, now lost; and he made a point to record all evidence, leaving the conclusion to his hearer/reader. This is one of my peculiar pet peeves. EDIT: Mr. Clark's talk is fantastic!

I am interested in the Great War.

The Darkest Days by Douglas Newton is an interesting read A good argument for Britain staying out of a Russian German War centred in the Balkans. The war for civilisation, I didn’t believe in it then and I believe in it less so now JRR Tolkien

This book won t be the last on this sujet.

WWI started out pure ego and WWII started out pure evil.

Оно када за малоумни рат почне због атентата на Видовдан 1914. Ова прича се продаје на Западу. А, прећуткују своје мегаломаније и колоније и остале интересе.

6:43, this couple has a very bad day.

well, yeah, but for the rest of us it's a stupid war......

Historian: France had to fight on their own soil because they were invaded... Me: Plan VXII... Historians: Shhhhhhh... France had to fight on their own soil because they were invaded...

A lot of blah blah blah before reaching a self-evident conclusion in the two last sentences ...