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Offering last minute clarification for exams


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Can you please go over:

The Causes

The practices

and the effects of the cold war!

Also key dates!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't specialise in Castro or Mao so I can't help you with that unfortunately.

If you are only looking for a brief list then here you go

- Causes of cold war:

+ Russian revolution 1917

+ Nazi Soviet pact 1939/Mistrust during WWII

+ Stalin's fear of insecurity

+ Potsdam and Yalta 1945 => disagreement over Germany

+ Stalin's betrayal of his promise on Eastern Europe.

+ Long Telegram 1946

+ Truman Doctrine 1947

+ Marshall Plan 1947

- Practices of Cold War:

+ Proxy wars: Vietnam War, Korean War (not really...), Afghanistan, Nicaragua,...

+ Arms race

+ Diplomacy (Kissinger's realpolitik stroke in 1971 for example...)

...

- Effects:

+ In the end, USSR dissolved in 1991.

+ U.S emerged as sole superpower

+ International relations changed

+ Europe "reunified", Germany reunified

+ World a safer place to live :P no more nuclear threat

...

Not exactly about the topics, but rather the general exam structure: Why is it that you need 17+ points on a single essay to get a 7, but only approx. 26/40 (so around 13) points to get a 7 in Paper 2?

I've been studying really hard these past few weeks, but this is kind of creeping me out-- are the examiners thaaaat strict, or is the exam actually passable for people who study?

Also, people on various forums are arguing whether you should include histiography or not to get a 7... but in fact you don't need the 'higher bands' to get a 7 overall so is it better to just forget about it in general? =/ (so confused right now...)

NO! There's no need of getting 17 although that would be good. And to be honest, I myself include historians in when possible but I find those who try to stuff historians in their essay approaching the essay in the wrong manner. A bad essay with a lot of historian is going to be mediocre but an essay with a strong analysis backed by evidence is still solid as ever. Do not make the icing when you don't have the cake.

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Can someone give me like an overview of Weimar and Bismarck including the realpolitik and weltpolitik.. :) Please

Hi,

As far as I know, Weimar has nothing to do with realpolitik or weltpolitik at all :D Weimar was the democracy between 1919 and 1934 and Bismarck lived during the time of the German Empire between 1871-1919 ok? Bismarck was the chancellor of Germany between 1871 and 1890, he is famous as a realpolitik practitioner or a follower of the realist school in international relations. Basically, he pursued a very cautious foreign policy but very crafty and complex, far too complex for his successors. I think Bethmann Hollweg once said that no one after Bismarck had the ability to keep several balls in the air like Bismarck, implying he's a good "juggler". What does this mean? Bismarck wanted to preserve the power of Germany, and so he had to show that it was a satisfied power, had no intention of conquering its neighbours otherwise, even Napoleon was defeated by a powerful alliance. Furthermore, he wanted to keep Germany from fighting a two front war, this could be done by forming the League of the Three Emperors (1872) (Germany, A-H, Russia). In doing so, he would keep Russia in good terms therefore alienating France in the west (Britain was still in splendid isolation) => security for Germany. In 1879, he signed a separate "Dual Alliance" with A-H (after San Stefano 1878, Russo-German relations deteriorated). In 1882, the formation of the Triple Alliance now including Italy. The League of Three Emperors came to an end in 1881 but in 1887, Bismarck signed the "Reinsurance treaty" with Russia which pledged neutrality in a war that involved either sides (you can read more on wikipedia). These complicated web of alliance would always allow the iron fist chancellor to have great flexibility in managing crisis and it did keep the country out of a war and keep Germany out of the hostility focus of other countries for few decades.

However, in 1888, Kaiser Wilhelm II came to power and in 1890 Bismarck resigned. Wilhelm II was immature and impulsive, greatly affected by the jingoistic press and therefore pushed for policies that aimed at improving Germany's standing among the great powers. Realpolitik was replaced by Weltpolitik, a policy that according to Wilhelm's own chancellor - Bethmann Hollweg "got in the way of everyone but actually weakened no one". Weltpolitik called for an expansion in the navy therefore beginning a naval race with G.B in the hope that G.B would opt for neutrality in any future war and that with a stronger navy, it could manage its colonies better. But this only deteriorated the Anglo-German relations and made any dialogue difficult.Also, Wilhelm wanted a "place in the sun" for Germany, expanding its colonies in Africa. This threatend Anglo and French interests. This became very clear in 1905 and 1911 when Wilhelm II repeatedly make provocative moves that in the end only strengthened the Anglo-French "Entente Cordiale" (1904) in the First Moroccan crisis and then the second time it made the formation of the Triple Entente (1907) possible as Russia also became involved and the three members of Triple Entente shared the fear of Germany above everything. That's basically Weltpolitik and its consequences.

If I wasn't clear enough or if you want to ask something more specific, you are most welcome to!

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Hi! I am last-minute revising for my paper 3 :) I really dislike the topic of collective security, but I thought I should revise at least a tiny bit, in case there are not 3 topics I like. If you were to structure an essay about collective security/peacekeeping failures, how would you do it?

Helps to define what collective security is firstly.

Assuming you're talking about the League of Nations you should point out their failures and why they came about then how that undermined the notion of collective security.

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Hi! I am last-minute revising for my paper 3 :) I really dislike the topic of collective security, but I thought I should revise at least a tiny bit, in case there are not 3 topics I like. If you were to structure an essay about collective security/peacekeeping failures, how would you do it?

It depends on the question, how specific they are about "collective security" and what they demand from you.

- Account for the successes and failures of League of Nations

=> A structured sort of question, a standard essay would have two main parts in the analysis: successes and failures. Successes would be settling disputes in the 1920s and formation of health organisation that led to foundation of WHO, standardized 8-hour/day work,etc. Failures are many, include Manchuria 1931, Abyssinia 1935, Rhineland 1936, etc.

- To what extent and for what reasons were attempts at collective security fail between 1919 and 1939?

=> A question that gives you much more flexibility. I would begin by first defining collective security as in this case, it would not necessarily have to be limited to the LoNs, can be bilateral agreements (Hoare-Laval pact, Anglo-German naval agreement), multilateral agreements (Stresa Front, Locarno treaty,...) as in each case, to a certain extent, the agreements were aiming at preventing war from happening. But how you deal with this is pretty much up to you. You can pick a several examples of collective security and examine case by case, that would be a simple way to do it :)

Good luck!

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This was my plan for a question on the mocks, which I got a 15 on.

It was something like "To what extent do you agree that collective security was a failure by 1939?"

P1 - The mood of the age and the foundation

  • The structure of the League of Nations
    • veto power
    • no army
    • economic sanctions
    • lacks major powers

    [*]The mood of the age

    • Br + Fr not very enthusiastic about L of N, weakened due to the war
    • USA not in the L of N
    • Germany feels angry and resentful over the L of N, Clause 231, limits army

P2 - Successes of the League of Nations: the false cover

  • Aaland Islands
  • Bulgaria and Greece conflict
  • Locarno treaties, Dawes Plan, Kellog-Briand, Young Plan
  • gave sense of security up 1929?
  • COUNTER: however, France still felt threatened at Locarno, K-B brought no obligations, Dawes Plan collapsed

P3 - The failures of the League of Nations + aggressive actions of countries + formation of aggressive treaties

  • Corfu 1923
    • ANALYSIS: League conforms to Mussolini's demands

    [*]Manchuria 1931

    [*]Abyssinia

    • ANALYSIS: Fr + Br unwilling to condemn Mussolini for his actions due to their fear of Germany

    [*]Stresa Front

    [*]Pact of Steel

    [*]remilitarisation of the Ruhr

    [*]Anschluss

    [*]rearmament, conscription

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Do the following:

2 Topics completely!

1 Topic completely + at least two partially

If you know two though you are guaranteed 4 questions you know.

We did Unification of Italy and Germany completely, World War I all except for course, inter-war period all except for mussolini and the spanish civil war, stalins domestic policies, cold

war origins.

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