Cambridge History A Levels 9489 Document Question (Paper 1)
Sample Answer from International Option
(15 & 25 Marks Question included)
SOURCE A
In the evening [of 22 February 1880] I had dinner with Bismarck ... At table we drank
much port and Hungarian wine. Afterwards I sat with the Chancellor and spoke of
many things. The Chancellor refuses all talk of colonies. He says that we haven’t an
adequate fleet to protect them and our bureaucracy [civil service] is not skilful enough
to direct the government of such territories. The Chancellor also alluded to my report
on the French plans for Morocco, and thought we could only rejoice if France annexed
it. She would then be very occupied, and we could let her expand into Africa as
compensation for Alsace-Lorraine…
Bismarck rejects the German acquisition of colonies. Extract from the Memoirs
of the former German ambassador in Paris, Prince Hohenlohe.
SOURCE B
It is said that our Empire is already large enough and does not need extension. That
would be true enough if the world were elastic but unfortunately it is not elastic and we
are engaged at the present moment, in the language of mining, in ‘pegging out claims for
the future’. We have to consider not what we want now, but what we shall want in the
future. We have to consider what countries must be developed either by ourselves or by
some other nation, and we shall have to remember that it is part of our responsibility and
heritage to take care that the world, so far as it can be moulded by us, shall receive an
English-speaking complexion and not that of other nations ... and we should in my
opinion grossly fail in the task that has been laid upon us, did we shrink from
responsibilities and decline to take our share of the partition of the world which we have
not forced on but which has been forced on us.
From a speech by Lord Rosebery, Liberal Prime Minister, 1895–96, to the Royal
Colonial Institute in March 1893.
SOURCE C
, You may roughly divide the nations of the world as the living and the dying. On the one
side you have great countries of enormous power, growing in power, every year, growing
in wealth, growing in dominion, growing in the perfection of their organisation ... By the
side of these splendid organisations there are a number of communities, which I can
only describe as dying. For one reason or another – from the necessities of politics or
under the pretence of philanthropy – the living nations will gradually encroach on the
territory of the dying, and the seeds and causes of conflict among civilised nations will
speedily appear ... These things may introduce causes of fatal difference between the
great nations whose mighty armies stand opposite threatening each other…
Extract from a speech by the British Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, on 4 May
1898 to the Primrose League at the Albert Hall, London.
SOURCE D (H from Williamson book)
I wish to express my sincere congratulations that you, and your people without asking
the help of friendly powers, have succeeded in restoring peace through your own actions
against the armed bands which invaded your country as disturbers of the peace, and in
preserving the independence of your own country against attack from without.
The so-called Kruger telegram, which was drafted in early January by the
German Foreign Office in an effort to tone down the Kaiser’s warlike
language.
Study sources A and D.
a) Compare and contrast both sources and explain how such policies shaped the era of
New Imperialism. [15]
Study all sources.
b) Assess the causes and nature of New Imperialism. [25]
Sample Answer from International Option
(15 & 25 Marks Question included)
SOURCE A
In the evening [of 22 February 1880] I had dinner with Bismarck ... At table we drank
much port and Hungarian wine. Afterwards I sat with the Chancellor and spoke of
many things. The Chancellor refuses all talk of colonies. He says that we haven’t an
adequate fleet to protect them and our bureaucracy [civil service] is not skilful enough
to direct the government of such territories. The Chancellor also alluded to my report
on the French plans for Morocco, and thought we could only rejoice if France annexed
it. She would then be very occupied, and we could let her expand into Africa as
compensation for Alsace-Lorraine…
Bismarck rejects the German acquisition of colonies. Extract from the Memoirs
of the former German ambassador in Paris, Prince Hohenlohe.
SOURCE B
It is said that our Empire is already large enough and does not need extension. That
would be true enough if the world were elastic but unfortunately it is not elastic and we
are engaged at the present moment, in the language of mining, in ‘pegging out claims for
the future’. We have to consider not what we want now, but what we shall want in the
future. We have to consider what countries must be developed either by ourselves or by
some other nation, and we shall have to remember that it is part of our responsibility and
heritage to take care that the world, so far as it can be moulded by us, shall receive an
English-speaking complexion and not that of other nations ... and we should in my
opinion grossly fail in the task that has been laid upon us, did we shrink from
responsibilities and decline to take our share of the partition of the world which we have
not forced on but which has been forced on us.
From a speech by Lord Rosebery, Liberal Prime Minister, 1895–96, to the Royal
Colonial Institute in March 1893.
SOURCE C
, You may roughly divide the nations of the world as the living and the dying. On the one
side you have great countries of enormous power, growing in power, every year, growing
in wealth, growing in dominion, growing in the perfection of their organisation ... By the
side of these splendid organisations there are a number of communities, which I can
only describe as dying. For one reason or another – from the necessities of politics or
under the pretence of philanthropy – the living nations will gradually encroach on the
territory of the dying, and the seeds and causes of conflict among civilised nations will
speedily appear ... These things may introduce causes of fatal difference between the
great nations whose mighty armies stand opposite threatening each other…
Extract from a speech by the British Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, on 4 May
1898 to the Primrose League at the Albert Hall, London.
SOURCE D (H from Williamson book)
I wish to express my sincere congratulations that you, and your people without asking
the help of friendly powers, have succeeded in restoring peace through your own actions
against the armed bands which invaded your country as disturbers of the peace, and in
preserving the independence of your own country against attack from without.
The so-called Kruger telegram, which was drafted in early January by the
German Foreign Office in an effort to tone down the Kaiser’s warlike
language.
Study sources A and D.
a) Compare and contrast both sources and explain how such policies shaped the era of
New Imperialism. [15]
Study all sources.
b) Assess the causes and nature of New Imperialism. [25]
