Deck 47: World War Ii

Question 1

Describe the final days of the war in Europe, explaining how the victory was won.

Answer 1

Answer not provided.

Question 2

During the Spanish Civil War, the Western democracies

A) supported the loyalists.
B) intervened against Soviet interference.
C) pushed both sides to stop fighting.
D) assisted the Nationalists.
E) remained neutral.

Answer 2

remained neutral.

Question 3

Explain the factors leading to Germany's apparent success during the years 1939-1942. Assess the changes that began to take place during 1942-1943 that took the war in a different direction. At which point did Hitler's defeat become just a matter of time?

Answer 3

Answer not provided.

Question 4

Explain the significance of the Ethiopian invasion and the Spanish Civil War in foreshadowing the global war that eventually erupted.

Question 5

The League of Nations' course of action against aggressive, militaristic powers turned out to be mainly

A) military.
B) diplomatic.
C) economic.
D) moral.
E) sociopolitical.

Question 6

In making the decision to use the atomic bomb on Japan, the United States dealt with which of these situations?

A) The Japanese had throughout the war shown fierce resistance and determination.
B) Some analysts suggested American casualties during an invasion of Japan might rise to 200,000.
C) Some who were against dropping the bombs believed that the Japanese were on the verge of surrendering.
D) both a and b
E) both a and c

Question 7

"Peace in our time" (1938) lasted about

A) two years.
B) two months.
C) one year.
D) six months.
E) ten weeks.

Question 8

The Little Entente allied France with

A) Austria, Greece, and Bulgaria.
B) Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary.
C) Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Poland.
D) Poland, Russia, and Britain.
E) Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Austria.

Question 9

Because of the Non-Aggression Pact,

A) many foreign Communist Party members resigned.
B) the Soviets entered the Second World War.
C) Austria's government was captured by Nazis.
D) the United States threatened intervention.
E) none of these

Question 10

In your estimation, could the Cold War have been avoided? Cite specific events and personalities of the period 1943-1946 to support your ideas.

Question 11

One ostensible reason for the Spanish Civil War was the military's fear of

A) the country's new republic.
B) a fascist takeover.
C) communism.
D) Mussolini.
E) a return to monarchy.

Question 12

Describe and discuss the course of the Asian theater of World War II. What factors brought about Japan's demise?

Question 13

The Non-Aggression Pact

A) assured Hitler control of the Sudetenland.
B) handed Danzig to the Nazis.
C) divided Eastern Europe between Nazis and Soviets.
D) established an Eastern European cease-fire.
E) assured Chamberlain of Hitler's good intentions.

Question 14

Assess the extent to which the German triumphs of 1938-1939 were due to Allied weakness, and how much was due to Hitler's ingenuity.

Question 15

The Second Front in World War II began with

A) an evacuation from the beaches at Dunkirk.
B) the success of the Soviet Union in repelling Germany.
C) the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
D) the defeat of the Germans in Italy.
E) an invasion across the English Channel on D-Day.

Question 16

Appeasement of Hitler, 1938-39, was ardently practiced by

A) Neville Chamberlain of Great Britain.
B) Anthony Eden of Great Britain.
C) Vittorio Orlando of Italy.
D) Winston Churchill of Great Britain.
E) Charles de Gaulle of France.

Question 17

The Battle of Britain

A) brought tremendous mental confusion to the British.
B) was fought entirely in the air.
C) allowed Hitler to begin an invasion of the island.
D) had little or no impact on the British.
E) was on the verge of success until Churchill replaced Chamberlain as Prime Minister.

Question 18

In 1944, General Douglas MacArthur

A) urged the use of the atom bomb on Japan.
B) moderated a meeting of the British, Soviets, and Americans.
C) liberated the Philippines.
D) led the successful Battle of the Coral Sea.
E) was relieved of command in the Pacific.

Question 19

Explain how Nazi Germany proceeded with impunity to dismantle the Versailles Treaty between 1933 and 1938. What was the rest of the world thinking?

Question 20

By the date of the Pearl Harbor attack,

A) America was mediating between Germany and the Allies.
B) America was already preparing for war.
C) Roosevelt was attempting to move away from involvement.
D) most Americans were already urging Congress to declare war on Germany.
E) the United States had agreed to cease supplying Britain.

Question 21

The difference between Hitler's failed attempt at Anschluss in 1934 and his success in 1938 was

A) the decision of the people of Austria to support the move.
B) Mussolini's support rather than opposition, which had been the case in 1934.
C) the growing strength of the Nazi party in Austria by 1938.
D) the failure of the French and British to protest the move.
E) the fact that the League of Nations was no longer involved in overseeing Germany's actions on a regular basis.

Question 22

Even after WWI, it appears that Britain's attitude during Hitler's move toward war in the 1930s was that

A) he wouldn't dare do anything serious to push the former Allies into uniting again.
B) the English Channel between their country and the mainland would provide a buffer that they need not cross, even if Hitler did start a war.
C) France would probably not "go it alone" in dealing with Hitler, and their best hope was that the Soviet Union also stayed out of the fray.
D) the League of Nations would be able to handle anything really serious that arose due to Hitler's actions.
E) the Germans were too afraid to act on their own, so the world really had nothing to worry about.

Question 23

When France pushed for "collective security" among the former Allies during the 1920s,

A) Italy broke its alliance with the French and began to gravitate toward Germany.
B) they argued that the League of Nations had an obligation to take unified action against potential aggressor nations.
C) the democratic nations could not decide how to take any action, since their former ally, the Soviet Union, was now a communist country.
D) both a and b
E) both b and c

Question 24

The turning point of the war in Europe came when

A) the Russians held the city of Stalingrad and pushed the Germans back, putting them on the defensive.
B) the liberation of France in 1944 after the landing at Normandy on June 6, 1944.
C) the Germans and Italians were driven out of North Africa in mid-1943.
D) the Allies landed in southern Italy in 1943.
E) Mussolini fell from power in Italy, leaving Hitler to make decisions alone.

Question 25

Winston Churchill first became a public figure when he

A) became the leader of the British government.
B) was elected to Parliament.
C) was a journalist in Africa.
D) was a navy minister in World War Il.
E) spoke out against Chamberlain's support of Hitler.

Question 26

The main issue of the Potsdam Conference seemed to be

A) whether or not the United States should use the atom bomb on Japan.
B) determining how and when free elections would be held in eastern European countries after the war ended.
C) establishing rules for the granting of freedom to eastern European countries.
D) Stalin's disinclination to come to terms with the Allied leaders who had replaced Churchill and FDR.
E) whether the United States and the Soviet Union would be able to remain partners until the war was over.

Question 27

Somewhat surprisingly, it was ____ that offered to join in an alliance to go to the aid of Czechoslovakia when Hitler invaded that country.

A) Italy
B) France
C) Switzerland
D) the United States
E) the Soviet Union

Question 28

Moscow supported and sent aid to the ____________________ ____________________ in Spain, which was battling Franco's forces.

Question 29

The focal point of the Yalta conference among the Allied leaders in 1945 was

A) the future of Japan.
B) the postwar political arrangements in Eastern Europe.
C) the details of a peace treaty with Germany.
D) the signing of a peace treaty with Italy.
E) a plan to liberate the Jews in occupied Poland.

Question 30

When Hitler renounced the provisions of the Versailles Treaty and announced that he was enlarging his army and creating an air force, the reaction in Britain and France was

A) an attempt to get the League of Nations to halt his actions at any cost.
B) leaders of the two countries exhausted all means to get the Soviet Union to enter into an alliance with them as they had done before the First World War.
C) both France and Britain murmured through diplomatic channels that they heartily disapproved.
D) the events went almost unnoticed, since the Spanish Civil War was still raging.
E) the two countries demanded that he halt his military buildup, but since Hitler knew they planned to do nothing, he continued unopposed.

Question 31

In Spain's Civil War that began in 1936,

A) Hitler and Mussolini sent enough arms and advisers to make the difference, leading Franco and his forces to victory.
B) France joined in to help the Spanish Loyalists by creating a Popular Front movement.
C) most of the Western democracies sided with the Catholic Church, the peasants, and most of the middle classes.
D) Sweden and Switzerland refused to get involved, but Portugal sent troops to support the Loyalists.
E) volunteers from around the world went to Spain to fight with the Loyalists, but United States citizens held to the government's official stance of neutrality.

Question 32

By the terms of the Little Entente, ____________________ undertook mutual protection against Germany, by joining with three Eastern European states.

Question 33

When Hitler's war machine rolled into Poland on September 1, 1939,

A) France and Britain declared war on Germany, and the two sides immediately gathered their forces and took the field, hoping to finish the other side off before Christmas.
B) the Soviet Union reluctantly joined with France and Britain, although Stalin had reservations about working with the two again.
C) Poland fell to the Germans very quickly, and Stalin's troops entered Poland from the east and occupied that part of the country.
D) the United States tried to broker a peace between France and Britain on one side, and the Germans on the other, but they were not successful.
E) Britain determined that it would try to stay neutral until and unless Hitler tried to invade England.

Question 34

The Battle of the Coral Sea

A) led to the liberation of the Philippines from Japanese control, making it possible for General MacArthur to have a strategic location from which to command the Pacific fleet.
B) stopped any thoughts the Japanese had of taking India, despite the fact that the Japanese government suggested that it would liberate India if Britain lost the war.
C) led to Japan's capture of all of Southeast Asia.
D) halted Japan's march southward through the Pacific toward Australia, effectively turning the tide of the war.
E) was one of the deadliest Pacific conflicts for the United States, temporarily making Americans fear that the war there might not be won.

Question 35

A chief reason for Britain's prolonged appeasement of Hitler was that

A) the British government wanted a counterweight to France on the Continent.
B) he was seen by some leaders as an anticommunist bulwark.
C) the British government of the late 1930s was strongly pro-German.
D) he was seen as a way to tame the eastern European troublemakers.
E) the United States urged Britain to stay out of any dangerous situations.

Question 36

The Soviet Union and the United States were at odds over many things during the post-World War II era, but the issue that led to the most dramatic confrontation between the two occurred when

A) the United States introduced a new currency, the deutsche mark, into West Germany, thus financially separating East Germany from West Germany, to East Germany's detriment.
B) Stalin attempted to get the Allies to leave West Berlin in 1948 by imposing a blockade that denied ground access to the city, and the Americans had to carry out a long-running airlift of supplies.
C) the Soviet Union began in late 1945 to impose satellite governments throughout the countries of eastern Europe.
D) the Soviets accused, with reason, the Allies of refusing to honor wartime commitments to share West German resources with them, to serve as war reparations.
E) the West chose to ignore earlier plans to hunt down Nazis and bring them to justice, choosing instead to build up German protections in hopes of keeping communism from spreading.

Question 37

France held out hope for a long time that, if push came to shove,

A) the Maginot Line would protect them from Germany.
B) Germany could not succeed in any aggressive action against them without Austria's support, and since Anschluss was forbidden, all would be well.
C) Mussolini would rein Hitler in and come on board with France.
D) the United States would intervene with economic sanctions and halt German aggression in its tracks.
E) Britain would come to the support of the beleaguered Czech government when Hitler made his bid for domination there.

Question 38

Operation Barbarossa

A) was the code name for the attack on Russia by the Germans.
B) pitted Hitler and Mussolini on one side against all of the Allied forces, at the Marne River in 1944.
C) was the name given for the invasion of Sicily as the Allies moved to take Italy in 1943.
D) stood for Hitler's planned invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939.
E) was Hitler's plan to tear down the Maginot Line as he invaded France and captured Paris.

Question 39

World War II was a watershed in history in several ways, one of them being that

A) most countries in Western Europe were damaged heavily by the fighting and took decades to recover.
B) even all of the war's winners felt like losers when the war was over.
C) a war was fought in two completely different parts of the world for the first time in history.
D) the United States agreed to a negotiated treaty with Japan after stating that there would be no negotiations.
E) more people died in World War II, perhaps as many as 30 million, than had died in any other disaster in recorded history, and a huge number of those killed were civilians.

Question 40

Italy's brutal, unprovoked attack upon ____________________ in 1935 clearly demonstrated the deficiencies of the League of Nations.

Question 41

One of the earliest of Hitler's violations of the Versailles Treaty was the creation of the powerful ____________________, or German ____________________ ____________________.

Question 42

At the Munich Conference of 1938, ____________________ and ____________________ joined with Italy in allowing Hitler to annex the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia.

Question 43

The codename ____________________ ____________________ denoted the German attack on Russia.

Question 44

To end World War II, the United States dropped bombs on ____________________ and ____________________, Japanese cities.

Question 45

The failure of Germany's air force in the ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ in 1940 prevented the invasion of what was, at the time, the last remaining Allied Power.

Question 46

The chief American architect of the victory over Japan in the Pacific was General ____________________ ____________________.

Question 47

Preparing for war, Hitler reoccupied the ____________________ in 1936, and in 1938 he announced ____________________ with Austria.