GCE 2026 History Paper 2: Answers and Model Essay

(a) A country’s fleet of warships and sailors, used to defend it and to fight at sea.

(b) To protect her trade and colonies, and to rival Britain as a world power.

(c) She followed the Two-Power Standard (a navy at least as large as the next two navies combined) and, from 1906, built more Dreadnought battleships than Germany.

(d) France (Russia is also accepted).

(a) The Hall of Mirrors, Palace of Versailles, near Paris.

(b) Alsace and Lorraine.

(c) Germany had taken them from France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71.

(d) Germany lost a major source of coal, which weakened her industry and economy. (The Saar was run by the League of Nations for 15 years, with France taking its coal.)

(e) Former German colonies and Turkish lands placed under the League of Nations and governed on its behalf by Allied powers such as Britain and France until they were ready for self-rule.

(f) Tanganyika (German East Africa) and South West Africa (Namibia). Cameroon and Togoland are also correct.

(a) Italy.

(b) The National Fascist Party.

(c)

1. The Battle for Grain, to make Italy self-sufficient in wheat.
2. Draining the Pontine Marshes to create farmland.
3. Public works: motorways (autostrade), hydro-electric schemes and new towns.
4. The Corporate State, which organised employers and workers into corporations and banned strikes.

(d) Fiume and Jubaland.

(a) 7.4% (1935).

(b) 1940 (38.0%).

(c) $38.0 - 23.0 =$ 15 percentage points.

(d) Hitler wanted to destroy the Treaty of Versailles, make Germany strong again and win back lost lands.

(e) He sent German troops into the Rhineland (March 1936), which the treaty had demilitarised.

(f) The union of Austria with Germany (1938).

(g) The Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia.

(h) Union with Austria, gaining its people, army, gold reserves and resources.

(a) The Secretariat of the United Nations.

(b) It runs the day-to-day administration of the UN (and carries out the decisions of the other organs).

(c) A: Norwegian. B: Egyptian.

(d) António Guterres.

(e) 2017 to the present.

(f) 5 years (1992–1996), a single term.

(g) Kofi Annan of Ghana.

(h) Dag Hammarskjöld, killed in a plane crash near Ndola in 1961.

(a) The Weimar Republic.

(b) Friedrich Ebert.

(c)

1. A new currency, the Rentenmark (1923), replaced the worthless mark.
2. The Dawes Plan (1924) reduced reparation payments and brought in American loans.

(d) The Munich (Beer Hall) Putsch.

(a) North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

(b) 4 April 1949.

(c) To defend Western countries against the spread of Soviet communism: an attack on one member is an attack on all.

(d) Greece and Turkey.

(e) Capitalism and democracy.

(f) The United States of America.

(g) The Warsaw Pact (1955).

(h) Communism.

(a) King Charles III.

(b) Marlborough House, London.

(c)

1. To promote democracy, human rights and the rule of law.
2. To promote trade, development and cooperation among members.

(d) The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).

(e) A High Commissioner.

(f) An Ambassador.

(a) The challenges of the Weimar Republic

1. The Republic was blamed for signing the hated Treaty of Versailles. Its leaders were called the “November criminals” who had “stabbed Germany in the back”.
2. The treaty was harsh: Germany lost land, her army was cut to 100 000 men, and she had to pay reparations of £6 600 million.
3. The constitution was weak. Proportional representation produced many small parties and unstable coalition governments, and Article 48 allowed the President to rule by decree.
4. There were uprisings from the left and the right: the Spartacist Revolt (1919), the Kapp Putsch (1920) and the Munich Putsch (1923), and political murders such as that of Walter Rathenau.
5. When Germany failed to pay reparations, France and Belgium occupied the Ruhr (1923), Germany’s main industrial area.
6. Hyperinflation in 1923 made the mark worthless and wiped out the savings of the middle class.
7. The Great Depression (1929) ended American loans; about 6 million people were unemployed by 1932.
8. Many army officers, judges and civil servants were still loyal to the Kaiser and did not support democracy.

(b) How Hitler took advantage of these challenges

1. He promised to tear up the Treaty of Versailles and make Germany great again, which pleased angry nationalists.
2. During the Depression he promised “work and bread” to the millions of unemployed.
3. He blamed the Jews and the communists for Germany’s problems, giving people someone to blame.
4. Fear of communism won him money and support from industrialists, farmers and the middle class.
5. Goebbels’ propaganda, mass rallies, posters, radio and Hitler’s powerful speeches spread the Nazi message.
6. The SA (stormtroopers) broke up opponents’ meetings and frightened voters.
7. Weak coalitions and rule by Article 48 made democracy look useless. In July 1932 the Nazis became the largest party in the Reichstag, with 230 seats.
8. Von Papen and President Hindenburg made him Chancellor in January 1933, believing they could control him.
9. He used the Reichstag Fire (February 1933) to arrest communists, and the Enabling Act (March 1933) to make laws without the Reichstag.
10. When Hindenburg died in August 1934, he combined the posts of President and Chancellor and became Führer (dictator).