Topic: The armed peace in Europe. Origins of the military coalitions

Target group

7th‑grade students of elementary school

Core curriculum

XXIII. Europe and the world in the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Pupil:

1) describes the political situation in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century.

37.1. the student lists the main reasons for the accumulation of conflicts between the European powers at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and places them on the political map of the world and Europe.

General aim of education

Students learn about the main causes of the rise of conflicts between European powers at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and place them on the political map of the world and Europe.

Key competences

• communication in foreign languages;

• digital competence;

• learning to learn.

Criteria for success
The student will learn:

• describe the main reasons for the accumulation of conflicts between European powers at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries;

• place them on the political map of the world and Europe.

Methods/techniques

• expository

  • talk.

• activating

  • discussion.

• programmed

  • with computer;

  • with e‑textbook.

• practical

  • exercices concerned.

Forms of work

• individual activity;

• activity in pairs;

• activity in groups;

• collective activity.

Teaching aids

• e‑textbook;

• notebook and crayons/felt‑tip pens;

• interactive whiteboard, tablets/computers.

Lesson plan overview

Before classes

1. Before the lesson, the teacher asks students to remember the news about the reunification of Germany.

Introduction

1. The teacher explains the students the subject, the purpose of the lesson and the criteria for success.

2. The teacher asks students about the location of Turkey, the Black Sea and the Black Sea straits on the historical map. Students use maps in a e‑textbook or other maps recommended by the teacher. Then he explains to them in a teaching conversation the concept of the „eastern issue” and its meaning in the nineteenth century.

Realization

1. The teacher asks students to do Exercise 1. Students will learn about the most important events from the universal history of the second half of the nineteenth century. Then, in the notebooks, they note the most important conflicts and peace arrangements.

2. Students from a container with lottery tickets draw the name of one of the countries: France, Russia, Great Britain, Austria / Austria‑Hungary, Germany, Turkey, Italy (each country should be represented by an identical number of tickets, no more than 1/7 of the number of students). Then the owners of the same tickets are grouped together and work together. Each group notes on pre‑prepared sheets of paper: - What do I care for? - What measures do I take? - Which goals have been achieved? Why / why not?.

3. The students present their findings. Others complete their notes in notebooks. Each of the posters is photographed and the picture is forwarded to a folder available to the students. The teacher discusses the work, corrects possible mistakes. He takes care of the feedback provided to students during solving exercises and doing commands.

Summary

1. The teacher asks the students about the reasons for the forming of the Triple Alliance. He refers to the arrangements made by students regarding the political interests of the European powers.

2. The teacher asks to do Exercise 2. Students arrange the puzzle and choose the appropriate variant of the answer in the attached task. Then, in conversation with the teacher, they list the reasons for the conclusion of the Triple Entente and explain why it was concluded only in the early 1890s.

3. Students do Exercise 3 on tablets / computers, combining events and their effects into pairs.

4. The teacher gives students evaluation surveys in which they evaluate their own work during the lesson, the work of the teacher and colleagues.

Homework

1. The teacher sets homework (it is not an obligatory part of the script): he proposes to read the subsection „Wojna krymska” and to acquaint with the figure of Florence Nightingale. Based on materials from the Internet, interested students prepare information about her life, activities and war experiences.

2. Alternative version: students familiarize with the time capsule.

The following terms and recordings will be used during this lesson

Terms

Texts and recordings

The armed peace in Europe. Origins of the military coalitions

The years 1853‑1856 were marked by an armed conflict between Russia and Turkey supported by the Western powers, known as the Crimean War. In March 1856, the Treaty of Paris was signed, proclaiming the neutrality of the Black Sea territory, which meant that neither Russia, nor Turkey could keep their navy on the Black Sea any more. After Austria lost the war to Prussia in 1866, the peoples under the Habsburg rule (most notably the Czechs, the Poles and the Hungarians) started to demand a wider autonomy and an introduction of a federal system. Ultimately, the Empire was transformed into a dual monarchy of Austria and Hungary in 1867. The two parts shared the same monarch but each had a separate constitution, government and parliament. Defeated in the Crimean War, Russia entered a process of modernisation under the rule of Alexander II. This period came to be known as the „Post‑Sevastopol Thaw”. The Russian foreign policy became concerned with defence of Slavic‑speaking peoples (Pan‑Slavism). The 1878 Congress of Berlin, called by Bismarck, took significant decisions about the future of the Balkans. The independence of Serbia, Montenegro and Romania was proclaimed and Bulgaria gained autonomy. Austria‑Hungary started the occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina; the territory nominally remained part of the Ottoman Empire, but it was placed under the Austro‑Hungarian administration.

In 1879, the German Reich entered into an alliance with Austria‑Hungary. This was Europe's first military alliance formed in the time of peace. It was secret and directed against Russia: if one of the states was attacked by Russia, the other was to come to its aid. Soon Italy was successfully persuaded to join the Dual Alliance. As a result, in 1882, the Triple Alliance was formed between the countries which were later known as the Central Powers during World War I. France and Russia started to worry about their political isolation. The situation changed after Chancellor Bismarck retired from politics at the request of Emperor William II. Then, following long months of negotiations, Russia and France signed their own military convention in 1892, pledging to provide immediate military support to each other if Russia was attacked by Germany or Austria‑Hungary or if France was attacked by Germany or Italy.