Europe and the Second World War (1918–1949)

The Assembly (all members, annual meeting), the Council (permanent + rotating members, handled crises), the Secretariat (administration), and special agencies (e.g. the International Labour Organization).

The USA never joined; it had no standing army of its own; and Council decisions generally needed unanimous agreement, making fast action very difficult.

Sweden and Finland both claimed the islands; the League awarded them to Finland with protections for Swedish-speakers, and both sides accepted the ruling — a genuine League success.

Poland seized Vilnius from Lithuania; the League condemned it but could not force Poland to withdraw, showing its limits even against smaller states.

Italy bombarded and occupied the Greek island of Corfu after an Italian general was murdered; Mussolini bypassed the League and settled it through the Conference of Ambassadors on his own terms.

Italy invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia); the League imposed sanctions that excluded oil, coal and steel, and Britain/France secretly tried to give Mussolini much of the territory via the Hoare-Laval Pact — Italy completed its conquest by May 1936.

It revealed that Britain and France were secretly willing to reward Italy's aggression rather than enforce collective security, undermining trust in the League when it leaked to the public.

A policy of giving in to some demands of an aggressive power in order to avoid war, associated especially with Neville Chamberlain in the 1930s.

Britain, France, Germany and Italy agreed Germany could annex the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia, without Czechoslovakia being present — in exchange for Hitler's promise of no further territorial demands.

A non-aggression treaty between Germany and the USSR with a secret protocol dividing Poland and Eastern Europe into spheres of influence, freeing Hitler from a two-front war fear before invading Poland.

Rhineland remilitarised (1936) → Rome-Berlin Axis (1936) → Anschluss with Austria (March 1938) → Munich Agreement/Sudetenland (Sept 1938) → rest of Czechoslovakia seized (March 1939) → Nazi-Soviet Pact (Aug 1939) → invasion of Poland (1 Sept 1939) → Britain/France declare war (3 Sept 1939).

Both showed the same pattern: strong condemnation (Lytton Report for Manchuria) but no effective enforcement, so Japan and Italy both simply left or ignored the League and kept their conquests.

A US programme supplying Britain and, from late 1941, the USSR with weapons, food and equipment without requiring immediate payment, keeping them in the fight before the US formally joined.

Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin agreed the Western Allies would open a second front in France, relieving pressure on the Red Army — this became D-Day in June 1944.

By 1943–44 combined Allied output (led by the US 'Arsenal of Democracy') vastly exceeded Axis production, while Germany suffered chronic fuel shortages after losing Romanian oil fields.

Hitler refused to allow a German retreat; the 6th Army was encircled and destroyed (~300,000 losses), and the USSR gained the strategic initiative on the Eastern Front for the rest of the war.

By invading the USSR while still fighting Britain, Hitler created the two-front war Germany had always tried to avoid, overstretching its resources.

The Allies coordinated through summit conferences (Tehran, Yalta) and combined complementary strengths (US industry, Soviet manpower, British intelligence). The Axis powers barely coordinated strategy with each other.

A British government report proposing a state welfare system 'from cradle to grave', which became the blueprint for the postwar welfare state, including the NHS (1948).

Clement Attlee's Labour Party won a landslide victory over Churchill's Conservatives, reflecting a public demand for social reform after wartime hardship.

By 1943 around 90% of single women worked in essential war roles, but most left factory jobs after 1945 as men returned — the lasting shift was in expectations, not permanent employment.

Tens of thousands of German, Austrian and Italian residents — many Jewish refugees from Nazism — were interned in 1940 as suspected security risks, despite most posing no threat.

Britain spent roughly a quarter of its national wealth, relied on the 1946 Anglo-American Loan, and kept rationing in place until 1954, marking its decline from global superpower status.

Weigh multiple factors (economic, strategic, political) against each other using evidence, rather than crediting one cause alone, and end with a clear, substantiated judgement.

The invasion of the USSR (June 1941, Operation Barbarossa), which Hitler framed as racial-ideological war and which brought in the Einsatzgruppen.

Mobile SS killing squads that followed the German army into the USSR from 1941, shooting over 1.5 million people, mostly Jews.

Meeting of senior Nazi/government officials on 20 January 1942, chaired by Heydrich, that coordinated the 'Final Solution' — deportation to death camps across occupied Europe.

Site near Kyiv where Einsatzgruppen shot over 33,000 Jews in two days in September 1941 — an example of mass shooting before the death camps existed.

The Vichy regime in France, which passed its own antisemitic laws and organised roundups such as the Vel' d'Hiv (July 1942).

April–May 1943 armed uprising by Jewish fighters (the ZOB) against German deportations; held out for nearly a month despite having almost no weapons.

Oskar Schindler (saved Jewish workers in his factories) and the Danish rescue of Jews to Sweden (1943).

Allied governments knew of mass killing from 1942 but prioritised military victory over rescue; the 1943 Bermuda Conference achieved little concrete action.

1945–46 Allied trials of 22 senior Nazis, which created the new legal category of 'crimes against humanity' but tried only a small number of top leaders.

Intentionalists argue Hitler always planned genocide from the 1920s; functionalists argue it 'evolved' from radicalising wartime decisions and bureaucratic momentum.

Through the Nuremberg Laws (1935) stripping Jews of citizenship and Kristallnacht (1938) — legal exclusion and violence, not yet mass murder.

Brought about 2 million Jews under Nazi rule and began ghettoisation and forced labour, setting up the population later targeted for deportation.