History II / The Road to the Second World War
Practice question · Put in order

Arrange these acts of aggression and diplomacy in order.

Hints
  1. The sequence begins in east Asia and ends in Moscow.
  2. Manchuria 1931, Ethiopia 1935, the Rhineland 1936, Austria March 1938, Munich September 1938, Prague March 1939, the pact August 1939.
Show the answer
  1. Japan seizes Manchuria
  2. Italy invades Ethiopia
  3. Germany remilitarises the Rhineland
  4. Germany annexes Austria
  5. The Munich agreement transfers the Sudetenland
  6. Germany occupies Bohemia and Moravia
  7. The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact is signed
Why

The acceleration is the striking feature: four years between the first two, then five major steps in three and a half years. Each unpunished action lowered the expected cost of the next, which is the mechanism critics of appeasement point at and the one its defenders have to answer.

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