CG Board Class 10 Social Science Chapter 7 Solutions: The First World War (प्रथम विश्व युद्ध) (2026-27)

American, French**

French**

England, Germany**

Italy, Germany**

Japan**

Africa**

Britain**

War completely shatters normal human life

1. Human Casualties & Loss: Thousands of soldiers and civilians lose their lives or suffer permanent physical disability, leaving families without earning male members.
2. Economic Collapse & Scarcity: Essential commodities and food items are diverted to the battlefields, leading to sky-rocketing inflation, food shortages, and rationing.
3. Displacement & Trauma: War destroys houses, schools, and infrastructure, turning civilians into homeless refugees and inflicting lifelong psychological trauma.

Presently, major ongoing conflicts include the Russia-Ukraine War and the Israel-Hamas/Middle East Conflict.

• Impacts on People: Widespread destruction of cities, millions rendered refugees across international borders, sharp spikes in global fuel and grain prices, and destruction of healthcare and educational facilities.

According to Table 7.1 in the textbook, Germany suffered the highest number of military deaths among Central Powers (17,37,000 deaths), while Russia suffered the highest deaths among Allied Powers (17,00,000 deaths). Overall, Germany reported the maximum deaths.

The USA suffered the least casualties, reporting 1,26,000 deaths and only 4,500 prisoners/missing soldiers because it entered the war late in April 1917.

Indian casualties are included under the figures of Britain (with colonies), as India was a British colony during the First World War.

Prisoners of War:** Prisoners were kept in overcrowded, unsanitary war camps, treated with hostility, forced into hard labor, and deprived of adequate food and medical care in violation of international norms.

• Disabled Soldiers: Disabled soldiers struggled with physical pain, loss of limbs, and severe mental trauma (shell shock). Lacking modern social security, many were reduced to poverty and isolation.

Families losing young male earners faced severe financial hardship and emotional devastation. Women were forced to enter factory labor to support children and elderly relatives amidst food shortages and soaring inflation.

Democratic Countries with Voting Rights: Britain and France** had constitutional/democratic systems where citizens held voting rights.

• Autocratic / Monarchical Empires: The German Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Russian Empire, and Ottoman Empire (Turkey) were ruled by autocratic emperors where voting rights were severely restricted or non-existent.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, naval power was essential for industrialization because

1. Colonial Trade Route Protection: Merchant ships carrying industrial raw materials (like cotton, rubber, minerals) from overseas colonies and exported manufactured goods required naval protection against enemy attacks.
2. Access to Oceans: Nations needed strong navies to secure free passage through global sea lanes (Atlantic, Mediterranean, Indian Ocean).

Methods Used:** Military invasion/annexation (e.g. Germany seizing Alsace-Lorraine from France), secret diplomatic treaties, economic coercion, or mutually agreed commercial lease/trade treaties.

• Acceptable Method: Only a bilateral, mutually beneficial trade agreement or official commercial lease based on fair market pricing and consent is ethically and internationally acceptable to both nations. Military conquest breeds revenge and conflict.

No, conflict is not mandatory for industrialization. While 19th-century European powers relied on colonial plunder and aggressive war, modern industrialization can be achieved peacefully through internal technological innovation, domestic resource development, global fair trade, and international scientific cooperation.

No, war became inevitable because when nations embrace aggressive chauvinism-believing they possess a divine or cultural right to subjugate other sovereign nations-it directly violates the sovereignty and rights of others, triggering armed resistance and defensive alliances.

Misuse of Darwin’s Theory: Darwin’s biological concept of “natural selection” was distorted into Social Darwinism**, falsely arguing that “survival of the fittest” applied to human societies, justifying imperialist expansion, racial supremacy, and genocide.

• Country’s Progress: A country’s true progress depends on democratic governance, education, healthcare, scientific development, and social equality-not on subjugating other nations.

Yes, industrial investment must be guided by humanistic principles. Industrialization focused purely on military production and profit leads to devastating weapons, worker exploitation, and global destruction. Humanist industrial development prioritizes human welfare, healthcare, education, environmental protection, and peaceful consumer goods.

The British war poster “Turn your silver into bullets at the Post Office” conveys the message of total economic mobilization for war. It urges citizens to purchase government war bonds and deposit their private savings/silver so the state can finance weapons and ammunition manufacturing. It reflects how war hysteria dragged common civilian wealth directly into funding violence.

No, the war had starkly different impacts

• The Poor (Workers/Farmers): Suffered severe food shortages, hyperinflation, wage stagnation, forced army conscription, and massive casualties on frontlines. They reacted with anti-war strikes, food riots, and democratic revolutions.
• The Rich (Capitalists/Factory Owners): Earned enormous profits by supplying weapons, ammunitions, and supplies to military governments at inflated prices, becoming far richer.

Democracy spread rapidly after the war because

1. Common people realized that autocratic, un-elected imperial rulers easily dragged nations into disastrous wars without public consent.
2. The economic collapse and loss of life triggered massive public revolutions in Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey, overthrowing monarchies and establishing democratic republics.

In Family & Society:** As men went to the war front, women stepped out to work in armament factories, offices, and farms. Earning independent incomes built self-confidence and shattered traditional domestic boundaries.

• In Politics: Women organized powerful social movements demanding political equality. Consequently, Britain granted voting rights to propertied women over 30 years in 1918, followed by voting rights in other democratic nations.

Russia:** Advocated a democratic peace without territorial annexations or war reparations.

• America (Woodrow Wilson): Supported 14 Points-no heavy war reparations, self-determination, democratic rehab, and establishing the League of Nations.
• France: Demanded revenge, maximum financial reparations (£66,000 lakh), permanent military disarmament, and taking Alsace-Lorraine and Saar mines to permanently cripple Germany’s economy.
• England: Wanted to destroy Germany’s navy and colonies to protect British trade, but opposed total economic destruction so Germany could remain a trading partner.

Russia and USA:** Advocated the right to self-determination for all nations and anti-colonialism.

• Britain and France: Strongly opposed freeing colonies, seeking instead to capture Germany’s former African and Asian colonies under the League of Nations Mandate to expand their own empires.

Britain possessed the world’s most powerful Royal Navy and dominated maritime trade routes. An “open seas policy” guaranteeing unrestricted traffic to all nations would end Britain’s naval hegemony and prevent it from blockading enemy trade during future conflicts.

– (Alsace-Lorraine)

The Saar region is located in western Germany, bordering northeastern France. Under the Versailles Treaty, its coal mines were handed over to France for 15 years while being administered by the League of Nations.

The Danzig Corridor (Polish Corridor) in eastern Germany was ceded to Poland, separating East Prussia from the rest of Germany.

The new independent states established were Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Czechoslovakia, and Finland.

Reasons:** Russia and USA believed that crippling defeated nations with huge reparations would crush their economy, weaken new democratic institutions, cause public misery, and breed revenge leading to future wars.

• Why Ignored: Victorious nations like France and Britain had suffered immense war destruction and owed huge debts to America; they insisted on making Germany pay full damages out of greed and vengeance.

Influenced: Implemented the formation of the League of Nations**, restored independence to Poland, returned Alsace-Lorraine to France, and recognized independence for East European nations.

• Ignored: Ignored the principles of “no war reparations” (imposed £66,000 lakh fine), “disarmament for all” (disarmed only Germany), “open sea access”, and “equal treatment without war guilt”.

Had Wilson’s 14 points been fully applied without punitive reparations, Germany’s economy would have recovered smoothly, trade would have flourished, public trust in the newly formed democratic Weimar Republic would have solidified, and the rise of extremist dictatorships (Hitler and Nazism) would have been prevented.

Answer:

• Triple Alliance / Central Powers: Germany and Austria-Hungary.
• Triple Entente / Allied Powers: Britain and France [also Russia and USA].

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Austria attacked Serbia to avenge the assassination of the Archduke of Austria (Franz Ferdinand) and his wife in Sarajevo in June 1914 by a patriotic Serbian citizen. Russia came to the aid of Serbia.

Germany attacked neutral Belgium to secure a quick, unexpected overland transit route to invade France from its less-defended northern border, aiming to defeat France rapidly before Russian armies mobilized in the east.

France was deeply aggrieved because Germany had defeated France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871 and forcibly seized its mineral-rich territory of Alsace-Lorraine.

A secret treaty is an official agreement signed between two or more nations whose terms and existence are kept completely hidden from other countries and the general public. A key condition was that if any signatory country was attacked, its treaty partners were bound to join the war in its defense.

USA joined the war on April 6, 1917, because German submarines (U-boats) began attacking American merchant ships and torpedoed an American passenger liner carrying civilians, directly threatening American maritime trade and financial loans extended to Britain and France.

Militarism profoundly transforms society in two major ways

1. Massive Armaments Stockpiling: The state redirects public tax revenue away from public health, education, and social welfare to construct weapons, build battleships, and expand standing armies.
2. Moulding Public Mindset: Militarism promotes strict regimentation where citizens are conditioned to obey government orders uncritically, view neighboring nations with malice, and celebrate war. Democratic freedoms and critical questioning are suppressed while autocratic rule is strengthened.

Industrialization was a fundamental root cause of the First World War

1. Quest for Raw Materials & Markets: Industrializing European nations required massive supplies of iron ore, coal, and oil, alongside captive markets to sell factory goods, leading to aggressive imperialist rivalries.
2. New Imperial Competitors: Newer industrial powers like Germany sought to forcibly seize mineral-rich regions (Alsace-Lorraine) and colonies from older empires like Britain and France.
3. Industrial Weapons Production: Industrialization enabled mass production of deadly armaments (machine guns, heavy artillery, submarines, tanks, poison gas), making total global warfare possible.

To alleviate the horrific plight of soldiers, the following measures should have been implemented

1. Enforce International POW Conventions: Strict adherence to international agreements ensuring captive soldiers received adequate food, clothing, shelter, and humane medical care.
2. Hygiene & Medical Facilities in Trenches: Proper drainage, sanitation, rotation of troops from slush-filled trenches, and timely distribution of antiseptics to prevent fatal infections.
3. Psychological Treatment: Recognizing shell shock and blast trauma as severe medical illnesses requiring specialized doctor care rather than treating disoriented soldiers as deserters.

Factory Owners (Capitalists):** Prospered enormously. Supplying arms, ammunitions, uniforms, and provisions to military governments at highly inflated prices enabled them to earn record profits and accumulate immense wealth.

• Workers: Faced extreme hardship. Wages remained stagnantly low while food prices doubled and trebled. Workers suffered long working hours, severe shortages of basic consumer goods, and food rationing, leading to widespread strikes and agitations.

Figure 7.11 depicts women working in a British armaments factory during the war.

• Life Conditions: With male workers away at the frontlines, women stepped into heavy industrial roles, handling hazardous machinery and explosive chemicals for long hours.
• Impact: Despite risks, earning independent wages built strong financial independence and self-worth. It proved women’s equal competence outside domestic confines and laid the groundwork for winning voting rights.

Revolutions broke out in Russia (1917), Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey before the war ended because

1. Economic Ruin & Starvation: Total war led to acute food shortages, severe inflation, and millions of military deaths.
2. Anti-War Public Anger: Citizens and soldiers realized that autocratic monarchs were sacrificing millions of lives purely for imperialist ambitions.
3. Demand for Democracy: The absence of democratic accountability prompted war-weary citizens and soldiers to revolt, overthrowing monarchies to establish peace and democratic republics.

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The Treaty of Versailles had a catastrophic impact on Germany

1. Humiliation & War Guilt: Germany was solely blamed for starting the war, deeply wounding German national pride.
2. Economic Crippling: Stripped of 65,000 sq km territory, Alsace-Lorraine, Saar coal mines, and overseas colonies, while being burdened with an impossible war reparation (£66,000 lakh), which destroyed the German Mark currency.
3. Military Weakening: Reduced the army to 1,00,000 soldiers, banned submarines/aircraft, and demilitarized the Rhineland.
4. Destabilization of Democracy: The humiliation weakened the newly formed democratic Weimar Republic, fueling bitter resentment among the German public, which directly paved the way for Hitler’s rise and the outbreak of Second World War.