Honors Modern World History Final Study Guide

Causes of WWI

MANIA-Militarism, Alliances, Nationalism, Imperialism, Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Militarism

  • The buildup of Armies and Navies across Europe

  • Arms Race, especially between Germany and Great Britain

Alliances before the war

  • Triple Alliance: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy

  • Triple Entente: France, Russia, Great Britain

Nationalism

  • A great pride in one’s nation.

  • Nationalism caused ethnic groups to want independence

 Imperialism

  • European nations competed for colonies and global power

  •  Competition increased tensions between major powers

 Assassination

  • Serbian Nationalist, Gavrilo Princip, associated with Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary

  •  The assassination was the spark that started WWI

  •  Franz Ferdinand was the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary

  •  Austria Hungary blamed Serbia and declared war.

  • Alliance systems quickly pulled most of Europe into conflict.

  • Serbia and Russia were allies

 Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria, Italy (leaves and joins the Allies)

Allied Powers: Russia, France, Great Britain, (later joined by the United States, Italy, Japan, and others)

Trench Warfare: soldiers fought from long trenches, and this led to a stalemate where neither side could advance any further (which led to a much longer war)

 Problems in the Trenches: Mud, rats, disease, shell shock, constant artillery fire

Stalemate: neither side could advance due to trench warfare

The Treaty of Versailles (1919)

  • Main goal: punish Germany

  • Benefited: Allied Powers

  • Hurt: Germany

  • Germany had to accept blame for the war, reduce their military, lose land, and pay large fees, which created significant economic hardships and political instability in the country.

Lenin

  •  Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov

  • Fled to western Europe to avoid arrest during the Czarist Regime

  • Used terror through his secret police

  • First head of Soviet Russia

  • Principle leader of the Bolshevik Revolution

Trotsky

  •  Forced into exile when Stalin became dictator

  • Commander of the Red Bolshevik Army

  • Was one of the noble men considered after Lenin’s stroke

  • Played a key role in the October Revolution of 1917 and was instrumental in establishing the Soviet state.

Stalin

  •  Lenin’s successor

  • Aimed to create a perfect communist state

  • Built state police to maintain his power

  • Launched the great purge which eliminated anyone who felt were his enemies

  • Controlled all newspapers, motion pictures, radio, and other sources of information; arts were also controlled and used for propaganda

  • Controlled education and religion

  • Set five year plans which were impossible to achieve quotas that brought severe shortages of housing, food, clothing, and other necessary goods

  • Soviet Union Dictator during WWII

Alliance System

  • effect: escalated minor battles/conflicts into a major war

Total War

  • All efforts go towards the war

Colonial participation in the war

  • Promise of independence

  • economic survival and wages

  • Nationalism

  • defending their country

Armistice

  • formal temporary agreement to stop fighting during a war

Mussolini’s rise to power

  • Mussolini’s “black shirts” used terror and violence to attack labor unions, socialists, communist leaders;gained support

  • organized mass rally and threatened to seize government

  • named prime minister

  • systematically dismantled Italy’s democracy

Fascism

  • authoritarian political system

  • dictator holds absolute power

  • prioritizes nation or race over individual freedoms

Rise of Hitler in Germany

  • joined German workers party; shaped it into Nazis

  • Arrested for treason

  • Great depression; Nazis gain votes

  • Hitler is elected chancellor

  • Quickly consolidated power, establishing a totalitarian regime    

Nuremberg Laws

  • took away Jewish citizenship

  • Prohibited marriage between Jews and non Jews

Communism

  • a political and economic system where all property and resources are collectively owned by the public or the state

Czechoslovakia in the 1930’s

  • shift from the democratic prosperity of the first Czechoslovak republic to Nazi occupation

Japanese aggression in the 1930’s

  • Driven by a need for raw materials, growing nationalism, and a weak international response

  • invasion of Manchuria

Manchuria

  • Japanese invasion in 1930

  • First aggressive act leading to WWII

Declaration of war in 1939

  • Britain and France declare war on Germany

  • Followed invasion of Poland

  • Allies vs. Axis

Alliance System

  • When one country goes to war so does it’s allies

  • mutual military and economic protection

Allied Powers

  • Fugs

  • France, United States, Great Britain, Soviet Union

Axis Powers

  • Jig

  • Japan, Italy, Germany

Pearl Harbor Reason

  • United states stopped giving Japan resources

Blitzkrieg

  • Lightning war

Battle of Britain

  • Britain was left alone after the fall of France

  • Radar and enigma (decoder) helped RAF (Royal Air Force) beat Germany

  • British win after a lot of destruction

Midway Significance

  • Turning point in the Pacific

Stalingrad Significance

  • Turning point in Europe

  • Stopped German eastward advance

Role of Women during WWII

  • took over industrial jobs

  • joined armed forces as nurses, mechanics, and pilots

  • code breakers

  • worked on convert operations

Russian-Soviet Pact

  • Non-aggression pact

  • secretly divided Poland

German invasion of the Soviet Union

  • Soviet union wasn’t prepared; had largest army but ill equipped

  • Hitler put Leningrad under siege; was prepared to starve the city

  • Germans retreat due to harsh winter

  • Soviets gained nothing

  • Cost Germans many lives

Holocaust

  • Jews and other groups were sent to concentration and extermination camps

  • systematic genocide

Final Solution

  • Systematic genocide of Jews and other groups Hitler saw as a threat to the German race

US and the Atom bomb

  • Manhattan Project

  • Limited people knew of the project

  • Bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki

  • Little boy and Fat Man

Cold War

  • United States vs. Soviet Union

  • Geopolitical, ideological, economic rivalry

  • nuclear indifference rather than direct military combat

  • never directly faced each other; realized direct war could lead to the total annihilation of both nations

NATO

  • North Atlantic Treat Organization

  • International military alliance

  • US led military alliance to stop Soviet expansion

  • Contain the spread of communism

Warsaw Pact

  • political and military alliance established by the soviet union

  • counterweight to NATO

Iron Curtain

  • Political, ideological and physical boundary

  • divided Europe into two separate regions

Marshall Plan

  • European Recovery Program

  • US economic package of over $13 billion

  • rebuild war-torn western front