Secondary 3 History

Nations racing to build up armies and navies.

Triple Alliance (Germany/Austria/Italy) vs Triple Entente (Britain/France/Russia) — one war pulls in all.

Extreme patriotism + demands for self-rule, especially in the Balkans.

The 1914 assassination of the Austrian heir by a Serbian nationalist — the spark.

The powers' scramble for colonies, markets and spheres of influence; Africa and the Balkans were the flashpoints.

The military bloc of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy (1882).

The opposing grouping of Britain, France and Russia, facing the Triple Alliance.

A nickname for the Balkans, where ethnic tensions and great-power rivalry made war ever-ready.

Opposing trenches with 'no man's land' between — attacks cost heavily.

The deadly strip between opposing trenches.

Whole economies, industries and populations mobilised for war.

Signed 11 Nov 1918 — ending WWI.

Germany's plan for a quick victory — beat France fast, then turn on Russia; it stalled at the Battle of the Marne in 1914.

The main front in France and Belgium, where the armies faced each other from trenches for nearly four years.

Germany's declared policy of sinking, without warning, all ships bound for Britain, including neutral ones — it brought the US into the war.

A new weapon first sent into battle in 1916; it crushed wire and crossed trenches, later key to breaking the stalemate.

The 1919 peace treaty with Germany.

Huge payments Germany had to make to the victors.

Article 231: Germany alone bore war guilt — the most resented clause.

Post-WWI international body — the US never joined; it lacked teeth.

The 1919 conference in Paris where the victors settled the post-war order and signed treaties with the defeated powers.

Wilson of the US, Clemenceau of France and Lloyd George of Britain, who dominated the conference.

Wilson's peace principles: self-determination, open diplomacy and a League of Nations.

The treaty's limits on German arms: an army capped at 100,000, with no air force or submarines.

The Russian emperor — overthrown in 1917.

Lenin's communist revolutionary faction.

The two 1917 revolutions: the first toppled the Tsar, the second put the Bolsheviks in power.

The Soviet Union, formed in 1922.

Leader of the Bolsheviks, who seized power in the October Revolution and founded the Soviet state.

The government that replaced the Tsar after the February Revolution; it lost support by staying in the war and delaying reform.

Lenin's slogan answering the three most urgent demands: end the war, give peasants land, end hunger.

The 1918 peace treaty by which Soviet Russia left WWI, ceding large territories to Germany.

The October 1929 US stock market collapse.

The global slump of the 1930s: mass unemployment, bankruptcies, shrinking trade.

A tax on imports; the tariff wars of the 1930s made things worse.

Share of jobless workers; the US hit ~25%.

Borrowing to buy shares in the hope prices would only rise — the speculative mania of the 1920s inflated the stock bubble.

Factories making more than consumers could buy: goods went unsold, prices fell, and firms had to cut jobs or close.

Shielding home industries behind high tariffs; mutual retaliation shrank world trade even further.

After the crash, panicked withdrawals toppled banks, wiping out savings and freezing credit.

Ultra-nationalist, dictatorial, anti-communist politics — pioneered by Mussolini.

Hitler's far-right party, in power from 1933.

Germany rebuilding its military in breach of Versailles.

Media manipulation for leader cults and enemy images.

Leader of Italy's Fascists, who established dictatorship after the 1922 March on Rome.

Leader of the Nazis; German Chancellor from 1933, he built a dictatorship and tore up Versailles.

The Fascists' 1922 march on the capital that brought Mussolini to power.

The aggressive bloc formed by Germany, Italy and Japan.

Buying peace by conceding to aggressors — it backfired.

The 1938 deal allowing Germany to take the Sudetenland.

Germany's 1938 annexation of Austria.

Germany's fast armoured assault tactics — swept Europe early in WWII.

The German-speaking border region of Czechoslovakia, ceded to Germany by the 1938 Munich Agreement.

The demilitarised zone in western Germany; Hitler remilitarised it in 1936 while Britain and France only protested.

The August 1939 German–Soviet non-aggression treaty that freed Hitler to invade Poland.

The British prime minister who personified appeasement, claiming 'peace for our time' after Munich.

Fast armoured + air assault tactics.

7 Dec 1941: Japan's surprise attack; the US entered the war.

6 June 1944: Allied landings in France — the Western counter-offensive.

Aug 1945: US bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Japan surrendered.

Germany's massive 1940 air assault to win control of the skies; the RAF held out and the invasion was shelved.

The 1942–43 Soviet–German battle where Germany's Sixth Army surrendered — its first great defeat on the Eastern Front and the turn of the tide.

The 1942 Pacific naval battle where the US sank four Japanese carriers — the Pacific tide turned.

The Nazis' systematic murder of some six million Jews.

Founded 1945 to keep peace and foster cooperation.

The UN's core body — five permanent members hold vetoes.

The post-war US and USSR — the two poles.

The post-war wave of colonies gaining independence.

The divide between Soviet-held Eastern Europe and the West, named by Churchill.

Post-war Germany was administered in four zones by the US, Britain, France and the USSR; by 1949 this became two German states.

Germany's formal 1949 division — the Soviet zone became East Germany, the western zones West Germany — reunited only in 1990.

Each of the five permanent Security Council members can block a resolution — paralysing the UN when great powers disagree.

The long US–Soviet standoff that stopped short of direct war.

The line dividing Soviet-controlled East from Western Europe.

Rival military blocs: NATO (West) vs Warsaw Pact (East).

US/Soviet-backed conflicts by third parties — Korea, Vietnam.

The 1947 US pledge to back nations threatened by communism — seen as the Cold War's opening move.

The US economic aid programme that rebuilt Western Europe and checked the spread of communism.

The 1962 standoff over Soviet missiles in Cuba — the closest the world came to nuclear war.

The 1970s easing of US–Soviet tensions and limits on arms.