Paper 1 Skills: Comparison-Contrast

Source C An extract from a Japanese government official Hayashi, written in June 1895 following the Triple Intervention.

We must continue to study and make use of Western methods… if new warships are considered necessary we must, at any cost, build them; if the organization of our army is inadequate, we must start rectifying it from now; if need be, our entire military system must be changed.

At present Japan must keep calm and sit tight, so as to lull suspicious nurtured against her during this time the foundations of her national power must be consolidated; and we must watch and wait for the opportunity in the Orient that will surely come one day. When this day arrives, Japan will decide his own fate; and she will be able not only to put into their place the powers who seek to meddle in her affairs; she will be able , should this be necessary, to meddle in their affairs.

Source D John Hunter Boyle, Modern Japan: the American Nexus. (1991)

Speaking for many of his countrymen, journalist Tokutomi wrote that the Triple Intervention was to transform him psychologically and dominate the rest of this life. “Say what you will, it had happened because we weren’t strong enough. What it came down to was that sincerity and justice didn’t amount to a thing if you weren’t strong enough.” Japan had learned to emulate the West. It had played by the rules. From the standpont of the victim, they were not particularly fair rules, but they were the established rules of imperialism. Now, in Japan’s moment of victory, it was found that it was reviled by yellow-peril sloganeering and denied equal membership in the imperialist club. Japanese, even those who had been most enthusiastic about Western models, became convinced as MartinJensen writes, that international law and institutional modernization alone would never bring full respect and equality from the West.

2. Compare and contrast the views expressed in Source C and D regarding the views of the Japanese towards Western countries.

Source F: A speech by Hitler broadcast on 14 October 1933

Germany cannot tolerate the deliberate degradation of the nation by the perpetuation of a discrimination which consists in withholding the rights which are granted as a matter of course to other nations … the men who are at present the leaders of Germany have nothing in common with the traitors of November 1918. Like every decent Englishman and every decent Frenchman, we all had our duty to our Fatherland and placed our lives at its service. We are not responsible for the war but we feel responsible for what every honest man must do in the time of his country’s distress and for what we have done. We have such infinite love for our people that we desire wholeheartedly an understanding with other nations … but, as men of honor, it is impossible for us to be members of institutions under conditions which are only bearable to those devoid of a sense of honor…

Since it has been made clear to us from the declarations of certain Great Powers that they are not prepared to consider real equality of rights of Germany at present, we have decided it is impossible, in view of the indignity of her position, for Germany to continue to force her company upon other nations.

Source G: Gordon Craig, writing in an academic book Germany 1866-1945 (1978).

It was necessary to avoid appearing the villain of the piece. When the rupture came, [Hitler’s] foreign minister told Nadolny later in the month, “the lack of an intention to disarm on France’s part must be seen to be the cause”.

In the end, Hitler effected his purpose by using tactics that foreshadowed those he would employ in the Sudeten affair five years later; he made demands at Geneva that he was reasonably sure that the other powers would not accept. He insisted that equality of status was not enough and that, since the other powers were reluctant to reduce their forces to Germany’s level, all controls must be lifted so that it could seek actual equality in its own way. To this kind of intransigence the French, supported by the British government, refused to yield, insisting on a waiting period in which Germany could prove its good faith and give some indication of what its intentions were. This gave Hitler the excuse he needed and brushing aside an Italian attempt to find a compromise, he announced to find a compromise, he announced on 14 October 1933 that Germany was ending both its participation in the conference and its membership of the League of Nations, an institution that he had always regarded as a symbol of Germany’s second class status and for whose members, including the German ones, he privately felt contempt.

3. Compare and contrast the views expressed in Sources F and G regarding Hitler and the Disarmament Conference.