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O-Level Paper 1: The years following the First World War

What the O-Level syllabus expects for Paper 1: The years following the First World War, and how to practise it.

What the syllabus expects

A broad survey of the First World War
What the Paris Peace Conference set out to achieve and its terms, plus how it first reshaped Europe across the 1920s
Scope: Covers the Versailles treaty and how it struck Germany right away, namely the clause assigning blame for the war, the payments demanded, forced disarmament and lands taken away
How national frontiers were redrawn and fresh nation-states brought into being
Scope: The collapse of former empires alongside the idea of peoples governing themselves
The push for shared security across the 1920s
Scope: How well, or how poorly, the League of Nations managed to hold the peace during that decade
Weigh the effect the postwar settlements had on Europe
Weigh the 1920s bids for shared security and how they turned out
Key concepts: Balance of power, Self-determination, Collective security