CHAPTER 25: THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY CRISIS: WAR AND REVOLUTION
Reading Questions:
1. Discuss the causes of World War I: What were the major long-term causes of the war? How important were the decisions made by European statesmen during the summer of 1914 in causing the war?
2. Discuss the course of the first two years of World War I: Why did many people expect a short war?
Why was it not a short war? Why did World War I become a “war of attrition”? Why did the warring
nations, worn out by the end of 1916, not make peace?
3. Why can 1917 be viewed as the year that witnessed the decisive turning point of World War I?
4. How did wartime governments maintain public order and mobilize public opinion during the course of
the war? Compare these actions with those taken by governments in previous wars.
5. What caused the Russian Revolution? How did Lenin and the Bolsheviks manage to seize and hold
power despite their small numbers? How did the Bolsheviks secure their power during the civil war?
6. What were the chief aims of the Paris Peace Conference? To what extent were these aims ncorporated
into the actual peace treaties?
7. Can the Treaty of Versailles be viewed as a successful settlement of the war? Why or why not?
Identifications:
1. No Man’s Land
2. Black Hand
3. Gavrillo Princip
4. Sarajevo
5. “blank check”
6. the Schlieffen Plan
7. First Battle of the Marne
8. Battles of Tannenberg and Masurian Lakes
9. trench warfare
10. Verdun and the Somme
11. the machine gun and poison gas
12. Central Powers
13. Lawrence of Arabia
14. the Lusitania
15. unrestricted submarine warfare
16 tanks
17. “total war”
18. Germany’s War Raw Materials Board
19. Britain’s Ministry of Munitions
20. Hindenburg and Ludendorf
21. Georges Clemenceau
22. Ireland’s Easter Rebellion
23. DORA
25. the Nineteenth Amendment
25. Nicholas II and Alexandra
26. Rasputin
27. Petrograd
28. “Peace, land, and bread”
29. soviets
30. Bolsheviks
31. V.I. Lenin
32. the “April Theses”
33. Alexander Kerensky
34. Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
35. Reds and Whites
36. Leon Trotsky
37. “war communism”
38. Alexandra Kollontai and the Zhenotdel
39. the Cheka
40. Second Battle of the Marne
41. November 11, 1918
42. Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg and the Free Corp
43. Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points
44. Treaty of Versailles
45. League of Nations
46. Article 231
47. reparations
48. “dictated peace”
49. Yugoslavia
50. League of Nations’ mandates
MAP EXERCISES
1. Europe in 1914. MAP 25.1. What were the geographical locations of the two contending alliances in
1914, and what strategic military challenges did both sides face? Who were the major contending powers in the Balkans, and why did the Ottoman Empire ultimately join Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I? (page 719)
2. The Western Front, 1914-1918. MAP 25.2. What factors might explain the extent of the German
advances in the west in 1914 and again in 1918? Why is it that the actions on Western Front are so much
better known than those of the Eastern Front? (page 726)
3. The Eastern Front, 1914-1918. MAP 25.3. Note the sites of the major battles on the Eastern Front.
What is the geographical explanation for those several battles? (page 731)
4. The Russian Revolution and Civil War. MAP 25.4. What geographic advantages and disadvantages
did each side face in the Russian Civil War. From a geographical perspective, why did the Reds win?
(page 741)
5. Europe in 1919. MAP 25.5. Compare MAP 25.5 with MAP 25.1. Who were the winners and who were
the losers, and where? What impact did these geopolitical changes have on the period from 1919 to
1939? (page 746)
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR THE PRIMARY SOURCES (BOXED DOCUMENTS)
1. “’You Have to Bear the Responsibility for War or Peace’”: How do the telegrams exchanged between
William II and Nicholas II reveal why the Europeans foolishly went to war in 1914? What do these documents reveal about the nature of the relationship between these two monarchs? From these telegrams, which of the two rulers, William II or Nicholas II, bears the greater responsibility for war? Why? If Germany and Russia had been true democracies, would the outcome have been different? Why or why not? (page 721)
2. “The Excitement of War”: What do these writings from Stefan Zweig, Robert Graves, and Walter
Limmer reveal about the motivations of ordinary people to join and support World War I? Could those
responses best be described as manifestations of nineteenth century Romanticism or in twentieth century
psychological categories? Does the passage reveal anything about the power of nationalism in Europe in
the early 20th century? Did the responses of most Americans after the terrorist attack of September 11,
2001, help illustrate the reactions of many Europeans in August 1914? (page 724)
3. “The Reality of War: Trench Warfare”: What does this excerpt from Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet
on the Western Front reveal about the realities of trench warfare? What is there in the passage quoted
that could give support to the idea that World War I was both the end of the nineteenth century and the
beginning of the twentieth century? Do you think it would ever be possible for the surviving frontline
victims of the war to describe or explain their experiences there to those left behind on the home front?
What subsequent tensions in post-war European society might be attributable to this disjuncture?
(page 728)
5. “Women in the Factories”: How did work in a munitions factory broaden the outlook of an upper-
middle-class woman like Naomi Loughnan? What were the new experiences she found in the factory?
What obstacles did she and other women face, at least initially? What were some of the effects of
total war on European women? (page 734)
7. “Soldier and Peasant Voices”: What do these letters reveal about the attitudes of at least two ordinary
people towards the Bolshevik Revolution and its aftermath? What are their specific criticisms of the
Bolsheviks? How would Lenin have responded to these angry letters? Is their anger and frustration
justified, given the conditions in Russia in early 1918? Why or why not? (page 740)
8. “Two Voices of Peacemaking: Woodrow Wilson and Georges Clemenceau”: Why did Wilson, the
American, and Clemenceau, the Frenchman, have such different views of the world? How did the
peacemaking aims of Wilson and Clemenceau differ? How did their different views affect the
deliberations of the Paris Peace Conference and the nature of the final peace settlement? Who won?
Wilson, Clemenceau, or neither? Why? (page 745)