European History Study Guide
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History of the 1917 Russian Revolution and its Consequences. I.
Russia was not sufficiently prepared for war in 1914, as it was not ready or able to equip its troops for the new industrialized war of attrition with extended supply lines along a mobile front ranging over a thousand kilometres, fighting first against Germany upon its declaration of war 1 August 1914, with German troops…
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History of the Interwar Years. II.
There were relatively peaceful living conditions and economic stability in Europe until the onset of the Great Depression that was initially triggered by the U.S. stock market crash of 28 October 1929 in the U.S., which was a representative situation of underlying worldwide problems. There were vulnerabilities in the global economy, which were exposed as…
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History of the Interwar Years. I.
There was prevailing uncertainty period after the First World War I due to the effects of imposing the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles (see Eurodocs, World War I Archive: Conventions and Treaties). The American President Woodrow Wilson articulated had expressed in his Fourteen Points Peace Plan called for economic and political equality of all…
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History of the First World War. III.
The war at sea was mostly low key, apart from a few exceptional incidents. The highly touted and costly German High Seas Fleet remained in port throughout the war while playing a mainly defensive role. Its main strength consisted of battleships and torpedo boats that were meant for naval battles, and a few cruisers that…
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History of the First World War. II.
The Italian government entered secret negotiations with the belligerents to determine how territorial concessions could be acquired. These discussions resulted in Austria-Hungary spurning Italian demands for territory on nationalistic lines in exchange for neutrality, since these would undermine the multinational basis of the empire, as well as potentially result in neighbouring states, including Romania…
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History of the First World War. I.
The first years of the twentieth century were characterised by escalating tensions among the European powers, amid relative peace allowing for developing considerable prosperity and technological development. Nevertheless, there was also competition for military supremacy and for resources from colonies abroad were complicated by entangling alliances, which were supposed to make Europe safer, but…
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History of the Origins of the First World War.
The international power politics competition marked by the new imperialism and the system of alliances continued influencing Europe until the outbreak of the First World War. Bismarck’s dominance on the continent had been facilitated by the fact that the other great powers of Europe were engaged in and distracted by imperialist rivalries overseas, but this…
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History of the Industrial Revolution.
There were instances of industrial concentration in several European countries before 1800, but manufacturing growth was largely a multiplication of small-scale artisan production. The Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th centuries was revolutionary because it changed the productive capacity through radically new methods of production and its organisation. It was also a…
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History of the Second German Empire and Modern Imperialism.
One of the results of the Franco-Prussian War was the establishment of the Second German Empire, following the first created under Charlemagne. The constitution, adopted on 14 April 1871, was simply a remodeled version of the constitution of the North German Confederation, which had also been a creation of Bismarck. The empire was composed of…
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History of Reaction and Unification. 1848-1871.
The 1848 revolutions caused a realignment of forces in European political life. In Italy, the Sardinian kingdom emerged after 1849 as the one hope for the national unification of Italy. King Victor Immanuel II maintained the constitution, and increasingly more Italian nationalists turned toward Sardinia in much the same way as Germans began to look…
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