WWI Flashcards
Triple Alliance
The alliance of Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Italy (1882–1914).
Bloody Sunday
A day in January 1905 on which a massive, peaceful workers’ demonstration was fired on by imperial Russian troops, killing several hundred.
Soviet
Russian word for “council,” referring to elected bodies of workers’ delegates in 1905 and 1917; later used to refer to the regime that ruled Russia from 1917 until 1991.
•Council
Duma
A Russian council or parliament.
Diplomatic Revolution of 1890-1907
The process whereby Bismarck’s diplomacy was reversed and Germany was encircled by France, Russia, and Britain.
Triple Entente
The alliance of Britain, France, and Russia (1907–1914).
•Entente
•Friendly understanding
Bosnian Crisis of 1908-1909
A serious international crisis that tied Austria closer to Germany and provoked an immense eight-year military buildup in Russia.
Blank Check
Issued in July 1914, a guarantee that Germany would support any action Austria might take against Serbia in the aftermath of the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
•Backing up for any cause
Trench Warfare
A brutalizing, degrading form of combat in which soldiers lived and died fighting in ditches eight feet deep; caused by the stalemate on the Western Front during the Great War.
U-boats
German term for “Under-the-Sea-Boats,” or submarines.
Zimmermann Note
An effort by a German diplomat to bribe Mexico into an alliance against the United States in 1917; intercepted and decoded by the British, it outraged public opinion in the neutral United States.
Provisional Government
A temporary cabinet composed largely of Duma leaders after the tsar of Russia was overthrown in 1917.
Petrograd Soviet
A council of deputies elected by workers and soldiers in the capital of Russia in 1917; it struggled for power against the Provisional Government.
Bolsheviks 737
Literally, “those in the majority” in the Russian Social Democratic Party after 1903; led by Lenin, they seized power in the October Revolution of 1917 and later became the Soviet Communist Party.
Nationalization
The takeover of private properties or enterprises by the national state.
