Exercises on Alliances for the First World War

1) It is correct to say that the formation of the Triple Alliance in 1882, led by the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the German Empire, had as its main ideological component:

a) internationalist communism.

b) pan-Germanism, or Germanic nationalism.

c) classical liberalism.

d) Pan-Slavism, or Slavic nationalism.

e) nihilistic anarchism.

2) (UECE - modified) The First World War was one of the bloodiest and most expensive wars in the contemporary world. It is known that it was not just two pistol shots, a single act – the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sofia – that marked the conflict. A number of other factors contributed to this war. As factors that contributed to the First World War, the following were listed:

I. Since the 19th century, peoples dominated by other countries have developed nationalist feelings. Some banded together in military alliances and fought over possessions of colonies and other lands.

II. The intense rivalry between Germany and Austria-Hungary, in the dispute for consumer markets for the sale of their industrial products and the acquisition of raw materials, intensified, taking on worldwide proportions.

III. A combination of geopolitical interests and a dose of international anarchy resulted in a combination of economic competition, national chauvinism and imperialist rivalries. However, it is correct to state that:

a) Only I contributed.

b) Only II contributed.

c) Only II and III contributed.

d) Only I and II contributed.

e) Only I and III contributed.

3) One of the reasons for the formation of the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente concerned:

a) the lack of rivalries between European powers at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century.

b) the rise of fascism in Italy, with Benito Mussolini at the helm.

c) the threat posed by the Russian Revolution in 1880.

d) the frequent nationalist disputes between Germans and Slavs in the Balkan region.

e) the invasion of Poland by the Nazis in 1939.

4) (FGV-SP – modified)

Source:Benoit. M. Histoire Cm. Paris:Hatier, 1985. p. 156.

Notice the photo above. In it, which dates from 1914, the year the First World War began, amid flowers and flags, three powers (France, Russia and England) celebrate their alliance, in addition to honoring Belgium, a small country that had been invaded. Considering the international politics of the time, mark the correct alternative:

a) this alliance had as its main plan the invasion of Normandy, on “D-day”.

b) England, after two years of war, broke with this alliance and passed to the German side.

c) this alliance, known as the Triple Entente, was victorious in the war.

d) Russia was the country that most benefited from the war, so it left it in 1917.

e) what threatened the member countries of this alliance were the expansionist purposes of Nazism.

Letter B

The Triple Alliance was led by the newly unified Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, both nations of Germanic origin. There was a strong nationalist tendency in Europe at that time, and pan-Germanism, which aimed to create a German military, economic and political coalition, was one of the main ones.

Letter E

The second topic is wrong because there was no rivalry between Germany and Austria-Hungary at that time. On the contrary, there was a clear and precise partnership between the two nations, in view of the pan-Germanist ideals of imperial domination that kept them associated.

Letter D

The Balkan region was historically occupied by people of various ethnicities, such as Muslims, Germans, Slavs, Italians and Romanians. Among these, Germans and Slavs began to fight increasingly fierce disputes from the 19th century onwards. Russia, for example, supported the creation of a nation called Greater Serbia, which would unite other portions of Balkan lands to the then-existing Serbia. Germany and Austria-Hungary were against this project. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand sparked the war because it pushed this rivalry to the limit.

Letter C

The countries of the Triple Entente, with the exception of Russia, which left the war before the end, managed to win the conflict. This victory in a war that had devastating consequences for all involved resulted in a series of treaties. The most important was the Treaty of Versailles, which placed most of the burden of the war on Germany.