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- Four essays will be assigned during this semester. Below are the
questions for this semester's essays. You are expected to express your
reaction and answer the question(s) given for each due date in a typed,and
double spaced paper at least two but not more than three pages in length.
The lowest score of the four essays will be dropped. Each essay will be
worth 50 points for a total of 150 points toward the course grade. Each
essay will be due at the beginning of each section's class period on the
days stated below. No essays will be accepted after this deadline and there
are no makeups.
1st Reaction Paper Questions (DUE FEBRUARY
6) Choose one:
- 1. Compare and contrast the views of Gerhard Weinberg in A World
at Arms and those of Professors Rowe, Hendrickson and Pappas in the
lectures regarding the cause and effect relationship of the two World Wars.
Which position do you hold to be the most valid?
- 2. According to "The Lion Caged", how did Winston Churchill
view the rise of the Axis in the 1930ts? Before he became Prime Minister,
how could he make his views felt? Why did he not have much political power
though most of the 1930ts?
- 3. What was the "Phony War" (September 1939-March 1940)?
According to Weinberg and the web sources, how did hostilities manifest
themselves on sea and land. What was the "Winter War" and what
ties did it have to the larger yet dormant conflict?
- 4. According to Weinberg and the web sources, why was the Blitzkrieg
so effective for the Germans in the Battles of Poland, Norway, the Low
Countries and France? What were the most salient features of "lightning
war"?
- 5. Why was the Summer of 1940 such as crucial time in the war? How
did German victories in the west affect at least two of the following powers:
France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States? Use Weinberg,
the lectures and "The Dangerous Summer of 1940" as references
to answer this question.
2nd Reaction Paper Questions (DUE MARCH 1) Choose
one:
- 1. During the Battle of Britain, why did the German shift from bombing
military and industrial targets to the bombing of cities with civilian
population? How do Weinberg, the lectures and the web sources access this
decision? In their view how did it affect the outcome of the battle of
Britain?
- 2. According to "The Transatlantic Duel", how and why did
the United States become increasingly involved in the European War in 1940
and 1941?
- 3. Why did Blitzkrieg ultimately fail in the Battle for Russia.
According to the sources, what factors played the most important
role in its failure?
- 4. What do the eyewitness accounts of Operation Barbarossa say about
the morale of German and Russian troops in the period of June to December
1941? How do the compare with the descriptions of soldiers' attitudes given
in the Film on Barbarossa?
- 5. According to the various sources on the war in North Africa, why
was it such a see-saw struggle?
- 6. Based on your reading of the sources on Pearl Harbor, do you see
any way that the United States could have avoided or blunted the Japanese
attack? How did American and Axis leaders and common folk react to the
events of December 7?
- 7. According to the available sources, how and why were the Japanese
able to capture so many British and American strongholds in the winter
and spring 1941-42? In answering, use the examples of the seemingly
impregnable British stronghold of Singapore in Malaya, as well as the American
defenses at Bataan and Correigidor.
3rd Reaction Paper Questions (DUE MARCH 29) Choose
one:
- 1. From the readings and classroom discussion on El Alamein, Stalingrad
and Midway in The War, which on of the so-called "turning point"
battle seems to you to have been the most precarious in outcome? In you
opinion which of the three was the most significant and why?
- 2. According to the readings and lecture on the Italian campaign, what
made the "soft-underbelly of Europe" into "the tough old
gut"? Access the relative importance of weather and terrain, effective
German defense, and allied blunders in dragging out the war in Italy.
- 3. In your opinion what was the decisive point in the allied invasion
of Northwestern France. Was it the creation of beach heads on D-Day, the
St. Lo Offensive, or the events around Caen and the Falaise Gap.? In formulating
your opinion, use Weinberg and the sources in The Good War.
- 4. Compare and contrast the picture of D-Day presented in the articles
in the The Good War and either of the films The Longest Day or
Saving Private Ryan.
- 5. How did the allied air offensives affect life in German cities between
1942 and 1945? How did German missile attacks affect life in England? Where
would you rather have been at this time, England or Germany? Use Weinberg,
the web sources and "After the Air Raids" to answer this question.
- 6. Compare and contrast the Allied offensive of Operation "Market
Garden" and the German counterattack in the Ardennes. Based on the
sources available to you, why did each of these blows and counterblows
fail in their objectives?
4th Reaction Paper Questions (DUE APRIL 26) Choose
one:
- 1. How does "A Fateful Friendship" portray the relationship
and performance of Generals Eisenhower and Patton in the ETO operations
of 1942-1945?
- 2. Why were the Soviet offensives against the Axis from 1943 to 1945
so irresistible? What do the Soviet and other sources say about this? Why
do you think that no sources were used on this subject in The Good War?
- 3. Based upon Weinberg and the lectures, how would you compare and
contrast the occupation and resistance in western Europe (Norway, Denmark,
France, Holland) and in eastern Europe (The Balkans, Poland and Russia)
in terms of of the nature of the occupation, the forms of resistance, intensity
of armed resistance and the role of politics in the resistance?
- 4. Compare and contrast combat between the Americans and Japanese in
the Pacific with combat between the Soviets and Germans on the Eastern
Front. Is Pappas justified in saying that in terms of viciousness and the
casualty ratios, both were wars of attrition and anihilation?
- 5. Based upon the sources in Weinberg and The Good War, how
were military prisoners of war and civilian internees treated by the Germans,
the Japanese, and the Americans? Where, when and how did imprisonment become
persecution and extermination?
- 6. In your view, was the use of the Atomic bomb against Japan at the
end of the war necessary and justified? Do the accounts in The Good
War, Weinberg, and the web affirm or challenge your view?
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