AP® European History review sheet from Aim for Five (aimforfive.com/euro/units/8/8-1)
Unit 8 · Topic 8.1
8.1 Contextualizing 20th-Century Global Conflicts
In 1914 Europe was rich, industrial and confident, but also split into two armed alliance blocs and charged with nationalism and imperial rivalry. Between 1914 and 1945, total war, revolution, economic collapse and a three-way struggle among liberal democracy, communism and fascism tested that confidence to the breaking point.
Key terms
- Triple Entente
- Triple Alliance
- militarism
- total war
- ideology
See it on a map: 1914: On the eve of World War I
Europe in 1914
On the eve of war, Europe dominated the globe. Its empires covered most of Africa and much of Asia, its factories led world production, and its cities had electric light, trams and department stores. Many Europeans believed science and technology guaranteed progress, and some thought economic ties made a major war impossible.
Beneath the surface were dangerous tensions. The great powers were divided into the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy) and the Triple Entente (France, Russia, Britain). Armies were huge and planned to mobilize in days by railroad. Nationalism was strong, especially in the Balkans and among Austria-Hungary's subject peoples. Socialist parties and labor unions were growing, women were demanding the vote, and new ideas from Nietzsche and Freud were shaking older certainties (7.5).
Total war and its consequences
World War I became a total war: governments mobilized entire societies, not just armies. They drafted millions of men, took control of industry, rationed food, censored the press and used propaganda. Women entered factories and offices. The war killed roughly 9 to 10 million soldiers and destroyed four empires: the Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman.
Once governments had learned to direct whole economies and shape public opinion, they did not forget. The tools of total war, such as central planning, mass propaganda and secret police, were later used by the dictatorships of the 1920s and 1930s.
Three competing systems
Much of the period from 1917 to 1945 can be read as a contest among the three systems in the table. The Great Depression (8.5) made democracy look weak, and by 1939 many new democracies in central and eastern Europe had become dictatorships. World War II pitted fascism against an unlikely alliance of democracies and the Soviet Union, and after 1945 the democracies and communism faced off in the Cold War (Unit 9).
| System | Core ideas | Main examples |
|---|---|---|
| Liberal democracy | Elected parliaments, individual rights, mostly market economies | Britain, France; Germany's Weimar Republic (1919–1933) |
| Communism | One-party rule in the name of the working class, state ownership, planned economy | Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin |
| Fascism | Extreme nationalism, one leader, glorification of war, rejection of democracy and of communism | Mussolini's Italy, Hitler's Germany |
Europe's place in the world
The two world wars weakened Europe's global position. The United States emerged from World War I as the world's leading creditor and from World War II as a superpower, and the Soviet Union rose as the other. Colonized peoples who fought or worked for European empires in both wars demanded self-determination, which set up decolonization after 1945 (9.9).
Worked examples
Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.
- Example 1
Setting up context for an interwar essay
Write two or three sentences of context for an essay on the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany.
Show the solutionHide the solution
- Step 1: Go back to the conditions that came before: World War I's destruction and the peace settlement.
- Step 2: Add the economic and political background: weak new democracies, fear of communism after 1917.
- Step 3: Point toward the argument.
Answer: World War I killed millions, bankrupted governments and left many Italians and Germans bitter about a peace settlement they saw as unfair. The Russian Revolution of 1917 frightened property owners across Europe, while new democracies such as Germany's Weimar Republic struggled with inflation and political violence. In this climate, fascist movements promising order, national revival and protection from communism gained support.
Common mistakes
- Listing Italy as part of the Triple Entente. Italy was in the Triple Alliance in 1914 but stayed neutral and joined the Allies in 1915.
- Thinking total war only means big battles. It means mobilizing the whole economy and society for war.
- Treating fascism and communism as the same. Both were dictatorships, but fascism was nationalist and defended private property, while communism aimed at a classless society with state ownership.
On the exam
- Use this topic for the contextualization point in essays about 1914–1945.
- Comparison of democracy, communism and fascism is a common essay angle; know one specific example of each.
Connected topics
Videos
Check yourself
4 questions on 8.1 Contextualizing 20th-Century Global Conflicts. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.
Many Europeans in August 1914 expected the war to be short mainly because
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 led to a general European war mainly because
In 1910 the British journalist Norman Angell published The Great Illusion, which became a bestseller across Europe. Angell argued that the economies of the great powers had become so bound together by trade, credit and investment that a war between them would ruin the winner as well as the loser.
Conquering another country's land, he wrote, could no longer make a nation richer, because modern wealth depended on international markets that war would wreck. Many readers concluded that a great European war had become unlikely, although Angell's real point was that war no longer paid, not that it could not happen.
Passage written for this practice set, summarizing Norman Angell's The Great Illusion (1910).
Angell's argument best reflects which feature of European thought before 1914?
The outbreak and course of the war of 1914–1918 most directly challenged which assumption held by many of Angell's readers?
0 of 4 answered