World History: Revolutions, Nationalism and World Wars
Revolutions, Nationalism and World Wars. Questions test causal explanation: why revolutions happen, how nationalism was built, and how the 1919 settlement fed the 1939 war.
Core rules and concepts
- French Revolution: fiscal crisis, the three estates, the Estates-General (1789), the Bastille on 14 July 1789, the Tennis Court Oath, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. It destroyed feudal privilege and created citizenship, but produced the Terror and then Napoleon.
- Russian Revolution 1917: February overthrew the Tsar (not a Bolshevik event); Lenin's April Theses demanded all power to the Soviets; October brought the Bolsheviks to power; Brest-Litovsk (1918) exited the war; the NEP (1921) allowed limited private trade.
- Nationalism: Italian unification through Mazzini's ideas, Cavour's diplomacy and Garibaldi's volunteers; German unification by Bismarck's blood and iron through three wars.
- Wars: WWI grew from rival alliances, imperial competition and the Balkan crisis triggered at Sarajevo (28 June 1914). Versailles (1919) imposed Article 231, reparations and territorial losses. WWII followed fascist expansion, appeasement at Munich (1938) and the invasion of Poland in September 1939, ending with the UN in 1945 and the Cold War split (Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, NATO).
Worked example
Explain how Versailles contributed to WWII. Reasoning chain: harsh terms and the war-guilt clause → humiliation and economic strain in Germany → Weimar instability → Nazi propaganda gains → aggressive revisionism unchecked by appeasement → war. Each link must be stated, not merely asserted.
Marks-losing traps
- Calling the February Revolution Bolshevik, or crediting Lenin with it.
- Confusing the League of Nations (1919) with the UN (1945).
- Dating the first Non-Aligned summit to 1955 (Bandung was 1955; Belgrade was 1961).
- Naming the wrong year for the invasion of Poland.