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Flashcards · 9245 · Topic 1
Paper 1 – International Relations Depth Studies: Conflict and Peace in the 20th Century flashcards
26 cards on Topic 1, subtopics 3.1.1 to 3.1.2. Pick a subtopic or study them all.
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3.1.1 Section A (choose 1 of 2): Peacemaking and the League of Nations, c1919-1939; Crises of the Cold War, 1960-1975
- How is Paper 1 Section A examined?
- It is entirely source-based. Three of its five sources are released in advance (1 February for May/June, 1 July for October/November); the other two are unseen. You get a clean copy of all five in the exam and may bring in no notes.
- What are the four Section A source questions?
- Q1 (4 marks): use a source to support a claim. Q2 (6): explain a difference between two sources. Q3 (8): explain how useful a source is. Q4 (12): evaluate an issue using a range of the sources and your own knowledge.
- How do you show a source is useful in Section A Question 3?
- Use its content, its provenance (who, when, why) and your own contextual knowledge together. Bias does not reduce usefulness: a biased source is useful evidence of what its author wanted people to believe.
- What did each of the Big Three want at the Paris Peace Conference?
- Clemenceau (France): revenge, security and a crippled Germany. Wilson (USA): the Fourteen Points, self-determination and a League of Nations. Lloyd George (Britain): a middle course, punishing Germany but preserving trade.
- What does BRAT stand for in the Treaty of Versailles?
- Blame (Article 231, war guilt), Reparations (£6,600 million), Army (100,000 men, no air force, no submarines, six battleships), Territory (Alsace-Lorraine, the Polish Corridor, the Saar, colonies as mandates, the Rhineland demilitarised, Anschluss forbidden).
- Why did Germans call the Treaty of Versailles a Diktat?
- It was a dictated peace with no negotiation. The war guilt clause was resented as unjust, reparations seen as unpayable, and loss of land divided German-speaking people.
- Name three successes and three failures of the League of Nations
- Successes: the Åland Islands (1921), Upper Silesia (1921), Bulgaria (1925). Failures: Vilna (1920), Corfu (1923), Manchuria (1931) and Abyssinia (1935).
- What was the Hoare–Laval Pact and why did it damage the League?
- A secret 1935 plan by the British and French foreign ministers to give Italy much of Abyssinia. It showed the League’s two leading members negotiating with the aggressor.
- What was the U-2 incident (May 1960)?
- A US spy plane was shot down over the USSR and its pilot, Gary Powers, captured. The Paris summit between Eisenhower and Khrushchev collapsed.
- What caused the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)?
- The Bay of Pigs invasion (1961), US missiles in Turkey and the Soviet wish for nuclear parity led Khrushchev to place missiles in Cuba.
- What were the consequences of the Cuban Missile Crisis?
- A hotline between Washington and Moscow, the Limited Test Ban Treaty (1963), and a shift towards managed coexistence.
- Why did the Warsaw Pact invade Czechoslovakia in August 1968?
- To end Dubček’s Prague Spring reforms, which Moscow feared would weaken communist control. The Brezhnev Doctrine justified intervention to protect communism.
3.1.2 Section B (choose 1 of 4): The origins of the First World War, c1890-1915; Hitler's foreign policy and the origins of the Second World War, 1933-1941; The origins and development of the Cold War, 1945-1960; Détente and the collapse of communism, c1969-1991
- How should you answer a Section B essay question on causes?
- Weigh, do not list: give the factors, explain how each contributed, then judge which mattered most and why.
- Origins of the First World War: who were in the Triple Alliance and Triple Entente?
- Triple Alliance (1882): Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy. Triple Entente (by 1907): Britain, France, Russia.
- Origins of the First World War: what was the naval race?
- Anglo-German competition to build battleships, especially after Britain launched HMS Dreadnought in 1906. It pushed Britain closer to France and Russia.
- Origins of the First World War: what was Germany’s “blank cheque” (July 1914)?
- Germany’s promise of unconditional support to Austria-Hungary in its dealings with Serbia after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand.
- Hitler’s foreign policy: list the steps from 1935 to September 1939
- Rearmament (1935) → Rhineland remilitarised (1936) → Anschluss (March 1938) → Munich Agreement (September 1938) → rest of Czechoslovakia (March 1939) → Nazi–Soviet Pact (August 1939) → invasion of Poland (September 1939).
- Give two arguments for and two against appeasement
- For: Britain was militarily unprepared, and public opinion feared another war. Against: it fed Hitler’s ambitions and betrayed Czechoslovakia.
- Why is the Nazi–Soviet Pact called the immediate enabler of war in 1939?
- It removed the risk of a two-front war and gave Hitler a free hand in Poland, which is why war followed within days.
- Hitler’s foreign policy: what was Operation Barbarossa?
- The German invasion of the USSR on 22 June 1941, breaking the Nazi–Soviet Pact.
- Origins of the Cold War: how did the situation change between Yalta and Potsdam in 1945?
- By Potsdam (July 1945) Roosevelt had died, the war in Europe was over and the atomic bomb had been tested. Truman’s harder line and the Red Army in Eastern Europe made disagreements explicit.
- Origins of the Cold War: list the key developments 1947–55
- Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan (1947), Cominform (1947), Berlin Blockade and Airlift (1948–49), NATO (1949), Warsaw Pact (1955).
- Détente: what were SALT I (1972) and the Helsinki Accords (1975)?
- SALT I limited US and Soviet strategic nuclear weapons. At Helsinki, the Western and Eastern blocs accepted Europe’s post-war borders and agreed to respect human rights.
- Why did détente end around 1979–80?
- The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. The USA did not ratify SALT II and boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
- How did Gorbachev’s policies help end the Cold War?
- Glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) from 1985, arms control such as the INF Treaty (1987), and refusing to use force to keep Eastern European regimes in power.
- When did the Berlin Wall fall and the USSR break up?
- The Berlin Wall opened on 9 November 1989. The Soviet Union was dissolved in December 1991.