Cameroon GCE A-Level History study materials
Cameroon GCE A-Level History study resources

Cameroon GCE A-Level History cheat sheet

Cameroon GCE A-Level History · Keep the key ideas within reach.

Quick reference

Cameroon: colonial rule, mandates, trusteeship and independence

  • The 12 July 1884 Nachtigal–Duala treaty began German rule; the Berlin Conference did not award Cameroon.

  • German forces surrendered in 1916, after which Britain and France partitioned the territory.

  • Cameroon was a League mandate from 1922 and a UN trusteeship from 1946.

  • The 11 February 1961 plebiscites sent Northern Cameroons to Nigeria and Southern Cameroons to Cameroon.

  • Reunification on 1 October 1961 created a federation; the 1972 referendum made the state unitary.

Quick reference

Africa in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: imperial power, resistance and independence

  • Specify region and period before generalizing about colonial Africa.

  • The Berlin Conference did not directly create every boundary or award every colony.

  • Economic institutions and resistance varied among territories.

  • Mandates and trusteeships were different international arrangements.

  • Independence and later political or economic outcomes require separate explanations.

Quick reference

World and European transformations from the revolutionary age through the Cold War and beyond

  • Dual revolution: French politics and British industry interact; neither explains 1789–1914 alone.

  • Key German dates: Zollverein 1834, railway 1835, Paulskirche constitution 1849, Gründerkrach 1873.

  • Bismarck's 1883–89 insurance laws were both welfare and anti-socialist strategy.

  • The Sonderweg is a contested thesis (Blackbourn/Eley), not a datum.

  • Compete the theories: Hobson/Lenin, Schumpeter, Cain and Hopkins; don't blend them.

  • Versailles detail: Article 231, 100,000-man army, 132 bn gold marks under the 1921 London Schedule.

  • Weimar stabilisation (1924–29) and collapse (after 1929) must be explained separately.

  • Fischer's war-guilt thesis and the centenary July-crisis debate are positions, not settled facts.

  • Key distinctions: Fire Decree 28 February 1933; Enabling Act adopted 23 March and promulgated 24 March 1933; Nuremberg Laws 1935; November pogrom 1938.

  • Wannsee, 20 Jan 1942, coordinates an ongoing genocide; it is not its starting point.

  • The invasion of the Soviet Union inJune 1941 was followed by a major expansion of systematic mass shootings; shooting was itself a method of murder.

  • Intentionalism vs. functionalism and Goldhagen vs. Browning must be named as positions.

  • Bloc dates: Marshall Plan 1947, NATO 1949, Warsaw Pact 1955, Wall 1961.

  • Ostpolitik chain: Moscow and Warsaw Treaties 1970, Basic Treaty 1972, Helsinki 1975.

  • Integration chain: ECSC 1951, Rome 1957, SEA 1986, Maastricht 1992.

  • Wandel durch Annäherung describes change through rapprochement; assess its aims and effects without attributing 1989 to a single policy.

  • 1990–91: Two-Plus-Four, Charter of Paris, Soviet dissolution; a moment of institutionalism.

  • Srebrenica 1995 and Kosovo 1999 test the tension between human rights and UN-mandate rules.

  • Enlargement waves 2004/2007 and NATO's 1999/2004 rounds shape later Russian perceptions.

  • Key dates: 9/11 2001, Iraq 2003, Crimea 2014, Zeitenwende 27 Feb 2022.

Quick reference

Historical evidence, chronology and justified interpretation

  • Identify provenance, audience, genre and transmission before judging evidentiary value.

  • A normative text does not by itself establish actual compliance.

  • Chronological sequence alone does not prove a causal mechanism.

  • Periodization is an interpretation with explicit criteria.

  • Different perspectives remain subject to evidence and contextual evaluation.