Causes, Course, and Significant Events of World War II

Vocabulary flashcards covering the key concepts, causes, strategic military operations, and major events of World War II from the provided lecture notes.

War Guilt Clause (Article 231)

A provision of the Treaty of Versailles (1919) that blamed Germany entirely for World War I and forced them to pay £6.6 billion in reparations.

Treaty of Versailles (1919)

The peace treaty signed on June 28th, 1919, which stripped Germany of 13% of its European land and all overseas colonies, capped its army at 100,000 men with no air force or submarines, and sparked hyperinflation, economic collapse, and deep political resentment.

The Great Depression (1929)

A global economic collapse triggered by the US Wall Street crash that crippled international trade and bank loans, undermining faith in the Weimar democratic government and driving voters toward radical leaders.

Lebensraum

Hitler's aggressive foreign policy goal of invading Eastern Europe to expand the German nation.

Anschluss

The union of Germany with Austria, enacted by Hitler in 1938 in direct defiance of international terms.

Appeasement

A foreign policy adopted by Neville Chamberlain and France to avoid another war by conceding to Hitler's 'reasonable' territorial demands.

Munich Agreement (1938)

An agreement made under the policy of appeasement in 1938 that handed the Sudetenland, a region of Czechoslovakia, over to Germany.

Blitzkrieg

A tactics strategy using coordinated air bombing and fast ground movements, launched by Germany during the invasion of Poland in September 1939.

Invasion of Poland (Sept 1939)

The trigger event for World War II in which Germany invaded Poland using Blitzkrieg, prompting Britain and France to declare war on Germany on September 3, 1939.

Maginot Line

A heavily fortified line of defenses in France that German forces bypassed by invading through the Ardennes during the Fall of France (May–June 1940).

Battle of Britain (July–October 1940)

An air campaign fought entirely in the skies between the German Luftwaffe and the British Royal Air Force (RAF), won by Britain using early radar technology.

Operation Barbarossa (June 1941)

A 3 million troop invasion of the USSR launched by Germany on the Eastern Front, breaking the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact and forcing Germany into a fatal two-front war.

Pearl Harbour (7 Dec 1941)

A surprise Japanese air raid on the US Naval base in Hawaii that brought the US straight into the war alongside Allies, including Australia under PM Robert Menzies.

Operation Overlord (D-Day)

The largest naval, air, and land amphibious invasion in history launched on June 6, 1944, landing on the beaches of Normandy, France, to establish a Western Front and liberate France.

Fall of Berlin (Apr–May 1945)

The final European military push in which Soviet troops encircled and captured the heavily fortified Nazi capital, resulting in Hitler's suicide on April 30th and Germany's unconditional surrender on May 8th, 1945.

The Holocaust (1941–45)

A state-sponsored genocide driven by Nazi racial ideologies to systematically eliminate European Jews, Romani, people with disabilities, and other targeted groups.

The Final Solution

The phase of Nazi genocide that transitioned from forced ghettos to mass extermination camps using gas chambers, resulting in 6 million Jewish deaths.

Manhattan Project

The project that developed atomic weapons authorized by Harry Truman to force a rapid Japanese surrender, leading to the destruction of Hiroshima (Aug 6) and Nagasaki (Aug 9) in August 1945.