Mid-term Exam.

EUH4280/ Second

World War

Questions relating to the Interwar period.

Fate of liberalism in Europe:

examples? Major political, and economic

forces in Italy and Germany which gave rise to fascism and Nazism during the 1920s and 1930s.

Examples from Italy? Examples from Germany?

Major Political trends: Post WWI Europe

To what extent can the outbreak of the

Second World War be attributed to the Treaty of Versailles and other post-World War I treaties?

To what extent can the sharpening of political tensions in Europe after 1929 be attributed to the Great Depression?

What were the specific aspects of these treaties which were most problematic?

What impact did the re-drawing of the map of Europe have on general European affairs?

Post-war obstacles to peace

Was Appeasement a deliberate

surrender to Hitler’s and Mussolini’s efforts to revise radically the post-war status quo in Europe? (Key terms to define: “appeasement”, and rival foreign policies, “collective security”. )

Western democratic responses to

Fascism/Communism

Even less so than the democratic

powers of France and Great Britain, none of the “totalitarian” regimes in the inter-war years (Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union) appeared willing to obey the conventions of international diplomacy as defined by bodies like the League of Nations. Why?

“Renegade countries?”

Summary of the major diplomatic

events between 1938 and 1939 which contributed to Hitler’s decision to go to war over the Polish question.

Anschluss of 1938 Czech crisis of 1938 Spanish Civil War

Count-down to War

What did Hitler hope to achieve by

invading Poland in 193(? What impact did the Russo-Finnish War

(1939-1940) have on the early course of the SWW?

What was the so-called Phoney War? Summarize what happened during this period and then be prepared to explain how this phase of the war shaped the course of the next one (1940-1941).

War Begins…

1 September, 1939 -- Outbreak of war: what were

Hitler’s war aims in 1939? Allied response to invasion of Poland. November, 1939-March, 1940 -- Russo-Finnish war April-May, 1940 -- Scandinavian interlude (Hitler

invades Denmark, Norway)

First Stage: Chronology