Cambridge A Level History 9489 — 2022 Oct/Nov Paper 3 · Variant 2

1 Read the extract and then answer the question. Militarism is a vague and emotional term, but two fairly specific aspects of it are of concern here: the amount of arms available in 1914, and the more than occasional dominance of military over political considerations. The military expenditures of the European Powers rose at an unprecedented rate, until, at the beginning of 1914, they stood at three hundred per cent of what they had been in 1870. While the amount of weapons was measurable, their influence on policy was a more subtle matter. But with all these instruments of destruction available, it would have been surprising if there had not been people prepared to use them. This brings us to the second and even more crucial aspect of the matter, the undue influence of military over political decision-making. The Germans and the Russians were the worst, though not the only, guilty ones here. Instead of supporting policy, the preparations undertaken by Russia’s and Germany’s military authorities – general mobilisation and Schlieffen Plan – decided policy and, in the event, disastrously so. Relatively little blame belongs to the generals. It is their task to prepare for war. A great deal of blame, however, belongs to the statesmen. It was they who should have known how flexible a term ‘military necessity’ was, who should have seen how perilous the plans of the respective general staffs were, and have overturned them. Why they did not do so is not an entirely easy question to answer. One can say the statesmen were men of limited ability who lacked the qualities necessary to establish the absolute priority of civilian over military authority. Berchtold and Sazonov, one suspects, were so much the prisoners of their generals’ plans in July 1914 largely because they had previously been too lazy to find out what those plans were. And one can add that it was in those countries where the military stood at the top of the social hierarchy that there occurred the worst violation of the rule, essential to sound government and sensible diplomacy alike, that the sovereign must be commander-in-chief, rather than the commander-in-chief being sovereign. But this is not the whole answer. For in Britain and France too, membership of the general staff tended to be an indication of more than usual intelligence and social acceptability. Nor did the military staff talks held under the Entente Cordiale invariably follow the instructions of the representatives of the people or crown. In the summer of 1914, the majority of the British cabinet would be just as surprised by how committed Britain already was to France as was the majority of the German government by the details of the Schlieffen Plan. Still, there were some important differences. Thus the French government, when presented with counter plans envisaging a French invasion of Belgium in response to the Schlieffen Plan, told the generals to discard it and come up with something politically more tenable. And while professional soldiers of all nations were perhaps equally fascinated by the technological necessities of modern warfare, it was in Russia and Germany again that technology was allowed its clearest triumph over diplomacy. The First World War was to a large extent a war of railroad timetables. Governments built railroads according to the requirements of the plans. But once the trains were set in motion, how were they to be stopped without creating havoc to the plan? Hence, in the Russo–German stand-off over mobilisation, much more was involved than diplomacy and prestige. The means of war were being allowed to bring about a state of war. What can you learn from this extract about the interpretation and approach of the historian who wrote it? Use the extract and your knowledge of the origins of the First World War to explain your answer. [40]

Mark scheme: Question Answer Marks 1 The origins of the First World War 40 Interpretation/Approach The main interpretation is that militarism was an important factor in causing the First World War, and that political leaders were culpable in not restraining it. Showing complete understanding of the Interpretation will involve discussion of both these aspects. Although some countries were worse than others in restraining militarism (Germany, Russia, Austria), all were affected by it. The historian clearly thinks that politicians were at fault, but the argument also encompasses the idea that a point was reached at which military necessity would override diplomacy. Glossary: Early post-First World War interpretations tended to blame Germany, but quickly a reaction against this occurred, with a variety of interpretations blaming other nations. This may be termed revisionism. The turning point in the historiography was Fischer’s work of the early 1960s which went back to blaming Germany – sometimes known as anti- revisionism. Since then there has been a vast variety of interpretations, looking at the importance of culture, individuals, contingent factors etc., with no clear consensus, though most historians would still place a significant burden of responsibility on Germany.

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2 Read the extract and then answer the question. All the women I interviewed resisted their fates. They supported each other like sisters and nurtured each other like mothers. To a certain extent, women’s Holocaust experiences were determined by their gender and their roles in families. When the invading Germans shot Jewish leadership shortly after occupation, Jewish communities were shorn of their most active and experienced men. In an attempt to evade forced labour, Jewish men fled east, leaving women and children alone. Selections for forced labour in ghettos and then in concentration camps were usually gender and age-based, separating able-bodied males and females, and condemning mothers with very young children, or the aged, to death. The Nazis had genocidal plans for all Jews, including women and children, whose labour was not worth exploiting even temporarily. Women who joined resistance groups may have come individually, but in the social structure of such groups women often found protectors among the men and established relationships that later often became stable marriages. These women filled nurturing and supporting roles, like Aida Brydbord, who nursed the sick and wounded even though she had a gun and was trained to use it. Marysia Warman, like other women in resistance groups, exploited the stereotypical view of women held by the Nazis to serve as a courier and in other roles in which Jewish men would have been more easily detected. In concentration camps, strict segregation of the sexes was the rule. Women were forced to rely on their own resources, developing leadership roles and loyalties to each other. In another sense, women, like men, influenced their own destinies by taking action unrelated to gender. None of the women was passive. Each acted and reacted to events, evading, hiding, resisting, making choices, taking initiatives, fighting the death that was intended for them. By refusing to be separated, mothers and daughters or sisters resisted the isolation that was the first step in the dehumanisation process. By taking risks for each other they fought the system and their own despair. By remaining true to their Jewish identities, even when they were ‘posing’ as Aryans, Jewish women drew spiritual and moral strength that contributed to their survival and assured Jewish continuity after the Holocaust. Jewish women, like Jewish men, had strong identities as Jews. Even those who were not particularly observant of religious laws acted and reacted as Jews. Trying to behave in accordance with Jewish values, keeping track of the Jewish calendar, risking their lives to save other Jews, particularly children, and retaining a sense of decency even when opportunities arose for revenge after liberation, are a few examples of such behaviour. An important characteristic of Jewish society was the primacy of the family. Loyalty to, and responsibility for, family members is a basic Jewish value, which prevented many Jews from leaving their families to engage in resistance activities. Aida Brydbord did not leave the ghetto for the forests with her fiancé until her father gave his consent. Only after mass deportations destroyed family structure did remaining Jews feel free to join resistance groups. Marysia Warman did not leave the Warsaw ghetto to work for the resistance until her mother was deported and she had managed to arrange a haven for her sister. Often families that had risked much to stay together were deported together to their deaths. In the camps, as all vestiges of their human identities were stripped from them, Jews could only retain what was in their hearts and souls. What can you learn from this extract about the interpretation and approach of the historian who wrote it? Use the extract and your knowledge of the Holocaust to explain your answer. [40] Section C: Topic 3 The origins and development of the Cold War

Mark scheme: 2 The Holocaust 40 Interpretation/Approach The main interpretation is that maintaining their Jewish identity helped Jewish women to resist and to deal with the Holocaust, and that the nature of their resistance can be defined very broadly. Showing complete understanding of the Interpretation will involve discussion of both these aspects. The historian understands that there were differences between the experiences of men and women, but also similarities, particularly in the will to resist and to maintain Jewish identity. This extract focuses on gender and on the responses of victims. It is not about Holocaust causation, and use of any historiographical label will indicate lack of understanding. Answers can achieve L4 on explaining some/all of the main interpretation but adding something unsupportable, e.g. labelling the extract intentionalist. Answers which only address sub-messages will be restricted to L3. Glossary: Candidates may use some/all of the following terms: Intentionalism – interpretations which assume that Hitler/the Nazis planned to exterminate the Jews from the start. Structuralism - interpretations which argue that it was the nature of the Nazi state that produced genocide. There was no coherent plan but the chaotic competition for Hitler’s approval between different elements of the leadership produced a situation in which genocide could occur. Functionalism sees the Holocaust as an unplanned, ad hoc response to wartime developments in Eastern Europe, when Germany conquered areas with large Jewish populations. Candidates may also refer to synthesis interpretations, i.e. interpretations which show characteristics of more than one of the above. What counts is how appropriate the use of this kind of terminology is in relation to the extract, and how effectively the extract can be used to support it.

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3 Read the extract and then answer the question. Stalin’s effort to solve the Soviet Union’s problem of security and recovery short of widespread conflict with the United States was not matched by American leaders who came to power on the death of Roosevelt. The President left them little beyond the traditional method of open- door expansion, with the whole world available for US trade. They proceeded rapidly and with a minimum of debate to translate that conception of America and the world into a series of actions and policies which closed the door to any result but cold war. The various themes which went into the United States’ conception of the freedom and necessity of open-door expansion had been formed into an ideology before Roosevelt’s death. It was based on an economic definition of the world, and this explanation of reality was persistently stressed by US corporate leadership as it developed its policy towards the Soviet Union and other nations. It was not the possession of the atom bomb which prompted American leaders to get tough with the Soviet Union, but rather their open-door outlook which interpreted the bomb as the final guarantee that they could go further, faster down that path to world predominance. Long before anyone knew that the bomb would work, most American leaders were operating on the basis of three assumptions which defined the world in terms of a cold war. The first specified the Soviet Union as being evil but weak. Another basic attitude held by American leaders defined the United States as the symbol and the agent of positive good as opposed to Soviet evil, and assumed that the combination of American strength and Russian weakness made it possible to determine the future of the world in accordance with that judgement. One leading Congressman thought in terms of the ‘United States seeking world power as a trustee for civilisation’. Following the even earlier lead of publisher Henry Luce, who had announced in 1941 that it was ‘the climax of the American century’, various business spokesmen began stressing the need to become ‘missionaries of capitalism and democracy’. Shortly afterwards a leading oil industry leader asserted that the United States ‘must set the pace and assume the responsibility of the majority stockholder in this corporation known as the world’. Such remarks were not unique; they merely represented the increasing expression of one aspect of US traditional policy. The third essential aspect of the open-door outlook, which also made its appearance before the end of the war, was the fear that the US economic system would suffer a serious depression if it did not continue to expand overseas. Stressing the fact that there remained roughly nine million unemployed in 1940, one leading Senator warned in 1941 that the danger of another depression could not be overemphasised. The drive to achieve the desired post-war results began in earnest while the war was still going on. Cordell Hull, Secretary of State until 1944, stated in 1941 that ‘the primary object is both to reopen the old and seek new outlets for our surplus production’. One of his principal concerns was to break into the British trading system, a campaign in which he was vigorously supported by American exporters. Hull’s weapons included Lend-Lease, and Britain’s growing need for a major recovery loan. The United States made its aid conditional upon the acceptance by Britain of the open-door principle. What can you learn from this extract about the interpretation and approach of the historian who wrote it? Use the extract and your knowledge of the Cold War to explain your answer. [40]

Mark scheme: 3 The origins and development of the Cold War 40 Interpretation/Approach The main interpretation is that the United states is to blame for the Cold War because of (i) its pursuance of its open-door economic expansionism, and (ii) its insistence on having the right to determine the future of the world. Showing complete understanding of the interpretation will involve discussion of both these aspects. This is the classic revisionist viewpoint, and only this label would be acceptable at L5/L6. The historian shows that the US attitude and its insistence on an open-door policy predated the end of the war. The idea that the United States would lead a world open to capitalism and democracy was an assumption that meant cold war was inevitable. Answers could reach L4 on post-revisionism if explaining part/all of the main interpretation, as well as blaming the Soviet Union. Claiming that the historian blames the Soviets (trad/orthodox/post post rev) will be credited at no more than L3. Glossary: Traditional/Orthodox interpretations of the Cold War were generally produced early after the Second World War. They blame the Soviet Union and Stalin’s expansionism for the Cold War. Revisionist historians challenged this view and shifted more of the focus onto the United States, generally through an economic approach which stressed the alleged aim of the United States to establish its economic dominance over Europe. Post-revisionists moved towards a more balanced view in which elements of blame were attached to both sides. Since the opening of the Soviet archives post-1990 there has been a shift to attributing prime responsibility to Stalin – a post-post-revisionist stance which often seems very close to the traditional view, but which often places great importance on ideology. What counts is how appropriate the use of this kind of terminology is in relation to the extract, and how effectively the extract can be used to support it.

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