132 Guerre à la guerre

The History of the Twentieth Century

Mark Painter

History

4.8 • 719 Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2018

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The European powers refused to negotiate, but private groups, including women's groups, socialists, and Henry Ford, pressed ahead with campaigns to bring the belligerents to the negotiating table.

Transcript

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0:00.0	As the Great War of 1914 dragged into 1915 and then 1916, and as the death toll climbed ever higher while victory seemed ever more elusive, most people in the belligerent nations were prepared to fight on, some with enthusiasm, others with reluctance, but a brave few in those and in the neutral nations
0:39.9	dreamed of something better, a negotiated end to the unending bloodshed.
0:47.1	Welcome to the history of the 20th century.
1:28.0	Music century. Episode 132. Gare la Gale.
1:32.4	Today, on the history of the 20th century, I want to take a break from the ongoing war narrative
1:37.7	to zoom in on one particular aspect of the Great War, I think, doesn't get enough attention.
1:43.2	And that is, simply, why did the war
1:46.5	continue as long as it did? Why didn't it end sooner? Why wasn't there more political and
1:52.6	diplomatic effort to end this appalling waste and loss of life? To that end, I want to spend
2:00.3	this episode examining peace efforts in the years
2:02.8	1915 and 1916. These peace overtures did not come from the governments of the
2:08.6	combatant nations. The official position of those governments was that they
2:12.5	expected to win on the battlefield and impose peace terms on their opponents after victory.
2:18.5	What pressure there was for peace did not come from European governments, but from what we now call
2:24.4	non-governmental organizations, and from the United States.
2:29.3	I want to turn to those efforts to end the war, but if you'll indulge me for a few minutes,
2:33.8	I'd first like to go on a little side journey and check in with an old to end the war, but if you'll indulge me for a few minutes, I'd first
2:34.3	like to go on a little side journey and check in with an old friend of the podcast, Henry Ford,
2:39.6	and see what he's up to these days. And I have a couple of other topics I've been itching to talk about.
2:48.5	Working class people faced low wages and appalling working conditions during this era, as we have
2:54.3	already seen. This was true throughout the world, including in the United States. The absolute
3:01.0	worst job a working-class person could have was coal miner. In 1914 saw a long and bitter confrontation over coal mining in
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