Notes
Shifting power before 1914
Old land empires weakened: the Ottoman, Qing (fell in 1911), and Russian empires faced revolution and decline. Japan rose as a power.
- The Mexican Revolution (1910) and the Russian Revolution (1917) overthrew old regimes; the Bolsheviks under Lenin created the Soviet Union.
World War I (1914–1918)
- Causes (MAIN): Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism and Nationalism. The spark was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
- Total war: governments controlled economies, used propaganda, and recruited soldiers from their colonies. New technology (machine guns, poison gas, tanks) made trench warfare deadly.
- The Treaty of Versailles (1919) blamed Germany and made it pay reparations. The League of Nations formed but was weak. The Ottoman Empire was broken up into mandates.
Between the wars
- The Great Depression (1929) spread worldwide. Governments responded differently: the U.S. New Deal (more government action), the Soviet Union's Five-Year Plans, and the rise of fascism.
- Fascism: extreme nationalism, one-party rule and militarism: Mussolini in Italy, Hitler in Germany. Imperial Japan also expanded aggressively (invading Manchuria in 1931).
World War II (1939–1945)
- Causes: the Treaty of Versailles's harsh terms, the Depression, fascist aggression, and the failure of appeasement (the Munich Agreement, 1938).
- Total war again, with mass mobilization and attacks on civilians. Technology included radar, aircraft carriers and the atomic bomb.
- Genocide: the Holocaust killed about 6 million Jews and millions of others. Other atrocities included the Armenian genocide (during WWI) and later the Cambodian and Rwandan genocides.
- Results: the United Nations (1945), the U.S. and USSR as superpowers, and weakened European empires.
Practice
A helpful memory device.
Factories, propaganda and civilians all became part of the effort.
Germans resented its harsh terms.
The Bolsheviks seized power.
Mussolini and Hitler built fascist states.
The Munich Agreement let Germany take the Sudetenland.
Unemployment and fear weakened democracies.
It replaced the failed League of Nations.
Free response
Write your answer first, then open the scoring guide.
Free-response question
Answer (a), (b) and (c).
(a) Identify ONE way governments mobilized their populations during World War I or World War II.
Show the answer and scoring guide
They used propaganda posters and films, rationed food, drafted soldiers, and shifted factories to making weapons.
Check off the points you earned:
(b) Explain ONE way colonies contributed to the world wars.
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Colonies supplied soldiers (like the hundreds of thousands of Indian troops in both wars) and raw materials for the colonial powers.
Check off the points you earned:
(c) Explain ONE cause of World War II.
Show the answer and scoring guide
The harsh Treaty of Versailles and the Great Depression helped Hitler rise to power, and his aggression, unchecked by appeasement, led to war.
Check off the points you earned: