POWER & REVOLUTION
After Napoleon fell, European diplomats wanted no one state to dominate the continent. Name the principle they tried to restore.
What is the balance of power?
A European power claims territory abroad to control resources and markets. Name this policy.
What is imperialism?
An assassin shot the heir to Austria-Hungary’s throne in this Bosnian city.
What is Sarajevo?
Two armies dig in, neither can gain much ground, and the front barely moves. Name this condition.
What is stalemate?
Fighting stops under this agreement, even though a final peace treaty may still follow.
What is an armistice?
In 1848, groups throughout Europe demanded constitutions, political participation, and self-rule. Name the broad wave of uprisings.
What were the Revolutions of 1848?
European powers drew up rules for claiming African land at this 1884–1885 meeting, without African peoples at the negotiating table.
What was the Berlin Conference?
An arms buildup made leaders increasingly prepared to settle crises by force. Name the MAIN cause at work.
What is militarism?
Soldiers trying to cross the exposed ground between opposing trenches faced barbed wire and machine-gun fire. Name that ground.
What is No Man’s Land?
This 1919 agreement placed major penalties and restrictions on Germany after World War I.
What is the Treaty of Versailles?
This Russian ruler lost the throne in 1917 as wartime defeats, food shortages, and anger at autocracy grew.
Who was Tsar Nicholas II?
An African army defeated invading Italian forces in 1896, demonstrating that European conquest could be resisted. Name the country.
What is Ethiopia?
Because states promised to support one another, a dispute between Austria-Hungary and Serbia widened. Name the MAIN cause at work.
What are alliances?
Mass production, civilian labor, and an entire economy are directed toward victory. Name this kind of warfare.
What is total war?
At the Paris Peace Conference, this victorious country was especially determined to weaken Germany after fighting on its own soil.
What is France?
A revolutionary party promised an end to war and a new political order in Russia. Name the party led by Vladimir Lenin.
Who were the Bolsheviks?
A rebellion by Indian soldiers in 1857 contributed to the end of East India Company rule and direct control by this government in 1858.
What is the British government (or British Crown)?
Germany advanced through this neutral country in 1914; the violation helped draw Britain into the war.
What is Belgium?
An underwater German attack sinks merchant ships without warning, threatening even neutral shipping. Name this naval policy.
What is unrestricted submarine warfare?
This term describes payments demanded from Germany for wartime damage, a major source of anger and economic strain.
What are reparations?
Compare two economic ideas: private owners compete for profit in one, while another calls for common ownership of productive resources and a classless society. Name both.
What are capitalism and communism?
European writers described colonization as a duty to “civilize” others. Name the Kipling phrase associated with this justification and the racist idea behind it.
What is “the White Man’s Burden,” a paternalistic claim of European racial/cultural superiority?
Explain why calling the assassination the *only* cause of World War I misses the larger story.
What is the distinction between a trigger and long-term causes such as militarism, alliances, imperialism, and nationalism?
Why did machine guns, artillery, and barbed wire make frontal attacks costly and help trenches remain in place?
What is the defensive advantage: attackers crossing open ground faced concentrated fire and obstacles, helping produce stalemate?
A 1930 cartoon shows a figure in a “Hitler Party” helmet emerging from a pipe marked “Versailles Treaty.” Explain the cartoonist’s warning without claiming another war was inevitable.
What is the warning that anger and instability after Versailles could help extremist movements gain support?
Choose ONE clear cause-and-effect chain that starts with imperialism or nationalism, passes through World War I, and ends with a change in Europe or Russia after 1917.
Answer will include ONE of the following:
a historically supported chain, such as nationalist rivalry + alliance crisis → WWI → Russian wartime collapse → Bolshevik Revolution; or imperial rivalries + European tensions → WWI → Versailles penalties and resentment. Do not treat events as inevitable.