Comments by "Not Today" (@nottoday3817) on "Nationalism DOESN’T explain WHY Austria-Hungary collapsed" video.

  1. As someone from Eastern Europe, let me give my answer to this question and opinion on this video: TIK made this video like his usual politics/economics ones. He seemed very well documented and presented facts, until he goes bonkers and completely ignores principles like judging the greater picture, objectivity or even trying to take a look at the greater picture, just cherry picking half-truths that support the narrative. Soo, let's get to the actual point of this comment: Austro-Hungary. TL:DR 1. TIK got only a small fraction of the points he made right. Those would be the importance of the economic collapse and foreign powers had something to do with how Hungary looked in 1920 and 1930s; and that at some point there were some revolutions. 2. Any gouvernment was doomed in that situation (not just the socialist one). 3. Nationalism and nationalistic revolutions: Nationalism was an ideology originating in the 18th and 19th centuries and powered by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, which considered that people who shared enough common traits (language, culture) to understand each other and live together, shoud be able to gouvern themselves in a sovereign nation. 19th Century brought many nationalistic revolutions in Central Europe. Many were quelled by the collaborative use of force from the main Empires there, including the 1848 one, since they were afraid that the success of any such revolution would embolden others in their territory. 4. The success of spliting Austro-Hungary in nationalistic states was not due to the direct policy of the Great Powers, but the military intervention of Romania which crushed the last major effort of Hungary to maintain the borders. 5. A quick wikipedia seach, if not everything else, would have saved TIK the embarassment of not knowing essential things about the Russian Civil War. Conclusion: The overall absurdity of the war (slavs were fighting slavs, romainians were supposed to fight romanians, people they could understand what they say or had similar or the same customs, while serving under people who wouldn't understand them and even persecute them for beign who they were) and the economic collapse of WW1 fueled the already torrid flame of nationalist revolutionaire sentiment which existed in Centra Europe for almost a century now. The crushing of the communist forces by the Romanian army in 1919 and Trianon put a nail in the coffin of Austro Hungary. Thus, nationalism was the key in the fall of this nation, while foreign pressure (maintained by the simple existance of independent nations, all stronger than either Austria or Hungary, which got those territories) sealed the fate of this empire. What did TIK get right? The economic collapse. Like 95% of it. That and the fact that there were some revolutions in 1848 (not even those were covered like they should) . And that's pretty much it. Now, let's dwell in what was actually going on. Start with the 5% from the economic collapse. It wasn't just because socialist came into power. It was because socialist came into power in a state ruined by war. A state at total war (aka not just some conflict in the colonies) is bound to have its economy in shambles. Especially if its blockaded. A socialist gouvernment in this situation has two choices: A. send resources in the military, hoping to end the conflict before the economy gets so bad that people rebel against a gouvernment which is bad at handling economics or B. risk defunding the military, allowing foreign powers to invade at ease, ruin the economy further by seizing resources, causing the peope to rebel against a gouvernment which is incompetent at handling military affairs. Basically, unless a miracle happens, your gouvernment is doomed. What would a capitalist gouvernment do? Well, it would create a hole in space-time reality itself as that, according to capitalists is impossible. Gouvernment means regulations and taxes. Capitalism is at least against regulations. What would a 'towards capitalism gouvernment do'? Well, it would pretty much end up in situation A or B of socialist gouvernment. Or perhaps both. First the free market people won't send resources to the front, allowing the enemies to gain ground and then, when they realise they actually need a central military to stand a chance, will try to pay taxes to fund the military. Soo, that's pretty much the economic collapse: Austro-Hungary bit much more than it could chew. Now what? Hmm, let's go back in time. 1848 and nationalism . TIK got like 10% of the stuff right: mainly that there were revolution and that the Russian military did something in Austria. What did it do? We'll see. Now, what's with this 'nationalism' ideea? Well, it kinda came around the time of Napoleon, when people started to realise administrating massive lands with various ethnicities was quite problematic. It was fine for hundreds of feudal years, where you could just go to a peasant and gesture him to put his taxes in your pocket. But ,as industrialisation and cities grew, standing armies started to form and roads became were once again important, speaking the same language and having the same goal in the territory of one state became quite necessary things. Of course, the leading ethnicity in a multinational state would try and impose their administration in controlled lands and thus, their language. Of course, those locals who could speak a foreign language (like 1 in a full moon if you count the farm peasants towards the outskirs, more than 1 if you are selective with your data set) would have an advantage in solving matters involving the local administration. This would obviously make the locals believe they were opressed and thinking they would do better without a foreign power. This basically brought up nationalism: the ideea that people with similar languages and cultures should live and gouvernm by themselves in their own territory. Those feelings were powered up by the ideeas of Republicanism (from the French Revolution and US Independence), bringing rights to the masses, including the right to participate in public affairs (whereas previously only noble aka servants of the empires could) Now before we move to 1848 proper, lets look at Greece. The British and the Russians (and occasionally the French) had a bit of a problem with the Ottomans for some time at the start of the 19th century. Britain viewed them as a threat to their territories in India while Russians pretty much despised them. The Ottomans in their turn, tried to wipe out the indigenous elements in the Balkans (serbs, bulgarians and Greeks). Unfortunetly, for them, it turns out those pesky greeks had some talents for making money and administration, so they had to stay, but tamed. Greeks were orthodox, like Serbs, like Bulgarians, like Romanians and, most importantly, like the Russians. Soo, Russia thought about supporting their movement of independence from the Ottomans. Britain, always scheming. saw an oportunity in this to cause big damage with minimal losses to diplomacy and supported them as well. However, simultaneously, shaken from the revolutionary feelings which might have been triggered by Napoleon who trashed the whole Europe with his promises of independent nations and human rights and whatever, big empires like Russia, Austro-Hungary and the Ottomans agreed to not support revolutions inside others territory (So, if, let's say, Serbia rebelled, Russia would not march its army into Turkey, nor would it march wagons of guns and ammo). With Greece, this had the unfortunate effect that in 1821 Russia tried to secretly support a rebellion across all the Orthodox nations in the Ottoman Empire , lead by a secretive society known as Etheria. However, the plot was more or less found and the rebels got decimated before Russia could do a thing. But, this orthodox uprising was the first major nationalist wave in central Europe. Finally 1848. Huge nationalis revolution wave in Central Europe following a new war between Turkey and Russia and some minor agreements of administrative nature. Not sure what happened all over Central Europe, but in Romania, we had 3 separate movements, one stronger than the other: Moldova, Transilvania (first along with Hungarians agaisnt the Austrians then alone against both of them) and finally in Walachia. Moldova was dealt with easily by the local overlords. However, in Transylvania and especially Walachia things were looking quite good. PLOT-TWIST. Remember what I said about an alliance between the major players in Central Europe and revolutions? Well, Turkey and Austria asked Russia to intervene. Russian troops finally intervened in Walachia and then in Austria, crushing those revolutions. The end. It was a nationalistic wave of great proportions which did not fell apart from any ideological reasons. Unlike what TIK said, the results of this chain of events were determined, like in 1918, by external intervention, only this time, it was against the nationalist and for the empires.
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  2. What else TIK get wrong? Well, instead of saying everything, let's focus a bit on the situation in 1914-1919 in Central Europe. People wanted national states. National states meaning people were speaking the same language at the very least. That's how the partition of austro-hungary would later go on. People realised individually they were too weak, so they grouped together with the ones which could understand them. Slovaks and Czechs are pretty much one branch of the Western Slavs, speaking the same language. Croats and Serbs speak similar languages, they are differentiated by religion, both being slavs, as well as the bosnians. And Romania had Romanians in Transylvania. Of course those would group together, especially the Southern Slavs since they already had Serbia as an independent nations and Transylvania with Romania, for the same reason. Now that we understand what ethnic groups were pushing for separation to join other nations, did anybody try to stop them? The answer is obviously yes. Here TIK has a ray of light, which he than casts into darkness, perhaps cause it messes up his narrative? Yes, je's right, Western powers did not want multinational states, but they were still kinda busy with Germany (and some other stuff we'll speak about a bit later). Their role in Austro-Hungarian partition comes later on What did actually happen was this: there was a communist (aka marxist-leninist) revolution in Hungary, like in Russia and Bavaria. Enter Bela Kun. He tried to rally the communist and socialists in all former Austro-Hungarian territories and maintain as much of his forces as he could. In order to sustain his nation, he knew he needed Transylvania and it's mountains and hills rich in natural resources (iron, coal, gas) which also had a large hungarian population. PLOT TWIST. The now revigorated Romanian army had something to say and prevented Bela from linking up with the Hungarians in Transylvania, occupying Budapesta later on in 1919. With the secondary capital and the last relevant political power center in foreign hands, basically there was no way Austro-Hungary could mobilise a force to quell the rebellions and regain the taken lands before Romania could do anything. I pointed this out in an older video where TIK comments on how Hungary became fascist (he gets most of those things wrong and severly derails the discussion there as well) and since this mistake is made again, I suppose it shows how much attention is paid to comments contradicting his views. In 1919, near Versailles, a similar treaty was signed at Trianon, cementing the status quo in Hungary. Will talk about the actual role of those great powers a bit later on, since this turns into a massive wall of text and I still have one other point about the video. Last, but not least: 18:30. Really? Are you kiddin me? He gave 4 examples... and they are all wrong. Spain and France were pretty much national states (all the people could understand each other in the same language), so why would you call for their dismemberment. However, that's not the best part. The best part are the other 2 examples, he, above all, should've known to never have mentioned. BRITAIN?! Have you heard about the Independence of Ireland? Promted by the Irish Famine? Oh, and that's the one which succeeded. There were others in the Middle East as well, but Britain wiped them out from the face of the Earth. He should have knowkn cause: 1. Britain at the height of it's power. 2. As far as I remember HE'S BRITISH. And, ok, ok, Ireland just happened to be. Nobody called for it. But then, double down on stupidity: RUSSIA. RUSSIA?! RUSIA?!?! Are you kiddin me? Britain gave Poland tanks and troops. Romania took Bucovina and Bessarabia. US established concentration camps in Arkhangelsk, fought even in Siberia along with US and France. Japan invaded Far East. Czechoslovakian Legion,. Germany helps Finland get independence in 1917. GEORGIA, ARMENIA WANTED INDEPENDENCE. SOME UKRAINIANS WANTED INDEPENDENCE. EVERYONE IN EUROPE AND BEYOND WANTED RUSSIA CARVED UP INTO AS MANY PIECES AS POSSIBLE. And of course no one cared about US being split up when you have only 3 categories of people there: 1. Just annexed, 2. Americans or immigrants just too happy to be called americans 3. Dead by great tools of spreading freedom and democracy: smallpox and machineguns. Now about the role of the major powers? Well, after Trianon, they tried to force the central european nations to cooperate as a meatshield in case USSR tried to restart its plans of bringing a World Revolution. So they tried to appease everyone by constantly redrawing the borders of those nations. Oh, fun fact for those that made it this far. The reason why you have many national socialists revolutionaires around (like the Mensheviks in Russia or the National socialists in Czechoslovakia) is due to a 19th century mixture between nationalism revolutionary trend and socialism. Initially, every minority wanted a nationalist revolution, states where everyone would understand each other. This nationalism was also usually associated with a form of republicanism since monarchy was the symbol of Empires, while the last major revolutions (England, US, France) all resulted in Republics. The reason why socialism was mixed in was that all those revolutions mentioned resulted in the upper classes gaining even more power, while the lower ones (which needed the revolutions more due to linguistic barriers) gained almost nothing in terms of political powers. Also, Britain and France would return to being empires (US was still irrelevant as a culture model). Soo, a lax socio-economic enviroment was not seen as a good ideea.
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  3. Wow, wrote so much even YT got tired of my shit
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