Get Nebula with 40% off annual subscription with my link: go.nebula.tv/realtimehistory Watch Red Atoms on Nebula: go.nebula.tv/redatoms

@robertjarman3703

11 ай бұрын

Hi. I´m Indy Neidell, and the heir to the Österreich Throne has just been shot by a Serbian nationalist. This is modern war!

@theodoresmith5272

11 ай бұрын

The first world War. The industrial nature of the war, the mass introduced of repeating rifles, machine guns, planes, mass artillery, some tanks, is pretty much still on the battle field.

@rlbballer

5 ай бұрын

The civil war had nothing to do with ending slavery and it didnt! The civil war was a war of enslavement! Too down Federal rule by D.C. dictates was what the civil war made. Lincoln was a tyrant terrorist! The south legally voted to secede, they voted to join right?! They can vote to leave and they were attacked for it!!!!

Indy, June 2014: "THIS is Modern War!" Jesse, May 2023: "This is modern war?" Best closing quote of an episode yet.

@jlvfr

11 ай бұрын

Episode of?

@johnmullen7775

11 ай бұрын

@@jlvfr The Great War

@itsblitz4437

11 ай бұрын

What show is that?

@kingjoe3rd

11 ай бұрын

@@itsblitz4437 it's kind of a related KZread channel called"The Great War". I think Jesse used to be a part of that channel.

@jessealexander2695

11 ай бұрын

@@kingjoe3rd I host both channels.

This is modern war

@imnotyourfriendbuddy1883

11 ай бұрын

hey Junior, you find the Holy Grail yet?

@indianajones4321

11 ай бұрын

@@imnotyourfriendbuddy1883 in 1938

@yorick6035

11 ай бұрын

This was also my first thought: just quote Indy Neidell and call it a day

@charlesburgoyne-probyn6044

11 ай бұрын

The others were for their time

@shorunqualtec2070

11 ай бұрын

But does it change?

I would say that Modern Warfare began with the end of the pitched battle: The classic single-day engagements that, in combination with long marches with little enemy contact, would more or less form the campaign. In modern warfare, the conflicting powers find themselves almost continuously in contact, and with troops dispersed across the entire width of the frontage between the opposing nations, albeit with greater or lesser concentrations of troops in certain sectors.

@astrobullivant5908

11 ай бұрын

@jerry coob, A little more than a year ago, I would have agreed with you. The huge problem your analysis now is that the Russo-Ukrainian war has seen quite a bit of pitched battle in places like Vuhledar.

@peaceraybob

11 ай бұрын

Then where do multi-month sieges come in? Or, similarly, multi-month or year campaigns that conclude with a single-day battle? This argument, as with Jessie's, seems to rely mainly on the available numbers of troops involved - and thus depend almost entirely on the growth of human populations worldwide. A quick google and I found a chart suggesting that there were only a billion people in 1804; is this sufficient to support modern war?

@astrobullivant5908

11 ай бұрын

@@peaceraybob Multi-month sieges go back thousands of years though. Look up Tyre in 332 BCE for instance.

@mackenzieblair8135

11 ай бұрын

In the American Civil War the Army of the Potomac and Army of Northern Virginia were in constant contact from the start of the Overland Campaign to the conclusion of the war approximately a year later.

@astrobullivant5908

11 ай бұрын

@@mackenzieblair8135 The American Civil War does begin many aspects of "Modern Warfare", but we Americans don't like to think of it that way, and the political aspects of the war required much of it to be fought in Napoleonic style. We Americans like to think of the Civil War as being the 20th Maine charging down Little Round Top, not blowing up mine-shafts at the Battle of the Crater.

For me, the first world war is the Seven Years/French and Indian War. This was fought on four different continents with just about every type of weapon available. I do not think you could point at one war and say "this is the change." I think it is a period starting with the Crimean War, through the Sepoy Rebellion and the ending with the U.S. Civil War.

@e.l.b6435

11 ай бұрын

Why Not the 30 years war or even The Crusades, with religion as the center of the conflict (so ideology)

@stevenwhite7763

11 ай бұрын

@@e.l.b6435 I lean more towards technological advancements over ideology. Ideological us vs them has always been around.

@hlynnkeith9334

11 ай бұрын

Steven White I agree with you that the Seven Years War was the first global war.

@bluemarlin8138

11 ай бұрын

@@e.l.b6435 Because they were basically confined to Europe and the Mediterranean.

@bluemarlin8138

11 ай бұрын

@@stevenwhite7763 I agree. Motivation has very little to do with whether a war is modern or not.

William T. Sherman was considered by Civil War historian Shelby Foote as the first modern general, because he recognized that an army in the field depended on rear-echelon morale and materiel, and his March to the Sea (and his 1865 march through the Carolinas) were planned to cut the heart out of the Confederacy.

@STho205

11 ай бұрын

Many a medieval prince burned the homes and fields of the vassals of his rival in war. Braddock and Montclair both burned out villages of native supporters...often done by their native supporters who took scalps and captives. The Tennessee Volunteers crossed Ditto Landing in Huntsville in Sept 1813 to burn out the villages and crops of the Red Sticks before they could be harvested...and before that the Red Sticks had spent a month in South Alabama burning out settlements, raising homes, farms and burning ferries between Mims (Aug) and the Holy Ground (Dec 1813). Often histories are painted by poets that cherry pick to write a Homeric Epic.

@joeywheelerii9136

11 ай бұрын

​@@STho205 Yeah I never understood why people always say. I guess he destroyed alot of Railroads pretty the Mongols and Romans never did that

@alfonsomunoz4424

11 ай бұрын

Yeah, but Shelby is a US civil war historian so he has a bias towards civil war generals.

@johnashtone7167

11 ай бұрын

An army marches on its stomach was already established as a truism by the 1760s. Lord Wellington who took over from General Sir John Moore in the Peninsula campaign 1808, also took over Moore's detail to supply lines, he was painfully aware that his troops needed supplies and moral nourishment. Sherman was a brilliant and true Soldiers General, and as such looked after his men. Shelby Foote I fear is suffering from USAism, namely fly from any where in the world to USA, and when you land, watch the rest of the world disappear🤣😂🤣😂 Sherman was well versed with Caesar, Wellington and Napoleon. And Henry V 1415? Love to you Walter, from Yorkshire England, a little Country that sees a big world😍

@realhorrorshow8547

11 ай бұрын

It's true that Sherman was one of the first generals of the modern era to recognise that war is total war. That anyone and anything that contributed to the enemy's ability to fight could and should be targeted. But in that, he was reacting to an attitude of his times that was a historical anomaly. Namely that war had rules. That it should be decided between gentlemen on the "field of honour". Of course this was a throwback to medieval concepts of chivalry which, in the medieval period were actually seldom adhered to. A member of the nobility might expect to be captured and then ransomed because his family could pay and war costs money. The common soldier however, had better know when the battle was lost and take to his heels because to the winning side it was less trouble to kill him than leave him alive. The idea that you would house, feed and guard large numbers of prisoners is a modern one and already going out of fashion it seems. As others have pointed out, there was a great deal of looting and pillaging in most eras of war. Partly because, if done in the enemy's country it weakened his fighting power, but also because soldiers were often left unpaid and primitive logistics meant that they only way they could eat was to steal food. I think the first modern general to adopt it as a deliberate policy was Napoleon with his maxim "let war pay for war". But it can be argued that he was only making a virtue out of necessity. He could not have fed and paid his armies out of French resources even if he'd wanted to.

WW1 was the first war to use every weapon short of nukes that we have available to us today. Subs, tanks, artillary, aircraft, nerve gas, landmines, armoured ships, machine guns, bombing cities from aircraft etc. They may have been cruder versions of the more technically advanced ones we have today but they were used none the less.

@chrismath149

11 ай бұрын

Aren't you ignoring "a few" systems? Cyberwarfare? Long range tactical missiles (like Tomahawk - that do not use nuclear warheads regularly)?

@secretsfullofsaucers

11 ай бұрын

@@chrismath149 Arguably the Paris gun was a proto-missile en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Gun#

@chrismath149

11 ай бұрын

@@secretsfullofsaucers A missile is a self propelled projectile. Afaik that is not correct for the Paris Gun. And even if correct, the prevelance of cyberwarfare is something that was still not seen in world war 1 (intercepting message was done - as was interrupting communication with other nations - the British cut the undersea cable between Germany and the US for example). But those examples aren't quite in the same league - nowadays you can cause active damage by hacking into systems.

@Grimmtoof

11 ай бұрын

​@@chrismath149I would say that cutting or listening into telegraph cables was an early form of cyber warfare. It had many of the same effects a hacking attack would have on a modern military.

@chrismath149

11 ай бұрын

@@Grimmtoof If you manage to get into the control system of a nuclear power plant or a damn you can create Tchernobyl 2.0 or flood an entire valley. Or you switch off the energy production facility of the entire country you are fighting if your opponent is too reliant on a single programm. It is in no relation to temporarily disturb the communication of your opponent.

On the 21th of September 1792 the famous german poet and novellist Goethe visited the area around the french village of Valmy one day after a battle took place there. He visited both the prussian army of the first coalition and the french revolutionary army. He had no glue to military tactics or weapons but he identified the different characters of the two armies. The prussian soldiers were mercenaries who fought for money and their king but the french soldiers described themselves as armed citizens who fought for their country and the republic. This impressed Goethe so he said to some officers: "Here and now starts a new era of world's history and you can say you'd been around." So we can describe the war of the first coalition as the first modern war.

@stanleyrogouski

11 ай бұрын

You could say the same thing about the Battle of Trenton. Patriotic Americans fighting Hessians (who were basically German peasants kidnapped by the Prince and rented out to foreign governments).

@pierren___

11 ай бұрын

​@@stanleyrogouskithat wasnt mass conscription based on patriotism

@icedancer2370

11 ай бұрын

Just because Goethe said a thing does not make it true. He was just a man with an opinion.

@cpp3221

11 ай бұрын

You could say the exact same thing for the war of the spanish succession since similar conscription system were in place.

@pierren___

11 ай бұрын

@@cpp3221 no, they didnt have a total mobilisation of 1 million men lmao.

I DO think that modern warfare began with the American Civil War. Before this armies moved at the speed they could march or could be carried by [sailing] ship or could march, and beacons, semaphores and carrier pigeons notwithstanding generals were incommunicado with their government or each other. Wars were in reality just a sequence of battles. In the American Civil War, for the first time soldiers could be quickly conveyed and supplied over long distances by rail, and the electric telegraph meant commanders could communicate near instantly with their capital and each other allowing multiple armies to take to the field and fight simultaneously. True both of these features, and organised treatment of the wounded, were first used during the Crimean War, but were built to be employed in its furtherance, rather than already existing and being used routinely. The Union Army was AFAIK also the first to use aircraft (balloons) for surveillance.

@doritofeesh

11 ай бұрын

You are correct regarding the differences in how fast armies could mobilize. However, I'd like to point out that armies maintaining communications with the government and with each other wasn't particularly new by the time of the ACW. As far back as the 17th-18th century, French marechals had to keep in constant correspondence with the king and his ministers. This costed crucial days, even weeks, however. At times, the desires of the government were also counterintuitive to what needed to actually be done due to developing situations on the front (in fact, even Lincoln often faced this latter issue and, by the end, largely allowed Grant more freedom and jurisdiction regarding the course of his campaigns).

For me, the first modern war is the Russo-Japanese War, as it was the first war in which more people died from the fighting than just disease or starvation

@bluesteel8376

11 ай бұрын

This is the war for me as well. First war where people got mowed down in large numbers really quickly without having any chance of doing damage themselves.

@imjennasidel6703

11 ай бұрын

@@bluesteel8376napoleonic soldiers looking at incoming cannon balls 👁️👄👁️

@michaelferrell7924

11 ай бұрын

@@imjennasidel6703 me and the boys at Wagram watching our battalion cease to exist before we got with in musket range of the Austrians on the plateau

@heavybolter6396

11 ай бұрын

​@@imjennasidel6703 still more soldiers died from disease and starvation during napoleon

@horsterer77

11 ай бұрын

Not only is that an ignorant and cynical definition, you also need to replace the word 'people' with 'combat troops' . The majority of troops in any war never are directly involved in combat, and the majority of people suffering from war and dying due to it are civilians. War kills in many ways, battle has always been just a small part of it.

I am willing to say the American Civil War of the 1860s marked the transition from Napoleonic to modern warfare in regards to weapons and tactics. Do not forget the battles fought in 1864 had different tactics as did the Prussians fighting the Second Schelswig War that same year. Not to mention the German Unification Wars of the same decade saw the first use of a modern general staff.

@ObsydianShade

11 ай бұрын

I'd agree with that. The war looked very different at the beginning, than it did at the end.

@realdragao6367

11 ай бұрын

Paraguayan war: am i a joke to you

@azimisyauqieabdulwahab9401

9 ай бұрын

Slavery wars

@SStupendous

2 ай бұрын

​@@realdragao6367 Given half the soldiers in that war wee using flintlocks muskets of a standard and design more archaic than those used on the Grand Armée 50 years earlier, yes, it doesn't count and added nothing to the advancements of the art of war.

@realdragao6367

2 ай бұрын

@@SStupendous 70% of a entire ethnicity being wiped out whilst also showing the world how obsolete early 1800 tactics became + Like in the Schleswig and American Civil war they also had a small deployment of trenches which would be fully adopted during WW1.

Imo the Civil War can be viewed as a transitionary war, one which had the decisive, closed order battles of earlier eras, but as the war stretched on, battle fronts expanded, war effort and cause expanded. Where the war began with armies moving in small fronts to take specific targets and defeat an equally concentrated foe, it ended with mass assaults on miles-long trench lines, with armies marching in loose order, decimating enemy infrastructure as they went. It was one of the first examples of total war, with the north truly dedicating itself wholly to ending the war. Tactics and strategy evolved from earlier napoleonic style ideas to the earliest forms of large scale modern war.

@kyyyni

Ай бұрын

Every single war is transitionary.

I am tempted to say that while the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815) *opened the door* to the advent of Modern War (via mass mobilization and ideological formation), but it was the great power wars of the mid-19th Century that actually walked through it: It was these wars, as Jesse notes at @17:15, that first leveraged the technological power of the Industrial Revolution. I think this would make the *Crimean War* the first Modern War (barely), followed rapidly by the Italian Wars of Unification, the Civil War, the Austro-Prussian War, and the Franco-Prussian War.

@Conn30Mtenor

9 ай бұрын

The French Revolution introduced massed national armies and conscript armies. The Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian wars postdated the USCW though.

@richardmalcolm1457

9 ай бұрын

@@Conn30Mtenor That is true. But the Crimean War predated the US Civil War.

@mrbrainbob5320

7 ай бұрын

​@@richardmalcolm1457but that was a small war

@richardmalcolm1457

7 ай бұрын

@@mrbrainbob5320Which war? The Crimean War? It's a pretty big war (esp. for the 19th Century) if you have 1.5 million military personnel engaged, and total KIA of 600K!

@mrbrainbob5320

7 ай бұрын

@@richardmalcolm1457 no 110k KIA 500 Killed in non combative roles.

The widespread use of copper and brass cartridges in the civil war was a real revolution for an army. And the breechloading rifles that used them showed how increased firepower could be so effective.

@azimisyauqieabdulwahab9401

9 ай бұрын

What happened to the second US Civil War?

Napoleonic could be as wars before it were very much about conquering fortresses and areas rather than destroying the opposing army capabilities, just how Napoleon always did himself

@thomasjamison2050

11 ай бұрын

Nope. If you define it that way, you have to go back to at least the Romans.

@Cassius4

11 ай бұрын

Dumbest thing I’ve heard

@heh9392

11 ай бұрын

@@thomasjamison2050 Castles really became a thing during medieval times sir.

@economicerudite4924

11 ай бұрын

I would argue that 'conquering fortresses' as a method of warfare was ended with the wide use of the cannon (centuries before the French Revolution). This led to first the cavalry (and then, following this, the pike and shot) paradigm shifts during the rennaissance. By the time Napoleon was about, conquering fortresses had long ago been discarded. Frederick the Great, Aleksandr Suvorov, the Duke of Marlborough, Henri Turenne, Eugene of Savoy and Gustavas Adolphus are all evidence of what I am saying.

@thomasjamison2050

11 ай бұрын

@@economicerudite4924 Nah. Sure, artillery made the job easier, but the French still built the Maginot Line and the Germans never wanted to seriously assault it. Sure, methods of construction changed, but not the principle of building fortifications and of using them for defensive purposes.

The civil war was the first to introduce industrial scale arms, a rapid change of unit tactics that impacted the entire world, and the first one to be photographed and widely reported with out the embellishments that painted scenes would show. That's why it should be cconsidered the first modern war

This is a fantastic piece of work. Thank you.

13:50 The irony is that though this is how today's wars are described, the wars are usually over the interests of the "kings" instead of the interests of the people, but refusing to fight or disagreeing with the declaration of war can get you into massive trouble.

@crabluva

11 ай бұрын

Tens of millions of Americans protested Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, etc. There will be massive unrest over whatever the next conflict the US gets involved in.

@shaider1982

11 ай бұрын

I'd argue that is always the case. War, war never changes.

@carlhicksjr8401

11 ай бұрын

There are many different kinds of courage. Physical courage is easily the most common. Moral and ethical courage is far, FAR rarer. As for France's fate with it's levee en masse, by 1815 800,000 of those men were dead or crippled, having been pissed away in nameless graves from Lisbon to Moscow by Napoleon's pursuit of glory. Just precisely now different THAT is from dying in the name of a king really does elude me.

@Penguin-lc3eg

11 ай бұрын

​@carlhicksjr8401 it's different because those men were motivated by nationalism. The logic to why they fought, for nation and shared understanding of France. That's a very big difference

@carlhicksjr8401

11 ай бұрын

@@Penguin-lc3eg The problem with that is that you end up just as dead because a Corsican midget told you that your country and his glory were the same thing. So tell me why that lie was 'better' than Henry II [Plantagenet] truth?

As we progress further into the 21st century, the definition of a modern war grows ever distorted. For some, the first modern war might be the Crimean War due to the prevalence of artillery, rail, and firearms. However, amidst the Crimean War, one might have claimed that the first modern war had occurred in the 18th century. This just goes to show that as history progresses and our definition of a modern war expands, older historical events that were once proclaimed the first modern war find themselves superseded by a future even. For myself, I would state that the first modern wars have occurred since at least the 16th - 17th centuries. These centuries witnessed the old chivalric art of war being superseded with firearms, artillery, and gunpowder. Moreover, by the mid 17th century, France’s Marshal Vauban had mastered siegecraft which would go on to define the following centuries of warfare. And while warfare today resembles very little of the warfare of the 16th - 17th centuries, firearms and artillery remain an integral part of modern warfare and will continue to do so for centuries.

@ootown

11 ай бұрын

Furthermore, as we look to the Napoleonic Wars, Great Britain and France began engaging in what is known today as economic warfare. Economic warfare is a type of warfare in which one nation seeks to cripple and devastate the economic and social affluence of another. From naval blockades to economic sanctions, economic warfare has played an integral role in the trajectory of this planet for upwards of 200 years. In World War 1, we can see the devastating affects which this type of warfare had on the German home front.

Informative and entertaining history documentary as always, thank you!

The Napoleonic conflict still largely employed military doctrine, tactics, and technology that had been relatively stable for an extremely long time. Smooth bore, short-range infantry small arms, and direct fire artillery with solid projectiles, resulted in battles that would have made sense to a soldier from the late 15th century, although that soldier would have been mightily impressed by the size of the armies. The transition to long range rifles and indirect artillery fire with explosive projectiles seems like the biggest quantum jump in military technology ever, arguably excluding nuclear weapons. I think you've kind of made the case for the Crimean War.

For me is the War of Sixth Coalition. If you look the troops movements and battlespaces looks like WW1

@franzxaverjosephconradgraf6850

11 ай бұрын

You are right although the Weapon system used and the numbers were no where near the resemblance of WW1

@Conorp77

11 ай бұрын

@@franzxaverjosephconradgraf6850 Of course not, but Leipzig was still the largest battle ever fought in Europe before WWI.

A very interesting discussion, probably the best I've ever seen about the topic of war. KUDOS

Excellent overview! Extremely informative! Great bibliographic sources! Thank you!

This was a fantastic presentation, thank you!

Excellent. Congrats and thanks.

I think that the American Civil and Crimean Wars were Proto -modern wars not quite there but having some aspects. I think bolt action rifles, machine guns or perhaps the introduction of using cars for supplies would be a great jumping off point.

@SStupendous

2 ай бұрын

The first sentence - problem is that you can say the exact same things about Ww1.

I would say (my own amateurish interpretation): The last old style pre modern war: Napoleonic Wars The first true modern war: Russo-Japanese War Development from old style pre modern war to modern: 1815 - 1904 First war that was more moderen then pre modern: Crimean War or American Civil War

I think WW1 sort of ticks all the boxes. It of course has the nation-state and the patriotic identity that at goes with it. It has the industrial scale aspect, where a combatant's ability to maximize the industrial capacity of their economy plays a major role. And then of course it takes place in "many dimensions". Land, air, sea and undersea; though space assets aren't around and there is no cyber domain. But the fact it greatly expanded the dimensions of warfare is the important part. It also introduced WMD on an industrial scale. After WW1, chemical, biological and eventually nuclear weapons would be part of a nation's arsenal, even if they weren't always used. I just think WW1 checks off nearly all the boxes for what we view as modern war; and the boxes it doesn't check off, were all set up during thr conflict.

What an interesting video, many thanks. I had not thought of the essence of war in these ways.

You should make a video covering the War of the Pacific (1879-1884), some historians also claim it to be the first modern war and it is a very interesting conflict.

@hlynnkeith9334

11 ай бұрын

Only historians in Chile or Peru claim the War of the Pacific was the first modern war. But I grant you that it was an interesting war. More interesting to me was the Chaco War.

@San_Vito

11 ай бұрын

The Paraguayan War, or War of the Triple Alliance preceded it.

@hlynnkeith9334

11 ай бұрын

@@San_Vito Accounts of the Paraguayan War are few, and each one is biased. The first account I read was in Portuguese (from Brazil). The second was in Spanish (from Argentina). The third was in Spanish (from Paraguay). Have not found an account from Uruguay. I have seen two English language accounts and both were short summaries. The Paraguayan War was more notable for its impact on post-war Paraguay than for any military action. Plus the fact that the war created the Brazilian and Argentine military. Given the dearth of accounts in English I think Jesse and Flo will pass on this war.

I've always thought of the Marian Reforms in the Roman Republic to be the first "modern" army.

@r.markclayton4821

11 ай бұрын

Probably. The UK did not get a standing army until Cromwell. Both however did not fight modern wars, although Roman roads did permit faster army movement and communication within their empire.

I know it might sound like a long shot, but I feel like you could make a case, at least for beginnings/roots, for wars like the war of the Spanish Succession or the 7 years war because they were wars about the “balance of power” or national goals more than religion. The 7 years war especially because it had a global scale, was driven by nations’ goals, saw alliance systems, and had a bureaucratic end/peacemaking (like WW1). I also feel like these wars had their roots all the way back in the 30 years war. Of course, I feel that the first “completely modern” war occurred sometime in the 19th or 20th century.

@jessealexander2695

11 ай бұрын

The wars you mention were driven by states' and dynatsties' interests, more than nations. That is an important difference.

@t.wcharles2171

11 ай бұрын

​@@jessealexander2695 but the King's in the age of absolutism were the nation and so the King's interests were the national interests.

@jessealexander2695

11 ай бұрын

@@t.wcharles2171 There was no conept of nation at that time, as we know it now.

@t.wcharles2171

11 ай бұрын

@@jessealexander2695 it was really the Proto-Nation from which ideas of what a nation was first began to develop however as you said the state of the nation its psyche was entirely distinct from the modern concept of the nation.

@jessealexander2695

11 ай бұрын

@@t.wcharles2171 Yes, there were some proto-nation ideas in the 18th century, esp among some groups. Cheers, I'm off to the pub!

I'd love an in depth docu-series on the US Civil War like you guys have done with the Franco-Prussian war. I'm sure you guys would do it justice

I think the definitive change that made war "modern" is when armies became so large -- itself a function of the scale of industrial production -- that armies could form a "front line." Before that, war was about finding the other army and using maneuver to outflank the enemy if you decided to have a battle. Once the armies had entrenched from Switzerland to the North Sea in 1914, finding the enemy was no longer an issue. The enemy was in front of you. As a result, Grant's 1864 Overland Campaign was only partly modern because neither side had enough troops to either block or encircle their adversary. Even at Petersburg, Grant never encircled the entire city, but he did eventually block every railroad to the south or west.

Great video

The line in the sand i think of is the use of smokeless powder. There are many other forms of technology that are determinants such as use of industrial produced firearms with interchangeable parts self contained cartridges etc but they all happen at the time of smokeless powder. You can't really consider a war modern, if they use black powder. Mauser bolt action rifles are an example. Theres no way you can say a conflict that employed Mausers was anything but modern. So somewhere between the Franco-Prussian war and the 2nd Boer war. By the time of the American Spanish war, wars were definitely modern. Sometimes in the middle of the 1880s, approximately when repeating bolt action Mauser rifles came into use.

Thanks!

The Russo-Japanese War was the first War of the Contemporary Machine Age.

Great topic, could argue this till the next one?✌️

I am surprised I am not seeing any comments pointing out that "modern" is a moving target that cannot be pinned down. The "first modern war" will always change as warfare does the same.

Thanks for the discussion. I'm stuck on the Crimean War.

Great episode 👍 By the way, did you upload your most recent podcast on KZread to Patreon too? I'm just asking because I haven't seen any new uploads on Patreon since this modern war video

A fascinating thought exercise. Like all of you at Real Time History, I've not sure what modern war is anymore. I used to think the first modern war was World War 1 but I don't know anymore.

@jessealexander2695

11 ай бұрын

Yup, a tricky one.

The paintings makes me want to get some plein air landscape and urban painting in soon. Minus the soldiers and burning

Interesting Discussion

This is my favorite channel ever

Very cool

I give it to the civil war on the simple premise that I believe that is when the first machine powered fully automatic drive by took place on a train at the battle of bull run. Something silly yet very modern sounding

I had heard that the Crimean War was the first modern war.

@sfjp1

11 ай бұрын

It was , many think the American Civil War is regarded the first modern war with the argument it contained all the elements that make a modern war, but neglect to understand Al those elements plus more happened earlier in the Crimean.

An interesting idea that came to my mind for what a modern war is, is the effect of disease. The First World War, was the first war where more people died from fighting than from disease, also it's the first war where cavalry played an insignificant part. This means that the First World War is the first modern war, where only humans and modern human technology, is the only important part in the war. And you can even apply this criteria to other wars, if people are more effected by disease or animals (cavalry) then that is not a modern war. Modern war is a purely human event.

@taylorarnold5311

5 ай бұрын

Nah that's not true. In 1812 more French troops lost there lives from sickness when Napoleon invaded Russia. In fact sickness has always caused more casualties in war then the actual war itself. Especially back then when they had no antibiotics and other modern medicines.

@taylorarnold5311

5 ай бұрын

Also in world war 2 the Germans had way more horses than tanks and vehicles. 600000 in fact .

I look at logistics. Here, railways made a icredible difference. The first war, when this was fully used was the Franco-Prussian War.

@sfdeliveries76

11 ай бұрын

You forgot about the American Civil War.

@hlynnkeith9334

11 ай бұрын

@@sfdeliveries76 MadZin Moo must be European. Europeans are ignorant of the ACW. President Grant sent Phil Sheridan to Europe on the eve of the Franco-Prussian War. Sheridan saw the war from the French side and the Prussian side. He reported back to Grant that the Americans had nothing to learn from the Europeans. Everything the Europeans did, the Americans had done in the Civil War and done on a larger scale and faster and better.

@paul_5848

11 ай бұрын

​​@@sfdeliveries76 Franco-Prussian war was a war that revolved around this concept. Civil war had it but so did several other earlier wars in Europe Italian wars, Hungarian War, but the scale and impact of Franco Prussian was everything

I recently made a similar argument in comments on Brandon F channel, but I was questioning if the French veterans from that were influenced by the US idea of fighting for the nation and whether the ideas of how to use citizens en masse as soldiers were actually developed in AWI, Brandon's special subject, not the French Revolutionary War.

@TacticusPrime

9 ай бұрын

It's an interesting idea, but I don't buy it. The American War of Independence didn't carry out a national conscription, and heck didn't feature a single nation. Americans like to project backwards some kind of 13 Colonies nationalism, but that didn't exist. The Continental Congress was an alliance, more like the EU. People thought of themselves as Virginians, New Yorkers, etc., not Americans. Even the elements of the Continental Army were always organized by the various states.

I think the most unique characteristic of "current" war is camouflage. It used to not be a thing at all, you needed to be visible on the battlefield to be ordered around but firepower increased so massively from 1840s to 1890s you went from sort range muskets shooting 2.5 rounds per minute to long range rifles shooting 25 rounds per minute. Then by the middle of the next century it was hundreds of rounds per minute. When so many shots can be fired so quickly over such a long range, this causes so called "napoleonic tactics" to become completely useless. By the way, Napoleonic era tactics should be considered "modern" as it coincides with the modern era. I'd call this, Industrial War. It is industry that created such firepower

The 'asymmetrical battlespace' of current conflicts is regarded by many as exceptional compared to the two World Wars, however if you look at conflict throughout history such a state has been the norm. If anything 'symmetrical' warfare with specific battlelines has been more the exception than the rule historically.

One grisly point to put in the US Civil War's column as a 'modern' war is how well the US dealt with its dead during the Great War. Apparently, the European powers were shocked at how organized the US was when it came to gathering the hundreds or thousands of dead from the battlefield and then processing them for either burial or repatriation to the US. Unlike the European powers who used a haphazard system if they used a system at all. When asked how they came up with such a system, the US Army replied that they'd dusted off the manuals explaining how they did it during the Civil War.

I'm not going to argue the Romans were fighting modern wars but it is interesting to think about how important "citizen soldiers" seem to be to this concept and you can see some of the same elements all the way back in the Roman Republic (and sometimes even refined in the Roman Empire)

nice video. JJ

I disagree that the Civil War didn't feature well-coordinated military action. The telegraph enabled Ulysses S. Grant to essentially invent the army group. In his Overland Campaign, Grant directly supervised the operations of the Army of the Potomac while simultaneously directing the operations of the Army of the Shenandoah, the Army of the James, the Army of the Ohio, and the Army of the Tennessee, which were all spread out over hundreds of miles.

@TheFranchiseCA

11 ай бұрын

Fully agreed. The Federal army's ability and willingness to coordinate forces, under Grant's overall command, made a big difference late in the war.

Here's my take: The wars of conquest of the Mongol Empire represented the first modern war, with extreme mobility, use of combined arms, and totality, in many cases involving the extermination of entire civilian populations. The Russo-Japanese War was the first hypermodern war, arguments for that given by Steinberg as referenced in the video. The Korean War was the first postmodern war, as it involved the mandate of the UN, universal use of jet propulsion in air power, and the threat of large-scale nuclear strikes. (The quasi-postmodern 2nd World War was a transitional conflict and a prelude to the Korean War, as it would bring about both the power blocs and the technology that we would see in Korea.) The Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022 onwards is the first neo-hypermodern war, a returning to the earlier type of localized wars of imperial conquest, and to a (post-hypermodern) Great War style trench warfare and stalemate. Other than that, my contention is really that the entire concept of "modern" (in the sense of anything other that "recent") - or derivations thereof - is not illuminating at all. We should be able to appreciate and understand the type of warfare of every era and region for what they are, without the crutch of superfluous ill-defined or outright vacuous external labels.

I would say the Franco-Prussian war is the first modern war as it saw the first application of the sociocultural, logistics, and tactics of modern warfare all together.

Once soldiers replace warriors is when modern war began. I don't mean that as an insult, but as a point of differentiation. Warriors use to be a class one dedicated their lives to and others invested in which was necessary for success on the battlefield. Once firearms become prevalent, any person from any class can be successful on the battlefield for a fraction of the cost. This in my opinion makes the wars of the 16th century far more similar to 20th century wars than they are to even just 15th century conflicts.

Better to talk about the evolution of war from one era to another rather than "modern" war as an isolated event. This video does this very well.

In german military history or weapons magazines the US civil war ( 1861/1865) , the ( second) Boers War 1899/1901 and the Russo/Japanese war are seen as most important forerunners of wwl, while the German/ French war of 1870/71 is seen in Germany as last large old stlyle war. In many aspects war started 1914 as it ended in 1871.

Modern war, in a quote i heard on Dan Carlin's "Hardcore History" during his series on WW1, from Napoleon in earlier wars in europe "when he spoke of "spending" 30,000 /day" . This attitude given the revolutions in weaponery is the start, and quite possibly the first modern war.

Excellent show - really thought provoking!

A thought jumped out at me at the end, when were balloons first used in a warfare capacity? I know they were used as artillery and troop movement spotters during the US Civil War.

@andrewshaw1571

11 ай бұрын

French revolutionary wars.

Interesting topic. A couple of questions: Do both sides of a conflict have to exemplify the characteristics of modern war? Do all the characteristics have to be present or does a majority suffice? Is it enough that a practice or change revolutionized a conflict or does a combatant have to achieve all aspects even if it is the losing side? Answers to these questions might help narrow down our understanding of "modern war" to one we can agree on as being the first.

I agree.

In my opinion the first modern was The Great War where almost all facets of what makes a current war was born. Modern communication brought organizational structure in the form of HQ's forward bases to squads all operating mostly cohesive, motorization of troops and supplies as well as utilizing rail, politics and general staff motivations and approach to war. Each were done before The Great War but it all seemed to have been utilized by then by both sides along with new modern inventions like tanks and airplanes.

@obinnaonyegiri4477

11 ай бұрын

DTRY1Q

I see the US Civil War as the beginning of modern war, and the end of the Napoleonic wars. So it was a little bit of both.

The very first modern war was probably the Crimean War of 1853-55. Here's why: - The introduction of technologies that would not only change the face of warfare, but change the face the of the world. To whit: - - Railroads - - Steamships - - Breech-loaded cannon - - Telegraphs and advent of the Signal Corps [or local equivalent] - - Canned rations - - Professional nursing and the advent of the Nursing Corps [or local equivalent] and organized, systematic battlefield evacuation of the wounded. The last important thing was that the English had issued their entire army a rifled musket. No longer was practical battlefield marksmanship the preserve of specialist units like Riflemen, Voltigeurs, or Sharpshooters. With a rifled musket every single soldier in the battle line could realistically be expected to aim his piece and hit a target 200 yds. away. And THAT really was a game changer. And all these crows would come home to a butcher's banquet in the US Civil War just 5 years later. All things considered, the Crimea was the first industrial war, so that makes it the first modern one.

Minor nitpick, but it’s Simon Bolívar, not Simon De Bolivar. Also thanks for bringing him up, I wish there was more content about him since he liberated many countries from Spanish rule and was a military and political genius.

I think Crimean war,But the Austrian-Prussian war introduced many new elements as well.

I'd bet that there isn't one single modern war as much as a transition period in which warfare moved from pre-industrial to industrial organisation and the weapons used increased in destruction potential, but not every change came at the same time, some were triggered before in some countries due to cultural differences whereas in other countries some other changes in war mentality came about first

My Humble opinion is that the process stars to take shape in the Crimean War and accelerates from there.

A far seeing and incisive analysis of the facts debating what is indeed an interesting question. I liked your first premise that World War Two defines in total the first and "last" Modern War and therefore World War One was the first transitional and transformative Modern War.

The Industrial Revolution was already well under way in Britain at the time of the French Revolution. Britain had the wherewithal to sustain a generational struggle against France, and the financial power to subsidize continental allies. Napoleon was correct when he said that Britain was his deadliest foe.

Okay, you got me. I starting watching the video to dispute your assertion that the US Civil War was not a Modern War. (We will throw out the "First" bit for now.) But you clearly and excellently point out that what is or is not a Modern War depends entirely on your definition of Modern War. And there are many different definitions to choose from. The History of the Military Art taught at West Point in 1978 listed the Dawn of Modern Warfare as Gustavus Adolphus because of his use of Combined Arms Warfare. Ideology, administration, and industrialization were not part of the definition or criteria. (I'm not sure what is taught there now.) Total War was a separate thing, not connected to Modern War. A war could be either one, both, or neither. Total War tends to be thought of as beginning with the Napoleonic Wars. The US Civil War tends to be thought of as the first Industrial or Technological War because of the use of rifled muskets, telegraph, railroads, balloon observation, breech loaders, etc. (You get the idea.) Although you might make the observation that this was the first AMERICAN Industrial War.

I’d say WW1 was the first modern war. It has literally been the basis, in terms of armament that we all use. We had tanks, aircraft, artillery, submarines (u-boats), steel ships, machine guns, city bombings e.t.c.

Jesse, I know you put a *lot* of effort into the pronunciation of foreign languages, which shows, since you achieve awesome results. So, this is just constructive criticism to someone that, I think, will welcome it: in Spanish, the surname Bolívar has the stress in the second syllable, so, it's Bo-LI-var, not Bo-li-VAR. The tilde sign in Spanish always shows where the stress is (if there's no tilde, you need to know the rules of where the stress relies; they are not hard, since they have no exceptions). Great video, as always. I really enjoy these videos that are food for thought and are not based on some consensus, nor try to impose just one perspective but, rather, they force us to consider different perspectives and ways in which a subject can be analyzed. Sadly, this is the exception in YT, where people seek clear-cut definitions to everything and discard the nuances and complexities of reality. Keep them coming!

If by a modern war we mean a conflict where both the populations and the governments are informed of the events on the battlefield in a rapid manner and their opinions influence the decisions of the commanders on the terrain then its the Crimean war.

I actually would say that the first Modern War were the Italian Wars. In this time span of 1494-1559 we saw the transformation from Medieval doctrine to Modern doctrine, with the implementation of guns in mass quantities, new ranking structure to accomodate the larger military, a glimpse at combined arms, with infantry, cavalry and artillery working together. They led to the formation of the Tercio, and by consequence the profession of the soldier, not just a warrior who followed a lord, or a mercenary that served for money.

@harryhanz1690

11 ай бұрын

I actually would say the first Modern War was the conflict between Homo Sapiens with the Neanderthals and the Denisovans. Modern man finally supplanted the archaic hominids and became the only human species on the planet.

for me modern war starts with ww1. thats when hitting the production and supply systems of a country became key to wining overall. its also when combined arms warfare starts and no battle could be successfully prosecuted without it.

The Second Boer war changed the way the British fought and was the first iteration of the "Concentration camp"

Modern War is the product of a series of Revolutions in Military Affairs dating back to the end of the 30 Years War. Where you draw the line where modern war begins is somewhat arbitrary but I think it points to the Union Campaigns of 1864-5. I reason as follows. The first revolution was the professionalization of war in the wake the destructive 30 Years War which was the last war the relied on mercenary armies. The second revolution was the nationalization of war that occurred in the French Revolutionary period. The third revolution was industrialization of war that occurred in American Civil War. The fourth revolution was the mechanization of war that occurred during WWI. Each RMA was a step required for 20th Century War but by the end of the US Civil War the prerequisites for modern war had been met. Technology really does not change the nature of war, organization does at least until the introduction of nuclear weapons which created a new kind of cabinet war. I consider nuclear weapons to have created a counterrevolution in military affairs.

@r.markclayton4821

11 ай бұрын

Well apart from Putin and the Wagner group in Ukraine...

The first modern war was when my mom found my dad's Playboy magazines in the basement where I lived. I was only 26 years old at the time and their divorce shook my world. Gave me PTSD being a child from a broken home.

A professor of mine summed up WWI as: a 19th century war fought with 20th century technology. No war is truly "modern" every major conflict is a mix of new/old tech and tactics and from these successes/failures arrives the new definition of modern warfare.

In design modernism is roughly the period between 1880-1940. It includes movements like Bauhaus, Art Deco, Surrealism etc. The mid century modern movement persisted till the mid 60’s and Scandinavian Modern is still around.

I am an expert in none of these fields, but it occurs to me that our difficulty defining the first modern war may have more to do with ambiguity of the word "modern" than the subject matter itself. What we are lacking in the word is a clearly defined and achievable objective. The number and definition of elements contained under the umbrella of "modern" are simply too subjective and arbitrary to lead to any conclusion that can lead to consensus. It may be more instructive to deconstruct the term into its various components, identify the points where trends and ideas combined and assign these smaller segments of time definitions descriptive of the changes they denote. Put simply, the question of what is modern warfare and when it started may be impossible to answer because the question is effectively undefined.

Before finishing this video, I am going to post my perception of when the modern Era of war was... the invention of auto/semi-auto or machine guns. When the war machine moved past cannons and muskets. Which I believe was around the 1800s. And that ended the musket/cannon bombardier reign. Before that was siege. Before that was range and armor without much chemistry. So I suppose whenever there was a significant new technology that changed how war is fought by steam rolling the enemy. Nuclear was a time. Then internet, now global networking. And that's if we don't consider economical, political, or theocratic. As we grow as a race time speeds up. Which is why the eras span longer periods the further in time you go. I also believe the motorized time was the start of a new Era.

@minilla3842

11 ай бұрын

Three British wars against the zulus and the Sudanese rebels fit your description.

Napoleonic Wars: no railroads US Civil War: railroads

World War One was the first Modern war truly. Firstly it had tanks, next more proper bombing campaigns and airplanes became fighter aircraft. But the true reason is that it brought about combined arms warfare.

The modern era begins with industrialisation. I think the steam engine best represents the First Industrial Revolution. One is no longer constrained by wind or the river-fed water wheels. We're looking at steamships and locomotives. The first use of locomotives to move troops, artillery pieces, and supplies was by Prussia during the 1846 Polish Uprising. But, does an uprising meet the definition of a war? Up to you to decide. The Crimean War featured steamships, steam gunboats, and British engineers built railways from Balaclava to the frontlines. Further, the telegraph was also used not only on the battlefield but a submarine cable was laid between Balaclava and Varna that linked British and French commanders to their respective capitals. We see tinned food, uniforms and boots made by industrial machines in whole or part (a machine capable of stitching the sole to the boot's upper [Blake] wasn't invented until after the Crimean War, but the upper was stitched by a sewing machine). Kerosene was already used for lighting this time, and I find no evidence of kerosene lamps used during the war, but I would be unsurprised if they were. Synthetic dyes were invented after the war. The British considered a proposal to use cacodyl cyanide shells and rejected it. Crimean War is the first.

"US Civil War"

IMO Modern War was a slow transition from the Early Modern Napoleonic tactics, a transition that started around 1848 when the post-Napoleonic peace ended, slowly developed with Trenches and Chemical Weapons in The Crimean War, Gatling Guns and Trenches in The Civil War, slowly becoming closer and closer to modern war wnd further and further from Early modern war until WW1 when the transition ended

Change is always a process, so we have a hard time pinpointing a certain moment in time when war changed from pre-modern to modern. Every great step in human history was a process rather than a single moment in time changing everything.

@erikschultz7166

11 ай бұрын

I cannot say what was the first modern war, only that each war is more modern then than the one that preceded it.

Despite being you're guys little cousin I must disagree with my war being removed from it's title. The mass draft for one matters a lot, and I would argue against Mitchell, looking at the west we can see big battles with breakthroughs like that of Wilson's Creek early in the war, but the depth of conflict had changed, especially when you look at the west you can see a modern war, Sherman's battles against Johnston in Atlanta follow a continuous skirmish based conflict, the wandering bands in my home state of Missouri. Against the crimean war it was still fought for standard reasons between kingdoms, while the technology and way of war was more modern its causes and politics and economics wasn't, just my thoughts.

It was, like the Franco-Prissian War and the Russo-Turkish War, one of the last of the Napoleonic military culture wars. The Great War was the first modern war.

The American civil war the end of Napoleon war tactics since most at West Point studied the art and later proved futile. They got by with in Mexican War. The Springfield or Enfield a rifled firearm far more accurate and improved artillery added the high casualties. Pickett's charge at Gettysburg was the doorway between modern and combat of old. Toward the end breastworks and trenches solved that why both sides of WWI were common features. West Point, Pruussian military school and British had studied tactics of Thomas Stonewall Jackson and N B Forrest the primary means of moving troops fast to overwhelm