In order to prevent an unstable situation created by Russia after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 from exploding, Bismarck convened the Congress of Berlin in 1878 as a check and balance for the region.

The revolution plunged Russia into a bloody civil war that would last until 1922. They withdrew from the war signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

According to Paul Hirst, the modern state as three additional characteristics:
• First, a modern state has a definite territory with boundaries.
• Second, a modern state has exclusive control over that territory (sovereignty).
• Third, a modern state is the superior political actor (hierarchy)

Medieval Europe was a complex political and social system. Within this system, security was provided by local rulers and their knights, who lived in fortified towns and strong castles. Freedom was given by feudal rulers to their followers and clients to the degree that they determined, while keeping the general order was the responsibility of the emperor, albeit in a limited way. Justice was ensured by political and religious rulers alike, but also in an unequal way, being far more skewed in favor of the upper classes.

The Reformation was a religious, political, and cultural revolution that shattered the Catholic world in the 16th century. It first started in the German lands in 1517 when Martin Luther, a student of the Renaissance, published his ‘95 Theses,’ a series of critiques of Catholic doctrine which soon spread to the rest of much of Europe. The correct answer is B. 

Germany began the war with great speed. Employing the Schlieffen Plan, which proposed attacking through neutral Belgium in order to take out the French as quickly as possible before moving against Russia.

To be sure, states existed in the Middle Ages, but their power was determined by different characteristics than modern states. For one, they had neither sovereignty nor independence in the modern term of the word because two kinds of hierarchy prevailed—the Holy Roman Emperor as temporal authority and the Pope as spiritual authority.

The Peace of Westphalia ended the religious wars called the Thirty Years’ War in Europe. It has nothing to do with the wars between the Ottoman Empire and the countries in Europe. Therefore, the correct choice is E.

In the beginning of the 13th century, there were hundreds of city-states on the Italian peninsula. Gradually absorbed by the more powerful ones, by the 14th century more than twenty cities had populations over 20,000 people (Merriman, 2010: 45). Since urban areas were far more prone to the spread of ideas, the Renaissance kicked off in cities such as Florence, Venice, Siena, and Milan. What
made it possible was the economic prosperity and social dynamism of city-states, polities that had grown rich and independent from trade in the Mediterranean and Black Sea since the 11th century (Merriman, 2010: 46). These trade routes increased international trade in the region and helped citystates create small-scale manufacturing. As a result, Italian merchants grew very wealthy. This also helped develop a sophisticated banking system in the city-states in the 14th and 15th centuries, thus further financing internal trade and international commerce (Merriman, 2010: 46). The most prominent among them, such as Florence, soon became central to financing monarchies and even
the papacy (Merriman, 2010: 46). These developments led to increasing urbanization, eroded the power of the nobility, and increased the influence of townsmen. Before long urban merchants enriched by commerce had become important to local political life and soon joined the ruling elite (Merriman, 2010: 49). These dynamic urban societies and new urban elites were more open to new ideas because of traders and immigrants. People from different regions came together in the Italian city-states to exchange culture, ideas, beliefs, and intellectual accumulation. Another critical link in this development was the conquest of Istanbul in 1453, which encouraged many Eastern scholars to flee to the Italian peninsula, bringing with them vast collections of ancient books and manuscripts. This in turn led to the rediscovery of ancient Greek and Roman political and philosophical approaches (Merriman, 2010: 56). 

In June 1789, the third estate in France, most of which belonged to the
bourgeoisie, staged a declared itself as the National Assembly calling for a constitution that limited the sovereignty of the king.

After the defeat of the Western Roman Empire by the Visigoths, a feudal state system came to dominate Western Europe until the 16th century. Therefore, the correct choice is A.

The Monroe Doctrine adopted by US President James Monroe in 1823 laid the foundations of this policy of preventing Europeans from intervening within the internal affairs of the Americas, while at the same time removing the US from the internal clashes of the European continent. The correct answer is A. 

The Congress of Vienna showed that every state, even France, had got at least part of what they wanted, and the collaboration that had united the anti-French bloc was no longer necessary.

Representatives from thirty-two Allied and associated countries participated in the Paris Peace conference. However, the principal actors, known as the “Big Four”, were Great Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, represented as they were by David Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, and Woodrow Wilson, respectively.

The spreading tide of Industrial Revolution also transformed the dynamics of the traditional state and the society it governed. Growing numbers of tradable merchandise created a class of investors and merchants, which weakened the older landed aristocracy’s hold on power. Yet apart from this new moneyed aristocracy, a new working class was also emerging. Though the traditional absolutist rule of kings still prevailed, society was dynamically changing. Initially, higher revenues from both domestic and international trade and taxes from increasing production increased kings’ capacity to arm themselves, better govern their realm, and fight wars of territorial acquisition. In the short run, therefore, the Industrial Revolution rocketed the economies of traditional states and transformed them into highly centralized ones. As monarchs made use of their recently acquired means of power for more centralized models of government, the first image of the nation-state in history began to emerge (Hobsbawm, 1962:27-53). In this sense, the expression in option e is incorrect.

Diplomacy means the conduct of affairs between states by official agents through peaceful means with several ends in mind: • First, it facilitates communication between political leaders or states and other entities of world politics. • Second, it facilitates the negotiation of agreements. • Third, it serves to gather intelligence or information from host countries. • Fourth, it minimizes the effects of frictions in international relations. • Fifth, it symbolizes the concrete existence of international society.

One of the outcomes of the Utrecht Peace was the exclusive access Holland and Great Britain received to trade with certain Spanish ports and territories. Therefore, the correct choice is B.

Usually labelled as the ‘long’ 19th century, this era has significant characteristics to mention. First, while the world had been geographically integrated into a single map by the end of the 18th century, the center of the international system appeared to be Europe. Second, there was a tension between rulers and ruled throughout most of the century. Third, the century witnessed the rise of ideologies such as liberalism, nationalism,
and socialism.