Modern History Handbook
2015 - 2016
Front Cover Photographs
Centre: One of the many heroic paintings of Adolf Hitler displayed at the House of German Art in Munich in Nazi times.
Clockwise from top left:
1: The scene in the Odeonsplatz in Munich on 2 August 1914 as a crowd gathered in front of the Feldherrnhalle (Field Marshall’s
Hall) to greet the news of Germany’s declaration of war. One member of the crowd, enlarged in the circle, was a young Adolf
Hitler. Just to the side of the Feldherrnhalle (very close to where this photograph was taken) was to be the site where Hitler’s
attempted putsch in 1923 was stopped with the death of sixteen Nazis and four policemen. We visit this site on our History Tour of
Europe.
2: The Normandy American Cemetery at Colleville sur Mer near Omaha Beach, one of the D-Day landing beaches in Normandy.
We visit this cemetery and the D-Day landing beaches on our History Tour of Europe.
3: Hitler speaking to an enthusiastic group of Nazi supporters in the canteen of the Braune Haus (Brown House) in Munich. This
was a administrative building the Nazis moved into after they rose to power. It was located just off the Königsplatz. The building
no longer exists but the site will soon have a new building housing a Documentation Centre on the history of Nazism in Munich.
4: A scene at a night during a Nazi rally at the Zeppelin Field in Nuremberg. The Nazis used Nuremberg as the venue for a series
of rallies each spring they named the Party Days. The idea of searchlights encircling the field came from Hitler’s architect, Albert
Speer, as was described by the British ambassador as creating a “cathedral of light.” We visit this site on our History Tour of
Europe.
5: Two Nazi posters. “Bund Deutscher Mädel in der Hitler Jugend” means the League of German Maidens in the Hitler Youth.
The Hitler Youth, led by Robert Ley, was the name for the entire Nazi youth movement. It was divided into a number of smaller
organisations, the Bund Deutscher Mädel being for older girls. The second poster is a wartime poster with its caption, “Sieg um
jeden preis” (Victory at any price) being indicative of the Nazi determination to fight on, even after the fortunes of war turned
against them with the catastrophe at Stalingrad in early 1942.
6: The Königsplatz (King’s Place) in Munich, a site originally created by King Ludwig I of Bavaria but used by the Nazis
as a major venue for Nazi parades and ceremonies. Munich was regarded as the birthplace of Nazism and was the site of
Hitler’s abortive putsch in 1923. It was regarded as the Hauptstadt der Bewegung (The Capital of the Movement). The two
rectangular buildings in the middle of the picture were built by the Nazis - the Führerbau (Leader’s building) on the left and the
Verwaltungsbau (Administration building) on the right. The Führerbau was the site of the negotiations in September 1938 that led
the the Munich agreement which gave part of Czechoslovakia in Germany. The two smaller temple-like structures between these
larger buildings were the Ehrentempeln (Honour Temples). More on these below. The Braune Haus (Brown House) is behind the
left Ehrentemple. We visit these sites on our History Tour of Europe and can enter the former Führerbau, now a music university.
7: The Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme. This memorial commemorates the tens of thousands of soldiers who
died at the Somme and who have no known grave. The Somme was the scene of the major British offensive of 1916. Led by Sir
Douglas Haig, the British suffered over 50,000 casualties of the first day of the offensive - 1 July 1916. We visit this memorial on
our History Tour of Europe.
8: The two photographs at the bottom of the page commemorate the same event, though in different places. The upper photo is
from a Nazi Rally in the Luitpold Arena in Nuremberg at which Hitler, flanked by just two lieutenants, salutes the sixteen Nazis
who died in the attempted putsch in Munich on 9 November 1923. This was done in front of the World War One memorial in
the Luitpold Arena. The lower photograph is taken in one of the Ehrentempeln für die Blutzeugen (The honour temples for the
blood martyrs) in Munich and one can see the other Ehrentempel in the background. In each of these temples there were eight
stone sarcophagi, sixteen in all, containing the bodies of the sixteen Nazis who died next to the Feldherrnhalle in the Odeonsplatz,
Munich when the Nazi rebels were confronted by armed police and a battle ensued which put down the revolt. This site was the
scene of annual commemorations on 9 November and was regarded as the spiritual centre of Nazism. Hitler built a memorial on
the side of the Feldherrnhalle where the battle took place. It was permanently guarded and passers-by were obliged to give the
Hitler Gruß (Hitler greeting). On the front of this memorial the names of the sixteen Nazis who died were inscribed. The back of
this memorial contained the words “Und Ihr habt doch gesiegt” which translates as “Yet victory was yours!” We visit all these
sites on our History Tour of Europe.
9: The photo at bottom left shows one of the Ehrentempel in the foreground and Nazi troops filling the Königsplatz during one of
the ceremonies commemorating the Blutzeugen (Blood martyrs) of 9 November 1923.
10: Adolf Hitler, in company with his architect Albert Speer, photographed at the Trocadero in Paris with the Eiffel Tower in the
background on 23 June 1940. Hitler paid this flying visit to Paris after it had surrendered. The visit only lasted a few hours and
took place very early in the morning so few Parisians even knew Hitler was in the city. Speer claims that it was only once Hitler
saw the splendour of the city that he decided not to destroy it. He told Speer that the splendour of the new German capital he had
planned - Germania - would dwarf Paris. We visit this site on our History Tour of Europe.
11: The German Pavilion at the 1937 Paris Exhibition. This pavilion was designed by Albert Speer as a showpiece for Nazism
and was located below the Trocadero near the Seine River. It was also located directly opposite the USSR pavilion, symbolically
pitting right wing fascism against left wing Communism. We see the site of Speer’s German pavilion on our History Tour of
Europe.
Senior
Modern History
Handbook
Welcome to the MacKillop College 2 Unit Modern History
course. The material you will be studying in the HSC course
- World War One, Germany from 1918 to 1939 and Conflict
in Europe from 1935 to 1945, is some of the most fascinating
in Modern History. How a civilised world could plunge itself
into the barbarism of wholesale slaughter on the Western Front
early last century is an incredible story. Having endured this
nightmare, it is all the more remarkable that events should
have taken place in Germany in the two decades after the Great
War which would once again see the whole world engaged in
mutual butchery. The spectre of Adolf Hitler looms large in the
history of the 20th century and it forms a major focus of our
study.
The content of the Preliminary course should help
prepare you for the HSC course and ranges over Muslim
Fundamentalism, the Dreyfus Affair, the decline and fall of
the Romanov Dynasty and the coming of the First World War.
We are confident you will find the history we will cover so
engaging that work on it will seem less like labour and more
like a hobby.
Contents
Introduction
What will we be doing for the next two years?
How will you be assessed?
What can you expect from your teachers?
The Ten Commandments of Essay Writing
HSC Marking Guidelines
Preliminary Modern History Assessment
HSC Modern History Assessment
Modern History Objectives and Outcomes
2
2
2
3-10
11 - 15
16
17
18
The Preliminary Course
The Syllabus Document - Part I-Case Studies
Modern History Folder Guidelines
How to take Notes
The Political Spectrum
Isms and Ocracies - the language of History
19-20
21
22 - 23
24 - 25
26 - 27
Case Studies Articles:
• The Iranian Revolution and the rise of
Muslim Fundamentalism
• A Survey of Chile - 1970 to 1978
• Salvadore Allende
• The Dreyfus Affair
28 - 29
30 - 31
32 - 33
34 - 37
Historical Investigation Articles:
• The Decline and Fall of the Romanov Dynasty
38
• Research Guide Questions
38 - 40
Core Study Articles:
• The world at the beginning of the 20th century
• Militarism
• The Development of the European Alliance
System
• Dramatis Personae of Causes of WWI
• The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand
• The July Crisis
• Who’s Responsible
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
We are also very proud of the results earned by many
Modern History candidates before you. 2 Unit Modern History
is a subject which attracts a much better than average quality
of candidature, yet we have consistently scored well above the
state average. The beneficial ATAR implications of this are
very evident to the knowledgeable.
This booklet has been produced to amalgamate almost all
the handouts you would otherwise have received separately
during the next two years. On past experience, this material has
been of great benefit for our students and we hope you will also
find it useful.
The consistent quality of results in Modern History at
MacKillop College has been achieved by students who have
been positive in their approach to their studies and who have
worked effectively and consistently to achieve success. They
earned their results. Together, we are sure we can do the same.
We want you to earn an ATAR that will enable you to realise
your career aspirations. Together, let’s make Modern History
one of your best ATAR contributors.
Robert Newton and Katie Bennett
41 - 42
42 - 43
44 - 45
45
46 - 47
48 - 49
50 - 51
World War One
World War One Syllabus Document
Handling the World War One Questions
Some Tips for Part B
Sample Part B questions and paragraphs
Trench Warfare slideshow
The Home Front slideshow
Women in Wartime - WWI slideshow
An overview of the course of World War One
Reasons for the Allied Victory
Gossip from the Forest
Past CSSA/HSC Questions on WWI
52
53
54
55 - 56
57
58 - 59
60
61 - 63
63 - 64
65
66 - 79
20th century Germany
The Syllabus Document - Germany and Speer
Handling the Germany and Speer questions
Germany Historiography
Germany - From Weimar to Hitler
The Hitler Appointment - 30 January 1933
Nazi Germany slideshow
A Model of Totalitarianism
20th century Germany Sample Essay
Past CSSA/HSC Questions on Germany
84
85
86 - 87
88 - 89
90 - 91
92 - 93
94
95
96 - 99
Conflict in Europe
Conflict in Europe Syllabus Document
100
Handling the Conflict in Europe Question
100 - 111
The Origins of WWII - Ten factors to remember
111
Reasons for the Allied Victory in World War Two 112
Hitler’s Miscalculations in World War Two
113
The Home Front slideshow
104 - 105
Women in Wartime - WWII slideshow
105
Genocide MP4 notes
106
Munich: A Reappraisal
107
Past HSC/CSSA Questions on Conflict in Europe 108
Appendices:
Going Digital - email and intranet resources
2014/2015 Modern History Flow Chart
110 - 111
112
1
What will we be doing for the next two years?
The Preliminary Course
This will occupy the first three terms of Year 11. None of
the Preliminary Course content is directly examinable in the
HSC so we use this course as a means to an end - the end being
to teach you the language and the skills necessary to succeed in
the HSC course.
The first section is a brief introduction to the course in
which we will teach you the language of history so you become
familiar with the terms that will be commonplace in the rest of
the course.
We then study three Case Studies that will cover interesting
content and also give you a chance to develop the skills you
will need to handle HSC-style assessment tasks. The three the
Case Studies are as follows:
• The Iranian Revolution and Muslim Fundamentalism
• The 1973 overthrow of Salvadore Allende in Chile
• The Dreyfus Affair in France 1894 to 1906
You then undertake a Historical Investigation on the
Decline and Fall of the Romanov Dynasty. The course
concludes with the Core Study - The world at the beginning
of the 20th century. The focus of this unit will be the nature
of the world which plunged into the catastrophe of World War
One in 1914.
How will you be assessed?
The Preliminary Course
You will be assessed on the following tasks:
• An Oral Task on the Dreyfus Affair
• A Mid-Preliminary Examination with an essay on the
Iranian Revolution and a task based on the Dreyfus Affair
• A Historical Investigation Research/Source Analysis Task
on the Romanovs
• A Group Research/Source Analysis Task on the Core Study
(the Causes of World War One)
• An End-of-Course Examination with an essay on the
Romanovs and a source-based question on the Core Study
Details of the nature of each task, the weightings of each
task and the outcomes being assessed in all Preliminary
assessment tasks are indicated later in this handbook. We will
also complete a series of non-assessable factual quizzes.
The HSC Course
You will study the HSC course for the last term of Year 11
and all Year 12.
In Term Four of Year 11 we will cover the Core Study World War One 1914 to 1919. Every Modern History student
in the state does this Core Study. In the HSC it is worth 25%
and is assessed with a series of multiple choice and written
response questions based on a series of primary and secondary
sources.
Term One in Year 12 sees us cover the National Study of
Germany 1918 to 1939, the period which saw the rise and fall
of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. This unit is assessed in the
HSC with a traditional essay worth 25%.
In Term Two we study Conflict in Europe 1935-1945,
one of the electives in the International Studies in Peace and
Conflict part of the syllabus. In the HSC this is worth 25% and
is also examined with a traditional essay.
Our final topic explores Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect
and later his Minister for Armaments. In the HSC the Speer
question will have two parts which are worth 25%.
A Flow Chart near the end of this Handbook indicates the
timing of all the units and assessment tasks you will do.
The HSC Course
You will be assessed on the following tasks:
• A Source Analysis Task on World War One
• A Mid-Preliminary Assessment consisting of a sourcebased question on World War One and an essay on
Germany
• A Research/Oral Task on Conflict in Europe
• A Trial Examination consisting of a source-based question
on World War One, an essay on Germany, a two-part
question on Albert Speer and an essay on Conflict in
Europe
• A Research/Source Analysis Task on Albert Speer
Details of the nature of each task, the weightings of each
task and the outcomes being assessed in all HSC assessment
tasks are indicated later in this handbook. We will also
complete a series of non-assessable factual quizzes.
What can you expect from your teachers?
We are sure you are aware of the consistently high quality
results that students at MacKillop College have earned in HSC
Modern History, especially in terms of their ATAR marks. They
have gained these marks by approaching their work positively
and working to the best of their ability.
We will do all we can to help you achieve the best results
possible. In order to do so we will:
• Provide you with detailed typed feedback on all your major
assessment tasks. These will point out the general strengths
evident in responses and also indicate common weaknesses
and how these weaknesses should be addressed.
• Not only teach you the content you need to know, but also
how you are expected to do your tasks. We believe it is our
responsibility not just to teach you the ‘what’ of a course,
but also the ‘how.’
2
• Give you access to a vast array of MP4 video, MP3 audio,
Powerpoint and PDF resources via the English/History
Department Intranet site.
• Make ourselves available to help you on a one-to-one basis
if you are having any difficulty in coping with any aspect
of the course. We are also happy to mark any practice tasks
you wish to do beyond what is done in class.
• Endeavour to get your assessments marked and back to you
within a week of the task being completed.
What do we expect from you?
A positive approach to your studies, commitment and
reliability. In short, your best effort.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
MacKillop College History Department
The Ten Commandments
of
Essay Writing
1. Thou shalt believe in thy ability
2. Thou shalt follow all directions
carefully
3. Thou shalt answer the question and
express thy opinion
4. Thou shalt write opening, body and
concluding paragraphs
5. Thou shalt plan thy essay
6. Thou shalt use supporting evidence
7. Thou shalt avoid storytelling
8. Thou shalt express thyself clearly
and accurately
9. Thou shalt write plentifully
10.Thou shalt follow the conventions
of essay writing
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
3
Why Ten Commandments?
You have already been given your Senior English
Handbook and it explains why we have developed these
guidelines for essay writing. The similarities between Modern
History and English should be clear to you already. In both you
have to create an argument in response to a question. In both,
that argument must be well constructed, lucidly expressed
and convincingly supported with evidence. In English, that
evidence is going to be derived from the text. In History,
the evidence will be factual content relating to the period
about which you are writing. The skills of essay writing in
English and History are so similar that in most respects these
commandments are identical.
There is another similarity between English and Modern
History, especially at this college. Success in the HSC.
Knowing how to go about writing responses in Modern
History is a key part of the success this subject has enjoyed
- a success we want you to share. That’s why we have these
commandments.
Differences in History
If you have read the commandments in the English
Handbook you should still read the guidelines for Modern
History that follow. These commandments relate to traditional
essays - the sort of essays done in the 20th century Germany
unit and the Conflict in Europe unit - 50% of your HSC exam.
In your World War One study, there are some differences
relating to paragraphing and planning. Advice regarding how
to handle the three parts of these source-based questions,
especially Question 3 which deals with source assessment, will
be provided in the World War One section of this handbook.
So there are a few variations on these guidelines relating
to World War One tasks which will be explained later, but
generally speaking what follows is your guide to how to write
History responses. Read carefully and follow religiously!
The Ten Commandments
explained
1. Thou shalt believe in thy
own ability
We put this commandment first because everything else
depends upon it. Unless you believe in yourself, unless you
have faith in your own ability, you will never succeed in life.
You will certainly never achieve the results of which you are
capable in the HSC. One of the most common things History
teachers hear at this college is students prefacing their reading
of an answer in class with ‘this is probably wrong.’ We know
that there is an extent to which this is just natural humility
shining through, but we really would rather you did not put
yourselves down.
We believe it is vital that you are confident and optimistic,
both individually and as a form. Long experience of many
groups has taught us the characteristics of success.
The groups that succeed display a positive approach to
their studies. They know the work can be hard but they believe
that they can improve and achieve. They have a faith in their
ability and the ability of the college to bring out the best in
them. They regard their teachers as their allies in the struggle
to succeed. In the corridors one can sense friendship, optimism
and good humour.
The groups that fail to achieve their potential allow
negativism to overwhelm them. They seem to lose faith in their
ability to achieve. Bitchiness and unpleasantness grows within
4
the form and, foolishly, teachers come to be regarded as ‘the
enemy.’
The difference in the results achieved by these two sorts of
groups is remarkable. It is one of the joys of teaching at this
college that the occasions when we have negative groups are
far outweighed by those when we have positive forms.
When things get tough, and they will, the great temptation
is to feel that it is all too tough, that the system is all
wrong, that a miscellany of other people are to blame, and
consequently, to feel that it is not worth the effort to continue.
Students who fall for these excuses throw in the towel.
Unfortunately, in most forms there are a small number of
people who endure this fate. Fortunately, it is only ever a very
small minority. Once they have given up, the one thing they
don’t want to feel is lonely. Their negativism can be infectious.
What each individual has to decide is, ‘is it in my best interests
to continue the effort, or to join the one or two that have given
up?’ The answer should be obvious. If you start to see one or
two metaphorical towels being thrown in during the next two
years, don’t be tempted to join. Try to encourage the student
for whom it has all become too much to get back on track and
start working again. If that fails, console yourself with the sure
knowledge that, ‘I’m certainly going to beat her!’
2. Thou shalt follow all
directions carefully
Directions on examination papers and on assessment tasks
are there for a reason. Make sure you read them and follow
them. If you are told to answer three questions, answer three,
not two or four! If a direction says ‘list’, then list. If an essay
question asks you to address yourself to two or three parts or
features, make sure you cover them all. If a questions says
answer either (a) or (b), don’t do both. One of the saddest
things we see is the tears after an exam when a student
has done something very silly because she failed to follow
directions. Please don’t let this happen to you.
In most essays, the key direction in the question is the
direction word or the operator, the word that tells you
what you have to do. You already have the Board of Studies
Glossary of Key Terms in your English Handbook. Not on the
Board of Studies list, but still worth knowing are:
• Agree/Disagree: An expression of your point of view
containing facts and supported by evidence.
• Comment on: Express a personal opinion based on evidence.
• Criticise: Present your views about the merit of theories or
opinions or about the truth of facts. Back your judgement
by a discussion of evidence.
• How: Offer an explanation of/for.
• Illustrate: Make something clear by the use of concrete
examples (or a figure or diagram)
• List: Simply list features - do not write sentences.
• Name: Simply name features - do not write sentences.
• Relate: Show connections through example or
interpretation between items or ideas.
• Review: To make a survey of, examining the subject
critically
• Show: Give reasons and causes based on evidence.
• State: Present in a brief, clear fashion
• To what extent/How far: You have to make a quantitative
judgement of the degree to which you agree/disagree with a
given statement. Designed to produce a qualified agreement
or disagreement based on evidence.
• Trace: Follow the development or history of a topic from
some starting point.
• Why: Give reasons for.
One last point about following directions relates to the time
you should spend answering questions. In the HSC your World
War One, 20th century Germany, Albert Speer and Conflict
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
in Europe questions are all worth 25 marks each. With 180
minutes in the exam you spend about 45 minutes answering
each of these questions.
For Part A of World War One there is a series of multiple
choice and short answer questions worth 15 marks. You
should aim to spend no more than 25 minutes on this section.
You would then spend 20 minutes on Part B which is worth
10 marks. Part B is a source analysis question. Avoid the
temptation to spend more time on one question than another.
The one or two extra marks you may earn on the longer
response will usually be more than offset by the marks you lose
on the resulting short response. So use your time as follows:
•
•
•
•
World War One (25 marks) = 45 minutes
Germany (25 marks) = 45 minutes
Albert Speer (25 marks) = 45 minutes
Europe (25 marks) = 45 minutes
3. Thou shalt answer the
question and express thy
opinion
One of the most common problems students face is that
they learn a great deal of information in preparation for an
essay, and they write a great deal of that information when they
do their essay, but they fail to answer the question. Too often,
we end up writing a comment at the end of a paragraph, or at
the end of the whole essay, which says ‘you have not answered
the question!’ Make sure you read the question very carefully
and note what it is that you are being asked to do . . . then do it!
Encouraging students to express their own point of view
has become a central concern of syllabus and examination
committees, especially in the last few years. As you look at the
past questions you will see, very clearly, that the questions are
designed to elicit a personal response, your point of view. You
have to bring yourself to make a judgement about the question
that has been asked and then clearly express your opinion,
supported by factual evidence from the period, in your essay.
At a very practical level, there is another reason for
strongly arguing your own personal conviction when you are
writing an essay. You are much more likely to write strongly
and fluently when you really believe what you are writing. If
you are writing your own opinion on a question, this becomes
much more likely.
4. Thou shalt write opening,
body and concluding
paragraphs
The secret to success in essay writing is to learn the skill
of writing three types of paragraphs - opening, body and
concluding paragraphs. First of all, what is a paragraph? It is a
self-contained part of an essay which does particular jobs.
OPENING PARAGRAPH
All opening paragraphs have to do only two things:
• Answer the question clearly or express your opinion
• Outline the argument each of the following body
paragraphs will present
BODY PARAGRAPHS
All body paragraphs have to do four things:
• Introduce the idea, issue, concept or argument that will be
dealt with in the paragraph
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
• Develop your argument
• Support your argument with specific factual evidence
• Link the material being covered with the question that it is
supposed to be helping to answer.
CONCLUDING PARAGRAPH
All concluding paragraphs have to do one thing
• Summarise the main thrust of your argument/opinion
All this sounds great but it does not really help you unless
you can see examples of these paragraphs in action doing these
jobs. The examples that follow are based on two traditional
essays written by MacKillop College students on 20th century
Germany in their Trial Examinations.
The question (from the 1994 CSSA Trial) was:
Statement: Nazism exercised ultimate total control over all
aspects of German life.
To what extent do you agree with this statement? Support
your arguments with evidence from the period 1933 to 1941.
SAMPLE OPENING PARAGRAPH (1)
It can be persuasively asserted that to a very great extent
Nazism exercised total control over all aspects of German
life. The Nazi Party’s ideology required that the state had
effective control of the society, both physically and mentally. In
Germany between 1933 and 1941 political freedom, cultural
differences, the right to strike and religious autonomy were all
abolished. The minds of the people were also controlled via the
Nazi Party’s use of propaganda and the Führer Prinzip. The
success of Nazi control was best seen in their creation of the
Volksgemeinschaft (People’s Community).
In this first sample, the opening outlines four body
paragraphs on:
• The Nazi ideology which required control
• The freedoms abolished by the Nazis from 1933 to 1941
• Control through propaganda and the Fuhrer Prinzip
• Success exhibited in the Volksgemeinschaft
SAMPLE OPENING PARAGRAPH (2)
There were many aspects of German life over which
Nazism exercised total control in the period from 1933 to
1941 however it is doubtful whether the Nazis held ultimate
control over the lives of the German people. While the Nazi
apparatus of terror kept the majority of German people in at
least outward conformity there was still significant evidence
of dissent. Nazism gave the appearance of total control with
various organisations such as the Hitler Youth and the German
Labour Front appearing to have mass support yet even this
was to some degree illusory. The Nazis did, however, exercise
almost ultimate control over the press through Goebbels’
Ministry for People’s Enlightenment and Propaganda.
In this second sample we can clearly see that the three body
paragraphs to come in the essay will deal with:
• Apparatus of terror fails to stop dissent
• Appearance of total control in Hitler Youth and German
Labour Front
• Reality of total control - the press
You can see from these paragraphs that the approach
students take in essays can differ. The first sample argues
that the Nazis did exercise total control “to an incredible
extent” (note the quantitative judgement to the “To what
extent” question). The second sample has a more subtle line
of argument which says that there were “many aspects” of
life which over which there was “extensive control” (another
quantitative phrase), but there were others which did not
manifest the same degree of control.
5
In terms of what an opening paragraph has to do, both these
samples do a good job. In both cases a clear answer has been
provided in the first sentence. Then an outline of the argument
that will be presented in the body paragraphs to support
this answer is presented with one sentence for each body
paragraph.
Quality of expression and the quality and range of argument
introduced are the things that will make an impression on
markers in these opening paragraphs. Above all, though, make
sure you do the two jobs that must be done - Answer the
question and outline each paragraph’s argument.
What is the simplest way to structure an opening
paragraph? We recommend the following:
• one sentence (or sometimes two) in which you answer the
question, followed by . . .
• a number of sentences, each of which introduces the
argument of one of the body paragraphs of the essay
So, if you have four body paragraphs in the essay, your
opening paragraph will have five (or possibly six) sentences.
The sample opening paragraphs above both follow this pattern.
SAMPLE BODY PARAGRAPH (1)
This paragraph was on the appearance of total control as
exemplified in the Hitler Youth and The German Labour Front.
It was the third body paragraph in the second essay and is a
good example of a short but still effective body paragraph:
There were, however, Nazi organisations which maintained
the appearance of ultimate control. There were organisations
such as the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls
which allowed the Nazis to build up a strong following among
German children. However, although these youth organisations
had mass support, there were still many who did not join
them. Even when the Hitler Youth was made compulsory,
up to a quarter of eligible young people managed to evade
membership. Dr Robert Ley’s German Labour Front replaced
the trades unions in Germany in May 1933 with trade union
activity being outlawed. In spite of this, left wing opposition to
the Nazis persisted with thousands of unionist opponents being
imprisoned in concentration camps for their opposition to the
party. In both cases, the Nazis appeared to have total control,
but the reality spoke differently.
Remember that a body paragraph has to do four things;
Introduce, develop, support and link. The body paragraph
above does all four of these things:
• The first sentence gives a clear introduction to the issue
with which the paragraph will deal - i.e. appearance of
control in Nazi organisations.
• All the remaining sentences, except the last, then develop
the idea and explain where necessary.
• The sections highlighted in yellow are examples of support
in the form of factual evidence.
• The final sentence makes a clear link to the question,
actually using the words ‘total control’ used in the question.
SAMPLE BODY PARAGRAPH (2)
This paragraph was on the reality of near total control of
the media. It was the last body paragraph in the second essay.
One area over which the Nazis did hold almost total
control was the press. Goebbels and his Ministry of People’s
Enlightenment and Propaganda controlled radio, newspapers
and all forms of propaganda, including posters and pamphlets.
There were many books which were forbidden, those written
by Communists being especially targetted. Such books were
publicly denounced at the Nazi Burning of the Books in 1933.
It appeared that the Nazis held control of all publications
6
and broadcasts. It was forbidden to listen to foreign radio
broadcasts, and Hitler’s speeches at the Nuremberg rallies
were aired across Germany. However, even here, the Nazis did
not exercise absolute control. In the privacy of their homes,
many people tuned to foreign radio stations, and exhibitions
of “degenerate” artworks proved disturbingly popular.
Nevertheless the Nazis clearly did approach total control in
managing the press.
This body paragraph also does its four jobs:
• The first sentence gives a clear introduction to the issue
with which the paragraph will deal. This time it is the press
and media control.
• All the remaining sentences, except the last, develop and
explain the degree to which the Nazis exercised control
over all forms of media.
• The sections highlighted in yellow are examples of support
for the argument being presented.
• The final sentence makes a clear link to the question,
again using a phrase from the question to ensure the link is
obvious.
The amount and quality of support you provide is a key
factor in increasing your mark. Imagine if the first sentence of
the paragraph above here had read “The Nazis controlled lots
of media.” The quality of your expression is also discriminator.
What is the simplest way to structure a body
paragraph? We recommend the following:
• one sentence in which you introduce the topic of the
paragraph, followed by . . .
• a number of sentences in which you both develop and
explain this topic in your own words and support your ideas
with factual evidence, followed by . . .
• a linking sentence in which you make clear how the content
of the paragraph has helped to answer the question.
SAMPLE CONCLUDING PARAGRAPH (1)
This is the concluding paragraph to the first sample essay
which argued that the Nazis exercised control ‘to an incredible
extent.’
Thus, it is clear that Nazism from 1933 to 1941 had
a powerful influence over almost all aspects of German
life. Political freedom, ethnic and religious individuality,
and strikes were suppressed. Via the Fuhrer Prinzip and
propaganda, even the minds of the people were controlled by
the far-reaching Nazi control.
SAMPLE CONCLUDING PARAGRAPH (2)
The essay which argued that Nazi control was not
pervasive, and to an extent was more a case of appearance than
reality, concluded this way:
So, while the Nazis maintained the appearance of ultimate
control over all aspects of German life, the reality was
somewhat different. Signs of dissent, both inward and outward,
remained throughout the period of Nazi rule. Even in those
areas where the Nazis appeared to exercise total control, there
were still people who chose not to conform.
Both these concluding paragraphs do the job they are
supposed to do. They summarise the main argument that has
been presented, but do so without getting into dry repetition.
They remind the marker of the scope of the argument that has
been presented but they do not waste time re-arguing. They
also avoid the mistake of introducing new evidence.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
What is the simplest way to structure a concluding
paragraph? There is no sentence-by-sentence structure you
should follow but we recommend the following:
• the conclusion should be shorter that the introduction,
probably only about three sentences. The body paragraph
topics should be mentioned but can be coalesced into one
or two sentences.
• these are the last sentences your marker reads before
allocating a mark so make your expression as rich as
possible. Your best and most memorable sentence should
appear in this paragraph.
The first words, ‘Thus, it is clear . . . ‘ and ‘So, while . . .’
have a sense of finality and appear to be drawing together the
threads of the argument. Essentially, what you are saying is, ‘In
the light of the argument and evidence I have presented, here is
what I am able to conclude.’ Try to start your conclusion with
some such phrase as:
In the light of . . .
When finally considered . . .
There can be little doubt . . .
Clearly . . .
What seems beyond doubt . . .
In summary . . .
In view of . . .
5. Thou shalt plan thy essay
Picture the scene. A nervous teenager, facing a critically
important essay, reads the essay topic . . . and panics! The
enormity of what she has to do overwhelms her and she sits
stunned for minutes. Then, realising that she has to write
something, starts writing. She doesn’t know where she is going
or what she wants to say overall. She just writes whatever she
knows about the topic area of the question. Her ideas wander
incoherently from point to point. Her sentences run into each
other until they become incomprehensibly long. Paragraphing
is forgotten and page follows page without break. After forty
minutes, there are three or four pages written with a maze-like
complexity. No answer. No logical development. No success.
How can you avoid being this unfortunate fictional
character? By planning your essay before you write. An essay
in its totality is a very complex and sophisticated structure so
what you have to do in your plan is break it down into bitesized chunks - paragraphs. You have to plan the three or four
body paragraphs which will form the core of your essay’s
argument. Depending on how much you know, how fast you
can write and how detailed is the information which will form
your paragraphs, you will generally have between three and
four body paragraphs in a traditional essay (maybe five in an
Indochina essay). Before you start writing, you have to figure
out what these paragraphs will be.
Your plan should not be a page long summary. It could
consist of only three or four words. Each body paragraph, as
we have seen, deals with one idea, concept or main point. Your
plan should simply be a list of those points to remind you of
what should be in each paragraph as you write. For example,
if you were planning the essay in the second sample opening
paragraph your plan might have looked like this:
Some control, but more appearance than reality
• Terror tried, but fails
• Nazi organisations - appearance, but not reality
• The press - lots of control
This plan might take two or three minutes to think out, but
it would only take a minute at most to write. Once this is done,
you can write your introductory paragraph which answers the
question and outlines these three stages of your argument.
Then you write your body paragraphs, one on each of these
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
three features. You finish with a brief, punchy summary which
condenses all these three points concisely. So all you need to
have written is the three points.
Do not waste time writing down details of the point or
quotations you are going to use in each body paragraph. If you
know these details as you write your plan, you’ll know them
ten or twenty minutes later as you write the essay. Try to spend
no longer than five minutes planning your essay. If you feel
really comfortable with the question the plan might take you
only a minute or two.
The crucial thing is that you have a plan. If you do, you
can deal with each part of the essay as a small self- contained
bite-sized chunk. It’s small, it’s manageable and it makes sense
within the context of the essay overall. You can simply go from
manageable step to manageable step. If you do not have a plan,
you just write in an incoherent stream of consciousness, like
the character mentioned at the start of this section.
6. Thou shalt use supporting
evidence
You would have seen from the sample body paragraphs
in an earlier section that it is important that you support your
argument or opinion with factual evidence. Remember that
the syllabus committee and the examination committee expect
that you will present your own opinion. In the light of this,
some students have asked the not unreasonable question ‘How
can they give her more marks than me? It’s my opinion. Just
because my opinion is different to hers doesn’t mean I should
get less marks!’ This indignant student is quite right, on one
issue. She should not get less marks for having a different
opinion. The point is, of course, that she won’t! If she gets
less marks than someone else, it will not be because she had
a different opinion. It will be because the essay that argued
her opinion was not as good as the essay from the student that
argued a different opinion.
There are many features of essay writing that can separate
you from other candidates, all of which we are covering in
these Ten Commandments. One of the most important is
the quality and quantity of the supporting evidence that you
adduce in your essay. In your writing you might assert that,
for instance, ‘The Nazis exercised significant control of the
media.’ You may well be right in this judgement, but unless
you support it with factual evidence, the assertion by itself will
not score you many marks. The detail that is needed to support
this statement includes:
What Nazis did the controlling/what organisation?
What laws were passed?
What forms of media were controlled?
By what specific means were they controlled?
Thoroughly supported, the bland statement that ‘The Nazis
exercised significant control of the media’ could be expanded
like this:
Dr. Josef Goebbels and his Ministry of People’s
Enlightenment and Propaganda exercised wide-ranging
control over all forms of media. Radio proved a popular
means of proaganda with the Nazis mass-producing cheap
receivers incapable of receiving foreign broadcasts. Tuning
to foreign stations was forbidden and it became compulsory
to listen to certain Nazi broadcasts, both measures being
enforced by local radio wardens. Music by Jewish composers
such as Mendelssohn was banned. All newspapers became
subject to the 1934 Editorial Law with transgressors risking
imprisonment in concentration camps. Cinema was actively
promoted by the Nazis, most clearly seen in the propaganda
pieces produced by Leni Riefenstahl such as Olympia and
Triumph of the Will. Foreign films were subject to Goebbels’
censorship. Suspect literature from Jewish and Communist
authors was purged, most spectacularly exemplified by the
public burning of the books in Berlin in May 1934. Clearly
Nazi media control was overwhelming.
7
In order to introduce your factual support it is useful to
have a range of phrases that will help you do the job. Given
that you are looking for instances of factual evidence that are
examples of the points you are raising, the following phrases
could be helpful to use on these occasions:
. . . exemplified by . . .
. . . show when . . .
. . . demonstrated in . . .
. . . typified by . . .
. . . embodied in . . .
. . . emblematic of . . .
. . . indicative of . . .
. . . epitomised by . . .
. . . personified by . . .
. . . symbolised by . . .
. . . mirrored in . . .
. . . illustrated by . . .
. . . illuminated in . . .
. . . instanced in . . .
. . . represented by . . .
. . . most clearly seen in . . .
. . . evidenced by . . .
. . . revealed when . . .
. . . exhibited by . . .
. . . manifested in . . .
. . . characteristic of . . .
. . . signified by . . .
. . . suggestive of . . .
7. Thou shalt avoid
storytelling
Storytelling means exactly what it says; telling the story
of the years you are covering in great detail. This is a very
common error but you will probably avoid it if you plan
your essays and write paragraphs the way we have already
discussed. You will never get a question which simply asks
you to recount the events of your era. You are always required
to make an analysis of some feature of the period but simple
storytelling is what many weaker students end up doing.
So how do students, sometimes even very good ones, fall
for the trap of storytelling. The answer is that they do not so
much fall for it as drift into it. It happens because you have to
mention events from the period in your essays. What happens
is that a student may start writing with a paragraph that makes
a point about the period, and to support that point the student
writes about something that happened at that time which
illustrates this point. Instead of then returning to the essay, the
student, having recounted this event as evidence, then goes on
with ‘after that . . . ‘ and then ‘the next thing that happened was
. . .’ and then ‘after this . . .’ and then ‘eventually . . .’ Before
she really knows what is happening, the student has told a story
of a series of events without it being necessary to do so and it
certainly has not helped her to answer whatever question was
asked. The student simply made reference to some event and
then drifted off into telling the story of what happened next.
What you have to remember is that you will only ever
refer to the events of your period for a particular argument
or opinion that you have about the period, not for the sake
of telling the story of everything that happened about that
time. Whenever you are making reference to events from a
particular period, ask yourself why you are doing it. If you are
making brief reference to an incident that occurred to illustrate
some point you have made, then that is acceptable. If you
find yourself retelling whole slabs of the sequence of events,
you are almost certainly wasting your time. Markers are quite
unforgiving when they find this in essays. When they realise
that storytelling is going on, they tend to simply skim read
until the essay again begins to address the question. The entire
section that was mindless storytelling is then simply marked
with ‘storytelling’ or ‘irrelevant’ and it earns virtually no credit
at all. So avoid storytelling at all costs.
8
8. Thou shalt express thyself
clearly and accurately
This is the commandment that you will never ever really be
able to satisfy. Your teachers, sitting down at their computers
typing your assessment reviews or your report comments, are
often not entirely happy with the way they have expressed
themselves. Even the world’s best writers agonise over their
writing, drafting and redrafting, often never being entirely
happy with the way they have articulated their ideas. It is
a never ending struggle, but it is only if you are aware of
weaknesses in your expression and you have a burning desire
to ‘say it better’, that you will gradually develop more fluent,
engaging and clearer expression. What follows is a long list of
suggestions which, if you follow them and use them as a guide
throughout these two years, should help you to make strides
down the never ending path of quality expression.
SPELLING
Some students will tell you that markers in the HSC don’t
take spelling into account. If you believe that you’ll believe
in Santa Claus! Poor spelling is a great way to give a marker
the impression you are a poor candidate. Some people even
manage to misspell the names of key characters in the history
that is being studied. Be careful as you write, avoid words of
which you are very uncertain and check errors in past work.
Whenever you have mistakes in History writing noted, make
sure you check them and write them down correctly in a list of
your spelling mistakes. Check yourself on the list you generate
on a regular basis. Poor spelling will not get better unless you
actively work on it.
LEGIBILITY
Poor legibility is bad news. The aim of your writing is to
communicate an argument or idea in as smooth and seamless a
fashion as is possible. If a marker has to stop constantly to try
to decipher what you are saying, that sense of ‘flow’ you want
to establish is lost. Be careful.
REPETITION
Be careful when writing to avoid constant repetition of
the same word or phrase, especially in the same sentence.
Use synonyms wherever possible to make your writing more
readable. It ‘jars’ a reader when you come across the same
word or phrase too quickly or too often.
CONTRACTIONS
Though there is nothing technically wrong with using
contractions (don’t, can’t, she’ll) it is a good idea to avoid
using them entirely. In all your essays you should be
writing formal English and the discipline of writing without
contractions generally helps you raise the level of your
expresssion. Conversely, the use of contractions often leads to
even more colloquial and unacceptable uses of language.
COLLOQUIAL LANGUAGE
For the same reasons you should avoid contractions, you
should avoid using colloquial language and slang. Too many
students write as they speak and their writing takes on a very
conversational tone. In formal responses, this is inappropriate
and tends to deny you the opportunity of impressing with your
use of language. Another thing, vaguely associated with this
is the way you refer to people. Only refer to them by second
name. Say that ‘Hitler said’ such and such, or that ‘Hughes
insisted’ so and so. Saying ‘Adolf’ or ‘Billy’ just sounds
ridiculous.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
CORRECT PUNCTUATION
PAST AND PRESENT TENSE
Punctuating your essay correctly is an important way of
ensuring that your expression is clear. A sentence that is not
correctly puncuated can easily be read incorrectly by the
marker. The section on punctuation in your English Handbook
should be useful for you to clarify the use of various elements
of punctuation.
Capitalisation is a problem for some students. Remember to
use capital letters to start sentences, for proper nouns (i.e. the
names of people, places and institutions).
Possessive apostrophes are a much bigger problem for
many students. Possessive apostrophes (‘) are used to denote
ownership. e.g. the school’s facilities = the facilities that
belong to the school. Use them! If you can say ‘the xxxxxx that
belongs to Fred’ then you will need a possessive apostrophe
after Fred if you write ‘Fred’s xxxxxx.’
History essays should almost always be written in the past
tense. Make sure you start and stay in the past tense. Changing
tense half way through a sentence is a definite no-no!
English essays, on the other hand, should almost always be
written in the present tense.
COMPLETE SENTENCES
A sentence must have a verb. It must be capable of being
read intelligibly in isolation and making good grammatical
sense. Try to make sure that all your sentences are complete
because it gives a poor impression to the marker when they are
incomplete.
UNNECESSARILY LONG SENTENCES
Some of you may have a tendency to write in a stream-ofconsciousness style. You start and just keep going and going
and going and going and going and going and going and going
and . . . What is actually happening is that you are joining
sentences together, either with a conjunction or with a comma.
The basic rule is that two short sentences are almost always
better than one long sentence and your expression is much less
likely to suffer. Take the approach of the compulsive surgeon . .
. . if you can cut it, cut it!
SENTENCES STARTING WITH CONJUNCTIONS
For the same reasons, it is unwise to get into the habit of
starting sentences with conjunctions such as ‘and’ or ‘but’.
A BROAD VOCABULARY
It is worthwhile trying to develop a wider vocabulary for
use in your writing. Too many of you operate with a very
limited vocabulary and this leads your writing to become bland
and uninspiring. Taking care to be accurate with your spelling,
try to explore more imaginative and adventurous word usage.
Remember that you are not just looking for ‘big’ words, but a
better way of saying what you want to say.
This is not as difficult as some of you might think. All of
you have a much larger ‘knowledge’ vocabulary than your
‘utility’ vocabulary. What that means is that you know the
meaning of many more words than you normally use. What
you need to do is try to use many more of the words that you
know, but rarely, if ever, use in your writing. Of course, you
should also try to add words that you currently do not know.
To do this, always be willing to look up words you read or
hear that you do not know. Often you will discover excellent
words to use. The next thing you have to do is use them. Once
you have used a word once, you are much more likely to use it
again and again.
A sophisticated vocabulary is probably the most obvious
indicator for a marker that the work they are assessing belongs
to a high calibre candidate.
CLICHÉS
Try to avoid the use of clichés (overused phrases) in
your writing. Their use tends to make you seem a boring and
unimaginative writer.
MATCHING (AGREEMENT)
Make sure that your verbs agree with the subject of the
sentence. If you have a singular subject, the verb must be
singular. If the subject is plural, the verb must be plural.
e.g. The group of students was supervised by the teacher.
(‘was’ not ‘were’ because the subject ‘group’ is singular)
In summary, try to be as economical, engaging and, above
all, understandable in the way you express yourself. Poor
and clumsy expression is one of the most common criticisms
of students’ work. It is a pity when you have worked hard
to master content if you do not get maximum value from
that work because of inadequate expression of your ideas.
Be self-critical when it comes to expression. When you are
preparing your notes, try to find concise and attractive ways
of saying the things you want to say. Do not be satisfied with
the first thing that comes into your head. Try to say it well in
your preparation and you are much more likely to say it well
in an essay. If you say it poorly in your notes, or you just get
the content in point form all the time, then when you have to
find the right way of saying it during an exam the words just
will not come. The best way to make sure you find the right
expression under pressure is to prepare that expression when
you are not under pressure. Fortune favours the prepared mind.
9. Thou shalt write plentifully
Writing fast is a real advantage when you are writing
essays. Clearly, you have many things to do in an essay. In
each of the body paragraphs you have to introduce, develop
and support, and link an issue. The faster you can write,
the more issues you can cover, the more development and
explanation is possible and the more supporting evidence you
are able to provide. All students should do their best to develop
a fluent writing style which enables them to write as much as
possible.
By the end of your HSC course, an average student should
be able to write between four and five A4 examination pages
in a forty-five minute essay. This means writing an exam
page every ten minutes. The thing that will help you do this is
planning. If you plan your essay well you do not have to stop
continually to think ‘what’s next?’ You are free to write without
interruption. Of course, the one thing you must not sacrifice in
the quest for speed is legibility. There is little point in writing
long but illegible essays.
NON-EXISTENT WORDS
Unfortunately, in the search for a sophisticated vocabulary,
some students make the mistake of using words that do not
actually exist. If a word does not exist, do not use it! If you are
not sure . . . . do not use it! Trying to be too clever with words
can leave you looking silly.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
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10. Thou shalt follow the
conventions of essay writing
As with any formal activity there are certain conventions
that you should follow when you are writing essays:
WRITE IN BLACK WITHIN THE MARKERS
Most marking is done on-line with scanned images of your
work. Make those images as clear as possible by using a black
pen and keeping your writing within the scan markers (corner
brackets) on the response pages.
ONLY WRITE ON ONE SIDE OF THE PAPER
Writing on both sides of the paper makes your writing
harder to read and it can cause confusion for the marker. In
the HSC you are only permitted to write on one side of the
exam booklet pages so get into the habit of doing this from the
beginning of your course.
IF YOU RUN OUT OF TIME
If you run out of time, you can list the points you would
have covered in the rest of the essay and you will get some
credit for this but do not imagine it is an acceptable substitute
for the completed essay. You will have failed to develop and
support those points and you will have indicated to the marker
that you were poorly organised.
The most effective and practical solution to this problem
is to apportion time well and plan essays so that you do not
run out of time. To compensate for your slow writing, limit
your plans to three or four body paragraphs and reduce the
development of your paragraphs so that you can write complete
essays.
IF YOU FINISH EARLY
You should not finish much earlier than the finish time for
the assessment. Your planning should see you complete your
essay very near the nominated time. If you have a couple of
minutes spare at the end of your task, re-read your essay. It is
not uncommon for students to discover simple grammatical
errors they have made under pressure. These can be speedily
corrected during this final reading.
WRITING THE QUESTION
Do not waste time writing out the question during an
examination. This is unnecessary, but you must make sure that
you indicate the question the essay is answering so write the
number, the letter or both if necessary at the top of the first
page of the essay.
STAPLE OR PIN
Get a stapler or a supply of pins and secure all the pages of
your response together. It is possible for pages to go missing if
this is not done. Also, make sure you staple or pin the pages in
the correct order. Real difficulties have been caused in the past
when pages have been handed up in the wrong order but this
has not been obvious and the essay has been misread.
NAME OR NUMBER AT THE TOP
Please remember to write your name (or your student
number if applicable) at the top of each page of your response.
Sometimes it can be very difficult chasing up the owner of an
essay and it can delay the calculation of final marks for the
whole class. It certainly does not create a good impression if
you fail to do this.
LIQUID PAPER
Do not use Liquid Paper on exam or assessment essays. It
wastes time. It is much more sensible just to put a line through
work you do not want read. Though you may think it looks
untidy it is quite acceptable. Markers will not read what you
have crossed out. They are far too busy to waste time reading
what they do not have to.
WRITING NUMBERS
The convention is that you only use numerals in an essay if
the number is one hundred or greater, or if the number is a date
or a complex number such as a fraction. In all other instances
you should write the number (e.g. fifty-one, not 51)
COUNTRIES ARE FEMALES!
When you refer to countries with pronouns you should use
feminine pronouns. For example, “When Germany invaded
Belgium she provoked Great Britain.”
FIRST PERSON OR THIRD PERSON?
It is up to you whether you write in the first person or
the third person. A sentence in the first person might read, ‘I
think the Nazis controlled the reins of the media very firmly.’
The same sentence in the third person might read, ‘The Nazis
maintained a tight grip on the reins of the media in Germany.’
The use of the first person is characterised by the use of
personal pronouns such as I, me and my.
This Department’s view is that it is usually better to write
in the third person. It is more detached and usually leads to a
more formal and sophisticated mode of expression in essays.
We have found that the use of the first person can lead to more
informal and colloquial expression and this usually detracts
from the quality of the resulting essays.
QUOTATIONS
Whether you use single (‘ . . . ‘) or double (“ . . . “) marks
for quotations is up to you. There is no fixed convention but
once you have chosen to use one use it consistently. If you
have a quotation within which there is another quotation, the
inner quotation should be indicated with the alternative marks.
e.g. The drama teacher said, ‘the reviewer thought it was “a
load of rubbish” but you make up your own mind.’
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MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
HSC Marking Guidelines
In this section you will find the marking guidelines to be
used for the marking of all your assessment tasks for both the
Preliminary and HSC courses. The five levels in the guidelines
are designed to approximate the performance bands that will be
used for reporting in the HSC.
You should use the marking criteria to familiarise yourself
with what is required to maximise your marks in each of these
tasks.
Factual Quizzes
Marking Guidelines - All Factual Quizzes
Criteria
Percentage
Outstanding recall of relevant people, events, terms, themes, concepts and ideologies
81% - 100%
Good recall of relevant people, events, terms, themes, concepts and ideologies
61% - 80%
Moderate recall of relevant people, events, terms, themes, concepts and ideologies
41% - 60%
Limited recall of relevant people, events, terms, themes, concepts and ideologies
21% - 40%
Elementary recall of relevant people, events, terms, themes, concepts and ideologies
1% - 20%
Preliminary Historical Investigation- Romanov Research Task
HSC Personalities - Albert Speer Research Task
Marking Guidelines - Research Tasks
Criteria
Marks
Exhibits comprehensive evidence of thorough, well-planned research from a wide variety of sources.
Organises thorough research notes enabling great ease of recovery of relevant information.
Identifies and accurately records and recalls the role of all key individuals, groups, events and ideas.
Identifies and accurately records and recalls all relevant historical terms and concepts.
33 - 40
Exhibits evidence of thorough, well-planned research from a wide variety of sources.
Organises research notes enabling relative ease of recovery of relevant information.
Identifies and accurately records the role of most key individuals, groups, events and ideas.
Identifies and accurately records most relevant historical terms and concepts.
25 - 32
Exhibits evidence of sound, well-planned research from a variety of sources.
Organises research notes enabling recovery of relevant information.
Identifies and records the role of many key individuals, groups, events and ideas.
Identifies and records many relevant historical terms and concepts.
17 - 24
Exhibits evidence of some research from a limited range of sources.
Maintains research notes which include some of the relevant information.
Identifies and records the role of some key individuals, groups, events and ideas.
Identifies and records some relevant historical terms and concepts.
9 - 16
Exhibits evidence of limited research from at least one source.
Recalls some key individuals, groups, events and ideas.
Recalls some relevant historical terms and concepts.
1-8
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
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Preliminary - Core Study Examination Task
HSC - World War One Examination Task
Marking Guidelines - Part A
Criteria
Marks
Provides a comprehensive explanation that demonstrates breadth of relevant knowledge combined with specific
use of the TWO sources. Demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of the topic. Correctly answers most or all
of the objective questions.
13 - 15
Provides a clear explanation with appropriate use of TWO sources with reference to own relevant knowledge.
Demonstrates sound knowledge of the topic. Correctly answers most of the objective questions.
10 - 12
Uses relevant knowledge and makes specific reference to at least ONE source but with a limited explanation.
Makes generalisations about the topic and includes some appropriate detail. Correctly answers some of the
objective questions.
7-9
Limited use of knowledge and sources, relying largely on simple description or narration. Correctly answers
some of the objective questions.
4-6
Makes one or two references to the topic from sources or own knowledge. Correctly answers few or none of the
objective questions.
1-3
Marking Guidelines - Part B
Criteria
Marks
Makes a clear judgement which demonstrates an understanding of BOTH sources in the context of their
usefulness to the specific investigation in the question. Provides an effective discussion of perspective and
reliability in the wider context of the historical investigation.
9 - 10
Makes a judgement about the usefulness of BOTH sources to the specific investigation but may be uneven in its
treatment of them. Provides some discussion of perspective and reliability in the wider
context of the historical investigation.
7-8
Provides a limited discussion of the usefulness of BOTH sources to the specific investigation including
reference to perspective and reliability.
OR
Provides a detailed discussion and evaluation of the usefulness of ONE source to the specific investigation and
its perspective and reliability.
5-6
Generalises about usefulness of the sources and/or reliability/or perspective. May paraphrase sources.
3-4
Some reference to the use of sources generally.
OR
Simple description or paraphrase of one or both sources.
1-2
12
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Preliminary - Iranian Revolution and Romanov essays
HSC - International Studies in Peace and Conflict - Europe essay
HSC - National Studies - 20th century Germany essays
Marking Guidelines - Traditional Essays
Criteria
Marks
Addresses the question asked with a sophisticated and sustained discussion, which demonstrates a
comprehensive understanding of the issue(s) raised in the question. Presents a logical, coherent and wellstructured response drawing on a clear identification of relevant key features of the period. Supports
interpretation with detailed, relevant and accurate historical information and makes use of appropriate terms and
concepts.
21 - 25
Addresses the question asked with a sound discussion, which demonstrates a well-developed understanding
of the issue(s) raised in the question. Presents a logical and well-structured response drawing on relevant
key features of the period. Provides detailed, relevant and accurate historical information and makes use of
appropriate terms and concepts.
16 - 20
Addresses the question asked with a relevant but largely narrative or descriptive response (may incorporate
a simple argument and/or contain implied understanding of the issue(s) raised in the question). Presents a
generally well-structured response, with some identification of the key features of the period. Provides adequate
relevant and accurate historical information incorporating some historical terms.
11 - 15
Presents a narrative or descriptive response, which is largely relevant but may be generalised and/or incomplete.
Presents a structured but simple response, with some mention of relevant key features of the period. Provides
limited accurate historical information incorporating some historical terms.
6 - 10
Attempts a narrative or description which may be only generally relevant and/or seriously incomplete. May be
disjointed and/or very brief. Provides very limited historical information.
1-5
HSC - World War One - Source Analysis Task
Marking Guidelines - Source Analysis Task
Criteria
Marks
Presents a sustained, complex and logical arguments about the usefulness of both sources.
Incorporates sophisticated judgements on the perspective and reliability of both sources.
Makes highly effective use of own knowledge to support the judgements made.
17 - 20
Presents a sustained and logical arguments about the usefulness both sources.
Incorporates good judgements on the perspective and reliability of both sources.
Makes effective use of own knowledge to support the judgements made.
13 - 16
Presents a logical argument about the usefulness of some of the sources.
Incorporates some judgements on the perspective and reliability of some of the sources.
Makes good use of own knowledge to support the judgements made.
9 - 12
Presents a basic argument about the usefulness of some of the sources.
Makes some reference to the perspective and reliability of some of the sources.
Makes limited use of own knowledge to support the judgements made.
5-8
Paraphrases the sources or makes simple generalisations about the usefulness of the sources.
1-4
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
13
Preliminary - Case Studies - Dreyfus Affair Oral Task
HSC - Peace and Conflict Studies - Conflict in Europe Oral Task
Marking Guidelines - Research/Oral Task
Criteria
Marks
Presents a sustained, complex and logical argument drawing on analysis of relevant key features and
individuals/groups of the period.
Argument supported by detailed, relevant and accurate historical information from research using a range of
appropriate terms and concepts.
Speaks with great confidence and fluency and demonstrates a high degree of empathy with the persona
assumed.
17 - 20
Presents a logical and sustained argument drawing on explanation of relevant key features and individuals/
groups of the period.
Argument supported by detailed, relevant and accurate historical information from research using appropriate
terms and concepts.
Speaks with confidence and fluency and demonstrates some empathy with the persona assumed.
13 - 16
Presents an argument which describes relevant key features and individuals/groups of the period and provides
adequate and accurate information incorporating some historical terms.
Speaks with limited confidence and fluency and demonstrates limited empathy with the persona assumed.
9 - 12
Presents a descriptive narration, with some attempt at simple argument, of relevant key features and
individuals/groups of the period.
Argument supported by basic use of historical information with some attempt to incorporate historical terms.
Speaks with little confidence and fluency and demonstrates little empathy with the persona assumed.
5-8
Presents limited narration/description of people/groups and events from the past.
Speaks without confidence and fluency and fails to demonstrate empathy with the persona assumed.
1-4
Preliminary - Core Study - Research/Source Analysis Task
Marking Guidelines - Research/Source Analysis Task
Criteria
Marks
Works with a high degree of effectiveness within a group during research and delivery of speeches.
Presents a sustained, complex and logical argument drawing on analysis of relevant key features and
individuals/groups of the period and supported by detailed, relevant and accurate historical information from
thoroughly detailed research using a range of appropriate terms and concepts.
Speaks with great confidence and fluency and shows a high degree of empathy with the nominated country.
17 - 20
Works effectively within a group during research and delivery of speeches.
Presents a logical and sustained argument drawing on explanation of relevant key features and individuals/
groups of the period and supported by detailed, relevant and accurate historical information from detailed
research using appropriate terms and concepts.
Speaks with confidence and fluency and shows some empathy with the nominated country.
13 - 16
Makes a limited contribution to the group during research and delivery of speeches.
Presents an argument which describes relevant key features and individuals/groups of the period from basic
research and provides adequate, accurate information incorporating some historical terms.
Speaks with limited confidence and fluency and shows limited empathy with the nominated country.
9 - 12
Makes a basic contribution to the group during the delivery of speeches.
Presents a descriptive narration, with some attempt at simple argument, of relevant key features and
individuals/groups of the period. Argument is supported by basic use of historical information from limited
research with some attempt to incorporate historical terms.
Speaks with little confidence and fluency and shows little empathy with the nominated country.
5-8
Presents limited narration/description of people/groups and events from the past.
Speaks without confidence and fluency and fails to show empathy with the nominated country.
1-4
14
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Preliminary - Dreyfus Affair (Mid-Preliminary Exam Task)
HSC - Personality (Albert Speer Trial Exam Task)
Marking Guidelines - Individual
Criteria (Part A)
Marks
Presents a sustained, logical and well-structured descriptive narration of a representative selection of events in
the rise to prominence of the personality. Clearly identifies relevant features and issues in the rise to prominence
of the personality. Provides detailed, relevant and accurate historical information using a range of appropriate
terms and concepts.
9 - 10
Presents a well-structured descriptive narration of a substantial selection of events in the rise to prominence of
the personality. Identifies relevant features and issues in the rise to prominence of the
personality. Provides relevant and accurate historical information using appropriate terms and concepts.
7-8
Presents a descriptive narration of a selection of events in the rise to prominence of the personality.
Identifies some features and issues related to the rise to prominence of the personality. Provides adequate and
accurate historical information incorporating some historical terms.
5-6
Presents a limited descriptive narration of some events in the rise to prominence of the personality. Makes
simple use of historical information incorporating some historical terms.
3-4
Makes some simple points about the personality’s rise to prominence.
1-2
Criteria (Part B)
Marks
Makes a comprehensive and critical judgement of the personality in relation to their historical impact. Develops
a sustained, logical and well-structured argument supported by detailed, relevant and accurate historical
information. Provides a clear, sophisticated and critical judgement of the statement in relation to the personality.
13 - 15
Provides a coherent judgement of the personality in relation to their historical impact. Develops a logical and
well-structured argument supported by relevant and accurate historical information. Provides a clear judgement
of the statement in relation to the personality.
10 - 12
Provides some judgement about the personality in relation to their historical impact. Presents a structured
argument supported by largely accurate historical information. Relates the statement to the personality, possibly
by implication.
7-9
Describes some aspects of the personality’s historical impact. Makes use of simple descriptive narration
incorporating some historical terms and information.
4-6
Makes simple points about the personality.
1-3
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
15
Preliminary Modern History Assessment
Tasks
WeightComponentOutcomes Marker
1 Dreyfus Affair Case Study Oral Task
This task involves a three to five minute prepared speech. Students can
10%
R=5%
argue either for or against Alfred Dreyfus. The speech is to be made from C=5%
the perspective of January 1898. It must have three parts - an introduction briefly canvassing a wide range of arguments then two further sections, each of which develops an argument or issue in detail.
1.1, 1.2,
2.1, 3.1,
3.2, 3.4,
3.5, 4.1,
4.2
Class
Teacher
Iranian Revolution Task
Students will be presented with an unseen question and will have 45
15%
K=10%
minutes in the exam in which to write a traditional essay in answer to C=5%
this question. Students need to present a sustained, logical argument with a detailed analysis of relevant, accurate, historical information.
1.1, 1.2,
2.1, 3.4,
4.1, 4.2
Rotated
Dreyfus Affair Task
Students will be presented with an unseen question in two parts. The 15%
C=10%
first part will ask students to “Describe” aspects of Dreyfus’ role. The second part will ask students to “Assess” the importance of Dreyfus.
Each part is of equal value and calls for a sustained written response
to be completed in 45 minutes.
1.1, 1.2,
3.4, 4.1,
4.2
Rotated
1.1, 1.2,
2.1, 3.2,
3.3, 3.5,
4.1
Class
Teacher
1.1, 1.2,
2.1, 3.1,
3.2, 3.3,
3.4, 3.5,
4.1, 4.2
Class
Teacher
1.1, 1.2,
2.1, 3.4,
4.1, 4.2
Rotated
2 Mid-Preliminary Examination
3 Romanovs Historical Investigation
Students will be provided with a range of sources and focus questions
15%
K=15%
to guide them in their research . Preparation for this task will be done
R=5%
in class and at home. The task will be assessed with a multiple choice test with access allowed to the research materials students prepare.
4 Core Study - Research/Source Analysis Task
Students will be organised into groups each representing a country before
15%
R=5%
the First World War. Each group must research the role of their country S=10%
and other countries in the coming of war in 1914. A speech defending their country’s role and another directing blame elsewhere is followed by an open forum. A range of sources is provided for students to analyse.
5 End of Preliminary Course Examination
Romanov Historical Investigation Task
Students will be presented with an unseen question and will have 45
15%
R=5%
minutes in the exam in which to write a traditional essay in answer to K=10%
this question. Students need to present a sustained, logical argument with a detailed analysis of relevant, accurate historical information.
Core Study Source Analysis Task
Students will use a range of sources to answer three questions in 45 minutes. 10%
S=10%
2.1, 3.2,
The first question asks students to locate and comprehend information. The
K=5%
3.3, 4.1
second requires sustained argument using the student’s own knowledge and source information. The third requires an assessment of the usefulness and
reliability of sources. The three questions are of equal value.
Rotated
Component Key:
K = Knowledge and understanding of course content
S = Source-based skills: analysis, synthesis and evaluation of historical information from a variety of sources
R = Historical inquiry and research
C = Communication of historical understanding in appropriate forms
16
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
HSC Modern History Assessment
Tasks
WeightComponentOutcomes Marker
1 World War One - Source Analysis Task
Students are given 10 sources which they can study and analyse in
10%
S=10%
advance of the task. The task will be done in class in 40 minutes. Two of the sources will be nominated and students asked to write judgements
on the usefulness and reliability of each of the two nominated sources.
3.3, 4.1,
4.2
Shared
2 Mid-HSC Course Assessments
World War One Task
Students will be provided with a series of sources in advance of the task.
10%
S=5%
2.1, 3.2,
Using the sources and their own knowledge, the students have to answer K=5%
3.3, 4.1
a series of multiple-choice and short answer questions. The final question
requires an assessment of the usefulness and reliability of two sources.
Students have 45 minutes in which to complete their responses.
Germany Task
Students will be presented with a topic or topics in advance of the task.
15%
K=15%
They will have 45 minutes in which to write a traditional essay. Students
need to present a sustained, logical argument with a detailed analysis
using relevant, accurate, historical information.
Rotated
1.1, 1.2,
2.1, 3.4,
4.1, 4.2
Rotated
1.1, 1.2,
2.1, 3.1,
3.2, 3.4,
3.5, 4.1,
4.2
Class
Teacher
S=5%
K=5%
2.1, 3.2,
3.3, 4.1
Rotated
Germany Essay
Students will be presented with two unseen questions and will have 45
10%
C=5%
minutes in which to write a traditional essay in answer to one of these
K=5%
questions. Students need to present a sustained, logical argument with a detailed analysis using relevant, accurate, historical information.
1.1, 1.2,
2.1, 3.4,
4.1, 4.2
Rotated
3 Conflict in Europe 1935-1945 Oral Task
Students have to select a character of relevance to their studies of the 15%
R=10%
conflict in Europe and research that character in order to prepare a five-
C=5%
minute oral presentation. The student must nominate a historical time
and an audience for the presentation. The speech should reflect the views and knowledge of the character at the time of the presentation.
4 Trial HSC Examination
World War One Task
Students will be presented with a series of sources and questions.
10%
Using the sources and their own knowledge, the students have to answer
a series of multiple-choice and short answer questions. The final question
requires an assessment of the usefulness and reliability of two sources.
Students have 45 minutes in which to complete their responses.
Albert Speer Task
Students will be presented with an unseen question in two parts. The
10%
C=5%
1.1, 1.2,
first part will ask students to describe aspects of Speer’s role. The
K=5%
3.4, 4.1,
second part will ask students to assess the importance of Speer.
4.2
Students have 45 minutes in which to complete their responses.
Conflict in Europe 1935-1945 Essay
Students will be presented with two unseen questions and will have 45
10%
C=5%
minutes in which to write a traditional essay in answer to one of these
K=5%
questions. Students need to present a sustained, logical argument
with a detailed analysis using relevant, accurate, historical information.
5 Albert Speer Research Task
Students will need to research their textbook on Albert Speer as well as
10%
R=10%
a series of video, audio, Powerpoint and PDF resources available on the
College Intranet. Students should make handwritten notes of these
resources and are permitted access to these notes during the task. The task
is a forty-question multiple-choice test to be completed in forty minutes.
Rotated
1.1, 1.2
2.1, 3.4,
4.1, 4.2
Rotated
1.1, 1.2,
2.1, 3.2,
3.3, 3.5,
4.1
Class
Teacher
Component Key:
K = Knowledge and understanding of course content
S = Source-based skills: analysis, synthesis and evaluation of historical information from a variety of sources
R = Historical inquiry and research
C = Communication of historical understanding in appropriate forms
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
17
Modern History Objectives and Outcomes
OBJECTIVES
A student develops
knowledge and
understanding about:
1. key features, issues,
individuals and events
from the eighteenth
century to the present
2. change and continuity
over time
3. the process of historical
enquiry
4. communicating and
understanding of history
A student develops
values and attitudes
about:
5. informed and active
citizenship
6. a just society
7. the influence of the past
on the present and the
future
8. the contribution of
historical studies to
lifelong learning
18
PRELIMINARY OUTCOMES
A student develops the skills to:
HSC OUTCOMES
A student develops the skills to:
1.1 describe the role of key individuals,
1.1 describe the role of key features, issues,
groups and events of selected studies from
individuals, groups and events of selected
the eighteenth century to the present
twentieth-century studies
1.2 investigate and explain the key features
and issues of selected studies from the
eighteenth century to the present
2.1 identify forces and ideas and explain their
significance in contributing to change and
continuity from the eighteenth century to
the present
1.2 analyse and evaluate the role of key
features, issues, individuals, groups and
events of selected twentieth-century
studies
2.1 explain forces and ideas and assess their
significance in contributing to change and
continuity during the twentieth century
3.1 ask relevant historical questions
3.1 ask relevant historical questions
3.2 locate, select and organise relevant
information from different types of
sources
3.2 locate, select and organise relevant
information from different types of
sources
3.3 comprehend and analyse sources for their
usefulness and reliability
3.3 analyse and evaluate sources for their
usefulness and reliability
3.4 identify and account for differing
perspectives and interpretations of the
past
3.4 explain and evaluate differing
perspectives and interpretations of the
past
3.5 plan and present the findings of historical
investigations, analysing and synthesising
information from different types of
sources
3.5 plan and present the findings of historical
investigations, analysing and synthesising
information from different types of
sources
4.1 use historical terms and concepts
appropriately
4.1 use historical terms and concepts
appropriately
4.2 communicate a knowledge and
understanding of historical features
and issues, using appropriate and wellstructured oral and written forms
4.2 communicate a knowledge and
understanding of historical features
and issues, using appropriate and wellstructured oral and written forms
• demonstrates an appreciation of the nature of various democratic institutions
• demonstrates an appreciation of the individual rights, freedoms and responsibilities of
citizenship and democracy
• demonstrates respect for different viewpoints, ways of living, belief systems and languages
in the modern world
• articulates concern for the welfare, rights and dignity of all people
• displays a readiness to counter disadvantage and change racist, sexist and other
discriminatory practices
• demonstrates respect for human life
• demonstrates an awareness of the ways the past can inform and influence the present and
the future
• recognises the impact of contemporary national and global developments on countries and
regions, lifestyles, issues, beliefs and institutions
• demonstrates an awareness of the contributions of historical studies to lifelong learning
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
The Preliminary Course
The Syllabus Document
Outcomes (for all three parts)
Students:
P1.1 describe the role of key individuals, groups and events
of selected studies from the eighteenth century to the
present
P1.2 investigate and explain the key features and issues
of selected studies from the eighteenth century to the
present
P2.1 identify forces and ideas and explain their significance in
contributing to change and continuity from the eighteenth
century to the present
P3.1 ask relevant historical questions
P3.2 locate, select and organise relevant information from
different types of sources
P3.3 comprehend and analyse sources for their usefulness and
reliability
P3.4 identify and account for differing perspectives and
interpretations of the past
P3.5 plan and present the findings of historical investigations,
analysing and synthesising information from different
types of sources
P4.1 use historical terms and concepts appropriately
P4.2 communicate a knowledge and understanding of
historical features and issues, using appropriate and wellstructured oral and written forms
Part I - Case Studies
Case studies are inquiry-based investigations into key
features, issues, individuals, groups, events or concepts in
modern history. They are oriented towards the problems and
issues of investigating the past.
Case studies in the Preliminary course are intended to
provide students with opportunities to:
• study the various ways historians perceive, investigate,
describe, explain, record and construct the past, the types
of questions they ask, the explanations they give, the issues
they raise
• describe, explain, understand, question, analyse and
interpret sources.
Case studies provide a historical context within which
students can learn about the methods used by historians and
a range of specialists to investigate the past and develop the
understanding and competencies that underpin subsequent
studies across Stage 6.
The key features listed below provide the primary focus
for the case studies. The other elements of the studies, the
concepts, individuals and groups and events, are studied within
the context of the key features.
MacKillop students will undertake THREE case studies.
• Ayatollah Khomeini and Muslim Fundamentalism
• The Chilean Coup d’etat of 1973
• The Dreyfus Affair 1894 - 1906
Principal Focus
Students apply historical inquiry methods within a range
of historical contexts to investigate key features, issues,
individuals, groups, events, concepts and other forces in the
eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Students learn to:
• ask relevant historical questions about selected studies of
the modern world
• locate, select and organise information from different types
of sources, including information and communication
technologies (ICT), to describe and analyse relevant
features and issues of selected studies of the modern world
• analyse the major events and issues relevant to selected
studies of the modern world
• assess the forces for change and continuity within selected
studies of the modern world
• describe and evaluate the role of key individuals and groups
in selected studies of the modern world
• account for and assess differing perspectives and
interpretations of significant events, people and issues in
selected studies of the modern world
• present the findings of investigations on selected studies of
the modern world, analysing and synthesising information
from different types of sources
• communicate an understanding of relevant concepts,
features and issues using appropriate and well-structured
oral and/or written and/or multimedia forms including ICT.
Students learn about:
key features of the modern world:
• political, economic, social and technological features of the
selected case study
• forces for change that emerged in the period of the selected
case study
• the nature of the political, social, economic and
technological change that occurred in the period of the
selected case study
• the impact of change on the society or period of the
selected case study
concepts (where relevant to case study):
•autocracy
•communism
•democracy
•globalisation
•industrialisation
•liberalism
•pan-nationalism
•revolution
•self-determination
•terrorism
•capitalism
•decolonisation
•feminism
•imperialism
•internationalism
•nationalism
•racism
•sectarianism
•socialism
individuals and groups in relation to:
• their historical context
• their personal background and the values and attitudes that
influenced their actions
• significant events and achievements
• their contribution to the society and time in which they
lived and the legacy of this contribution
events in relation to:
• factors contributing to the events
• main features of the events
• impact of the events on the history of an individual nation,
region and/or the world as a whole.
19
Part II-Historical Investigation
The historical investigation is designed to provide
opportunities for all students to further develop relevant
investigative, research and presentation skills that are the core
of the historical inquiry process. Students work individually to
investigate the Decline and Fall of the Romanov Dynasty
The process of investigation involves:
• planning and conducting historical investigations
• comprehending written sources
• locating, selecting and organising relevant information
from a variety of sources
• using a variety of sources to develop a view about historical
issues
• analysing sources for their usefulness and reliability
• identifying different historical perspectives and
interpretations evident in sources
• formulating historical questions and hypotheses relevant to
the investigation
• using historical terms and concepts appropriately
• synthesising information from a range of sources to
develop and support a historical argument
Part III - Core Study - The
World at the Beginning of the
Twentieth Century
Students shall investigate the Preliminary core study using
a source-based approach.
Sources are any written or non-written materials that can
be used to investigate the past. Historians base their research
on sources relevant to their inquiry. They analyse sources to
discover if they hold any evidence that will be relevant to their
particular historical inquiry.
The evidence is the information contained in the source.
Historians can retrieve it by asking relevant questions. Thus
a source is not the same as evidence. A source becomes
evidence if it is used to answer a question on the past. It may
be evidence for one aspect of history but not for another.
Some sources contain useful information but often not all the
evidence that is needed in the inquiry.
Using sources is an important part of the process of
historical inquiry. The historical inquiry process involves
posing questions, finding information, assessing the reliability
of sources, analysing and interpreting the evidence contained
in the sources and publishing the findings.
By adopting a source-based approach to investigate the
Preliminary core study students gain experience of working as
historians. As well, they develop knowledge and skills to help
underpin their investigation of the HSC core study.
• describe and evaluate the role of key individuals and groups
at the turn of the century
• evaluate the usefulness and reliability of sources
• account for and assess differing perspectives and
interpretations of significant events, people and issues at
the beginning of the twentieth century
• present the findings of investigations on aspects of the
period, analysing and synthesising information from
different types of sources
• communicate an understanding of relevant concepts,
features and issues using appropriate and well-structured
oral and/or written and/or multimedia forms including ICT.
Students learn about SOME OR ALL of the following:
1
The nature of European society
– rich and poor
– urbanisation and industrialisation
– social change
– forms of government
2Imperialism
– reasons for the growth of imperialism
– impact of imperialism on Africa and/or Asia and/or the
Middle East and/or the Pacific
– colonial rivalries
3 Emerging forces and ideas
– politics of the working class: socialism, trade unionism,
Marxism
– anarchism
– nationalism
– internationalism, globalisation
– democracy, liberalism
4 Causes of World War I
– long-term and short-term causes
Principal Focus
Students lay the foundations for their twentieth-century
studies by investigating the forces and ideas for change and
continuity that shaped the early twentieth- century world using
the methods of historical inquiry.
Students learn to:
• ask relevant historical questions about the world at the
beginning of the twentieth century
• locate, select and organise information from different types
of sources, including ICT, to describe and analyse relevant
features and issues of the world at the beginning of the
twentieth century
• analyse the major events and issues relevant at the turn of
the century
• assess the forces for change and continuity at the turn of the
century
20
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Your Modern History Folder
Guidelines
Introduction
What do you hope to get out of maintaining your History
folder? Ideally, there should be two levels of benefit that you
get. The first is the growing mastery of the content of the
course that comes with the process of creating your notes in
the first place. The second is the long term benefit which you
profit from when you are revising for tests, assessments and
exams. In order to maximise the benefits, it is important that
you do your notes thoroughly and organise your folder in such
a way that all the important information you require is easily
retrieved for study purposes. If your notes are inadequate or so
badly organised that you cannot retrieve the information you
require from them, then the benefits that will flow to you will
be very limited indeed.
You should maintain a folder for each of the main units you
do during the next two years:
• The Preliminary Case Studies
• The Preliminary Historical Investigation
• The Preliminary Core Study
• World War One
• 20th century Germany
• Albert Speer
• Conflict in Europe
Once you finish a unit the folder can be stored safely at
home but the currently active folder should always be brought
to class.
What follows are some suggestions about how your folders
can be completed in order to maximise their utility for you.
There are also suggestions about how to use the handout
material you are given, where to store all your material and
how it should be arranged to maximise retrievability.
Your Own Textbook Notes
How you do these notes is, to a great extent, up to you. The
advice on the next two page spread should be a great help to
you. The ultimate aim is to create notes that, in the process of
completion, develop in you a strong mastery of content and,
once completed, give you a sound and retrievable summary
of the basic content of the course. For these reasons, it is
advisable to do the following:
• Write down the source of the notes in case further checking
is needed
• Organise the coverage by using headings and sub-headings
• Do notes in point form rather than long prose paragraphs
• Be accurate with your facts and with spelling
• Write neatly enough to facilitate reading in future
• Cover the material in reasonable depth
• Use highlighters to isolate central points of importance
If you have a computer, typing your notes is a great idea
as it makes them far more readable. In addition, the process
of updating, extending, clarifying or summarising still further
becomes that much easier.
Notes Taken in Class
Sometimes students do a good job on text notes and a
poor job on notes taken from material covered in class. Class
discussion and exposition can be very valuable but full value
will only be gained when you have put the content into your
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
own words and have organised it and written it in a fashion that
makes it intelligible and retrievable. Be willing to take rough
notes in class but then spend some time at home the same
night to transcribe them into notes similar to textbook notes.
The same points as are listed in the previous sub-heading are
equally applicable here. It is important that you spend fifteen
to twenty minutes doing this the same night when the ideas are
still fresh in your mind. Wait until the weekend and you will
find that some of those rough notes will not make sense. Wait
for a month and you will find that much of it will not make
sense. Leave them as roughly scrawled notes and you won’t
even bother looking at it months later as you prepare for the
HSC.
Practice Writing
To strengthen your essay technique you will often have
essay practice tasks in which you will have to write one body
paragraph in a limited period of time - usually ten minutes. We
keep count of the words you can write in ten minutes so you
can monitor the speed increase you achieve during the course.
Homework is to type the paragraph written in class and e-mail
it to your teacher as a Word file. The more committed students
usually write more than the one paragraph written in class. The
best students write the entire essay.
These practice samples are marked and are sometimes
read and discussed in class. You will receive a copy of each
student’s paragraph/essay by e-mail so you can learn from the
strengths exhibited in the work of other students. You marked
practice tasks should be stored in one section of your folder.
Digital copies should be stored on your thumb drive and
computer. It is by diligently completing these practice tasks
and by thoughtfully reviewing them that your essay technique
will be strengthened.
Assessment Tasks
Store your assessment tasks for a particular unit in the one
place. Make sure you keep the question with your response.
A response without the original question it was answering is
of little value. You will usually be given a typed review of the
assessment task in which the strengths and weaknesses that
were evident from the class are noted. As well, suggestions
about how the task should have been answered and the sort of
content that could have been incorporated in answers is usually
given. Store the review of the assessment task with your
response. When a part or all of your response is significantly
weak, you should take the time to re-do the weaker parts
of your original response in the light of the review that has
been given to you. Your willingness to do this is a measure of
your commitment to improving your performance. Revised
responses can always be given to your teacher to be marked.
Make sure you store your revision with the original task and its
typed review.
Spelling Corrections
How many times do you hear people say “I can’t spell”.
Perhaps you have said it yourself. It sometimes is said as if it
is a death sentence and inescapable, rather than a statement
of a present weakness that you are going to do something to
improve. I could truthfully say “I can’t do calculus”, but what
should follow from this statement is, “and this is what I’m
going to do to overcome this weakness . . .” What you need
to do is maintain a list of all the words you have got wrong at
some stage so that you can revise them and not get them wrong
again. This list should be a part of your current folder. Every
time you make an error or come across a word you think is
difficult, add it to the list.
21
How to take Notes
During the 2 Unit HSC course, you will be taking notes
from the three texts set for the three HSC course topics:
• Evidence of War by Anne McCallum
• Germany 1918-1945 by Ken Webb.
• Conflict in Europe 1935-1945 by Ken Webb
• Albert Speer by Ken Webb
The aim of these pages is to help you develop an effective
and useful note-taking style.
Some thoughts on textbooks
Though we use a wide range of other sources, many of
which are in this handbook, the basic material you need to
know and learn will come from your three textbooks.
Remember one thing about textbooks. They are written
carefully for students of your age. The authors are employed
because they are capable writers. They organise their work into
sections with headings and sub-headings to help make it more
understandable. Their paragraphs usually begin or end with a
sentence which clearly encapsulates the point being made in
the paragraph. Their work is reviewed twice by experienced
teachers and edited by highly paid professional editors to
ensure the work is as accessible as possible. Of course, the
content is challenging. You can’t expect that HSC work is a
pushover - but it is within your capacity if you put the effort
into coming to terms with the content and approach reading
and note-taking in a logical and effective fashion.
What do you get from doing notes?
There are two positive outcomes that you can gain from
quality notetaking:
• by the process of doing the notes you make as much
sense as you can of the content. As you read, think, select,
organise and write your notes, the content becomes
understandable and memorable.
• by revising from well prepared notes, your memory of
work that may have been covered many months before is
refreshed and you are capable, quickly, of putting yourself
in the best position to handle assessment tasks, exams and
the HSC itself.
What should be in your notes?
Above all, you want to ensure that your notes are useful.
Utility is the measure of the quality of any notes. So what
makes a set of notes useful? They should:
• make sense to you, not just when you write them, but also
months later when you will be revising from them.
• be well organised. They should be structured using
headings and sub-headings. They may also use highlighting
as a means of emphasising key points and/or grouping
similar items such as names, groups and dates.
• be selective. You need to identify the key points and ensure
that those points are included and peripheral issues are left
out.
• contain all the content you may wish to use in a task.
• be concise. Make your expression as brief as you can. Full
sentences are rarely necessary. The organisation of material
into points, written with standard abbreviations, will ensure
that notes are not unnecessarily long.
• be accurate. You must be sure you have comprehended the
points being made and communicate them accurately in
your notes.
What are the common problems in student’s notes?
There are three common problems:
• Notes too long. Rather than being summaries, some
students lack selectivity and end up with notes which are
almost paraphrases of the text. The problem here is that
students lack a good understanding of the content if they
22
have not been able to select the key material and their
notes, being too long, cannot easily allow revision. You
should only write whole sentences if you really need to in
order to make something clear.
• Notes too short. If too much is left out of the notes, students
will find themselves not knowing enough to be able to
adequately support their arguments.
• Disorganised notes. Even the best content is not helpful if it
is disorganised, poorly filed or illegible.
How do you read text for content?
Reading a content-based text in order to take notes is quite
different from reading a novel or a newspaper. It takes more
time and a much higher level of concentration. You need to
read actively, asking questions and looking for answers. If you
simply read passively, little will come from this to help you.
There are a number of stages in reading the text:
• Read the relevant Syllabus Document (in this handbook)
so that you know what topics are relevant, which irrelevant,
which are central issues in the topic and which of only
minor importance. Be prepared to check the syllabus
document whenever you are doubtful about the relevance
of a section of text.
• Review the past questions (all the recent questions asked
in HSC and CSSA exams are in this handbook). This will
help you see what issues have often been the focus of
questions and which are far less likely to be asked.
• Scan the whole chapter. Try to get an overview of what
the whole chapter is attempting to cover. Read all the
headings and sub-headings and try to predict what sort
of content might be in these sections. Read the focus
questions, if any, and note what the non-text material
(photographs, diagrams, maps) might be telling you.
Having done this you should have a vague idea of what
the chapter is going to cover and you should be predicting
some of the detail that you will discover as you read. (Your
predictions may be right or may be wrong, but the fact that
you are predicting means you are reading actively.)
• Skim read the section under the first sub-heading. Do
not take notes at this stage. Just aim to get a clearer idea of
what is being explained. See if what you thought would be
in the section is, in fact, there. Note which paragraphs seem
to be more useful than others.
• Carefully read each paragraph under the first
subheading, one paragraph at a time. Look for the topic
sentence of each paragraph (usually the first sentence,
but not always) which will indicate the focus point of the
paragraph. Write notes on each paragraph as you finish it.
To summarise, this is the reading/note-taking process:
• Having read the syllabus document and past questions, scan
the whole chapter.
• Skim read the section under the first sub-heading.
• Carefully read the first paragraph, then take notes
on that paragraph.
• Carefully read the next paragraph, then take notes
on it, etc, etc, until the first sub-heading is done.
• Skim read the section under the second sub-heading.
• Carefully read the next paragraph, then take notes
on that paragraph . . . . . . . and so on.
How do you organise and write notes?
There are a number of basic principles to follow as you
actually write your notes:
• write where the notes originate (including title, author and
date completed) in your main heading.
• use organisational cues provided by the author. Use the
sub-headings provided, or create your own so that the
material is organised into self-contained compartments. If
the author numbers some points (“firstly”, “secondly” etc.)
then number your points similarly.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
• ask yourself if the material can be used in a written
response. If it can, put it in the notes. If not, leave it out.
• organise material into points and sub-points so that related
content can easily be seen as related.
• express the point as clearly as you can, as briefly as you
can, in your own words if possible. Make sure it makes
sense before you write it, then make sure that what you
write will make sense to you months after when you will
need it to make sense.
• use a highlighter to focus attention on crucial content.
• use acronyms and abbreviations which you will understand,
such as:
= (equals) → (led to) ≠ (does not equal) ∴ (therefore)
What could your notes look like?
Obviously, not everyone’s notes will look the same. Why
not? Some will not be as astute as others in the selection of
material. Some will express themselves more concisely than
others. Some people will prefer to include a lot of detail and
factual information, others will content themselves with what
they regard as key material likely to be used in their responses.
Bearing this in mind, what follows is the notes I would have
taken from the first few pages of Chapter 2 of our old Germany
textbook. I have attempted to follow the basic principles
indicated in the previous section.
Tensions in new government
• Four areas of disagreement between SPD and USPD
1. Socialise industry?
Lefties had always wanted it. Radicals thought they should
do it now they had the chance BUT moderates feared it:
- if industry socialised, allies could take it as reparations
- socialisation would provoke flight of capital and economy
was already stuffed due to war & blockade
2. Election date for Constituent Assembly?
- Moderates (SPD) said “do it now” to prove democratic
credentials of revolution. Suspected USPD wanted a
Bolshevik dictatorship.
- Radicals (USPD) said “wait” because they needed to
educate people who had endured years of right-wing
indoctrination. Suspected SPD were sabotaging revolution.
3. Future of workers and soldiers councils?
- Moderates wanted to get rid of them - feared they would
threaten democracy and the parliamentary system.
- Radicals wanted them to continue as a safeguard against a
right-wing coup. Preferred them to a parliamentary system.
4. Need for a people’s militia?
- Radicals didn’t trust old imperial army ∴ wanted it
replaced with Republican Guard and then People’s Army
- Moderates didn’t trust people’s militia - too radical and
full of USPD and Spartacists. Preferred to rely on army and
Freikorps.
Is this enough?
Chapter 2 - Revolution and
Murder - The Split in German
Socialism, 1918-1919 (Douglas Newton)
• New German government (10 November) was named
‘Council of People’s Commissioners’
- 3 SPD (moderate left) / 3 USPD (radical left)
- Ebert (SPD) Hasse (USPD) co-chairpersons
• But these days of hope didn’t last - the left was to split
and many radical lefties were to die at hands of right
wingers (Freikorps), sometimes under direction of SPD →
bitterness and hatred on the left.
• SPD (Ebert, Scheidemann, Noske) kept revolution very
moderate - (that’s why they turned on the radical left!)
Why? Fear of Bolshevism? Pressure from within and
outside Germany? That’s what the Chapter explores!
Germany’s Revolutionary Government Council of People’s Commissioners
• New government was:
- supported by workers and soldiers councils (soviets),
army units and USPD (all revolutionary groups)
- dominated by SPD.
- committed to socialism and democracy BUT not
Bolshevism
BUT
• in first week new government took some radical steps:
- old Reichstag dissolved
- Prussian House of Lords abolished
- equal suffrage granted (including women!)
- martial law ended
- 8 hour working day established
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
What you see here is over two pages of text converted into
less than one column of notes. Of course, not every detail has
been included in this summary. It is, after all, a summary. But
if you look at what is here, there is enough for you to be able
to write a paragraph that focussed on this material. Imagine
you had a question which asked for some coverage of the split
in German socialism. Based on the content in these notes your
paragraph could look like this:
Tensions between the moderate left and the extreme left
were evident from the outset. Though the SPD and USPD
agreed on some early radical reforms such as the granting
of universal suffrage, the abolition of the Prussian House of
Lords and the implementation of an 8 hour working day, there
were areas of significant disagreement. Though the radicals of
the USPD wanted to act on their long held desire to socialise
industry, SPD moderates were reluctant to do so, fearing the
allies could sieze industry as reparations in the forthcoming
peace settlement. The SPD also wanted an early election for a
Constituent Assembly to consolidate democracy in Germany,
contrary to the USPD who feared an early election would be
counter-revolutionary. The USPD was keen to see a continuing
role for the workers and soldiers councils but the SPD was
reluctant to allow this, especially as soviets such as these had
undermined Kerensky’s Provisional Government in Russia and
paved the way to the Bolshevik takeover, something the SPD
were desperate to avoid in Germany. Fearing the conservatism
of the Imperial Army, the USPD wanted to see it abolished and
replaced with a People’s Army. The people’s militia was mostly
comprised of radical leftists and the SPD moderates distrusted
them, suspecting they could threaten the fledgling democracy.
Rather than create a People’s Army, the SPD preferred the
Imperial Army and the Freikorps who could be relied upon
to crush Bolshevism. Clearly the members of the Council of
People’s Commissioners were anything but united in their
views of the path the revolutuion should take.
Your notes have to provide you with the content necessary
for your responses to the questions asked. Your writing
skill then has to provide you with the capacity to use that
information in a way that will impress your marker.
23
The Political Spectrum
During your Modern History course, you will come across
terms such as “left winger”,” right winger”, “left of centre”
and other such phrases which refer to the political spectrum.
It is vital that you are able to make sense of these phrases by
understanding how all of these fit into a pattern. Though you
may be unfamiliar with this language at the moment, it is
actually relatively simple to understand. These two pages, and
the next two pages on ‘isms’ and ‘ocracies’, should help you in
much of what you will encounter in the next two years.
The spectrum of light is the range of colours you see
when you pass a narrow band of white light through a prism.
It spreads out into the whole spectrum of colours from red
to violet, and all the other colours of light in between. The
political spectrum represents the range of political and
economic beliefs which people hold, from the extreme left to
the extreme right and all shades of belief in between.
There are a number of areas in which you can see the
differences between the left and the right. The most important
of these is the differences in how the economy of a country
should be managed. Other areas of difference between left and
right include beliefs about nationalism and internationalism,
the environment, immigration, democracy and its opposite,
dictatorship. What follows tries to explain the differences in
beliefs between the left and the right in each of these areas.
The Political Spectrum - Economic Issues
Socialism
A Mixed Economy
Socialism
A Mixed Economy
Socialism is the economic system of
the left. Extreme socialists believe
the ownership of the means of
production, distribution and exchange
(in other words, all businesses) should
be in the hands of government. This is
‘state’ or ‘collective’ or ‘government’
or ‘national’ or ‘social’ ownership
of the economy, hence ‘socialism’.
If government takes over private
businesses the process is called
‘nationalisation’.
People towards the centre of politics
believe that some things in the economy
(maybe the water supply and postal
services) should be owned and controlled
by the government, but that other things
(maybe most manufacturing) is best run
when in the hands of private individuals.
This sort of economy is a mix between
private and government enterprise so it is
called a mixed economy.
Capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is the economic system
of the right. Extreme capitalists
believe that all the means of
production, distribution and exchange
(in other words, all businesses) should
be owned and controlled by private
individuals. Thus, capitalists believe
in the value of ‘private enterprise’.
The process of selling government
enterprises to private individuals and
businesses is called ‘privatisation’.
The Political Spectrum - Nationalism vs Internationalism
Nationalism
Moderate Nationalism
Nationalism
Moderate Nationalism
Extreme left wingers are less
concerned with nationalism and far
more concerned with the world as
a whole. Marxists believe workers
should show loyalty to their class
rather than their nation. The final
sentence of the Communist Manifesto
was “Workers of the world unite!”
People in the centre of the spectrum tend
to be nationalistic, but not obsessively
so. They can see that sometimes the
nation must come second when major
international concerns are so important
that they must come first. Nuclear
disarmament might be an example of this.
Extreme Nationalism
Extreme Nationalism
Extreme right wingers are often
very strongly nationalistic. They
preach the values of ultra-patriotism
and ultra- nationalism. They believe
in supporting their country above all
else. A famous phrase that would be
appropriate for these sort of people is
“My country, right or wrong.”
The Political Spectrum - Environmental Issues
Radical Environmentalists
Moderate Environmentalists
Radical Environmentalists
Moderate Environmentalists
Extreme left wingers are often very
concerned about the environment.
They believe in taking direct action
against nations and companies they
believe are environmental vandals.
Greenpeace and similar radical green
movements often include radical
left wingers and people who live
alternative lifestyles.
People in the centre of the spectrum tend
to be concerned about the environment,
but not to the point where they would
be willing to suffer significant economic
costs in remedying problems. They may
want to save the forests, but they are not
willing to go and sit in a tree in front of a
bulldozer!
24
Business comes first
Business comes first
Extreme right wingers are often
more concerned with business than
with the environment. They want a
clean environment but get irritated
if environmental issues get in the
road of business expansion such as
building or mining developments.
They would be more concerned about
timber industries than forests.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
The Political Spectrum - Immigration Issues
Liberal Immigration
Moderate Immigration
Liberal Immigration
Moderate Immigration
Being more internationally inclined,
left-wingers tend towards a liberal
immigration policy. They are willing
to offer sanctuary to all genuine
refugees fleeing persecution. They are
also happy to see liberal immigration
policies such as family reunions.
More moderate people are willing to
allow some immigration, but usually
in a controlled fashion with the welfare
of the nation coming first. Some
genuine refugees are permitted as well
as immigrants who satisfy certain
requirements which ensure they will be
good for the nation.
Anti-immigration
Anti-immigration
Fear of foreigners characterises
the nationalism of the extreme right
wing. They tend to be strongly
opposed to immigration. In some
cases it leads to deportation of people
considered to be different and not
worthy members of the nation. In the
former Yugoslavia this was called
‘ethnic cleansing’.
The Political Spectrum - Democracy vs Dictatorship
Dictatorship DemocracyDictatorship
Dictatorship
Democracy
Many extremists on the left have been
willing to use dictatorial methods to
achieve their goals. Famous left-wing
dictators have included Stalin in the
USSR, Mao Zedong in China and
Fidel Castro in Cuba. These people
often run totalitarian regimes and are
very similar in their methods of ruling
to the dictators on the far right of the
spectrum. Dictators of the left are
called communists (or Bolsheviks).
People who are closer to the centre of
politics usually believe in the values of
democracy. They believe that individual
rights are important and should take
priority in the running of the country.
They believe that the state should protect
the rights of the individual. People on
both extremes often believe that the role
of the individual is simply to serve the
state.
Dictatorship
The extreme right is just as
capable as the extreme left of using
dictatorial and totalitarian methods to
achieve their goals. Many right wing
governments support business by
suppressing trade unions and locking
up agitators. They allow poor working
conditions and low wages in order
to encourage business development.
Hitler in Germany and Mussolini in
Italy were right wing dictators.
The Political Spectrum - The Countries of the World Today
China
USA
A communist country
The heartland of capitalism
which is moving its
but still firmly democratic
economy to the right
but maintains dictatorial
political control
Russia
Australia
Burma (Myanmar)
Communist until 1991
Most of the economy
A repressive military
and now moving to the
is capitalist but there
dictatorship, friendly
right and embracing
is still a strong public
with big business and
capitalism (if not
component in the
opposed to democracy
democracy)
economy
Sweden
A capitalist nation but with a
very large government sector
North Korea
One of the few hard-line
communist states still in
existence
The Political Spectrum - The Countries of the World Today
Australia’s mainstream political parties are all democratic and range only from the moderate left to the right, as follows:
Greens
Greens
Against privatisation
of most government
enterprises. Believe
preserving the environment
comes before business
expansion. In favour of a
liberal immigration policy.
Believe Australia should
abide by international
conventions.
Labor
Against privatisation
of some government
enterprises. Believe in
balancing environment
and business development.
Support non-discriminatory
immigration policy.
Believe Australia should
abide by international
conventions.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Labor LiberalNationals
Liberal
In favour of privatisation
of some government
enterprises. Concerned
about environment but do
not want to see business
development stifled.
Support limited nondiscriminatory immigration
policy. Less inclined to
abide by international
conventions.
Nationals
In favour of privatisation
of some government
enterprises. Possibly
more concerned about
business development
than the environment.
Some members inclined to
reduce immigration. Many
opposed to Australia being
bound by international
conventions.
25
Isms and Ocracies
Coming to terms with the
language of History
Like it or not, you have to be able to make sense of
all the terms that you are going to come up against when
studying Modern History. Modern History is a subject that
attempts to make sense of the world, that tries to make order
out of apparent chaos, that seeks to establish a pattern out of
seemingly random events. In order to establish this sense of
pattern or order you have to understand the words that people
use to describe the ideas, beliefs and practices that appear
in the sequence of events we call history. What follows is a
review in fairly simple language of the key terms that you will
need to know to get started in Modern History.
Remember, you should always be looking for a pattern
or structure in the events you study. If you cannot establish
this sense of order, you end up trying to remember a massive
sequence of facts which seem to have no logical order, no
cause and effect relationship. This is immensely difficult and
you get very little satisfaction out of the task. Once you can
start to see a pattern, a sequence, a logical structure of cause
and effect, the whole thing starts to make sense. The events
follow one another logically and you can almost predict what
is going to happen at times. Reading the books begins to get
easier and the whole thing seems to make sense.
In summary then, learn the terms so that you are very
familiar with them and always try to look for the pattern, the
order, the structure in the events you study.
and exchange are owned not by private individuals, but by the
people as a whole, usually through the government. It thinks
that private ownership leads to greed, exploitation, wasteful
and unnecessary duplication of services and extremes of wealth
and poverty.
Capitalism
This is the economic system of the right wing of politics.
This system believes that the economy is best run when it is
left in the hands of private individuals. Capitalists argue that
only when self-interest motivates people will enough goods be
produced and services provided for the community as a whole
to prosper. They think that government ownership of the
means of production, distribution and exchange leads to large
and inefficient bureaucracies. They argue that competition
between individuals keeps prices low and the quality of service
high which benefits the whole community as well as the
individual business owners.
Communism
This is a political and economic term. Communism wants
the economic system of socialism and has usually been willing
to use dictatorial and totalitarian means to achieve its goal.
The first communist state was the USSR which was founded
after the Russian revolutions in 1917.
Fascism
This is a political and economic term. It describes the
opposite of Communism - a pro-capitalist system which uses
dictatorial and totalitarian means to achieve its economic
goals. The name comes from the extreme right wing party in
Italy in the 1920s (The Fascist Party of Mussolini) but is now
used to describe all such groups.
Left Wingers
Bolshevism
Left wingers are people who believe, to some degree at
least, in socialism (see below). Extreme left wingers may be
willing to use dictatorial means to achieve their economic
goals. More moderate left wingers seek to achieve their
economic goal of socialism through democratic methods - they
are democratic socialists.
Dictatorship
Right Wingers
Right wingers are people who believe, to some degree at
least, in capitalism (see below). Extreme right wingers may
be willing to use dictatorial means to achieve their economic
goals. More moderate right wingers seek to achieve their
economic goal of capitalism through democratic methods they are democratic capitalists.
People in the centre of politics
These people believe in a mixture of capitalist and
socialist elements in the economy. They think that some
things should sensibly be run by the government and some
things, equally sensibly, should be left in private hands. The
more socialism you want, the more left of centre you are. The
more capitalism you want, the more right of centre you are.
Most politics is the argument about what the mix between
capitalism (private ownership) and socialism (public / social /
community / government / collective ownership) should be.
Socialism
This is the economic system of the left wing of politics.
The ideas were essentially founded around the ideas of Karl
Marx and Friedrich Engels in the 1850s. Socialists argue that
the economy will only ever really look after the welfare of all
the people well when the means of production, distribution
26
The party that led the Russian Revolution and took
control to establish communism in the USSR was called the
Bolshevik Party. Because this was the first and only communist
government in the world for nearly thirty years, many people
used the word Bolshevism to describe communism in Russia.
A dictator is one person who has absolute power and rules
a country without being responsible to the people through
elections. The word of the dictator is law. Hitler, Mussolini,
Stalin and Mao Zedong were dictators.
Autocracy
This is virtually the same thing as dictatorship. It is the
system of government where uncontrolled or unlimited power
over others is invested in a single person. It was usually used to
describe the system of government under a king or queen.
Totalitarianism
This is the name given to the way in which dictators usually
run their countries. They have total control over all the things
necessary for them to stay in power. They have total control
of all media, the army, all weapons making facilities and all
public organisations. They usually maintain a secret police for
uncovering and punishing anyone who disagrees with their
regime. They use media to push propaganda favourable to their
rule. There are no other political parties allowed and the state
therefore becomes a “one-party state”.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Democracy
Colonialism
This is the opposite of dictatorship and autocracy. In a
democratic system the rulers of the country have their power
to rule given to them by the people through elections and
they can have that power removed at subsequent elections.
Abraham Lincoln described democracy as “government of the
people, by the people, for the people.” Though democracy is
well regarded by many people now, last century, when rich and
privileged people tended to have the power in most countries,
democracy was regarded as an evil, dangerous and pernicious
idea that had to be defeated for the benefit of the country - after
all, only the rich really knew how to run a country properly
(didn’t they?). At least, that’s what the rich thought!
This is the same thing as imperialism. It is the policy of
acquiring and holding on to colonies for the benefit of the
mother country.
Radical
A radical is anyone who wants to change the economic and
political order in a country to a significant degree. Someone
like Lenin who in 1917 wanted to take Russia from an extreme
right wing country to a left wing country was clearly a radical.
Boris Yeltsin, who in the 1990s wanted to take Russia away
from the left and much more back to the right, was also
regarded by some as a radical.
Revolutionary
A revolutionary is a radical who wants, not just to change
the existing system, but someone who believes that the existing
system has to be overthrown by a revolution. They believe
that the existing system is not willing or able to be changed
gradually or reformed. They believe that it is inherently rotten
and that the only way to get a new system is to suddenly and
often violently overthrow the old system.
Conservative
A conservative is someone who wants the existing system
to stay the same. For most of human history conservatives have
been identified with the right wing, but with the collapse of
communism around 1990, this is no longer true. Old-fashioned
communists in the Soviet Union who do not want to follow
the move back to the right would be called conservatives, even
though they are left-wingers. So you can find conservatives on
the left and the right.
Reactionary
A reactionary is someone who has seen change in a country
and wants to take action to change the system back to the way
it was. If you think in terms of Newton’s laws of motion - for
every action there is an equal and opposite reaction - the word
will make more sense. Just like conservatives, you can find
reactionaries on both the left and the right.
Imperialism
This word comes from the word empire. An empire is a
collection of colonies scattered around the world which has
been acquired by a mother country which now runs those
colonies, primarily for its own benefit. There have been lots of
empires in history and the biggest one was probably the British
Empire which had colonies all over the world in places like
America, India, Australia and Africa. Colonies in an empire are
great things to have if you want to become filthy rich because
they provide you with cheap raw materials you may not have
in your mother country and also provide you with guaranteed
markets for the goods the empire produces. The people in the
colonies may not like the idea much, but the mother country
can become fabulously rich through the ownership and
exploitation of colonies
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Militarism
This describes a country being involved deeply in the
production and maintenance of powerful military forces
supposedly for the defence of the country. In a militaristic state,
the military is given high social status and plays an important
role in the running of the country. Sometimes a military leader
ends up running the country. The people are encouraged to
think highly of their military leaders and soldiers in uniform.
An imperialist country is often militaristic as well, since they
need a strong military force to gain and then maintain their
empire. Funnily enough, once a nation gains an empire they
often find the native peoples of their colonies hate their guts,
or other nations want to take their colonies from them. To
overcome both dangers a strong military is seen as essential.
Nationalism
This is probably the most important “ism” of the twentieth
century. If a people already has the status of nationhood, then
nationalism often manifests itself with intense patriotism (pride
in one’s nation) and a desire for the nation to become stronger
and richer and better than other nations. Two of the ways in
which a nation’s strength was measured was by the size of
their empire and the size of their armed forces - so nationalism
also gives rise to imperialism and militarism. This nationalism,
this pride in an established nation, we might call “great power
nationalism”.
There is another form of nationalism which we could call
“emergent nationalism”. This is the desire of a group of people
of similar race, language and culture who want to form a nation
but have not been able to do so (i.e. they want to emerge as
a nation). These people are often willing to fight the nation
that controls them for the right to become independent, so
nationalism can often lead to conflict.
Racism
This is one of the ugliest “isms”, but it is by no means
restricted to the twentieth century. It is offensive or aggressive
behaviour to members of another race based on the belief that
human races have distinctive characteristics that determine
their cultures. It is usually based on the idea that the racist’s
race is superior to the other race and has the right to rule or
dominate the other. The best known example of racism in the
twentieth century was by Hitler’s Nazis against the Jews. Hitler
applied the ideas of Darwin about competition between species
(i.e. that the most fitted species survive and the others die out)
to competition within the human species. This is called socialDarwinism. Specifically anti-Jewish racism is called antiSemitism. Because of the racism that has been directed towards
them, Jews have wanted to develop a homeland to protect
themselves from racists. This Jewish nationalism, a desire to
form a Jewish homeland, is called Zionism.
To help you, we have made sure that many of these words
will be central to the Case Studies done in the Preliminary
Course so you should be much more familiar with them after
these studies.
27
The Iranian Revolution
and the rise of Muslim
Fundamentalism
Setting the scene for our study
You have all heard of some of the problems in the Middle
East:
• The attack on the USA on September 11, 2001
• Osama Bin Laden and Al Quaeda
• The invasion and occupation of Afghanistan • Weapons of mass destruction
• The invasion and occupation of Iraq
• The First Gulf War in the early 1990s
• The fighting between the Palestinians and Israelis
• Imprisonment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay
You may have heard of some other earlier and less well
known events related to the Middle East:
• The bombing of US embassies in Africa
• The bombing of the USS Cole
• The Iran - Iraq War
• The Russian invasion of Afghanistan
• The US Embassy hostage crisis in Iran
• The Moscow theatre seige
• The Beslan school seige
• The war in Chechnya
• Islamic State acts of terrorism
All of these are signs of a region in crisis and seeming
chaos. People who have not studied history could be tempted
to look at all this and just throw up their arms in despair and
say all these people are crazy!
Our aims in this Case Study
“They’re all crazy!” ... Really? We do not want to take
this cheap, simplistic and ignorant approach to such complex
issues. We are historians. We want to understand these events.
Recreation of the attack on the Pentagon on 11 September 2001
We want to see how they are all connected. We want to find out
the underlying pattern. We want to make sense of all this. That
is the main aim of this Case Study. If we can achieve this, you
will join that elite group in our society who actually understand
these events ... and there are very few people who really have
much understanding of the complexities of the Middle East.
The other aim of this Case Study is to develop skills to
use ICT (Information and Communication Technologies)
research skills to quickly find key facts to help make sense of
things. The internet provides great opportunities for intelligent
research, but it can also be confusing and deeply frustrating if
you don’t know how to use it well. We want to show you how
to find the things you want and to avoid searches that do not
help you find what you are looking for.
How will we be studying this material?
For a fair proportion of the time we work on this unit,
you will be using computers here and at home to do internet
research. We do not expect you to make sense of this all by
yourself. We expect you to do guided internet research to find
key facts about specific people and events. We will give you
some directions to help you with this research. Once you gather
the raw material from your research, we will share it in class
and connect the dots. It is these connections you may not be
able to make by yourself so Mrs Bennett and I will be here to
help you make these connections. We will also explain things
you get from research that you may not fully understand.
What thread unites all this chaos?
All these things, in one way or another, are connected
to the idea of Muslim fundamentalism. One of the first real
signs of the rise of Muslim fundamentalism was the 1979
Iranian Revolution which saw the then ruler of Iran, Reza
Shah Pahlevi, overthrown and replaced by a Muslim cleric,
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
In this unit, the syllabus expects us to explore:
1. The reasons for the rise of Muslim fundamentalism
2. The overthrow of the Shah
3. The impact of Khomeini’s regime in Iran
4. The further international effects of Muslim
Fundamentalism
The first three of these topics relate to 1979, the year of the
Iranian Revolution, and the first few years thereafter. For these
three topics you will need to answer all the questions below for
yourself. The fourth topic takes us on a survey of events from
1948 to the current day. For these questions your teacher will
give a basic overview explanation in class and the questions
will be allocated to students to research and report back.
The 11 September 2001 attack on the World Trade Centre
28
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
President Jimmy Carter
Reza Shah Pahlevi
4. The further international effects of Muslim
Fundamentalism
Ayatollah Khomeini
The questions we want to be able to answer on these topics
follow. For each of the questions in Topics 1 to 3 you should
try to get just a few sentences of factual content:
1. The reasons for the rise of Muslim fundamentalism
• When and in what circumstances did Reza Shah Pahlevi
come to the throne in Iran in 1941?
• What nations did he support when he came to power?
• What industry was of vital importance to Iran and the
western world?
• Explain the circumstances of the overthrow of the Shah by
Muhammad Mossadegh in 1953 and the Shah’s return to
power.
• What features of the Shah’s rule in the 1960s and 1970s
generated opposition to him?
• Who became the chief opponents of the Shah before 1979?
• What was the aim of conservative Shi’ite Muslims and their
leader, Ayatollah Khomeini?
2. The overthrow of the Shah
• How did President Jimmy Carter’s pressure on the Shah
in 1977 to improve Iran’s human rights record lead to
increased opposition to the Shah’s regime?
• Explain the steps in 1978 and 1979 that led to the Shah
fleeing the country and the return of the Ayatollah
Khomeini.
• List some of the groups who vied with each other for
control in post-Shah Iran.
3. The impact of Khomeini’s regime in Iran
• Who stormed and occupied the US Embassy in Teheran,
Iran and why did they do it?
• Track the fate of the new Presidents in Iran (from Bazargan
in 1979 to Bani-Sadr in 1980 to Khameini in 1981) leading
to a pure Shia theocracy.
• Explain the reasons for the outbreak of war between Iran
and Iraq in 1980.
• What sorts of oppression developed in Iran during
Khomeini’s rule?
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• The foundation of the state of Israel in 1948, the
partitioning of Palestine and the creation of the Palestinian
refugee problem
• The 1967 Arab-Israeli War and the land taken by Israel in
the Sinai peninsula, the West Bank and Gaza
• The 1973 Yom Kippur War
• The Camp David talks mediated by President Jimmy Carter
and the signing of the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty between
Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin in 1979 - reaction of
Arab states - the fate of Anwar Sadat in 1981
• The reasons for the Russian invasion of Afghanistan at the
end of 1979.
• The US response to the Russian invasion and support for
the mujihadeen (including Osama Bin Laden).
• President Carter’s attempt to end the US Embassy in Tehran
(Iran) hostage crisis and its final resolution.
• The US view of Iran and their support for Saddam
Hussein’s Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War 1980-1988.
• The taking of western hostages in Beirut, Lebanon in the
1980s
• Khomeini’s death in 1989 and slightly improved relations
with the US under President Rafsanjani.
• The end of Russian rule in Afghanistan and the coming to
power of the Taliban (Sunni Muslims)
• The foundation and growth of Al Quaeda (Late 1980s >)
• The factions at war in the Lebanese Civil War (1970s to
1990) - Iranian support for Hezbollah.
• Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 leading to
the First Gulf War
• Osama Bin Laden’s reaction to American troops going to
Saudi Arabia during the First Gulf War (1990-1991)
• The bombing of the World Trade Centre - 26 February 1993
• The bombing of US embassies in Africa - 7 August 1998
• The bombing of the USS Cole - 12 October 2000
• The September 11 attacks in the USA - 11 September 2001
• The invasion of Afghanistan and the overthrow of the
Taliban - 7 October 2001 >
• The civil war in Chechnya - the Russian government versus
muslim separatists 1994-1996 / 1999-2000
• The Moscow theatre seige - October 2002
• The Beslan school seige - September 2004
• US claims of Iran being part of an “Axis of Evil” and
suggestions of Iran’s nuclear intentions. 29 January 2002
• The Bali Bombing of 12 October 2002
• Claims of weapons of mass destruction, the invasion of Iraq
and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003
• The rise of Islamic State
29
A Survey of Chile 1970 - 1978
Text from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Chile#1973-1978
1970-1973
In 1970, Salvador Allende gained the presidency of Chile.
Allende was a Marxist and member of Chile’s Socialist Party,
who headed the “Popular Unity” (UP) coalition of socialists,
communists, radicals, and dissident Christian Democrats.
His program included the nationalization of most remaining
private industries and banks, massive land expropriation,
and collectivization. Allende’s proposal also included the
nationalization of U.S. interests in Chile’s major copper mines.
Allende had two main competitors in the election - Radomiro
Tomic, representing the incumbent Christian Democratic party,
who ran a left-wing campaign with much the same theme as
Allende’s, and the right wing Jorge Alessandri.
Allende received a plurality of the votes cast, getting 36%
of the vote against Alessandri’s 34% and Tomic’s 27%. This
was not the first time the leading candidate received less than
half of the popular vote. Such had been the case in every
postwar election, save that of 1968 -- Alessandri himself
was elected president in 1958 with 31%. In the absence of
an absolute majority, the Chilean constitution required the
president-elect to be confirmed by the Chilean parliament. This
procedure had previously been a near-formality, yet became
quite fraught in 1970. After assurances of legality on Allende’s
part, and in spite of pressure from the US government, Tomic’s
Christian Democrats voted together with Allende’s supporters
to confirm him as president.
Immediately after the election, the United States expressed
its dissaproval and raised a number of economic sanctions
against Chile. In addition, the CIA’s website reports that the
agency aided three different Chilean opposition groups during
that time period and “sought to instigate a coup to prevent
Allende from taking office.” However, the CIA denies having
taken any active role in the events that unfolded after 1970.
In the first year of Allende’s term, the short-term economic
results of Minister of the Economics Pedro Vuskovic’s
expansive monetary policy were unambiguously favorable:
12% industrial growth and an 8.6% increase in GDP,
accompanied by major declines in inflation (down from 34.9%
to 22.1%) and unemployment (down to 3.8%). However, these
results were not sustained and in 1972 the Chilean escudo
had runaway inflation of 140%. The combination of inflation
and government-mandated price-fixing led to the rise of black
markets in rice, beans, sugar, and flour, and a “disappearance”
of such basic commodities from supermarket shelves.
By 1973, Chilean society had grown highly polarized,
between strong opponents and equally strong supporters of
Salvador Allende and his government. A military coup was
attempted against Allende in June 1973, but it failed. Just a few
months later, however, on September 11, 1973, another coup
was staged (see Chilean coup of 1973), and this time it was
successful. As the armed forces attacked by land and air the
presidential palace of La Moneda, President Allende died. The
nature of his death is unclear: His personal doctor said that he
committed suicide with a machine gun given to him by Fidel
Castro, while others say that he was murdered by Pinochet’s
military forces while defending the palace.
Controversy surrounds the alleged CIA involvement in
the coup. As mentioned above, the CIA officially denies
having taken an active role in any events that took place in
Chile after 1970. However, recently declassified documents
indicate that the CIA was at least passively supportive of a
coup to overthrow Allende, though not necessarily in favour of
bringing Pinochet himself to power. This matter is discussed
more extensively in the U.S. intervention in Chile article.
Following the coup in 1973, Chile was ruled by a military
regime which lasted until 1990. The army established a junta,
made up of the army commander, General Augusto Pinochet;
30
President Salvadore Allende
the navy commander,
Admiral José Toribio Merino;
the air commander, Gustavo
Leigh; and the director of the
carabineros; César Mendoza.
The military dictatorship
pursued decidedly laissezfaire economic policies.
During Pinochet’s 16 years
in power, Chile moved
away from a largely state
controlled economy towards
a free-market economy,
increasingly controlled by a
few large economic groups,
that fostered an increase
in domestic and foreign
private investment - as well
as numerous controversial
effects.
1973-1978
After the coup, Chileans witnessed brutal and large-scale
repression. The four-man junta headed by General Augusto
Pinochet abolished civil liberties, dissolved the national
congress, banned union activities, prohibited strikes and
collective bargaining, and erased the Allende administration’s
agrarian and economic reforms. The junta jailed, tortured,
and executed thousands of Chileans. According to the Rettig
commission, close to 3,200 were executed, murdered or
“disappeared”; higher estimates exist. According to the Latin
American Institute on Mental Health and Human Rights
(ILAS), “situations of extreme trauma” affected about 200,000
persons; this figure includes individuals killed, tortured or
exiled, and their immediate families.
The secret police, DINA (Dirección de Inteligencia
Nacional) spread its network throughout the country and
carried out targeted assassinations abroad. The junta also set up
at least six concentration camps.
The regime outlawed or suspended all political parties and
suspended dissident labor and peasant leaders and clergymen.
Eduardo Frei and other Christian Democratic leaders initially
supported the coup. Later, they assumed the role of a loyal
opposition to the military rulers, but soon lost most of their
influence. Meanwhile, left-wing Christian Democratic leaders
like Radomiro Tomic were jailed or forced into exile. The
church, which at first expressed its gratitude to the armed
forces for saving the country from the danger of a “Marxist
dictatorship,” became increasingly critical of the regime’s
social and economic policies.
In Operation Condor, a campaign of assassination and
intelligence-gathering dubbed counter-terrorism, conducted
by the security services of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile,
Paraguay, and Uruguay in the mid-1970s, many people were
tortured, disappeared and were killed without trial.
The junta embarked on a radical program of liberalization
and privatization, slashing tariffs as well as government
welfare programs and deficits. The new economic program
was designed by a group of technocrats known as the Chicago
boys because many of them had been trained or influenced by
University of Chicago professors.
The junta’s efforts to restore the market economy created
extreme hardship. The regime’s wage controls did not abate
the world’s highest rate of inflation; between September 1973
and October 1975, the consumer price index rose over three
thousand percent. Exchange rate depreciations and cutbacks
in government spending produced a depression. Industrial
and agricultural production declined. Massive unemployment,
estimated at 25 percent in 1977 (it was only 3 percent in
1972), and inflation eroded the living standard of workers and
many members of the middle class to subsistence levels. The
underemployed informal sector also mushroomed in size.
The economy grew rapidly from 1976 to 1981, fueled by
the influx of private foreign loans until the debt crisis of the
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
early 1980s. But despite high growth in the late 1970s, income
distribution became more regressive. While the upper 5 percent
of the population received 25 percent of the total national
income in 1972, it received 50 percent in 1975. Wage and
salary earners got 64 percent of the national income in 1972
but only 38 percent at the beginning of 1977. Malnutrition
affected half of the nation’s children, and 60 percent of the
population could not afford the minimum protein and food
energy per day. Infant mortality increased sharply. Beggars
flooded the streets.
The junta’s economics also ruined the Chilean small
business class. Decreased demand, lack of credit, and
monopolies engendered by the regime pushed many small and
medium size enterprises into bankruptcy. The curtailment of
government expenditures created widespread white-collar and
professional unemployment. The middle class began to rue
its early support of the junta but appeared reluctant to join the
working class in resistance to the regime.
The junta relied on the army, the police, the oligarchy, huge
foreign corporations, and foreign loans to maintain itself. As
a whole, the armed services received large salary increases
and new equipment. The oligarchy recovered most of its
lost industrial and agricultural holdings, for the junta sold to
private buyers most of the industries expropriated by Allende’s
Popular Unity government. This period saw the expansion of
monopolies and widespread speculation.
Financial conglomerates became major beneficiaries of
the liberalized economy and the flood of foreign bank loans.
Large foreign banks received large sums in repayments of
interest and principal from the junta; in return, they lent the
government millions more. International lending organizations
such as the World Bank, the IMF, and the Inter-American
Development Bank lent vast sums. Foreign multinational
corporations such as International Telephone and Telegraph
(ITT), Dow Chemical, and Firestone, all expropriated by
Allende, returned to Chile.
Salvadore Allende addressing a crowd of supporters
Quotations
By Allende
“Symbol of peace and construction, flagship of the
revolution, of creating execution, of human feeling expanded
until its plenitude.” -- Salvadore Allende speaking on the
occasion of the death of Joseph Stalin.
“As for the bourgeois state, we are seeking to overcome
it, to overthrow it.” -- Allende in an interview with French
Journalist Regis Debray in 1970.
“I am not the president of all the Chileans. I am not a
hypocrite that says so.” -- Allende at a public rally, quoted by
all Chilean newspapers, January 17, 1971
“Viva Chile! Viva el pueblo! Vivan los trabajadores!”
(“Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the
workers!”) -- Allende’s last known words (in a radio broadcast
on the morning of September 11, 1973)
About Allende
“I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country
go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The
issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left
to decide for themselves.” -- Henry Kissinger
“Make the economy scream [in Chile to] prevent Allende
from coming to power or to unseat him” -- Richard Nixon
“It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown
by a coup. It would be much preferable to have this transpire
prior to 24 October but efforts in this regard will continue
vigorously beyond this date. We are to continue to generate
maximum pressure toward this end, utilizing every appropriate
resource. It is imperative that these actions be implemented
clandestinely and securely so that the USG and American hand
be well hidden...” -- A communique to the CIA base in Chile,
issued on October 16, 1970
“Not a nut or bolt shall reach Chile under Allende. Once
Allende comes to power we shall do all within our power to
condemn Chile and all Chileans to utmost deprivation and
poverty.” -- Edward M. Korry, US Ambassador to Chile, upon
hearing of Allende’s election.
“Allende is seeking the totality of power, which means
Communist tyranny disguised as the dictatorship of the
proletariat.” -- Statement from the National Assembly of the
Chilean Christian Democratic party, May 15, 1973.
“Of all of the leaders in the region, we considered Allende
the most inimical to our interests. He was vocally pro-Castro
and opposed to the United States. His internal policies were
a threat to Chilean democratic liberties and human rights.” -Henry Kissinger, Years of Renewal.
General Augusto Pinochet and other members of the junta
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“The Popular Unity government represented the first
attempt anywhere to build a genuinely democratic transition
to socialism — a socialism that, owing to its origins, might be
guided not by authoritarian bureaucracy, but by democratic
self-rule.” -- North American Council on Latin America
(NACLA) editorial, July 2003.
31
Salvador Allende
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende
Became President: November 4, 1970
Predecessor:
Eduardo Frei Montalva
Date of Birth:
July 26, 1908
Date of Death:
September 11, 1973
Place of Birth:
Valparaíso, Chile
Dr. Salvador Allende Gossens (July 26, 1908 - September
11, 1973) was president of Chile from 1970 until 1973, when
he was overthrown in a military coup d’état, during which he
died, apparently in a suicide.
Background
Allende was born in 1908
in the port of Valparaíso,
the son of Salvador Allende
Castro and Laura Gossens
Uribe. He attended high
school at the Liceo Eduardo
de la Barra in Valparaíso,
and medical school at
the University of Chile,
graduating as medical doctor
in 1933. He married Hortensia
Bussi, and had 3 daughters.
He was also an ardent
Marxist and an outspoken
critic of the capitalist system.
As president, Allende declared
his intention for far-reaching
socialist reforms. His political
Salvadore Allende
opponents accused him of
planning to turn Chile into a Communist dictatorship, but
Allende always dismissed such allegations.
Allende joined the socialist party of Chile very young and
became its undisputed leader. He also served at different times
as cabinet minister, deputy, senator and finally as president of
the Chilean Senate. He ran unsuccessfully for the presidency
on three occasions: in the 1952, 1958, and 1964 elections.
He used to joke that his epitaph would be “Here lies the next
president of Chile”.
Allende was a deeply unpopular figure within the
administrations of successive US Presidents. Because of his
strong Marxist ideas, it was claimed that there was a danger
of Chile becoming a Communist state and joining the Soviet
Union’s sphere of influence.
In addition, the United States had substantial economic
interests in Chile (through ITT, Anaconda, Kennecott, and
other large corporations). The Nixon administration in
particular was the most strongly opposed to Allende, a hostility
that Nixon admitted openly. During Nixon’s presidency, US
officials attempted to prevent Allende’s election by financing
political parties that opposed him. Allende also received
financial backing from foreign communist groups, but these
amounts were not comparable.
Election
Allende finally won the 1970 Chilean presidential election
as leader of the Unidad Popular (“Popular Unity”) coalition.
He obtained a very narrow plurality of 36,2% to 34,9% over
Jorge Alessandri, a former president, with 27,8% going to
a third candidate (Radomiro Tomic) of the PDC. Since no
candidate had obtained a 50% plus one of the popular vote, the
election was shifted to the Chilean Congress. In this body, the
tradition was to vote for the candidate with most popular votes,
regardless of margin.
After the popular election, the US Central Intelligence
Agency ran operations attempting to incite Chile’s outgoing
president, Eduardo Frei, to persuade his party (PDC) to vote
32
in Congress for the second place getter, Conservative-Liberal
Party candidate Jorge Alessandri. Under the plan, Alessandri
would resign his office immediately after assuming it, and call
new elections. Eduardo Frei would then be constitutionally
able to run again (the Chilean Constitution forbidding more
than two consecutive terms), and presumably easily defeat
Allende.
However, in the end the Congress rejected the plan and
chose to appoint Allende president, on the condition that he
would sign a “Statute of Constitutional Guarantees” affirming
that he would respect and obey the Chilean Constitution, and
that his socialist reforms would not undermine any element of
it.
Presidency
After his inauguration, Allende began to carry out his
platform of implementing socialist programs in Chile,
called “La vía chilena al socialismo” (“The Chilean Way
to Socialism”). This included nationalization of large-scale
industries (notably copper and banking), a thorough reform
of the health care system (including a much touted program
of free milk for children), a reform of the educational system,
and a furthering of his predecessor Eduardo Frei Montalva’s
agrarian reform.
A new “excess profit tax” was created. The government
announced a moratorium on foreign debt payments and
defaulted on debts held by international creditors and foreign
governments. He also froze all prices while raising salaries
at the same time. These moves angered some middle-class
and almost all upper-class elements, while greatly increasing
Allende’s support among the working class and the poorer
strata of society.
Throughout his presidency, Allende remained at odds with
the Chilean Congress, which was dominated by the Christian
Democratic Party. The Christian Democrats had campaigned
on a left-wing platform in the 1970 elections, but they began
to drift more and more towards the right during Allende’s
presidency, eventually forming a coalition with the right-wing
National Party. They continued to accuse Allende of leading
Chile toward a Cuban-style dictatorship and sought to overturn
many of his more radical reforms. Allende and his opponents
in Congress repeatedly accused each other of undermining the
Chilean Constitution and acting undemocratically.
In 1971, following the re-establishment of diplomatic
relations with Cuba, despite a previously established
Organization of American States convention that no nation
in the Western Hemisphere would do so (the only exception
being Mexico, which had refused to adopt that convention),
Cuban president Fidel Castro, with whom he had a close
friendship, started a a month-long visit. This visit, in which
president Castro participated actively in the internal politics of
the country, holding massive rallies and giving public advice to
Allende, did much to alter the public perception to the Chilean
Way to Socialism.
Allende’s increasingly bold socialist policies (partly in
response to pressure from some of the more extreme members
within his coalition), combined with his close contacts
with Cuba, heightened fears in Washington. The Nixon
administration began exerting economic pressure on Chile via
multilateral organizations, and continued to back his opponents
in the Chilean Congress.
Cuban dictator Fidel Castro with Salvadore Allende
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Allende addressing a vast crowd of supporters
As the economic problems heightened, Allende tried to
rule by decree, using what he termed resquicios legales (legal
loopholes), thus ignoring Congress and the office of the
General Comptroller. He also angered the Judicial branch when
he refused to allow the use of public force to carry out the
judicial sentences that he felt were against “the revolutionary
process”.
His well-meant but misguided agrarian reform led to a
massive shortage of basic foodstuffs. Big rural properties were
broken up and handed to peasants, but there was no financial
or technical support behind such move. Without money or
knowledge on how to run the properties, production fell to
almost nothing.
A similar process happened with the nationalized
companies, which were supposed to be run by workers’s
committees. Internal dissent and political appointments led to
the collapse of production. Foreign interests had pulled out of
Chile out of fear of nationalization. Lack of foreign currency
also led to a shortage of spare parts and replacements, and
many industries ground to a halt.
Runaway inflation led to massive discontent within the
middle-classes, that segment of the population most affected
by the lack of basic foodstuffs and daily necessities. Allende
responded with massive price control measures and by a
constant raising of the minimum wage, in order to keep pace
with the inflation. For the bottom half of society, who never
had anything before, it was a marked improvement to what had
been before. But for the middle-classes and upper-classes, it
meant long queues and total insecurity. Chilean society became
highly polarized. This discontent in turn led to two massive
strikes that completed the destruction of the economy. Soon
Allende began to lose control over the course of events, and
what was worse, over his own coalition. Political violence
became a daily occurrence. Hyper-inflation and shortages
plunged the country into chaos.
The coup
The fear of a coup was in the air for a long period before
it actually happened. There were rumors since at least 1972.
About a week before the coup, a congressional majority call
passed, asking the normally a-political Chilean military to
“reestablish the rule of law”. Said document, signed by Patricio
Aylwin as president of the senate, was much used later on as
the final excuse for the coup, even though at the time it went
almost unnoticed.
By late 1973, the whole country had come to a complete
stop. The national truck-driver’s union, the miners’ union, the
small business’s union, the doctor’s, the lawyer’s, an important
part of the workers’s union, most of the teacher’s and the
student’s were on strike. People were gathering firms on the
streets to ask for the resignation of the president. Ironically,
his strongest support was the army. That changed on August
24, when the army commander in chief, General Carlos Prats
resigned, and Allende chose as his replacement General
Augusto Pinochet. After that he was completely alone.
As a result of his unpopularity (his high-water mark for
the popular vote was 42%, versus a 57% for the opposition),
and partly as a result of the economic and political chaos and
the approaching specter of a civil war, Allende decided to call
a plebiscite to settle the basic points of contention, with the
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promise of resignation if defeated by the popular vote. His
speech outlining such solution was scheduled for September
11, but he never was able to deliver it.
On that September 11, the Chilean military, led by General
Augusto Pinochet, staged the Chilean coup of 1973 against
Allende. During the capture of the La Moneda Presidential
Palace, Allende committed suicide with a machine gun (the
official version from the military junta) The stock of the
gun bore a golden plate with the words “To my good friend
Salvador Allende from Fidel Castro” engraved on it. However,
some supporters believe that he was killed during the coup.
It is known that the U.S. played a role in Chilean politics
prior to the coup, but its degree of involvement in the coup
itself is debated. The CIA was notified by its Chilean contacts
of the impending coup two days in advance, but contends it
“played no direct role in” the coup.
After Pinochet assumed power, U.S. Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger told U.S. President Richard Nixon that
the U.S. “didn’t do it” (referring to the coup itself) but had
“created the conditions as great as possible”, including leading
economic sanctions. Recently de-classified documents show
that the United States government and the CIA had sought the
overthrow of Allende in 1970, immediately before he took
office (“Project FUBELT”), through the incident that claimed
the life of then Commander-in-Chief, General René Schneider,
but claims of their direct involvement in the 1973 coup are
not proven by publicly available documentary evidence; many
potentially relevant documents still remain classified.
Allende armed and helmeted on the day of the coup
Legacy and debate
More than thirty years after his death, Allende remains a
controversial figure. Since his life ended before his presidential
term was over, there has been much speculation as to what
Chile would have been like had he been able to remain in
power.
Allende’s story is often cited in discussions about
whether a Communist government has ever been elected in a
democratic election. Communist sympathizers say yes, and
consider Allende’s plurality a mandate for communism. AntiCommunists say no, claiming that Allende went much farther
to the left than voters could have expected. Nevertheless, he
legitimately won a democratic election.
Allende is seen as a hero to many on the political Left.
Some view him as a martyr who died for the cause of
socialism. His face has even been stylized and reproduced
as a symbol of Marxism, similar to the famous images of
Che Guevara. Members of the political Left tend to hold the
United States, specifically Henry Kissinger and the CIA,
directly responsible for his death, and view him as a victim of
American Imperialism.
Members of the political Right, however, tend to view
Allende much less favorably. His close relationship with Fidel
Castro has led many to accuse him of being a Communist who
was destined to eventually transform Chile into a Castro-style
dictatorship.
The nature of U.S. involvement in the coup that deposed
Allende remains a heated debate topic in the context of U.S.
conduct during the Cold War. While there were several coups
in Latin America during this period, Allende’s downfall
remains one of the most controversial.
33
The Dreyfus Affair
Suspicious of Germany and uneasy in her isolation, the
Third French Republic erected the army into a Church, the
general staff its priesthood, until a discarded scrap of paper
touched off a twelve-year scandal which brought down the
mighty and altered the climate of French politics.
On the eve of the Dreyfus
Affair; French politics were,
on the whole, in a healthy
state. The Third Republic,
which had been so frail and
imperilled at its birth, was
now firmly established. There
were still, of course, some
die-hard monarchists, but
the majority of the electorate
had been won over to the
republican regime. Financial
scandals, like the Panama
affair of 1889 (in which
shareholders in the Panama
Canal Company lost over
a billion francs), had cast
discredit more on members of
parliament, always unpopular
in France, than on a specific
Alfred Dreyfus
class or even on the regime
itself. Economically France was prospering, and despite some
disturbances here and there, the labour front was on the whole
fairly calm. The artistic and cultural prestige of France was
considerable, and her intellectuals were keeping her in the
forefront of the great scientific competition which began during
the second half of the century.
Internationally France had achieved a noteworthy comeback after her crushing defeat by Prussia in 1870. She had
taken part, with some reluctance, in the colonial expansion of
the 1880’s and 1890’s. In short, she was once again holding
her own in the concert of European powers - the only ones
which really mattered in 1890. She was, however, still feeling
her way in the world. Threatened by the German alliance with
Austria-Hungary and Italy, and estranged from Great Britain
by colonial quarrels, France found little security in her secret
military pact with Russia.
The international situation was to play a large part in the
Dreyfus Affair: fear of war - or rather fear of losing another
war - helps to explain public reactions to the Affair. France
had not renounced her claim to Alsace-Lorraine (the provinces
she had lost after her war with Prussia), whose statues in the
Place de la Concorde had remained draped in black crepe since
1871. True, French resentment against Germany incited a small
handful of nationalist extremists to wish for war, but the great
majority of the country felt war to be inevitable and intended to
win it if the worst happened.
All this helps to explain the average Frenchman’s
unprecedented interest in his army and in everything
concerning it. It also goes some way towards explaining
the enormous prestige enjoyed by military chiefs, among
whom a section of the right wing sought a God-sent saviour.
Furthermore, it fostered ‘spy-fever’, which inflamed public
opinion every time a foreign agent was caught red-handed.
We can also relate these feelings to the latent xenophobia of
so many Frenchmen. Anti-semitism was an off-shoot of this
poisonous growth. In the lower middle classes, and even in a
large section of the working class, it fed on the daily rantings
of Drumont (the author of La France Juive [‘Jewish France’])
in La Libre Parole (‘Free Speech’). This uneducated, visceral,
anti-semitism equated Jews at one and the same time with
foreigners and ‘money-power’, exactly as it did in Hitler’s
Germany.
It is against this lightly sketched backdrop that we must
now raise the curtain on the first act of the Affair.
34
The ‘bordereau’
At the bottom of the enormous political and legal imbroglio
into which the Affair was to develop there was nothing more
than a small, and in itself quite commonplace, incident, born
of the constant war waged between rival secret services. The
German military attache in Paris, Colonel Maximilian von
Schwartzkoppen, exceeding his rights as an official observer
of French military affairs, indulged in some espionage.
Without the knowledge of his ambassador, Graf von Münster,
he recruited a number of agents, chosen mainly from among
minor civil servants at the war ministry, and spiced his reports
to his general staff with information which they brought him.
The French counter-espionage network, modestly called the
Statistical Section, naturally got wind of his activities. Colonel
Sandherr, who had built the service into a remarkably efficient
outfit, had intelligence agents himself, and had even managed
to plant them inside the German embassy, where a charwoman,
Mme Bastian, carefully collected the contents of waste-paper
baskets and sent them to the Statistical Section.
At the end of September 1894 the Affair was suddenly set
in motion. The last delivery from Mme Bastian contained an
especially important document, an unsigned letter written to
Schwartzkoppen, which was first to be called ‘lettre missive’,
then, equally incorrectly, ‘bordereau’ (‘schedule’). It was a
covering letter, promising Schwartzkoppen a series of ‘notes’
concerning a variety of military matters, for the most part
highly confidential. From the start the matter was regarded
as serious, both by the general staff and the minister of war,
General Mercier. We still do not know the exact contents of
the promised notes, but because of the very secret matters on
which they touched (the new
manual of field artillery, and
the use of operational troops,
etc.) it seemed that they could
have originated only from an
officer of the general staff.
Enquiries pointed to the
officers temporarily attached
to the general staff for
training, since it was thought
that only an officer who had
recently passed through the
various departments of that
organisation could have
knowledge of such a variety
of questions. It was then that
suspicion fell on Captain
Alfred Dreyfus, whose
handwriting showed striking
similarities to the bordereau.
The Bordereau (front)
Predestined suspect
Dreyfus was a wealthy Jew, who came from an Alsatian
industrial family. He had recently been appointed to the
general staff, and was not popular there. His rather introverted
character (which made him appear aloof), the tactless display
which he made of both his intelligence and his personal
wealth, even his professional curiosity, all contributed to
make him suspect of a guilt to which, in the eyes of many,
his race predestined him. The instinctive reactions of most
officers of the general staff were anti-Semitic, even if they did
not descend to the vulgar excesses of a Drumont. Very few
Jews had been admitted to the ‘Holy of Holies’ which was the
general staff, and only his high grading on passing out from
the Ecole de Guerre had made it possible for Dreyfus to gain
access, in the teeth of opposition from some of his superiors.
Yet the findings from the first enquiry into Dreyfus’s
conduct were meagre indeed. His handwriting constituted the
only weighty charge against him. The possibility that he could
have had access to the documents promised to Schwartzkoppen
could not be regarded as proof, nor even as a presumption, of
his guilt. But the gravity of the affair led General Mercier to
open official proceedings despite the lack of evidence.
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On 15 October 1894 Dreyfus was arrested. During the
month in which the case was being prepared few new charges
were raised against him, but the handwriting experts finally
attributed the authorship of the bordereau to him. One
celebrated expert, Bertillon, even developed a complicated
theory of what he called ‘autoforgery’, based on hypotheses
and pseudoscientific deductions, in order to explain at the same
time both differences and similarities existing between the two
handwritings.
Mercier’s ‘secret file’
At the beginning of
November 1894 the court
martial convened in Paris.
During the proceedings
General Mercier was guilty
of an abuse of authority
which carried the Affair,
at the outset, beyond the
bounds of legality. Mercier
was vigorously under attack
from the nationalist press,
and was afraid, if Dreyfus
were acquitted, of seeming
to have shielded a traitor or
of having too lightly played
with an officer’s honour.
So he was determined to
General Auguste Mercier
obtain Dreyfus’s conviction
at any price. He therefore
placed before the military judges a ‘secret file’ - a collection
of documents carefully selected by the Statistical Section,
designed to prove the existence of relations between Dreyfus
and the German military attache. The file was not made
available to the defence, and this was, of course, grossly
illegal. The Statistical Section and General Mercier thus made
the conviction their personal affair - as many people already
considered it to be. Despite his protestations of innocence,
Dreyfus, as might have been expected, was sentenced to
dishonourable discharge and life imprisonment in a military
fortress. After the ghastly parade at the Ecole Militaire, where
he was deprived of his rank, he was deported to Devil’s Island
in French Guiana.
There the affair might have ended. The anti-semites were
not the only ones who rejoiced at the sentence. The nationalists
applauded it. The moderates considered that adequate justice
had been meted out, and the socialists regretted only that the
traitor had not been shot as, they said, would have happened
if he had been a private soldier rather than an officer. Jews
themselves had little doubt about Dreyfus’s guilt, and feared
above all the consequences which his treason would have for
their community. Almost the only people who were unwilling
to admit what seemed so evident to the whole of France were
Dreyfus’s wife, his brother, and a few close friends, who began
to work for Dreyfus’s rehabilitation. Despite their generous
efforts, the cause would undoubtedly have been lost but for
an incident, at the beginning of 1896, which changed the
complexion of the case.
Esterhazy and the ‘petit bleu’
In March 1896, the information service, where LieutenantColonel Picquart had recently replaced Colonel Sandherr as
head, received from Mme Bastian a rough draft of an express
letter (called ‘petit bleu’) which patently originated from
Schwartzkoppen, although it was not in his handwriting. This
document bore the name and address of a certain Esterhazy,
a major in the 74th Infantry regiment, who was at the time
temporarily inactive. The document proved at least that an
officer besides Dreyfus was in contact with the German
military attache.
The strange character of Major Esterhazy, the real villain
of the Affair, is now well known to us. Embittered by certain
disappointments in his career, ruined by rash speculations
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on the stock exchange, impecunious, liar by temperament,
swindler when it suited him, he had worked in the secret
service for a few months in 1875. Furthermore, he was in
the habit of making a little money from supplying certain
newspapers, notably La Libre Parole, with tit-bits of military
news which his profession enabled him to collect. Easy in
manner and glib of tongue, he had a gift for making friends
in government circles, where he briefed politicians on
military matters. In July 1894, while he was in particularly
difficult financial straits, Esterhazy offered his services to
Schwartzkoppen. Today there can be no doubt that it was
he who wrote the bordereau. Another recently discovered
letter, which he sent to Schwartzkoppen some days after the
bordereau, suggests that the information given by the traitor
must have included a large dose of second-hand information
and idle gossip.
Picquart’s enquiry
established that Esterhazy
was more or less a rogue and
that he was, or had been, in
contact with Schwartzkoppen.
Moreover his handwriting was
clearly identical to that of the
bordereau.
Picquart believed that
his findings made a retrial
necessary, but in high places
there was little inclination to
agree with him. In the opinion
of the chief and deputy-chief
of the general staff, General de
Boisdeffre and General Gonse,
the major obstacle in the
way of a retrial was that the
secret file had been illegally
Ferdinand Walsin-Esterhazy
sent to the judges. Mercier’s
crime, once discovered, could
only discredit the army, especially the general staff. Besides,
the evidence gathered against Esterhazy hardly constituted
water-tight proof, and in order to attribute the authorship of
the bordereau to him, new handwriting experts would have to
contradict those of 1894, which would, in any case, leave room
for uncertainty.
General Billot, Mercier’s successor at the war ministry,
hesitated a long time, torn between Picquart’s entreaties and
the general staff’s desire to hush the whole matter up. Relations
between Picquart and his superiors rapidly soured. Picquart
did not accept their views for, while agreeing to prosecute
Esterhazy, if a good enough file could be compiled against him
they adamantly refused to ‘substitute’ him for Dreyfus. Respect
for professional secrecy silenced Picquart at the very moment
when, thanks to Mathieu Dreyfus’s efforts, the press were
beginning to remember the 1894 trial. Picquart was suspected,
nevertheless, of acting in liaison with Dreyfus’s family and
those who were now becoming known as the ‘syndicate’, and
was sent in disgrace to Tunisia.
At the beginning of November another element was added
to the Affair. Major Henry (deputy chief of the secret service)
knowingly committed a forgery, consisting of one false letter
which was discreetly circulated in high places in order to
establish Dreyfus’s guilt beyond doubt. Many other faked, or at
least ‘touched up’, pieces of evidence continued, until 1898, to
be added to the new ‘secret file’ kept by the general staff.
Picquart speaks out
By 1897 Picquart felt he could no longer keep to himself
the secret which he had uncovered. He felt himself personally
threatened by the deviousness of the general staff, especially
by Major Henry, his former subordinate. While on leave in
Paris in June 1897, he told the lawyer Leblois, a personal
friend, that he was convinced of Dreyfus’s innocence and of
Esterhazy’s guilt. After a certain amount of hesitation, Leblois
took it upon himself to reveal everything to the vice-president
of the senate, Scheurer-Kestner, who, as it happened, came
35
from Alsace. Scheurer-Kestner’s high office, his friendship
with General Billot, and the interest he had had since 1894
in the fate of a compatriot whom he instinctively felt to be
innocent, explain Leblois’s choice. Throughout that summer
Scheurer-Kestner, who had promised Leblois that he would say
nothing to Dreyfus’s family, tried in vain to persuade General
Billot to reopen the 1894 trial.
When they learned what was going on, Generals Gonse
and de Boisdeffre urged Major Henry and Lieutenant- Colonel
du Paty de Clam to warn Esterhazy of the danger which
threatened him. They were afraid that he would do something
which would constitute an admission of guilt and make the
reopening of the trial inevitable. This obscure and scandalous
episode, which became known as ‘collusion’, lasted about a
fortnight, during which time Esterhazy, actively helped by his
protectors, posed as the victim of the intrigues of Picquart and
the Dreyfus family.
On 15 October 1897 Mathieu Dreyfus openly accused
Esterhazy of being the author of the bordereau. The
government could no longer avoid ordering an enquiry into
Esterhazy’s conduct. Consequently he was court-martialled.
But the case was deliberately mishandled; the writing experts
were unwilling to contradict their colleagues of 1894; and
so, on 11 January 1898, after a trial lasting only two days,
Esterhazy was unanimously acquitted. The Dreyfusards’
hope of obtaining a reversal, by having the authorship of the
bordereau attributed to Esterhazy, collapsed. Esterhazy was
now immune from retrial, even if (as was to happen a year
later) he were to admit to being the author of the bordereau.
Violent passions were now beginning to affect public
opinion. The nationalist press came out quickly and strongly
against a reopening of the 1894 trial, because, they said, the
honour of the army would be endangered by such a step. (Were
not the military judges who had unanimously condemned
Dreyfus incapable of having made a mistake?) While the
‘revisionists’ worked eagerly to demonstrate Esterhazy’s
treason, and above all to bring to light the protection extended
to him in high places, public indignation increased. There was
a widespread impression that, in order to exonerate the ‘traitor’
at any price, the ‘syndicate’ would not hesitate to dishonour the
entire army, and in doing so weaken the shield behind which
France sheltered.
The general public easily persuaded itself that there was
irrefutable evidence against Dreyfus, evidence of a kind
which could not be made public without provoking serious
international complications, and even war. Another factor
contributed to public hostility against the ‘syndicate’. Having
burned its fingers in the recent financial scandals, the petite
bourgeoisie instinctively distrusted anything which seemed
to be backed by ‘Jewish gold’, ‘international finance’, or ‘big
banking’. Popular imagination greatly exaggerated the very
real financial sacrifices which Mathieu Dreyfus and his friends
had to make in order to launch their campaign, and believed
that it was backed by a vast money power which it would be
impossible to resist.
All these fears, all these confused fantasies, quickly
crystallised into a frantic desire to uphold the army and its
chiefs. Thus goaded, the government obtained from the
Chamber of Deputies on 4th December 1897 a motion of
confidence ‘stigmatising the heads of the odious campaign
undertaken to disturb the public conscience’, in this way
upholding the established verdict.
The counter-attack
At the end of the first phase of the battle the revisionists’
defeat seemed complete. If they were to reverse the situation,
they had to act boldly and produce a sensation. The novelist,
Emile Zola, agreed to take the necessary risk. The day after
Esterhazy’s acquittal Zola published in the newspaper L’Aurore
his famous letter to the President of the Republic, for which
Clemenceau (a radical deputy who had been discredited in the
Panama scandal) thought up the explosive headline, ‘J’accuse’.
Zola boldly set himself up as the accuser of Esterhazy’s judges,
of the officers who had directed the investigation of Dreyfus,
36
“J’Accuse” by Emile Zola
of two war ministers (Mercier and Billot), of the chief and
assistant chief of the general staff (Boisdeffre and Gonse),
of the handwriting experts, and of the various departments
of the war ministry accused of having misled public opinion.
‘I accuse,’ Zola concluded, ‘the first court martial of having
violated the law in convicting an accused person on the
evidence of a document that had remained secret, and I accuse
the second court martial of having covered up this illegality
by committing in its turn the judicial crime of knowingly
acquitting a guilty person.’
The article caused a sensation. Within a few days certain
members of L’Institut (i.e. the five Academies which are
collectively known by that name) - professors and writers
whom their opponents were soon disdainfully to dub ‘the
intellectuals’ - presented a petition to the Chamber of Deputies
in support of Zola’s letter. Urged on by his colleagues and by
the army, whose head he officially was General Billot decided
to prosecute Zola for libel, limiting his charge to that part
of Zola’s letter which could not be proved: that the judges
appointed to try Esterhazy had acquitted him ‘under orders’.
After a number of noisy sessions, at the Seine Assizes and
later at Versailles, the proceedings ended in Zola’s conviction.
But Zola’s object had been to put the general staff on the
defensive, and thus to try to shed a little light on the mysteries
which had shrouded the Affair from the beginning. From this
point of view the Zola trial can be regarded as a long-term
success for the revisionists.
Despite the efforts of the presiding judge not to let the
proceedings deviate towards the Dreyfus Affair, which
legally could not be brought up, Zola’s advocates, especially
Maître Labori, managed to show that a secret file had been
illegally communicated to the 1894 judges, that Picquart had
vainly tried to repair the error, and that Esterhazy, despite his
acquittal, was by no means above suspicion. Furthermore,
they succeeded in trapping General Pellieux and General de
Boisdeffre into confirming the existence at the ministry of that
incriminating document ‘in which Dreyfus was named in full’
(this was none other than the ‘Henry forgery’). On the other
hand the proceedings provided Boisdeffre with an opportunity
to formulate the false dilemma: revision or state security.
With the approval of a large section of public opinion, it
seemed as though revision must be buried once and for all with
the ending of the Zola trial. The prime minister was even able
to announce in the Chamber of Deputies that ‘at this moment
there is no longer either a Zola case or a Dreyfus case; there is
no case at all’.
In June 1898 there was a change of government with
Brisson’s election. The new one adopted a more left-wing
policy than its predecessor, particularly on financial and social
affairs. The war ministry, however, was given to Godefroy
Cavaignac whose anti-revisionism and hostility to the
‘syndicate’ were well known. Cavaignac meant to make use
of his promotion to the war ministry in order to clear up the
Affair for good. He felt General Billot’s dithering management
had allowed too much unwholesome publicity. He wanted to
have Picquart convicted for his indiscretions, to have Esterhazy
cashiered for misconduct, and, if need be, to try the leaders of
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revisionism for conspiracy against the state.
To get these plans under way Cavaignac ordered a thorough
reassessment of the secret file of the Affair, which had greatly
grown since 1896. Then he outlined, in a long-awaited speech
to the Chamber of Deputies, the arguments on which Dreyfus’s
conviction was based. Unlike Billot, Cavaignac did not hesitate
to unearth a number of documents from the secret file and to
make their text public. His speech was a great success and
was carried by 572 votes to 2. Nevertheless he had committed
the capital error which was to ruin his own career, and, more
important, make revision inevitable.
Among the documents to which he had referred was the
Henry forgery. Picquart immediately declared that he was in a
position to prove it a fraud. At the same time conclusive proof
of the relationship which officers of the general staff had had
with Esterhazy at the time of the ‘collusion’ fell into the hands
of the revisionists.
At that point the coup de grâce was given to Cavaignac’s
grand scheme by the discovery made by Captain Cuignet, one
of Cavaignac’s own officers-in-waiting, of the true nature of
the document bearing Dreyfus’s name in full.
Grilled by his minister, Henry broke down and admitted
his crime. On 31st August, while imprisoned in Mont-Valérien,
he slit his throat, without, unfortunately, having revealed the
details of the many ventures he alone knew about.
The sensation caused by Henry’s suicide was enormous. At
one blow the situation had been reversed; the anti-revisionists
were now on the defensive. General de Boisdeffre immediately
resigned, and the prime minister, Brisson, drew the only
possible conclusion from the situation and decided to set in
motion the procedure for revision to be made by the Court
of Cassation. It is very revealing of the state of mind of the
anti-revisionists that Cavaignac and his successor at the war
ministry General Zurlinden, preferred to resign rather than to
accept the principle of revision.
Henry’s suicide marked the beginning of a new phase in
the Affair. The anti-revisionists in the general staff now found
themselves unable to control events. One might have thought
that all the barriers raised along the path of truth would at last
break down, and that public opinion would unanimously admit
the need for revision.
But the critical sense of the general public had been
completely warped by the press. Too many people in high
places had been compromised by the irregularities of the first
trial, and by the manoeuvres of the ‘collusion’, willingly to
allow light to be thrown on their doings. Moreover, for many
people the Affair had become a political issue. For some, it
was a question of preventing the triumph of ‘anti-France’ and
of upholding, regardless of cost, the prestige of the army and
its chiefs, the last resort of the nationalists and of a right wing
who saw power slipping away from them. For others, revision
was to be an example to the overbearing military establishment
of the preeminence of the civil over the military power. The
forces of anti-clericalism, over-excited by the anti-revisionary
attitude of the vast majority of the clergy and the faithful, were
ready to take up the offensive once again in order to free the
youth and the army from harmful influences.
This explains why the months which were needed by the
Court of Cassation to make its enquiries were so tormented.
The slightest change of fortune in the legal operation prompted
the nationalist press to indulge in verbal outbursts, the
irrationality of which was barely masked by their violence.
Everything which could prevent revision was presented as
legitimate. From now on the Affair became the test of a man’s
political position. As the civil magistrates were now given
access to documents hitherto seen only by the army, the result
was that the gulf between the civil and the military became
wider since the army still claimed to be the sole guardian of
patriotism and moral integrity.
The retrial
After violent debate, in turn grotesque and odious, the
1894 verdict was finally quashed by the Court of Cassation,
and Dreyfus, brought back to France, was summoned to
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appear before a court martial at Rennes. The proceedings,
made noteworthy by the general staff’s refusal to admit
defeat, opened on 7th August and lasted a month. Constantly
wandering off into unimportant detail, tirelessly questioning
points that had already been cleared up, they complicated the
mysteries of the Affair still further. That was no doubt why,
against the secret wishes of Waldeck-Rousseau’s government
and of his war minister, General de Galliffet, the court returned
a verdict which was both iniquitous and contradictory: Dreyfus
was again found guilty by a majority, but with extenuating
circumstances.
This hybrid verdict divided the revisionists, whose
cohesion had been perfect up to this point. Thinking mainly of
the martyrdom which the poor man had already suffered, his
next of kin persuaded him to accept the government’s pardon.
The ‘politicians’, headed by Picquart, Clemenceau, and Labori,
would on the other hand have preferred to continue to fight for
acquittal.
And so, amid general dissatisfaction, the most famous legal
trial in recent history ended - or so it seemed. The country,
so long buffeted by these eddying seas, seemed suddenly to
become disinterested in the whole business, and to desire no
more than a general amnesty which would take the Affair off
the government’s hands for good.
Some revisionists, however, did not give up hope of
one day discovering a new fact which would allow the case
to be reopened. Collectively the anti-revisionist coalition,
now on the defensive, was going to pay dearly for its errors,
its stubbornness, and its conspiracies. The leftist policy of
‘republican defence’, led by Waldeck-Rousseau, and above all
by his successor, Emile Combes, openly aimed at reinforcing
civil power against clerical and military infringements. It
cannot be denied that it sometimes looked like a vicious
settling of accounts. Supporters of the so-called ‘reactionary
militarism’, religious communities, and Catholics in general
had to pay dearly, since the right wing was to find itself
lastingly estranged from power and even from the hope of
regaining power.
Dreyfus rehabilitated
It was not until 1904 that General André, the new war
minister, discovered the ‘new fact’ that was so much hoped for.
Going through the archives of his department, he discovered
some falsified documents of the ‘secret file’, whose fraudulent
nature had escaped the judges of the first revision. The result
was that the Rennes verdict was quashed, in 1906, by the Court
of Cassation, sitting in ‘united chambers’. [In certain important
legal affairs, judges of the Court of Cassation, who are
normally grouped in several separate ‘chambers’ (or sections),
convene in one judiciary body. The sentence they deliver is
then considered as emanating from the whole Supreme Court
and hence has greater authority.]
On 21st January, on the parade ground of the Ecole
Militaire where he had been drummed out of the army twelve
years before, Dreyfus was solemnly reinstated and received
the Croix de Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur. After the trial
Dreyfus was employed for a time in a military office near
Paris. He reentered the army during the First World War. After
the war he lived in retirement until his death in Paris in 1935.
On the legal level the Affair was thus over and done with,
but its political consequences were far-reaching and were to
prove enduring. The split between the French right and left
had been enormously widened. The renewed outbreak of anticlericalism and anti-militarism, the separation of Church and
State in 1904, and the instinctive mistrust in the mass of the
French people of the very concept of ‘reasons of state’ are but a
few of the fruits of an episode which became, according to the
writer, Charles Péguy, ‘un moment de la conscience humaine’.
True, the drama of the First World War was soon going to make
people forget the details and the main outlines of the Affair, but
even today, for people too young to have actually lived through
it, the very name of the Dreyfus Affair continues to stand as a
symbol, and, one may hope, a lesson.
by Marcel Thomas
37
The Decline and Fall of the
Romanov Dynasty
For most of this term we will be undertaking a research task
on the Romanov Dynasty surveying the Romanov rulers of the
nineteenth century and focussing in detail on the last Romanov
ruler, Nicholas II, and the period from the Revolution of 1905
to his abdication in March of 1917 and his murder in July of
1918.
After some brief introductory research on Nicholas II and
his family, the remaining work is divided into four phases as
follows:
• The origins of the Romanov Dynasty and its nineteenth
century rulers
• The 1905 Revolution and the reforms which followed it
• The reimposition of autocratic rule between 1905 and 1914
• World War One and the final overthrow and murder of the
Tsar
We will usually have a week and a weekend to work on
each of the four phases of the research. On the first period of
the week after each phase has been completed we will spend
some time in class reviewing the results of our research. This
will be an opportunity to clarify any of our research which
remains unclear. It is also an opportunity to share with others
the factual material we have gathered and have the importance
of that material reviewed with the help of the teacher. If you
have not done the relevant research before each review lesson
you will not be welcome in the class. It would be unfair for
someone who has not done the work of research to gain the
benefits of other people’s work.
At the end of the unit we will do a factual quiz on the
Romanovs which must be completed from memory. Shortly
thereafter we will complete the major assessment task based
on the research. This will be a forty-question multiple choice
test. During the test we will be permitted access to our written
notes. Clearly the better organised and more thorough our
notes are, the more useful we will find them in this task. The
section on How to Take Notes from the handbook should guide
us in the techniques of note taking.
We are free to use whatever sources we wish in doing our
research and gathering information on the topics listed below.
A number of textbooks, available for loan from the College
Library, may be helpful in covering much of the content. They
are as follows:
• Hagen, James (ed.), Modern History and its Themes
(Melbourne, 1973)
• Cosgrove, J.J. and Kreiss, J.K., Two Centuries (Sydney,
1978)
• Lowe, Norman, Mastering Modern World History (London,
1988)
• Cowie, H.R., Revolutions in the Modern World (Sydney,
1979)
In addition there are many websites which may assist us but
Wikipedia is, as always, an excellent starting point. There are
plenty of eccentrics on the web and amongst them are people
who mourn the passing of the Romanovs. They paint an idyllic
picture of the Royal family and long for the good old days of
autocracy. I used to have one such site listed for us to visit ...
but it’s disappeared. What a pity. It was great fun!
We need to use our common sense in determining the
trustworthiness of sites, but the work we did in the short unit
on Chile in the Allende years should have helped us develop
the skills we need.
Many of us will go on to tertiary study and this is exactly
the sort of research we will need to be able to do. This unit
should give us valuable experience in researching. Good luck
with this work.
38
Research Guide
Questions
Introductory Phase: Nicholas II, his wife
Alexandra and their children
The Dates
• When was Nicholas II born; when did he reign; when was
he married; when was he killed?
The Family
• Who were his mother and father?
• Who was his grandfather and how did his grandfather die?
The Coronation
• When was he crowned?
• What unfortunate event happened at the coronation?
• What did some mystics prophesy as a result of the tragedy?
Alexandra
• What was Alexandra’s family background going back two
generations?
The Children
• Name the children of the marriage and their birth dates.
Phase One: The Origins of the Romanov
dynasty and its 19th century leaders
All the Tsars of All the Russians
• Name all the 19th century Romanov Tsars and the years of
their reigns
• Briefly explain what the “Nicholas System” of Nicholas I
was
The classes in Russian society
• Briefly characterise the various classes in Russian society
and the relative size of each:
- the serfs
- the army
- the nobility
- the officials or bureaucracy
- the bourgeoisie or middle class
- the industrial working class
The Crimean War
• When and where was the war fought?
• Who were the participants in the war and (briefly) why was
the war fought?
• Trivia - what nurse became famous in the Crimean War?
- what poem by Tennyson commemorates a famous event
from the war?
• Briefly describe how the war ended.
• After the war, there was much debate between Westernisers
and Slavophils.
- What did the Westernisers want in terms of:
- changes to the social structure of Russia?
- changes to the political system in Russia?
- changes to the economic system in Russian?
- changes to the rural/urban balance in Russia?
- What did the Slavophils want?
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Political Groups in Russia
The 1905 Revolution
• In no more than two or three sentences for each, describe
the fundamental goals of these groups:
- the populists
- the nihilists
- the anarchists
- the Marxists (the Social Democratic Party)
• The Marxian socialists (the Social Democratic Party) split
in two at the Second Party Congress in 1903. - How did the Bolsheviks believe the party should be run?
- How did the Mensheviks believe the party should be run?
• Briefly explain the outbreak of the 1905 revolution?
• Who led the march on the Winter Palace on 9 January 1905
(or 22 January if you use a different calendar)?
• What were some of the demands in the petition taken to the
palace? Was the Tsar present?
• What happened when the march reached the Winter Palace?
• By what term of endearment was the Tsar known by many
of his people?
• Briefly explain what the immediate effects of this event
would have been?
• Trivia - why do different sources quote different dates for
the same event?
• On what Russian battleship did a mutiny against its officers
occur in June 1905?
Reform under Alexander II and the return to repression
• The Emancipation of the Serfs
- in what years was the process undertaken?
- briefly explain the process whereby the serfs were
liberated
- outline the benefits for the serfs
- outline the costs for the serfs
- explain how were the landowners to be compensated
for the loss of their lands
• The reform of local government
- what was the difference between the “zemstvos” and
the “dumas”?
- when was each introduced during Alexander II’s
reign?
• The return to repression
- what events prompted Alexander II to return to a
system of harsh repression?
Industrial Development under Alexander III
• Who was Alexander III’s Finance Minister?
• How did the Finance Minister fund industrial development
at this time?
• Provide a few examples of the industrial developments in
Russia at this time.
Phase Two: The 1905 Revolution and the
reforms that followed
The Russo-Japanese War
• When did the Russo-Japanese war take place?
• Briefly explain its causes and how it broke out?
• Identify a land battle in which the Japanese were
victorious? How many Russian troops were killed?
• What naval fleet did the Tsar mobilise and send to Japan to
defeat the Japanese?
• What was the fate of that naval fleet? How many men and
ships were lost?
• What would the outcome of the war have done to the
standing of the Tsar?
The Emergence of the Soviets
• What was a “soviet” and when was the first soviet
established?
• Who was the leader of the St Petersburg Soviet?
• What did the Tsar do to the soviets in December 1905?
Reform - The October Manifesto
• In the wake of the 1905 revolution, who did Nicholas II’s
appoint as Prime Minister?
• Was the new Prime Minister liberal or conservative and
what did he advise the Tsar to do?
• When did Nicholas II issue the October Manifesto and what
did it promise the Russian people?
• When and where did the first Duma meet?
• The following is list of the major political groups in Russia
around 1906 (from right to left). Write no more than two
sentences for each in which you explain the basics of what
each wanted to achieve:
- the Monarchists
- the Octobrists
- the Constitutional Democrats (Kadets)
- the Socialist Revolutionaries
- the Mensheviks
- the Bolsheviks
Phase Three: The reimposition of
autocratic rule between 1905 and 1914
The Stolypin Reaction
• Why did the Tsar appoint Stolypin as his Prime Minister in
1906?
• What did Stolypin do to crush opposition to the Tsar?
• What reforms did Stolypin introduce and how did he hope
these would preserve the Tsarist system?
• Who were the “kulaks”?
The First Duma
• Who was permitted to vote in the election for the first
Duma?
• When did the first Duma meet and when was it dissolved?
• What reforms did the first Duma seek?
• What was the effect of the “Basic Law” of 1906 (also
called “fundamental laws”)?
• What financial arrangement did Sergius Witte make with
France in 1906?
• What effect did Witte’s arrangement have on the
relationship between the Duma and the Tsar?
• Why did the Tsar dissolve the first Duma?
The Second Duma
Alexandra
Nicholas II
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• What parties took part in elections for the second Duma
after boycotting the earlier elections?
39
• When did the second Duma first meet and when was it
dissolved?
• What type of parties won a majority in the second Duma?
• What was the second Duma’s attitude to the Tsar?
• Was Tannenberg in Germany or Russia?
• What was the outcome of the battle?
• Summarise in two or three sentences how the Russian army
fared in the first two years of the war?
The Third Duma
Rasputin
• What changes did the Tsar and Stolypin make to the
electoral law for the election of the Third Duma?
• How long did the Duma last?
• What party won the largest number of seats in the Third
Duma?
• Trivia - can you find one of the nicknames used to describe
the Third Duma?
• What were Rasputin’s origins - birth, family, religious
belief?
• What influence did Rasputin have over the Tsar and
Tsarina?
• What role did Rasputin play in government, especially
during World War One?
• Describe aspects of Rasputin’s behaviour that offended
many Russians
• How was Rasputin murdered and by whom?
• How did the Tsar and Tsarina react to the murder of
Rasputin?
The Fourth Duma
• When did the Fourth Duma begin sitting?
• What event caused the Duma to voluntarily dissolve itself
in August 1914?
Industrial and Commercial Development between 1905 and
1914
•
•
•
•
What happened to rates of taxation in this period?
What were rates of pay like in this period?
What happened to trade unions in this period?
Did trade with other countries expand or contract in this
period?
The March Revolution
• When did Nicolas II assume the role of Commander-inChief and leave for Staff HQ (Stavka)?
• Who took over the role of government in Nicholas’
absence?
• Why was the Tsarina distrusted by some Russians and
suspected of being a German spy?
• What prompted strikes and demonstrations to break out in
Petrograd in early 1917?
• When did the Tsar prorouge (suspend) the Duma?
• Rather than suspend its sitting, what did the Duma proclaim
itself to be?
• When and in what circumstances did the Tsar abdicate?
• In what country did Nicholas II seek exile after his
abdication and why was he refused?
The Provisional Government
• What two groups shared power in Russia after the Tsar’s
abdication?
• Who was the first person to lead the Provisional
Government? Who succeeded him?
• What reforms did Kerensky introduce?
• Why did the Provisional Government decide to continue
fighting the war with Germany?
• How did the Russian army fare in the July Offensive under
the direction of the Provisional Government?
• Who was Kornilov and what did he attempt to do in August
1917?
Alexander Kerensky
Grigori Rasputin
Phase Four: World War One and the end
of the Romanovs
Russia’s decision to enter the war
• What was Russia’s attitude to Serbia at the start of World
War One?
• With what nations was Russia allied at the start of World
War One?
• In what way was it believed Russia’s entry into the war
would help the Tsar?
• What were the strengths and weaknesses of the Russian
army in 1914?
• Trivia - Why was the name of the Russian capital city
changed during the war?
The progress of the war
• What generals led the Russian Army at the Battle of
Tannenberg?
• What generals led the German Army at the Battle of
Tannenberg?
40
The November Revolution
• Where was Lenin when the March Revolution took place?
• Who assisted Lenin to return to Russia and why?
• What three simple promises did Lenin offer the Russian
people?
• What organization did Lenin use to enable the Bolsheviks
to seize power?
• In just three or four sentences, explain when and how the
Bolsheviks seized power?
The Civil War and the murder of the Romanov family
• List the groups who opposed the Bolsheviks after they
seized power
• What name was given to the Bolshevik’s army and who led
it in the Civil War?
• What name was given to the anti-Bolshevik army and who
were some of its leaders?
• Where did Kerensky’s government initially house the
Romanovs from August 1917 to March 1918?
• Where did Bolsheviks eventually send the Romanovs in
March 1918?
• Why did the Bolsheviks decide to murder the entire family?
• Who was “Anna Anderson” and who did she claim to be?
Is her claim believable?
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Core Study Articles
The world at the beginning of
the twentieth century
The following are the key features of the world at the
beginning of the twentieth century that would conspire to bring
about war in 1914. In some respects it is artificial drawing
dividing lines as many of these points inter-relate with others,
however, for the purposes of study and revision, these divisions
are useful.
Nationalism
This is the most important cause of World War One and
almost all the other causes can, in some way, be related to it.
There are two sorts of nationalism and these were often in
conflict with one another; GREAT POWER NATIONALISM
and EMERGENT NATIONALISM.
GREAT POWER NATIONALISM was the great pride that
established nations had in themselves. This was reflected in
desires to have strong armies, large empires, great amounts of
trade and wealth, strong allies and a great level of patriotism in
the country. This often led to conflict with other great nations.
The main nations in conflict with each other were Germany
and Austria-Hungary against Britain, France and Russia.
EMERGENT NATIONALISM was the desire of groups of
people to achieve independence and the status of nationhood.
Peoples who were under the control of other great powers and
did not have independence grew to desire the independence
they were being denied. If they were controlled by another
great nation their achievement of independence and nationhood
would be at the expense of the national pride and power of
the great nation that controlled them. Such was the case with
all the minority groups inside the Austro-Hungarian Empire
who wanted to become independent such as the Bosnians, the
Serbians, the Croatians, the Poles etc.
Militarism and the Arms Race
There was a strong belief in the virtues of militarism in
Europe before the war. People were taught to believe that
military values were good and that resort to war was both
proper and manly. People were generally not afraid of war but
instead welcomed it as a chance for the nation to show how
strong it was and to defeat their national enemies.
In preparation for this, there was massive expenditure on
armaments and an arms race developed with each nation trying
to out-do the other. The struggle for naval supremacy between
Britain and Germany was indicative of this. This also led to the
development of new and more destructive weapons such as the
Dreadnought battleship. Needless to say, this was very good
for the arms manufacturing firms such as Vickers and Krupps
and all private companies involved in supplying the armies of
the various countries.
This arms race and the willingness of people to go to war
were both destabilizing factors that helped bring on the war.
Imperialism / Colonial Rivalry
In the 19th century, people saw nothing wrong in taking
over another country’s land and using it as a colony to profit
the mother country. All the great powers of Europe indulged
in this sort of thing and areas like Africa and Asia were prime
targets for colonial acquisition. Great powers wanted more and
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
more colonies and this led to rivalry and conflict between the
powers over colonies. For example, Britain and France clashed
with Germany over Morocco in Africa. Britain had already
fought a war with Dutch farmers in South Africa over control
of that country because Britain wanted to have the gold mines
of South Africa. This was the Boer War. This overall situation
led to fear and suspicion between the great powers and this
helped to hasten the coming of war.
Industrialisation
Many people would not see this as a cause of the war. The
Industrial Revolution had been begun about a century before
and had been progressing for a long time. Nevertheless, it
needs to be remembered that the war would not have been the
same if the industrialisation process had not occurred as it gave
the countries the opportunity to make the sort of weapons that
only an industrialised nation could make. Also the war could
not have kept going for as long as it did unless there had been
assembly line and factory processes available to maintain
the enormous supplies of equipment and ammunition needed
during the war.
In addition to this, the process of industrialisation, once
begun, needed greatly increased quantities of raw materials
which were not always available from the mother country and
it also needed more markets for the greatly increased amounts
of goods being produced. The single solution to both these
problems was the acquisition of colonies. Britain industrialised
first and so she was the first to start getting colonies and got
quite a few. When Germany began industrialising later, but
faster, she also wanted colonies but found that Britain had
already beaten her to it. She felt she had as much right to
colonies as Britain and so rivalry developed between these
countries.
Socialism
It seems strange to say that socialism was a cause of the
war since no country had a socialist government. In fact most
countries were decidedly right-wing in character and hated
the idea of socialism - especially the military dictatorships of
places like Germany, Russia and Austria-Hungary. The point
is that socialism was a growing force, especially Marxian
socialism, which was dedicated to the revolutionary overthrow
of the systems of government that existed in Europe at the
time. All the leaders of Europe felt very threatened by the
forces of socialism and sought some way to defuse the threat
that socialism posed to them.
The way in which they decided to counter the threat of
socialism was by promoting the opposite of socialism, that
is - nationalism. They actively promoted extreme nationalism
and patriotism, and they actively drummed up hatred against
their national rivals and built up military spirit and weapons.
This was directed primarily at the workers in the hope that
they would have their nation as their primary allegiance rather
than their class. (Marx would obviously have wanted them to
consider themselves to be, above all else, workers. The ruling
classes of Europe wanted them to think of themselves as, above
all else, Germans or Frenchmen or Russians) If they could turn
their workers into good little patriots who would willingly give
their lives for King and Country against the brutish Germans
(or vice versa!) then they would have no need to fear the
growth of socialism.
They were very successful in this process but the idea of
whipping up patriotism and hatred of the enemy brings with
it a very high risk of war. Therefore this policy can be seen
to have had a role in helping bring about the atmosphere that
led to war. So it was the ruling classes’ response to socialism
which helped to bring about the war.
41
The Alliance System
To secure their positions, countries sought and secured
alliances with other great powers. The alliance system that
had developed by 1914 had its origins back around 1870 and
eventually there was a Triple Alliance of Germany, AustriaHungary and Italy facing a Triple Entente of France, Russia
and Britain. What this alliance system meant was that if two of
these great powers ended up going to war, it was likely that the
other powers would get dragged in and that this would lead to
a world war.
Pre-war Crises
There were a series of international crises in the years
before 1914 which helped to bring tension and mistrust
between nations to a head. The causes of these conflicts in
places like Morocco and in the Balkans were often related
to nationalism and colonial rivalry. The end result was that
nations became more and more fearful and distrusting of other
nations so that it got to a situation that sooner or later, one
crisis point would get out of hand and cause a world war.
The July Crisis of 1914
The crisis that did eventually get out of hand was the July
Crisis of 1914. The heir-apparent to the Austro-Hungarian
throne was assassinated in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 and as a
result Austria-Hungary decided to teach Serbia a lesson. The
diplomatic moves that took place, mainly in July, that led to
the world war have been called the July Crisis. It was a similar
international flashpoint as a number that had preceded it and
had been peacefully resolved but this one got out of hand and
ended up in a world war.
A side issue related to this July Crisis that is sometimes
asked in examinations is whether the leaders of Europe
blundered into war. To answer this you need to have a
thorough knowledge of the events of the July Crisis and a good
understanding of the question of guilt and/or responsibility for
the war.
Guilt and Responsibility
Who did it? That is a question that can sometimes form
the basis of an assessment task. Really it is up to you, having
looked at the factual evidence, to come up with your own
conclusions. However, in doing so keep two things in mind;
(1)There is a difference between guilt and responsibility.
You are guilty of something if you wanted it to happen. Is there
a country or countries that wanted the war to happen? If so,
they can legitimately be described as guilty of causing the war.
BUT a country can do things that help to bring about a war,
even though they don’t want it to happen. If their actions help
to bring about a war, they can still be held to be at least partly
responsible.
(2) There is the distinction between a small, localized
war and a world war. There is very good evidence to say
that Germany and Austria-Hungary are guilty of causing a
war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia but that does not
necessarily make them guilty of causing a world war. Keep this
distinction in mind when talking about causes of the war.
The best way to come to a determination on these issues
is to do some “historiography”, i.e. study the views of various
historians. The best historians you can do who tend to have
differing points of view are Fritz Fischer, H.E. Barnes, Sidney
Bradshaw Fay and Gerhard Ritter. You can download files for
each of these historians from the department’s intranet pages as
you prepare your Group Work/Oral Task on the causes of the
First World War.
42
Militarism
and the Causes of World War One
Notes on a lecture by Dr. Douglas Newton.
(available as an MP3 on the Department’s intranet site)
Basic thesis of the lecture
The basic thesis of the lecture is that “embattled
conservatives in all the European countries resorted to politics
that involved a high risk of war in order to combat internal
strife”.
The embattled conservatives were the ruling class leaders
of the countries who felt themselves threatened by the rising
tide of socialism which would try to sweep them away.
The politics that involved a high risk of war were the
politics of militarism, ultra-patriotism, ultra-nationalism and
hatred of foreign enemies.
The internal strife was the rising forces of socialism and
democracy in Europe that had begun with Karl Marx back in
1848 and were now growing in popularity.
Conservatives of the time felt themselves threatened by
the forces of socialism and democracy and they wanted to
counter this threat. They were able to do this by encouraging
people to be good patriots and this would make them turn away
from international socialism and turn instead to good patriotic
nationalism.
The rising tide of socialism
Socialism was growing in Europe at this time.
In Russia you had already had the 1905 revolution and
the Tsar was clearly under challenge from the radical groups
in Russian society such as the Social Democrats and most
particularly, the Bolsheviks.
In Germany, the Kaiser’s system was under threat. The
Social Democratic Party (SPD - led by Auguste Babel and
Wilhelm Liebknecht) was growing in popularity. It was a
Marxist party with internationalist and anti-war policies. In
1912 the SPD won about a third of the vote in the German
elections. You can bet the Kaiser was worried!
In France there were things happening that would have
frightened the conservatives. There had been the Church
crisis of 1903-06 which threatened the dominance of the
conservative Catholic Church. There had been great postal and
rail strikes in 1909. [As well there had been the Dreyfus Case,
a topic you studied early in the course, which had undermined
the power of the Army.] A working class international party,
the SFIO was also gaining electoral strength and had over 100
Deputies elected in 1914. It was led by the famous French
socialist Jean Jaurès.
In Britain, the Labour Party was founded and was gaining
strength. They had their first Members of Parliament elected
in 1906. As well there was a reformist Liberal Government in
power in the years before the war and this government clashed
many times with the conservative House of Lords. As well
there was a spectacular growth of the Trade Union Movement
and there were lots of strikes, especially in the coal and railway
industries before the war in a period that became known as
the Great Labour Unrest. There was also a growing women’s
suffrage movement which was arguing for voting rights to be
extended to women.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Clearly conservatives throughout Europe felt threatened.
So, what did they do about it? They felt that the answer to
socialism and democracy was a politics of fear based on
aggressive patriotism, aggressive imperialism and steady
militarisation. They would conduct an aggressive foreign
policy. War would be a deliverance from the political tensions
at home. People were persuaded that military values were of
supreme importance, that war was inevitable, that invasion was
imminent and that ultra patriotism was essential. Therefore
they prepared Europe for war by militarisation of the mind.
•
Articles of faith
These were the ideas that were put before the people:
1 War is natural and inevitable. It is a normal part of human
interaction.
2 Economic struggle is inevitable and it will be decided by
force of arms. It is, therefore, in the interests of the working
class to make sure the country is kept militarily strong so as
to keep up the struggle.
3 You can never be prepared enough for war. The only
security lies in maximum preparedness - and Britain is
unprepared! Maximum military strength is the only way
to provide full security for the nation. In Britain’s case this
meant naval supremacy.
4 Germany is the enemy of Britain. War with Germany is
inevitable.
5 German invasion of Britain is imminent and, therefore,
Britain must be prepared.
6 Imperialism is essential to the survival of the nation. The
British Empire is under threat and it must be protected.
7 People in the military forces were the repository of all
that is good and noble in the country. War heroes such as
General Gordon, General Buller, Lord Roberts and Admiral
Sir John Fisher were looked up to as great men and men
who should be emulated.
8 Patriotism is not just support of one’s country. Patriotism
also means support for King and Empire. This was a very
conservative view of patriotism.
9 The use of force is both manly and noble. In war, many of
the noblest traits of human character assert themselves. A
sense of honour comes before everything.
10 War, force and imperialism are entirely reconcilable with
Christianity. The possibility of making the “supreme
sacrifice” was held up as the paramount example of Christ’s
ethic of love and complete self-giving. War is simply man
following God’s law of the “survival of the fittest”.
The Propagation of the Faith
This is how these ideas were “sold” to the people:
• Children’s literature. Boy’s adventure stories which
advocated military values and personal heroism. Most
famous author was G.A. Henty. Much was published by
the Harmsworth Press (Alfred Harmsworth, later Lord
Northcliff)
• School Textbooks - aimed to impart pride and knowledge
of Empire and to build a passionate devotion to it. Many
of these texts were written by people like G.A. Henty and
Rudyard Kipling. One Conservative Minister of War wrote
school textbooks.
• The Popular Press - published editorials and stories
in newspapers of the time such as The Daily Mail and
The Times stating that Germany was the enemy and that
invasion was imminent. Many of these newspapers were
owned by Lord Northcliff. Magazines like the “Boys Own
Paper”, “Gem” and “Magnet” were very popular and
pushed the ideas of militarism and imperialism to a very
impressionable young readership.
• Invasion Literature - stories which told of an invasion of
England such as “The Invasion of 1910” by William Le
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•
•
•
•
•
Queux (published in
1906). Also “When
William Came” and
Erskine Childers
“Riddle of the Sands”
(a best-seller in 1903).
Youth Movements preached the virtues
of things military and
imperial, e.g. The Boy
Scouts Association,
The Church Lads
Brigade, The Boys
Brigade, The Lads
Drill Association, The
Duty and Discipline
Movement and
The Empire Day
Association.
Lobbies and Leagues
- These pressure
groups of concerned
Dr Douglas Newton (yes, my brother!)
citizens bought space
in the papers and held public meetings to raise public
opinion in favour of militarisation. e.g. The National
Service League, The Navy League.
Newspaper “scares” - Periodically, the press would
“discover” that the risk of an invasion was imminent and
this was done to boost military spending, e.g. the Naval
Scare of March 1909. These “scares” were deliberately
manipulated to increase the government’s expenditure on
the military.
Royal Pressure - the monarch supported the militarisation
of the state, e.g. Royal Pageants and displays.
The “infusion of values” - monuments, names of streets,
buildings etc. that inculcated the values of militarism and
patriotism were all designed to induce feelings of pride in
imperial achievement and military values.
War heroes - these people were given a great deal of
public notice, e.g. General Gordon, Lord Roberts, Admiral
Fisher.
The conversion of the people
How did the people fall for all of this? What made them so
susceptible and vulnerable to all of this propaganda?
• They craved respectability. They really wanted to be as
respectable as their “betters”.
• They craved purpose. Their lives lacked any real sense of
purpose. All this imperial nonsense gave them a sense of
belonging to something great.
• They craved escape. Their lives were drab and miserable,
military stories gave them a great sense of adventure and
vicarious travel. To join the military may turn this vicarious
travel into real travel, travel they could not otherwise ever
hope to achieve.
• They had a sense of being powerless. There was a great
deal of personal insecurity. At least belonging to a great
nation could help to overcome, at least in some sense, their
personal sense of insecurity.
• Political negativism. They felt that they could achieve very
little through the political system.
Conclusion
Britain is not to blame for the war, but, although most
conservatives did not actually want war itself, they did
encourage it through the practice of policies that involved a
high risk of war so that they could defeat the forces of reform
and change in British society.
Britain may not be guilty of starting a war, but they may
have to bear some of the responsibility for bringing it about.
43
The Development of the
European Alliance System
When war broke out in 1914, the system of alliances that
had developed over the previous forty or so years helped to
ensure that all of the major European powers were embroiled
in the conflict within days. How had these alliances developed?
What had been the reasons behind the various lining up of
forces? We begin this coverage with the end of the FrancoPrussian War.
The Dreikaiserbund - 1872
Dreikaiserbund means three emperors league. The
three countries involved were Germany, Austria and Russia.
(Remember that forty two years later Germany and Russia are
at war with each other!) Bismarck was the German Chancellor
and he wanted to maintain peace and isolate France.
(Remember that France and Germany had just fought the
Franco-Prussian War and Germany [Prussia] had just won)
The three emperors agreed to do three things:
1. Maintain the state system as it stood in 1871 (Clearly they
did not want change!)
2. Settle the Balkan problems (Austria and Russia had great
causes of conflict in the Balkans. It was conflict between
these two countries in the Balkans which was eventually
to bring about World War One. It looks like they could not
settle their problems!)
3. Resist revolution (Socialism was on the rise and the old
imperial houses of Europe were scared silly about the
prospect of a socialist revolution wiping them out. In the
long run, the Russian royal family was metaphorically
wiped out by the Bolsheviks with their revolution in 1917.
They were literally wiped out at Ekaterinberg during the
following year!)
The big problem with the Dreikaiserbund was that Russia
and Austria were strong rivals in the Balkans. As time went by
they really had a problem over Serbia which Russia supported
but Austria wanted to crush.
The Dual Alliance - 1879
With all of the problems between Austria and Russia,
Germany could not be friendly to both countries. She had to
choose one or the other. Bismarck chose Austria as an ally for
three reasons:
1. It would not upset the British who were anti-Russian.
(strange when you think that Britain ended up fighting the
First World War with the Russians, not against them)
2. It would open up a trade route to the Mediterranean through
Austria (and trade was an important consideration for a
large industrial and trading country like Germany).
3. Bismarck felt that he could dominate the alliance because
Germany was far stronger than Austria.
The alliance was secret with each country determining to
support the other in the event of war with Russia. (This ended
up happening in 1914.) Bismarck was no fool and did not want
to alienate the Russians so he arranged a friendly Reinsurance
Treaty with Russia. Unfortunately, the Kaiser did not have
the same good sense in foreign affairs that Bismarck had and
he eventually sacked Bismarck and allowed the Reinsurance
Treaty to lapse without being renewed. This was to help lead to
increasingly poor relations between Germany and Russia.
The Triple Alliance - 1882
When France overran Tunis (in North Africa) in 1881, the
44
Italians were very angry. (It wasn’t that they felt sorry for the
Tunisians - it’s just that they wanted Tunis for themselves!)
Germany figured that this was a good opportunity to make
friends and influence people, so they offered Italy assistance
and the Italians accepted. As a result of the alliance that was
arranged, Italy promised to join Germany and Austria in the
event of French or Russian aggression. This alliance was not
strong since Austria had been an opponent of the unification
of Italy whereas the French had supported it. The Italians
therefore had some reason to dislike and distrust the Austrians
and some reason to like the French. (This was to be of some
importance because the Italians did not join their allies in
1914 when the war broke out.)
The Dual Alliance - 1893-1895
After the Reinsurance Treaty had lapsed, Kaiser Wilhelm
II (William II) did not continue Bismarck’s friendship with the
Russians. They had not been friendly since the Congress of
Berlin in 1878 which was held to settle the “eastern question”.
France and Russia both feared the Kaiser’s ambitions in
Europe. France sought an alliance with Russia and, with the
help of loans to the Tsarist regime, secured one. So both these
powers were teaming up to oppose German expansion. They
agreed to help each other in case of war. Now Germany had an
enemy on both her eastern front (Russia) and her western front
(France). France was no longer isolated (remember that this
had been one of the main goals of Bismarck) and Great Britain
was more isolated than ever.
Britain had always been isolationist in the 19th century.
Now this policy was fraught with danger. Unfortunately for the
British, they had reasons to be hostile to just about everybody.
They were hostile with:
• Germany: because Germany challenged Britain’s naval
power, quarrelled over colonies (especially in Africa) and
because Germany had supported the Boers in South Africa
during the Boer War at the start of the century.
• France: because Britain and France had been old colonial
rivals. Their latest fields of conflict were in Egypt and the
Sudan.
• Russia: because Britain and Russia challenged each others
rights in oil-rich Persia, in Afghanistan (on the border of
British India which the British regarded as “the jewel in the
crown” of their empire) and in China. Persia was important
because oil was an increasingly important commodity for
industry and the navy. The navy especially needed oil as
their new battleships were oil fired rather than coal fired.
The Anglo-Japanese Alliance - 1902
Britain wanted to arrange an alliance in the Far East to
prevent German and Russian expansion there. Fortunately
for Britain, Japan also wanted an alliance for she planned to
attack Russia. (Japan had already shown how she was growing
stronger by attacking and defeating China in 1894-95. She did
attack Russia in 1904-05, and to the surprise of the European
nations she defeated Russia. It was almost unthinkable to the
Europeans that an Asian nation could defeat white men, but it
happened. This shows how racist the Europeans were in their
thinking.) Britain and Japan agreed to support each other if
either country was attacked by two other powers.
The Franco-Italian Agreement - 1902
Italy overcame her anger at France for seizing Tunis and
both countries agreed to the freedom of action of the other.
Italy could act freely in Tripoli and France could act freely
in Morocco. Neither country would interfere with the other
in their designated spheres of influence. Italy also agreed to
remain neutral in any war in which France became involved.
(You can see from this that Italy was backing out of the Triple
Alliance to a certain extent. If France went to war with
Germany, it was unlikely that Italy would join Germany, and in
fact in 1914 she did not.)
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The Dual Entente (Entente Cordiale) - 1904
Germany had been building up her navy and this was
regarded as a very threatening move by the British. They
thought that they had most to lose if Germany became a major
naval threat. Great Britain had traditionally been more friendly
with Germany than with France. Queen Victoria married
Prince Albert, a German, and one of her daughters had married
into the German royal family. In fact, Queen Victoria was the
Kaiser’s grandmother. She was also related to the Russian
royal family, so the royal families of Germany, Russia and
Great Britain were all related to each other! (It does not look
like family friendships counted for much in 1914.) However,
Queen Victoria’s successor, King Edward VII, was friendlier to
the French than the Germans, partly because he could not stand
the Kaiser (not many people could!) and partly because he had
quite an interest in French women. (In fact he had quite an
interest in lots of women and had quite a few mistresses.)
After the Germans had earlier rejected British moves for
an alliance, the British turned to the French and secured what
was known as the entente. Entente means agreement. It was an
agreement by the British to support French policy in Morocco
against any objections from other powers. In return, the French
agreed to recognize the British occupation of Egypt (which
had previously been claimed by the French, a claim that dated
right back to when Napoleon invaded Egypt.) Although no firm
alliance was made, Britain was clearly showing her friendship
towards France, not Germany. Germany also had claims
regarding Morocco and it was Germany’s reaction to the
Moroccan clause in the entente that sparked the first Moroccan
crisis of 1905.
The Triple Entente - 1907
France by 1907 was friendly with both Russia and
Britain and naturally sought to bring them to some sort of
accommodation to get over the differences between them. The
Berlin to Baghdad Railway being built by the Germans was
a threat to the interests of both Britain and Russia so they at
least had a common threat from Germany to help bring them
together. The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 had shown
that Japan could stop any moves by Russia in the Far East
so Britain did not have to worry about the Russians from
this point of view any more. In 1907 the Russo-Japanese
Agreement guaranteed the independence of China so this
potential area of disagreement was also overcome. In the
Balkans, the Russian menace was also fading because of
the independence of the new Balkan states (like Serbia). As
a result of all these things, the British had little reason to
fear the Russians. Furthermore, German aid to Turkey in the
reorganization of her army (which was now independent from
both Russia and Britain) displeased both Russia and Britain so
they had even more in common.
With all this going on, it is not surprising that Great Britain
and Russia came to an agreement. In this agreement, Britain
was to have control of the foreign policy of Afghanistan whilst
both Britain and Russia were to have equal trading rights there.
Russia gained control of north Persia while Britain gained
control of south-east Persia and the Persian Gulf. (So the
Russians got the part near their border and the British got the
bit with the best oil reserves.) As with the Dual Entente, there
was no formal alliance but there was still a definite lining up of
forces.
Conclusion
By 1907 the situation had resolved itself. The Triple
Alliance [with Italy only partly committed], faced the Triple
Entente.
The Teams for the Big Battle 1914 -1918
Great Britain and her colonies
Germany
France and her colonies
vsAustria-Hungary
Imperial Russia
Italy
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Dramatis
Personae
of the Causes of the First World War
GREAT BRITAIN (Capital City - London)
King George V Sir Edward Grey Herbert Asquith
Sir Edward Goschen
Sir John French
King and Emperor of India
British Foreign Secretary
British Prime Minister (Liberal)
British Ambassador to Germany
Commander of the British
Expeditionary Force in 1914
GERMANY (Capital City - Berlin)
Kaiser Wilhelm II (Hohenzollern) Kaiser (i.e. Emperor)
Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg German Chancellor
Count Friedrich von Pourtalès
Ambassador to Russia
Prince Karl Lichnowsky
Ambassador to Great Britain
Heinrich Leonhard von Tschirschky
und Bögendorff Ambassador to Austria
Baron Wilhelm Schoen
Ambassador to France
Gottlieb von Jagow Secretary of State
Arthur Zimmerman Under Secretary of State
Count Helmuth von Moltke Chief of the General Staff
Lt. General Erich von Falkenhayn Prussian Minister of War
Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz
Chief of the Naval Staff
Admiral Georg von Müller
Head of the Naval Cabinet
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY (Capital City - Vienna)
Franz Josef (Habsburg)
Franz Ferdinand
Emperor
Heir Apparent to the AustroHungarian Crown
Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg
Wife of Franz Ferdinand
(Morganatic marriage)
General Oskar Potiorek
Governor of Bosnia and
Herzegovina
Count Stefan Tisza Hungarian Prime Minister
Count Carl Stürgkh
Austrian Prime Minister
Count Leopold von Berchtold Foreign Minister
Count Ottokar Czernin
Foreign Minister after Berchtold
Count Alexander Hoyos
Head of the Foreign Ministry
Count Ladislas Szögyény-Marich Ambassador to Germany
Wladimir Giesl von Gieslingen
Ambassador to Serbia
Baron Alexander von Krobatin Minister of War
Baron Conrad von Hötzendorf Chief of the General Staff
Count Albert Mensdorff Ambassador to London
RUSSIA (Capital City - St. Petersburg)
Tsar Nicholas II (Romanov)
Sergei Sazanov
General Vladimir Sukhomlinov
Alexander Izvolsky Alexander von Bronewski Tsar (Czar) of all the Russians
Foreign Minister
Minister of War
Ambassador to France
Charge d’affairs in Germany
FRANCE (Capital City - Paris)
Raymond Poincaré René Viviani Jules Cambon Maurice Paléologue
General Joseph Joffre President of France
Premier and Minister of Foreign
Affairs
Ambassador to Germany
Ambassador to Russia
Commander in Chief of the
French Army
ITALY (Capital City - Rome)
Antonio di San Giuliano
Foreign Minister
SERBIA (Capital City - Belgrade)
Nicolas Pasic (Pashitch)
Colonel Apis Gavrilo Princip
Prime Minister and Minister of
Foreign Affairs
(a.k.a. Dragutin DimitrijevicApis) Head of Serbian Military
Intelligence and key figure in the
Black Hand organization
Assassin of Franz Ferdinand
45
The Assassination of
Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Introduction
With the current situation in Yugoslavia/Serbia/Croatia,
students may have a renewed interest in the assassination of
Archduke Franz Ferdinand from the point of view of the young
Bosnian Serb nationalists and independence fighters, Gavrilo
Princip, Nedeljko Cabrinovic, Trifun Grabez, Danilo Ilic and
others.
Hunting through Bob Gould’s huge, chaotic goldmine of
video in Newtown, I discovered a surprisingly accurate and
well made Yugoslavian movie about the assassination called,
The Day That Shook The World. This movie was made in
1975 and stars Christopher Plummer as the Archduke Franz
Ferdinand, Florinda Bolkan as Sophie, his wife, the Duchess of
Hohenburg, and Maximillian Schell as Djuro Sarac, a military
agent from the Narodna Odbrana (The Black Hand). More
about him in a minute.
Leonard Maltin’s Movie and Video Guide only gives
it two stars. “...(106 minutes) Plodding historical drama .
. . Yugoslavian-made with a humourless international cast,
resulting in a tedious though epic-sized chronicle . . .”. I rarely
agree with Leonard Maltin’s judgement. This movie is a little
overlong, but I think that the movie’s efforts to be historically
accurate are to be applauded.
There is only one small problem - there is one scene of
graphic torture that you may wish to skip: the Maximillian
Schell character, Djuro Sarac, is tortured to death by the
Habsburg police. Sarac was the man who Colonel Apis, the
leader of the Black Hand, sent to Sarajevo in a last minute
attempt to stop the assassination. In its context, the torture
scene is justifiable, for the Habsburg police commonly used
torture to gain the names of other conspirators. Fear of torture
was the reason why the “Young Bosnians” carried poison to
kill themselves if they were caught. The torture scene occurs in
the movie just before the conspirators take up their positions,
and lasts about six or seven minutes. His head, hands and feet
are crushed in vise-like grips, and spikes are pushed under his
fingernails.
I would recommend showing it after teaching the
background tensions in Europe, and after outlining the events
of the assassination, so that the students can critically analyse
what is shown and what is not. They can discuss bias: Are
the conspirators presented as heroes? Are the Archduke and
his wife presented as sympathetic characters? Where does the
move depart from commonly accepted historical accuracy?
The Assassination
The teenage conspirators were very amateurish. The movie
presents this point well. They had no experience at shooting
46
Sophie
Franz
or throwing grenades at moving targets. This amateurishness
was probably typical of the South Slav secret societies within
the Habsburg monarchy - between 1910 and 1914 the South
Slav revolutionary movements made six assassination attempts
against Habsburg officials, which all failed, and another twelve
or so were thwarted by the Habsburg secret police before they
began. The conspirators refer to Bogdan Zerajic who had
attempted to kill the Governor of Bosnia in 1910 and then
committed suicide.
Why didn’t the Habsburg military officials and the police
do a serious job of protecting the Archduke during his tour?
They had many warnings of plots against his life prior to his
visit. The Archduke himself was rather careless about his own
security. Two months before his death, at Trieste, he made an
unplanned departure from his program, and when asked about
security, he answered, “Precautions? Security measures? . . .
I do not care the tiniest bit about this. Everywhere one is in
God’s hands. Look, out of this bush, here at the right, some
chap could jump at me . . . fears and precautions paralyse one’s
life. To fear is always a dangerous business.” This can be seen
as foolishness by an Heir-Apparent, or the courage of a soldier.
To draw a security comparison: when the Emperor Franz
Joseph had visited Sarajevo in June 1910, the complete route
had been lined with a double cordon of soldiers. 70,000
soldiers were just outside Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, but
General Oskar Potiorek, the military governor of Bosnia and
Herzegovina chose not to use them. Three of the assassins
(Princip, Cabrinovic and Grabez) left Belgrade on 28 May
and crossed the border into Bosnia, a province of the AustroHungarian Empire. They had weapons, money and cyanide.
They reached Sarajevo on 4 June. They were joined by
Mehmedbasic, Cubrilovic and Popovic. On 15 June Danilo Ilic
brought the bombs to Sarajevo. The other accomplices were
Veljko Cubrilovic and Mihajlo Jovanovic.
The 120 Sarajevo police, reinforced by a few detectives
from Budapest, had prepared a report on the activities of the
Young Bosnians, but the military committee told them that
they were not afraid of children, and that, “These lesser breeds
would not dare do anything.” The movie makes a point of
showing the carelessness of the young conspirators, and the
closeness of the police to uncovering their plot before they had
a chance to act. While the Austrian military did nothing, the
police had orders to spread out along the four mile route and to
face the crowd while the Imperial cars passed. The conspirators
had little difficulty in planning their assassination attempt as
the route of the motorcade had been advertised in Sarajevo in
advance so that people could welcome the Archduke and his
wife.
Why were the Archduke and his wife in Sarajevo on the
28 June 1914 anyway? He was there to observe military
manoeuvres. According to his eldest son’s memoirs, (Dr. Max
Hohenburg); “The High Command decided that the great
manoeuvres should take place that year in Bosnia. The choice
of this country, recently annexed by Austria, where a muffled
rebellion persisted, was deplorable . . .” One evening the
Archduke said at the table, “I am Inspector-General of the
Austro-Hungarian armed forces. I must go to Sarajevo. The
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soldiers would never be able to explain my absence.” Dr.
Hohenburg also wrote that Franz Joseph tried to convince the
heir-apparent not to go.
The opening scenes of the movie show the more personal
reasons for the journey. The Archduke had married for love,
not dynastic reasons. His relationship with Sophie (of Czech
nobility) was morganatic - he had married beneath his rank,
and neither Sophie nor her children had any claim on the
throne. He was unable to appear at court with her, so he often
travelled on the outskirts of the empire so that they could
spend time together, and appear in public together. The movie
presents this well: the Emperor and the Archduke argue over
the program, the Archduke unsuccessfully arguing that his wife
should travel with him, rather than separately by train.
The choice of the day was a very bad one. Though it was
the Archduke and Duchess’ fourteenth anniversary, June 28
was also the greatest Serbian festival, St. Vitus’ Day, Vidovdan.
This day has been celebrated by Serbs since 28 June 1389. It
mourns the Battle of Kosovo where an Ottoman army led by
Sultan Murad defeated a Serbian army, marking the end of
Serbian independence, and more than four hundred years of
harsh rule by the Ottomans. The day also celebrates the fact
that a Serbian nobleman called Milos Obilic secretly penetrated
the victorious Turkish defences and assassinated the Sultan
that same day. One historian says the Archduke’s decision to
go to Sarajevo that day was as foolhardy as it might have been
for George V to visit Dublin in Ireland on St. Patrick’s Day in
1917!
The whole affair was nearly cancelled, which is detailed
in the movie, as is the degree of involvement of Serbian
officialdom. Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijevic-Apis (the man
who had led the regicide of King Alexander and his wife in
Belgrade in 1903) who headed the Black Hand (the Narodna
Odbrana, also called the Ujedinjenje ili smrt “Union or
Death”), was also chief of the intelligence department of
the Serbian general staff. Colonel Apis was a militarist
and Pan-Serb (i.e. wanted to unite all Serbs) who believed
that Serbia should rule the South Slavs in the way Prussia
had united Germans under its banner. The Young Bosnians
believed differently: they were anarchists who, (perhaps
rather idealistically) believed in the creation of a South Slav
federation of equal nations. Colonel Apis approved the delivery
of arms to these Young Bosnians. Why?
One commonly accepted interpretation is this: Colonel Apis
had planned a coup d’etat against the Serbian Government in
1914, which was discovered in time to prevent it. Some think
that Apis approved the assassination attempt because he was
sure it would fail, and it would embarrass and further weaken
Nicolas Pasic’s Serbian government, to Apis’ own advantage in
seeking power.
The Serbian Government had absolutely no reason to
enter into conflict with Austria-Hungary in 1914 - the Serbian
army was decimated after two Balkan Wars, and they had very
little ammunition and few weapons. The Serbian Government
was informed of the Black Hand’s weapons smuggling at
the border, and Colonel Apis was immediately put under
investigation. This is used in the movie to explain why the
assassins were asked by Sarac (on Apis’ instructions) to
abandon their plans at the last moment. In the movie, Princip
refuses, and at the last moment the others rejoin the plan.
Whatever the reason, it appears true that the plan was almost
abandoned at the very last moment.
At 10.00 am, the Archduke and his wife were to drive along
the quayside of the River Miljacka to the Town Hall. There,
they would receive an address, then drive through the narrow
streets of the old town to the museum, where the Archduke
would open a new wing. Apparently filmed on the actual site,
the assassination in the movie is quite a model of historical
accuracy. Organised by Danilo Ilic (24), three were placed
on the land side, and three on the river side of the street. The
six assassins were Gavrilo Princip (19), Nedeljko Cabrinovic
(19), Trifun Grabez (18), Mehmed Mehmedbasic (27), Vaso
Cubrilovic (17) and Cvetko Popovic (18). When the car made
its journey along the Appel Quay, Cubrilovic did not act
because he unexpectedly saw that the Duchess was with the
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
1
3
5A 6
Mehmedbasic
Cabrinovic
Princip (first position)
Grabez
2 Cubrilovic
4 Popovic
5B Princip (second position)
Archduke. Chivalry prevented his taking action. Popovic did
not act because he was shortsighted and could not tell which
car carried the Archduke. Nedjelko Cabrinovic did act. He
had to ask one of the police which car contained the Archduke
and once he knew it was the third car he knocked the cap
off his grenade and threw it. It either bounced off the back
of the Archduke’s car, or, the interpretation in the movie, the
Archduke saw the grenade coming and threw it off the back of
the car. It went under the following car and exploded, injuring
twelve people. Cabrinovic jumped into the river and took his
cyanide. The poison they had been given was old, and did not
work. The river was dry so he did not drown. When the car
passed Princip the first time he did nothing.
The procession sped on to the Town Hall, where General
Potiorek assured them nothing more would happen, and that he
took all responsibility. At Franz Ferdinand’s suggestion it was
decided to change plans and visit the members of the party who
were wounded in the hospital. They should have continued
straight down Appel Quay, but the drivers had not been
told. They turned into the old town onto Franz Josef Street,
following the originally planned procession route. The car was
ordered to stop by Potiorek. A security guard was standing on
the car’s running board to protect Franz Ferdinand. He was
standing on the side from which the original attack had come.
Unfortunately, the next attack was to come from the other side.
As the car was backing out onto the Quay road, Princip, who
happened to be standing around in front of Schiller’s Cafe,
fired at the Archduke and then, aiming at Potiorek, accidentally
shot the Duchess. At his trial, Princip himself could not
accurately recall how many bullets he fired and probably
looked away as he fired the fatal shots. He is dragged away and
the movie ends, briefly outlining the fates of the conspirators.
Some Reflections
All the assassins but Mehmedbasic were less than twenty
and some were too young to suffer the death penalty for
their crimes. Three of the assassins had tuberculosis, a not
uncommon disease at the time, and Princip was to die of
his illness during the course of the First World War. He was
proud of his role in the assassination and regarded himself
as a Serbian patriot though he regretted killing the Duchess.
Interestingly enough, one of the conspirators, Cvetko Popovic,
outlived all the other major players in the drama and was
still alive in the 1980s having been a Professor of History in
Yugoslavia.
In the Austrian Army Museum in Vienna, a whole room
is set aside to commemorate the assassination. In it, Franz
Ferdinand seems to have acquired the status of martyr. The car
in which he was travelling and the uniform he was wearing
when killed are displayed along with oil paintings of the
Archduke and the plaster death masks made of his wife and
himself. In addition there is much memorabilia from the day
of the assassination: Princip’s pistol, photographs, invitations,
planned menus and newspaper reactions.
In contrast, the Yugoslavian Army Museum in Belgrade
also has a room set aside for the assassination, also with
photographs and items related to the assassination. The
difference is that in this museum it is the conspirators whose
photographs feature as the centre of the display and it is they
who figure as the heroes and martyrs of the affair. What you
see in history can all depend upon where you stand.
47
The July Crisis
(available as an MP3 on the Department’s intranet site)
The July Crisis is the name given to the series of events
from the assassination of the heir-apparent to the AustroHungarian Throne, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo
on the 28 June 1914, to the outbreak of war between the
major powers of Europe in the first week of August 1914. The
boldfaced headings relate to telegraphic communications
between the various characters in the July Crisis.
30 June - German Ambassador to Austria-Hungary (von
Tschirschky) → German Chancellor (von BethmannHollweg)
The Austrian Foreign Minister, Count Berchtold said the
assassination had been planned by Serbia and that the general
opinion was that Serbia should be taught a lesson. “A final and
fundamental reckoning” with Serbia. Tschirschky advised the
Austrians against doing anything too hastily.
1 July - A memorandum by Alexander von Hoyos (Chief
of the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Ministry) following a
meeting with the German publicist Victor Naumann
The Germans seem to believe that a preventive war with
Russia is not such a bad idea and that if such a war took
place, they believe that Britain would not involve herself in a
European war.¨Uü
Commentary
Before Austria took any action against Serbia, she had to
have the support of Germany in case Russia came in to help the
Serbians. So the Austrian Ambassador in Berlin went to see the
Kaiser. The Kaiser said that Germany would support Austria
(this offer of support is called the ‘blank cheque’) and he urged
Austria to take action against the Serbs quickly, even though
he knew there was a risk that the Russians might get involved.
The situation was all in their (Austria’s) favour and the Kaiser
would regret if the Austrians did not use the opportunity to deal
with Serbia.
Many European leaders were going on their Summer
holidays at that time. The Kaiser was about to head off on his
annual cruise in the Baltic.
5 July - Prussian Minister of War (von Falkenhayn)
→ Chief of the German General Staff (von Moltke)
Falkenhayn said that the Austrians were saying they were
going to take action against Serbia even if this meant that
Russia might get involved, but Falkenhayn doubted that they
would do anything, especially in the following few weeks, so
he advised Moltke that he should stay on his holiday.
Commentary
However, the Kaiser was anxious that Austria take action
against Serbia quickly. In his marginal notations to the German
Ambassador Tschirschky’s note of 30 June he wrote, referring
to action against Serbia, “now or never” and “The Serbs must
Tschirschsky
48
Berchtold
be disposed of and that right soon.” The Kaiser did not think
that Russia would become involved in any action Austria may
take against Serbia so he left for his holiday in Kiel. (It was
mid-summer, the time when most Europeans went on their
holidays.)
The “Blank Cheque” of German support for Austria,
though given off-handedly, was taken very seriously in Vienna
and decided the issue. Austria decided to take action and would
compose a list of demands so harsh that Serbia would have to
refuse. The text of the demands to be made upon Serbia were
worked out by 10 July. By 19 July these demands were ready
for ratification by the Austrian Ministers. Germany by this time
had more formally repeated her assurance of support and urged
Austria to take action.
14 July German Ambassador to Austria-Hungary (von
Tschirschky) → The German Chancellor (von BethmannHollweg)
Previously the Hungarian Prime Minister Stefan Tisza
doubted the advisability of action against Serbia, but by
14 July he had changed his mind and supported the idea.
Tisza said that the Kaiser’s support of Austria-Hungary was
important in this change of attitude. It was decided to delay
sending the ultimatum to Serbia until the French Premier
had left St Petersburg in Russia after his state visit. The
ultimatum to Serbia was “being composed so that possibility
of its acceptance is practically excluded.” (This was to stop
the Russians and the French from easily conferring once the
ultimatum to Serbia was delivered.)
20 July Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister (Berchtold) →
Austro-Hungarian Ambassador in Belgrade (Giesl)
Berchtold, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, sent
the demands to the Austrian Ambassador in Belgrade to have
him deliver them on the afternoon of 23 July. The Serbian
Government was to be given until 25 July to reply. The
ultimatum consisted of a list of ten very harsh demands.
21 July. German Chancellor (von Bethmann-Hollweg) →
British, French and Russian Governments via the relevant
German ambassadors
Before the ultimatum was sent, the German Chancellor, von
Bethmann-Hollweg, sent telegrams to the British, French and
Russians on 21 July, saying that the Serbs had been causing
trouble for years and that whatever Austria-Hungary was going
to do about the “Serbian mischief-making” was nothing more
than “moderate and proper” and therefore Britain, France and
Russia should not do anything about it.
Commentary
The ultimatum was delivered and it caused a sensation in
Serbia. The British and the Russians sought an extension of
time for the Serbs to reply but this was not granted by Austria.
The reply came in time and was very conciliatory. (The Serbs
accepted all the demands, but one.) They hoped that this would
satisfy the Austrians but as soon as Austria saw that it was not
a complete acceptance they broke off diplomatic relations.
War was still not inevitable, and a Europe-wide conflict
was even less certain at this stage.
Kaiser Wilhelm II
Bethmann-Hollweg
Sazonov
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
On 25 July, the Chief of the Austro-Hungarian General
Staff (Conrad von Hötzendorf) told the Austro-Hungarian
Foreign Minister (Berchtold) that Austria would need 16
days to mobilize and that it was intended to declare war after
mobilization. Berchtold wanted to declare war immediately so
that no mediation was possible (it’s obvious he wanted war). If
Russia was going to be in the war, then Austria would have to
take them on from the beginning. If Russia were not involved,
then Austria would go for Serbia alone.
28 July. Austro-Hungarian Ambassador in Germany
(Szögyény) → Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister (von
Berchtold)
Szögyény told Berchtold that Germany urged Austria to
take action. The English had offered to mediate. Germany
passed the message on but only so that it would look good to
the British. “The German Government . . . . does not identify
itself with these propositions . . . . it advises to disregard them .
. . . but passes them on to satisfy the British.” (They wanted to
look good to the British so that the British would not become
involved.) Their advice to the Austrians was that they should
ignore the mediation attempt and attack Serbia. (This is more
good evidence that Germany wanted war.)
On 28 July, Austria declared war on Serbia before they
were really ready so that they could prevent mediation from
other countries.
28 July. Russian Foreign Minister (Sazonov) → the
German Government (via the Russian charge d’affairs in
Germany, Bronewski)
The Russians tell the Germans that Russia will mobilize
the military districts of Odessa, Kiev, Moscow and Kazan in
support of Serbia the next day but say that Russia does not
want a war with Germany.
Commentary
By evening of 28 July no shots had been fired. Germany
urged Austria to take military action against Serbia.
28 July. German Chancellor (von Bethmann-Hollweg)
→ the Austro-Hungarian Government (via the German
Ambassador in Austria-Hungary, von Tschirschky)
He tells the Austrians that the Serbian reply was
conciliatory and therefore public opinion might turn against
Austria. He is critical of the Austro-Hungarians taking so long
to take action against Serbia. He assures the Austro-Hungarians
that the Germans don’t want to mediate but if they are kept
waiting it might look bad (i.e. “Germany caused the war.”)
Bethmann-Hollweg felt that the “responsibility for the eventual
extension of the war should under all circumstances fall on
Russia.” He said that Germany did not want a world war, but if
there was one, they did not want blame attaching to Germany.
Blame would have to rest on Russia so Austria had to act
quickly.
German Chancellor (von Bethmann-Hollweg) → the
French Government (via the German Ambassador in
France, Schoen)
Germany had to know what France’s position was going to
be (because of the Schlieffen Plan). Bethmann-Hollweg said
that he did not like the French preparations for war and that
they would have to stop or Germany would proclaim a “risk of
war”.
Commentary
29 July. Austria shelled Belgrade. This was the beginning
of fighting in the war.
German Chief of the General Staff (Moltke) → German
Chancellor (von Bethmann-Hollweg)
Moltke pointed out the danger of a world war which could
grow out of the Austro-Serbian conflict. Russia had sided
with that “criminal nation” Serbia (which Moltke regarded
as a “criminal nation”) and as a result Russia had mobilized
twelve full army corps. As a result Germany should mobilize to
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
defend Austria-Hungary, but then Russia would say that she is
being attacked and then France would support Russia and that
would lead to a world wide massacre. The “mutual butchery of
the civilized nations of Europe will begin.”
German Chancellor (von Bethmann-Hollweg) → the
Russian Government (via the German Ambassador in
Russia, von Pourtalès)
Bethmann-Hollweg sent a warning to Russia that Russian
mobilization would prompt German mobilization and a
European war would then be hard to avoid.
Commentary
Austria and Russia had partially mobilised. To move from
partial mobilisation to general mobilisation was an easy step.
German Ambassador in Russia (von Pourtalès) →
German Secretary of State (Jagow)
Sazonov (Russian Foreign Minister) wanted arbitration
through a conference of four nations, but the Germans said that
the Russians should get out of Serbia’s affair and demobilize.
Sazonov said that Russia could not leave Serbia “in the lurch”
and that they could not withdraw the mobilisation order. They
blamed Austria for the situation.
The Kaiser was furious with the reaction of the entente
powers. He felt that Russia, France and Britain were preparing
to annihilate Germany.
Commentary
The Germans waited until the Russians declared general
mobilization on 31 July (so that they would be able to blame
Russia for the extension of the war) and then issued an
ultimatum to Russia;
1 August - 5.00pm. German Chancellor (von BethmannHollweg) → the Russian Government (via the German
Ambassador in Russia, von Pourtalès)
The ultimatum said that Russia had to demobilize or
Germany would declare war on Russia.
Jagow (German Secretary of State) → the Belgian
Government (via the German Ambassador in Belgium)
Germany said that they were going to go into Belgium
(according to the Schlieffen Plan) but they said this was
because the French were going to attack Germany through
Belgium. (This was obviously an excuse) They said that the
Germans did not want to fight the Belgians but that they would
be forced to unless Belgium gave them free passage through
Belgium. The Germans wanted a reply in 12 hours to these
German “measures of self-protection.”
Commentary
Belgium did not reply so Germany went ahead and invaded
them. (Tuesday 4 August 1914 - 6.00 am)
4 August. British Foreign Secretary (Sir Edward Grey) →
the German Government (via the British Ambassador in
Germany, Goschen)
Grey told the Germans that unless they got out of Belgium,
Britain would go to war with Germany. He pointed out that
BOTH Germany and Britain had signed the Treaty of London
which guaranteed Belgium neutrality.
12 August. Austro-Hungarian Ambassador in Great Britain
(Mensdorff) → Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister (von
Berchtold)
The British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, informed
Austria that Britain and France were declaring war on AustriaHungary.
So World War One had commenced from a couple of shots
fired blindly by a fanatical young Serbian nationalist. From
the presentation of the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia to the
declaration of war by Great Britain on Germany had taken less
than two weeks.
49
Who’s responsible?
Evidence for and against each country involved in
the Origins of the First World War
In preparing for your oral assessment task, you need to
be able to argue why the country you represent should not
be held guilty or responsible for the beginning of World War
One. You also need to be able to accuse other countries which
you believe can be held responsible because of their actions
or inaction. Do not forget to prepare answers to the sort of
accusing questions that may be directed towards your country.
This article should help you make a start on the preparation
of your opening statements and in the preparation of your
questions to be asked of other countries. Clearly, it is not the
beginning and end of your work. From the English-History
Intranet you should download the audio files:
• JulyCrisis.mp3
• CausesOfWWI.mp3
and the Word (or pdf) files in the Whodunit? section:
• Introduction.doc
• Barnes.doc
• Fay.doc
• Fischer.doc
• Ritter.doc
• Zilliacus.doc
The people who score the highest marks in this task will
be those who have thoroughly prepared material from a range
of these sources. If you can intelligently use evidence that
you have gathered from these sources you will clearly make a
bigger impression than if you only use the evidence contained
in this handout.
Evidence for the guilt of Germany
• The Kaiser’s BLANK CHEQUE to Austria-Hungary.
Austria could “count on Germany’s full support” even
in the case of “grave European complications”. This was
given rashly and helped decide the issue in Vienna. Without
this German support Austria may never have attacked
Serbia.
• Germany’s belief that she was being encircled and that she
had to fight. Germany saw the Franco-Russian Alliance
and the two Moroccan crises as evidence that the entente
powers were out to crush her and deny her a “place in the
sun”.
• The HOYOS MEMORANDUM which showed that the
Germans considered that a preventive war against Russia
in 1914 was not such a bad idea. Indeed, Moltke had urged
Jagow, on 1 June 1914, to precipitate a preventive war with
Russia. He said, “We are ready, and the sooner it comes,
the better for us.” Russia was building her strength and her
army would reach its maximum peacetime strength in 1917.
• The Kaiser’s comments regarding Austrian action against
Serbia - “The Serbs must be disposed of and that right
soon”. “The sooner, the better”. He said that he “would
regret it if Austria-Hungary let this present chance, which is
so favourable for us, go by without utilizing it.”
• The German advice to Austria to reject the mediation
proposals from Britain that the Germans passed on. The
Germans only passed on the proposals to look good in
the eyes of the British. “The German Government...in no
way identifies itself with the proposals (and is) decidedly
opposed to consideration of them and is only passing
them on out of deference to the British request.” Germany
wanted to ensure that Britain stayed out of the war but did
nothing to stop it.
• Bethmann-Hollweg’s comment that “the responsibility
for the eventual extension of the war must under all
circumstances fall on Russia”. i.e. Germany was willing to
risk an extension of the war, but they didn’t want it to look
like they caused it.
50
• Bethmann-Hollweg was willing to risk a world war.
“We are only concerned with finding a way to enable the
realization of Austria-Hungary’s aim without unleashing a
world war, and should this prove unavoidable, to improve
as far as possible the conditions under which it is to be
waged.”
• The German’s urged the Austrians to take action
against Serbia. Jagow wrote on 20 July that the German
Government “quite extraordinarily regrets this delay” in
taking action.
• The Germans warned the entente powers that what the
Austrians were going to do was both “moderate and
proper” and that they should not intervene. Germany
clearly knew what Austria planned and knew it was risking
war.
• Germany’s weak excuse for marching into Belgium.
They said that unless they did, the French would march
into Belgium to attack Germany. They said these were
“measures of self-protection” but this was clearly an excuse
for the launching of their Schlieffen Plan.
• The SEPTEMBER WAR AIMS PROGRAM is a clear
indication of Germany’s expansionist aims in the war.
It was a manifestation of their aims for a world policy
(Weltpolitik). Germany wanted to extend her influence
in central Europe (Mitteleuropa) and in central Africa
(Mittelafrika). It came out in September 1914 from
Bethmann-Hollweg, but Fritz Fischer maintains that the
aims must have been in the leaders’ minds before the war.
• The widening of the KIEL CANAL had just been
completed to take the new German battleships from the
Baltic Sea straight out into the North Sea. Coincidence?
• The German increases in the size of their army and navy
in the period leading up to the war indicate that they were
planning a war.
• Government approved press hysteria about encirclement
from 1913.
• Books by people such as Frobenius and Bernhardi
(“Germany and the Next War”) which described the war
(i.e. the great European Hegemonialkrieg) as certain and
necessary.
• Efforts made by Germany in the diplomatic field to try to
ensure the neutrality of Britain indicate that Germany knew
a war was coming but that they did not want to have to fight
Great Britain.
• On the morning of 28 July, the Kaiser wanted to avoid
European war and proposed to the Austrians that they be
satisfied with a temporary occupation of Belgrade. He felt
that the Serbians had given way to most of the Austrians’
demands and that there was consequently no need for a war.
Bethmann-Hollweg did not pass on this message until late
in the evening on that day so that the Austrians had already
declared war.
Evidence for the innocence of Germany
• The Kaiser’s response to the Serbian reply to the ultimatum
was that war was no longer necessary. “I am convinced
that on the whole the wishes of the Danube Monarchy have
been acceded to.” (see previous piece of evidence)
• The Kaiser went off on his holiday cruise in the Baltic
while the July Crisis was brewing.
• Moltke was advised by Falkenhayn on 5 July that
Falkenhayn did not think the Austrians would do anything
and therefore Moltke could continue his holiday at the spa.
• Bethmann-Hollweg said he did not want a world war. “The
case is solely one of finding a way to achieve Austria’s aims
without bringing on a world war”.
• Bethmann-Hollweg wrote to his Ambassador in France that
with French preparations for war becoming more frequent
that Germany would have to declare a state of “risk of war”
but that he “hoped to preserve peace”.
• Germany only mobilised because of Russian mobilisation
(and they had moved from partial to general mobilisation)
and only did so after warning the Russians that Germany
would be forced to mobilise if Russia did not de-mobilise.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
• Germany was the victim of its alliance with Austria. The Kaiser said that if Austria was attacked “we should be
bound under our alliance to support our neighbour...only
under compulsion would we resort to the sword, but if we
did so, it would be in calm assurance that we are guiltless
of the sufferings which war might bring to the peoples of
Europe.”
Evidence for the guilt of Austria-Hungary
• Berchtold felt that the assassination had been planned in
Serbia and that a “final and fundamental reckoning with
Serbia” had to take place.
• The ultimatum to Serbia was “composed so that possibility
of its acceptance was practically excluded.” They
deliberately wanted the ultimatum to be rejected so that
they could go to war.
• The delivery of the ultimatum was delayed until 23 July so
that the French leaders, Poincare and Viviani, would have
left St. Petersburg after their state visit to Russia. They did
not want the Russians and the French to be able to consult
easily.
• They refused to accept the extremely conciliatory reply to
their ultimatum by the Serbs. They clearly wanted war.
• The Austrians declared war on the Serbians on 28 July,
almost two weeks before their Generals said they would be
ready, so that they could avoid attempts at mediation.
Evidence for the guilt of France
• France had been after revenge for the humiliation of the
Franco-Prussian war and wanted to have a fight with
Germany. Of the loss of Alsace and Lorraine, Clemenceau
had said “think of it always, speak of it never”.
• The French had gone into a set of alliances clearly
designed to encircle and weaken Germany. She had also
sided against Germany in the two Moroccan crises and
humiliated her.
• Foch demanded mobilisation of the French forces very
early in the July Crisis (although this demand was not
granted).
• The French would not give Germany an assurance that
they would not become involved in the war and this forced
Germany to attack France to carry out the Schlieffen Plan
rather than run the risk of only attacking Russia and then
having France attack her and being forced into a two front
war. Therefore, France and Russia co-operated to go to war
with Germany and to have it look like it was Germany’s
fault.
Evidence for the innocence of France
• Viviani ordered all the French troops on the FrancoGerman border to retreat 10 kilometres during the July
Crisis so that France could not be held responsible for some
incident that the Germans could then use as an excuse for
attacking France.
Evidence for the innocence of Austria-Hungary
• It was their heir-apparent who had been shot and it was
their great power status that was being threatened by the
rise of the minority nationalist groups in the Balkans that
were being supported by Serbia. They felt they had a
right to take action against the pan-Slav menace on their
doorstep.
Evidence for the guilt of Russia
• They were building up their armaments at a great rate and
they had concluded a pact with the French that the Germans
would see as an aggressive encircling action.
• They were the first great power to mobilise and to extend
the conflict beyond a local Balkan affair. They mobilised
four military districts which was a threat not only to
Austria-Hungary but also to Germany. They then stepped
up partial mobilisation to general mobilisation.
• They refused to de-mobilise when given the ultimatum by
Germany on 1 August, “demobilise within twelve hours or
Germany will declare war”.
• The Russians were defending the Slavs of Serbia but a
good proportion of the Serbs were not really Slavs anyway,
but were Moslems from the old Ottoman Turkish Empire.
• The Tsar was in a great deal of trouble at home with social
unrest, strikes and the like and was willing to exploit a
foreign problem to try to foster domestic cohesion.
Evidence for the innocence of Russia
• The Russians were only defending their brother Slavs
in Serbia who were being attacked by Austria who were
clearly bent on the complete destruction of Serbia.
• Russia was simply trying to contain the expansionist
designs of Germany.
Evidence for the guilt of Great Britain
• Britain refused to give Germany an unequivocal reply to
the German enquiries about the British position. If the
British had said they definitely would not remain neutral it
is quite possible the Germans would not have undertaken
their military adventure.
• The British had opposed Germany’s attempts to increase
her empire and this had given the Germans a sense of
persecution and a feeling that they would have to fight for
what they felt was their right.
• They had been just as militaristic and just as fervently
nationalistic as the Germans before the war and they had
helped to raise the level of bitterness and antagonism
throughout Europe as much as any other power.
Evidence for the innocence of Great Britain
• They went to war over the defence of Belgian neutrality,
not to gain any land themselves.
• The British made numerous proposals of mediation to try to
settle the problem in the Balkans and to try to prevent the
crisis developing into a European war.
Evidence for the guilt of Serbia
• Serbia had been fostering the nationalist movements in
the Balkans before and during 1914 and this had upset the
Austro-Hungarians a great deal.
• The assassins had travelled into Bosnia from Serbia and
they were members of the Black Hand organization which
was based in Serbia and was headed by a Serbian by the
name of Colonel Apis.
Evidence for the innocence of Serbia
• Serbia accepted all the demands of the Austrian ultimatum
except one and were clearly intent on trying to prevent a
war between Austria and Serbia.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
51
World War One
The Syllabus Document
World War I 1914–1919: A
source based study
Principal Focus
Students use different types of sources and acquired
knowledge to investigate key features, issues, individuals,
groups and events in the study of World War I.
Percentage of HSC Course Time
25%
Students’ prior learning about World War I
At Stage 5, students will learn about Australia and World
War I, including the reasons for Australia’s involvement; the
places where Australians fought; the experiences of Australians
at Gallipoli; how and why the Anzac legend was created; the
conscription debate in Australia; experiences of one group in
Australia during World War I and the ways that Australia has
commemorated World War I over time.
Outcomes
The HSC Outcomes for all the parts of the HSC course are
as follows.
1.1 describe the role of key features, issues, individuals,
groups and events of selected twentieth-century studies
1.2 analyse and evaluate the role of key features, issues,
individuals, groups and events of selected twentiethcentury studies
2.1 explain forces and ideas and assess their significance in
contributing to change and continuity during the twentieth
century
3.1 ask relevant historical questions
3.2 locate, select and organise relevant information from
different types of sources
3.3 analyse and evaluate sources for their usefulness and
reliability
3.4 explain and evaluate differing perspectives and
interpretations of the past
3.5 plan and present the findings of historical investigations,
analysing and synthesising information from different
types of sources
4.1 use historical terms and concepts appropriately
4.2 communicate a knowledge and understanding of historical
features and issues, using appropriate and well-structured
oral and written forms.
Through the study of World War I students learn to:
• ask relevant questions in relation to World War I
• locate, select and organise information from different types
of primary and secondary sources, including ICT, about key
features and issues related to World War I
• make deductions and draw conclusions about key features
and issues of World War I
• evaluate the usefulness, reliability and perspectives of
sources
• account for and assess differing historical interpretations of
World War I
• use historical terms and concepts appropriately
• present the findings of investigations on aspects of World
War I, analysing and synthesising information from
different types of sources
52
• communicate an understanding of the features and issues of
World War I using appropriate and well-structured oral and/
or written and/or multimedia forms including ICT.
In investigating for the source-based study, students shall
develop knowledge and skills to respond to different types of
sources and relevant historiographical issues related to World
War I.
Students learn about:
1
2
3
4
War on the Western Front
– the reasons for the stalemate on the Western Front
– the nature of trench warfare and life in the trenches
dealing with experiences of Allied and German
soldiers
– overview of strategies and tactics to break the
stalemate including key battles: Verdun, the Somme,
Passchendaele
– changing attitudes of Allied and German soldiers to
the war over time
The home fronts in Britain and Germany
– total war and its social and economic impact on
civilians in Britain and Germany
– recruitment, conscription, censorship and propaganda
in Britain and Germany
– the variety of attitudes to the war and how they
changed over time in Britain and Germany
– the impact of the war on women’s lives and
experiences in Britain
Turning points
– impacts of the entry of the USA and of the Russian
withdrawal
– Ludendorff’s Spring Offensive and the Allied
response
Allied Victory
– events leading to the Armistice, 1918
– reasons for the Allied victory and German collapse
– the roles and differing goals of Clemenceau, Lloyd
George and Wilson in creating the Treaty of Versailles
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Handling the World War One
Questions
The guidelines for essay writing covered earlier in this
handbook are relevant for most of your history writing, but
the World War One question is not a traditional essay, so there
are some variations that need to be kept in mind. The World
War One question will provide you with up to six sources to
consider. You then have to answer a series of questions based
on the sources and your own knowledge.
In the two parts of the World War One section, all the
questions are answered in the question booklet rather than on
writing booklets. These are scanned and marked on computer
screens. You should fit your response in the lines provided, but
you can ask for an extra writing booklet if you need to.
Part A
Part A, worth 15 marks, contains between 5 and 10
objective questions (i.e. multiple choice questions) and
probably two questions that require short written responses of
varying lengths. Spend about 25 minutes on Part A.
According to the syllabus, Part A “ will require candidates
to locate and/or comprehend and/or make simple
deductions from some or all of the sources in context.” This
refers to the multiple-choice questions.
In addition, Part A will also ask students to answer one or
more questions “using at least two sources and their own
knowledge.” This refers to the questions that ask for a written
response.
A typical question calling for a written response might be:
Briefly outline the impact of artillery on the conduct of the war
on the Western Front.
Use your own knowledge and Sources A and B to answer this
question.
Use all the lines provided in the question booklet. If you
need to write a little more, use white space on the page (within
the margin brackets) to complete your response. Sequence your
response like this:
• Write one or two sentences on content in the first source
that helps answer the question. If you can, integrate
additional material, related to the content in the source,
from your own knowledge. If you cannot integrate your
own knowledge, introduce it once you have finished
dealing with the content from the source. Then ...
• Write one or two sentences on content in the second
source that helps answer the question. If you can, integrate
additional material, related to the content in the source,
from your own knowledge. If you cannot integrate your
own knowledge, introduce it once you have finished
dealing with the content from the source.
It is vital that you make direct reference to each of the
nominated sources (simply by writing something like “Source
A indicates...” - no more is needed). It is even more important
that you make clear reference to material that comes from your
own knowledge as this is one of the best ways of impressing
your marker - after all, everyone is going to be writing about
the content in the source. It is your own knowledge that can
help you impress your marker.
The Part A - Part B structure was introduced in the 2010
HSC. Before this, the World War One section was examined
with three questions. Part A contains the sort of questions that
used to be asked in Questions 1 and 2 in the pre-2010 HSC
papers. In 2010 this new structure also saw multiple choice
questions introduced. When you download past HSC and
CSSA questions from our intranet, the old Questions 1 and 2
will give you some idea of what to expect in Part A.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Part B
Part B, worth 10 marks, contains one source analysis
question that calls for a sustained written response (2 pages).
Spend about 20 minutes on Part B.
According to the syllabus, this question “will require
candidates to assess sources in terms of their usefulness,
reliability and/or perspectives.” Part B seeks evaluation
and interpretation of historical evidence usually from two of
the sources. In assessing the usefulness and/or reliability of a
source you need to consider the perspective (or point of view)
from which a source was produced. In addition you need to
explore the content of the source to see what use could be
made of the source by a historian. A typical Part B question
might read:
Assess how useful Sources B and D would be for a historian
studying the reasons for Germany’s defeat in World War One?
In your answer, consider the perspectives provided by the two
sources and the reliability of each one.
In answering Part B, you will simply write two long
paragraphs, one on each source. The pattern you should follow
in each paragraph is as follows:
• Answer the question (how useful?) and indicate the key
reason for your answer in one sentence.
• Assess the perspective of the source. This means explore
the viewpoint of the author of the source ... in other words,
its origin (who? where? when?).
• Assess the reliability of the source. This means considering
such things as the author’s motive, the audience being
targetted and the content of the source.
Each of the issues you raise should lead to you presenting
an argument that helps you make a judgement about the
perspective of the source and/or its reliability. All this helps
you argue a judgement about the source’s usefulness since this
is, after all, the question.
When you explore something about the source you should
try to do each of the following:
• Nominate the issue (e.g. the source’s author or the
audience or the year in which it was produced)
• Argue why that issue makes the source more or less
reliable and/or useful
• Judge, in the light of your argument.
For example, this NAJ pattern in action could look like
these:
Source A originates from the 1970s, fifty years after the war
ended and far removed from the heat and passion of the war
years. This detached perspective is likely to confer a greater
degree of objectivity and reliability on the source.
The audience for Source C is limited to the soldier himself. As
there is no apparent reason to deceive himself with inaccurate
factual detail, the historian could place a high degree of
reliability on this diary extract.
The motive of the Prime Minister may well be to deflect blame
for the military defeats onto his generals and preserve his
reputation. He identifies a number of alleged failings on their
part but none for which he may be responsible. The historian
would thus need to exercise caution when assessing the
reliability of Source B.
Wherever possible, you can make brief reference to your
own knowledge as you develop your argument. Try to do this
on a number of occasions, but be concise in your references as
own knowledge is not critical in you response. It is simply a
means of impressing your marker.
The following pages provide you with more detail on how
to go about answering Part B questions.
53
Some tips for Part B
Part B is very predictable. Two sources will be nominated
and you will be asked to make a judgement on the usefulness
of the sources for a historian studying some aspect of World
War One. In your answer you have to look at the perspective
provided by the sources and the reliability of the sources.
Anything so predictable enables us to be well prepared for it.
The basic pattern for these responses is explained on the
previous page. To summarise:
• write two paragraphs - one on each source
In each paragraph we have to:
• start with a clear answer of “how useful”
• explain the “perspective” of the source and judge what
effect this has on “reliability” and how “useful” it is
• examine the content of the source to judge its “reliability”
and how “useful” a historian might find it
• conclude with a judgement that links to the question
Useful for what?
When you are assessing how useful a source is, the first
question you have to ask yourself is “Useful for what?” If
the question is, “Is this potato peeler useful?” the answer will
depend on the question, “Useful for what?” The peeler is very
useful for peeling potatoes, less useful for peeling oranges and
almost useless for peeling paint off a wall. In World War One
sources, a letter from a soldier in the trenches may be useful
for telling us what conditions at the front were like, but of
much less use in telling us about the overall military strategy.
The question will indicate the “what for” - such as; useful for
a historian studying the war on the Western Front; useful for
a historian studying the role of women on the Home Front;
useful for a historian studying the reasons for the stalemate on
the Western Front.
If, as usual, the “what for” given in the question is broad
you may need to clarify exactly for what purposes a source
may be useful. A propaganda poster may be unreliable because
it portrays a false situation for the purposes of maintaining
morale or stirring hatred of the enemy. Is it therefore of no use?
No! It can still be useful. “What for?” It can tell us something
about the ways in which a government tried to persuade its
people to continue fighting in the war. Even though something
may be unreliable, it can still be useful, so long as you are clear
in stating the “what for”.
Argue ... don’t just assert
The NAJ pattern on the previous page highlights the
importance of arguing your judgements. Weak responses tend
to simply assert that something is true ... like this:
The author is the British Prime Minister David Lloyd
George and this makes the source likely to be very useful for a
historian.
The problem with this example is that it only does the “N”
and the “J” - it nominates the author and judges this to make
the source more useful. It fails to do the “A” ... argue. It should
be written something like this:
The author is the British Prime Minister David Lloyd
George and his position at the heart of government would give
him access to all the key decision makers and all the sources of
information on which the government would base its decisions
and this would make the source likely to be very useful for a
historian.
Here’s another example of NAJ in action:
The perspective of a member of the General Staff means
the author would be aware of the overall tactical position of the
Germans and therefore it is likely to be very useful.
54
Bias ... biased
First, use the correct word. “Bias” is a noun (a thing).
“Biased” is an adjective (a description). For example: “The
author shows his bias as he only presents the view of the elite
of German society.” “The author could be biased as he blames
all the failures on his military commanders and avoids taking
any responsibility.”
Second, be very very careful about claiming a source is
biased. Just because a historian makes a judgement that is
critical of someone does not mean he or she is biased against
that person. A historian could be completely impartial and
unbiased, review all the evidence and, in the light of that
evidence, make a judgement that is critical of someone.
Clearly, this is not a case of bias. Only argue a source is biased
if it deliberately only presents one side of an argument and
completely ignores or discounts any alternative view.
Greyland
Most sources are reliable and almost all sources are useful
... for something. Almost never will your analysis end up with
an unequivocal statement that the source is unreliable and of no
use. Some students look for the smallest possible weaknesses
in sources which just might cast some doubt about their
reliability. Having found this smallest chink in the armour, they
leap into the breach and scream “unreliable!” Heroic stuff, but
exceedingly unwise.
In fact, absolute judgements that a source definitely is or
is not reliable or useful are not a great idea. It makes more
sense to be cautious in your judgements. Avoid absolute black
or white language. Instead, operate in greyland. In greyland,
words such as “could”, “may”, “possibly”, “questionable”,
“doubtful”, “uncertainty”, “likely” and “probable” are going to
be better to use than absolute judgements. Avoid claiming that
a source “is unreliable”. Instead, argue that a source is “likely
to be unreliable”. The perspective might “raise doubts about a
source’s reliability”. The content might “heighten the source’s
utility”. The nature of the audience may “limit the veracity of
its content”.
The other factor to consider is the “what for” factor. If you
have been asked to assess the usefulness of a source for, say,
“a historian studying war on the home front” you can qualify
your judgement of a source by specifying the “what for”. For
example, a source may be useful “for indicating the attitudes
of the conservatives in Britain” even though the content of the
source may be exaggerated, distorted or simply untrue. Even
though the content may be unreliable, you are still in a position
to say the source is useful to some degree, so long as you
specify “what for.”
Differentiate
You will be writing about two sources. Avoid simply
writing they are both useful. Argue that one is more or less
useful than the other. Differentiate between the two sources.
Highlight weaknesses in the reliability or usefulness of one
source in order to argue that is is not as useful as the other
source. Your marker will know you can think and argue.
Integrate your quotations
You should try to quote directly from the source, but do so
very sparingly. Integrating fragmentary quotations, just one or
two words or very short phrases, into your prose is always the
best technique to use.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Sample Part B question and paragraph (1)
QUESTION: How useful would Sources E and F be for a historian studying the different goals of Clemenceau, Lloyd George
and Wilson in creating the Treaty of Versailles?
In your answer, consider the perspectives provided by the TWO sources and the reliability of each one.
SOURCE E: Extract from a letter by Charles Seymour, member of the US delegation at the Paris Peace
Conference, 11 June 1919.
... The attitude of the different governments remains unchanged from last week and it seems very questionable
whether they can reach an agreement during the next four or five days. Lloyd George is still insisting on radical
changes and concessions to the Germans. Wilson has agreed that so far as economic terms are concerned, it would
be most desirable to have a fixed indemnity* set; but in this respect the French are holding out, fearing that the
amount of the indemnity which seems large to us now would seem very small in a few years.
* indemnity: reparations
This section
explores the
perspective of
Seymour - an
insider at the
conference.
A moment of
own knowledge
designed to
impress the
marker.
This section
explores the
content of the
source and why
it is useful.
He is American
but that does
not mean he is
biased.
Judge the use
the “historian”
can make of
the source.
The perspective of an American insider at the Paris Peace
Conference gives Source E a high degree of usefulness for a
historian. As a member of the US delegation, Seymour offers an
insight of the behind-the-scenes negotiations that led to the creation
of the terms of peace. His privileged position as an observer at the
private negotiations at the Quai d’Orsay in early 1919 offers the
historian a remarkable insight into the motivations of the “Big Three”
and their conflicting aims. He articulates an American viewpoint,
indicating that Wilson wanted fixed reparation payments but reveals
that Clemenceau sought a larger sum to punish the Germans. He
also claims that Lloyd George, by contrast, sought significant
“concessions” to the Germans. Clearly the goals of the Allied leaders
were so divergent that Seymour doubted “an agreement” was in
imminent prospect. Not only is the content of this source revealing
for the historians, but it can also be judged to be highly reliable.
Though Seymour was a minor figure, he seems acutely aware of the
attitudes of all the major participants and reports these differences
with apparent honesty and impartiality to what seems a narrow
but unidentified audience. His loyalty to Wilson does not seem to
prejudice his account of these differences. The apparent impartiality
of Seymour’s letter and the insider’s perspective it affords makes this
a source of great utility to a historian of the “Big Three”.
First sentence
provides an
answer and a
reason for that
answer.
“Position” is
a synonym for
perspective.
“Viewpoint”
is another
synonym for
perspective.
A judgement
is made about
reliability and
it is argued.
The final
judgement
refers to both
perspective and
reliability.
235 words on 22 lines - the space you will be given for your response
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
55
Sample Part B question and paragraph (2)
QUESTION: How useful would Sources E and F be for a historian studying the different goals of Clemenceau, Lloyd George
and Wilson in creating the Treaty of Versailles?
In your answer, consider the perspectives provided by the TWO sources and the reliability of each one.
SOURCE F: Extract from The Truth About the Peace Treaties by David Lloyd George, British Prime Minister
1916-1922, published in 1938.
Clemenceau and Orlando, Premier of Italy, also had their difficulties with the public opinion of their respective
countries. The pressure in their case, exactly as in mine, came from the extremists who insisted upon extracting
out of the victory, advantages which were in contravention of* the fundamental principles of the peace terms
formulated by the Allies. The two issues which created the greatest trouble between France, on the one hand, and
Britain and the United States of America on the other, were the fixation of the Western boundaries of Germany (this
included the highly controverted** questions of the Rhine frontier and the future destiny of the Saar coalfields); and
the extortionate*** demand put forward by French Ministers for reparations from Germany.
* in contravention of: against
** controverted: controversial
*** extortionate: unreasonably large
The question is
answered in the
first sentence.
Perspective
addresses who,
where and
when.
This section
explores the
content of the
source and why
it is useful.
Keep the focus
on the use the
“historian”
could make of
the source.
Source F would be a valuable source for a historian, though less
so than Source E as Lloyd George’s motives raise questions as to
its reliability. It is written by David Lloyd George, wartime Prime
Minister from 1916 and Britain’s chief negotiator in Paris in 1919,
but it is published in 1938 when Germany was again threatening
war and the folly of Versailles would have been arrestingly apparent.
The perspective of a major conference participant would have
obvious appeal to a historian but as a memoir published nearly a
generation after 1919, a historian would be sceptical of the author’s
motive. The content of the source is useful for a historian as it
clearly identifies the pressures right wing “extremists” placed on
“LG” and Clemenceau. It also nominates the specific issues that
divided France from the English-speaking powers - “boundaries”
and “reparations”. The motive of “LG” certainly raises doubt about
the reliability of this source. By 1938, with the Versailles settlement
in tatters, “LG” appears to be defending or justifying his role and
blaming other factors and participants for the problems that would,
by 1938, have become evident. An astute historian would factor this
into assessments of the source’s reliability but it would nevertheless
be useful for a historian as it articulates the opinions of a key player
who, with the advantage of hindsight, can reflect on the contending
goals of the “Big Three” and Versailles Treaty they authored.
The answer
differentiates
the two sources
and gives a
reason for the
answer.
Note the “but”
moment some of the
perspective
suggests a
useful source
but something
else raises
doubts.
Motive raises
questions about
the source’s
reliability.
Even with
doubts about
reliability the
source can still
be judged to be
useful.
238 words on 22 lines - the space you will be given for your response
56
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Trench Warfare
Notes from the slide series from the Imperial War Museum
(This slideshow is available as a Powerpoint
on the English-History Intranet site)
1. Recruits being measured for uniform, probably in London
1917. This is one of a series of photographs commissioned
by the Ministry of Information in 1917 to record the
various procedures of enlistment.
2. Recruits of the Lincolnshire Regiment training in England,
September 1914. Here recruits are learning rifle drill.
3. Aerial photograph showing the trench system between
Loos and Hulluch, July 1917.
4. German barbed wire defences : a portion of the
Hindenburg Line, October 1918.
5. New Zealand soldier examining his shirt for lice, Western
Front 1917. ‘Chatting’, as it was called, became a frequent
ritual of trench life and was often done with the help of a
candle to burn the eggs laid by the lice along the seams of
clothes.
6. A water cart stuck in the mud at St. Eloi during the Third
Battle of Ypres, 11 August 1917. Muddy conditions
were a major problem on the Western Front and were
particularly bad in Flanders. The summer of 1917 was one
of the wettest summers on record. Not only did mud create
unpleasant conditions for the soldiers to live in but it made
transporting supplies extremely hazardous.
7. Stretcher bearers bringing in the wounded through the
mud at Passchendaele. The Battle of Pilckem Ridge, near
Boesinghe, 1 August 1917.
8. Front-line trench showing sentry and sleeping soldiers
at Ovillers-la-Boiselle on the Somme, July 1916. In this
photograph one man crouches on the fire-step while
his comrades rest but with weapons at the ready. ‘A’
Company, 11 Cheshire Regiment.
9. Men of the 2nd Australian Division in a front-line trench
cooking a meal, Croix du Bac, near Armentieres, 18
May 1916. A variety of cooking methods was employed
including primus stoves and braziers and soldiers produced
a kind of hot ‘bully beef’ hash from tins of corned beef.
10. British troops receiving dinner rations from field kitchens.
Ancre area of the Somme, October 1916. Hot food was not
supplied to front-line soldiers until late 1915 and even then
was by no means a regular occurrence.
11. Fatigue party carrying duckboards over a support line
trench at night, Cambrai 12 January 1917. It was general
practice to do most fetching and carrying supplies under
cover of darkness. Although this could be hazardous in the
muddy, uneven conditions of the trenches, it was still safer
than risking enemy fire in the daytime.
12. Canadian troops : sleeping and writing letters, February
1918. Night-time in the trenches was often a busy time:
wiring parties, fatigue parties and raiding parties would all
be sent out at night. The day-time, therefore, was the time
for relaxation and trying to catch a little sleep.
14. Troops embussing in Arras to go back for a rest, May
1917, having taken part in the Battle of Arras. The buses
being used are London ‘B’ type buses, some 1,300 of
which were requisitioned by the army in October 1914 as
troop carriers on the Western Front. Certain adaptations
were made: the lower-deck windows were boarded up, the
red paint was replaced by khaki and storage racks and tool
kits were added.
15. Gas sentry ringing an alarm near Fleurbaix, 15 miles south
of Ypres, June 1916. Gas was first used on the Western
Front by the Germans during the Second Battle of Ypres
in April 1915. Chlorine was the first gas to be employed,
followed by phosgene in December of that year. Various
warning signals were used in trenches, bells, rattles, empty
shell cases among them. The soldier in the photograph is
wearing the hypo or tube helmet, which was in use from
late 1915 until the end of 1916.
16. Aerial photographs showing a gas attack at CarnoyMontauban on the Somme, June 1916. Montauban, which
was in German hands, can be seen in the top left hand
corner and Carnoy, which was behind the British lines,
in the bottom right hand corner. The gas is being released
by the 18th Division as part of the preparations for the
Somme offensive.
17. Line of men blinded in a tear gas attack during the Battle
of Estaires near Bethune, 10 April 1918. These men of
the 55th (West Lancashire) Division are at an advanced
dressing station.
18. Troops moving forward through barbed wire as part of the
Somme offensive of July 1916. This photograph is a still
from the 1916 film, The Battle of the Somme, an official
film made for screening in British cinemas during the war.
19. British Mark IV tank as it appeared to occupants of the
German trenches at Wailly during the Battle of Cambrai,
21 October 1917. The tank was first used during the
Somme offensive in September 1916 but in such small
numbers that its effect was minimal. By the autumn of
1917 many valuable lessons had been learned.
20. Delville Wood on the Somme after heavy bombardment,
September 1916. This is typical of the scenes of
devastation after a major offensive. It took a very long
time for the forests and soil of France and Belgium to
recover from the effects of shells and poison gas.
21. Loading a 15-inch howitzer near the Menin Road, in the
Ypres Sector, October 1917. This is one of many such
large howitzers which pounded the enemy’s reserve area
and demolished concrete fortifications.
22. Combined photograph showing Passchendaele before and
after bombardment. Passchendaele played a central part in
the Third Battle of Ypres in 1917 and became a byword for
the horrors of the First World War.
23. Scene in an advanced dressing station. Dressing stations
such as this were situated well behind the front line
but were generally very basic. Huts and barns were
taken over and simple surgery was carried out. It was important to select a site that would not be too vulnerable
to attack.
24. A German war cemetery containing five thousand graves
at Sailly-sur-la-Lys, 12 October 1918.
13. French women selling farm produce to British soldiers in
the market place at Cassel. Cassel, where Field Marshal
Haig had his headquarters, was well behind the line and
during rest periods British soldiers could take advantage of
the local produce.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
57
The Home Front
1914 - 1918
Notes from the slide series from the Imperial War Museum
(This slideshow is available as a Powerpoint
on the English-History Intranet site)
1. Recruits at Whitehall Recruiting Office, London SW1 in
1914. The appointment of Lord Kitchener as Secretary of
State for War in August 1914 was followed by an intensive
recruitment campaign. Kitchener asked for half a million
men and with recruits enlisting at a rate of 100,000 per
week, by the end of the first two months of the war over
750,000 had joined up. This enthusiastic response was
not something that could be maintained, however, and
voluntary enlistment gave way to conscription in 1916.
2. Recruits taking the oath. This is one of a series of
photographs commissioned by the Ministry of Information
in 1917 to record the various procedures of enlistment,
which included medical checks and being measured for
uniform. After signing up and taking the oath of loyalty
to the King, a recruit received the King’s Shilling and was
sent for training.
3. Belgian refugees arriving at Victoria Station, London
SW1 in September 1914. The German invasion of neutral
Belgium on 4th August had resulted in many Belgian
civilians fleeing from the advancing German armies.
About a million of them left Belgium, an estimated
100,000 coming to Britain as refugees. A refugees
committee was formed on 24 August and the British
public responded to their plight with feelings of outrage
and sympathy. Numerous British families offered
accommodation to the unfortunate Belgians.
4. Hostile crowd attacking a shop in London owned by a
German. The Press whipped up anti-German feelings,
mainly through the printing of vastly exaggerated or even
totally fictitious atrocity stories, telling of the rape and
mutilation of Belgian woman and children. Such were the
feelings of horror and outrage on the part of the British
public that people with German names or owners of shops
or restaurants with German names found themselves
or their property under attack, quite irrespective of the
character or sympathies of the people concerned.
5. The organising secretary of the Committee of Soldiers’
Comforts stands by the van that has been presented to the
organisation. After the outbreak of war many well-to-do
ladies put their efforts into charity work, which often took
the form of fund-raising for the Red Cross or the St. John
Ambulance. There was also much concern for the comfort
and well-being of the soldiers in France and Belgium
and this particular charity devoted itself to collecting
and delivering a range of items - clothing, food, special
equipment - to make life pleasanter for the “boys at the
front”.
6. Wounded from the Somme arriving at Charing Cross
Station, London in July 1916. The impact of the horrific
casualty figures resulting from the major offensive on the
Somme in July 1916 was enormous. The British public, up
till then somewhat impervious to the horrors of life in the
trenches, suddenly woke up to the scale of the carnage and
the daily occurrence of hospital trains arriving from France
and ambulances conveying the wounded to hospitals
attracted large crowds of onlookers.
58
7. 4th London General Hospital, Denmark Hill. A ward hut
supervised by nursing staff of the Queen Alexandra’s
Imperial Military Nursing Service. The need for a huge
number of hospital beds necessitated the requisition of
many buildings as emergency hospitals. Military hospitals
like the 4th London General were staffed partly by the
professionally trained QAIMNS and partly by VAD
(Voluntary Aid Detachment) volunteers, young semitrained amateurs with no more than a brief First Aid
course behind them. Many VADs, however, soon became
proficient and invaluable nurses and the care of the
wounded back in Britain and abroad depended heavily on
them.
8. Ruins of a house in Scarborough after the bombardment
by German naval vessels in December 1914. A family
of five were killed in this particular house and altogether
127 people were killed in various coastal towns in the
north-east of England during these bombardments. The
vulnerability of Britain both to sea and shortly afterwards
air attack came as a great shock to the British public.
9. L12 German Zeppelin or airship flying over Britain in
August 1915. The first Zeppelins came over the North Sea
from Germany in January 1915. Aerial bombardment was
a new and terrifying experience for the British people and
it was London and the east of England that suffered most.
Defences against the Zeppelins were virtually non-existent
though basic air raid precaution measures began to be
introduced with policemen on bicycles blowing whistles
to signal an imminent air raid. Over 500 people died as a
result of Zeppelin raids.
10. Gondola and wreckage of Zeppelin L32, brought down
at Great Burstead near Billericay, Essex, 23 September
1916. The Zeppelin threat took the British a while to
conquer even though their great size and lack of speed
(60 mph) made them seemingly an easy target. Leefe
Robinson was the first person to shoot one down, which
he did from his aircraft on 3 September 1916, the Zeppelin
falling at Cuffley. This was followed by the destruction
of many more Zeppelins, facilitated by the invention of
an incendiary bullet which quickly set the hydrogen-filled
airship ablaze, killing all the crew.
11. Air raid damage in Cox’s Court, London ECI. A new
threat in the form of Gotha bombers began to attack
Britain, particularly London and East Anglia, from May
1917. They caused considerable damage and killed
approximately 800 civilians, the worst raids being on the
night of 13 June 1917 when 162 people were killed and
4/5 September of that year when 132 were killed.
12. Crane girls at work in a Nottingham shell-filling factory.
By May 1915 the chronic shortage of shells at the
front had sparked off a furious debate in the House of
Commons, which resulted in the setting up of a Ministry
of Munitions, headed by Lloyd George. Some munitions
factories were brought directly under government control,
all were subjected to government interference and trade
union activity was suspended. In order to increase
production to the extent required, a new source of labour
was sought and for the first time women were recruited
into munitions factories. By the end of the war 90% of
munition workers were women.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
13. Interior of a Howitzer Shop. Many of the jobs undertaken
by women in munitions were dangerous and many
required considerable skill. Afraid that bringing in
unskilled female labour (known as ‘dilution’) would
reduce the status of the male munition workers, the
trade unions on the whole strongly opposed the arrival
of women. Many men were kept on in supervisory roles
and after the introduction of conscription in 1916, men
working in munitions were exempted from military
service.
20. Girl Guides digging on allotments. Children as well as
adults were expected to play their part in the war effort and
Brownies and Guides learned First Aid, rolled bandages
and helped to grow vegetables. The allotment scheme
started in 1916 to supplement the nation’s food supplies
and gathered momentum during the U-Boat campaign.
14. Damage caused by fire after the explosion at the Venestra
Works, Silvertown, East London, 19 January 1917. The
terrible explosion in the munitions works caused damage
to houses, shops and a church over a huge radius. 69
people were killed, perhaps as many as a thousand injured
and hundreds more rendered homeless. The noise of the
explosion was heard as far away as Salisbury in Wiltshire.
22. People queuing for food. Even before the 1917 U-Boat
campaign there had been food shortages, artificially
created by food hoarding at the beginning of the war.
Prices rose dramatically: by 75% in the first two years of
the war. Attempts to control consumption by voluntary
rationing schemes proved ineffective and in the last year
of the war the government decided to introduce a proper
rationing scheme which limited purchases of meat, fats,
bacon and sugar. The food queues almost disappeared as a
result.
15. Nurses attending a light casualty in a hospital in a shellfilling factory, Nottingham. The dangers of working in
munitions factories could be considerable: TNT poisoning
caused not only faintness and bilious attacks but the death
of 104 women; explosions of one sort or another (the
threat of air attacks being the greatest danger) claiming the
lives of 237 women. Wages, however, were considerably
higher than in other jobs, women earning the handsome
sum of 4 pounds per week, high indeed compared with
5 shillings a week in domestic service. The recruitment
of large numbers of women in munitions (as many as
900,000 by the end of the war) brought with it improved
welfare services: canteens, washing facilities, rest rooms,
medical checks and even hospital care.
16. Glasgow tram conductress. Glasgow led the way in
the employment of women on its trams. The Glasgow
Tramways Department took on its first conductress in
April 1915. By the end of the year half of Manchester’s
tram conductors were women. London was slower to
employ women: the London General Omnibus Company
took on its first conductresses in February 1916. Overall,
transport showed the biggest proportionate increase in
women’s employment, rising from about 18,000 in 1914 to
117,000 in 1918.
17. Woman window cleaner employed by the Mayfair
Window Cleaning Company. This is another example of
areas of work that women were moving into, including
many that had been considered too dangerous for women.
This is one of Horace Nicholls’ large series of photographs
of aspects of life on the home front undertaken during
1916 and 1917.
21. Boy Scouts assisting the wounded. Scouts learned a
variety of skills to help the war effort ranging from helping
the medical services to acting as despatch riders.
23. Interior of a conscientious objector’s cell. With the passing
of the Military Service Bill in January 1916, men between
18 and 40 became liable for conscription. The bill allowed
for exemptions on grounds of health and also for those in
reserved (i.e. vital) occupations. There was also a clause
exempting approved conscientious objectors and special
tribunals were set up to examine individual cases. On the
whole the tribunals proved to be heavily biased against
the objectors and it is estimated that 6,000 out of a total of
about 12,000 conscientious objectors were sent to prison.
Some of these accepted the Home Office scheme and
undertook alternative service but the ‘absolutists’ refused
any involvement in the war effort and were kept in prison
throughout the war.
24. Crowd outside Buckingham Palace celebrating Armistice
Day, 11 November 1918. The news that the Germans
had agreed to a cessation of fighting at the 11th hour was
greeted with wild frenzy by much of the British public.
The Armistice was celebrated with bonfires, singing,
dancing and flag waving. But for the close relatives and
friends of the three quarters of a million dead British
soldiers, there was little to celebrate.
18. Women of the Forestry Corps felling a tree. The Forestry
Corps was set up in 1917 under the control of the Board
of Trade. Women dressed in practical breeches and
boots learned the skills of tree-felling and so supplied
the shipbuilding, aircraft and railway industries with
much-needed timber. This is also one of Horace Nicholls’
collection.
19. Members of the Women’s Land Army feeding pigs and
calves. The Women’s Land Army was set up in 1917
in order to recruit more people to work in agriculture
to replace the large number of farm labourers who had
enlisted. The success of the German submarine campaign
in 1917 had created a severe shortage of food and the
enlistment of the WLA was one way of counteracting this.
The weekly wage was only 18 shillings, rising to 1 pound
after an efficiency test had been passed, and the hours
were long. The fact that an estimated 75% of the women
remained in farm work after the WLA was disbanded in
1919 proves that the outdoor life was a great attraction for
many.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
59
Women in Wartime
The First World War
Notes from the slide series from the Imperial War Museum
(This slideshow is available as a Powerpoint
on the English-History Intranet site)
8. Members of the Women Police Service on duty at a
railway station. Margaret Damer Dawson set up the
Women Police Service in February 1915. Never officially
part of the Police Force, their work consisted mainly of
patrols in the cities to protect women and girls in the
West End of London, at major railway stations, near army
camps and at munitions factories. It was not until the early
1920s that women were accepted into the Metropolitan
Police.
1. Gas cases on a hospital train near Bethune, April 1918,
being taken care of by members of Queen Alexandra’s
Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS). This
army nursing service numbered only 300 when war
broke out but soon recruited thousands more both from
its own reserve and from civilian hospitals. They were
professionally trained nurses, unlike the VAD (Voluntary
Aid Detachment) recruits who were usually young girls
with no previous nursing experience.
9. First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) driver cranking up
her ambulance, Calais January 1917. Originally founded
in 1907 as a means of bringing immediate first aid to the
wounded on the battlefield, in 1916 the FANYs became
the first women to drive for the British Army, their role
being by this time transport and convoys rather than
nursing. FANYs received 100 decorations during the war
and were the only women’s service not to be disbanded at
the end of the First World War.
2. The Great Procession of Women (often known
subsequently as ‘The Right to Serve March’) took place
on 17 July 1915. Organised by Emmeline Pankhurst, the
march through central London was a demonstration of the
frustration felt by large numbers of women (many of them
former suffragettes) at not being allowed to contribute to
the war effort other than by nursing and charity work.
10. A Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps (QMAAC) cook
preparing dinner for the troops, Rouen September 1918.
The WAAC (Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps) had been
formed in December 1916 with the purpose of freeing
more men to go to the front by recruiting women to do all
the support work such as cooking, driving, etc. Many were
sent to work in France behind the lines and by the end of
the war their numbers had totalled 57,000. In May 1918
they were re-named Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps.
3. Female munition workers or munitionettes working
in the TNT shop at Woolwich Arsenal, supervised by
Superintendent Lillian Barker. The fierce debate in
parliament in May 1915 over the shortage of munitions
resulted in the setting up of a Ministry of Munitions, to be
headed by David Lloyd George. From being a totally male
preserve, munitions factories became female dominated,
90% of the work force being female by 1918. The
drawbacks of munitions work, the risk of TNT poisoning
or of being blown up, were partly compensated for by high
wages, which could top 4 pounds per week compared with
only 5 shillings a week in domestic service.
4. Munition workers at Woolwich Arsenal going to the
canteen. Government interference in munitions factories
brought with it benefits as well as restrictions. Canteens
began to be the norm rather than the exception and
reasonable lavatories and washing facilities were provided.
Medical services and rest rooms were also introduced.
5. Women coke heavers at work. This is one of a large series
of photos of aspects of life on the home front taken by
Horace Nicholls during 1916 and 1917. Concerned to
show the unusual rather than the commonplace at that
time, Nicholls tended to concentrate on women rather than
men doing certain jobs.
11. Ratings of the Women’s Royal Navy Service (WRNS)
carrying a mine which has been washed ashore. The Royal
Navy was slower to recruit women than was the Army but
in November 1917 recruiting posters appeared to attract
women into various types of shore duties. Their main
tasks were as messengers, postwomen and waitresses in
the officers’ mess but they were also at the forefront of the
development of wireless telegraphy. They remained the
smallest of the women’s services, never numbering more
than 7,000
12. Women’s Royal Air Force (WRAF) motor cyclist. The
WRAF was set up in April 1918 and many of its early
members were drawn from the WAAC and WRNS. They
worked as drivers, typists, telephonists and storekeepers
rather as they would have done in the other services. In
addition, however, some received technical training and
became skilled fitters, riggers, electricians and acetylene
welders. Their numbers reached 32,000.
6. Milk-roundswomen delivering the milk. The gradual take
over by women of men’s work spread beyond purely
war production into a wide sphere from office work and
transport to agriculture and all kinds of services.
7. Women railway ticket collector. Transport showed the
greatest proportionate increase in women’s employment
from 18,000 in 1914 to 117,000 in 1918, the biggest leap
coming after the introduction of conscription in 1916.
As well as clippies on the railways, women became both
conductress and drivers on the trams and buses.
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MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
An overview of the course of
World War One
Imperium Britannica versus
Weltpolitik
A lecture by Dr Douglas Newton given to the senior Modern
History students at MacKillop College - 1996.
Germany. As a reward Japan seized the German colonies in
the Pacific and China. Germany dragooned the Turks into the
war on the Central powers side. In September 1914 a Pact
of London was signed by the entente powers in which they
promised not to make a separate peace with their enemies.
(This meant that democratic countries such as Britain and
France were firmly attached to an autocratic dictatorship in
Tsarist Russia and would not make peace until the Tsar’s war
aims had been fulfilled. Clearly there was some compromise of
liberal democratic principles in this arrangement.)
1915
Focus question: Why was the Great War not resolved by
negotiations, short of ‘victory’?
The fighting: military stalemate and the Dardanelles
adventure
Wars can end two ways. One way is that the conflict is
fought to the bitter end with one side emerging victorious
and the other side defeated. The other way is by a negotiated
settlement. In a negotiated settlement, all the parties in the
conflict talk through the issues and come to an arrangement
which means the fighting can end without ‘winners’ and
‘losers’.
The thesis of this lecture is that World War One did not
have to last as long as it did. As early as December 1916,
Germany was offering a negotiated peace that could have
ended the killing. Later, there were other peace offers from
the USA and Russia. The failure of these peace offers can be
blamed on the intransigence of Britain and France. For reasons
which the lecture explains, neither Britain nor France were
willing to agree to anything other than a complete military
victory. After having lost half a generation, they determined
to continue the fight and lose the rest of that generation rather
than agree to a ‘peace without victory’. Were their reasons for
continuing the fight justifiable? Read on!
The lecture reviews the course of the war year by year at
two levels - the fighting and the talk (diplomacy). Much of
what follows should provide you with material which you
can use in World War One questions which ask for “your own
knowledge.”
Wherever the attacking side took the offensive, they failed
and at great cost. It was primarily the British and the French
who launched the offensives in 1915 at places like Arras and
Loos. All of these failed. This prompted them to look to a
“backdoor route” to victory with the Dardanelles (Gallipoli)
campaign. It was also a failure. It also helped to keep Turkey
in the war because the Turkish government could then present
the war to their own people as a defensive war. U Boats were
used for the first time and the British reacted with a blockade
against Germany from March 1915. This meant Germany lost
her entire seaborne trade. The Russians did very poorly in 1915
and a great retreat began.
1914
The fighting: A war of movement.
Early in the war there was mobility with large armies
moving over considerable distances. When this movement
ground to a halt, trench warfare took its place and the war
became a static war of attrition. This was true except in the
case of the German colonies. Germany lost her colonies in
Africa, Asia, the Pacific and China in the first months of
the war. Britain, on the other hand, gained colonies such as
Cyprus and Egypt because these former British protectorates
were considered to be under threat from Turkey so they were
annexed outright.
The talk: The establishment of political truces and the
shoring up of alliances.
Early in the war, all sides felt it was vital to gain and
maintain the loyalty of the people. They were urged to bury
their political differences and establish a political truce. In
Germany a Burgfrieden was established (Burgfrieden = peace
within the castle. It meant that all Germans would be at peace
with each other and only at war with the external enemy).
In France it was called the sacred truce and in Britain the
political truce. Internal political differences were forgotten
and everyone rallied around the flag. When things start to go
wrong, these political truces came under pressure, but in 1914
they held.
It was also important for each side to shore up its alliances.
Each side wanted to hold onto its allies and gather more
if possible. Britain requested Japan to declare war against
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
The talk: Strains on the political truce at home
• The pursuit of allies: Russia and Italy
In order for the allies to keep Russia in the war she was,
in essence, bribed. In March 1915 the Straits Agreement was
signed which ensured that Russia would get the straits into
the Black Sea (the Dardanelles) and Constantinople when the
war ended. This meant that Australians fighting at Gallipoli
were dying for a Russian war aim. The Tsar only agreed to the
Gallipoli Campaign when he was promised that Russia would
gain the prizes of victory in that campaign. This was done to
help ensure Russia stayed in the war and did not conclude a
separate peace with Germany.
Italy was also bribed to enter the war on the Allied side.
Italy wanted more land, right down the Dalmatian coast to
modern day Croatia. They entered a bargaining process with
both the Entente and the Central Powers. Whoever promised
them most would be the side Italy would join. Great Britain
and France were more generous. They offered more and as
a result Italy signed the Treaty of London on 26 April 1915
and joined the Allies. This was one day after the Gallipoli
Campaign began. It was as if Italy were waiting until they were
sure the Entente powers would win before they joined them.
They wanted to be in at the kill.
• The coming of the May Coalition in Britain
Britain had a Liberal Government under Asquith at the start
of the war. In May 1915, Asquith decided to form a coalition
government and brought Conservatives into the government.
The conservative press had put Asquith under pressure and he
felt that bringing Conservatives into the government was the
best way to deflect this criticism.
• The ‘war aims’ debate begins in Germany
Germany was the first nation to begin a debate about what
the aims of the war were. As early as May 1915 the left and
the right began to squabble about German’s war aims. Why
were they fighting the war? What did they hope to achieve?
The right wingers argued that Germany should frankly state
that their aim was to annex more territory that they believed
Germany desperately needed, such as the Belgian channel
ports. The left wingers had supported the war but insisted that
61
it be for defensive purposes. They pressured the government
to deny any annexationist aims and only fight the war for
defensive purposes. Bethmann-Hollweg refused to confirm or
deny that there were any annexationist war aims.
1916
The fighting: The futility of offensive - the Somme and
Verdun
Both sides launched massive offensives. The Germans
attacked Verdun and the allies, in order to relieve pressure on
Verdun, attacked on the Somme. Both these offensives were
horrifyingly costly, and both failed to achieve any decisive
gains. Only in Russia were there decisive gains and it was the
Germans who were winning. The Russian retreat in 1916 was
in full swing and into Russian territory.
The talk: The drift toward authoritarian solutions
On all sides, the talk in 1916 was of a retreat from
democracy and the luxury of civil liberties and freedom. There
was more talk of coercion.
• The coming of the Hindenburg-Ludendorff ‘dictatorship’
By August 1916 Hindenburg and Ludendorff formed what
amounted to a military dictatorship. More and more power
was given to the military elite. The Auxiliary Labour Service
Law was passed which amounted to civilian conscription for
industrial service. Germany already had military conscription.
There was a clear drift away from democratic ideas.
• Conscription and protection - the Asquith Government totters
In Britain, conscription was introduced for single men in
January 1916 and for married men in May 1916. It became
impossible to speak out against the war. The ideal of free trade
was lost with the June 1916 Economic Conference in Paris.
In the Paris Resolution, this conference agreed on protection
as the guiding economic philosophy after the war through an
exclusive economic trade bloc founded on the empire and a
complete economic boycott of Germany.
1916-17 The turning point: The ‘knock-out blow’ versus
hopes for peace.
This was a point at which the war might have ended. Men
and women of the left were saying the war was a disaster.
They were facing their third winter of war with no prospect of
victory. They were proposing a compromise peace.
• Lloyd George and the ‘knock-out blow’ coalition - December
1916
Lloyd George displaced Asquith as Prime Minister on 7
December 1916. Lloyd George was Liberal, a man of the left,
but he had shifted to the right. His coalition government was
dominated by Conservatives. Initially, Lloyd George was the
only Liberal in the government. This coalition was committed
to winning the war by a ‘knock-out blow’. Though the war was
costing 5 million pounds and 3000 men per day, the ‘knock-out
blow’ coalition was committed to fighting on to victory. They
believed that only by fighting for victory could the right save
themselves from the left. They were afraid that unless they
could deliver the victory they had promised, the people would
turn on them, cast them out of power and vote for a left wing
government instead.
• The German peace offer - December 1916
12 December 1916, the Germans offered round table
negotiations to end the war without pre-conditions. On
December 19 Wilson called on all belligerents to nominate
62
their war aims. This was seen as a prelude to US mediation.
On December 31 the British, French and Russians all agreed
to reject the German proposal for negotiations. On January
10 the allies answered Wilson’s call and claimed they were
fighting against Prussian militarism, for self-determination and
for the League of Nations but they were silent on their own
annexationist aims.
• The American peace offer - 22 January 1917
The Americans offered to mediate to bring about “Peace
without victory”. In January 1917 the Americans had still not
entered the war. Britain, France and Russia once more rejected
the proposal. They wanted to fight on to victory. On February
1 the German reintroduction of unrestricted submarine warfare
ended peace hopes.
1917
The fighting: Continuing failure of offensives
The U Boats inflicted great damage on the allied shipping
and came close to victory. It was only the allied use of convoys
which saved them and deflected the U Boat threat. Partly
because of the unrestricted submarine warfare used by the
Germans, the Americans entered the war on the allied side but
they were very slow to make any real impact at the battlefront.
They helped with money and materials but in 1917 their impact
was not decisive.
In March 1917 the Tsar had been overthrown in a
revolution and his place had been taken by a democratic
government led by Alexander Kerensky. Kerensky’s
government decided to continue the war and launched one last
offensive (known as the Kerensky Offensive) in the summer
but it failed. The Italians launched their offensive against
Austria-Hungary at Caporetto. It also failed. The British
launched their major offensive of 1917 at Passchendaele in
Belgium but it failed as well.
So having closed the door on peace negotiations at the end
of 1916, the war continued but virtually every offensive of
1917 failed.
The talk: Deflecting the option for a negotiated peace
• Russian initiative: the diplomacy of peace
The new Russian government which came to power after
the overthrow on the Tsar in March was initially led by liberals
and then by democratic socialists. They developed a policy to
end the war by negotiations. Their formula for peace, known
as the Petrograd Formula, was that the negotiated peace be
one with no annexations and no indemnities. Their view was
that this was very fair. No-one would lose land and no-one
would have another country’s war costs imposed on them.
Anyone who rejected this formula would clearly be seen as
the aggressor. The Russians wanted Great Britain and France
to say they did not want to keep the German colonies and
that they would renounce the Paris Resolutions to impose an
economic boycott on Germany. The British and the French
refused to do either of these things. So the Russian attempts at
a negotiated peace were sabotaged by Britain and France.
• The British response: Lloyd George and the Imperial War
Cabinet
Britain determined to continue the war and to use the
Empire more vigorously in order to win the war. It was by
this time a frankly imperialist struggle. Britain did not simply
have a war cabinet - they had the Imperial War Cabinet
with representatives of all the nations of the British Empire
(including Australia). They were committed to fighting on to
victory and rejected all proposals for a negotiated peace.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
• The German response: the Reichstag ‘peace resolution’
Opinion was beginning to shift to the centre left in
Germany. A majority was formed in the Reichstag which
favoured a negotiated settlement. A Peace Resolution
was passed by the Reichstag in July 1917 which stated
that Germany was ready to make peace on the basis of no
annexations and no indemnities. They accepted the Petrograd
formula but there was no response from Britain or France.
• Stockholm: the chance for peace brokered by socialists
In April Russia proposed a great democratic conference of
social democrats from all over the world. They proposed that
some German colonies be returned so that Germany would
have an economic future. They sought an end to the idea of
an economic boycott and a plebiscite for Alsace and Lorraine.
Britain, France and America refused permission for their
social democrat/labour leaders to travel to Stockholm for the
conference. They portrayed it as a German plot. Socialists in
Germany and Austria-Hungary were allowed to attend. The
conference was stillborn. Even Pope Benedict XV, who had
been elected in August 1914, on August 10 proposed a peace
by returning to the status quo as it had existed before the
war. The allies refused to accept these proposals. Germany
responded ambiguously primarily because the militarists did
not wish to evacuate Belgium.
1917-18 The turning point: War for democracy’s sake?
It would be nice to believe that the allies were fighting for
democracy and that they felt that Germany had to be defeated
because she was such a threat to democracy. If one views the
First World War as a preview to the Second World War, and
sees all Germans as Nazis, then this view is understandable.
But it is wrong.
• Brest-Litovsk Conference: Bolshevik pressure for a general
peace
The November Revolution brought the Bolsheviks to
power. They offered a general peace at the conference at BrestLitovsk. Britain, France and America refused to attend.
• Britain: Lloyd George’s ‘Caxton Hall address’ 5 January
1918
Lloyd George claimed that he was fighting for selfdetermination (but he was very vague. Would it apply to
peoples of the British Empire such as the Indians who the
British at that time were locking up for opposing British rule in
India, or would it be self-determination for the Irish who were
under British rule?) The British and the French who were still
being ruled by the men of the right were reluctant to disavow
imperialism. Most of the people in the British cabinet (apart
from Lloyd George) were very conservative, imperialistic,
anti-democratic people such as Lord Curzon (head of the
Anti-Suffrage Society) and Lord Milner (head of Anti-Budget
Protest League which had opposed Lloyd George’s liberal
budget and head of the National Service League which had
wanted conscription in peace time.)
• America: Wilson’s ‘Fourteen Points address’ 8 January 1918
Wilson genuinely believed that the war was being fought
for democracy’s sake. His Fourteen Points proposal made that
clear. He claimed that America was in the war to make the
world safe for democracy.
1918
The fighting: The cost of resolution by force
• The German offensive and the Allied Counter-offensive
In a final attempt to secure victory, or at least more
favourable grounds for a negotiated peace, the German military
launched a final series of offensives in March 1918. These
failed. In response, the Allies, now bolstered by significant
arrivals of US troops, launched a major counter offensive
which began to push the Germans slowly back from ground
they had occupied in France and Belgium.
The talk: The pre-armistice negotiations
• German and Entente acceptance of the ‘Fourteen Points’
The German government finally gave way to the forces
of the centre left in Germany and Prince Max was appointed
Chancellor on 1 October 1918. He applied to Wilson for an
armistice and announced that Germany was democratising her
internal political structure. Six weeks passed and the armistice
was not granted. The Kaiser was forced to abdicate and on 9
November 1918 there was a revolution in Germany.
Wilson was an enthusiast for armistice as he believed that
it would lead to genuine negotiations for peace. Technically
an armistice means that the arms would lie still. Each side
would stop fighting but would still have their arms. It was not
a surrender. The British and the French fought hard against
the idea of armistice for six weeks. They wanted a military
triumph. Only when it looked like Germany had collapsed
completely did the British and French agree to Wilson’s
armistice but they ensured that the terms of the armistice were
exceptionally harsh.
On 11 November 1918 the Armistice was signed. Once
Germany was utterly powerless the armistice was effectively
transformed into an unconditional surrender. But the Germans
had laid down their arms on the basis of the promise, made
clear in the famous Lansing Note of 5 November 1918, that the
armistice would be followed by a peace conference based on
Wilson’s Fourteen Points. The British and French betrayed this
promise in the months that followed.
So why was the war not resolved by negotiations? The
reason there were no negotiations was that political decisions
were made, mostly on the allied side, to refuse such offers
of negotiations for a settlement. The Germans can say they
offered to take part in such round-table negotiations. It was the
allies who refused. Why did they refuse? It was not because
they were enthusiasts for democracy who wished to safeguard
democratic values. They wished to achieve a military victory
in order to put down their industrial, imperial and commercial
competitor (Germany) and to quell the danger of left wing
opposition at home. They were ultimately successful. It was
their victory which was to help create so much of the strife
that was to plague Europe and the world in the decades that
followed.
Reasons for the Allied Victory
(Source 1)
There were numerous reasons for the Allied victory:
The failure of the Schlieffen Plan
The Schlieffen Plan collapsed when the German High
Command failed to take Paris. The battle of the Marne in
September 1914 reinforced this failure. Thereafter, stalemate
along the Western front led to a war of attrition in which the
economic strength of the Allies proved superior.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
63
Manpower of the Central Powers
1 Germany alone lacked the human resources to sustain
a long war. Continuous heavy losses depleted available
replacements for the army
2 There were not enough men and women to work the
land and produce food. By early 1916 food shortages
were beginning to have a serious effect on the civilian
population. Riots and strikes became commonplace.
3 The best troops were lost in the March 1918 offensive and
new troops were raw recruits. By this stage twenty-seven
Allied states were fighting the four Central Powers.
The role of the United States
The part played by the USA in the defeat of Germany was
vital. It provided huge loans for the financing of the Allied war
effort. After April 1917 US support for the Allied cause was
total and by the summer of 1918, American soldiers were able
to stem the German offensive on the Western Front.
Allied control of the sea
1 The blockade created serious shortages of raw materials for
the Central Powers.
2 Allied control of the seaways ensured a steady supply of
troops, food and ammunition to the Western Front.
The weaknesses of Germany’s allies
Germany was supported by weak allies. The Austrians
were constantly reinforced by German soldiers on the Eastern
Front. Defeat for the Bulgarians at the hands of the British and
the Serbs was the first blow. Austria then fell to the Italians at
Vittorio-Veneto and by October 1918 Turkey had surrendered.
The economic capacity of Germany’s allies was limited
compared to the allied war effort.
The failure of the March 1918 offensive
The failed offensive resulted in a massive Allied counteroffensive which pushed German forces back across the
Hindenburg Line. The fighting capacity of the Germans was
exhausted although it was still able to conduct an effective,
orderly retreat.
The leadership qualities of Allied Statesmen
Allied leadership was probably more effective than that
of the Central Powers. The supreme command under Foch in
1918 provided a strong and unified front.
Domestic problems in Germany
Domestic and political turmoil in Germany led to
disillusionment with the war. By 1916 there was considerable
opposition to the war in the Reichstag from socialist groups.
The final year of the war revealed the extent of discontent
as strikes spread throughout Germany. Food shortages
contributed to a critical situation and by the summer of 1918
the demoralisation of the German people was complete.
The German U-boat campaign
Germany waged a war of unrestricted destruction of Allied
and neutral shipping from 1916. This brought the United States
into the war on the side of the Allies.
Reasons for the Allied Victory
(Source 2)
In March, 1918, the territory held by the Central Powers
stretched unbroken from the English Channel almost to the
Indian Ocean. Belgium, Serbia, Rumania, northern France
and western Russia had been conquered, and the November
Revolution and the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
had put Russia out of the war. Yet, by November, the Central
Powers had surrendered after suffering humiliating defeats.
Why did this dramatic collapse occur?
64
It was in some degree the result of factors that had been
operating since the beginning of the conflict.
• After her failure to conquer France in 1914, Germany was
forced to fight on two major fronts until the collapse of
Russia at the end of 1917.
• The Central Powers were outnumbered. They mobilised
22,850,000 men whereas the Allies, without the USA,
were able to mobilise almost 38 million. At the outbreak of
hostilities the British Empire had 572 warships of various
kinds compared to Germany’s 256 (though about 200 of the
British warships were obsolete).
• From the beginning Germany’s allies tended to be
liabilities. She had to send troops to help Austria-Hungary
to repulse Russian offensives, to conquer Serbia, and to
defeat the Italian armies. She also had to support Turkey at
Gallipoli and in the Middle East.
• The economic strength of the Allies, supported by
American loans, was greater than that of the Central
Powers. After April, 1917, US direct help further increased
Allied superiority.
• Great Britain maintained supremacy of the seas, and
the Allied blockade deprived the Germans of essential
imports of food and raw materials. As her surface fleet was
‘contained’ by the British Navy, Germany lost access to her
colonies, and food shortages gradually sapped the civilian
morale of the Central Powers.
• The morale of their troops also declined as a result of years
of blockade and trench warfare.
However, until 1918, the two great alliances remained
almost equally balanced on land. The long deadlock on the
Western front was proof of this. The decisive factor precluding
the possibility of victory for the Central Powers had been
British naval power, which maintained an effective blockade
and defeated the German submarine campaign, though at times
the U-boats came close to complete success. By the end of
the summer of 1918 a number of new factors were tipping the
scales sharply in favour of the Allies:
• By introducing a unified command under General Foch,
the Allies had gained the drive and direction necessary to
smash the great German Spring offensive.
• The failure of this offensive accelerated the decline in the
morale of the armed forces and civilians of the Central
Powers. The decline was most rapid in Austria-Hungary
and the Ottoman Empire, both of which lacked racial unity.
• Wilson’s Fourteen Points, published in January, 1918, had
offered Germany an honourable way out of the impasse.
They now became very attractive to the Germans and
weakened their determination at win at all costs.
• In neutral countries and at the fighting fronts, Allied
propaganda had always been more effective than that of
the Central Powers. It vilified the enemy, often converting
normal incidents of war into atrocities, and also convinced
American opinion that the Allies were fighting a “war to
end all wars” and to preserve democracy. Directed by Lord
Northcliffe and Lord Beaverbrook after February, 1918,
Allied propaganda became a powerful force, boosting
Allied confidence, stimulating patriotism and spreading
hatred of the Germans, while at the same time it succeeded
in creating despair among the enemy troops and civilians.
• Tanks gave mobility to the Allied forces, and the frequent
references to them in the reports of German officers after
March, 1918, showed that their appearance and apparent
invincibility struck terror into the opposing troops.
• The decisive factor, however, was the coming of American
troops. A million of them, going into action on the Western
Front, gave the Allies overwhelming superiority in
manpower. In the achievement of final victory, American
manpower probably ranked second only to British naval
power.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Gossip
from the Forest
(adapted from the play by Thomas Keneally)
These notes are designed to augment the video of the play
by Keneally. The video is available as an MP4 on the English/
History Department’s intranet site
Introduction
The play deals with the ending of World War One which
was thought to be the ‘war to end all wars’. It deals with the
negotiations leading up to the signing of the Armistice which
was concluded in a railway carriage in the French forest of
Compiegne.
Background
By late 1918 the Germans were clearly losing the war and
many wanted a peace or a cease-fire (i.e. an armistice). General
Groener from Germany thought that the Kaiser should abdicate
to facilitate this. There was panic among the German troops
and they were not acting rationally. Many German troops were
deserting.
When the Germans installed Prince Max as Chancellor
it was regarded as ‘a revolution from above’. Prince Max
asked the Americans for an armistice. Initially the Americans
were unwilling to grant an armistice because they were not
convinced the Germans had really rid themselves of their
old military leaders. They needed to be convinced that the
Germans were really democratising their country.
The British and the French were strongly opposed to the
idea of granting an armistice. They were still committed to
the idea of defeating Germany militarily, even though this
may still have taken many months to achieve. Towards late
October 1918 this attitude began to change. The French and the
British began to think more favourably of allowing armistice
negotiations to take place. One factor was the extreme war
weariness of their troops. Military and political leaders in
the allied countries began to feel that their troops may not
have remained committed to the fight. They began to fear
desertions and a loss of fighting spirit. They started to see that
an armistice with favourable terms may well have been the best
available outcome. They also saw the possibility of Germany
lapsing into a revolution. If this had happened Germany could
have become Bolshevik and that was something the allies, who
were all conservative, certainly did not want to see. It was in
these circumstances that the Lansing Note was sent from the
USA (Lansing was Secretary of State) to Germany agreeing to
a peace based on the Fourteen Points.
Arrangements were made for representatives from Britain,
France and Germany to meet to discuss the terms of an
armistice. Because it was Germany that was asking for the
armistice, their representatives were the ones who had to travel
to France for the negotiations. Britain and France wanted
revenge. The Germans sent their representatives (four of them)
to negotiate a cease-fire. The German delegates were Matthias
Erzberger, Alfred von Oberndorff (named Alfred Maiberling
in the play), General Detlof von Winterfeldt and Captain
Ernst Vanselow. The Allied delegates were Marshal Foch and
General Weygand for the French and Admiral Wemyss and
Admiral Hope for the British. The situation in Germany had
deteriorated and the Kaiser had lost support. A temporary
cease-fire was arranged so that the German delegates could get
through the lines and get to Compiegne for the negotiations to
begin. The German delegates arrived at the railway and they
were taken by train to the railway siding in the forest for the
negotiations.
The German Delegation - the wrong people?
The German delegates were not the people who had led
Germany into the war. The ones who had led the Germans into
the war were the Kaiser and the right-wing militarists who had
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
all left their positions of power by November 1918. The people
who were sent to negotiate the cease-fire were fairly lowranking officials and left-wing social democrat politicians. For
example, the leader of the delegation was a fairly insignificant
Catholic Centre Party politician named Matthias Erzberger.
The Foreign Office representative was only a second class
diplomat. The Naval representative was just a Captain.
Therefore, the Germans who caused the war - the right wingers
- were not the ones who were given the job of ending it . . .
. the left wingers were. This meant that after the war, when
people got angry about the harsh terms of the peace treaty, they
blamed the left wing people like the social democrats and not
the right wing people like the Kaiser and his Generals. The
left wingers ended up being called the ‘November Criminals’
because the peace agreement of November 1918 was seen
to be a crime by the Germans. This is one of the reasons that
another right winger, Adolf Hitler, was able to come to power
in Germany.
The Allied Proposals
The Germans went to find out the proposals put forward by
the Allies then they had to report back to their superiors in
Germany. The main proposals of the Allies were;
1. The immediate evacuation of the invaded countries Belgium, France and Luxembourg.
2. The evacuation of Alsace and Lorraine.
3. The occupation of German land up to the Rhine River and
some bridgeheads beyond it.
4. Evacuation of all German forces operating in Africa.
5. 5000 rail locomotives and 150,000 wagons in good
working condition to be delivered to allied powers in 31
days.
6. The upkeep of the Allied troops in the Rhine district will be
charged to the German Government.
7. Reparation shall be made for damage done.
8. Naval Clauses - The German Navy was to be so disarmed
as to virtually cease to exist. (The British delegates were
particularly keen to see these clauses abided by.)
9. Existing blockades shall continue.
The situation in Germany decides the issue
Back in Germany, a republic was announced and the
Kaiser was forced to abdicate. He then fled the country. On
November 8th, the new government accepted the conditions
of the armistice. The delegates were empowered to sign the
armistice which was a virtual unconditional surrender. The
armistice came into effect at 11.00 a.m. on November 11th
1918. The new government decided to sign the harsh armistice
in the hope that they could negotiate a fair peace treaty with
the allies, based on the Fourteen Points, as had been promised.
How wrong they were!
The Aftermath
Matthias Erzberger was assassinated in the Black Forest in
1920. The right wingers, who were by then supporting Hitler,
blamed Erzberger for the signing of the armistice and the loss
of the war. The people who were behind the signing of the
armistice were referred to as the November Criminals. This
view perpetuated the legend that the German army had been
stabbed-in-the-back (the “Dolchstoss” legend).
Hitler believed this notion that those who signed the
armistice had betrayed Germany. He continually referred to
them as ‘The November Criminals’. He sought vengeance
for this betrayal and he secured this when Germany defeated
France in 1940. The Germans returned to Compiegne in 1940
when they defeated the French. Adolf Hitler forced the French
to sign their surrender in the same railway carriage in the same
forest. He then destroyed the shrine to the victory that had been
built there by the French, but left the statue of Foch to survey
the scene of France’s defeat!
65
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HSC Specimen Paper 2 Unit
SOURCE E: British recruitment poster for armaments
workers, Great Britain 1917.
SOURCE A: From History of the Great War Based on Official
Documents, London, 1932
Causes of British Casualties 1914–1918
Shell or mortar fire 58.5%
Rifle and machine gun bullets 39.0%
Bombs and grenades 2.2%
Bayonet 0.3%
100.0%
SOURCE B: Extract from a letter by Paul Nash, a soldier and
official war artist on the Western Front, November 1917.
The rain drives on, the stinking mud becomes more evilly yellow,
the shell holes fill up with green-white water, the roads and tracks
are covered in inches of slime, the black dying trees ooze and sweat
and the shells never cease. They alone plunge overhead, tearing
away the rotting tree stumps, breaking the plank roads, striking
down horses and mules, annihilating, maiming, maddening, they
plunge into the grave which is this land; one huge grave, and cast
up on it the poor dead.
SOURCE C: Extract from M. McAndrew, D. Thomas and P.
Cummins, The Great War 1914–1919, Melbourne, 2005
“The actual military contribution of the United States to the fighting
in the end of the conflict was absolutely minimal. In so far as the
presence of America made a difference in Germany’s decision to
surrender, it was not because of success on the battlefield at the
Meusse Argonne, or anywhere else for that matter. It was because
the entrance of America into the war, and its demonstrated capacity
to move its army across the Atlantic in huge numbers, now faced
the Germans with the prospect of a virtual endless limitless supply
of reinforcements that could be brought to the Allied side.”
SOURCE D: Extract from War Memoirs by David Lloyd
George, London, 1933.
Until late in the war, no army was able to discover how to get
its own troops through enemy-held defences often four miles
deep, without either exposing them to withering counterfire or
so churning up the ground by earlier bombardments that it was
difficult to advance. Even when an occasional surprise assault
overran the first few lines of enemy trenches, there was no special
equipment to exploit that advantage; the railway lines were miles
in the rear, the cavalry was too vulnerable (and tied to fodder
supplies), heavily laden infantrymen could not move fast, and the
vital artillery arm was restricted by its long train of horse-drawn
wagons.
66
SOURCE F: Extract from a letter by Ethel Cooper, an
Australian living in Germany, dated 11 February 1917.
Any other people on earth would rise against a Government that
had reduced it to such misery, but these folk seem to have no spirit
left. Of course, there are no men, except those in uniform, and
nearly all of the sturdy women are working for the Government too,
I mean all of the poorer class, and so are under control. What one
sees in uniform now passes belief – there is nothing that is too unfit
– they take everything.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Part A (15 marks)
Multiple choice questions are worth 1 mark each.
1. What can be concluded about British casualties in World
War I from Source A? (1 mark)
(A) Bayonets were a major cause of casualties.
(B) Grenades caused more casualties than rifle fire.
(C) Most casualties were caused by shell or mortar fire.
(D) Machine guns caused more casualties than any other
weapon.
2. Which TWO of the following statements help to explain
the data shown in 1 Source A?
i Wartime economies were geared for the production of
weapons and munitions.
ii As the war progressed, tactics using new weapons
resulted in fewer casualties.
iii Most soldiers were volunteers and lacked experience
in using new weapons.
iv Developments in technology produced weapons with
great destructive power. (1 mark)
8. Which of the following statements best reflects Ethel
Cooper’s conclusion in Source F about the effect of the
war on the German home front? (1 mark)
(A) The government was firmly in control.
(B) Civilians supported the war with enthusiasm.
(C) The traditional roles of women were maintained.
(D) Only the fittest men were conscripted into the army.
Part B (10 marks)
9. Assess how useful Sources E and F would be for a
historian studying the impact of total war on Britain and
Germany.
In your answer, consider the perspective provided by the
TWO sources and the reliability of each source.
(10 marks)
(A) i and ii
(B) ii and iii
(C) i and iv
(D) iii and iv
3. In Source B, Nash describes the effect of which aspect of
warfare? (1 mark)
(A) Gas attack
(B) Aerial combat
(C) Infantry assault
(D) Artillery bombardment
4. Briefly outline the impact of artillery on the conduct of the
war on the Western Front.
Use your own knowledge and Sources A and B to answer
this question. (4 marks)
5. Which of the following statements best summarises the
views expressed in Source C and Source D about the
generals’ ability to wage war? (1 mark)
(A) They were intelligent but lacked courage.
(B) They were experienced in trench warfare.
(C) They lacked practical experience of modern warfare.
(D) They were personally involved in events on the front line.
6. Explain how the tactics and strategies of generals and
commanding officers contributed to the stalemate on the
Western Front.
Use your own knowledge and Sources C and D to answer
this question. (5 marks)
7. What impression does Source E convey about women in
munitions work in Britain? (1 mark)
(A) Munitions work was dangerous for women.
(B) Women were conscripted for munitions work.
(C) Women who worked in munitions were highly paid.
(D) Women were encouraged to volunteer for munitions work.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
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CSSA 2 Unit
SOURCE A: Liddle, Peter (ed); The Western Front: Longman
1977
Letters from Lt McLeod at the time of the Battle of Neuve Chapelle
March 11th 1915
At every level, explanations for its failure were being sought.
Although there was certainly some spying by the Germans the
explanation lay in their defensive superiority of artillery, barbed
wire and machine guns over the British infantry who were attacking
on a narrow front with weak artillery support. There was also a
failure in communications which meant that proper decisions were
not taken after success at the start, and troops in reserve were not
sent in at the right time. The British were also short of shells and
this, as well as being another important cause of the failure, caused
a major scandal afterwards.
SOURCE B: Warner, Philip: Field Marshall Earl Haig, The
Bodley Head, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW 1V, 1991,
p. 148
This relates to the Battle of Neuve Chapelle 1915
SOURCE E: Haste, C: Keep the Home Fires Burning.
Propaganda in the First World War. London: Rogers,
Coleridge and White 1979 p39 in Ringer, R.E. 2 Unit Modem
History, Permagon 1991.
German propaganda to neutrals was, in general, less efficient than
British. The Germans were not so effective at simplifying the
issues of the war into right against wrong, and failed to establish
any coordinated machine of propaganda. They were also put to
particular disadvantage when, on 15th August 1914, the Allies cut
the transatlantic cable, thus cutting off Germany’s main line of
communication to America. Germany’s main propaganda effort
was through press conferences organized by the army and a press
service which reported military operations and was responsible
for censorship and control of information from the front. Like
Britain, Germany failed to realize that in a long war enthusiasm
for fighting would wane, but she failed to seize the initiative, not
only in counteracting Allied propaganda to neutrals about German
war guilt, but also in exploiting in the simplest terms , using simple
images, those events which could denigrate* the enemy.
*put down.
SOURCE E: British Government Poster, Great Britain, 1915.
The British guns were not merely inferior in numbers to the
Germans but at that time were limited to four rounds of ammunition
a day. The soldiers, standing in freezing water, could not understand
why their own artillery did not make a more effective response.
Nevertheless in spite of all their disadvantages they managed to
repel the German attacks at Cuinchy, Givenchy and St Elooi.
SOURCE C: Extract from Kennedy, David: American Troops
in the Trenches: http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/historian/hist_
kennedy_03_troops.html
“The actual military contribution of the United States to the fighting
in the end of the conflict was absolutely minimal. In so far as the
presence of America made a difference in Germany’s decision to
surrender, it was not because of success on the battlefield at the
Meusse Argonne, or anywhere else for that matter. It was because
the entrance of America into the war, and its demonstrated capacity
to move its army across the Atlantic in huge numbers, now faced
the Germans with the prospect of a virtual endless limitless supply
of reinforcements that could be brought to the Allied side.”
SOURCE D: Brendon, Vyuyen: The First World War 19141918. Access to History, Hodder Murray, 2007, p.96.
Above all the cessation in the east allowed Ludendorff immediately
to transfer troops and weapons to the Western Front by means of
Germany’s efficient railway system. Historians disagree about how
many troops were transferred. Keegan refers to 50 ‘not indifferent’
infantry divisions (over one and a half million soldiers). Other
historians stress that thousands of men deserted during the journey
where railway stations ‘became the focus for political agitation and
subversion’ and that ‘Ludendorff’s megalomania required that one
million troops remain in Russia to enforce the peace and to exploit
its resources’.
68
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Part A (15 marks)
Multiple choice questions are worth 1 mark each.
1. How does the opinion expressed in Source A explain why
British reinforcements were delayed from attacking?
(A) The front was too narrow.
(B) A major scandal had occurred.
(C) There were not enough shells to secure victory.
(D) The failure of High Command to communicate, resulting
in poor decision making.
2. Which TWO of the following statements in Source A and
Source B help to explain Britain’s lack of success in the
Battle of Neuve Chapelle?
i
ii iii iv Shortage of shells
Lack of communication
Weak artillery support
Freezing conditions
(A) i and ii
(B) i and iii
(C) ii and iv
(D) iii and iv
3. Briefly explain the British failure to break the stalemate by
the end of 1915.
Use your own knowledge and Sources A and B to answer
this question. (5 marks)
7. Which of the following statements best reflects the
conclusions in Source E about the ineffectiveness of
German propaganda?
(A) It was hindered by the destruction of the Atlantic Cable.
(B) It failed to establish the difference between right and
wrong.
(C) It was unable to capitalize on opportunities to put down
the enemy.
(D) It lacked a coordinating body to establish a successful
propaganda machine.
8. What is the major purpose of the British propaganda
poster as shown in Source F?
(A) To show Britain’s war aims.
(B) To encourage women to support the British war effort.
(C) To strengthen patriotism by encouraging anti German
feelings.
(D) To inform the British home front that Germany was
sinking British ships.
Part B (10 marks)
9. Assess how useful Sources E and F would be for a
historian studying British and German propaganda in
World War I.
In your answer, consider the perspective provided by the
TWO sources and the reliability of each source.
4. Which of the following statements according to Source
C BEST explains Germany’s decision to ultimately
surrender.
(A) America’s entry into the war.
(B) America’s military contribution to the fighting.
(C) America’s limitless supply of reinforcements.
(D) America’s success on the battle field.
5. Which TWO of the following reasons in Source D suggest
the possibility of a German victory at the end of the war?
i
ii iii iv An efficient railway system to transfer the troops
Sufficient troops
Ability to exploit resources in Russia
Improved morale
(A) i and ii
(B) i and iii
(C) ii and iv
(D) iii and iv
6
Explain why in 1917 America’s entry was more significant
than Russia’s withdrawal to the outcome of World War I.
Use your own knowledge and Sources C and D to answer
this question. (4 marks)
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
69
2010
HSC 2 Unit
SOURCE A: Map showing changes to the Western Front
1914-1918
SOURCE D: Extract from John Laffin, The Western Front
Illustrated 1914-1918, Sydney, 1993.
The degree of discomfort depended on the season, the weather and
the extent to which trenches were smashed by enemy guns. Some
periods and some sectors were appalling. For instance, in the winter
of 1916-1917, on the Somme front, there were no ‘proper’ trenches,
only weather-eroded muddy ditches.
Officers and men realised that there was no point in improving the
trenches because the mud would collapse them or within hours
enemy guns would smash them. Some trenches had no barbed-wire
cover because the soldiers of both sides were incapable of moving,
let alone erecting wire. Wet through from constant drizzle, freezing
cold and desperate for a hot meal, the miserable men huddled
under whatever shelter they could scratch together. Soldiering
was just a matter of enduring until the relief unit arrived. Should
an attack have been contemplated, the slime prevented the men
from climbing out of the trenches. So did the absence of wooden
ladders, which the frozen men burned in an attempt to keep warm.
Duckboards, burial crosses and even the hard-issue biscuits were
used for the same purpose.
SOURCE E: Extract from a letter by Charles Seymour,
member of the US delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, 11
June 1919.
SOURCE B: Extract from a letter by British soldier Robert
Graves to a friend, May 1915.
May 28th. In trenches among the Cuinchy brick-stacks. Not my
idea of trenches. There has been a lot of fighting hereabouts. The
trenches have made themselves rather than been made, and run
inconsequently in and out of the big thirty-foot high stacks of
bricks; it is most confusing. The parapet of a trench which we don’t
occupy is built up with ammunition boxes and corpses. Everything
here is wet and smelly. The Germans are very close: they have half
the brick-stacks, we have the other half. Each side snipes down
from the top of its brick-stacks into the other’s trenches.
This is also a great place for German rifle-grenades and trenchmortars. We can’t reply properly; we have only a meagre supply of
rifle-grenades and nothing to equal the German sausage mortarbomb. This morning about breakfast time, just as I came out of
my dug-out, a rifle-grenade landed within six feet of me. For some
reason, instead of falling on its head and exploding, it landed with
its stick in the wet clay and stood there looking at me. They are
difficult to see coming; they are shot from a rifle, with its butt on
the ground, tilted, and go up a long way before turning over and
coming down head first.
SOURCE C: Photograph of French soldiers in a
communication trench near Verdun.
70
... The attitude of the different governments remains unchanged
from last week and it seems very questionable whether they can
reach an agreement during the next four or five days. Lloyd George
is still insisting on radical changes and concessions to the Germans.
Wilson has agreed that so far as economic terms are concerned, it
would be most desirable to have a fixed indemnity* set; but in this
respect the French are holding out, fearing that the amount of the
indemnity which seems large to us now would seem very small in a
few years.
* indemnity: reparations
SOURCE F: Extract from The Truth About the Peace Treaties
by David Lloyd George, British Prime Minister 1916-1922,
published in 1938.
Clemenceau and Orlando, Premier of Italy, also had their
difficulties with the public opinion of their respective countries. The
pressure in their case, exactly as in mine, came from the extremists
who insisted upon extracting out of the victory, advantages which
were in contravention of* the fundamental principles of the peace
terms formulated by the Allies. The two issues which created the
greatest trouble between France, on the one hand, and Britain
and the United States of America on the other, were the fixation
of the Western boundaries of Germany (this included the highly
controverted** questions of the Rhine frontier and the future
destiny of the Saar coalfields); and the extortionate*** demand put
forward by French Ministers for reparations from Germany.
* in contravention of: against
** controverted: controversial
*** extortionate: unreasonably large
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Part A (15 marks)
Part B (10 marks)
Multiple choice questions are worth 1 mark each.
Use Source A to answer questions 1-2
9. How useful would Sources E and F be for a historian
studying the different goals of Clemenceau, Lloyd George
and Wilson in creating the Treaty of Versailles?
1. Where was the Western Front at the end of 1914?
(A) Belgium and France
(B) France and Germany
(C) Belgium, France and Germany
(D) Belgium, France, Germany and Holland
In your answer, consider the perspectives provided by the
TWO sources and the reliability of each one.
(10 marks)
2. In which year did the Germans come closest to Paris?
(A) 1914
(B) 1916
(C) 1917
(D) 1918
3. Which two of the following factors best explain why the
Somme Offensive in 1916 failed to take more ground?
i
ii iii iv Insufficient British troops
The failure of British tanks
The strength of German defences
Inadequate British military planning and tactics
(A) i and ii
(B) ii and iii
(C) i and iv
(D) iii and iv
Use Source B to answer questions 4-6.
4. Robert Graves describes the suitability of which weapons
amongst the Cuinchy brick-stacks?
(A) Gas and tanks
(B) Rifles and artillery
(C) German rifle-grenades and trench-mortars
(D) German sausage mortar-bombs and machine guns
5. What is the meaning of the word ‘snipes’ as used by
Graves?
(A) To climb into the trenches
(B) To look down into the trenches
(C) To fire generally into the trenches
(D) To shoot at a specific target in enemy trenches
6. According to Graves, the British could not respond
effectively to German attacks because
(A) German trenches were better constructed.
(B) Germans were better positioned in the trenches.
(C) German rifle grenades were better than British ones.
(D) Germans had more and superior weapons to the British.
7. Use your own knowledge and Source C to give THREE
reasons why it was difficult to evacuate wounded men
from the trenches. (3 marks)
8. Use your own knowledge and Sources B and D to answer
this question.
Outline how the experiences of trench warfare changed
soldiers’ attitudes to the war over time. (6 marks)
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SOURCE A: A newspaper report on the Battle of Amiens 1918
by official British wartime correspondent, Philip Gibbs
It is now the enemy (Germany) who is on the defensive, dreading
the hammer blows that fall upon him day after day, and the
initiative of attack is so completely in our hands that we are able to
strike him at many different places. Since August 8th we must have
taken nearly 50,000 prisoners and nearly 500 guns, and the tale is
not yet told because our men are going on, taking new strides, new
batches of Germans, and more batteries.
The change has been greater in the minds of men than in
the taking of territory. On our side the army seems to be buoyed up
with the enormous hope of getting on with this business quickly.
They are fighting for a quick victory and a quick peace so they may
get back to normal life and wipe this thing clean from the map of
Europe and restore the world to sane purposes.
SOURCE B: Grant, A J and Temperley, H W V, Europe in the
19th and 20th Centuries, Longman, London 1946
SOURCE E: Sylvia Pankhurst, the SUFFRAGETTE* writing
about women in WWI, The Home Front, 1932.
*SUFFRAGETTE: Women who campaigned for the vote for
women
At Greenwood and Batley’s armament factory in Leeds, a girl, only
sixteen years of age, was injured at her machine. She had started
at 6 a.m. Friday, and with intervals totalling two hours for meals
on Friday, and half an hour for breakfast on Saturday, she had kept
on till the accident occurred at 7.30 a.m. The women beside her
worked on for 31 hours. One being prosecuted, the manager stated,
by way of defence, that women subjected to this tremendous strain
would earn from 1 to 2 English pounds a week. The magistrate,
Horace Marshall, dismissed the case, with the observation that ‘the
most important thing in the world today is that ammunition shall
be made’. The senseless folly of this overwork was revealed when,
on 21 May, it was announced that 65,700 women had registered for
war service, but only 1,250 of them had received employment..
SOURCE E: A British government poster ‘National Service
Women’s Land Army’, 1917.
It (Germany’s defeat) was moral, political and above all naval.
British sea power worked by blockade and hunger. The effect of
this attrition finally coincided with, and greatly intensified, the
military reverse. While the Allied offensives lessened the material
power of Germany, insufficient food, defective equipment, and tales
of the anguish at home sapped the soldiers’ morale. Breaking point
had been reached because of the strain imposed by the navy at the
time of the armistice negotiations.
SOURCE C: Williamson, D: War and Peace: International
Relations 1914-1918, Access to History 1994
Aims and Principles of the Great Powers
The peace negotiations at Paris are often interpreted as a struggle
between the proponents of reconciliation, led by Wilson and
Lloyd George, and the ruthless advocates of a peace of revenge
represented by Clemenceau, the French Prime Minister. While there
is some truth in this analysis, it simplifies the divisions amongst
the peacemakers in Paris. Not only were the great powers divided
in their objectives at Paris, but their individual peace programmes
also in themselves contained contradictory policies. It is not always
accurate to regard the French as pursuing revenge, while the
British and Americans followed the more noble aims of peace and
reconciliation, Wilson strongly believed that Germany needed to be
punished for her part in starting the war and that she should be put
on ‘probation’ before joining the League.
SOURCE D: Stewart, David Fitzgerald J: The Great War
Using Evidence, 1987.
Lloyd George had to reconcile two colleagues, one of whom
wanted a peace to be based almost wholly on force, and the other a
peace based almost wholly on idealism. Lloyd George had to adjust
the two points of view, and the task was inconceivably difficult. It
meant self-effacement* on his part, sacrifice of his pledges, of his
consistency sometimes even of his dignity. Yet he succeeded in
many instances. There are points ... in which he is liable to severe
criticism. But this fact should not exclude the services which his
inconceivable adroitness and flexibility rendered to the common
cause. It cannot be said that he neglected any purely British
interests. The charge that will lie against him in history is that he
neglected nobler and more universal interests.
* self effacement... the act of keeping oneself in the background in
humility.
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Part A (15 marks)
Multiple choice questions are worth 1 mark each.
Use Source A to answer Questions 1 and 2
1. Which of the following best describes the military
situation by the end of August 1918?
(A) The Allied forces were preparing to attack.
(B) The German army had regained the initiative.
(C) The German army was completely on the defensive.
(D) The Allied forces had great difficulty in taking prisoners.
7. Which of the following statements in Source C and D
could BEST describe the common perspective of the TWO
sources?
(A) Germany had to be punished.
(B) The Treaty was driven by idealism.
(C) Each of the Big Three was flexible.
(D) The Peace Treaty was difficult to negotiate.
8. Use your own knowledge and Sources C and D to answer
this question.
2. Since 8th August 1918, what was the greatest change
experienced by Allied soldiers?
Explain some of the problems resulting from the differing
goals of Clemenceau, Lloyd George and Wilson at the
Paris Peace Conference.
(A) The taking of territory
(B) The boost in their morale
(C) The realisation that victory would be a lengthy process
(D) The desire to eliminate Germany from the map of Europe
Part B (10 marks)
Use Source B to answer Question 3
3. German defeat occurred on both the Western Front and the
home front.
Which of the following BEST explains the effect of the
German home front on their war effort?
9. Assess how useful Sources E and F would be for a
historian studying the impact of the war on the lives of
women in Britain.
In your answer, consider the perspective provided by the
TWO sources and the reliability of each source.
(A) Defective equipment caused serious losses.
(B) The government was unable to supply sufficient food.
(C) Tales of suffering on the home front intensified soldiers’
determination.
(D) The collapse of the home front had a dramatic effect on
soldiers’ morale.
4. Use your own knowledge and Sources A and B to answer
this question. (5 marks)
Account for Germany’s defeat in World War I.
Use Source C and D to answer Question 5 7
5. What does Source C claim is the MAIN problem
confronting the peacemakers in Paris?
(A) The French were intent on revenge.
(B) The peacemakers wanted reconciliation.
(C) The individual peace programs of the Big Three contained
contradictory objectives and policies.
(D) Woodrow Wilson and David Lloyd George opposed the
punishment of Germany whilst Clemenceau favoured it.
6. Using Source D, which TWO of the following statements
BEST explains Lloyd George’s role at the Paris Peace
Conference?
i To achieve an idealistic peace
ii To look after British interests
iii To help his two colleagues to reach a compromise
iv To make sure that sufficient force was used to secure
peace
(A) i and iv
(B) ii and iii
(C) i and iii
(D) ii and iv
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SOURCE A: British poster, from about 1915.
SOURCE D: Extract from the report of Max Osborn,
journalist and official German observer at the Battle of
Passchendaele, 31 July 1 August, 1917 in Home, Charles F.
(ed.), Source Records of World War I, Vol. V, 1998.
What were the battles of the Somme, Arras, the Aisne and
Champagne against this earthquake of Flanders?
… our losses are not so large ... Our men have become masters in
the art of dodging and using cover ... [the] projectiles of the enemy
care not where they strike, be it human life, wire entanglements, or
trench …
There is one consolation: Our artillery pays them back with interest
…
… the German fighting spirit [has been] fully awakened, and heroes
flung themselves ... against the advancing masses and seriously
weakened the flanks of the oncoming troops. …
It was the mightiest counter thrust ... which the world has ever seen.
Nightfall witnessed the happy German achievement.
SOURCE E: Extracts from war correspondent Percival
Phillips, published in the Daily Express, 1 August,
1917, in Martin Farrar, News From the Front: War
Correspondents on the Western Front 1914-1918,1998.
The Battle of Flanders began at four o’clock this morning [31
July], and the first day has gone well for the Allies . ... There has
been hard fighting at certain points, but ... other strong points were
captured with very little resistance.
The enemy divisions suffered severely not only in the preliminary
bombardment, which was of unprecedented strength and severity,
but wherever they showed resistance to our infantry. …
Progress was faster and smoother …
SOURCE B: Extract from David Lance, ‘Tank on the Somme’
in Peter Vansittart, Voices from the Great War, 1981.
Very few wounded had reached the casualty clearing stations ... the
number was far less than expected …
The guns in Flanders were shouting in unison* ... our men dug and
drilled and did many fine and heroic acts.
* shouting in unison: firing at the same time
The tank was designed to provide effective movement on a
battlefield where firearms (big guns and machine guns) reigned
supreme, and where the physical obstacles to mobility (trenches,
barbed wire, mud) had accumulated in number and variety. By
1916 the aeroplane had taken from the cavalry the reconnaissance
duties it was no longer able to fulfil . ... In September 1916 the
new weapon received its baptism offire . ... Conditions, however,
militated* against its successful use in this first operation.
* militated: operated
SOURCE C: Photograph of British soldiers in a trench at
Ypres
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Part A (15 marks)
8. Read statements 1 and 2 then select the correct answer.
Multiple choice questions are worth 1 mark each.
1. What is the purpose of Source A?
(A) To promote conscription
(B) To show the discipline of the British Army
(C) To encourage British men to enlist voluntarily
(D) To gain the support of British women for the war effort
2. Using Source A and your own knowledge, which statement
best describes the situation regarding conscription at the
start of World War I?
(A) Both Britain and Germany had conscription.
(B) Britain had conscription and Germany did not.
(C) Neither Britain nor Germany had conscription.
(D) Britain did not have conscription and Germany did.
3. According to Source B, why was the tank designed?
(A) To protect soldiers
(B) To overcome obstacles to movement
(C) To improve reconnaissance of the battlefield
(D) Because aeroplanes could not achieve what the cavalry
could
Statement 1. According to Source E, there was little
resistance to the attack because it began at four o’clock in
the morning.
Statement 2. According to Source E, the preliminary
bombardment was an important factor in the Allied
success on the first day.
(A) Both statements are correct.
(B) Neither statement is correct.
(C) Only Statement 1 is correct.
(D) Only Statement 2 is correct.
9. Use Sources B and C and your own knowledge to answer
this question.
Outline the strategies and tactics used to break the
stalemate on the Western Front. (6 marks)
Part B (10 marks)
10. How useful would Sources C and D be for a historian
studying the strategies and tactics used to break the
stalemate on the Western Front?
In your answer consider the perspectives provided by the
TWO sources and the reliability of each one.
4. According to Source B, what is a possible reason for the
aeroplane taking over reconnaissance from the cavalry?
(A) The cavalry was used for other duties.
(B) The new weapon had received its baptism of fire.
(C) The physical obstacles on the battlefield affected mobility.
(D) The tank had largely replaced the cavalry by September
1916.
5. According to Source C, what were TWO dangers faced by
soldiers in the trenches during World War I?
(2 marks)
6. What detail in Source C best suggests that this photograph
was taken in the early part of the war?
(A) The cleanliness of the soldiers’ uniforms
(B) The wearing of goggles and gauze masks
(C) The newly constructed nature of the trench
(D) The presence of vegetation behind the trench
7. Which of the following is NOT given as a reason for ‘the
happy German achievement’ in Source D?
(A) German fighting spirit was fully awakened.
(B) German tanks created a great counter thrust.
(C) German artillery paid them back with interest.
(D) German soldiers were skilful in dodging and using cover.
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SOURCE A: David Stewart, The Great War, 1995
Although one reason for the problem of food supply for civilians
was the British blockade, the greatest factor was the disruptions to
agricultural production. Shortages of labour, fertilisers, machinery
and animal stock meant the whole system was undermined. The
amount officially allowed per person for a whole week after general
rationing was introduced in 1916 was basically below the level of
subsistence: 100-250g of meat; 120g of fish; 1 egg (provided you
could find one); 160-220g of flour (which included bread); 3.5kg of
potatoes 60-75g of fats (lard, butter, vegetable fats); 200g of sugar.
SOURCE B: British propaganda poster published by the
British Food ministry, 1918.
SOURCE D: David Stewart, The Great War, 1995.
In 1916 the new Chief of Staff, Paul von Hindenburg, established
the Supreme War Office (Kriegsamt) which took control over
all matters affecting the war. Civilian labour, manufacturing and
transport were all placed under government direction, and the
Patriotic Auxiliary Service Law made all men aged between 17 and
60 liable for labour service for areas determined by the Kriegsamt.
It was all part of the necessity of ensuring that the home front made
the maximum possible contribution.
SOURCE E: John Maynard Keynes, a British official,
observes the ‘Big Three’ at the Peace Conference in The
Economic Consequences of the Peace, 1920.
Clemenceau was by far the most eminent member of the Council of
Four, and he had taken the measure of his colleagues. He alone both
had an idea and had considered it in all its consequences...
His principles for the Peace can be expressed simply. In the first
place he was a foremost believer...that the German understands
and can understand nothing but intimidation, that he is without
generosity or remorse in negotiation, that there is no advantage he
will not take of you, and no extent to which he will not demean*
himself for profit, that he is without honour, pride. or mercy.
Therefore Clemenceau believed you must never negotiate with a
German or conciliate him: you must dictate to him. On no other
terms will he respect you.
*Demean means ‘to put down’
SOURCE F: President Wilson’s Speech Delivered at
Baltimore, USA, April 6, 1918.
We must judge as we would be judged. I have sought to learn
the objects Germany has in this war from the mouths of her own
spokesmen, and to deal as frankly with them as I wished them to
deal with me. I have laid bare our own ideals, our own purposes,
without reserve or doubtful phrase, and have asked them to say as
plainly what it is that they seek.
We have ourselves proposed no injustice, no aggression. We are
ready, whenever the final reckoning is made, to be just to the
German people, deal fairly with the German power, as with all
others.
There can be no difference between peoples in the final judgement,
if it is indeed to be a righteous judgment. To propose anything
but justice, even handed and dispassionate justice, to Germany at
any time, whatever the outcome of the war, would be to renounce
and dishonour our own cause. For we ask nothing that we are not
willing to accord*.
*accord means ‘to grant’
SOURCE C: Ken Webb, World War 1, 2006
Although the government in Britain was slow to move to
organisation for total war, like other belligerent governments it was
quick to assume controls. On 8 August 1914 the Defence of the
Realm Act (DORA) was passed. This suspended civil rights and
put Britain under virtual martial law. Police were given the right
to stop and question citizens and suspects could be imprisoned
immediately.
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Part A (15 marks)
Multiple choice questions are worth 1 mark each.
1. Using Source A, other than the British Blockade, which of
the following was the greatest factor causing problems to
civilians food supply?
(A) General rationing
(B) Disruptions to agricultural production
(C) Bad weather causing disastrous crop failures
(D) Failure to transport sufficient food to the cities
2. Using Source A and your own knowledge, how did the
German government seek to solve the problem of civilian
food shortages?
(A) Introduce a system of rationing
(B) Divert food from the army to the civilians
(C) Supplement their needs by acquiring territory in the East
(D) Regularly send out the high seas fleet to break the
blockade
3. Using Source B and your own knowledge, which two
statements explain the purpose of this propaganda poster
i To encourage hatred of the enemy
ii To encourage support of government restrictions
iii To force people to comply with government regulations
iv To encourage active participation in the war effort
8. Using Sources C and D, which two answers BEST
describe the concept suggested in these two sources?
i Total war
ii Laissez-faire
iii Business as usual
iv Government control
(A) i and iv
(B) ii and iii
(C) i and iii
(D) ii and iv
9. Using your own knowledge and Sources C and D to
answer this question.
Discuss the impact of total war on civilians during World
War I. (6 marks)
Part B (10 marks)
10. Assess how useful Sources E and F would be for a
historian studying the goals of the Big Three in creating
the Treaty of Versailles.
In your answer, consider the perspective provided by the
TWO sources and the reliability of each source.
(A) i and iv
(B) ii and iii
(C) i and iii
(D) ii and iv
4. Using your OWN knowledge with reference to Source B,
in what context was this poster published in 1918.
(A) The government believed this would achieve victory.
(B) The government was inadequately organized.
(C) People were eating too much bread.
(D) To counteract the success of German unrestricted
submarine warfare in 1917.
5. According to Source A, what were TWO commodities that
were in short supply in Germany in 1916? (2 marks)
6. Using Source C, what was the fundamental purpose of
DORA in 1914?
(A) To control public information
(B) To punish opponents of the war
(C) To give the government extensive powers to direct the war
effort
(D) To establish government control over businesses for the
benefit of the workers
7. Using Source D and your own knowledge, which
answer BEST describes the unique position of Paul von
Hindenburg in 1916?
(A) He took control of manufacturing.
(B) He established the Supreme War Office.
(C) He was deprived of his position as Chief of Staff.
(D) He united the Western Front and the Home Front under his
leadership.
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SOURCE A: A description of the home front in the early
months of World War I, extract from Brown, Malcolm, (ed.),
Imperial War Museum Book of the First World War, 1993.
After paying a visit to London in September 1914 [Robert]
Saunders commented [in a letter to his son]:
You can’t live in London at the present without feeling an
atmosphere of restless excitement that tells on the nerves and leaves
you tired and more or less irritable and used up. Everywhere you
go you see flags flying, appeals to enlist, men in khaki, special
constables with their badges, photographs and war telegrams in
shop windows and recruiting stations.
This was also a time of high animosity against all things German.
Many shops bearing German sounding names were ransacked;
anyone with a hint of German in name or background was open
to victimization. This bitterness against ‘aliens’ (which would
eventually cause even the British Royal Family to change its name)
was not confined to Britain. FL Cassel was living in Berlin in the
summer of 1914 and later described the city’s excitable mood:
peaceable and humane, precipitated*** in a few days down the
steep slope to primitive barbarism...
And all this madness, all this rage, all this flaming death of our
civilization and our hopes, has been brought about because a set
of official gentlemen, living luxurious lives, mostly stupid and
all without imagination or heart, have chosen that it should occur
rather than any one of them should suffer some infinitesimal
rebuff**** to his country’s pride.
And behind the diplomatists, dimly heard in the official documents,
stand vast forces of national greed and national hatred... I cannot
resist the conclusion that the Government has failed in its duty to
the nation...
*peaceful comity – community
**hitherto - previously
***precipitated – thrown
****infinitesimal rebuff - very small insult
SOURCE D: British poster Red Cross or Iron Cross?, 1917.
The streets began to fill with excited people, who were inclined to
become the victim of any rumour. I experienced the sensation of a
beginning of a war psychosis*, the chase of suspected spies, after
a declaration of imminent war had been issued. Coffee houses
were destroyed, e.g. the English café at the Wittenberg Platz,
ostensibly** because it was alleged that enemy hymns had been
played by foreign musicians.
*psychosis - severe mental disorder **ostensibly - apparently
SOURCE B: Comments about the Western Front, extract from
Brown, Malcolm, (ed.), Imperial War Museum Book of the
First World War, 1993.
Sergeant Robert Scott Macfie... wrote... Having been in the firing
line (the front line) once my curiosity is satisfied and I don’t think
I ever want to go there again. Observing troops coming out of
the trenches after a bad mauling he [Macfiel described them as a
pitiable sight, trudging mechanically back home in a disorderly
mob, bent double with fatigue and looking longingly at the side of
the road scarcely able to refrain from lying down. He soon came
to realise that war combined grimness with a singular lack of
excitement:
I do not think anyone can understand the horrors of war without
seeing devastated country such as this, nor the wearisome
monotony of fighting unless he has spent a night in the trenches.
It is deadly dull, and the dullness, far more than the discomfort, is
what strikes me. Today I am covered in mud, having fallen in the
dark into a veritable slough * and wallowed in it when trying to get
out.
With the unclouded eye of a mature and intelligent man never
anybody’s fool he [Macfie] allowed no patriotic ardour** to
disguise the reality of what was happening around him. After
describing an attack made in December 1914 which had virtually
no chance of success, he added this chilling detail: The order was
given that any man who fell out or turned back was to be shot or
bayonetted; and one man was actually killed for this reason.
*veritable slough - swamp **ardour - strong, intense feelings
SOURCE C: Extract from a letter from Bertrand Russell in the
journal, Nation, 15 August 1914.
A month ago Europe was a peaceful comity* of nations; if
an Englishman killed a German, he was hanged. Now if an
Englishman kills a German, or if a German kills an Englishman
he is a patriot who has deserved well of his country. We scan the
newspapers with greedy eyes for news of slaughter and rejoice
when we read of innocent young men, blindly obedient to the word
of command, mown down in thousands by the machine guns of
Liege. Those who saw the London crowds during the nights leading
up to the Declaration of War saw a whole population, hitherto**
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MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Part A (15 marks)
Multiple choice questions are worth 1 mark each.
1. Read statements 1 and 2 then select the correct answer.
Statement 1. According to Source A, people were excited
about the outbreak of war in both London and Berlin.
Statement 2. According to Source A, property was attacked
in both London and Berlin.
(A)Only Statement 1 is correct.
(B) Only Statement 2 is correct.
(C) Both statements are correct.
(D) Neither statement is correct.
2. Give reasons why the attitudes to the war in Source A and
Source B are different. (2 marks)
3. What was the main concern for Sergeant Robert Scott
Macfie in Source B?
(A) The lack of excitement as the war progressed
(B) The desire to satisfy his curiosity about the war
(C) The fatigue and loss of discipline amongst the men
(D) The conflict between patriotism and the reality of war
4. Why did the ‘one man’ referred to in Source B die?
(A) He died from exhaustion.
(B) He refused to obey instructions.
(C) He was bayonetted by the enemy.
(D) He fell into the mud and drowned.
5. According to Source C, why does Bertrand Russell
conclude that the Government has failed in its duty to the
nation?
(A) It allowed the war to break out.
(B) It could not control the behaviour of the crowds.
(C) Its members lived a life removed from the people.
(D) It did not prevent the newspapers publishing war news.
6. Which of the following best describes the message of
Source D?
(A) Germans are inhumane.
(B) British soldiers risk injury.
(C) British women should work for the Red Cross.
(D) German men stand back while women take up the fight.
7. Use Sources A and C and your own knowledge to answer
Question 7.
Outline the variety of attitudes to the war and how they
changed over time in Britain and Germany. (8 marks)
Part B (10 marks)
8. How useful would Sources A and D be for a historian
studying recruitment and propaganda in Britain and
Germany?
In your answer consider the perspectives provided by the
TWO sources and the reliability of each one.
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SOURCE C: British wartime poster, 1915.
SOURCE A: BBC History, www.bbc.co.uk
It was believed that the only way to win the War was by killing
enough enemy soldiers and destroying enough of their resources
to force them to surrender. Each side mounted huge offensives
in the hope of making a great breakthrough. This approach is
evident in infamous Allied attacks such as the Somme, Nivelle and
Passchendaele. The German army also launched offensives, such as
Verdun, where they tried to ‘bleed France white’.
Faced with war on a scale and size that had never before been
experienced, mistakes and poor decision making were to be
expected. However, it would be misguided to believe that the
armies did not grow in experience, become tactically stronger and
utilise new technology open to them wherever possible. They did
not simply repeat their mistakes.
From the Marne in 1914 to the ‘hundred days’ battles in the closing
stages of the War in 1918, new weaponry, chemicals, aerial and
armoured technologies had been tried and tested to break the
deadlock.
‘In 1914 tactics had yet to catch up with the range and lethality of
modern artillery and machine guns ... by 1918 much had changed.’
Dr. Gary Sheffield
An excerpt from BBC - Schools Online World War One - H.Q. Articles Western Front Major Events, People and Changes
How did they try to break the stalemate?
SOURCE B: Official Report by German General, Sixt von
Armin, following the start of the Battle of the Somme, July
1916.
One of the most important lessons drawn from the Battle of the
Somme is that under heavy, methodical artillery fire, the front line
should only be thinly held, by reliable men and a few machine
guns, even when there is the possibility of a hostile attack. When
this was not done, the casualties were so great before the enemy’s
attack was launched, that the possibility of the front line repulsing
the attack by its own unaided efforts was very doubtful. The
danger of the front line being rushed when so lightly held must
be overcome by placing supports [infantry and machine guns],
distributed in groups according to the ground, as close as possible
behind the foremost fighting line. Their task is to rush forward to
reinforce the front line at the moment the enemy attacks, without
waiting for orders from the rear. In all cases where this procedure
was adopted, we succeeded in repulsing and inflicting very heavy
losses on the enemy, who imagined that he had merely to drop in a
trench filled with the dead.
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SOURCE D: Historian William Carr, A History of Germany,
1815 1990 published in 1991.
With imports scarce and dear, it was essential not only to control
and allocate raw materials, but to try to protect civilians against the
worst effects of scarcity ........ [The measures taken] undoubtedly
helped Germany weather the crisis of war up to the summer of
1916. But ‘war time collectivism’ . . . was the undoing of the
German government. Precisely because the state was intervening so
actively in the regulation of the economy, ordinary Germans began
to blame it for its manifest failure to protect their living standards
in the second half of the war. No longer did discontented people
in town and countryside vent their anger on an imaginary socialist
‘enemy’ but openly criticised state officials for their inability
to cope with the situation, a crucially important psychological
development which prepared the way for the revolutionary situation
of 1918 1920.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Part A (15 marks)
Multiple choice questions are worth 1 mark each.
1. What does Source A suggest was the MAIN reason why
the stalemate was broken in 1918?
(A) Mounting huge offensives
(B) Inflicting high casualties on the enemy
(C) Using improved technology in the offensives
(D) Coordinating the Allied command under Foch
2. Read statements 1 and 2 then select the correct answer.
Statement 1: According to Source A, the Germans did not
adopt new tactics at Verdun.
Statement 2:According to Source A, some historians
now accept that mistakes and poor decision making were
inevitable at that time.
(A) Only Statement 1 is correct.
(B) Only Statement 2 is correct.
(C) Both statements are correct.
(D) Neither statement is correct.
3. What mistake does Source B suggest the Germans made at
the Somme?
(A) They were willing to concede ground.
(B) They were technologically inexperienced.
(C) They failed to use their heavy artillery to counter the
British attack.
(D) They put too many men in the front line thus causing great
casualties.
4. According to Source B, give TWO ways that the Germans
believed victory could be achieved by July 1916.
(2 marks)
5. Which of the following BEST describes the message of
Source C?
(A) To promote British industry.
(B) To encourage hatred of the enemy.
(C) To encourage men to join the armed forces.
(D) To encourage people to support the war effort.
6. What does Source D suggest was the MAJOR cause of the
outbreak of revolution in 1918?
(A) Perception of ineffective government
(B) The effects of the British blockade
(C) The threat of an imaginary socialist enemy
(D) The casualties on the Western Front caused despair
7. Use Sources A and B and your own knowledge to answer
Question 7.
Explain why it was difficult to achieve a breakthrough on
the Western Front from 1915. (6 marks)
Part B (10 marks)
8. Assess how useful Sources C and D would be for a
historian studying total war in Britain and Germany.
In your answer consider the perspectives provided by the
TWO sources and the reliability of each one.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
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HSC 2 Unit
SOURCE A: Map showing the Ludendorff Spring Offensive
and Allied counteroffensives, 1918
SOURCE D: Extract from website
The events of 1917 were decisive in ending the war, although
their effects would not be fully felt until 1918. The British naval
blockade of Germany began to have a serious impact on morale and
productivity on the German home front. In response, in February
1917, the German General Staff was able to convince Chancellor
Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg to declare unrestricted submarine
warfare, with the goal of starving the United Kingdom1 out of
the war. Tonnage sunk rose above five hundred thousand tons
per month from February until July, peaking at 860 000 tons in
April. After July, the reintroduced convoy system was extremely
effective in neutralising the U-boat threat, thanks to American
experimentation. Britain was safe from the threat of starvation, and
the German war industry remained deprived materially.
1
Britain is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland
SOURCE E: Extract from: To end all Wars: how the First
World War divided Britain; Adam Hochschild 2011.
SOURCE B: Extract from: Defence of the Realm
The sense of a Home Front grew more acute as World War One
ground on. In February 1917, German U-boats sank 230 ships
bringing food to Britain, and over half a million tons of shipping
in March. This, with the need to release even more men from
agriculture to serve at the front, led to the creation of the Women’s
Land Army. Their task was to maximise the output from the land to
feed the nation and counteract the effect of the U-boats.
SOURCE C: Paul von Hindenburg’s official address of 6
September 1918
The bad harvest of 1916 was followed by the long, cold winter of
1916-17, known forever after as the ‘turnip winter’. As the men
froze and died in the trenches, eighty thousand children died of
starvation. When a horse collapsed and died on a Berlin street in
late 1916, a foreign visitor described the scene:
“Women rushed towards the cadaver* as if they had been poised for
this moment, knives in their hands. Everyone was shouting, fighting
for the best pieces. Blood splattered their faces and their clothes ...
when nothing more was left of the horse beyond a bare skeleton,
the people vanished, carefully guarding their pieces of bloody meat
against their chests.”
*cadaver
dead body
SOURCE F: Cartoon by G M Payne. Published in Sunday
Pictorial, 23 December 1917
SOLDIERS:
We are in the midst of a heavy battle with the foe. If numerical
superiority alone were to guarantee victory, then Germany would
long since have been crushed to the ground. The enemy knows,
however, that Germany and her allies can never be vanquished by
arms alone.
What are the facts? In the east we have forced peace, and in
the west we are also strong enough to do the same despite the
Americans. But we must be strong and united.
Why does the enemy incite the coloured races against the German
soldiers? Because he wants to annihilate* us.
The enemy also endeavours to sow dissension** in our ranks by
means of leaflets dropped from aeroplanes above our lines. Ten
thousand of these are sometimes gathered up in a day. The enemy
knows what strength resides in our State and Empire; hence he
seeks by his leaflets and false rumours to arouse distrust among us.
There have always been some traitors to the Fatherland, a few
deliberately false, others unintentionally so. Most of these now
reside in neutral countries, having deserted us to escape sharing
in our battles and privations***, and to escape being executed as
traitors.
Be on your guard, German soldiers.
* annihilate totally destroy
**sow dissension create conflict
*** privations hardships
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MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Part A (15 marks)
Multiple choice questions are worth 1 mark each.
1. Which group of towns was captured by the Germans
between March and July 1918?
(A) Arras, Vimy and Amiens
(B) Ypres, Albert and Bapaume
(C) Compiègne, Meaux and Rheims
(D) Armentières, Péronne and Soissons
2. Read statements 1 and 2, then select the correct answer.
Statement 1. Ludendorff’s Spring Offensive gained more
ground for the Germans than the counter-offensive gained
for the Allies.
Statement 2. Verdun did not fall to the Germans in 1918.
(A) Only Statement 1 is correct.
(B) Only Statement 2 is correct.
(C) Both statements are correct.
(D) Neither statement is correct.
3. According to Source B, what were TWO reasons for the
creation of the Women’s Land Army? (2 marks)
4. In Source C, von Hindenburg’s main message to the
soldiers is that Germany
(A) is outnumbered.
(B) must be strong and united.
(C) has made peace in the East.
(D) is fighting against ‘the coloured races’.
5. According to Source D, what was the effect of the use of
U-boats up to July 1917?
(A) There was an increase in the tonnage sunk.
(B) There was an increase in the morale and productivity of
the British.
(C) There was an increase in the morale and productivity of
the Germans.
(D) There was an increase in the influence of the German
General Staff on the Chancellor.
6. What does Source E reveal about the effect of war on the
German home front?
(A) Hunger caused desperation.
(B) Germany had a bad harvest.
(C) Foreigners could only visit Berlin.
(D) Men were freezing in the trenches.
7. Use Sources C and D and your own knowledge to answer
the following question.
Outline reasons for the Allied victory and German collapse
in 1918. (8 marks)
Part B (10 marks)
8. How useful would Sources E and F be for a historian
studying the impact of total war on civilians in Britain and
Germany?
In your answer, consider the perspectives provided by the
TWO sources and the reliability of each one.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
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2014
CSSA 2 Unit
SOURCE A: Versailles and After 1919-1933, Ruth Henig,
New York and London: Routledge, 1990, pages 3-4.
The presence in Paris of many hundreds of journalists merely
underlined* the fact that the freedom of negotiation of allied leaders
was circumscribed * by their accountability to their electorates.
The principal peace-makers were aware that, as the leaders of
democratic nations, they would have to answer for their decision to
their electorates. Indeed, Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister,
came to the Paris peace conference [sic] shortly after an election
which left him in no doubt whatsoever as to the voters’ wishes.
If Lloyd George knew that his political future depended upon the
maintenance of a hard line towards Germany, so too did the French
Prime Minister, Clemenceau. After the war the French Chamber of
Deputies was nicknamed ‘the one-legged chamber’ because of the
number of maimed ex-soldiers it contained. These men would be
satisfied with nothing less than a punitive peace.
SOURCE D: Fighting the Great War: A Global History,
Michael S Neiberg, 2005.
Ludendorff’ s great offensive plan had already failed. It had lacked
a grand strategy from the beginning, with Ludendorff famously
announcing that his only intention had been to “punch a hole into
[the allied line]. For the rest, we shall see.” Ludendorff sat at a
crossroads. He had inflicted heavy casualties, but his own forces
had suffered more than 239,000 casualties, many from Germany’s
elite units; March 21 1918, had been Germany’s costliest day of the
war so far. Even with the odds in their favour, the Germans found
that their attack had been very costly, the will of the French and
British had not broken and the offensive had led the Americans to
promise to move more men to Europe more quickly.
German soldiers had, in addition, broken discipline to loot French
towns and eat and drink from British and French stores. Compared
to the Germans’ own often meagre rations, the Allies appeared to
have limitless supplies. Germany’s last gamble had failed, and the
Allied armies were ready to resume the offensive. The war’s final
phase had begun.
* underlined - emphasised
* circumscribed - constrained
SOURCE B: Final comment on Treaty of Versailles by one of
Woodrow Wilson’s chief advisors, Colonel E.M. House, on 29
June 1919.
The bitterness engendered by the war, the hopes raised high in
many quarters because of the victory, the character of the men
having the dominant voice in the making of the Treaty, all had their
influence for good or for evil, and were to be reckoned with ...
The same forces that have been at work in the making of this peace
would be at work to hinder the enforcement of a different kind of
peace, and no one can say with certitude that anything better than
had been done could be done at this time. We have had to deal with
a situation pregnant* with difficulties and one which could be met
only by an unselfish and idealistic spirit, which was almost wholly
absent and which was too much to expect of men who had come
together at such a time and for such a purpose.
*pregnant - filled
SOURCE C: The first American troops arriving at St.
Nazaire, France, 26 June 1917, American Battle Monuments
Commission, reproduced in Army History Magazine Spring
2013.
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MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Part A (15 marks)
Multiple choice questions are worth 1 mark each.
1. According to Source A, what was the MAIN constraint
facing the peacemakers?
(A) The demands of the electorates
(B) The presence of many journalists
(C) Wilson’s loss of the support of Congress
(D) The demands of many maimed ex-soldiers
2. According to Source B, what does Colonel House claim
was necessary to achieve a satisfactory peace settlement?
(A) Agreement on reparations
(B) Revenge against Germany
(C) Leaders fulfilling promises to their people
(D) Leaders need to rise above national self-interests
3. Read statements 1 and 2 then select the correct answer.
Statement 1: According to Source A, the presence of
journalists in Paris significantly influenced negotiations.
Statement 2: According to Source B, the character of the
men who dominated the negotiations had to be reckoned
with.
(A) Only Statement 1 is correct.
(B) Only Statement 2 is correct.
(C) Both statements are correct.
(D) Neither statement is correct.
4. Using Source A and your own knowledge, describe the
challenges that Lloyd George faced at the Paris Peace
Conference. (3 marks)
5. Source C suggests that the American troops
(A) Were well supplied with big field guns
(B) Were overly reliant on cavalry charges
(C) Were arriving in France in large numbers
(D) Were eager to begin fighting the Germans
6. Using Source D, which of the following statements BEST
explains why Neiberg suggests that Ludendorff’s offensive
plan failed?
(A) The German attack was costly
(B) The German army lacked sufficient food
(C) The whole operation was poorly planned
(D) The Germans failed to break the will of France and
Britain
7. Using Sources A and B and your own knowledge, explain
the roles of Clemenceau, Lloyd George and Wilson in
creating a peace treaty in Paris, which was seen to be a
compromise.
Part B (10 marks)
8. Assess how useful Sources C and D would be for a
historian studying the significance of the turning points of
World War I.
In your answer consider the perspectives provided by the
TWO sources and the reliability of each one.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
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2014
HSC 2 Unit
SOURCE A: Extract from the diary of a German infantryman
describing his first encounter with a tank, 1916
Panic spread like an electric current, passing from man to man
along the trench. As the churning tracks reared overhead the bravest
men clambered above ground to launch suicidal counter-attacks,
hurling grenades onto the tanks’ roofs or shouting and stabbing at
any vision within reach. They were shot down or crushed, while
others threw up their hands in terrified surrender or belted down the
communication trenches towards the second line.
SOURCE B: German soldiers on the Western Front
Michael Landolt, the archaeologist leading the dig, said: ‘It’s a bit
like Pompeii. Everything collapsed in seconds and is just the way
it was at the time. Here, as in Pompeii, we found the bodies as they
were at the moment of their death. Some of the men were found in
sitting positions on a bench, others lying down. One was projected
down a flight of wooden stairs and was found in a foetal position ...
‘Metal objects were rusty, wood was in good condition and we
found some pages of newspapers that were still readable. Leather
was in good condition as well, still supple. The items will be taken
to a laboratory, cleaned and examined.’
Archaeologists also uncovered the wooden sides, floors and
stairways of the shelter.
The dead soldiers were part of the 6th Company, 94th Reserve
Infantry Regiment ... The bodies have been handed over to the
German War Graves Commission but unless relatives can be found
and they request the remains to be repatriated, it is planned that the
men will be buried at Illfurth.
The underground tunnel was big enough to shelter 500 men and
had 16 exits. It would have been equipped with heating, telephone
connections, electricity, beds and a pipe to pump out water.
The French attacked the shelter on March 18, 1918 with aerial
mines that penetrated the ground and blasted in the side wall of the
shelter in two points ...
* poignant - deeply moving
metre
** approximately 3 ft (feet) to 1
SOURCE D: Diagram illustrating trench warfare
SOURCE C: Article, Mail Online, 10 February 2012 by
Graham Smith, www.dailymail.co.uk
The ‘Pompeii’ of the Western Front: Archaeologists find
the bodies of 21 tragic World War One German soldiers in
perfectly preserved trenches where they were buried alive by an
Allied shell
The bodies of 21 German soldiers entombed in a perfectly
preserved World War One shelter have been discovered 94 years
after they were killed. The men were part of a larger group of 34
who were buried alive when a huge Allied shell exploded above the
tunnel in 1918, causing it to cave in.
Thirteen bodies were recovered from the underground shelter, but
the remaining men had to be left under a mountain of mud as it was
too dangerous to retrieve them.
Nearly a century later, French archaeologists stumbled upon the
mass grave on the former Western Front in eastern France during
excavation work for a road building project ...
Many of the skeletal remains were found in the same positions the
men had been in at the time of the collapse, prompting experts to
liken the scene to Pompeii ...
As well as the bodies, poignant* personal effects such as boots,
helmets, weapons, wine bottles, spectacles, wallets, pipes, cigarette
cases and pocket books were also found. Even the skeleton of
a goat was found, assumed to be a source of fresh milk for the
soldiers.
Archaeologists believe the items have been so well-preserved
because hardly any air, water or light had penetrated the trench. The
300ft-long** tunnel was located 18ft** beneath the surface near the
small town of Carspach in the Alsace region of France.
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SOURCE E: Excerpt from Allied soldier Robert Lindsay’s war
diary
15th of September 1916
There had been a big show this morning ... Our people suffered
heavily from our new gunfire methods - the barrage - to which our
men were not accustomed ...
Well! Here we were shelled for three days by the old Hun,
fortunately most of his stuff went 50 yards* over, though we did
have a few people laid out now and then. Found a dug-out, but
rarely went to it. Weather beautiful. It was somewhat interesting
to a newcomer to watch the shells knocking Martinpuich into a
heap of bricks, only about 150-200 yards* away. Though not so
amusing when the bricks began to fall around one. Hun used a lot
of shrapnel against us - dirty stuff! We often picked up bits which
fell all around us, but had to let them go at once - they were so hot.
At night one of our tanks just on our right flank took fire. It blazed
away for a long time while the Hun amused himself flinging shells
at it.
We had a very lively three days of it ... We used for line
Headquarters an old dug¬out in the near end of Martinpuich with
eight entrances - five of which were blown in by shellfire, one
actually while I was inside.
* approximately 1 yard to 1 metre
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Part A (15 marks)
Multiple choice questions are worth 1 mark each.
1. What is the most significant piece of historical evidence in
Source A about the impact of tanks on the Western Front?
(A) All the men turned and ran.
(B) Tanks were used to crush men.
(C) Men did not have equipment to fight against tanks.
(D) The tank was effective in creating terror in the enemy.
2. What is the key evidence in Source B that indicates to
a historian that the Germans were well prepared for
stalemate on the Western Front?
(A) The trenches were well built.
(B) The trenches were constructed beside a forest.
(C) The German trench was full of soldiers.
(D) The Germans brought their winter coats with them.
3. Which of the following statements is best supported by the
information in Source C about conditions in the German
trench system?
(A) Goats were eaten in the trenches.
(B) No water or air could get into the shelter.
(C) Metal objects were rusty but wood was in good
condition.
(D) The trenches included facilities for soldiers to rest
between battles.
4. Using Source D, name ONE feature of trench warfare and
describe how it made it difficult to break the stalemate. (2
marks)
5. Which evidence in Source E most clearly supports Source
D’s depiction of trench warfare?
(A) Soldiers feared shrapnel.
(B) Aircraft were used effectively by both sides.
(C) Machine-guns made trench warfare defensive.
(D) Shelling hindered the ability to break the stalemate.
6. According to Source E, which German tactic had the most
significant impact on Allied soldiers?
(A) Barrage
(B) Shelling
(C) Shrapnel
(D) Failure of the tanks
7. Use Sources A and D and your own knowledge to answer
the following question. Outline strategies and tactics that
were used to break the stalemate on the Western Front. (8
marks)
Part B (10 marks)
8. How useful would Sources C and E be for a historian
studying the nature of trench warfare?
In your answer, consider the perspectives provided by the
two sources and the reliability of each one.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
87
20th century Germany
The Syllabus Document
Germany 1918 - 1939
Principal focus
Students investigate the key features and issues of the history
of Germany 1918–1939.
Percentage of HSC Course Time: 25%
Outcomes
The HSC Outcomes are lister earlier in this handbook. Through
a study of Germany 1918 - 1945 students learn to:
• ask relevant historical questions
• locate, select and organise information from different types
of sources, including ICT, to describe and analyse relevant
features and issues
• describe and evaluate the role of key individuals, groups
and events during the period
• explain and evaluate the significance of forces contributing
to change and continuity during the period
• evaluate the usefulness and reliability of sources
• account for and assess differing perspectives and
interpretations of the period
• present the findings of investigations on aspects of the
national study, analysing and synthesising information from
different types of sources
• communicate an understanding of relevant concepts,
features and issues using appropriate and well-structured
oral and/or written and/or multimedia forms including ICT.
Key features and issues
• successes and failures of democracy
• nature and role of nationalism
• influence of the German army
• nature and influence of racism
• changes in society
• the nature and impact of Nazism
• aims and impact of Nazi foreign policy
Students learn about:
1 Weimar Republic
– emergence of the Democratic Republic and the impact
of the Treaty of Versailles
– political, economic and social issues in the Weimar
Republic to 1929
– collapse of the Weimar Republic 1929–1933
– impact of the Great Depression on Germany
2
The rise of the Nazi Party
– rise of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) from 1923
– Hitler’s accession to power
– initial consolidation of Nazi power 1933–1934
3
Nazism in power
– Hitler’s role in the Nazi state
– Nazism as totalitarianism
– the role of propaganda, terror and repression; SA and
SS; opposition to Nazism
– social and cultural life in the Nazi state: role of Hitler
Youth, women, religion
– Nazi racial policy; anti-Semitism: policy and practice to
1939
4 Nazi foreign policy
– nature of Nazi foreign policy: aims and strategies to
September 1939
88
– impact of ideology on Nazi foreign policy to September
1939
Personality - Albert Speer
Principal focus
Through the study of Albert Speer, students gain an
understanding of the role of this personality in a period of
national or international history.
Percentage of HSC Course Time: 25%
Outcomes
The HSC Outcomes are lister earlier in this handbook. Through
a study of Albert Speer students learn to:
• ask relevant historical questions
• locate, select and organise information from different types
of sources, including ICT, to describe and analyse relevant
features and issues
• assess the impact of the personality on twentieth-century
history
• analyse the contribution of the personality to the period in
which they lived
• account for and assess differing perspectives and
interpretations of the personality
• evaluate the usefulness and reliability of sources
• present the findings of investigations on aspects of the
personality, analysing and synthesising information from
different types of sources
• communicate an understanding of relevant concepts,
features and issues using appropriate and well-structured
oral and/or written and/or multimedia forms including ICT.
Students learn about:
1 Historical context
– rise of the Nazi party and the personal charisma of
Adolf Hitler
– development of the Nazi state after 1933
– Nazi war effort to 1945
– Nuremberg War Crimes Trials
2Background
– family background and education
– introduction to Nazism and his reasons for joining the
Nazi party
3
Rise to prominence
– early work for the Nazi party
– appointment as ‘First Architect of the Reich’
– the ‘Germania’ project and the new Reich Chancellery
– work as Armaments Minister
4 Significance and evaluation
– relationship with Hitler
– involvement with anti-Semitic activities in connection
with the Germania project – the question of the ‘Jewflats’
– use and abuse of forced labour
– knowledge of and links with the concentration camp
system
– reaction to Hitler’s ‘scorched earth’ policy in 1945
– the significance of Speer’s work as Minister for
Armaments and War Production to the overall German
war effort
– evaluation: for example, the ‘Good Nazi’?
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Handling the Germany
Question
During your Preliminary Course you learned the
basics of writing traditional essays. Your study of the Ten
Commandments of Essay Writing indicated how to write
the three basic paragraph types - opening paragraphs, body
paragraphs and concluding paragraphs. Your knowledge of
these essay writing techniques is all you need to handle the
Germany questions.
Like all questions in the HSC, the Germany essay is worth
25 marks and you should allow 45 minutes to complete it. This
is a little longer than you have to do essays in English. As a
result you would probably plan your essay with about four
body paragraphs.
The question you will be given in the HSC has an internal
choice so effectively you are given two questions and you
only have to attempt one of them. Guidelines to assist students
(called the “rubric”) will be provided for each question. These
indicate a number of points the markers will use to judge your
response.
The Rubric
The rubric is the list of points indicating the things that
will be assessed in the marking of your written responses. A
rubric is provided for your Germany essay, for your Albert
Speer responses and for you Conflict in Europe essay (though
not, curiously, your World War One responses - who knows
why not?) In constructing your answers you should ensure you
address the elements in the rubric. The rubric is the same for all
the Germany, Speer and Conflict in Europe questions and reads
as follows:
In this section you will be assessed on how well you:
• demonstrate historical knowledge and understanding
relevant to the question
• communicate ideas and information using historical terms
and concepts appropriately
• present a sustained, logical and cohesive response
The Structure
The work you did in the Preliminary course on traditional
essay writing provides you with the basic structure for handling
the Germany question.
You will write an introductory paragraph which:
• answers the question in the first sentence or two
• outlines the line of argument for each of the subsequent
body paragraphs, covering each paragraph’s argument in
one sentence.
You will then write four body paragraphs (or three if you
are a slow writer) and in each body paragraph you will:
• introduce the topic of the paragraph in a topic sentence
• fully develop the argument related to this topic
• support your argument with specific factual evidence
• in the last sentence, link the material you have explored to
the question it has been helping to answer.
You will finish with a concluding paragraph in which you
will:
• summarise the main thrust of your argument, more briefly
than in the introductory paragraph.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Handling the Speer Questions
You need to be aware of the fact that there is only one
generic question (in two parts) on the HSC exam paper. There
is no choice. There are twenty-seven personalities available to
be studied, but the one question asked has to apply to all these
personalities, so it will, of necessity, be a general question.
The generic question provided in the Specimen Exam Paper
(2005) was:
(a) Describe the rise to prominence of the Twentieth Century
personality you have studied. (10 marks)
(b) ‘Those who are inspired by an ideal rather than selfinterest make the biggest impact on history.’
To what extent does the study of your personality support
this view? (15 marks)
The Dreyfus question you completed in the MidPreliminary Exam was designed to help you handle the Speer
question as it was a mirror-image of the Speer task. As with the
Dreyfus exam question, for the Speer task you will be given a
two-part question. The first part asks students to “Describe”
or “Outline” some aspect of the life of the personality. It calls
for simple narration. The second part is likely to ask students
to “Analyse”, “Assess” or “Evalute” the importance of the
personality’s career. It will be a question seeking an analytical
response. A “To what extent” or “How accurate” question is
possible.
The Personalities question is worth 25 marks with the first
part worth 10 marks and the second part worth 15 marks. In the
time allowed (45 minutes) you should spend a little less than
20 minutes on the first part and a little over 25 minutes on the
second part.
Responses to Question (a) should consist of one or two
sustained body paragraphs. If the question allows your
coverage to fall into two neatly divided bundles of content
(say, Speer’s role as architect and then Speer’s role as Minister
of Armaments) then it would clearly make sense to write two
paragraphs. If, however, no such clear division is evident, then
simply write one long body paragraph.
Question (b) calls for analysis so you should write a mini
essay. The introduction should provide an answer and the usual
outline for the two (maybe three) body paragraphs to follow.
The body paragraphs should then argue your response. There
will probably be a quotation to which you must respond. Make
sure you maintain a clear focus on the quotation as you argue
your answer. Above all ... ARGUE! Take a position related to
the quotation and argue that position. Avoid simply telling the
story of Speer’s life.
CONTENT-RICH ARGUMENT
In all the Germany and Speer questions, the critical
discriminator that will separate the outstanding responses from
the merely good responses is the degree to which they argue
a clear position and do so with “content-rich” factual support.
Often the little gems of factual detail the examiners are not
expecting will be the things that make examiners sit up and
think, “Maybe this is the 25/25 I’ve been looking for.”
Aim to make your responses as content-rich as possible.
Learn the names, know the dates, be aware of the key events,
nominate the key concepts, mention the important groups! Just
make sure you let your marker know that you know lots of
content.
It is easy to construct a good argument that is,
nevertheless, content-thin. A comparably sensible argument
that is augmented with rich factual detail is much more likely
to make the impression on the marker that you want it to make.
89
Germany Historiography
Why do historiography?
Have a look at the syllabus document for Germany. One of
the outcomes indicates that students should “account for and
assess differing perspectives and interpretations of the period.”
Outcome 3.4 says students will “explain and evaluate differing
perspectives and interpretations of the past.” Obviously
the syllabus wants us to explore historiography. Sadly, few
students make any meaningful reference to historiography.
Fewer still know how to do it well. But the best students do
know some historiography and do know how to integrate it into
their essays.
to fruition. Hitler had openly espoused physical destruction of
Jews in Mein Kampf (1925). It was a central goal once he was
in power. In January 1939 he spoke of the “annihilation of the
Jewish race in Europe.” In early 1941, with the disorder of war
as a cover and expecting imminent victory over Russia, Hitler
issued secret order for mass killings of Jews to begin.
Functionalists
You will probably not write entire paragraphs using
this material. All you should aim to do is write two or three
sentences in your Germany responses in which you use some
of this historiographical material. You aim to integrate this
material into a relevant body paragraph.
This guide is far from extensive. It is not meant to be. It is
meant to give you three things:
• the names of key historians involved in debates
• their viewpoints explained in simple terms
• examples of how the material could be written
Martin Broszat - Hitler and the genesis of the ‘final solution’
(1978 - a refutation of David Irving and Holocaust denial)
Hans Mommsen - The realisation of the unthinkable: The ‘final
solution of the Jewish question’ in the Third Reich
Ian Kershaw - Improvised Genocide? The emergence of the
‘final solution’ in the ‘Wargenthau’ (1992)
Argued by liberal and left wing historians. Placed blame
for the crime of the Third Reich back on the German people.
Hitler was not the sole initiator of the Holocaust. Hitler mainly
used Jews for propaganda. In a chaotic Nazi state Nazi policy
emerged in an unsystematic and improvised fashion. Rival
bureaucracies competed with each other to put the ‘Führer’s
will’ into practice. Original plan was simply to deport Jews but
failure of Russian invasion in 1941 meant local authorities in
the East began exterminations to deal with Jews transported to
their areas. Hitler approved as this improvised process grew
into a systematic program of genocide. It was the chaos of the
administrative structure of the Third Reich and increasingly
desperate war situation which gave rise to the Holocaust.
Hitler’s anti-Semitism - when did it begin?
Relativising the Holocaust - the Historikerstreit
Ian Kershaw - Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris (1999)
Was Hitler a congenital anti-Semite or was his antiSemitism a political ploy? Kershaw’s research indicates that
the seeds of his anti-Semitism were always there, since it was
endemic in the area of Austria into which he was born. It only
developed into full-blown hatred after WWI as Hitler blamed
the Jews for Germany’s defeat in the war - and soldiering was
the only thing he had ever been good at!
The revisionists
How do you use historiography?
Order or chaos? The Nazi State
Traditional view
Karl Dietrich Bracher - The German Dictatorship (1970)
Joachim Fest - Hitler (1973)
The Nazis created a totalitarian state. All signs of
opposition were crushed. German society was intensely loyal
and in harmony with Nazism. Hitler had absolute authority and
was master of the Third Reich. Hitler’s anti-Semitism, antiMarxism and desire for Lebensraum were absolutely decisive
in shaping German policy.
Revisionist view
Martin Broszat - The Hitler State (1981)
Ian Kershaw - The Nazi Dictatorship (1985)
The Nazis never monopolised power but shared it with the
army, the conservative establishment and big industrialists.
Opposition to Nazis never disappeared and Nazis feared a
1918 home front collapse. Hitler was lazy and a weak dictator.
Rival centres of bureaucratic power competed with each other
leading to chaos and poor planning. It was ‘authoritarian
anarchy’.
Holocaust Origins - Intentionalists vs Functionalists
Intentionalists
Klaus Hildebrand - The Third Reich (1984)
Gerald Fleming - Hitler and the Final Solution (1982)
Argued by conservative historians. Grew out of an
atmosphere of denial in West Germany after the war. Felt
Nazism was an aberration. The Holocaust resulted from the
determination and ability of one man to bring his racist desires
90
Ernst Nolte - The past that refuses to pass away (1986)
Nolte’s 1986 newspaper article sought to relativise the
Holocaust by saying it was simply another instance of mass
murder, like the Armenian massacres, Stalin’s gulags, US
policies in Vietnam and Pol Pot’s atrocities in Kampuchea,
Holocaust was simply one among many evils. It was not
unique. He argued it was historically and morally incorrect to
single out Germans for doing what many nations had done.
Nazism and the Holocaust was explained as a response to the
threat of Communism. Nolte’s view prompted the Historians’
Debate (Historikerstreit) in Germany in the 1980s. Those who
agreed with Nolte tended to be conservatives.
Andreas Hillgruber - Two sorts of destruction: The Smashing of
the German Reich and the End of European Jewry (1986)
Hillgruber defended Nolte. Soviet expulsion of Germans
from eastern Europe and genocide of Jews were two
catastrophes. Essentially he equated Allied treatment of
Germany to the Nazi genocide as both emanated from policies
of population transfer and extermination. Felt German
Army’s decision to fight on in WWII against Communists
was honourable and an act of self-defence, even though it
prolonged existence of death camps.
The liberal opposition
Jürgen Habermas, Eberhard Jaeckel and Hans Mommsen
These liberal and socialist historians opposed the views
of conservatives like Nolte and Hillgruber. Believed that to
relativise the Holocaust was dangerous. In the newspaper Die
Zeit Jaeckel argued the holocaust was unique as never before
was every member of a particular group singled out to be killed
as rapidly as possible using “every possible means of state
power.” Every single Jew was to be murdered. Eradication
was to be total. The relativists provide useful material for the
holocaust deniers.
Extremes of the Holocaust debate
The Holocaust deniers
David Irving - Hitler’s War (1977)
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Irving and other Holocaust deniers such as Ernst Zundel
and Fred Leuchter claim that the Holocaust never happened. It
was a fiction that grew out of the exaggeration of the Jews after
the war. There were never gas chambers. Irving claims that the
murders that did take place happened without Hitler’s orders.
He claims Hitler did not know anything about the murders of
Jews until 1943. The murders that did take place were carried
out in secret and very few people knew what was happening.
The Lipstadt libel trial (initiated by Irving who claimed
Deborah Lipstadt libelled him) proved to be harmful to the
cause of the Holocaust deniers.
The Germans are all guilty
Daniel Goldhagen - Hitler’s Willing Executioners (1996)
“Germans’ anti-Semitic beliefs about Jews were the central
causal agent of the Holocaust.” Far from the Holocaust being a
closely guarded secret, it was collectively known and approved
of by the German people. The German people are collectively
guilty and must be held morally accountable. German antiSemitism was pervasive and “exterminationalist” and thereby
“qualitatively unique”. The planners and perpetrators of
genocide were “ordinary Germans”. Provoked much debate
when published. Most professional historians have been critical
and think the book is deeply flawed.
Albert Speer - Redeemed man or clever liar?
Gitta Sereny, Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth (1995)
Seeks to neither blame not exculpate Speer. In a deep
analysis of Speer’s life she helps the reader to see that he is a
“morally extinguished” man. He claimed he didn’t know about
the Holocaust. Sereny does not accept this as even if he was
not at the Posen meeting at which Himmler spoke clearly, he
must have heard about it from close Gauleiter friends the next
day.
Matthias Schmidt, Albert Speer: The End of a Myth (1982)
Critically examines Speer’s veracity as a memoirist and
chronicler. Speer promoted himself with a clever lie. He was a
shameless opportunist at every stage of his life.
Dan van den Vat, The Life and Lies of Albert Speer (1997)
Speer was a dedicated servant of the party who, as Hitler’s
minister of wartime production, was the Nazis’ principle
exploiter of forced labour. He knew of the atrocities but
pretended to be ignorant, only suspecting that something
terrible was going on. his avowals of ignorance and repentance
were a self-serving sham.
Henry T. King Jr., The Two Worlds of Albert Speer : Reflections
of a Nuremberg Prosecutor (1997)
Naiveté, seduction and ambition drove Speer to the
pinnacle of Nazi power. Speer was clearly unique among the
top Nazis that survived the war. Speer accepted responsibility
for his actions and offered mea culpas for his sins. During and
after his imprisonment, Speer pondered his actions and began
to search for some degree of redemption until the end of his
life. He was a complex and brilliant individual who confronted
issues of good and evil on a scale that most of us cannot
imagine.
Examples of how to use this material
In a paragraph about conformity, dissent and resistance:
Dr Goebbels’ attempts to portray Germany as a
“volksgemeinschaft” seem to have influenced the early
post-war histories. Joachim Fest stressed the degree to which
opposition was crushed in Germany and an intense loyalty to
Hitler was generated. A revisionist view has evolved in more
recent histories by Martin Broszat and Hans Mommsen which
stress the Nazi’s continuing fear of home front collapse and the
low level of opposition that persisted throughout the years of
the Third Reich.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
In a paragraph about Nazi racism:
The genesis of Hitler’s anti-Semitism has long been a
matter for historical debate. Ian Kershaw’s recent Hitler
biography “Hubris” suggests that it was the belief that the Jews
were responsible for Germany’s defeat in the Great War which
suddenly elevated the common but mild anti-Semitism typical
of many Austrians into the maniacal and lethal hatred of Jews
Hitler was to manifest in his years in power.
In a paragraph about totalitarianism:
Nazi propaganda certainly pushed the image of Nazism as
a well-ordered totalitarian state with a highly disciplined and
compliant people who were supportive of Nazism. Historians
such as Joachim Fest and KD Bracher gave credence to this
view. More recent research, in particular by Ian Kershaw
and Martin Broszat, has painted a very different picture.
They suggest that the Nazi system was much more like a
medieval court with a chaotic administrative structure, often
with competing bureaucracies. They also indicate that power
was not absolute, but shared with conservative elites and big
industrialists.
In a paragraph on Hitler’s use of racism:
After the war it was comforting for many Germans to
ascribe blame for the excesses of racism in Germany on
Hitler. An “Intentionalist” school of historians such as Klaus
Hildebrand and other like-minded conservatives saw the
development of the Holocaust as a result of the intent of one
man. Liberal historians have more recently challenged this
perspective and developed a “Functionalist” view in which the
blame for racist excesses is put back on the German people.
Functionalist historians such as Broszat claim the Holocaust
developed in a largely improvised fashion, the result of lack
of control from Berlin rather than Hitler’s directives. Ian
Kershaw’s 1990s research confirmed this view indicating that
deportation turned into extermination only because of the
failure to conquer Russia in 1941.
In a paragraph on the scale of the Holocaust:
A historians debate (Historikerstreit) erupted in Germany
in the 1980s when Ernst Nolte argued that the Holocaust was
just one more instance of mass murder among many in world
history and not an exceptional event. This “relativising” of the
Holocaust provoked a fierce response from liberal historians
such as Jürgen Habermas and Eberhard Jaekel. They argued
that the scale and intent of anti-Semitism in the Third Reich
really was unique and attacked the revisionists for understating
the nature of the Holocaust in a misguided attempt to foster
German nationalism.
In a paragraph on Speer and racism:
Daniel Goldhagen’s provocative “Hitler’s Willing
Executioners”(1996) accused many thousands of Germans
of being aware of and willingly participating in mass killings
of Jews. This contrasts with Albert Speer’s own claims of not
knowing about the mass murders, in spite of his proximity to
Hitler. Historians of Speer give his claim little respectability.
Though Henry King does credit Speer with a moral redemption
after his conviction, other historians are less forgiving. Schmidt
regards Speer as nothing more than a clever liar whereas van
den Vat takes the view that Speer’s ignorance was pretence and
a self-serving sham. Even Gitta Sereny, who does not blame
Speer as do many of his biographers, cannot give credit to his
claim that he did not know about Himmler’s infamous Posen
speech.
In a paragraph on racism or the Holocaust:
The credibility of the Holocaust deniers of the far right
such as David Irving and Ernst Zundel suffered a severe blow
when Irving accused Deborah Lipstadt of libel. The subsequent
libel trial, with critical evidence given by Richard Evans,
exposed the weakness of their arguments and the prejudices
upon which they were based.
91
Germany
From Weimar to Hitler
Notes on the video from the series The Great Depression
(This video is available as an MP4
on the English-History Intranet site)
Introduction
On the 30th January 1933 Hitler became Chancellor of
Germany. Shortly after he promised relief from the Depression
and to return the country to prosperity. Hitler had achieved
support from a broad range of people in German society
- not just his natural supporters, i.e. the militarists and the
nationalists. In 1933 six million Germans were unemployed
and living standards had collapsed. Business was almost at a
standstill and thousands were living on the brink of starvation.
Hitler blamed this on foreign enemies and traitors within
Germany.
In 1929, living standards in Germany had been higher
than almost anywhere in the world. It was the most powerful
industrial nation in Europe with mighty firms such as Siemens,
AEG, Krupp and Opel. The country had achieved political
stability - in the 1928 elections two-thirds of the voters had
backed moderate politicians. (The Nazis did very badly by
comparison and won only 12 seats) During the time of the
Weimar Republic up to 1929 the German people had come to
terms with their neighbours and their own power THEN came
the depression which left six million Germans unemployed and
led to a fanatical following of Hitler who was expansionist,
racist and imperialist.
The Great Inflation
In 1929 the Germans were just beginning to taste affluence
but by agreeing to the Versailles Peace Terms they had
prevented this from eventuating. They had been forced to agree
to harsh terms and numerous concessions, both political and
financial. Germany had to pay France and Belgium in kind (in
goods) as well as agree to pay six and a half billion pounds
over 30 years. During 1921/22 Germany made her payments.
They printed money in order to avoid making Germans
pay directly by raising direct taxes. This caused inflation to
accelerate.
In 1923, the Germans were believed to have defaulted
in a payment of 140,000 telegraph poles. In response, the
French invaded and occupied the Ruhr hoping to extract their
reparations. The German Government could not militarily
resist so they encouraged a policy of passive resistence.
They paid workers in the Ruhr not to work and paid for this
by printing more money. With fewer people working, the
Government was getting less tax and therefore had to increase
the printing of money. This further devalued the German
Mark (currency). In June 1922, there were 330 marks to one
US dollar. By the next May it was 73,000 marks to the US
dollar. People soon became used
to handling billions of marks.
They needed clothes baskets full
of money to buy food. Some
restaurants only served people
who agreed to pay the price
applying at the end of the meal.
Workers demanded to be payed
twice a day and spent the money
immediately. The hyper-inflation
wiped out the savings of the
middle class and it was to be these
people who would later support
Hitler.
In 1923 the Great Inflation
was brought to an end by a new
Charles Dawes
government who introduced
a new currency, the Rentenmark. The Allies, through the
Dawes Plan, had scaled down reparations as a response to
the promises of this new government to fulfil the terms of the
Treaty of Versailles. As a result the Allies agreed to give loans
to Germany to help them recover so that they could pay their
reparations.
Recovery
The Allies now believed that Germany was politically
stable and would honour her debts and they therefore were
interested in investing in Germany because of the high interest
rates that were available. These rates were deliberately kept
higher than usual to attract investment. From 1924 to 1929
foreign investors poured 23 billion marks into Germany. This
was used to equip the industrial boom with the most modern
equipment. Germany industry expanded and began capturing
foreign markets. The Weimar politicians were eager to spend
the foreigners’ money on roads and railways. They also built
cheap modern flats and hospitals and began to provide some
expanded social welfare services like pensions.
The problem was that the Germans were sowing the
seeds of their later destruction by this investment. They were
borrowing money on short term loans but they were investing
it in long term projects like factories and industrial machinery
which could not be easily sold if the investors decided to
withdraw their loans. Also, of the 23 billion marks borrowed
since 1924, 8 billion had been recycled to pay the Allies, so if
the Allies recalled their money the Germans would be unable
to pay. Germany’s prosperity was vulnerable because it was
built on borrowed money traced back to the peace treaty of
1919.
Things Fall Apart
In late 1928 and early 1929 foreign investors began to find
the New York Stock Market a more profitable place to invest
and began to withdraw their money from Germany. This set
off a crisis in the loans to Germany. To try to attract more
foreign loans, the interest rates had to be raised higher, but this
made loans to German industrialists too expensive so they cut
back on investment. This meant that they laid off workers and
unemployment increased. This meant that demand decreased
and as a result the employers laid off even more workers
because not enough people were buying their products. This
in turn led to less demand which led to less employment and
so on. The onset of the Depression proper made this situation
even worse. By February 1930 there were three and a half
million unemployed.
Economic Crisis becomes Political Crisis
Two Rentenmark - the new currency that helped end hyperinflation
92
In March 1930, the coalition government of Chancellor
Muller was in crisis. The Social Democratic Party advocated
increased social welfare to help the growing numbers of
unemployed. This would have been paid for by greater taxes
on the wealthy and as a consequence the German People’s
Party, backed by the large industrialists, refused to agree with
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
their coalition partners. The coalition split and Germany was
plunged back into a political crisis and instability.
The Versailles Treaty had helped to contribute to
Germany’s inability to cope with the economic crisis. She
had been stripped of her overseas colonies and lost much of
her own land in Europe. The Rhineland had been occupied
by Allied troops and Germany was forbidden from having an
Airforce or a sizeable Navy. Her Army was very restricted.
Threats to the Legitimacy of Weimar
Hatred for the Weimar system now grew and threatened
its legitimacy. The legend that Germany had been “stabbed in
the back” (the “Dollstoss” legend) grew - after all Germany
had not been invaded so people could claim that the Army
had not been defeated but had been betrayed by the people
who signed the armistice and the peace treaty, that is the
Social Democrats (the left wingers). It had been these left
wingers who had signed the treaty and who had agreed to
reparations and many Germans now blamed them. Weimar
faced threats to its legitimacy in the form of assassinations of
politicians. Erzberger (who signed the armistice) and Rathenau
(who agreed to reparations) were both assassinated in the
1920s. They also faced coup d’etats and armed insurrections
(e.g. Spartacists, Kapp Putsch, Munich Beer Hall Putsch).
There was widespread resentment against the Republic from
small businessmen, the civil service, the middle class, the
large landowners, the old militarists and nationalists and the
peasants. People were only prepared to put up with the Weimar
system so long as the good times lasted.
A cartoon suggesting Philipp Scheidemann stabbed the German Army
in the back. “Deutsche denkt daran” - “Germans, remember”
The End of the Weimar Republic
The Versailles Treaty had led to the economic vulnerability
of Germany and the political fragility of the Weimar Republic.
The Weimar Republic was not, however, doomed from the start
but it ran out of time. When the Great Depression hit Germany
and ended the period of prosperity, the Nazis came back into
the centre stage of politics. The Nazis claimed that Germany’s
woes were caused by foreign enemies and the Weimar
politicians. But even in the Spring of 1930, the Allies could
still have stopped Hitler by financially aiding the republic, but
they failed to do so.
The President, von Hindenburg, was swayed by high
ranking officers and chose the ex-Army officer, Heinrich
Bruning as Chancellor and allowed him to rule by decree.
Bruning’s policy was to impoverish Germany by making the
Depression worse so that the Allies would give up on the idea
of reparations. If this happened Bruning would have become a
hero to the nationalists and he would have therefore left Hitler
without much support and no longer a threat. The German
economy did get worse as Bruning cut back expenditure and
increased taxes. This led to increased Nazi support so much so
that in the 1930 elections Hitler’s Nazis had a ten-fold increase
in support. Political support in Germany was polarizing (i.e.
going to the two extremes of politics) By 1930, more than 30%
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of the German electorate were voting for parties that had no
allegiance to the Weimar Republic.
The Nazis started anti-Jewish riots and this political and
social instability prompted more foreign investors to withdraw
their money causing even more economic problems. Bruning
continued his policies of cutting expenditure and increasing
taxes. By the end of 1930 the Allies were having financial
difficulties of their own. The Nazis thrived running soup
kitchens to help the poor and promising to revitalise the nation.
In May 1931 a European banking crisis began in Austria.
The major Austrian bank was declared bankrupt and its funds
were frozen, including those of Germany. Foreigners became
alarmed and withdrew their money from Germany. Bruning
asked the Allies to bail Germany out with loans but Britain
and the US would not and the French would only help with a
loan if Bruning suppressed Hitler. Bruning would not do this
because Hitler had become too popular and to try to suppress
him could have led to a civil war. Consequently, Germany did
not get the French loan. The economic situation in Germany
deteriorated and eventually there were six million unemployed
- half the working population. The crisis then spread to
other countries. The US was the only country that had the
economic strength to have rescued Germany but they were
too shortsighted to see the effect that leaving Germany alone
would have. They were isolationist and President Hoover was
not interested in helping Germany. He was more concerned
with America’s problems at home.
Hitler takes over
Early in 1932 Hitler had a decisive victory when he gave
a two and a half hour speech at the Dusseldorf Industrial Club
and won the financial backing of the captains of industry.
They saw him as their best defence against communism and
he promised to preserve private property. Hitler was a great
speaker and he could tailor his delivery to his audience and this
is what he did with the industrialists.
Bruning failed to make the Allies drop their reparations
demands and consequently Hindenberg sacked him.
Hindenberg was pressured to make Hitler the Chancellor but he
did not want to. He did not like Hitler and put in two stop-gap
Chancellors while he sought a solution. He offered Hitler the
Chancellorship in coalition but Hitler refused. Hitler sensed
that public support was growing in his favour and he waited
until Hindenberg offered him the Chancellorship in his own
right.
The German Recovery under Hitler
Hitler’s policies were put into effect and were made to
work through the application of terror. After 1933 the German
economy recovered more quickly than any other country. By
1936 they had reached a level of prosperity equal to that of
1928 but the cost of this success was democracy and individual
liberty. Hitler isolated Germany from the rest of the world by
closing the foreign exchange markets and freezing foreign
money in Germany. To stop inflation he simply fixed prices and
controlled dividends. By May 1933 the trade unions had been
made illegal. Hitler undertook massive public expenditure,
especially on roads and financed this with deficits but with
no risk of inflation. The economy began recovering but the
economic miracle was achieved through the use of terror. The
great tragedy for the world was that this was eventually to lead
to World War Two.
Conclusion
There were many factors involved in Hitler becoming the
ruler of Germany but a major share of the blame has to rest
with the Allies. It was the Allies who caused the economic and
political fragility of the Weimar system through their vengeful
treatment of Germany after World War One and their failure to
aid German democracy when it got into difficulties during the
late 1920s and the early 1930s.
93
The Hitler Appointment
30 January 1933
Who or what was most responsible for
Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor?
(A lecture by Dr. Douglas Newton available
as an MP3 on the Department’s intranet site)
Responsibility: Systems? People? Parties? Structures?
You need to remember that Hitler did not have total power
on January 30, 1933. He only had full power eighteen months
later when Hindenburg died. Only then did Hitler become
both Chancellor and President. Until that time he had shared
power with the conservatives and his vice-chancellor, Franz
von Papen. Who is to blame for Hitler getting the position of
Chancellor of Germany? Potentially there are many things (i.e.
the capitalist system, the Germany system, guilty individuals
such as Hindenburg and Von Papen, the SPD (Social
Democratic Party of Germany), the KPD (Communist Party of
Germany), the Weimar democratic structure) but it is the thesis
of this lecture that there were two things vital in Hitler coming
to power:
• Many voters made the decision to vote for Hitler and
make it the largest party by far in the German Reichstag
(parliament)
• The German conservative elite decided to use Hitler to
defend their privileges and deflect the growing threat of
communism in Germany.
The fall of the last democratic government: Müller, March,
1930
The government of Hermann Müller (an SPD government)
was the last democratically elected government in
Germany before Hitler. It lost power in 1930 because it was
overwhelmed by two things:
• 1929 - The Young Plan. Though this plan rescheduled
reparations (in the light of the problems the Depression was
causing) it meant that reparations were again in the news.
Müller’s government sent delegates to discuss reparations
with the allies. The right wing were obviously against all
reparations. Alfred Hugenburg, the press baron and leader
of the DNVP (German National People’s Party) formed a
committee opposed to reparations and invited Hitler to join
that committee. So even though Hitler represented only 2%
of the people he was embraced by these well known rightwingers and put on the front pages by Hugenburg. Hitler
made speeches against the Young Plan and won increasing
popular support.
• The Depression and its horrible economic consequences.
Greatly increased numbers of unemployed created a
problem for Müller - how would the government fund
the increased amount of unemployment benefits? The
German unemployment insurance scheme was designed to
cope with up to 10% unemployment. With the increased
numbers of unemployed during the Depression it was
being overwhelmed. Müller, from the SPD, said more
taxes on the wealthy and higher income taxes were needed
to fund unemployment insurance but Müller’s coalition
partners (the DDP - German Democratic Party, and the
DVP - German People’s Party - both more right wing
parties than the SPD) rejected this and left the government.
(The DDP and the DVP argued for a traditional solution
- cut dole payments.) Müller asked Hindenburg to pass
legislation under the emergency powers provision of the
constitution to get some compromise financial measures
through. Hindenburg refused (even though he would use
emergency powers for right wing governments constantly
in the following years). Hindenburg did not want to give
this power to a socialist. Müller decided to resign and let
94
the conservatives (i.e. Heinrich Brüning) attempt to run
the country. Müller felt they would flounder and the SPD
would be back in power soon after. He did not know that
Brüning already had an agreement with Hindenburg which
would give him the use of the president’s emergency
powers. So Brüning came to power.
Brüning: Presidential government in whose interest?
When Brüning came to
power in April 1930 he already
led a government which was
not really democratic. He
intended to rule without the
authority of the Reichstag
because he had a promise of
presidential emergency powers.
Brüning brought down a classic
deflationary budget. He cut
government spending and aimed
to balance the budget. The
Reichstag rejected the budget (not
surprising since Brüning did not
have a majority in the Reichstag)
so there was an early election in
September 1930.
Heinrich Brüning
Elections of September 1930: The Nazi electoral
breakthrough and who was responsible?
In the elections of September 1930 the Nazi vote went
from 2% to 18% - an amazing improvement! Who voted
for Hitler? Not the working class. Not the unemployed. The
votes came from the middle class liberal vote, especially the
DNVP (German National People’s Party). The votes came
from the centre of German politics. Hitler promised to protect
the middle class. He said that the SA would save them from
communism. (Remember that as politics in Germany was
polarising, the extreme left was also growing in popular
support and lots of middle class people were really afraid of the
growing power of communism.) Brüning lost the election but
remained in power because the President supported him. He
did not need the support of the Reichstag because he had the
support of the President. Fear of the Nazi Party made the SPD
support Brüning much of the time after this. They clearly saw
Brüning as the lesser of two evils. So for the next two years
Brüning got some legislation through the Reichstag with the
support of the SPD. When he did not get their support, he got
the legislation through anyway with the support of emergency
Presidential decrees.
The undermining of Brüning, 1931-32: Who was
responsible?
The government of Brüning fell in April of 1932. Why?
• Externally, he was looking for a foreign policy success.
He tried to end the reparations issue by having the allies
drop their demands for reparations. In the context of
the Depression he thought this was quite possible. The
French refused. The best Brüning could get was a one
year moratorium. He also tried to get an Austro-German
Customs Union going to improve the German economy.
Again the allies stopped him because they said this would
have been in breach of the Versailles Treaty. So Brüning
failed to get a foreign policy success.
• Internally the Depression was getting worse and Brüning
was forced to cut government wages and services. Brüning
becomes known as the “hunger chancellor”.
The right wing decided to move against Brüning. The ultra
right formed the Harzburg Front against Brüning. The front
comprised Hugenburg and the DNVP, the Stahlhelm (the “Steel
Helmets” - a right wing militarist group), and Hitler and his
SA. Brüning was concerned at the activities of the SA and in
April 1932 he had General Groener, his Defence Minister,
attempt to ban the SA. This was not what had been expected
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
of a conservative Brüning
government. Many right wingers
were disillusioned with Brüning.
The Presidential Election was
held in April 1932 and Hitler ran
against Hindenburg. Hindenburg
failed to get a majority in the first
round of voting and had to face
a second round against the next
most successful candidate, Hitler.
Hindenburg won the second
round against Hitler but Hitler
was clearly growing in popularity.
You can also understand why
Hindenburg would not have
Paul von Hindenburg
liked Hitler as a result of this.
Hindenburg also did not like
Brüning because Hindenburg at the Presidential election was
portrayed as the defender of the Weimar Republic against the
extreme right wing Hitler. This would not have impressed
Hindenburg.
A camarilla of the right wing elite decided to dump Brüning
and replace him with a more right wing government. The man
they though would do it was Franz von Papen. Von Papen
was ultra-right and when he took over from Brüning he ran a
government called the Cabinet of Barons because every one
of them was a titled aristocrat. To be successful, Papen would
need the Nazi votes in the Reichstag so Papen and Hitler made
a deal before Papen took over. Hitler said that he would give
him Nazi support in exchange for three demands being met:
• The ban on SA had to be removed
• The socialist government in Prussia had to be dismissed
• There had to be a fresh election in July.
Papen agreed to these requests. When Papen took over in
May 1932 he gave Hitler what he wanted. Clearly Papen was
undermining German democracy.
The elections of July 1932: The Nazi electoral thunderclap
and who was responsible?
In the July 1932 elections, Hitler and the Nazis did very
well. Their vote leapt from 18% to 37.3%. The Nazis had
grown to be almost twice the size of the SPD which was the
next largest party. The votes again came from the middle
class. They were moving from the centre to the right. Fear
of communism among the middle class was a crucial factor.
Also young, new voters voted for the Nazis. After this success
Hitler told Papen that he thought that he should be Chancellor,
after all the Nazis were now easily the largest party in the
Reichstag. Papen and Hindenburg offered Hitler the position
of vice-chancellor. Hitler refused so Papen and Hindenburg
dismissed him. Hindenburg could not stand Hitler. (He was
used to dealing with aristocrats - not some uncultured, upstart
Austrian ex-corporal!) When the Reichstag met in August,
with Goering (a Nazi) as the president of the Reichstag, it
rejected the Chancellor Von Papen and as a result Von Papen,
with the approval of President Hindenburg, dissolved it. It
had lasted one day! Von Papen and Hindenburg were treating
with contempt the votes of millions of Germans. You can see
the depths to which German democracy had sunk - and Hitler
was not yet Chancellor! Papen then announced a new election
for the latest possible date, November 1932, and then ruled
without the Reichstag for the next four months.
Elections of November 1932: The Nazi dip in support and
their rescuers
There was to be another election in November of 1932.
Before that election some things had happened to reduce the
appeal of the Nazis. Some of the old left-wingers in the Nazi
Party (such as Gregor Strasser) started to talk about the evils
of the capitalist system. This sounded just a little too much
like socialism and it started to frighten off some conservative
voters. Also, Hitler had refused to condemn the Potempa
murderers, two Nazis who had kicked a communist to death.
He went to court and defended them saying that he would
have done the same thing himself! This caused some of his
middle class support to erode. He lost two million votes and
his percentage of the vote went from 37% to 32% but Von
Papen lost the election. It was clearly time for him to go. The
right wing elite selected Kurt von Schleicher as the man to
run the government. He believed that he could get along with
Hitler or at least get the Nazis support for a good right wing
authoritarian government. Schleicher knew that Hitler would
accept nothing but the Chancellor’s position so he offered
Gregor Strasser (a long-time member of the Nazi party) the
vice-chancellor’s position. Schleicher thought that Strasser was
more moderate and if he accepted the position that this might
split the Nazi party and weaken it leaving it in a clearly inferior
position in government. When Strasser told Hitler of the offer,
Hitler was outraged and expelled Strasser from the party.
Strasser left Germany and went to Italy for a holiday leaving
Schleicher out in the cold. Schleicher had failed to get the Nazi
support he desired. So Schleicher lasted for only eight weeks.
The Appointment of the Hitler-Papen cabinet: Nazi power
or a governing coalition?
In the wake of Schleicher’s failure to win Nazi support,
Von Papen and the traditional German power elite (Army, big
industry leaders, big agricultural leaders) decided to give Hitler
the Chancellor’s position to get Nazi support but to restrict
his power by only giving him two cabinet posts. Ten positions
would go to Von Papen’s men. Von Papen, understandably, felt
that he had Hitler hemmed in. He felt that he had Hindenburg’s
ear, that Hindenburg would support him and not Hitler because
he knew that Hindenburg despised the commoner Hitler.
Hindenburg so despised Hitler that Von Papen had to talk
Hindenburg into this arrangement.
Responsibility: German conservatism and the decision for
Hitler
So it was Von Papen and his right wing colleagues who
decided to give Hitler the job of Chancellor. Why?:
• The Communist threat was great and Hitler was decidedly
anti-Communist
• There was a high level of popular support for Hitler
During the next eighteen months, Hitler engaged in a
number of excesses directed against the left, in particular the
communists. The members of the KPD were arrested and
bully tactics were employed to frighten potential opponents.
The conservative elite who had given Hitler the position of
Chancellor never once complained about this.
The enemies of Nazism and their divisions
Some blame for the success of the Nazis must be attributed
to the left. The KPD and the SPD refused to work together
against their common enemy on the right, the Nazis. The Red
Front (the extreme left) actually wanted things to get worse
(i.e. for Hitler to come to power) because they were working
on the Marxist ideology that only when things got really bad
would there be a communist revolution. Stalin had advised the
KPD to do nothing to help save the Weimar system.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Hitler showing appropriate deference to Hindenburg at Potsdam Day
95
Nazi Germany
Notes from the slide series from the Imperial War Museum
(This slideshow is available as a Powerpoint
on the English-History Intranet site)
1. Hitler shakes hands with President von Hindenburg on an
official occasion in Berlin, probably February 1933.
2. Torchlight procession by units of the Nationalist
organisation in Kiel on 2 February 1933, three days after
the announcement that Adolf Hitler had been named as
Chancellor.
3. The burnt out dome of the Reichstag or parliament
building in Berlin after the mysterious fire of 27 February
1933. The Nazis pinned the blame on a young Communist,
Van der Lubbe, who was sentenced to death. The fire, just
a week before the general election, provided the Nazis
with the excuse they wanted to prevent the Communists
taking their seats in the new parliament. Forty-seven years
later a West Berlin court overturned the verdict of the 1933
court and acquitted Van der Lubbe posthumously.
9. The Hall of Columns of the House of German Art in
Munich. This was the epitome of Nazi neo-classical
architecture and was built to house what were considered
by the Nazis to be the best German paintings. It was
opened in the summer of 1937. The first exhibition of
German art displayed about 500 works by Nazi artists,
Hitler making the final selection himself. The nearby
exhibition of Degenerate Art, which also opened in 1937,
attracted 2 million visitors, five times more than attended
the German Art exhibition.
10. Primary schoolchildren being taught to give the Nazi
salute. Under the Nazis the education system was
adjusted to put Nazi values and ideas at the centre of the
curriculum. Children learned about Germany’s glorious
past and were taught to believe in the infallibility of the
Fuhrer. Teachers were faced with the choice of accepting
the changes or losing their jobs. Ninety-seven per cent
joined the Nazi Teacher’s Association. Despite the general
acquiescence in the new system, teachers found their
status declining in the face of the mounting importance of
the youth movement.
5. The 1935 Nuremberg Rally. Hitler addresses a vast crowd
of over 100,000.
11. The burning of the books in front of the Opera House,
Berlin 10 May 1933. The universities had already been
heavily under Nazi influence when Hitler came to power.
As early as 1931 approximately 60% of undergraduates
supported the Nazi Student Organisation, about double
the level of support in the country as a whole. After
January 1933 the universities quickly became centres of
Nazi fanaticism and the ritual book-burning ceremonies
carried out in the major towns and cities of Germany in
May 1933 were organised by students themselves under
the eye of Goebbels. Any books with Communist, Jewish
or anti-Nazi connotations were labelled “un-German” and
consigned to the flames.
6. A battalion of the RAD (Reichsarbeitsdienst or National
Labour Service) marching past Hitler and Mussolini in
Munich, 25 September 1937. The RAD was originally
a voluntary organisation (set up in 1933 but modelled
on pre-Nazi public works programs) providing work
of national importance for the unemployed. After June
1935 service in the RAD became compulsory for boys
on leaving school. Work included the building of the
Autobahns and barracks, clearing forests and draining
marshes.
12. The Drum Corps of the Jungvolk (the junior branch of the
Hitler Youth movement) parading at the Nuremberg Rally
of 1935 and pledging their loyalty to the Fuhrer. The Hitler
Youth movement (Hitler Jugend) was perhaps the most
important way of inculcating Nazi beliefs and values into
the young and so ensuring a future generation of devoted
Nazis. Under the leadership of Baldur von Schirach, the
youth movement laid great stress on physical fitness, on
the importance of self-sacrifice for the sake of the group
and on personal devotion to the Fuhrer.
7. Hitler and Goebbels at table eating the Eintopfgericht
or one-pot meal. The Nazis imposed the idea of a frugal
single-dish meal six times a year between September
and March. The money thus saved was supposed to go to
Winter Relief, a Nazi-organised charity to give help to the
poor. As well as raising money, the Eintopfgericht was
intended to foster community spirit.
13. Girls of the Bund deutscher Madel (League of German
Girls) exercising on the beach. At 10 they could join the
Jungmadel (Young Girls) and then from 14 to 17 the Bund
deutscher Madel. The emphasis was on comradeship,
service and preparation for future motherhood. Its heartier
side was not always very popular with adolescent girls but
the elder sister organisation, Glaube und Schonheit (Faith
and Beauty), set up in 1938 for the over 17s, proved more
popular with its emphasis on physical beauty as well as
fitness and on learning domestic skills and mothercraft.
4. Himmler and Hitler review the Leibstandarte Adolf
Hitler section of the SS at the Nuremberg Rally of 1935.
Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler (meaning Adolf Hitler’s
Bodyguard) originally compromised 120 carefully selected
SS men who were to act as Hitler’s personal bodyguard.
Himmler subsequently formed various special SS units
to carry out specific functions. The Leibstandarte later
became a formidable SS military unit.
8. Symbol of the DAF (Deutsche Arbeitsfront or German
Labour Front) erected over the exhibition hall in Berlin
where the “German People, German Labour” exhibition
was held. The DAF, a labour organisation allied to the
Nazi Party, was set up by Hitler as a substitute for the
potentially dangerous trade union movement. Dr. Robert
Ley, who was instrumental in destroying the trade unions
in May 1933, became the leader of the DAF when it was
officially established on 10 May 1933 “to re-establish
social peace in the world of labour”. A Labour Charter
was introduced in January 1934 and DAF agencies such as
Strength Through Joy (Kraft durch Freude) gave workers
all kinds of benefits including free holidays in an attempt
to win working class support.
96
14. Street in Rosenheim, Bavaria, with an anti-Jewish banner
strung across it in 1935. The banner reads “Jews are not
wanted here”. Anti-semitic activity varied. It ranged from
the early boycotts carried out by the SA and party radicals
and race laws, which culminated in the Nuremberg Laws
of 1935, to the systematic removal of Jews from all
areas of public life and schemes for emigration. Local
expressions of anti-semitism took the form of petty
gestures like this banner.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
15. German troops marching into the Rhineland, March 1936.
According to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Allied
troops were to occupy parts of the Rhineland for at least
fifteen years and even after that Germany was forbidden
to fortify the left bank. In fact through the efforts of
Stresemann (Foreign Minister 1923-29) Allied troops
left the Rhineland in 1930, three years early. Nationalist
feeling had always bitterly resented Allied interference in
the Rhineland and Hitler had wholehearted support for his
remilitarisation of the area. No opposition was shown by
France or Britain.
16. Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini and Ciano at the
Munich Conference, September 1938. Hitler’s excuse for
interference in Czechoslovakia was the fact that there were
3 million German-speaking inhabitants of the Sudetenland.
After his success in achieving “Anschluss” (union with
Austria) in March 1938, Hitler raised the hopes of the
Sudeten Germans for absorption into the Reich. The
British and French, fearing the possibility of war if Hitler
did not achieve his ends, decided on compromise, wrongly
judging that this would be Hitler’s last territorial demand.
In reality the Munich Agreement left Czechoslovakia
totally vulnerable. In March 1939 Germany invaded
Czechoslovakia and the whole country came under
German occupation.
17. Hitler’s entry into Danzig, September 1939. Alleged
incidents of mistreatment of Germans within Poland
were used as a pretext for a German attack on Poland.
The invasion began on 1 September. Danzig, formerly a
German port lost in 1919 when the Polish corridor was
created, had a mainly German population. Hitler’s troops
were thus greeted as liberators. The banner across the
street reads “Danzig greets her Fuhrer.”
21. The result of an air raid on Berlin, 16 December 1943.
Women civilians clearing rubble from the corner of
Munchstrasse and Breitestrasse. Despite Goring’s
assurance that Allied bombers would never penetrate
German air defences, both British and US bombers
inflicted considerable damage on the city during the Battle
of Berlin in November 1943. In fact a higher tonnage of
explosive was dropped on Berlin than was dropped on
Hiroshima in the atomic bomb attack in August 1945.
About 6,000 Berliners were killed.
22. Mobile soup kitchen for bombed-out civilians, 1944.
The intensive air raids on German cities rendered many
homeless and caused widespread disruption to gas,
electricity and water supplies.
23. View of Dresden after the Allied bombing of 13/14
February 1945. The destruction of Dresden by British and
U.S. bomber crews remains one of the most controversial
Allied operations of the Second World War since Dresden
had no military installations nor armaments factories.
Well over 1,000 aircraft were involved and the fire bombs
caused horrific firestorms in the city. One estimate of the
death toll is as high as 135,000 but the correct figure will
never be known. Of the dead, half were inhabitants of the
city and half refugees fleeing from the Russian advance.
24. A mother and two children among the dead at Belsen,
17 April 1945. This is one of a series of official British
photographs. British troops entered and liberated the camp
on 15 April. 60,000 men, women and children were found
dying of starvation and disease. The S.S. guards (men and
women) were forced to remove and bury the thousands of
corpses. This photograph appeared in the British Sunday
newspapers on 22 April 1945.
18. Adolf Hitler standing at the Trocadero in Paris with the
Eiffel Tower in the background, July 1940. The German
army entered Paris on 14 June and on 17 June the French
government requested an armistice, which was signed on
22 June at Compiegne. France was divided into two zones:
the northern half came under direct German occupation
but the southern half was ruled by the newly-established
government at Vichy under Marshal Petain. The defeat of
France was seen by the German people as a major victory.
A national day’s holiday was proclaimed and Hitler was
welcomed back in Berlin as a great hero.
19. German civilians donate winter clothing and skis for
use on the Eastern Front, January 1942. The Russian
campaign, which had begun with the successful invasion
in June 1941, proved a very different matter from the
Blitzkrieg of 1940. The civilian population was being
called on to make sacrifices to help the soldiers at the front
and women even gave up their gold wedding rings. Yet
Germany never developed a complete war economy in the
way Britain did.
20. German prisoners of war walking through the streets of
Stalingrad in 1943. The campaign of 1942 had gone badly
wrong for the Germans. The Sixth Army under General
von Paulus was ill prepared for the lengthy battle for
Stalingrad in the winter of 1942/43. The Russians fiercely
defended their city street by street. By the autumn of 1942
the Germans were losing 20,000 men per week. Finally,
against Hitler’s express orders, von Paulus surrendered
with his remaining 93,000 soldiers on 31 January 1943.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
97
A Model of Totalitarianism
by Carl J. Friedrich and Zbigniew K. Brzezinski
It is our contention that totalitarian dictatorship is
historically an innovation. It is also our conclusion from all
the facts available to us that fascist and Communist totalitarian
dictatorships are basically alike, or at any rate more nearly
like each other than like any other system of government,
including earlier forms of autocracy. . . . What is really the
specific difference, the innovation of the totalitarian regimes,
is the organisation and methods developed and employed with
the aid of modern technical devices in an effort to resuscitate
such total control in the service of an ideologically motivated
movement, dedicated to the total destruction and reconstruction
of a mass society. It seems therefore highly desirable to use
the term ‘totalism’ to distinguish the much more general
phenomenon just sketched, as has recently been proposed by a
careful analyst of the methods of Chinese thought control.
Totalitarian dictatorship then emerges as a system of rule
for realizing totalist intentions under modern political and
technical conditions, as a new type of autocracy. The declared
intention of creating a ‘new man’, according to numerous
reports, has had significant results where the regime has lasted
long enough, as in Russia. In the view of one leading authority,
‘the most appealing traits of the Russians - their naturalness
and candour - have suffered most.’ He considers this a
‘profound and apparently permanent transformation,’ and an
‘astonishing’ one. In short, the effort at total control, while not
achieving such control, has highly significant human effects.
The Fascist and Communist systems evolved in
response to a series of grave crises - they are forms of crisis
government. Even so, there is no reason to conclude that
the existing totalitarian systems will disappear as a result of
internal evolution, though there can be no doubt that they
are undergoing continuous changes. The two totalitarian
governments that have perished thus far have done so as the
result of wars with outside powers, but this does not mean
that the Soviet union, Communist China, or any of the others
necessarily will become involved in war. We do not presuppose
that totalitarian societies are fixed and static entities but, on the
contrary, that they have undergone and continue to undergo
a steady evolution, presumably involving both growth and
deterioration.
The basic features or traits we suggest as generally
recognised to be common to totalitarian dictatorships are six in
number. The ‘syndrome’, or pattern of interrelated traits, of the
totalitarian dictatorship consists of an ideology, a single party
typically led by one man, a terroristic police, a communications
monopoly, a weapons monopoly, and a centrally directed
economy. Of these, the last two are also found in constitutional
systems: socialist Britain had a centrally directed economy,
and all modern states possess a weapons monopoly. Whether
the latter suggest a ‘trend’ towards totalitarianism is a question
which is worth considering. These six basic features, which we
think constitute the distinctive pattern or model of totalitarian
dictatorship, form a cluster of traits, intertwined and mutually
supporting each other, as is usual in ‘organic’ systems. They
should therefore not be considered in isolation or be made
the focal point of comparisons, such as ‘Caesar developed a
terroristic secret police, therefore he was the first totalitarian
dictator,’ or ‘the Catholic Church has practised ideological
thought control, therefore . . . ‘
The totalitarian dictatorships all possess the following:
1. An elaborate ideology, consisting of an official body of
doctrine covering all vital aspects of man’s existence to
which everyone living in that society is supposed to adhere,
at least passively; this ideology is characteristically focused
and projected toward a perfect final state of mankind that is to say, it contains a chiliastic claim (‘to last for a
thousand years’), based upon a radical rejection of the
existing society with conquest of the world for the new one.
2. A single mass party typically led by one man, the ‘dictator,’
and consisting of a relatively small percentage of the total
population (up to 10%) of men and women, a hard core
of them passionately and unquestioningly dedicated to the
ideology and prepared to assist in every way promoting
its general acceptance, such a party being hierarchically,
oligarchically organised and typically either superior to, or
completely intertwined with, the government bureaucracy.
3. A system of terror, whether physical or psychic, effected
through party and secret-police control, supporting but also
supervising the party for its leaders, and characteristically
directed not only against demonstrable ‘enemies’ of the
regime, but against more or less arbitrarily selected classes
of the population; the terror whether of the secret-police
or of party-directed social pressure systematically exploits
modern science, and more especially scientific psychology.
4. A technologically conditioned, near-complete monopoly
of control, in the hands of the party and of the government,
of all means of effective mass communication, such as the
press, radio, and motion pictures.
5. A similarly technologically conditioned, near-complete
monopoly of the effective use of all weapons of armed
combat.
6. A central control and direction of the entire economy
through the bureaucratic coordination of formerly
independent corporate entities, typically including most
other associations and group activities.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
98
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
20th century
Germany:
sample
essay
Done by a MacKillop
College student in HSC
Trial examinations.
Time = 40 minutes.
Length = 775 words.
The first body
paragraph
on the topic
of Hitler’s
skills as a
propagandist.
Rich factual
detail used to
support the
argument.
The second
body paragraph
on the topic
of the foreign
policy victories
which won
support.
The names and
dates of these
agreements
would have
improved this
paragraph.
The third body
paragraph
on the social
policies of the
Nazis which
won them
support.
The fourth
body paragraph
on the Nazi
use of terror
to suppress
opposition.
Why was there so little effective opposition to the Nazi Regime in the
period from 1933 to 1939?
Some may argue that the reason there was ‘so little effective
opposition to the Nazi Regime’ was because of the terror campaigns
he carried out. This is a factor but by no means the most significant
one. Hitler won the hearts and minds of the German people through his
powerful speaking performances and his propaganda. Hitler achieved
social and foreign policy miracles throughout the period of 1933 to
1939 and therefore it would have seemed ridiculous to oppose a man
who was reviving and making Germany strong again.
When Hitler became the German Chancellor on the 30th January
1933 he was given the power of ruling by emergency decree. One
area where Hitler used this power was in regard to making Germany
a one party state. Through this action Hitler did reduce his political
opposition to the regime. Hitler appointed Goebbels as Minister of
Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda and set him the task of winning
the hearts and minds of the German people and this he did. Through
spectacular night parades, posters and broadcasts on radios, which were
present in 70% of households by 1938, Goebbels gathered popular
support for Hitler’s ideological Volksgemeinschaft. Hitler himself was
a brilliant oratorical performer and he was able to win mass public
support when he spoke on occasions such as the annual Nuremberg
rallies. He was presented as the Führer and people were willing to obey
a ‘born leader’ such as himself. Hitler could promise the German people
so much that he raised their minds above the failure they endured at
the hands of the allies in World War One. Thus, through the use of
propaganda and the power of Hitler himself as the ‘Führer’, ‘little
effective opposition’ existed in the period 1933 to 1939 as the majority
of people supported Hitler and his quest for a strong Germany.
Hitler achieved many significant foreign policy victories in
the period of 1933 to 1939 which resulted in very ‘little effective
opposition’ to the regime as he was succeeding as no other leader
in German history had. Hitler simply defied the Treaty of Versailles
and consequently freed the German people of reparation payments.
Hitler was able to justify to the international community Germany’s
open rearmament by 1935 and was not sanctioned by the international
community. Hitler made massive territorial gains by absorbing both
the Sudetenland and Austria back into the Reich without a gun being
fired. He secured a non-aggression past with the Soviet Union and a
friendship agreement with Britain. These outstanding foreign policy
victories for Hitler were a factor resulting in very little ‘effective
opposition’ to such a successful regime.
Hitler also achieved social victories. Hitler brought the economy
in Germany from the depths of despair to a healthy thriving economy.
In 1933, when Hitler came to power, there were 6 million Germans
unemployed. By 1938 there was a labor shortage. This solving of the
unemployment problem, largely due to rearmament, resulted in very
little effective opposition to the regime. Hitler also increased business
confidence in all German industries. The regime experienced a happy
marriage of convenience with the big business sector and therefore
no threats were made to the regime from this class in Germany. Thus,
economic and social victories of the regime also contributed to the ‘lack
of effective opposition to the regime’.
For those who did oppose the regime, terror was enforced to
suppress opposition. The passing of the Enabling Act (1933) allowed
the locking up, disappearance and murder of political opponents of
the regime. Jews were persecuted severely under the regime and terror
tactics can be seen in the treatment of Jews in examples such as Crystal
Night of 1938. The Gestapo and the SS were military forces which
ensured compliance with the regime. For example, if a person refused
to ‘Heil Hitler’ they risked assault from these forces. Intellectuals who
opposed the regime either fled the country or were put in concentration
camps. Thus the use of terror was a factor in the lack of effective
opposition to the Nazi regime.
In conclusion, the main reason that there was no ‘effective
opposition to the Nazi regime’ was that the people of Germany
generally supported Hitler. The people were influenced through the
use of propaganda, under the instruction of Goebbels. Hitler achieved
a whole host of social and foreign policy triumphs and these victories
resulted in there being no need for opposition to the regime. For those
who wanted to oppose the regime, terror tactics were implemented
which reduced the event of ‘effective opposition’. Thus, due to these
factors the Nazi regime was able to exist in the period from 1933 to
1939 virtually unchallenged.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
This is a
well written
introduction
which flags
four body
paragraphs:
•Hitler’s
skills as a
propagandist
•foreign policy
victories
•social victories
•use of terror
Note how
every body
paragraph
concludes by
linking the
content of the
paragraph to
the question
of the lack
of ‘effective
opposition’.
More factual
detail on terror
would have
improved this.
The concluding
paragraph does
its job well but
is too long. It
would have
been better if
the last body
paragraph had
been more
detailed.
99
PAST CSSA onQUESTIONS
Germany in the 20th Century
2001
2 Unit
1. Assess the extent to which Hitler’s rise to power was a
result of Weimar weaknesses.
2. Explain how the Nazi Party maintained popular German
support in the period from 1934 to 1943.
Albert Speer
(i) Describe Albert Speer’s major achievements in the period
1933 to 1945. (10 marks)
(ii) Assess Albert Speer’s effectiveness as Minister for
Armaments and War Production. (10 marks)
2002
2 Unit
1. Explain why the failure of democracy allowed Hitler to
become Fuehrer in 1934.
2. Explain how Nazi foreign policy contributed to the
upsurge of nationalism between 1934 and 1941.
Albert Speer
(i) Outline Albert Speer’s contribution to the Third Reich. (10
marks)
(ii) Assess the extent to which Albert Speer contributed to
Nazi ideology and practice. (10 marks)
2003
2 Unit
1. Account for the transformation of German social and
cultural life under Nazism by 1939.
2. Assess the extent to which military defeats contributed
towards the collapse of Nazism.
Albert Speer
(i) Describe the significant influences on the career of Albert
Speer. (10 marks)
(ii) “Speer was an amoral technocrat rather than Hitler’s
willing servant.”
In the light of this statement, assess Albert Speer’s role in
Nazi Germany. (10 marks)
2004
2 Unit
1. To what extent was Germany a totalitarian state between
the period 1933 and 1945?
2. Assess the extent to which military defeat contributed to
the collapse of Nazism by 1945.
Albert Speer
(i) Outline the major contributions of Albert Speer to Nazism
in the 1930s. (10 marks)
(ii) “Insofar as Hitler gave me orders and I carried them out, I
bear responsibility for them.” (Albert Speer)
In the light of this statement, explain the controversial
nature of Speer’s role in Germany during World War II.
(10 marks)
100
2005
2 Unit
1. Evaluate the importance of Hitler’s leadership in the
consolidation of the Nazi regime in the years 1933 to
1939.
2. Assess the extent to which German society was affected
by total war in the period 1939-1945.
Albert Speer
(i) Outline the key events in the life of Albert Speer.
(10 marks)
(ii) “Speer’s work gives an insight into Nazism in Germany.”
In the light of this statement, assess this opinion of Albert
Speer. (10 marks)
2006
2 Unit
1. To what extent did economic weaknesses contribute to the
collapse of the Weimar Republic?
2. Assess the extent to which Hitler achieved his aims in
Nazi foreign policy by 1939.
Personality
(i) Describe the significant events in the life of the Twentieth
Century personality you have studied.
(10 marks)
(ii) ‘Important historical people are judged by their
contribution to their nation’
To what extent does the study of your personality support
this view? (15 marks)
2007
2 Unit
1. Assess the view that the Weimar Republic was doomed
from its foundation in 1919.
2. Evaluate the impact of Nazism on German society in the
period 1933 to 1939.
Personality
(i) Outline the major influences on the life of the Twentieth
Century personality you have studied. (10 marks)
(ii) Assess the contribution of your chosen personality to the
period in which he or she lived. (15 marks)
2008
2 Unit
1. To what extent did the Great Depression contribute to the
failure of democracy by 1933?
2. Evaluate the influence of the German army on German
political life from 1918 to 1939.
Personality
(i) Outline the significant events in the public life of the
Twentieth Century personality you have studied. (10
marks)
(ii) ‘A person’s role in history is largely influenced by his/her
background.’
To what extent does the study of your personality support
this view? (15 marks)
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
2009
2 Unit
2013
2 Unit
1. To what extent did Nazi racial policies impact on German
society by 1939?
1. Assess the reasons for the inability of successive Weimar
governments to achieve stability by 1923.
2. Explain how the Nazi Party came to power, despite the
setbacks, by 1933.
2. Popular support enabled the Nazi Party (NSDAP) to gain
total control in Germany between 1934 and 1939.
To what extent is this statement true?
Personality
(i) Describe the role of your chosen personality in his/her
nation’s history. (10 marks)
(ii) ‘The assessment of the impact of a personality on history,
depends upon differing historical perspectives.’
How accurate is this statement in relation to the
personality you have studied? (15 marks)
2010
2 Unit
Personality
(i) Describe the significant experiences that shaped the
personality you have studied. (10 marks)
(ii) To what extent did the personality you have studied
influence his or her times? (15 marks)
2014
2 Unit
1. To what extent did the Treaty of Versailles contribute to
the failure of democracy by 1933?
1. Explain how political and economic factors affected the
Weimar Republic by 1929.
2. Assess the impact of Nazism on German society by 1939.
2. To what extent did Hitler’s appeal to nationalism
contribute to his success by 1939?
Personality
(i) Describe the major influences that led to the rise to
prominence of your chosen personality in his/her nation’s
history. (10 marks)
(ii) The significance of a personality depends on the impact
he/she had on the period in which he/she lived.
How accurate is this statement in relation to the
personality you have studied? (15 marks)
2011
2 Unit
Personality
(i) Explain the importance of background and historical
context in developing an understanding of the personality
you have studied. (10 marks)
(ii) The historical importance of a personality is influenced by
differing perspectives and interpretations.
To what extent do you agree with this statement? (15
marks)
1. To what extent did the Great Depression contribute to the
failure of democracy in Germany by 1933?
2. Evaluate the success of the Nazi attempt to change
German society between 1933 and 1939?
Personality
(i) Outline the key events in the life of the personality you
have studied. (10 marks)
(ii) “Significant individuals usually inspire great developments
in history”.
How accurate is this statement in relation to the
personality you have studied? (15 marks)
2012
2 Unit
1. Assess the role of the German Army in the Weimar
Republic between 1918 and 1933.
2. To what extent was the use of propaganda and terror
essential for Nazi control of German society by 1939?
Personality
(i) Describe the importance of the historical context and
background in the rise to prominence of the personality
you have studied. (10 marks)
(ii) History views people by their contribution to the society in
which they lived.
How accurate is this statement in relation to the
personality you have studied? (15 marks)
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
101
PAST HSC QUESTIONS
on
Germany in the 20th Century
2001
2 Unit
1. Account for the development of militarism in Germany
between 1928 and 1945.
2. Explain how Hitler made use of racism in German society
between 1928 and 1945.
Albert Speer
(i) Outline the major events in the career of Albert Speer from
1931 to 1945. (10 marks)
(ii) Assess Albert Speer’s role in the Nazi war machine.
(10 marks)
2002
2 Unit
1. Assess the impact of the Nazi Party on German society up
to and including 1933.
2. Explain the nature and impact of Nazi propaganda, terror
and repression on the Jewish community between 1933
and 1945.
Albert Speer
(i) Describe the significant events in the career of Albert
Speer up to 1945. (10 marks)
(ii) ‘From the beginning Speer served Hitler and the German
war effort without question. He was unaware of the
importance of anything else.’
In the light of this statement, assess the role of Albert
Speer in the Nazi war effort from 1941 onward.
(10 marks)
2003
2 Unit
1. Discuss the impact of the Depression on democracy in
Germany in the period up to 1934.
2. Evaluate the success of the Nazi Party in transforming
Germany into a Nazi society in the period 1933-1945.
Albert Speer
(i) Identify the major features of the life of Albert Speer in the
period 1927-1945. (10 marks)
(ii) ‘Albert Speer was clearly involved in Nazi terror,
repression and anti-semitism during the Third Reich.’
In the light of this statement, assess the part played by
Albert Speer in implementing and supporting Nazi terror
and racial policies. (10 marks)
2004
2 Unit
1. Assess the view that the collapse of the Weimar Republic
was primarily due to the appeal of Hitler and his Nazi
Party.
2. Evaluate the significance of the Battle of Stalingrad in
1943 for the military defeat and collapse of Nazism in
1945.
Albert Speer
(i) Write a brief biography of Albert Speer, outlining the key
events in his life to 1945. (10 marks)
(ii) ‘Despite his claim not to be a committed Nazi, Albert
Speer played a vital role in the Third Reich.’
In the light of this statement, assess the role played by
Albert Speer in the creation and maintenance of the Nazi
war machine to 1945. (10 marks)
2005
2 Unit
1. Assess the impact of conservative parties and elites on
German politics in the period 1918-1934.
2. Evaluate the view that Germany was a totalitarian society
in the period 1933-1945.
Albert Speer
(i) Outline the main features in the public life of Albert Speer
in the period you have studied. (10 marks)
(ii) Evaluate the role of Albert Speer in supporting and
implementing Nazi racial policies. (10 marks)
2006
2 Unit Specimen Paper
1. Evaluate the view that democracy was succeeding in
Germany until the start of the Depression in 1929.
2. Assess the effectiveness of the Nazi Party in creating
changes in German society in the period 1933–1939.
Personality
(i) Describe the rise to prominence of the Twentieth Century
personality you have studied. (10 marks)
(ii) ‘Those who are inspired by an ideal rather than selfinterest make the biggest impact on history.’
To what extent does the study of your personality support
this view? (15 marks)
2006
2 Unit
1. Assess the importance of nationalism as a cause of the
failure of democracy in Germany in the period 1918-1934.
2. To what extent was Hitler responsible for the development
and implementation of Nazi racist policies in Germany in
the period to 1939?
Personality
(i) Outline the main features in the background and rise to
prominence of the twentieth-century personality you have
studied. (10 marks)
(ii) To what extent does history present us with a balanced
interpretation of this personality? (15 marks)
102
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
2007
2 Unit
1. Explain how and why German social and cultural life
changed in the period 1923-1939.
2. Assess the impact of Nazism on German foreign policy in
the period 1933-1939.
Personality
(i) Describe the role played by the personality you have
studied in national AND/OR international history.
(10 marks)
(ii) ‘Events shape people more than people shape events.’
How accurate is this statement in relation to the
personality you have studied? (15 marks)
2008
2 Unit
1. Account for the successes and failures of democracy in
Germany in the period 1918-1933.
2. To what extent can Nazism in power be seen as
totalitarianism in the period 1933-1939?
Personality
(i) Describe the personal background and the historical
context of the personality you have studied. (10 marks)
(ii) ‘History is about winners.’
How accurate is this statement in relation to the
personality you have studied? (15 marks)
2009
2 Unit
1. To what extent did weaknesses in the Weimar Republic
account for the growth and rise to power of the Nazi Party
to 1933?
2. Assess the impact of Nazi propaganda, terror and
repression on the German people from 1933 to 1939.
Personality
(i) Outline the life of the personality you have studied.
(10 marks)
(ii) ‘Individuals are products of their times.’
How accurate is this statement in relation to the
personality you have studied? (15 marks)
2010
2 Unit
1. Assess the influence of the German army on the successes
and failures of the Weimar Republic by 1933.
2. Evaluate Hitler’s role in the Nazi state between 1933 and
1939.
Personality
(i) Describe the life of the personality you have studied. (10
marks)
(ii) ‘People are swept along by events. Some individuals use
events to advantage.’
How accurate is this statement in relation to the
personality you have studied? (15 marks)
2011
1. The impact of the Treaty of Versailles on the Weimar
Republic to 1929 was more significant than any other
factor.
How accurate is this statement?
2. Account for the initial consolidation of Nazi power in
1933 1934.
Personality
(i) Provide a detailed description of THREE significant events
in the life of the personality you have studied. (10 marks)
(ii) Assess the contribution of the personality you have studied
to their period of national and/or international history. (15
marks)
2012
2 Unit
1. Hitler came to power as a result of a lack of opposition.
To what extent is this statement true?
2. How successful was Nazi foreign policy in achieving its
aims to September 1939?
Personality
(i) Describe THREE significant factors which resulted in
the prominence of the personality you have studied. (10
marks)
(ii) To what extent did the personality you have studied have a
positive impact on his or her times? (15 marks)
2013
2 Unit
1. To what extent was the Great Depression responsible for
the collapse of the Weimar Republic?
2. Assess the impact of the Nazi state on social and cultural
life in Germany in the period 1933 to 1939.
Personality
(i) Describe the rise to prominence of the personality you
have studied. (10 marks)
(ii) Evaluate the significance of the personality you have
studied to his/her period of national and/or international
history. (15 marks)
2014
2 Unit
1. Germany between 1918 and 1939 was the triumph of
nationalism over democracy.
To what extent is this statement accurate?
2. Explain why the Nazis were able to consolidate power in
the period 1933-1934.
Personality
(i) Outline the background and rise to prominence of the
personality you have studied. (10 marks)
(ii) The significance of an individual is created more by
themselves than by the events of their life.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
2 Unit
How accurate is this statement in relation to the
personality you have studied and their period of national
or international history? (15 marks)
103
Conflict in Europe
The Syllabus Document
Conflict in Europe 1935-1945
Principal focus
Students investigate key features and issues in the history of
the conflict in Europe 1935–1945.
Percentage of HSC Course Time: 25%
Outcomes
The HSC Outcomes are listed earlier in this handbook.
Through their international study in peace and conflict students
learn to:
• ask relevant historical questions
• locate, select and organise information from different types
of sources, including ICT, to describe and analyse relevant
features and issues
• describe and analyse the origins of conflict in the relevant
study
• analyse the major events and issues in the development of
the conflict
• describe and evaluate the role of key individuals and groups
during the conflict
• evaluate the success of attempts to resolve the conflict
• evaluate the usefulness and reliability of sources
• account for and assess differing perspectives and
interpretations of the conflict
• present the findings of investigations on aspects of the
conflict, analysing and synthesising information from
different types of sources
• communicate an understanding of relevant features and
issues using appropriate and well-structured oral and/or
written and/or multimedia forms including ICT.
Key features and issues
• causes of the conflict
• aims and strategies of the Allied and Axis powers
• turning points of the war
• impact of war on civilians
• origins, nature and impact of the Holocaust
• reasons for the Allied victory
Students learn about:
1 Growth of European tensions
– dictatorships in Germany and Italy
– the League of Nations and collapse of collective
security: Abyssinia, the Spanish Civil War
– Britain, France and the policy of appeasement: an
assessment
– significance of the Nazi–Soviet Non-Aggression Pact
2 Course of the European war
– German advances: the fall of Poland, the Low Countries
and France
– the air war and its effects: The Battle of Britain and the
Blitz, the bombing of Germany
– Operation Barbarossa, the Battle of Stalingrad and the
significance of the Russian campaign
– Battle of El Alamein and the significance of the conflict
in North Africa to the European War
3 Civilians at war
– social and economic effects of the war on civilians in
Britain and EITHER Germany OR the Soviet Union
– Nazi racial policies: the Holocaust and the persecution
of minorities
104
4
End of the conflict
– ‘D’ Day and the liberation of France
– Russian counter offensives 1944
– final defeat 1944–1945
– Nuremberg War Crimes trials
Handling the Conflict in
Europe Question
During your Preliminary Course you learned the
basics of writing traditional essays. Your study of the Ten
Commandments of Essay Writing indicated how to write
the three basic paragraph types - opening paragraphs, body
paragraphs and concluding paragraphs. Your knowledge of
these essay writing techniques is all you need to handle the
Conflict in Europe questions.
Like all questions in the HSC, the Conflict in Europe
essay is worth 25 marks and you should allow 45 minutes to
complete it. This is a little longer than you have to do essays in
English. As a result you would probably plan your essay with
either three or four body paragraphs.
The question you will be given in the HSC has an internal
choice so effectively you are given two questions and you
only have to attempt one of them. Guidelines to assist students
(called the “rubric”) will be provided for each question. These
indicate a number of points the markers will use to judge your
response.
The Rubric
The rubric is the list of points indicating the things that
will be assessed in the marking of your written responses. A
rubric is provided for your Germany essay, for your Albert
Speer responses and for your Conflict in Europe essay (though
not, curiously, your World War One responses - who knows
why not?) In constructing your answers you should ensure you
address the elements in the rubric. The rubric is the same for all
the Germany, Speer and Conflict in Europe questions and reads
as follows:
In this section you will be assessed on how well you:
• demonstrate historical knowledge and understanding
relevant to the question
• communicate ideas and information using historical terms
and concepts appropriately
• present a sustained, logical and cohesive response
The Structure
The work you did in the Preliminary course on traditional
essay writing provides you with the basic structure for handling
the Germany question.
You will write an introductory paragraph which:
• answers the question in the first sentence or two
• outlines the line of argument for each of the subsequent
body paragraphs, covering each paragraph’s argument in
one sentence.
You will then write four body paragraphs (or three if you are
a slow writer) and in each body paragraph you will:
• introduce the topic of the paragraph in a topic sentence
• fully develop the argument related to this topic
• support your argument with specific factual evidence
• in the last sentence, link the material you have explored to
the question it has been helping to answer.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
You will finish with a concluding paragraph in which you
will:
• summarise the main thrust of your argument, more briefly
than in the introductory paragraph.
The Origins of World War Two
Ten factors to remember
1. Dissatisfaction with the Treaty Of Versailles
• German resentment over the Polish Corridor, reparations,
enforced disarmament.
• Japan resented the lack of racial equality in the decisions e.g. no national self-determination in Asia.
• Italy did not get what she was promised for her entry into
the war on the Allied side.
2. Aggressive Nationalism (Echoes Of WWI?)
• Germany’s aggressive foreign policy - Grossdeutschland,
Lebensraum, the Herrenvolk, Ein Volk - Ein Reich - Ein
Fuhrer.
• Italian ambitions to rebuild a new ‘Roman Empire’.
• Japan’s policy of an ‘Asian Asia’ - get rid of the whites!
- German rearmament and re-introduction of conscription
- The Rhineland remilitarization
- The Spanish Civil War and German and Italian
intervention
- The Anschluss with Austria
- The Munich Conference in September 1938
- The invasion of the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939
- the Phoney War (Could this also be seen as a
manifestation of appeasement?)
9. The Clash of Ideologies
• Communism vs Fascism
• Totalitarianism vs Democracy
• The democracies eventually opposed the fascist Totalitarian
system, but were slow to act because of their basic fear of
Communism.
10. The Balance of Power Disrupted
• Germany was allowed to grow so strong that she felt able
to make war.
3. Imperialism (Echoes Of WWI?)
• German attacks upon Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland.
• Italian invasion of Abyssinia.
• Japan’s invasion of Manchuria and China.
4. Growth of Alliances (Echoes Of WWI?)
•
•
•
•
•
•
1936 - Germany and Japan
1937 - Germany and Italy
1939 - Rome - Tokyo - Berlin Axis
1939 - Russia and Germany
1938 - Britain and France
1939 - Britain and Poland
5. The Collapse of the League Of Nations
• Failure of the League to organize ‘collective security’
- 1931 - Japan in Manchuria
- 1934 - Failure of disarmament conference
- 1936 - Italy in Abyssinia
- 1938 - Germany in Austria
therefore aggression of the Fascist powers went unchecked
and this encouraged them to keep going.
6. The Depression
• Awful effects upon Germany especially, in part caused
by the economic circumstances created by the victorious
powers of World War One. This was a major factor in
Adolf Hitler coming to power.
7. The Growth of Militarism (Echoes Of WWI?)
• German rearmament and concentration on military values e.g. the Fuhrer Prinzip.
• Japanese rearmament and development of Western
industrialized techniques of arms manufacture.
• The failure of the Disarmament Conference held by the
League.
• Churchill’s constant demands for the rearming of Britain.
8. The Policy of Appeasement
• Policy pursued by Baldwin and Chamberlain in particular.
- The Anglo-German Naval Accord
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
105
Reasons for the Allied Victory
in World War Two
The failure of Germany’s foreign policy before the war
• Germany failed to keep Great Britain out of the war - this
meant that they could end up fighting the whole Englishspeaking world.
• Attacking Russia after they attacked Britain and France
gave Russia time to prepare to meet the German attack.
They were very ill-prepared in 1939 after the purges - e.g.
their very poor showing in the war against the Finns in late
1939/ early 1940.
The failure of Germany to defeat Great Britain
• failure to press home their advantage and capture or kill the
British at Dunkirk.
• failure to win the Battle of Britain and thus undertake an
invasion of England (Operation Sea Lion) Reasons:
- Better equipment. e.g. the Spitfire
- Radar. Gave the British a decisive tactical advantage
- Intelligence gained from Enigma Machine. Helped
decide tactics.
- Bad German tactics. Ended up bombing cities rather
than military targets.
• Germans thought the British were defeated after the
Battle of Britain even though they had not been invaded
and conquered. That is why they turned their attention to
Russia. This was to be a basic mistake for when America
entered the war, Britain was to be an invaluable staging
post for America’s attacks upon Hitler’s Reich.
The decision to attack Russia and the failure of this assault
• Attacking Russia without securing his Western border (i.e.
Great Britain) was a tactical blunder.
• The failure, for the first time, of Blitzkrieg. Causes:
- the size of Russia caused over-extended supply lines
- the ‘Scorched Earth’ policy of the Russians when
retreating
- heroic resistance from the Russians, both at the front
and in the occupied territories from the Partisans.
This resistance was stimulated by the Nazis appalling
treatment of populations in the occupied territories.
- Bad German tactics - diverting the central army to
Kiev instead of pressing home the attack upon Moscow
during the first months of the invasion
- ‘General Winter’ - Germans were simply not prepared
and were over-confident of success.
- 5 week delay in Operation Barbarossa caused by
Operation Retribution in Yugoslavia.
- USSR used Siberian troops to defend Moscow. Stalin
was able to use these troops because the Russian spies in
Japan (the Lucy Ring) told him that Japan was going to
attack the USA and not the USSR.
Better Allied leadership
• Hitler himself directed many of his Generals in their
decision making and made a number of bad decisions
with which the generals disagreed but were unable to stop
- e.g. the decision not to allow von Paulus to break out at
Stalingrad.
• Allies had a number of excellent generals - e.g. Zhukov,
Eisenhower, Montgomery.
• Allies developed an effective unified command structure.
e.g. Eisenhower in supreme command of ‘Operation
Overlord’, the invasion of Europe.
106
Lack of co-operation among the Axis powers
• The Japanese attacked America rather than Russia. It would
have been in Germany’s interests for Japan to attack Russia but Japan did what she considered to be in her
interests rather than what was good for the Axis Powers.
Germany’s weak allies
• As in World War One, Germany was stuck with weak allies
who were often more trouble than they were worth. e.g.
Italy in North Africa got Germany involved in what turned
out to be their first real defeat of the war.
Co-operation among the Allied powers
• Allies worked together much more closely for the common
purpose of defeating Fascism. e.g.
- development of the ‘Atlantic Charter’
- Allied Meetings: Casablanca 1943, Tehran 1944, Yalta
1945
- Development of a unified command structure. e.g.
Eisenhower as Supreme Commander.
Involvement of the United States
• America was the largest industrial power in the world
whose industries were safe from any war damage. They
provided the Allies with the men and the material to win
the war. e.g. Trucks to Russia, planes to Great Britain.
• Hitler declared war himself on the Americans - an amazing
decision. He wanted to get Japan as an active ally and
probably hoped that America would get tied up in the
Pacific War, but Roosevelt was hoping for an excuse to
declare war on Germany for he saw that they were the real
danger and Hitler gave him that excuse. From then on,
Roosevelt pursued the war clearly recognising Hitler as the
primary enemy.
Allied lead in science and technology
• Germans did lead the Allies in some areas of technology,
e.g. rocketry. BUT. . .
• Allies had better scienific achievements in both offensive
and defensive weapons; Examples:
-Radar
- Aircraft - Lancaster, Spitfire, Mustang, Mosquito
- Code Breaking - The Enigma Machine - the Ultra Secret
- Spying - the Russian ‘Lucy Ring’
- Anti Mine Measures - De-gaussing ships
- Anti Bomber Guidance Systems - jamming radio
frequencies
- Anti U Boat Measures - Sonar, Leigh Light, Low
Frequency Radar, ‘Hedgehog’ depth charges
- Normandy Invasion Measures - ‘Mulberry’ artificial
harbours, ‘PLUTO’ oil supply system (Pipeline Under
The Ocean)
- The Atomic Bombs
Reasons for allied superiority in science and technology
(1) Better co-operation between the military and the scientific
establishments in the Allied countries.
(2) Protection of scientific brains - a list of scientists was
drawn up before the war in England and these scientists
would not be called up for active service.
(3) A freer environment for scientific reseach - e.g. the two
most important men involved in the early stages of the
development of the Atomic bomb were Leo Szilard and
Enrico Fermi, Hungarian and Italian refugees respectively,
one a Jew and the other married to a Jew. Also the chief
of the Los Alamos laboratories was Robert Oppenheimer,
of German extraction and with past links to Communist
organisations.... could such people have worked on such
crucial scientific research in Hitler’s Germany?
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Hitler’s Miscalculations in
World War Two
Not keeping Britain out of the War
Hitler always wanted to keep Britain out of the war so
that he could take care of France and then, most importantly,
Russia. He never wanted to take on the British and went
to extraordinary lengths to keep them out of the war. (The
material in the interview with F.W. Winterbotham makes
this clear. It is available as an MP3 from the English-History
Intranet site.) His inability to do so and his eventual inclusion
of Britain in the war meant that his job of winning was much
more difficult.
Not defeating the British at Dunkirk
This meant that a great many British troops escaped,
though without their equipment. More important was that
it gave the British hope and they kept fighting the war even
though they were effectively alone until the invasion of Russia
and then the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.
Not defeating the British in the Battle of Britain
This occurred because the British fighters had a technical
superiority over the German planes and because of the
“Enigma” Machine intelligence the British were getting, but
Hitler aided this by redirecting his bombers to attacking British
cities in retaliation for their attacks on Berlin. This meant that
the RAF was able to stay in the fight and eventually stopped
the Germans from invading England. So . . . although Britain
was no immediate threat to Germany itself, when America
entered the war they were able to use Britain as a staging-post
for their attacks on, and eventual invasion of, Hitler’s “Fortress
Europe”.
Attacking Yugoslavia and delaying “Operation
Barbarossa”
Hitler’s decision to undertake “Operation Retribution”
against Yugoslavia as a reprisal for their anti-Nazi rebellion
delayed the invasion of Russia, “Operation Barbarossa”, by
five weeks. In retrospect this delay was to prove vital as they
could probably have captured Moscow before the winter set in
if they had had their extra five weeks.
Not taking Moscow in the early months of “Barbarossa”
and going for Kiev
In the early phase of “Barbarossa”, Army Group Centre
was heading for Moscow but they were diverted south to join
the battle against the Russian Armies near Kiev. Had they gone
on to take Moscow it is likely that Russian resistance would
have collapsed as the seat of government would have been
captured.
Being ill-prepared for the Russian winter
Hitler was over-confident of the likely success of
“Barbarossa”. As a result he did not properly equip his troops
for the Russian winter as he felt that the war in Russia would
be over by the winter. When it was not, the Germans were at a
decided disadvantage when compared to the Russians who had
troops from Siberia, trained for winter warfare.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Declaring war on the USA on 11th December 1941
When Japan attacked the USA at Pearl Harbour on 7th
December 1941, Hitler followed that up by declaring war on
the USA on 11th December. He did this because he thought
that he would then have an extra ally against the Allied powers
and he hoped that the US would then get bogged down in the
Pacific and would be no threat to him in Europe. Roosevelt
had been waiting for an excuse to fight against Germany (even
though the American people were not too keen on the idea)
and Hitler’s declaration of war on the US gave Roosevelt that
excuse. From the outset, Roosevelt recognised that Germany
was the more dangerous enemy and the US devoted most of
their strength to defeating them. This meant that Hitler had
brought the strongest industrial power of the world into the war
against Germany.
His refusal to allow the German army to fight their way out
of Stalingrad
When the German Sixth Army under Von Paulus was
surrounded and cut off at Stalingrad in late 1942, Hitler did
not allow them to fight their way out, but he promised to send
troops to relieve them. He was unable to do this and the entire
Sixth Army, Germany’s best, was eventually killed or captured.
This was a most devastating defeat suffered by the Germans.
Hitler repeated this error (the so-called “Stalingrad policy”) a
number of times during the years that followed as the Germans
were forced back into Germany.
His unwillingness to totally mobilise Germany’s resources
for war until 1944
The German economy was not fully mobilised for war until
after the massive defeat at Stalingrad. Hitler did not wish the
German people to go without many of their consumer goods
if he could avoid it and so the war was run on a “Blitzkrieg”
economy until the defeat at Stalingrad forced the adoption of
the “TOTALENKRIEG” or Total War policy. Even after the
Total War policy was announced it is questionable whether the
economic resources of Germany were fully mobilised for war.
The Nazis did not want to upset people on the home front or
subject them to too much hardship as they feared a repeat of
the domestic collapse of 1918. This delay in fully mobilising
the resources of the country to fight the war greatly aggravated
the Minister for Armaments, Albert Speer. It was not until
1944 that there was true co-ordination of the elements of the
German economy. Had resources been mobilised more fully, it
is possible that Germany could have been victorious earlier.
His hindering of research into nuclear weapons
Hitler personally hindered the German research into nuclear
weapons. Given that the ideas had originally come from a Jew,
(Albert Einstein) Hitler regarded the whole idea as “Jewish
physic” and did not allow many resources to be devoted to it.
America developed their bombs because they feared Germany
were doing the same thing but in reality the Germans were
well behind American research. Had the Germans been able to
develop the bomb first and had they still possessed a method of
delivering it to London (which they would have had with the
V2 until late in the war), they would have won the war.
107
The Home Front
Notes from the slide series from the Imperial War Museum
(This slideshow is available as a Powerpoint
on the English-History Intranet site)
1. Luminous items for use in the blackout on sale in
Selfridges, London. The first month of the blackout,
September 1939, resulted in double the number of
fatal traffic accidents. Torches, white clothing, rolled
newspapers and similar devices were all used to try and
make life safer for pedestrians.
2. An ARP warden with helmet, gas mask and stirrup pump.
Air Raid Precautions were first introduced in 1935 and by
the summer of 1939 one and a half million people were
involved in Civil Defence. Many of these were wardens,
whose responsibilities included first aid, basic fire fighting
and supervision of the homeless.
3. Bristol evacuees leaving Brent station en route to
Kingsbridge, Devon. Evacuation began on 1 September
and within 3 days nearly one and a half million children
and supervision adults had left for the countryside.
However, many of them failed to settle in and by
Christmas, with no air raids having occurred, 700,000 of
those evacuated had returned home.
4. Teacher and pupils at Creek Road School, Deptford,
wearing gas masks. Some 38 million gas masks were
issued at the time of the Munich crisis in 1938 and after
the outbreak of war people were instructed to carry them at
all times. However, as time went on and no gas was used,
lapses in gas mask drill became more common.
5. Nurses carrying babies in gas helmets. The problem of
how to protect babies had been solved by January 1940
with the issue of nearly one and a half million metalframed gas helmets. Heavy and cumbersome, they also
required regular pumping to ensure a fresh air supply to
the occupant.
6. Signposts being used as landing obstacles at Springfield,
Essex. The fall of France in June 1940 heralded a major
invasion scare. The erection of roadblocks and landing
obstacles, the immobilisation of vehicles and the removal
of signposts were all designed to hamper the invader.
7. German officer arriving outside the Kommondant’s Office,
St. Helier, Jersey. Demilitarized in June 1940, the Channel;
Islands were rapidly occupied by a sizeable German
garrison. While a quarter of the 90,000 population had
been evacuated, the remainder suffered severe shortages as
the war progressed.
8. Members of the Home Guard participating in training
exercise. Formed on the initiative of Anthony Eden in
May 1940, the Local Defence Volunteers (renamed Home
Guard in July) had one and a half million recruits within
a month. Short of uniforms, weapons and youth, it is
questionable how effectively they would have been able to
resist the Germans had they invaded.
9. A Heinkel 111 over the Isle of Dogs district of London.
The London Blitz began on 7 September 1940 and
continued until 10 May 1941, during which time over
20,000 people were killed in the capital. For German pilots
seeking their targets the Thames made an ideal marker.
108
10. The facade of the Salvation Army headquarters in
Blackfriars collapses, 10 May 1941. This raid, the heaviest
of the Blitz, left 1,436 civilians dead, 155,000 families
without gas or electricity and a third of London’s streets
impassable. The House of Commons, Westminster Abbey,
the Royal Mint and the Tower of London were all badly
hit.
11. The ruins of Coventry Cathedral after the raid of 14
November 1940. It killed 554 people and laid waste 100
acres of the city centre, including the cathedral. So great
was the damage that the Germans coined a new verb ‘to
coventrate”, meaning to destroy completely.
12. An Anderson shelter in Poplar, London, following a land
mine explosion. Made from corrugated steel sheets, half
buried in the ground and covered with at least 18 inches
of earth, the Anderson shelter could withstand everything
except a direct hit.
13. A Morrison shelter furnished with bedding. Introduced in
1941 to provide an indoor alternative to the notoriously
damp Anderson shelter, the Morrison never really caught
on, although some half million were in use by the end of
the year.
14. Shelterers sleeping in the Aldwych Underground. At the
height of the Blitz 177,000 people regularly took shelter in
the Underground. Although most tube stations functioned
normally in the daytime, the branch line to the Aldwych
was actually closed.
15. Housewife purchasing dried goods in a grocer’s shop.
Introduced in January 1940, food rationing soon covered
bacon, butter, sugar, meat and tea. The use of powdered
milk and eggs, often imported from America, was one way
of overcoming the shortage of fresh goods.
16. Evacuees from Finsbury Park digging over a vegetable
patch at Buckden, Huntingdonshire. The ‘Dig for Victory’
campaign was launched by the Ministry of Agriculture
in October 1939 and led to a profusion of allotment and
gardening societies.
17. Items of Utility clothing in a shop window. Clothing
rationing began in June 1940 and was followed in 1942 by
the Board of Tarde’s Utility scheme. This was designed to
produced simple, hardwearing clothes at low prices.
18. Housewife sorting out scrap for salvage. It was the
responsibility of the Ministry of Supply to ensure that
nothing went to waste and paper, tyres, bones and scrap
metal were all the subject of collecting ‘drives’.
19. Women checking electrical fittings in a Lancaster bomber.
With the introduction of female conscription in December
1941, women were given the choice of joining the
auxiliary services or finding work in essential industries.
By 1943 nearly seven and a half million women were thus
employed and, possibly attracted by the high wages, they
made up over 50% of the workforce in aircraft factories.
20. Land girls learning to milk. Re-formed under Lady
Denman in June 1939, the Women’s Land Army had
nearly 90,000 members at its peak. In return for 48
shillings a week and 7 days leave a year the girls worked
long hours, often in primitive conditions.
21. A dance organised by the US Army Corps in Culford,
Suffolk. By the spring of 1944 the GIs formed the vast
majority of the 1,421,000 overseas troops stationed in
Britain as part of the D-Day preparations. While their
British counterparts complained they were ‘overpaid,
oversexed and over here’, many civilians welcomed them
for their razor blades, soap, chewing gum and nylons.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
22. V1 flying bomb crashing in a side street off Drury Lane,
London. Between June and September 1944 2,350
Doodlebugs landed on London, killing 5,475 people and
seriously injuring 15,000 others. In addition there were
isolated attacks on targets in the north, the worst being on
Christmas Eve 1944 when 27 people died in Oldham.
23. The site of a V2 rocket explosion in Ilford, Essex, April
1945. Flying 60 miles high at twice the speed of sound, the
V2 gave no warning of its arrival and could penetrate the
deepest shelters. 518 landed on London, killing 2,724 and
injuring 6,000.
24. Churchill on VJ Day saluting the crowd in Whitehall.
Although VE Day was celebrated on 8 May 1945 the
continuing hostilities against Japan delayed the official end
to the war until 15 August. By this time Churchill had been
heavily defeated by Attlee and the Labour Party in the July
general election.
Women in Wartime
The Second World War
Notes from the slide series from the Imperial War Museum
(This slideshow is available as a Powerpoint
on the English-History Intranet site.
The second half of the slideshow covers the role of
women in the Second World War, starting at slide 13)
13. A mother saying goodbye to her children who are being
evacuated. Only children under 5 were accompanied
by their mothers when evacuated, the remainder being
entrusted to teachers, WVS workers and others volunteers.
Inevitably this led to heartache on both sides and by
Christmas 1939, with no air raids having occurred,
700,000 of the 1.5 million evacuees who left for the
country in September had returned home.
14. Women queuing outside a greengrocer’s in Wood Green,
North London. While many foods, including meat, cheese
and butter were rationed after 1940, others like fish
and vegetables remained off ration throughout the war.
However, demand inevitably outstripped supply and many
hours were wasted queuing for food that ran out all too
quickly.
15. WVS workers provide refreshments at a Blitz canteen.
Set up by Lady Reading in 1938, the Women’s Voluntary
Service had 300,000 members within a year, most from
the middle and upper classes since the work was unpaid.
They were involved in a wide variety of activities but the
provision of food, clothing and shelter to victims of the
Blitz was perhaps the most important.
18. Workers in a Royal Ordnance Factory canteen. In order to
save time and to ensure that workers were adequately fed,
the Ministry of Food encouraged employers to provide
canteens, numbers rising from about 1,500 in 1939 to
18,000 in 1944. Ordinary canteens were allowed more
meat, cheese, butter and sugar than restaurants and those
for heavy industry were given twice as much again. In
addition the canteen also provided a useful social centre.
19. Children at the Flin Green Road Nursery, Birmingham. To
release more mothers for work extra provision was made
for the care of young children. By 1943 there were about
1,450 state run nurseries with places for 65,000 children
and another 130,000 under fives had been allocated spaces
at elementary and nursery schools.
20. School mistress refereeing a football match at Queen’s
College, Taunton. Teaching was one of those professions,
like nursing and the Civil Service, from which a women
was expected to resign if she married. The shortage of staff
brought about by the war ended this, greatly enhancing the
married women’s career prospects in these areas.
21. Land Army Girls picking sprouts. Re-formed under
Lady Denman in June 1939, the Women’s Land Army
had nearly 90,000 members at its peak. In return for 48
shillings a week and 7 days leave a year, the girls worked
long hours, often in primitive conditions.
22. ATS recruits rushing to their posts during the Battle of
Britain. Formed in 1938, the Auxiliary Territorial Service
comprised over 200,000 women by 1943. While some
were restricted to routine office work, others played an
important part in the country’s air defences working
barrage balloons, search lights and anti-aircraft batteries.
Although not directly involved in combat, nearly 400
members of the ATS were killed in action.
23. A Wren mechanic welding aboard a landing craft. The
Women’s Royal Naval Service, which had been disbanded
in 1919, was revived 20 years later with the threat of war
and had nearly 75,000 recruits in 1944. However, although
they were involved in 90 different areas of work, the Navy,
unlike the other services, never placed its women on an
equal footing with its men.
24. Radar plotters at Fighter Command Headquarters during
the Battle of Britain. The Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
was the second largest of the women’s services with
182,000 members in 1943, approximately 16% of the total
strength of the R.A.F. Although none was allowed to fly,
they were involved in ground control and observation, as
well as comprising 70% of the workforce in some skilled
trades.
16. First aid workers on duty in Chelmsford, Essex. Women
were expected to play an active role in Civil Defence and
by 1942 there were 80,000 full time and 350,000 part time
workers involved as wardens, ambulance drivers, first
aiders and fire fighters. However discrimination persisting
as regards pay, a female warden receiving only 2 pounds, 3
shillings and 6 pence for a full week’s work rather than the
man’s 3 pounds and 5 shillings.
17. Women making tank tracks. With the introduction of
female conscription in December 1941, women were given
the choice of joining the auxiliary services or finding work
in essential industries. By 1943 there were 7.5 million
women in employment, often in areas such as engineering
that had traditionally been regarded as a male preserve.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
109
GENOCIDE 1941-1945
from “The World at War” series
(This video from the World at War series is available
as an MP4 on the English-History Intranet site)
Heinrich Himmler was appointed by Hitler as Reichsfuhrer
of the S.S. (originally Hitler’s personal bodyguard). Himmler
refined the philosophy of Nazism, especially regarding race.
Himmler’s dream for his elite guard had roots in the fabled
past, in the older Aryan Germany. When the Nazis came to
power in 1933 he could put his ideas into practice. He was out
to achieve a dream and inspire a new awakening of the German
race within the German people.
Youth would achieve the dream. Youth had the nerve and
the strength that would be needed. What was needed was fresh
air, good food, and exercise to build blood, bone and marrow.
Himmler believed that there were no limits to what healthy
youths could achieve. The dream had a pseudo-scientific base
(neo-Darwinism) in which ‘only the fittest survive and the
weak go under’- that was the law of nature! Farmers knew
it perfectly well - horses were bred for pace or the plough.
Why should there not be pedigree humans too? It was time
to produce a new race - a race of supermen - surely there
could be no harm in that. It never occurred to Germans that
extermination could result for those born with dark skin or
other features that did not fit the new mould for Germany.
The S.S. were regarded as the strongest, the purest, the
fiercest. They would do more than just survive. With Himmler
at their head they would create a racially superior Europe. The
S.S. were based on the Jesuit order, the elite of the Catholic
church. They had the same hierarchy, processes for selecting
leaders and systems of punishments that the Jesuits had used
so effectively as the “shock troops” of the Catholic church. The
S.S. became an instrument of terror and the weapon for the
creation of the “New Order”. It was they who were given the
task of running the concentration camps. In these camps there
was no individuality. Names were not used - only numbers.
In September 1935 the Nuremberg Laws were passed.
These were a selection of race laws directed against the Jews
in Germany. Nazis pilloried Jews. This tapped into a long
established Christian tradition that stretched back for centuries.
Children in schools were taught to despise Jews. In the new
Germany, youth would be taught to be tough and pitiless.
There was to be no more Christian softness and degeneracy.
In November 1938 the Crystal Night or Night of Broken Glass
occurred. This was a so-called spontaneous burst of antiSemitic anger that was organised by the Nazis. It convinced
many Jews that it was time to get out of Germany but many
countries did not want to take Jewish migrants from Germany.
Adolf Eichmann was put in charge of Jewish emigration and
facilitated their exit from Germany. In January 1939 Hitler
threatened the Jews with a “new solution.” If the Jews dragged
Germany into another war, he warned, that would be the end of
the Jews in Europe.
After the defeat of Poland in 1939 the area was colonised
by the Germans. Jews were beaten up and a Nazi reign of terror
began in Poland. Thousands of people were executed in public.
Deportations were common and Jews were victimised. Soon all
Jews were forced to wear the Star of David at all times to make
identification of Jews simpler for the German authorities.
In 1940 the Germans attacked western Europe but the
terror that had been evident in the east was not perpetrated in
the same degree in the west. There were forced resettlements
of Jews but these were done on a more organised basis, often
with the assistance of Jewish community leaders who were
apparently unaware of the fate that awaited many Jews who
were being transported to the east. In 1940 ghettos were
established in Poland. People lived on starvation rations and
there were harsh punishments for people caught smuggling
food. Any resistance to the Nazi rule was met with the death
penalty.
110
In June 1941 Russia was invaded and this led to more
resettlements, deportations and forced emigrations. The Nazis
were waging war against Slavs and Jews who they classified
as sub-humans. The Nazis estimated that there were 3 million
Jews in Poland and 5 million Jews in Russia. They decided
that they could not deport them all so they decided to kill
them. The problem for the Nazis was how to kill them all.
They first phase in the solution to this problem was the use of
the einsatzgruppen (special action squads) but they shot their
victims and this proved to be messy, inefficient and distressing.
Reinhard Heydrich (deputy leader of the S.S.) convened a
conference at Wannsee in January 1942. Senior civil servants
attended and lists of Jews in Europe and Russia were produced.
It was estimated that there were over 11 million Jews in Europe
and Russia and that the “final solution to the Jewish problem”
was to gas them to death. Adolf Eichmann was made the
administrator of the final solution. He was to be responsible
for the transportation of the Jews to the death camps that
were being constructed on the railway lines in the occupied
territories of the east. The largest of these death camps was at
Auschwitz.
The gassing of these people was done with Zyklon B, a
cyanide-based poison. Jews in Holland were transported east
but without great resistance. They were told they were going
to be “resettled”. Many Jews in the west actually volunteered
for resettlement and paid to do so in order to “escape”
starvation. When new arrivals came into the death camps
they were immediately, upon leaving the trains, divided into
those who were fit for work and those who were not. Those
unfit for work; the old, sick and many women, were gassed
immediately. The others worked until they died. Those who
were to be gassed were told that they were to be “deloused”
and went to gas chambers disguised as shower blocks. Bodies
were cremated in purpose-built crematoriums. Some prisoners
were used for medical experiments. Some chose suicide rather
than the indignity of life in the camps.
The Allies did little that gave any practical help to the
victims. They knew what was going on and they protested and
warned Germany that the guilty would be held responsible
but they did little practical to help them. No bombing raids
on camps or camp facilities were carried out and the gassings
went on unimpeded.
In April 1943 the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto rose in
revolt against the Nazis. It took the Germans 33 days to
crush the revolt. The German people and foreigners were
shown propaganda films of inmates from the model camp
of Theresianstadt. These were supposed to show how fairly
the concentration camp inmates were treated. These films
were fraudulent and staged for propaganda purposes only.
Most of the inmates who featured in the films died in Nazi
concentration camps.
By 1944 it was obvious that Germany was losing the war
and as a result they speeded up the gassings. An “industry
of death” developed. The victims simply became resources
to be used by the German war machine. Gold teeth were
extracted from dead bodies, artifical limbs were reused as were
spectacles. Even hair was used and soap was made from the fat
extracted from cremated bodies.
By 1944 the Russians started to liberate the most eastern
camps as they pushed towards Germany. As they did so they
revealed the horrors of what had been going on in these
camps. Inmates capable of working were often transferred
to camps closer to Germany as the Russians and Americans
closed in on the Reich. The inmates left when the camps were
liberated were often the old and the sick. As the Allies pushed
closer to Germany and liberated more camps and revealed
the horror of what had happened in these camps, many of
the guards discarded their uniforms and sought to mix back
into the German civilian population to mask their role in the
death camps. German civilians were often made to visit the
camps and witness what had happened their so that the truth
of the horror of Nazi rule would never be forgotten. They were
sometimes forced to exhume bodies of victims and rebury
them. It was hoped that in this way they would never forget.
It is to be hoped that the world will never forget.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Munich : A Reappraisal
(This video is available as an MP4
on the English-History Intranet site)
At the time, the Munich agreement seemed to offer a
real chance of peace. It was signed in the early hours of 30th
September 1938. Less than a year later when the war had
broken out it was seen as misguided at best and at worst an act
of supreme folly and betrayal. It became a symbol of sellout
and appeasement.
Czechoslovakia had been created in 1919 out of the old
Habsburg Empire. It was intended to be a multi-racial nation
but by the late 1930s it was believed by many to be a Czech
national state in which the other minorities such as Slovaks,
Germans, Hungarians, Ruthenes and Poles were simply
being tolerated. The German minority in Czechoslovakia
made up about one quarter of the population, mostly living
in Bohemia and Moravia. The leader of the Czech Nazi party
(the Sudeten Deutsche Partei) was Conrad Henlein. They
pressed for independence from the Czechs but exactly what
Henlein wanted is a matter of dispute. He did not necessarily
want Czechoslovakia to become a part of Germany. He did not
simply want to be Hitler’s puppet. He seems to have wanted to
become the German Prime Minister of a Czech state.
In 1935 the Czechs and the Russians signed an alliance
and Hitler then knew that he had to get rid of Czechoslovakia
before he could attack Russia. In the November 1937 meeting
which is now called the Hossbach meeting (because of the
document called the Hossbach memorandum which recorded
its discussions) Hitler told his generals that he had to get rid of
Czechoslovakia.
On the weekend of 20/21 May 1938 there occurred the
so-called “Weekend Crisis”. The Czech government claimed to
have intelligence that Germany was planning a coup d’etat in
Czechoslovakia. The Czechs partly mobilised and the British
and the French made diplomatic protests to Hitler. Hitler was
forced to admit that he had no plans to attack the Czechs and
the press hailed this “back-down” as a humiliation of Hitler.
There were no German plans and it seems this was a ploy
by the Czechs to stop German aggression. In the event it
had the opposite effect. Hitler was enraged and gathered his
military leaders together and told them to plan for an attack
on Czechoslovakia by the end of September. The British were
very concerned because an attack on the Czechs would bring
France into the conflict. Great Britain would eventually be
drawn in as well for France was militarily quite weak at this
time.
The Munich agreement averted war and at the time it was
regarded as a success for Chamberlain. Many people thought
the agreement was also a triumph for Hitler but he was not
well pleased with the agreement. His desire for war had been
thwarted. When he was about to attack Poland in 1939 he said,
“this time no bastard is going to intervene.” Hitler is said to
have hated the “intolerable nanny-mindedness” of the British.
The agreement had purchased Britain immunity from war at
the cost of selling the Czechs down the river.
not the only threat that Britain
was facing. Japan threatened
British interests in the Far East
and Italy was threatening peace
in the Mediterranean with her
activities in Abyssinia and
Palestine. The prime obligation
of any British politician in the
1930s was to protect the British
Empire. As a consequence of
this Chamberlain was advised
from the Chiefs of Staff not
to go to war in 1938. The war
could easily have ended up
being a war with both Germany
and Japan and if this was the
David Dilks
case it was felt that Britain
would loose. Britain could not
risk war in Europe, the Mediterranean and the Far East at the
same time. Sir Maurice Hankey (Secretary of the Committee
for Imperial Defence and Cabinet Secretary) and the Chiefs of
Staff and the intelligence services all advised Chamberlain to
avoid war.
After the agreement the British newspapers were almost
universally in favour of Chamberlain and the Munich
agreement. The German documents now available show us that
the British overestimated the size of the German armed forces.
Hitler had wanted this and had deliberately tried to persuade
the British of this. The British also overestimated the damage
of war on British cities. You can seen how this would have
made them want to aviod war.
Another factor was that if war had broken out in 1938
the empire would have been split and the British ministers
would have wanted to avoid this. The South African Prime
Minister Hertzog had said at the Imperial Conference in 1937
that South Africa would not join Britain in a European war
against Germany. Also the British did not feel they could rely
on American support in the case of war. They certainly felt
that America would not be forthcoming with armed support
if war broke out against Germany. Chamberlain, in private
correspondence, said that it was always best and safest to
“count on nothing from the Americans except words”.
A popular image of Chamberlain that developed from the
policy of appeasement was that he was a weak leader. In fact
he was a very powerful and well organised Prime Minister. He
was rarely opposed in cabinet. Nevertheless appeasement was
a policy that would have had to have had cabinet support for it
to have been carried out.
In the light of what we now know, appeasement can be seen
as a triumph rather than a tragic error. What do you think?
After the war, condemnations of Chamberlain’s policy
were very common. It was believed that he should not have
negotiated with evil people and that it was futile and wrong to
have done so, or at least pathetically short-sighted. However,
later views of historians have tended to take a less critical view
of British policy, saying that the earlier criticisms were too
facile.
David Dilks, with access to new records that became
available in the late 1960s, throws new light on the motivation
of British policy. The documents show that Germany was
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Mussolini, Hitler, Paul Schmidt (Hitler’s translator) and Chamberlain
discuss the fate of Czechoslovakia in Hitler’s office at the Führerbau
during the Munich Conference in September 1938
111
PAST CSSA onQUESTIONS
Conflict in Europe
2006
2 Unit
1. Assess the impact of World War II on civilians in Britain
and EITHER Germany OR The Soviet Union.
2013
2 Unit
1. To what extent did the failure of collective security
contribute to the growth in tensions in Europe by 1939?
2. Assess the significance of the battle of El Alamein and the
conflict in North Africa to Allied victory.
2014
2 Unit
2. To what extent was ‘D’ Day and the liberation of France
responsible for the final defeat of Germany in 1945?
1. Evaluate the view that the dictators were primarily
responsible for the growth of tensions that led to the
outbreak of war in Europe in 1939.
2007
2. Explain why the implementation of the racial policies
of the Nazi leaders resulted in their prosecution at the
Nuremberg War Crimes trials.
2 Unit
1. To what extent was the policy of appeasement responsible
for the outbreak of World War II?
2. Explain how the implementation of the racial policies
of the Nazi leaders resulted in their prosecution at the
Nuremberg War Crime Trials.
2008
2 Unit
1. Assess the view that the collapse of collective security was
the main cause of the conflict in Europe.
2. To what extent was the campaign in North Africa a turning
point in the course of the European War?
2009
2 Unit
1. Account for the outbreak of war in Europe by September
1939.
2. Explain why Germany had military success in Europe by
1942.
2010
2 Unit
1. Evaluate the social and economic effects of the war on
civilians in Britain and EITHER Germany OR the Soviet
Union.
2. To what extent did ‘D’ Day and the liberation of France
lead to the final defeat of Germany in 1945?
2011
2 Unit
1. To what extent did dictatorships in Germany and Italy
contribute to the growth of European tensions between
1935 and 1939?
2. To what extent did Russian counter offensives contribute
to Allied victory by 1945?
2012
2 Unit
1. The policy of appeasement was responsible for the
outbreak of World War II.
How accurate is this statement?
2. Evaluate the view that Operation Barbarossa was a
significant turning point that led to Germany’s defeat.
112
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
PAST HSC QUESTIONS
on
Conflict in Europe
2006
2 Unit Specimen Paper
1. To what extent was the collapse of collective security the
main cause of the conflict in Europe?
2012
2 Unit
1. Why was Germany so successful in the European War up
to the start of Operation Barbarossa?
2. Assess the social and economic effects of the war on
civilians in Britain and EITHER Germany OR the Soviet
Union.
2013
2 Unit
2. Assess the impact of the conflict in Europe on civilians in
Britain AND EITHER Germany OR the Soviet Union.
1. Without the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact there would
have been no war in Europe.
To what extent is this statement accurate?
2006
2. To what extent did the aims and strategies of the Axis
powers shape the course of the European War?
2 Unit
1. Evaluate the view that the dictators Hitler and Mussolini
were primarily responsible for the tensions that led to the
outbreak of war in Europe in 1939.
2014
2 Unit
2. To what extent was the Soviet Union (Russia) responsible
for the Allied victory in the conflict in Europe?
1. How significant was the war in the air in shaping the
course of the European war?
2007
2. Assess the role of the 1944 Russian counter-offensives in
bringing about the end of the conflict in Europe.
2 Unit
1. Evaluate the view that Operation Barbarossa was the
major turning point of the European war.
2. To what extent did Allied and Axis strategies during World
War II affect civilians?
2008
2 Unit
1. Evaluate the view that the air war determined the outcome
of the European War.
2. Assess the significance of the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression
Pact to the outbreak of war in 1939.
2009
2 Unit
1. To what extent was the policy of appeasement responsible
for the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939?
2. Assess the significance of the conflict in North Africa to
Allied victory in the European War.
2010
2 Unit
1. How significant were the Battle of Stalingrad and the
Russian campaign in leading to the Allied victory in the
European War?
2. Assess the impact of Nazi racial policies on civilians
during the European War.
2011
2 Unit
1. Assess the effectiveness of the League of Nations to the
maintenance of peace in Europe to 1939.
2. Evaluate the significance of ‘D’ Day and the liberation of
France in bringing about the end of the conflict in Europe
by 1945.
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
113
Going Digital
Your guide to using e-mail and the digital resources on the
English-History Department Intranet Site
E-mail
The standard way by which we will send and receive digital
material is by e-mail. When we complete an essay practice
paragraph in class, our homework is to type the paragraph
we have written (and preferably the entire essay) as a Word
document and e-mail it as an attachment to the appropriate
address below.
If you type the paragraph in Pages on your iPad or with
another word processor, “Save as …” or “Export” your file as a
Word file, then attach the Word file to your e-mail.
The Word document will be marked by your teacher and
returned by e-mail. In addition, copies of all work received will
be circulated to everyone in the class by e-mail so we can all
learn from each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
We will send material to your school e-mail address
(e.g. m.smith@bthstu.catholic.edu.au) as this works through
a Google server and can be accessed anywhere via a web
browser.
The address for Mr Newton is: r.newton@bth.catholic.edu.au
For Mrs Bennett it is: k.bennett@bth.catholic.edu.au
How to log-on to the Student Intranet
1. In your web browser, go to the Student Intranet: http://
mkc.nsw.edu.au/groups/students/
2. When prompted, enter your School Username which will
be something like 16smitma (i.e. Mary Smith in the 2016
HSC class) and your School Password
(If you do not know your School Username and Password,
see the IT Technician, Mr Dominic Smith.)
How to log-on to your school Gmail account
To log on to your school-provided Gmail account, do the
following:
1. Go to the Student Intranet (log-on as above if necessary)
2. Click the “Student Email Login” link
3. You will be taken to the CENet login page. Enter your
Diocesan Username (something like m.smith), Diocesan
Password and select Bathurst as the diocese.
(If you do not know your Diocesan Username and
Password, see the IT Technician, Mr Dominic Smith.)
Accessing your e-mails
The best way to access your e-mails is to use the Mail
program that comes with your iPad. This application allows
you to access e-mails from multiple accounts, including your
school e-mail account (which is actually a Gmail account). My
Mail program recieves e-mails from three separate accounts.
Forwarding
A feature in most Gmail accounts allows you to “forward”
e-mails that arrive in the Gmail account to another e-mail
account. Unfortunately, “forwarding” is disabled for all our
school e-mail accounts.
Problems?
If you have any problems in setting up your e-mail account,
or the Mail application on your iPad, see our IT technician, Mr
Dominic Smith. It is your responsibility to ensure your e-mail
account is operating and that you know how to use it.
Always save your files to your own thumb drive or pocket
drive and bring it with you to class when work is due, just in
case your e-mail has not worked. “I had problems with e-mail”
is not an adequate excuse for not submitting your homework.
The link to the
main EnglishHistory Intranet
if you are at
home or school
The link to
Student Email
Login.
The link to the
main EnglishHistory Course
Materials site
where individual
teachers post
materials for
their classes.
114
The Student Intranet home page (http://mkc.nsw.edu.au/groups/students/)
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Intranet
On the Student Intranet home page, under KLA Resources
you will find a link to the English and History Intranet site.
This contains a very large number of files that can augment
and enrich your Modern History and English studies. You will
find Audio files in MP3 format (about 1 megabyte per minute),
Video files in MP4 format, Powerpoint files, Word documents
and PDF files.
All these files are designed to be downloaded so you can
save them and use them whenever it suits you.
• MP3 (audio) files can be played in your iPod or similar
MP3 player or on your laptop using iTunes (available as a
free download from apple.com/itunes).
• MP4 (video) files can be played on your computer using
iTunes or the QuickTime Player (available from apple.com.
au) or through many other devices such as Apple TV.
• Powerpoint files can be played with Microsoft Powerpoint
or most other presentation programs such as Apple’s
Keynote.
• Word documents can be opened in Word and many other
word processing applications. If you do not have Word,
launch your word processer and go to File>Open and
navigate to the Word file to open it. Most word processors
will open a Word file from within the application.
• PDF files can be read using Acrobat Reader (available as a
free download from adobe.com).
There is also a link to English and History Course
Materials. On this site, each teacher has a separate section
where materials for their classes are located.
When you find a file you want, do the following:
1. On a PC, right-click the file you want ...
On a Mac, Control-click the file you want ...
2. In the dialogue box that appears, select an option that
enables you to download the file to your thumb drive. A
phrase like “Save linked file as ...” or “Download target file
as ...” is what you want.
3. Insert your thumb drive and navigate to the location on
your thumb drive where you want the file to be saved.
4. Click “Save”.
5. The file will be downloaded as quickly as the network will
allow. Large files may take some time to download.
... from Room 15 (if you are not a patient person)
The fastest way to get large files is to retrieve them from
any of the Macintosh computers at the back of Room 15.
There are instructions on some machines. In essence, do the
following.
1. Insert your thumb drive or hard drive in a USB slot on the
computer (not the keyboard).
2. Go to the English-History Intranet and note the type
of file you want and its name (e.g. an MP3 file named
CausesOfWWI.mp3).
3. In the Finder, open the hard drive named E-H WEBSITE.
4. Navigate to the folder you need - e.g. MP4 VIDEOS,
MP3 AUDIOS (Singles), POWERPOINTS, PDFs, PDFs
ENGLISH WORK SAMPLES, PDFs HISTORY WORK
SAMPLES or WORD FILES.
5. Find the file you need and drag it to your drive. It will be
copied as quickly as your drive allows.
Accessing the MacKillop College Intranet ...
... from home?
... from any networked computer at MacKillop College
You can access the English/History Intranet pages from
home. You can download all files BUT remember that MP4
files are very large. They may take a long time to download
and it may use a lot of your monthly ISP allowance. It might
be better to download MP4 files when you are at MacKillop
College.
Most computers at MacKillop have the introductory page
of the College Intranet as the home page. Once on this home
page, simply go to KLA Resources > English and History
Intranet and then navigate to the page you want.
The link to
the Elective
Information
Powerpoint for
English, Modern
History and
Ancient History.
Links to the
English courses
Links to the
History courses
The link to
videos related
to the History
Tour of Europe
The Main English-History Intranet home page
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
115
116
MacKillop College - Modern History Handbook
Back Cover Photographs
Centre: The two Modern History classes from 2012 and 2013 photographed at the end of their last Modern History class.
Between these two class groups is a photograph of the “Big Three” from the Paris Peace Conference. On the left, the French
Premier Georges Clemenceau, in the middle, the US President Woodrow Wilson and to the right, lifting his top hat, the British
Prime Minister David Lloyd George. They were photographed at the Palace of Versailles outside Paris on 28 June 1919, the day
the Treaty of Versailles with Germany was signed in the Hall of Mirrors at the palace. We visit this site on the History Tour of
Europe.
Clockwise from top left:
1: Hitler photographed in Munich during his trial after the failure of the putsch on 9 November 1923. With him are some of those
who stood trial with him. To his right is the former German World War One leader, Erich von Ludendorff. To his left (on the far
right of the photograph) is Ernst Röhm. Röhm was the leader of the Nazi’s private army, the SA, and was to lose his life when
Hitler turned against the SA on the Night of the Long Knives, 30 June 1934.
2: A part of a giant model of the new Berlin, to be renamed Germania. Albert Speer was to design this major remodelling of the
German capital. The archway is part of a giant memorial arch which was to commemorate the German heroes who fell in the
Great War. In the background is the giant domed hall (Volkshalle) which was to be about seventeen times the size of St Peter’s
Basilica and was designed to hold 150,000 people. This hall was to be the centrepiece of Germania. Neither the commemorative
arch not the domed hall were ever built.
3: The dramatic scene in the Trianon Palace Hotel at 3.00pm on 7 May 1919 when the German delegates, led by Count Ulrich
von Brockdorff-Rantzau, were presented with the Conditions of Peace by the allied leaders. The Trianon Palace Hotel was located
adjacent to the Palace of Versailles which was to be the site of the signing of the Versailles Peace Treaty on 28 June 1919 (exactly
five years after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand that triggered the war). The Germans had been allowed no say in the framing
of the Conditions of Peace and Brockdorff-Rantzau protested at this May meeting in the Trianon Palace Hotel. The fact that he did
so sitting down was regarded as an affront by many allied delegates. We hope to visit the Salon Clemenceau in the Trianon Palace
Hotel on our History Tour of Europe.
4: A copy of the Conditions of Peace kept as a souvenir by one of the allied delegates and signed by some colleagues. It is dated
“Paris, 6 May 1919”. This was the document delivered to the Germans in the Trianon Palace Hotel on 7 May 1919.
5: A scene of the Seine River in Paris during the Paris World Exhibition in 1937. On the far bank can be seen the German pavilion,
designed by Albert Speer, and facing it, a little further away, the pavilion of the USSR. In the foreground can be seen a statue by
Georges Gori entitled “The Genius of Fascism” which was placed in front of the Italian pavilion.
6: The Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, giving the Nazi salute at a parade in the Königsplatz in Munich. With Mussolini is his
ally, the German dictator Adolf Hitler. They are standing in front of one of the Ehrentempeln, the spiritual heart of Nazism (see
front page photographs).
7: Hitler’s architect Albert Speer showing Hitler a model of the German pavilion he had designed for the Paris World Exhibition
of 1937.
8: Hitler had intended to be an artist and one of the great disappointments of his early life was being rejected when he applied
for admission to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. He saw the value of art and the role art could play in the service of the Nazi
movement. This quotation from Hitler was inscribed on a bronze plaque that stood over the doorway of the House of German
Art in Munich. “Kunst ist eine erhabene und zum fanatismus verpflichtende mission”. It translates as “Art is an ennobling
mission demanding fanaticism.” We visit The House of German Art on our History Tour of Europe. It is still an art gallery but the
inscription above the entrance is gone.
9: Hitler addressing the German Reichstag in the Kroll Opera House in Berlin in the late 1930s. The Kroll Opera House (located
opposite the Reichstag building) was made the venue for the Reichstag after the Reichstag building in Berlin was badly damaged
by fire soon after Hitler became Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933. The Reichstag had become nothing more than a
rubber stamp for the Nazis once they had consolidated power and was certainly not a democratic institution any more.
10: Another of the traditional and heroic portraits of Hitler painted during the era of the Third Reich.
11: An advertising poster for a Grosse Deutsche Kunstaustellung (great German art exhibition) held in the Haus der Deutschen
Kunst zu München (The House of German Art in Munich) in 1937. This building survived the war and we visit it on the History
Tour of Europe.
12: An advertising poster for the 1936 Olympic Games held in Berlin. The influence of the Nazi movement at the Olympic Games
was obvious. A film of the event called Olympia was directed by a young female director, Leni Riefenstahl, who had already won
favour with the Nazis and had made the even more famous propaganda film Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will) of the
1934 Nuremberg Rally.