History 9489: The Origins of the First World War Topical Past Paper Questions

Read the extract and then answer the question. For all governments the war was a terrible leap into the dark, and the penalties for defeat were likely to be far greater than the traditional ones of financial punishments and territorial loss. Even in a less aggressive and self-con…

Read the extract and then answer the question. The great powers did not somehow ‘slip over the brink without any worries as if in a fit of absent mindedness’, as Lloyd George put it in his war memoirs. War had come as a result of individual decisions, and a rapid series of moves…

Read the extract and then answer the question. The Austrians were not the only ones looking for a fight in July 1914. Content removed due to copyright restrictions. Given the power of the British navy, and its determination to keep Belgian ports out of German hands, this was a re…