Global Conflict

Unit 7 covers global conflict from 1900, and its organising question is not "what happened in the wars" but why the political order that existed in 1900 collapsed, and what replaced it.

At the start of the century the West dominated the global political order. Over the following decades both land-based and maritime empires gave way to new states, and the CED names the mechanism as a combination of internal and external factors 内外因素.

• The older land-based Ottoman, Russian, and Qing empires collapsed under that combination - internal strain and pressure from outside at the same time.
• States around the world challenged the existing political and social order, and the CED's named case is the Mexican Revolution 墨西哥革命, which arose from political and economic inequality.

The examinable habit here is pairing. An answer that gives only internal weakness, or only external pressure, has given half the explanation.

The CED compresses the causes into one statement, and every element of it is worth marks:

• Imperialist expansion 帝国主义扩张 and competition for resources 资源竞争.
• Territorial and regional conflicts 领土与地区冲突.
• A flawed alliance system 结盟体系 that turned a local conflict into a general one.
• Intense nationalism 极端民族主义.

Notice the shape of the claim: imperial rivalry, regional conflict and nationalism increased tension, while alliances, mobilisation plans and leaders’ choices contributed to escalation 升级. That distinction - between what made conflict likely and what made it global - is the single most useful thing to hold from this topic.

World War I was a total war 总体战 on a global scale. Earlier conflicts, including the American Civil War, had already mobilised societies extensively; calling it the first total war is misleading. The CED lists the methods governments used, and they are not only military:

• Political propaganda 政治宣传, art, and media to sustain public support.
• Intensified forms of nationalism 强化的民族主义.
• Mobilisation of economies and populations 经济与人口动员 - conscription, war production, and the direction of labour.
• Recruitment and use of colonial subjects 殖民地臣民 as soldiers and labourers.

Alongside this, new military technology led to increased levels of wartime casualties. The technological point and the mobilisation point are separate marks, so give both.

Following World War I and the onset of the Great Depression 大萧条, governments began to take a more active role in economic life. That is the general claim; the CED then supplies contrasting cases of how far that role went.

In the Soviet Union 苏联, the government controlled the national economy through the Five Year Plans 五年计划, implementing repressive policies at significant cost to the population 人口代价 while achieving rapid industrialisation.

The general pattern that makes this comparable across cases: economic crisis encouraged greater state intervention in many economies, but the extent 程度 differed enormously - from regulation and public works at one end to full state control at the other. Questions about the interwar economy almost always reward that spectrum.

Between the two world wars, Western and Japanese imperial states predominantly maintained control over colonial holdings, and in some cases gained new territory. The hopes for self-determination 民族自决 raised by the peace settlement were largely not met for colonised peoples.

This is the bridge topic: the tensions the settlement left unresolved feed directly into both the causes of the next war and the anti-imperial movements of Unit 8. Naming that link is what makes a continuity answer strong.

The CED again gives a compound cause, and each element is examinable:

• The unsustainable peace settlement 和约 after World War I.
• The global economic crisis 全球经济危机 produced by the Great Depression.
• Continued imperialist practices 帝国主义行径.
• The rise of fascism and extreme nationalism.

Compare this with the World War I list and a real pattern appears: economic pressure and nationalism are common to both, while the specific additions in 1939 are the failed settlement and the new ideological regimes. A comparison question wants exactly that structure - shared causes named, then the differences.

World War II was also a total war, and governments used the same broad categories of method: propaganda, art and media, intensified nationalism, and the mobilisation of economies and populations including colonial subjects.

What changed was the technology and its scale. New military technology and new tactics - including the atomic bomb 原子弹, fire-bombing, and the waging of total war - led to increased levels of casualties, including a far higher proportion of civilian 平民 deaths than in the previous conflict.

The examinable comparison is therefore: methods largely similar, scale and technology different. An answer that says only "both were total wars" has not compared them; an answer that says only "the second was more destructive" has not explained why.

This topic asks for causes and consequences of mass atrocities in the period from 1900 to the present. The CED's framing is that the rise of extremist groups in power 极端主义团体 led to the attempted destruction of specific populations, and it names the Holocaust 犹太人大屠杀 - the Nazi killing of Jewish people - as the principal case, alongside other twentieth-century genocides and mass killings.

Handled as history, the examinable content is the pattern: an extremist regime takes state power, defines a population as outside the political community, and uses the machinery of the modern state - bureaucracy, transport, communication - to carry out destruction with greatly increased capacity to coordinate persecution and killing. That last point connects this topic to the technology theme running through the whole unit.

The unit's reasoning skill is causation, and specifically the relative significance 相对重要性 of causes. That word "relative" is the whole task: you are not listing causes, you are ranking them and defending the ranking.

Original worked comparison. For original short-answer practice, try "Explain one similarity between the ways governments conducted World War I and World War II." An illustrative answer names the similarity and supports it with specifics from both: "Both wars were total wars in which governments mobilised entire economies and populations. In both, states used propaganda and media to sustain public support, directed industrial production toward war material, and recruited soldiers and labourers from their colonies." Notice the requirement: a similarity claim must be evidenced on both sides. Evidence from one war only cannot demonstrate a similarity.

Each part needs only one or two sentences: answer the question, cite one specific piece of evidence, and explain how it supports the answer.

Answer (a), (b) and (c).

(a) Briefly describe ONE cause of the First World War.

(b) Briefly explain ONE way governments conducted 'total war'.

(c) Briefly explain ONE political effect of the Great Depression.

Model answer.

• (a) The alliance system meant that the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 drew several great powers into one war.
• (b) Governments used conscription and propaganda, and moved women into factory work, so whole societies were mobilised.
• (c) Economic crisis increased support for extreme parties; in Germany the Nazi Party grew rapidly in elections between 1930 and 1932.

• For the collapse of the Ottoman, Russian, and Qing empires, always pair internal strain with external pressure. One alone is half an answer.
• Explain how imperial competition, nationalism, regional conflict, alliances and mobilisation decisions interacted; alliances alone did not automatically cause a global war.
• Total war has a checklist: propaganda, nationalism, economic mobilisation, colonial recruitment. Use it for both wars and the comparison writes itself.
• The interwar economy is a spectrum of state involvement, not a single policy. Say how far a state went, not just that it intervened.
• Comparison questions need evidence on both sides. A detail about only one case cannot support a similarity or a difference.
• "Relative significance" means rank and justify. A list of causes with no argument about which mattered most does not answer the question asked.

Vocabulary card meanings

internal and external factors: Causes from inside a society and causes from outside it. Mexican Revolution: The early twentieth-century upheaval that overthrew Mexico's long dictatorship. Imperialist expansion: Empires taking more territory and tighter control. competition for resources: States and firms rivalling one another for raw materials and markets. Territorial and regional conflicts: Wars over land and over dominance in a region. flawed alliance system: The pre-1914 treaties that turned a local crisis into a general war. Intense nationalism: An aggressive loyalty that treated other nations as enemies. escalation: A conflict growing larger and harder to stop. total war: A war that mobilised whole economies and civilian populations, not only armies. Intensified forms of nationalism: Stronger, often more exclusive, national feeling during and after the war. economies and populations: The productive capacity and the people a state could put into a war. colonial subjects: People ruled by an empire and often recruited into its armies. Soviet Union: The communist state that succeeded the Russian Empire. cost to the population: The deaths, famine, and repression borne by ordinary people. extent: How far a policy or a disaster reached. self-determination: The principle that a people should choose its own government. unsustainable peace settlement: A treaty, especially Versailles, whose terms could not last. global economic crisis: The worldwide depression that began in 1929. Continued imperialist practices: Empires holding colonies even after speaking of self-rule. atomic bomb: A weapon whose explosion comes from splitting atomic nuclei. civilian: A person who is not serving in the armed forces. extremist groups in power: Radical parties that gained control of the state. relative significance: How important one cause was compared with others.