Otto von Bismarck - V: Prussia Ascendant - Extra History

Nick DeWitt is carrying on with the art very well. Thanks, Nick. :) And as always, your condensations of history provide great take-away fare. Extra History is one of my favorite mental restaurants. :)

Bill Lemmond

And the chapter about the battle for Moscow is titled "Stalin Saves the World"

Michael Waisfeld

Greetings to thee, Honourable Sir.

Martin Verran

Prussia still didn't on account of just being an administrative division of Germany. :P

Christina Maria Jessen

Soraya pointed me to the comment section and I'm really happy y'all are enjoying my work!

Nick DeWitt

Yeah, asked about it last episode and put him down for voting for an episode. Still, the more you know history right?

Aaron Neumann

This makes me so happy! Can you post here or something so I know when it's up. I'm assuming it will be on DFTBA?

Cody Gerard

Oooh! That's my cue: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-wSL4WqUws&list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5DfJnFBZwz8xd37MA6I16oJ&index=1&t=14s" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-wSL4WqUws&list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5DfJnFBZwz8xd37MA6I16oJ&index=1&t=14s</a>

Extra History

Glad you're enjoying it! We felt we had to do well by Bismarck.

Extra History

Silly horses forever!

Extra History

Woohoo! Thanks for the kind words!

Extra History

The order in which playlists appear isn't something YouTube lets us control. It drives me wild too, especially considering how hard they push us to create playlists in the first place. I'll ping our community manager about the playlist updates. As for switching artists, we really had no choice: David can't draw two series at the same time, and he's been working on ESF for a while now.

Extra History

That's an appropriate title because that paragraph was hysterically funny. ;)

Extra History

We like him too! :D

Extra History

Glad you enjoyed it!

Extra History

Yeah, Nick has been super fun to work with! We love the humor that he brings to his episodes!

Extra History

Oh, don't you worry. I've been working on getting that shirt design since before the first episode. You might say I... always had a plan.

Extra History

Oh you know us, we always strive to be wrong in new and interesting ways! We'll shave off his moustache for the next episode.

Extra History

Yay for Nick!

Extra History

Cool detail! Thank you for adding it!

Extra History

Punnin' is what I got!

Extra History

I'm feeling a bit of deja vu; didn't we talk about Zeppelin before? He's not currently on the schedule, but he's definitely an interesting character so maybe someday!

Extra History

Nick's a wild man, unconstrained and powerful.

Extra History

We're lucky to work with him!

Extra History

Yay! I'll let him know!

Extra History

Ha, so was I. Charge of the Light Brigade is just so ingrained in the cultural consciousness that we expect it even when we know it's something different!

Extra History

Prim = Walpole?

Extra History

I'll let him know! Thanks Kitty!

Extra History

Nick's done a lot of work as an animator and we're excited to have him join the team and see more of those good good gifs!

Extra History

We haven't entirely locked down the dates for our holiday break yet, but it'll probably be the week of December 20 or so!

Extra History

Well...it’s way more complicated than that. You know what’s great though? There’s a couple videos about starting.

Sean Sarff

@Sudarshan Ramani, Prussia didn't start WWI... Austria-Hungary did.

Jake Torrey

The book is called: "Historical decision Hysterical decisions" apparently it got an English release in 2015

Michael Waisfeld

To Kyle Action, For me the whole Bismarck having a plan is belied by the contingent, random, lucky stuff that happens along the way. As Part 5 shows Bismarck waited for something to happen and then the Spanish Succession with that Prussian Prince thing happened...did Bismarck have a backup for German Reunification then? And then of course did Bismarck have any peaceful long-term manner to bring about the unification of Germany without War? Did he have no plans for that? And ultimately, we only also have to consider vocation. Bismarck's main competence was foreign policy and he used that knowledge to leverage his own internal power within Prussia. So how much of Bismarck's planning, or sammlungspolitik as German historians call it, is really a planning, and more like a guy moving across multiple departments at odds with each other. And ultimately there's the long-term precedent of using external warfare and enemies to solve domestic issues. And that was a big goal that led to Prussia starting World War I

Sudarshan Ramani

"Bismarck always has a plan" - I seriously admire his ability to plan things through. It's quite amazing. This is by far my favorite Extra History topic yet, keep up the awesome work!

Kyle Action

Thank you so much for sharing this, I look forward to telling others (and possibly hunting down this book). =)

Carla Hoffman

Yea! I was afraid if David left the silly horses would go with him. Thanks Nick. \__/

Calvin McClory

One error...when you mention Bastille Day...that's a major anachronism. The Holiday that we know of comes from July 1878, during the Foundations of the Third Republic. Bastille Day was not officially comemorated and celebrated by Napoleon III (nor was La Marseillaise its national anthem) because it was associated with the Republican Left. Napoleon III like Napoleon I deprecated public honoring of the French Revolution and its tradition. Most famously and ironically, fittingly, during Cinco de Mayo, the Mexican Rebels sang la marseillaise when facing the french troops. Great episode this time. I feel that you could have emphasized stuff about Bismarck, like his tensions with Moltke (which will come in the next episode obviously). Jonathan Steinberg pointed out that despite being the head of a German Militarist state, Bismarck had no real military experience to speak of. (<a href="http://www.historytoday.com/paul-lay/interview-jonathan-steinberg)" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.historytoday.com/paul-lay/interview-jonathan-steinberg)</a> and Moltke and other officers mocked him (shades of Hitler and his tensions with generals, especially the Prussian Valkyrie who shared and participated in his war crimes but hated him personally).

Sudarshan Ramani

Excellent work in this episode. Primo storytelling

Thornhenge

You might also want to try "So what if I don't have a plan? I'M NOT BISMARCK!"

Porcupine

Anyway this isn't relevant to the episode and it's a really small thing. But I tried watching some earlier videos and the playlist for shorter series still hasn't been updated since Mary Anning I believe. And the chronological playlist is really far down and has History of Writing below History of Paper Money while Alphabet is above History of Paper Money. Sorry, I just noticed this a long time ago and I like to use playlists when watching older episodes.

Sara Samaletdin

Maybe changing artists mid way series isn't the best idea even though Nick's art is nice.

Sara Samaletdin

It's a very entertaining read

Michael Waisfeld

My favorite history book starts the chapter on 1870 with the following paragraph (I'm translating it from hebrew): "Napoleon the 3rd's mustache was a frightfully well kept. A long and thin mustache, attentively trimmed, painted to hide any sign of gray and constantly held up with wax. Among historians, there is almost no disagreement that Napoleon III's mustache was far superior in looks to that of his rival, the Prussian chancellor Otto Von Bismarck. However this was probably his only advantage over the chancellor. It is no wonder then, that on the 31st of august 1870, just before falling captive to the Prussians, after the defeat that will be extensively detailed in this chapter, Napoleon demanded from his men a sufficient stock of wax. He knew that from this moment on, the fate of his mustache was in his own hands. And if we are being a bit cynical, it might just be the first decision he has made that accurately predicted the future since declaring war on Prussia."

Michael Waisfeld

Like the Artist! Thanks Nick

Dee Fortson

Wonderful work, thank you!

Martin Ockovsky

Greetings Nick, your art in this episode really popped and got me bouncing in my chair with laughter and excitement!

Zachary Taylor

So, is there any chance we get a "Bismarck always had a plan" shirt? Because I would buy that like, yesterday.

Cody Gerard

I think Bismarck spinning the news deserves more attention that it got - it's not every day you see the same words interpreted with such a wild variety. Luckily for us, in modern day press can easily reach out for clarification, verify the sources and not publish fake news.

Pavel Yakushevich

Don't want to be a downer, but I'm pretty sure you've got the wrong Moltke in this episode- junior instead of elder. I wouldn't notice that if he wasn't drawn correctly in previous episode. So, yeah, welcome, Nick! Getting things wrong is a time-honored tradition on extra history, and I personally appreciate you taking a fresh twist on it - getting people wrong instead of flags.

Pavel Yakushevich

Welcome Nick!

Fredrich Wilhelm Albrecht von Bredow was the name of the commander who charged the guns, known as von Bredow's Death Ride; being the Prussian equivalent of the Charge if the Light Brigade. It would be used as justification for maintaining cavalry as a major wing of the military all the way to WW1, even in an age of rifles and machine guns

Darren Loo

2 SUBLIME JOKES IN ONE WEEK EC?

Freddy Russell

I hope that you guys do an episode on Ferdinand graff Zeppelin after Bismarck. I mean Zeppelin became famous in this war as a cavalry officer and would become the man that pretty much made the basis of aerospace corporations, airlines, and become a national icon alongside his creation. Even if it's a one-off episode, it would be AWESOME for him to get some more recognition.

Aaron Neumann

Psst....just kidding. I love it. Welcome to EH

Sean Sarff

What is this? Visible motion in our stock images? It’ll never catch on.

Sean Sarff

Hey Nick! Glad to have you on board!

Cifer

Hi Nick! Welcome to the team--I love your style! :3

Amy Reynolds

Just back from work and an Extra History episode appears. Clearly you must have known. When you started talking about the cavalry charging the artillery I was half expecting to hear a repeat of the Light Brigade incident :D

Iain Docherty

Basket of kings? Hmmm. That gives me a weird idea for a one shot. Christian IX of Denmark, Godfather of Europe. Please make it happen.

Jonathan Luoto

Prim was also behind that Leopold guy, right? Because Prim ALWAYS finds kings to offer for the throne. The guy must had an entire basket full of them.

JohnnyElRojo

Excellent job on the art, Nick. And welcome to Extra History.

Kathyrne

Hi, Nick! You did a great job on your first foray. I love the little animation touches you brought to this episode. I look forward to seeing what you have to share with us in future episodes!

Russano Greenstripe

YAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY!!! ANOTHER WAR!!! Us Creators of Alternate History Ficton can be a bit of a Bloodthirsty bunch when the mood takes us. ;-) What Day in December will the Extra History Team be starting their Break for the Christmas Holidays?

Martin Verran