Chapter 25 Flashcards
What was the importance of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, June 28, 1914?
The assassination of Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo was a shocking event that should have resulted in a decisive Austrian response; it should not have led to what became the First World War; the magnitude of the outcome was grossly disproportionate to the event itself
How did Austria respond to the assassination?
Austria’s response was delayed, first by a need to get German support (the so-called “Blank Check”) and then by problems in getting the Hungarians (who were with the Austrians the co-rulers of the Dual Monarchy) to agree to the sending of an ultimatum to Serbia; the delay of nearly a month in sending the ultimatum allowed time for the shock to wear off and for various countries to begin to think about what was in their national interests
What did the Schlieffen Plan call for and how did it actually work out in 1914?
The Schlieffen Plan was a brilliant concept that should never have become policy; it called for a rapid attack on France that possibly involved the violation of Belgian neutrality; after France was defeated, the German army would move to the Eastern front to defend Germany against the slowly mobilizing Russian army; the plan failed because of changes to it with regard to the attack on France that created a stalemate instead of victory and the fact that the Russians attacked Germany sooner than had been anticipated
What was the significance of the British campaigns on the Somme in 1916?
The British campaign on the Somme was one of several campaigns in which thousands of troops were killed in fruitless attacks on defensive positions; all the assumptions about the use of artillery proved to be unfounded and the combination of machine guns and barbed wire were devastating to men advancing toward the enemy trenches.
What role did the Home Front play in World War I?
World War I was a total war in which the production of armaments and other military equipment was as or more important than the actual battles; only a well-organized industrial system could sustain the enormous demands for resources that the war created; Germany probably did the best job of reorganizing the economy and the society to prosecute the war; Russia, for various reasons, did the worst job and, in fact, collapsed under the weight of the war effort
What caused the February Revolution in Russia in 1917?
The huge number of casualties and the near-complete failure of the Home Front to supply the army resulted in the disintegration of the Russian military; on the Home Front, the inability to respond adequately to the war led to shortages of food and fuel and to loss of faith in the government
Why did the Provisional Government fail to retain power after the February Revolution?
The major factor was the decision to attempt to sustain Russia’s efforts in the war; another important factor was the failure to respond quickly and decisively to popular demands for land for the peasantry and for a constitution
What was the importance of Lenin and the April Theses in 1917?
Lenin responded to popular demands by emphasizing opposition to a continuation of the war and responding to peasant calls for land; in calling for all power to the Soviets (councils), he also spoke to the dissatisfaction with the Provisional Government
What role did Trotsky play in the October Revolution?
Trotsky was primarily responsible for the success of the October Revolution; he used his control of the Military Revolution Committee (MRC) of the Petrograd Soviet to make certain that military units and factory militias in the area would not respond to orders from the Provisional Government but only to orders from the MRC
Why were the Russian Civil War and the policy of War Communism significant?
The Russian Civil War (1918-1921) involved thousands of men and women in the struggle to preserve the gains of the October Revolution; these people went on to form much of the leadership of the Bolshevik (later Communist) Party; the experience of the Civil War taught many of them that they could get things done quickly if they were willing to be sufficiently brutal and “hard”
What was the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921?
The New Economic Policy (NEP) was passed at the Tenth Party Congress and called for a partial return to capitalism after the emergency War Communism measures during the Civil War; peasants were to be taxed a percentage of their harvest but allowed to sell the rest on the open market; small workshops and retailers were required to pay taxes but also allowed to operate as private enterprises; only the “commanding heights” of the economy, foreign trade, finance, insurance, and large industrial enterprises, were to be controlled by the state (which, in turn, would be controlled by the Communist Party organization
Why was Lenin’s death in 1924 significant?
Lenin, although capable of great ruthlessness, did have a pragmatic streak and saw quite clearly in 1922 and 1923 that the Soviet Union was in danger of a kind of utopianism in which efforts to achieve ambitious goals as rapidly as possible would probably lead to little being accomplished; there’s no way to know what difference another ten years of good health might have made, but likely that Lenin would not have followed the disastrous path followed by Stalin
What were Wilson’s “Fourteen Points”?
The “Fourteen Points” were somewhat idealistic; “open covenants of peace, openly arrived at”; reduction of national armaments; and, perhaps most problematic, the idea of national self-determination; Germany thought the Wilsonian points would be the basis for the peace treaty; Wilson compromised at the Paris Peace Conference in order to gain support for the League of Nations (which he thought could remedy any defects in the treaties passed by the conference)
What were the problems of the Treaty of Versailles?
Germany regarded the treaty as a “diktat” since they had not been represented at the Paris Peace Conference; they particularly disliked Article 231, the so-called “War Guilt Clause,” that held Germany responsible for starting the war and therefore liable for reparations to pay for the war; Germany also disliked being forced to disarm while no other nation was required to do so and disliked the loss of territory in Europe; overall, the treaty was seen as harsh; Germany conveniently forgot the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk it had forced the Russians to accept in 1918; the Treaty of Versailles failed to take into account the existence of the Soviet Union and also the very real possibility that Germany would re-emerge as the most powerful nation in Europe
