Cambridge A Level History 9489 — 2025 Oct/Nov Paper 3 · Variant 3

1 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 and counter-moves by the governments of Europe, set against the background of recent shifts in the international landscape and anticipated changes in the years to come. The powers did not operate in a vacuum. There was a system of great-power relationships – the European concert, with its norms of behaviour, accepted rules of conduct, and conflict-resolution arrangements. It is true that the understandings that underpinned great-power politics had become a little worn out by 1914, and the tools by which international disputes were settled were a little blunt from frequent use. Even so, each of the powers acted with explicit reference to the system and its norms, and it is against these that their actions need to be judged. The system of great-power politics was not a vast impersonal force that directed the actions of the statesmen of Europe. It was rather an informal framework of often unspoken assumptions about international behaviour and the accepted methods of allowing for the interests of the greater and smaller powers. The pre-1914 international system, then, consisted of shared understandings of the ‘rules of the game’, what the powers were and not permitted to do, and what tools they could use and under what circumstances. However, abstract concepts, such as the ‘balance of power’ or the ‘alliance system’, did not cause Europe’s descent into war. Individuals acting in response to external and internal events, and to perceived opportunities and threats, were central to the developments in July 1914. Their warlike or conciliatory views on the perceived realities of international politics, and how they acted given the existing political arrangements in their respective countries, hold the key to understanding how and why Europe descended into world war. The causes of the war are at one and the same time more ordinary and more complex than the standard arguments about the deeper forces determining Europe’s unavoidable progress towards war would suggest. They are to be found in the near-collective failure of statecraft by the rulers of Europe. For much of the nineteenth century there had been a clear appreciation of the respective roles, rights and responsibilities of the great powers. This understanding had become more fragile by 1914. Thus, Sazonov (the Russian foreign minister), and Poincaré, and to some extent Grey, too, insisted that any Austrian demands on Belgrade had to respect Serbian sovereignty and independence. Yet at the same time the powers did little to establish effective limits for Serbia’s undoubted provocations of Austria-Hungary, and for the pan-Serb agitation that was aimed at undermining the internal cohesion of one of the existing great powers. Statesmen of the nineteenth century would surely not have tolerated such an explicit challenge to the established international order. The role of individuals in July 1914 was critical. Until the end of July diplomats and politicians continued to make the key decisions, although the important role played by junior and middle-ranking officials was one of the peculiarities of the crisis, especially so during its early stages. For much of the month, for instance, Russia’s ambassadors were absent from the embassies in Paris, Berlin, Vienna and Belgrade. The German Chancellor was away from Berlin until late July, and the foreign minister had been on his honeymoon when the Austrians extracted ‘the blank cheque’ from the Kaiser. 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 the First World War broke out because (i) although there was an international system of great power relationships which should have prevented war, (ii) this failed in 1914 because of the poor quality of individual decision- making. Showing complete understanding of the interpretation will involve discussion of both these aspects. The historian argues for the overriding importance of decisions made by individuals and rejects the notion that war came about because of concepts like the balance of power or the alliance system. By implication, blame is attributed to all the major players, who failed to grasp the true nature of their responsibilities. Glossary: Early post-WW1 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. The precondition for starting up the machinery of destruction was not the development of the varied schemes of economic and population planning, but their repeated and utter failure. With the arrival in German-controlled territory of the first tens of thousands of ethnic Germans from eastern and south-eastern Europe, a sinister chain reaction was set in motion. In order to make room for the resettled Germans, large numbers of Poles and especially Jews were deported from the Warthegau and other regions without provision being made for them. Now began a series of increasingly extensive deportation schemes contained within the idea of the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of central Europe. At the centre of these plans for expulsion and deportation stood the Jews, who the Germans wanted to push out of their sphere of influence entirely, into the eastern regions of the Government General, to Madagascar, or to the Arctic Ocean in northern Russia. Since no-one in a position of authority in the Nazi regime was prepared to accept the Jews in ‘his’ area, a system of stop-gap measures and compromises developed that, because of the much-deplored ‘unacceptable conditions’ that they brought about, created pressures for a long-term or ‘final’ solution. The murder of the Jews, who could not be resettled, began as the consequence of the failures of the various plans for deportation. Often, the same men who had been responsible for relocating Germans from the Soviet Union – Eichmann, for example – subsequently organised the deportation and murder of the Jews. To be sure, a range of questions remains open. The radicalisation of Jewish policy is no longer understood as the product of long-term schemes, but rather as the result of the failure of plans for the Jews that were always being revised and extended – a process that proceeded in fits and starts and was always made to fit decisions designed to deal with the problems of the moment. Moreover, such plans, ultimately culminating in Generalplan Ost, never embraced the Jews alone but also involved Russians, Poles, and other countries lying to Germany’s east. But the failure of the deportation plans evolved into the practice of genocide only in the case of the Jews. It was only that group that National Socialist ideology had branded as the unshakeable enemy, and which, within a few years of the Nazis’ assumption of power in Germany, had been massively persecuted and deprived of its rights. What role, then, did antisemitism play here? In what ways did the dilemmas – real and contrived – arising in specific situations link up with long-standing attitudes and aims? What was the relationship between ideological factors, such as racism and hatred of Jews, to so-called ‘rational’ motives, such as economic modernisation or dealing with food scarcity? How did the motives – both individual and determined by the situation – of the murderers and those who bore responsibility for their actions relate to a general dynamic of violence directed against the Jews? Considering these questions together enables us to distinguish two main lines of development leading to genocide. First, there were those ruthless and unethical schemes that, when implemented as an imperialistic policy, adapted themselves according to the circumstances, regarding the fates of independent ethnic populations as unimportant. Second there was that racist brand of antisemitism that set as its goal the expulsion, and ultimately the murder, of some or all Jews. The histories of each of these factors are closely intertwined, involving the planning for a German, quasi-colonial hinterland in eastern and south-eastern Europe, and on the other hand, the tradition of modern antisemitism. 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 the Final Solution emerged (i) from a series of ad hoc measures designed to cope with circumstances which arose from the failure of deportation schemes, (ii) but consideration of Nazi anti-Semitism is needed to explain why they led to genocide in the case of the Jews Showing complete understanding of the interpretation will involve discussion of both these aspects. The main thrust of the interpretation is clearly functionalist. It explicitly rejects the notion of any long-term plan for genocide and portrays Nazi policy as a series of expedients to cope with the failure of resettlement plans. However, in distinguishing between the impact of Nazi plans on other Eastern European groups and the Jews, the historian accepts that only anti-Semitism can account for the difference. The most likely and plausible label for the interpretation is functionalist, but properly argued, seeing it as synthesis of functionalism and intentionalism would be feasible. 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. Second World War propaganda regarding the Soviet Union, combined with relief at the end of the war, left the United States in 1945 reluctant to lead a crusade against Soviet imperialism and very willing to work for the continuance of US-Soviet cooperation. When in March 1946 Winston Churchill delivered his celebrated Iron Curtain speech at Fulton, Missouri, the reaction in America was almost universally hostile. British diplomats were highly critical of the lack of realism and consistency in the American view of the Soviet Union. The swings of mood in the United States worried British diplomats. ‘From gloom about Soviet–American relations’, the head of the North American department in the British Foreign Office observed in late 1945, ‘opinion is now in the usual way swinging to renewed hope.’ In a pessimistic mood, the British feared America might resort to war. As the British embassy in Moscow reported in 1947, ‘Any immediate danger to world peace lies in the possibility of the Americans pulling the trigger and firing the gun.’ Yet in an optimistic mood, there was fear of unrealistic American moves for détente. Despite his fierce criticism of Soviet foreign policy, Truman stated in 1948 with regard to Stalin that ‘I like old Joe.’ A British Foreign Office official noted in January 1949 that Truman was ‘rather naively liable to delude himself from time to time that détente can be achieved by some overnight miracle’. With regard to economic issues, a number of Americans, especially in the State and Treasury departments, had clear ideas on using America’s dominant position to reform the world economic system, break down economic nationalism and create a more open world of free trade. But the majority of Americans were not confident capitalists. There was a great fear of a return to the Depression conditions of the 1930s once wartime spending ended. The prevailing mood was cautious, with a desire to cut taxes and reduce government expenditure. The defence budget fell from $81 billion in 1945 to $13 billion in 1947. Opposition to the Marshall Plan in Congress was considerable, with the view commonly expressed that American taxpayers’ money was being thrown away. Reluctance to undertake the commitment to the entangling alliance of NATO was widespread. British influence was an important factor in persuading the United States to undertake the Marshall Plan and join NATO. Thus, rather than a domineering United States forcing the European nations to join with America in an economic and military bloc to deter the Soviet Union, the evidence suggests that the United States moved hesitantly, with two steps forward and one step back, often requiring the encouragement of western European nations to accept the commitments of international involvement. Gradually, however, between 1945 and 1949 the changing American image of the Soviet Union made an increasingly deep impact on American policy. Trade between the two countries was almost nil. No cultural, educational, and scientific exchanges were developed after the war. The Soviet Union became increasingly a closed society, with an emphasis on cultural nationalism. Furthermore, by 1949 a terrifying new element had been added to America’s image of the Soviet Union as an alien threat, namely the atomic bomb. The United States came to view the Soviet Union as the new red menace. Americans were resolved not to repeat the mistakes of the 1930s but to deter this new menace by international involvement at an early stage. By 1949 the mood of America had swung firmly from hope of accommodation with the Soviets to crusading fervour against the red menace. 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 Cold War came about because (i) the USA was initially reluctant to assume a dominant position in the immediate postwar period, (ii) but, by 1949, this attitude had changed to one of active involvement to counter the perceived menace of Russia Showing complete understanding of the interpretation will involve discussion of both these aspects. The historian’s interpretation seems to reject revisionist ideas of the USA as an economically imperialist power, and sees it as uncertain of its role, and inconsistent in its attitudes towards Russia. However, by the late 1940s any attempt to cooperate with the Soviet Union had been abandoned, replaced by a policy of confrontation. There are ways in which the historian is critical of the USA, though not in the conventional revisionist manner. Candidates might label it as revisionist, and properly argued this could be acceptable in L5/L6. Glossary: Traditional/Orthodox interpretations of the Cold War were generally produced early after WW2. 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 US 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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