Global Conflict: every key term you need (+ practice quiz)
69 flashcard terms for AP World History Unit 7, written to match the course framework. Study them here, then drill them as interactive flashcards, or test yourself with the 25-question quiz — free, no account needed.
Europe divided into two rival blocs: the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy) and the Triple Entente (France, Russia, Britain). These alliances meant a local conflict could drag all major powers into war.
Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1914)
The heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne was killed by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb nationalist, in Sarajevo. Austria-Hungary's ultimatum to Serbia triggered the alliance system, starting World War I.
Causes of WWI — MANIA
Militarism (arms race), Alliances (entangling treaties), Nationalism (ethnic rivalries), Imperialism (colonial competition), and the Assassination of Franz Ferdinand combined to ignite World War I.
Trench Warfare
A defining feature of WWI's Western Front — opposing armies dug elaborate trench systems separated by deadly 'no man's land.' Resulted in horrific casualties for minimal territorial gain.
Total War
A war effort requiring the mobilization of an entire society — economies, civilians, propaganda, and industrial output — not just the military. Both World Wars were total wars.
New Weapons of WWI
Machine guns, poison gas (chlorine, mustard), tanks, submarines (U-boats), airplanes, and barbed wire made WWI unprecedentedly lethal and stalemated the Western Front.
Ottoman Empire in WWI
The Ottomans allied with the Central Powers. Their defeat led to the empire's dissolution, the creation of mandate territories in the Middle East, and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's Turkish Republic.
Armenian Genocide (1915–1923)
The Ottoman government's systematic deportation and murder of approximately 1.5 million Armenians during WWI — one of the first modern genocides.
Gallipoli Campaign (1915)
A failed Allied attempt to capture the Dardanelles strait and knock the Ottoman Empire out of WWI. The campaign's failure boosted Turkish national identity under Mustafa Kemal.
Russian Withdrawal from WWI
The Bolshevik Revolution (1917) led Russia to exit WWI via the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918), surrendering vast territory to Germany in exchange for peace.
United States Enters WWI (1917)
Unrestricted German submarine warfare and the Zimmermann Telegram (proposing a German-Mexican alliance) drew the U.S. into WWI, tipping the balance toward the Allies.
Treaty of Versailles (1919)
The peace treaty ending WWI that imposed harsh terms on Germany: war guilt clause, massive reparations, territorial losses, and military restrictions. It fueled German resentment and contributed to WWII.
War Guilt Clause (Article 231)
The Treaty of Versailles clause forcing Germany to accept sole responsibility for causing WWI — deeply resented by Germans and exploited by Hitler's propaganda.
League of Nations
An international organization proposed by Woodrow Wilson to maintain peace through collective security. It was weakened from the start because the U.S. never joined, and it failed to prevent aggression in the 1930s.
Mandate System
The League of Nations divided former Ottoman and German territories into 'mandates' administered by Britain and France — effectively colonialism under a new name. Created Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan.
Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points
Wilson's idealistic peace plan emphasizing self-determination, free trade, open diplomacy, and the League of Nations. Most points were rejected or watered down at Versailles.
Russian Revolution — February (1917)
Popular protests and military mutinies overthrew Tsar Nicholas II, ending the Romanov dynasty. A provisional government took power but failed to address demands for peace and land reform.
Russian Revolution — October (1917)
Lenin's Bolsheviks seized power in a coup, establishing the world's first communist state. They promised 'Peace, Land, and Bread' and pulled Russia out of WWI.
Vladimir Lenin
Leader of the Bolshevik Revolution who established the Soviet Union. He implemented War Communism, then the New Economic Policy (NEP), and founded the Communist International (Comintern).
War Communism
Lenin's emergency economic policy (1918–1921) that nationalized industry, seized grain from peasants, and abolished private trade. It caused famine and economic collapse, leading to the NEP.
New Economic Policy (NEP)
Lenin's strategic retreat from full communism (1921–1928), allowing limited private enterprise and market activity. It stabilized the Soviet economy but was abandoned by Stalin.
Joseph Stalin
Soviet dictator who ruled through terror (1924–1953). He implemented Five-Year Plans, forced collectivization, conducted the Great Purge, and built the USSR into an industrial and military superpower.
Five-Year Plans (USSR)
Stalin's centralized economic plans to rapidly industrialize the Soviet Union. They achieved dramatic industrial growth but at enormous human cost — forced labor, poor living conditions, and millions of deaths.
Collectivization (USSR)
Stalin's policy of forcibly consolidating peasant farms into large state-run collectives. Resistance, especially in Ukraine (Holodomor), led to millions of deaths from famine and deportation.
Holodomor (1932–1933)
A man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine caused by Stalin's forced collectivization and grain seizures, killing an estimated 3.5–7.5 million Ukrainians. Many scholars classify it as a genocide.
Great Purge (1936–1938)
Stalin's campaign of political repression — show trials, executions, and mass imprisonment in gulags — that eliminated perceived enemies, including most of the original Bolsheviks and military leaders.
Mexican Revolution (1910–1920)
A multi-sided civil war overthrowing dictator Porfirio Díaz. Key leaders included Zapata (land reform for peasants), Villa (northern guerrilla leader), and Cárdenas (later president who nationalized oil).
Emiliano Zapata
Mexican revolutionary leader who fought for agrarian reform and indigenous rights under the slogan 'Tierra y Libertad' (Land and Liberty). His Plan de Ayala demanded land redistribution.
Chinese Revolution — Overview
China's transformation from empire to republic to communist state: the 1911 Revolution (Sun Yat-sen), warlord era, Nationalist-Communist conflict, Japanese invasion, and Mao's victory in 1949.
Sun Yat-sen
'Father of the Chinese Republic' who led the 1911 Revolution overthrowing the Qing Dynasty. His Three Principles of the People (nationalism, democracy, livelihood) shaped Chinese politics.
May Fourth Movement (1919)
A Chinese intellectual and political movement sparked by outrage over the Treaty of Versailles granting German concessions in China to Japan. It promoted science, democracy, and anti-imperialism.
Mao Zedong
Leader of the Chinese Communist Party who won the Chinese Civil War (1949), establishing the People's Republic of China. His policies (Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution) caused tens of millions of deaths.
Chinese Civil War (1927–1949)
A conflict between Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists (Kuomintang) and Mao Zedong's Communists, interrupted by the Japanese invasion (1937–1945). The Communists won in 1949; the Nationalists fled to Taiwan.
Long March (1934–1935)
The Chinese Communists' 6,000-mile retreat from Nationalist forces. Only about 8,000 of 80,000 survived, but the march established Mao's leadership and became a founding myth of Communist China.
Mohandas Gandhi
Leader of India's independence movement who used nonviolent resistance (satyagraha) — including boycotts, civil disobedience, and hunger strikes — to challenge British colonial rule.
Satyagraha
Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolent resistance, meaning 'truth-force' or 'soul-force.' It combined moral persuasion, civil disobedience, and mass mobilization to challenge injustice without violence.
Salt March (1930)
Gandhi led thousands on a 240-mile march to the sea to make salt in defiance of the British salt tax — a powerful act of civil disobedience that galvanized the Indian independence movement.
Indian Independence (1947)
Britain granted India independence, but the subcontinent was partitioned into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan, causing massive displacement and violence that killed up to 2 million people.
Partition of India
The 1947 division of British India into India and Pakistan along religious lines. It triggered the largest mass migration in history (15 million people) and horrific communal violence.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
Founder of the Republic of Turkey (1923) who modernized and secularized Turkish society — abolishing the caliphate, adopting Western legal codes, granting women's suffrage, and replacing Arabic script with Latin letters.
Great Depression (1929–1939)
A global economic catastrophe triggered by the U.S. stock market crash. It caused mass unemployment, bank failures, and political instability, contributing to the rise of fascism and militarism.
Rise of Fascism
An authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology that emerged after WWI. It rejected democracy and liberalism, glorified the state and military, and used mass propaganda. Key examples: Italy (Mussolini) and Germany (Hitler).
Benito Mussolini
Italian fascist dictator who seized power in the March on Rome (1922). He established a one-party totalitarian state, emphasized corporatism, and allied with Nazi Germany.
Adolf Hitler
Nazi leader who rose to power in Germany (1933) exploiting economic crisis and Versailles resentment. He established a totalitarian regime, launched WWII, and orchestrated the Holocaust.
Nazism
Hitler's ideology combining extreme nationalism, racial supremacy (Aryan master race), anti-Semitism, anti-communism, and territorial expansion (Lebensraum). It led to WWII and the Holocaust.
Appeasement
The British and French policy of making concessions to Hitler (most notably the Munich Agreement, 1938, giving Germany the Sudetenland) to avoid war. It failed — Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.
Japanese Militarism
Japan's military leaders gained increasing control over the government in the 1930s, pursuing aggressive expansion in East Asia — invading Manchuria (1931) and China (1937).
Rape of Nanjing (1937)
The mass murder and sexual assault of Chinese civilians by Japanese troops after capturing Nanjing. Estimates suggest 200,000–300,000 killed over six weeks — one of WWII's worst atrocities.
World War II — Overview
A global conflict (1939–1945) between the Allies (Britain, USSR, U.S., China, France) and the Axis (Germany, Italy, Japan). It killed 70–85 million people — the deadliest war in human history.
Blitzkrieg ('Lightning War')
Germany's military strategy of rapid, concentrated attacks using tanks, aircraft, and infantry to overwhelm enemies before they could organize a defense. It conquered Poland, France, and others quickly.
Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941)
Japan's surprise attack on the U.S. naval base in Hawaii, destroying much of the Pacific Fleet. It brought the United States into WWII, transforming the war into a truly global conflict.
Eastern Front (WWII)
The vast theater of war between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (1941–1945). The Battle of Stalingrad (1942–43) was the turning point — the deadliest battle in history, with nearly 2 million casualties.
D-Day (June 6, 1944)
The Allied invasion of Normandy, France — the largest amphibious military operation in history. It opened a second front in Western Europe, accelerating Germany's defeat.
Holocaust / Shoah
The systematic, state-sponsored genocide of approximately 6 million Jews by Nazi Germany (1941–1945), along with millions of Roma, disabled people, homosexuals, and political prisoners. Carried out through death camps, mass shootings, and gas chambers.
Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945)
The U.S. dropped nuclear weapons on two Japanese cities, killing over 200,000 people. Japan surrendered shortly after, ending WWII — but sparking the nuclear arms race and ethical debates that continue today.
United Nations (1945)
An international organization founded after WWII to prevent future conflicts, promote human rights, and foster international cooperation. Unlike the League of Nations, it included all major powers.
Nuremberg Trials (1945–1946)
International war crimes tribunals that prosecuted Nazi leaders for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide. They established the principle that individuals are accountable under international law.
Pan-Africanism
A movement promoting solidarity among people of African descent worldwide, advocating for African independence and unity. Key figures include Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Kwame Nkrumah.
Zionism and the Creation of Israel (1948)
A nationalist movement advocating for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. After the Holocaust, the UN partitioned Palestine, and Israel was established in 1948, sparking the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Women in the World Wars
Both wars expanded women's roles — they worked in factories, served as nurses, and ran households alone. Their contributions strengthened arguments for women's suffrage and equal rights.
Total War and Civilian Impact
WWII blurred the line between soldiers and civilians more than any prior conflict. Strategic bombing, occupation, genocide, and nuclear weapons made civilians the primary casualties.
Propaganda in the World Wars
All combatant nations used mass media — posters, radio, film, newspapers — to mobilize populations, demonize enemies, and maintain morale. Propaganda became a weapon of total war.
Home Front — WWII
Civilian populations contributed through rationing, war bond purchases, factory work (including women and minorities), victory gardens, and civil defense. The home front was essential to military success.
Battle of Stalingrad (1942–1943)
The decisive Eastern Front battle where Soviet forces encircled and destroyed a German army. It was the bloodiest battle in history and marked the turning point of WWII in Europe.
Yalta Conference (February 1945)
A meeting of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin to plan the post-war order. They agreed on Soviet entry into the Pacific War, occupation zones in Germany, and free elections in Eastern Europe (which Stalin later violated).
Potsdam Conference (July 1945)
The final wartime meeting of the Allied leaders (Truman, Stalin, Attlee). It confirmed Germany's division, established the framework for war crimes trials, and revealed growing U.S.-Soviet tensions.
Totalitarianism
A system of government in which the state controls all aspects of public and private life — politics, economy, media, education, and culture. Examples: Stalin's USSR, Hitler's Germany, Mao's China.
Fascism vs. Communism
Both were totalitarian, but fascism was ultranationalist, preserved private property under state direction, and glorified racial hierarchy; communism sought international worker revolution, state ownership, and classless society.
Convention on Genocide (1948)
A UN treaty defining genocide as acts intended to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, and declaring it a crime under international law — directly inspired by the Holocaust.