Conflict and Tension: The Inter-War Years, 1918–1939

What Conflict and Tension: The Inter-War Years, 1918–1939 covers

Conflict and Tension: The Inter-War Years, 1918–1939 is examined in Paper 1, Understanding the modern world. It covers the armistice, the Versailles Settlement, impact of the treaty and wider settlement, the League of Nations, diplomacy outside the League, the collapse of the League, the development of tension, Escalation of tension and the outbreak of war.

The 9 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

• The armisticeWhat an armistice is, the three leaders at Paris, Wilson's Fourteen Points and his League, what Clemenceau and Lloyd George wanted, why Germany could not argue its case, and how far each was satisfied.Open →
• The Versailles SettlementThe Diktat, Alsace-Lorraine, the Saar and the Polish Corridor, the colonies as mandates, the ban on union with Austria, the limits on the army, navy and air force, the demilitarised Rhineland, Article 231 and reparations.Open →
• Impact of the treaty and wider settlementHow France, Britain and the United States reacted to the peace, Germany's objections and the stab in the back myth, the treaties of St Germain, Trianon, Neuilly and Sèvres, and the strengths and weaknesses of the settlement, including the problems of the new states of central and eastern Europe.Open →
• The League of NationsThe Covenant and the League's four aims, collective security, the Assembly, Council, Secretariat and Permanent Court, the missing great powers and changing membership, sanctions, the work of its agencies on labour, health, refugees and slavery, and its record in the disputes of the 1920s.Open →
• Diplomacy outside the LeagueThe Locarno treaties of 1925 and the frontiers Germany did and did not accept, the Locarno honeymoon and Germany's entry to the League, the Kellogg-Briand Pact and its fatal weakness, and why agreements made outside the League undermined its authority.Open →
• The collapse of the LeagueHow the Depression weakened the League and encouraged aggression, Japan's invasion of Manchuria and the Lytton Commission, Mussolini's invasion of Abyssinia, the half-hearted sanctions and the Hoare-Laval Pact, and why the League had failed to prevent war by 1939.Open →
• The development of tensionHitler's foreign policy aims and Lebensraum, why Britain and France were slow to resist him, the Dollfuss Affair, the Saar plebiscite, secret and open rearmament, the Stresa Front, and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement that broke it apart.Open →
• Escalation of tensionThe remilitarisation of the Rhineland, the Rome-Berlin Axis and the Anti-Comintern Pact, the Anschluss with Austria, the arguments for and against appeasement, the Sudeten Crisis and the Munich Agreement, and the seizure of the Czech lands in March 1939 that ended appeasement.Open →
• The outbreak of warThe occupation of Prague and the British guarantee to Poland, Danzig and the Polish Corridor, the failed talks with the USSR, the Nazi-Soviet Pact and its secret protocol, the invasion of Poland in September 1939, and how far Hitler, Stalin and Chamberlain were responsible for the war.Open →

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Take Conflict and Tension: The Inter-War Years, 1918–1939 further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

• Treaty of St Germain vs Treaty of Trianon

  Treaty of St Germain: 1919 settlement confirming the break-up of Austria-Hungary and leaving Austria a small state. Treaty of Trianon: 1920 settlement that took about two thirds of Hungary's land.

• Assembly vs Council

  Assembly: gathering of the League where every member state had one vote, meeting once a year. Council: small League body meeting several times a year, with four permanent members holding vetoes.

• Locarno treaties vs Kellogg-Briand Pact

  Locarno treaties: agreements of 1925 in which Germany accepted its western frontiers with Britain and Italy as guarantors. Kellogg-Briand Pact: 1928 promise by sixty-five states to renounce war as a way of settling quarrels.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   On what date was the armistice that ended the fighting of the First World War signed?

   Model answer

   11 November 1918.

2. 2

   What is an armistice?

   Model answer

   An agreement between the warring sides to stop fighting, made before a full peace treaty is settled.

3. 3

   Which three leaders dominated the Paris peace conference of 1919, and which countries did they lead?

   Model answer

   Woodrow Wilson for the USA, Georges Clemenceau for France and David Lloyd George for Britain.

4. 4

   What were Wilson's Fourteen Points?

   Model answer

   His programme, set out in January 1918, for a fair and lasting peace based on ideas such as self-determination, open diplomacy, freedom of the seas and disarmament.

5. 5

   Which of Wilson's ideas mattered most to him, and did he get it?

   Model answer

   An international body to settle disputes; the League of Nations was created, but his own country then refused to join it.

6. 6

   What did Clemenceau want out of the peace?

   Model answer

   Germany weakened so completely that it could never attack France again, through lost territory, a tiny army and heavy payments.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

Conflict and Tension: The Inter-War Years, 1918–1939 revision questions

What does Conflict and Tension: The Inter-War Years, 1918–1939 cover in AQA GCSE History?

9 subtopics: the armistice, the versailles settlement, impact of the treaty and wider settlement, the league of nations, diplomacy outside the league, the collapse of the league, the development of tension, escalation of tension and the outbreak of war. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.

How is Conflict and Tension: The Inter-War Years, 1918–1939 organised?

By the AQA 8145 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.