PreviousHome

Your Smartass List of

Causes of WWI Specialist Terms

   

  

     

 Do you recognise the terms below?   Use them in your answers to impress the examiner!!!

 Click on the yellow pointers to reveal explanations for any terms you don't know about.

  

  •   Militarism
    • Not just an arms race, but also a government's attitude of mind, seeing war as a valid means of foreign policy. Often includes the influence of government by the generals
  •   Hague Conferences
    • Called by Tsar Nicholas II in 1899 and 1907 to discuss arms limitation; they failed to achieve disarmament, but did set up the Hague Court and agree rules about prisoners of war.
  •   balance of power
    • The theory that having two hostile alliance blocs of roughly equal power will achieve an equilibrium which will somehow keep the peace
  •   Splendid isolation
    • The intention of Britain in the 19th century to stay out of European conflicts
  •   Dreadnought
    • New large British super-battleships of the early 20th Century
  •   reservists
    • Men, trained, but living as civilians, but ready to be called up if there is a war
  •   Entente Cordiale
    • ‘Friendly Relationship’ between Britain and France, signed 1904
  •   Imperialism
    • Countries who believed that they were superior thinking it was alright to conquer and rule others – particularly if they were inhabited by races they thought inferior
  •   Herzegovina
    • Austria annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908 – GCSE books usually shorten this to Bosnia
  •   Panslavism
    • The ethnic and political movement which sought to mobilise and unite all the Slavic races of south-east Europe into one country (e.g. ‘Great Serbia’)
  •   Weltpolitik
    • ‘world politics’ – the imperialist foreign policy of Kaiser Wilhelm II
  •   autocracy
    • Where a country is ruled by one man
  •   chauvinism
    • unreasonable belief that your own country, race or gender is the best or most important
  •   jingoism
    • Out-of-control chuvinism that demands an aggressive/bellicose foreign policy
  •   annexation
    • Conquest ofa place to attach it to your own country
  •   mobilisation
    • When you call up your reservists and set your army on a war footing
  •   Revisionists
    • Historians who seek to overturn an established ‘classical’ interpretation of a particular history
  •   Junkers
    • The military upper classes of Germany before 1914
  •   bellicose
    • Wanting war/ militarily aggressive
  •   Ujedinjenje ili smrt
    • ‘Union or Death’ – the proper name for the terrorist group popularly known as the ‘Black Hand’