AP EUROPEAN CHAPTER 26 STUDY GUIDE

“Alliances, War, and a Troubled Peace”

Section 1 – Emergence of the German Empire and the Alliance Systems (1873-1890)

  1. Explain Bismcarck’s foreign policy goals as they relate to France after 1871.
  2. What were the terms of the Treaty of San Stefano? Why were Austria and Britain alarmed by the settlement?
  3. How did the decisions made at the Congress of Berlin lead to resentment in Russia and the Balkan states?
  4. Explain the purpose of the Triple Alliance and the Reinsurance Treaty of 1887.
  5. Contrast the foreign policy goals of Bismarck and William II.
  6. Discuss the events that led to the creation of the Triple Entente.

Section 2 – World War I

  1. What role did Slavic nationalism play in the Bosnian Crisis of 1908?
  2. How did the Second Moroccan Crisis increase tension between Great Britain and Germany?
  3. Discuss the roles of the Black Hand and Germany’s “blank check” in the start of the Great War.
  4. How did the members of the Triple Entente respond to Austria’s declaration of war on Serbia?
  5. What element of Germany’s Schlieffen Plan would draw Britain officially into the war?
  6. Discuss the deeper causes of the Great War as they pertain to Germany and Great Britain.
  7. How was the outbreak of war viewed throughout Europe? What advantages did both sides possess at the start of the war in 1914?
  8. Describe the fighting on the western front known as trench warfare.
  9. What prompted Italy to join the Allies in 1915?
  10. Explain the circumstances surrounding the war at sea?
  11. What events transpired to bring the U.S. into the war on the side of the Allies?

Section 3 – The Russian Revolution

  1. Briefly describe the two distinct stages of the Russian Revolution of 1917.
  2. Discuss the factors that led to the March Revolution in 1917. What were the end results?
  3. Identify the factors that led to the demise of the provisional government.
  4. Discuss the events that would bring Lenin and the Bolsheviks to rule Russia by 1918.
  5. Once in power, what radical reforms and decisions were carried out by the Bolshevik government?

Section 4 – The End of World War I

  1. What factors brought the Great War to its conclusion in favor of the Allies? Identify the immediate and long-term effects of the conflict.
  2. Identify the American war aims spelled out in Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points.

Section 5 – The Settlement at Paris

  1. Identify the Big Four that attended the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Discuss the various obstacles that made a compromise peace settlement difficult to achieve.
  2. Discuss the specific terms of the peace settlement as they relate to Germany. How did these requirements “plant the seeds” that would lead to WWII?
  3. What did the wartime experience demonstrate to Europe about the value of their colonies?
  4. How were colonial relations affected by the WWI peace settlement?
  5. Discuss the impact of Keynes “Economic Consequences of the Peace” on the roles of Britain and the United States in post-war Europe.