Leaders, foreign powers and the international context
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Flip to reveal answersWhat two 'engines' drove the final achievement of independence?
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Question
What two 'engines' drove the final achievement of independence?
Answer
Inside force (leaders and mass movements) and outside force (foreign powers and world events). Strong essays link the two.
Question
What is the role of a leader as a 'negotiator' in independence?
Answer
Turning mass pressure into a legal handover of power at the conference table — e.g. Nehru and Jinnah in 1947.
Question
Define decolonisation.
Answer
The process by which colonies gained independence from European empires, especially the post-1945 wave.
Question
Define self-determination.
Answer
The right of a people to choose their own government — a principle the UN helped make a global norm.
Question
Why did European empires collapse so fast after 1945?
Answer
WWII bankrupted and exhausted Britain and France, colonial soldiers demanded freedom, and both new superpowers opposed old-style empire.
Question
How did the UN help legitimise independence?
Answer
Its Charter endorsed self-determination, and in 1960 it passed a declaration urging a rapid end to colonialism.
Question
Give one way the Cold War HELPED independence.
Answer
Both superpowers opposed European empire; the USA pressed allies to decolonise and the USSR backed anti-colonial movements to win allies.
Question
Give one way the Cold War HINDERED or distorted independence.
Answer
A movement seen as 'communist' might be crushed, and independence sometimes came with pressure to pick a side or led to proxy wars.
Question
What was the Mountbatten Plan (1947)?
Answer
The last Viceroy's proposal to split British India into two states, India and Pakistan, to break the Congress–Muslim League deadlock.
Question
What did the Indian Independence Act (1947) do, and what followed?
Answer
The British Parliament legalised the handover, set the date (15 August 1947), and led to Partition — freedom plus mass violence and displacement.
Question
How did Napoleon's 1808 invasion of Spain help Spanish American independence?
Answer
It toppled Spain's king and shattered royal authority, leaving colonies to govern themselves and giving leaders like Bolívar their opening.
Question
What was the Monroe Doctrine (1823)?
Answer
A US warning to European powers not to re-colonise the Americas, which helped shield the newly independent Spanish American states.
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Topic 13.2 hub
Methods and the achievement of independence
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