Name: Pratham Pratap Mohanty

Roll No.: 1806

Semester: III
Subject: History – II

1
Answer 1:
REVISIONIST THEORY

1. Revisionist were people revisionists who wanted to revise the verdict of Versailles and
challenged the same
2. Since, 1919 onwards, governments and historians engaged with this question as
revisionists clashed with anti-revisionists who agreed with the victors’ assessment.
3. The revisionist historians set about proving that the victors at Versailles had been
wrong. Countless publications and documents were made available to prove Germany’s
innocence and the responsibility of others.
4. Arguments were advanced which highlighted Russia’s and France’s responsibility for
the outbreak of the war, for example, or which stressed that Britain could have played
a more active role in preventing the escalation of the July Crisis.
5. Additionally, in the interwar years, such views influenced a new interpretation that no
longer highlighted German war guilt, but instead identified a failure in the alliance
system before 1914. The war had not been deliberately unleashed, but Europe had
somehow ‘slithered into the boiling cauldron of war’, as David Lloyd George famously
had put it.
OPPOSITION
1. It is important to note that the first major challenge to this interpretation was advanced
in Germany in the 1960s by Fritz Fischer, whose thesis threatened to overthrow the
existing consensus.
2. According to him, Germany did have the main share of responsibility for the outbreak
of the war. Moreover, its leaders had deliberately unleashed the war in pursuit of
aggressive foreign policy aims which were startlingly similar to those pursued by Hitler
in 1939.
3. Additionally, backed up by previously unknown primary evidence, this new
interpretation exploded the comfortable post-war view of shared responsibility. It made
Germany responsible for unleashing not only the Second World War but also turning
Germany’s recent history into one of aggression and conquest.
4. Further, many leading German historians and politicians reacted with outrage to
Fischer’s claims. They attempted to discredit him and his followers in a public debate
of unprecedented ferocity. Some of those arguing about the causes of the war had fought
in it, in the conviction that they were fighting a defensive war.
THE LEGACIES OF WORLD WAR 1:

1. Chemical Weapons: in WW1, both sides used chemical weapons such as mustard gar,
tear gas. Chlorine, etc and the same led to death of millions of people. This was a
primary legacy of the WW1.

2
 2. Technology: WW1 saw rapid rise of war technology. Artillery was not new but the
amount of precision that came into the form of artillery was remarkable. Increased use
of parachutes, surveillance ballooning, and other warfare were evidence of the
technological advancement.
3. U-Boats: The use of U-boats or submarines was seen from both the sides.
Flamethrowers were used to burn the trenches so that soldiers come out of their
trenches.
4. Movement of Passivism: The doctrine or movement of passivism emerged during the
WW1. This doctrine hates the war because of the casualties, destruction, loss of human
lives, etc. However, a number of people from this group who hated war, did not use to
protest.
5. Middle East Fiasco: The Middle Eastern region witnessed a rise in number of problems
such as the Balfour Declaration. Iraq as a state emerged at this time by merging of the
Ottoman empire. Sia & Sunni, Kurds were the regions which emerged and eventually
became a part of Iraq.
6. Planned Economy: This idea is also a legacy of the WW1. Post the Bolshevik
revolution. Lenin of the Soviet Union brought the idea of panned economy of every 5
years.
Answer 2:
FEATURES OF NAZISM

1. Unity of classes: It came to be known as a solid national unity, according to, which all
the classes emerged as a single unit.
2. Totalitarianism: This meant absolute authoritarian or despotic regime would exist. This
was the nature of Nazi regime. Totalitarianism become the principle of national
socialism.
3. Military State: Adolf Hitler organized rallied and conscriptions which included
compulsory military training. This gave rise to a complete military state of affairs.
4. Race Theory: It classified races in three categories, which included Aryans, Non
Aryans and Semitics. Germans termed themselves under Aryans who were considered
as the purest. Non Aryans were the people from past Europe & Russia. Semitic were
the Jews or people from foreign land and were considered to be aliens.
FEATURES OF FASCISM:

1. Authoritarian Govt.: This was the basic doctrine upon which fascism was based upon.
There has to be a rule of the Govt. and there shall be no existing structured laws.
2. One Party State: There shall be one party system and all the other parties should be
demolished
3. Jingoism: It means aggressive form of nationalism. It includes economic self-
sufficiency, banning any export-import and non-abiding of any treaty or convention.
4. Military State: Violence and Military are concerned means to fulfill the motive of
peace. Conscription and armament are an essential feature of the state.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NAZISM AND FASCISM

3
 1. The Fascism system was not as ruthless and brutal as Nazism.
2. The type of authoritarianism in Nazism was such that there was one center of power
but in Fascism, there were three centers of powers: King, Church and Govt. Church
played an important role in the decisions. Absolute authoritarianism was in Nazism but
not in Fascism.
3. The idea of mass atrocities and anti-Jew behaviors was not present in Fascism.
Mussolini started this only after 1938, when he started following Hitler.
4. Religious Policy: Fascism was more successful in cutting a deal with the church.
However, in Nazism, church was completely subordinated and did not make any deal
with Hitler.
THE POLICY OF APPEASEMENT

1. The policy of Appeasement is most often used to describe the response of major
European powers like Britain and their policy makers to the rise of Nazi Germany in
the 1930s, or pre-Great war.
2. The policy is based on one-sided concessions to an aggressor state, often at the expense
of third parties, with nothing offered in return except promises of better behaviour in
the future.
3. Neville Chamberlain, the then Prime Minister of Britain, believed that it would bring a
quicker end to the crisis created in Europe by the Nazi clamour for revision of the Treaty
of Versailles. He thought that pacification could be achieved through negotiating a
general settlement that would in almost all respects replace the Treaty of Versailles,
and bring Germany into satisfactory treaty relations with her neighbours and thus avoid
any chances of a war.
4. However, Winston Churchill was the most well-known opponent of appeasement, and
consistently warned the government of the dangers posed by Nazi Germany, though his
warnings went unheeded. He went on to argue that faster British rearmament could
have deterred the German dictator, and that a readiness to make a stand at crucial
moments could have halted Hitler’s progress before it was too late. Thus there existed
a criticism of this policy that this failed to stop the Hitler regime but gave further space
for its expansion and resulted in the deadly Great War.