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Did TB Cause World War I?

2023-05-16 · explainer · John · 5:14 · watch on YouTube

Topic: History & curiosities · mode: Explainer · tags: heavy topic, self promotion

John tells how the three teenage would-be assassins of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, already dying of tuberculosis, were willing to die for their cause, recounts the farcical assassination, and says World War I would probably still have happened, though perhaps differently; from 1914 to 1945 TB killed more people than both world wars.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Hook: did tuberculosis partly cause World War I? John's son's claim from school

  • ★★★ John asks whether tuberculosis, which gave us the stethoscope, the Adirondack chair and New Mexico, also partly gave us World War I; his answer is 'kinda'. (hedged) — 00:00:00 · tuberculosis
  • ★★ John recalls the usual causes of World War I, as taught by Crash Course: Europe's complicated alliance system and the growing militarization and expansion of empires. — 00:00:00 · Crash Course, Europe
  • ★★ John's son came home from school and told him tuberculosis partly caused World War I; John was proud, and the story turned out to be true. — 00:00:00 · Henry Green, tuberculosis

00:00:29 — The Sarajevo assassination: the tubercular teenage assassins, TB's changing image, and the farcical sequence of events

  • ★★ John says World War I began after the assassination of Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, a tragedy that led to the deaths of tens of millions. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ John says the assassination was kind of a farce: wildly incompetent support staff around the Archduke on one side, wildly incompetent mostly teenage would-be assassins on the other. (playful) — 00:00:29
  • ★★ John says the assassins were not random child anarchists: they worked for a larger network including Serbian army leaders trying to liberate Serbia from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ John says three teenagers from Belgrade, Princip, Čabrinović and Grabež, went to Sarajevo to kill the Archduke, each given a gun, bombs and a cyanide pill to take once he was dead. — 00:01:28
  • ★★★ Citing a historian, John says all three suffered from tuberculosis and knew they would not live long, which made them willing to give their lives for what they saw as a great cause. — 00:01:57 · tuberculosis
  • ★★ John says TB had earlier been romanticized in Europe as a beautiful way to die, a disease of civilization and refinement affecting beautiful, intelligent and sensitive people. — 00:01:57 · tuberculosis, Europe
  • ★★ John says that after Robert Koch proved in 1882 that a bacterium causes TB, it came to be seen as an illness of contamination, filth and poverty, and people with it were hugely and unjustly stigmatized, a tradition he says would continue. — 00:02:26 · tuberculosis
  • ★★ John says six people lined the parade route; two lost their courage, Čabrinović's bomb missed and hit another car, his cyanide failed, and the river he jumped into was only four inches deep. — 00:02:55
  • ★★ John says rather than returning to the hotel, a companion talked the couple into driving on, and their driver, not knowing Sarajevo, took a wrong turn and stalled while reversing. — 00:03:25
  • ★★ John says Gavrilo Princip, standing right by the stalled car, shot the Archduke and Duchess dead, and his cyanide pill also failed to kill him. — 00:03:54

00:04:23 — Would World War I have happened anyway; history's contingency; TB deaths 1914-1945 exceeded both world wars; sign-off

  • ★★★ John says all three teenagers from Belgrade survived the assassination, were imprisoned, and died of tuberculosis within a few years. — 00:04:23 · tuberculosis
  • ★★★ John thinks World War I would probably still have happened, given so many forces pushing toward conflict, but it might have been different, or possibly not happened at all. (hedged) — 00:04:23
  • ★★★ John says what fascinates him about history is that so much might happen, and then only one set of things does. — 00:04:23
  • ★★★ John says that between 1914 and 1945 more people died of tuberculosis than died in both world wars combined. — 00:04:52 · tuberculosis
  • ★★ John sums up: war sucks, and tuberculosis also sucks. — 00:04:52 · tuberculosis

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description and John's comment point viewers to his Washington Post op-ed on the ongoing horror of tuberculosis. — video description · tuberculosis
  • ★ John's comment says the op-ed is about a young man he met at the Lakka TB hospital in Sierra Leone in 2019, what happened to him, and why. — creator comment · Sierra Leone, tuberculosis

Humor (significant)

  • John on his son learning that tuberculosis partly caused World War I. — 00:00:29

    “of course making connections between human history and tuberculosis is my favorite leisure activity”

  • The would-be assassins were kids sent by older men. — 00:01:28

    “the tradition of older men sending 19-year-olds to do war stuff actually predates 1914 and also postdates it”

  • Koch's discovery overturned TB's romantic image. — 00:02:26

    “tuberculosis was not caused by being hot or artsy, but instead by a bacterium”

  • Čabrinović's bomb misses and his cyanide fails, so he tries to drown himself. — 00:02:55

    “and then jumps into a river, which it turns out is only four inches deep”

  • After the failed bombing, a companion reassures the Archduke and talks him into driving on. — 00:03:25

    “what do you think Sarajevo's full of assassins”

  • The heir's driver stalls the car while trying to reverse. — 00:03:54

    “one thing you probably should be pretty good at in 1914 is driving a stick shift”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand · Franz Ferdinand · Gavrilo Princip · Sarajevo · tuberculosis · World War I

Also: People: Henry Green · Nedeljko Čabrinović · Robert Koch · Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg · Trifko Grabež

Projects: Crash Course

Concepts: Adirondack chair · counterfactual history · history · social stigma · stethoscope

Places: Austria-Hungary · Belgrade · Europe · New Mexico · Serbia

Events: World War II

Only in the description or credits: Sierra Leone · The Washington Post

Also centred on World War I: On Our Way to the Dance (Pizzamas Day 6)

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