Flashcards · 0470 · Topic 2

Core content: Option B – The twentieth century: international relations since 1919 flashcards

34 cards on Topic 2, subtopics 2.1 to 2.6. Pick a subtopic or study them all.

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2.1 Was the Treaty of Versailles Fair?

What did Wilson, Clemenceau and Lloyd George each want at Versailles?: Wilson (USA): a fair peace based on his Fourteen Points and self-determination. Clemenceau (France): to weaken Germany permanently for French security. Lloyd George (Britain): a peace firm enough for public opinion but not so harsh it destabilised Europe.
What were the military terms of the Treaty of Versailles?: Army limited to 100,000 men, no conscription, no air force, no submarines, only six battleships, and the Rhineland demilitarised.
What were the territorial terms of the Treaty of Versailles?: Alsace-Lorraine to France, land to Poland including the Polish Corridor, the Saar under the League for 15 years, union with Austria forbidden, and Germany’s colonies taken as mandates.
What was the War Guilt Clause?: Article 231, which made Germany accept responsibility for the war and its damage. It was the basis of reparations, fixed in 1921 at £6,600 million.
How did the treaty affect Germany up to the end of 1923?: Many Germans called it a "Diktat" and blamed the "November criminals". There were risings such as the Spartacists (1919) and the Kapp Putsch (1920); the Ruhr occupation and hyperinflation came in 1923.
How do you decide whether the Treaty of Versailles was fair?: Weigh contemporary views (German outrage, French feeling it was too lenient) against hindsight, and compare it with the harsh Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that Germany imposed on Russia in 1918.

2.2 To What Extent Was the League of Nations a Success?

What were the structural weaknesses of the League of Nations?: It had no army of its own, decisions in the Council needed unanimity, and major powers were missing: the USA never joined, Germany joined only in 1926 and the USSR only in 1934.
Which 1920s disputes are classed as League successes?: The Aaland Islands (1921), awarded to Finland and accepted by Sweden, and the Greek invasion of Bulgaria (1925), where Greece withdrew when told to.
Which 1920s disputes are classed as League failures?: Vilna (1920), which Poland kept regardless of the League, and Corfu (1923), passed to the Conference of Ambassadors, which made Greece pay compensation to the aggressor, Italy.
What humanitarian work did the League do?: Its agencies helped refugees and returned prisoners of war, fought disease, improved working conditions through the International Labour Organization, and campaigned against slavery.
Why did the Manchurian and Abyssinian crises show the League had failed?: Japan (1931) and Italy (1935) were great powers. The League condemned Japan, which simply left; sanctions on Italy excluded oil. The Depression made members unwilling to act.

2.3 How Far Was Hitler’s Foreign Policy to Blame for the Outbreak of War in Europe in 1939?

What were Hitler’s foreign policy aims?: To overturn the Treaty of Versailles, unite all German-speaking people in one state, and win Lebensraum (living space) in the east.
Put Hitler’s steps of 1933-36 in order: Left the League and the Disarmament Conference (1933) → Saar plebiscite returns the Saar to Germany (1935) → rearmament and conscription announced (1935) → Rhineland remilitarised (March 1936).
What links did Germany form with Italy and Japan in 1936?: The Rome-Berlin Axis with Italy and the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan. Germany and Italy both helped Franco in the Spanish Civil War.
What was agreed at Munich (September 1938)?: Britain, France and Italy agreed that Germany could take the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia; Czechoslovakia was not consulted. Germany occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939.
Why is appeasement seen as a deliberate policy rather than just weakness?: Britain and France chose it because of the cost of rearmament, unready armed forces, public horror of another war, some sympathy with German grievances and fear of communism.
How did the Polish crisis lead to war in 1939?: Britain and France guaranteed Poland (March 1939). After the Nazi-Soviet Pact (August 1939), Germany invaded Poland on 1 September, and Britain and France declared war on 3 September.

2.4 Who Was to Blame for the Cold War?

Why did the wartime alliance between the USA and USSR break down in 1945?: It rested on the shared aim of defeating Nazi Germany. Once that was achieved, the capitalism-versus-communism divide resurfaced, along with disputes over Poland and Germany.
Yalta vs Potsdam (1945): Yalta (February): Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin agreed to divide Germany and to hold free elections in Eastern Europe. Potsdam (July-August): Truman and Attlee met Stalin amid growing suspicion, including over Poland and the atomic bomb.
How did the USSR extend control over Eastern Europe by 1948?: Through the Red Army’s presence and communist parties that took power step by step, removing rivals ("salami tactics"), ending with the communist takeover in Czechoslovakia in 1948.
Truman Doctrine vs Marshall Plan (1947): Truman Doctrine: a promise to support free peoples resisting communism (containment). Marshall Plan: American economic aid to rebuild Europe, which Stalin saw as dollar imperialism.
What was the Berlin Blockade (1948-49), and why did it fail?: Stalin cut land routes to West Berlin to force the Western powers out. The Berlin Airlift supplied the city by air for nearly a year, and the blockade was lifted in May 1949.
NATO vs the Warsaw Pact: NATO (1949): the Western military alliance led by the USA. Warsaw Pact (1955): the Soviet-led alliance of Eastern European states.

2.5 How Effectively Did the United States Contain the Spread of Communism?

What is containment?: The US policy of stopping communism from spreading to new countries, rather than trying to remove it where it already existed.
How far did the USA succeed in Korea (1950-53)?: After North Korea invaded in June 1950, UN forces led by the USA pushed it back, but Chinese intervention led to stalemate. The 1953 armistice left the border near the 38th parallel: containment worked, rollback failed.
What was the Bay of Pigs (April 1961)?: A failed invasion of Cuba by CIA-backed Cuban exiles trying to overthrow Castro. It pushed Cuba closer to the USSR.
How was the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962) resolved?: Kennedy imposed a naval quarantine. Khrushchev removed the missiles in return for a US pledge not to invade Cuba and a secret agreement to withdraw US missiles from Turkey.
What was the domino theory?: The belief that if one country in a region fell to communism, its neighbours would follow. It was a main reason for US involvement in Vietnam.
Why did the USA fail in Vietnam?: Viet Cong guerrilla tactics and support from the North, the unpopularity of the South Vietnamese government, and falling support at home after the Tet Offensive (1968). US troops left after the 1973 Paris Peace Accords; Saigon fell in 1975.

2.6 How Secure Was the USSR’s Control Over Eastern Europe, 1948–c.1989?

What happened in Hungary in 1956?: Imre Nagy’s government promised reforms and announced that Hungary would leave the Warsaw Pact. Soviet tanks crushed the uprising in November 1956 and the West did not intervene.
Why was the Berlin Wall built in 1961?: To stop East Germans, many of them skilled workers, escaping to the West through West Berlin.
How did the Soviet response to the Prague Spring (1968) differ from Hungary in 1956?: Dubček wanted reform but stayed in the Warsaw Pact. The USSR still invaded, with Warsaw Pact allies, in August 1968, and the Brezhnev Doctrine justified intervention to defend socialism.
Why was Solidarity a sign of weakening Soviet control?: This independent trade union, led by Lech Wałęsa from the Gdańsk shipyards (1980), won millions of members. Martial law (1981) could not destroy it, and it won elections in 1989.
What was Gorbachev’s role in the collapse of Soviet control?: His reforms, glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring), and his decision not to use force to keep communist governments in power allowed the revolutions of 1989. The Berlin Wall fell on 9 November 1989.