Glossary Flashcards
Auschwitz-Birkenau
Established in 1941 in Poland, the most murderous of the Nazi death camps; liberated in 1945
Jacobites
Supporters of the exiled King James II and his son, the titular James III, known to his opponents as the Pretender. Jacobite rebellions in 1715 and 1745 failed to restore the Catholic Stuarts to he British throne.
Triple Alliance
Alliance worked out by Kaiser Wilhelm II among Germany, Austria, and Italy in 1892.
Ranters
Religious radicals emerging out of the toleration following the British Civil Wars, who believed that those in tune with God can commit no sin. This idea was thought to give Ranters license to perform all manner of debauchery. Though much feared and reviled at the time, historians now debate their existence.
Mensheviks
From the Russian word for “minority.” A loosely organized faction of the Russian Socialists, including intellectual moderates. Individual Mensheviks were eventually absorbed into or purged from the Bolshevik-led Communist Party at the revolution.
Bloody Sunday
On 22 January 1905, a peaceful crowd sought to petition the czar at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. The imperial guard panicked and fired on the crowd, resulting in about 100 deaths, which in turn precipitated the First Russian Revolution
Quakers
Religious sect emerging out of the toleration following the British Civil Wars and led by George Fox. They believed that each human being possessed God’s inner light in equal measure, regardless of gender or social rank. This inclined them, notoriously, to flout gender roles, deny deference to social superiors, refuse to sear oaths, and “quake” with their inner light at services.
Peasants’ War
Failed religious, political, and economic revolt by German peasants during 1524-1526, sparked by the attacks on the church by Martin Luther and other reformers. Luther himself denounced the revolt.
Kosovo
Province of Serbia inhabited mainly by ethnic Albanians. The Serbian attempt to suppress this minority in 1999 provoked NATO military action, which led to the fall of the government of Slobodan Milosovic.
Treaty of Prague
Treaty ending the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, which saw the creation of the North German Confederation.
Positivism
The belief, associated with Auguste Comte, that a scientific approach to human problems would lead to their solutions and continuous human progress.
Sudetenland Crisis
Ensued when, in 1938, Hitler demanded, first, autonomy, then independence, and finally, the absorption into Germany of the Sudetenland, a portion of Czechoslovakia inhabited by ethnic Germans. Britain, France, and Italy agreed to these measures over Czech protests. Early in 1939, Hitler absorbed the rest of Czechoslovakia.
Hundred Years’ War
1337-1453: Intermittent conflict between France and England, which was often allied with French barons. After years of English occupation of large portions of France, the conflict ended with the English being driven out.
Great Schism
1374-1417: Period when rival popes ruled from Avignon and Rome. Ended at the Council of Constance with the election of Martin V.
New Economic Policy
Lenin’s tempering of communization (1921-1924).
Continental System
Tariff union and free trade area organized by Napoleon for his empire in 1806 in order to promote French industry and shut out the British. This system became one of the grievances against the Napoleonic Empire.
Baptists
Protestants who believed that baptism should be left to adult choice. This idea was controversial because it would leave children unbaptized and vitiate any notion of a national church
Black Death
Probably bubonic plague, which ravaged Europe from 1347-1350, killing one-third to one-half of the population and returning periodically until the last outbreak at Marseilles in 1722
Purgatory
Roman Catholic belief that, at death, souls who are not damned but not of sufficient perfection to merit heaven go to this place to become so. Catholics believe that the prayers of the faithful and the indulgences granted by the Church for good deeds in life are efficacious in reducing the amount of time a soul spends there.
levee en masse
Conscripted citizen army established by the Jacobins to defend France in 1793
auto-da-fe
literally “act of faith”; public declaration of sentences imposed by courts of the Spanish Inquisition, with the carrying out of the sentence (e.g. burning at the stake) by secular authorities
Commercial Revolution
General expansion of European trade, much of it with North American colonies, China, and India, in the 17th century. Benefited the Dutch, the French, and most of all, the British.
Risorgimento
Abortive movement in 1848 to unify Italy.
Bolsheviks
By 1903, a faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party that favored a tight, disciplined, and militantly revolutionary party membership. Led by Lenin, the Bolsheviks would form the core of the triumphant Communist Party at the revolution
Iron Law of Wages
First posited by David Ricardo in 1817, the idea that wages rise and fall in inverse proportion to the size of the labor force.
Adrianople, Treaty of (a.k.a. Treaty of Edirne)
Established Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire, 1829
Realpolitik
Belief, associated with Otto von Bismarck, that international diplomacy should be based on practical considerations, not religious or moral sentiments.
Reform Act
British stature of 1832 that extended the vote to the middle class.
Treaty of Ryswick
- Treaty ending the Nine Years’ War, by which Louis XIV recognized William III as the rightful king of England, Scotland, and Ireland; gave back European territory taken since 1678; and agreed to work out with William a partition of the Spanish Empire after the death of Carlos II.
heresey
The Catholic Church’s term for any belief which disagreed with the tenets of the Church.
dauphin
title referring to the eldest son of a king of France, in use from 1349 until 1830. “Daupine” referred to the wife of a dauphin.
Three Emperor’s League
Alliance designed in 1872 by Bismarck, Julius Andrassy, and Prince Gorchakov to ally the rulers of Germany, Austria, and Russia.
Jacobins
Radicals in the French Revolution who sought to create a perfectly egalitarian society. In power, they defended France ably but discredited themselves by launching the reign of terror.
Treaty of Tilsit
- Recognized Napoleon’s Empire in the West and Czar Alexander I’s supremacy in the east.
szlachta
Relatively broad class of local nobles and gentry in Poland, whose power was weakened by the partitions of Poland (1772, 1793, 1795) in favor of the most elite portions of the aristocracy.
NKVD
Stalin’s secret police, regular police, purge operations, and prison camps combined in 1934 under a “People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs” headed first by Nikolai Yezhov and then by Lavrenty Beria.
Utopian Socialists
Early 19th-century socialists (Henri de St. Simon, Charles Fourier, Robert Owen) who believed that the aristocrats and factory owners could be persuaded to relinquish control of natural resources and the means of production for the good of all.
salon
Originating in France during the 17th and 18th centuries, any literary, artistic, or intellectual gathering of distinguished guests, often from a variety of fields, in a drawing room or large reception hall and organized by a prominent hostess or host. Crucial to advancing the Enlightenment and often led by women.
Blank Check
Kaiser Wilhelm II’s offer to back the Austrian emperor, Franz-Josef, militarily should he attack Serbia and be attacked by Russia in 1914
SA
Sturmabteilungen: Nazi storm troopers, eliminated in 1934.
intendants
French officials who oversaw local affairs for the Bourbon kings.
COMECON
Council for Mutual Economic Assistance; economic association of Communist countries created in 1949, disbanded in 1991.
Brest-Litovsk, Treaty of
Treaty between communist Russia and Germany, in which the former ceded vast amounts of territory, population, and natural resources to the latter in 1918. Allowed Germany to shift the bulk of its forces west for a final offensive later that year.
Lusitania
British luxury liner torpedoed by a German U-boat in May 1915 with tremendous loss of life, including 125 Americans. American threats to enter World War I as a result led the Germans to halt unrestricted submarine warfare for nearly two years.
Social Darwinists
Nineteenth-century social theorists who attempted to apply Darwin’s theories of evolution and natural selection to human political, social, and economic relations, resulting in justifications for the European class system, imperialism, and aggression.
Paris Commune
An elected body, run by the sans-culottes, that shared governmental power with the National Assembly during the French Revolution. Separately, also later used to refer to the socialist government that governed Paris for two months in the spring of 1871 following France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War.
corvee
The right, prior to the Revolution, of a French landlord to demand periodic labor from his tenants to build roads, erect barns, and so forth.
cahiers de doleance
Reports from the countryside, written to the Estates General, about conditions in France in 1789.
Crystal Palace Exhibition
The first world’s fair (1851), designed to show off the wonders of the Industrial Revolution.
Triple Entente
Alliance among Britain, France, and Russia established in 1907.
Blitzkrieg
War of shock and movement, perfected by the German general staff between the wars and deployed by the German military in World War II, which used aircraft to destroy enemy supply lines and to support ground operations involving massed tanks and infantry
Lollards
Followers of John Wycliff in 14th and 15th century England who wanted a deemphasized Church hierarchy, greater lay participation in the liturgy, and Scripture translated into the vernacular. Believed to have been persecuted out of existence by the time of the Reformation.
Little Entente
Alliance against German expansion created in 1920 by Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia, and later joined by France and aided by Poland.
National Convention
The body that governed France from 1792-1795.
