View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What former U.S president was present at the funeral of Edward VII?

2. What was the one precaution the German commanders did not plan for?

3. Why did France order a ten-kilometer withdrawal from its frontier on July 30?

4. What was the prime objective that governed French policy?

5. How long did the old Field Marshal Moltke think the next war could last?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why, right up until the invasion actually happened, did many still believe that the German armies would not actually invade Belgium?

2. What kind of things did King Albert of Belgium hear when he visited Berlin in Chapter 8?

3. What were the two parts of Britain’s ultimatum to Germany, of which only the second part was truly an ultimatum?

4. How was the news of war received in France?

5. In the beginning of Chapter 2 it is revealed that the alliances and counter-alliances of the various powers of Europe had created a “heap of swords piled as delicately as jackstraws” (18). How does this complex web of alliances help lead to the outbreak of war in 1914?

6. Contrast Schlieffen’s bold plan of a right wing attack with his successor General von Moltke’s will to carry it out.

7. What ultimatum did Germany send to Brussels?

8. What last minute option to avoid war was presented to Kaiser William II?

9. How did Belgium, and King Albert, finally decide to respond to the ultimatum from Germany?

10. Who was appointed the new generalissimo of the French armies and what branch of the French military did he come from?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Explain the meaning and false optimism of the statement “You will be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees” (119) from Chapter 9.

Essay Topic 2

Explain the statement “Instantly converted from Marx to Mars” (74) at the beginning of Chapter 6.

Essay Topic 3

Describe the way that the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand sparked the outbreak of World War I.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 759 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample