The Nineteenth Century, 1848–1914: Practice Questions

These are original questions written for Marlbridge, for revision and practice on this content. They are not reproduced past-paper questions. The wording and exact sources below are invented for practice purposes, but the structure follows the syllabus’s own: on Paper 1, Core Content questions are three-part structured essays, split (a), (b), (c); on Paper 2, one document question with up to seven sources is set on a single prescribed Core Content topic. Cambridge International holds copyright in its own papers; use these alongside the official past papers available through your school or Cambridge directly.

Related: The Nineteenth Century revision notes

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Paper 1 style: Structured Questions (Section A — Core Content)

On the real paper, Section A offers 8 questions (4 on this option, 4 on the Twentieth Century option) and candidates answer two, plus one further question from Section B on a Depth Study (not covered by this Core Content resource — see the Depth Studies practice for that style, adapted for your board). Practise any two of the four questions below; each is worth 20 marks, split across three parts.

Question 1: The Revolutions of 1848

(a) Describe three causes of the 1848 revolutions in Europe. [4]

(b) Explain why the revolutions of 1848 spread so rapidly across Europe. [6]

(c) ‘The 1848 revolutions failed mainly because the revolutionaries were divided among themselves.’ How far do you agree? [10]

Worked answer

(a) Any three: economic distress following poor harvests and the food shortages of the “hungry forties”; demands for liberal constitutions and an extension of the franchise from the growing middle class; nationalist demands for independence or unification, particularly in Italy, Germany and the Habsburg lands. [4]

(b) News of the February Revolution in France travelled quickly along the same trade and communication routes that were already carrying economic distress across the continent, and gave existing liberal and nationalist movements elsewhere a model and a signal that autocratic rulers could be successfully challenged. Because similar economic and political grievances existed simultaneously in many states (rather than being unique to France), the same spark was able to ignite risings in Vienna, Berlin, the Italian states and Hungary within weeks of each other, rather than remaining an isolated French event. [6]

(c) A strong answer weighs division against other causes rather than treating it as sufficient alone. For: the revolutionaries genuinely were divided — liberals wanted constitutional reform while radicals wanted a republic and social change, and once the initial concessions were won the propertied middle classes withdrew rather than see the revolution go further into social upheaval; nationalist movements also conflicted with one another, as in the Habsburg Empire where Hungarian and Slav aspirations clashed. Against: even a united revolutionary movement would still have faced the fact that the armies remained loyal to their monarchs, giving rulers the force to crush the risings once the initial shock passed; Austria and Russia’s military intervention to restore conservative order, and the revolutionaries’ lack of support from the largely apathetic peasantry, would have limited the revolutions’ success regardless of how united the revolutionaries were. Judgement: division explains why the revolutionaries could not consolidate the gains they briefly made, but the survival of loyal armies and the willingness of conservative powers to intervene militarily were the more decisive reasons the revolutions were ultimately reversed. [10] (Marks for accurate knowledge on both sides and a sustained, evidenced judgement.)

Question 2: The Unification of Italy

(a) Describe the roles of three individuals involved in the unification of Italy. [4]

(b) Explain the contribution of Cavour’s diplomacy to Italian unification. [6]

(c) ‘Garibaldi’s military campaigns were more important than Cavour’s diplomacy in achieving Italian unification.’ How far do you agree? [10]

Worked answer

(a) Mazzini — founder of Young Italy, the ideological inspiration who promoted a republican vision of unity. Garibaldi — military leader whose Expedition of the Thousand conquered Sicily and Naples. Cavour — Prime Minister of Piedmont, who provided the diplomatic strategy and the French alliance. [4]

(b) Cavour built up Piedmont’s army, railways and finances, and sent troops to the Crimean War to earn Piedmont a hearing at the peace conference. At Plombières (1858) he secured a secret alliance with Napoleon III, promising Nice and Savoy in return for French help against Austria — since Piedmont alone could never have defeated Austria, this French military support was indispensable to expelling Austria from northern Italy. Cavour then managed the great powers so they did not intervene as the kingdom expanded southward. [6]

(c) For Garibaldi: his Expedition of the Thousand in 1860 conquered Sicily and Naples with a small volunteer force, achieving in months what diplomacy alone had not, and his decision to hand his conquests to Victor Emmanuel rather than declare a republic was what allowed unification to proceed under a single crown rather than fracturing into rival factions. For Cavour: without his prior diplomacy, Piedmont would never have expelled Austria from Lombardy in 1859, and Garibaldi’s conquests in the south would have had no secure northern kingdom to join; Cavour also moved Piedmontese troops south to absorb Garibaldi’s gains and to ensure Garibaldi did not attack Rome and provoke French intervention, which would have unravelled the whole achievement. Judgement: the two contributions were sequential and interdependent — Cavour’s diplomacy created the northern kingdom Garibaldi’s conquests could join, and Cavour’s later management of Garibaldi’s campaign secured what had been won — so neither was sufficient without the other, though Cavour’s diplomacy was the precondition that made Garibaldi’s dramatic campaign politically usable rather than merely a separate revolutionary adventure. [10] (Marks for accurate knowledge of both contributions and a sustained, evidenced judgement.)

Question 3: The Unification of Germany

(a) Describe two named wars fought by Prussia between 1864 and 1871 in the process of German unification. [4]

(b) Explain Bismarck’s use of realpolitik in the unification of Germany, referring to at least one war. [6]

(c) ‘German unification was achieved primarily through war rather than diplomacy.’ How far do you agree? [10]

Worked answer

(a) Any two: the Danish War (1864); the Austro-Prussian War (1866); the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71). [4]

(b) Bismarck pursued realpolitik, using war deliberately as an instrument to unite Germany under Prussian rather than Austrian leadership. In the Austro-Prussian War (1866), Bismarck provoked a quarrel with Austria over the joint administration of Schleswig and Holstein (seized together in 1864) into open war; the swift Prussian victory at Sadowa excluded Austria from German affairs entirely and produced the North German Confederation under Prussian control — a calculated use of a limited, winnable war to achieve a specific political aim rather than war for its own sake. [6]

(c) For war: each of the three wars delivered a concrete unification outcome — the Danish War removed Denmark’s claim to Schleswig-Holstein, the Austro-Prussian War excluded Austria and created the North German Confederation, and the Franco-Prussian War (following Bismarck’s use of the Ems Telegram to provoke France into declaring war first) brought the southern German states in on Prussia’s side out of national feeling, leading to the proclamation of the German Empire at Versailles in January 1871. For diplomacy: none of these wars would have achieved their aims without prior diplomatic preparation — Bismarck isolated Austria before 1866 and isolated France before 1870 (securing the neutrality or non-intervention of other powers), so the wars only succeeded because diplomacy had already removed the risk of a wider coalition forming against Prussia. Judgement: war delivered the decisive, irreversible outcomes, but Bismarck’s diplomacy determined that Prussia fought each war in isolation against a single opponent rather than against a hostile coalition — the two were interdependent, and treating either alone as “primary” understates how carefully Bismarck used diplomacy specifically to make war winnable. [10] (Marks for accurate knowledge of both diplomacy and war, and a sustained, evidenced judgement.)

Question 4: The Origins of the First World War

(a) Describe three long-term causes of the First World War. [4]

(b) Explain how the alliance system contributed to the outbreak of war in 1914. [6]

(c) ‘The First World War was caused primarily by the alliance system.’ How far do you agree? [10]

Worked answer

(a) Any three: the alliance system, dividing Europe into the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente; militarism, including the arms race and detailed mobilisation plans such as the Schlieffen Plan; instability in the Balkans, as the decline of Ottoman power created a vacuum that Austria-Hungary and Russia both sought to fill. [4]

(b) The alliance system meant a local quarrel could escalate into a general war, as treaty obligations pulled each power in even where its own direct interests were not at stake. When Austria-Hungary moved against Serbia in July 1914, Russia’s obligation to support Serbia, Germany’s “blank cheque” support for Austria, and France’s alliance commitment to Russia meant that a dispute confined to the Balkans drew in every major European power within weeks, rather than being resolved or contained as earlier Balkan crises had been. [6]

(c) For: the alliances converted an Austro-Serbian quarrel into a continental war, and the rigidity of mutual obligations removed the flexibility that had kept earlier crises (Morocco in 1905 and 1911, Bosnia in 1908) from escalating into general war. Against: the alliances were defensive in intent and had defused those earlier crises without war, so they were not automatically fatal; militarism and mobilisation timetables arguably mattered more, since the Schlieffen Plan meant Germany had to attack France in order to fight Russia, turning an eastern crisis into a western war regardless of the alliance structure itself; nationalism in the Balkans supplied the actual spark and underlying instability; and some historians emphasise the specific decisions taken in July 1914 — Austria’s determination to punish Serbia and Germany’s willingness to risk a general war — over any structural cause. Judgement: the alliance system was the mechanism by which a local war became a general one, but not its underlying cause; without the Balkan instability there would have been nothing for the alliances to escalate, and without the mobilisation plans there would have been more time for diplomacy to intervene, so the alliance system is best understood as a necessary but not sufficient condition. [10] (Marks for accurate knowledge on both sides and a sustained, evidenced judgement.)

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Paper 2 style: Document Question (one question, five parts, 40 marks)

The real Paper 2 sets one document question, on a single prescribed Core Content topic, with up to seven sources. This illustrative question uses three.

Illustrative topic: The causes of the Franco-Prussian War, 1870

Source A — from a Prussian government account of the “Ems Telegram” episode, published 1870: “The King declined to receive the French ambassador again and had his aide inform him, through an adjutant, that His Majesty had nothing further to communicate. This account was then released to the press.”

Source B — from a French newspaper editorial, July 1870: “Our ambassador has been treated with contempt. France cannot accept such an insult to her national honour and must respond accordingly.”

Source C — from a modern historian: “Bismarck edited the telegram’s wording before releasing it to the press, sharpening its tone specifically to provoke French public opinion into demanding war.”

(a) What, according to Source A, happened at Ems? [4]

(b) Why do you think Source B was published in the form it was? [6]

(c) How far do Sources A and B agree about the significance of the Ems incident? [8]

(d) How reliable is Source C as evidence of Bismarck’s motives? [7]

(e) ‘Bismarck deliberately provoked France into declaring war.’ How far do the sources support this view? [15]

Worked answer

(a) According to Source A, the Prussian king refused to receive the French ambassador a second time and had an aide inform him there was nothing further to communicate, and this account was then released to the press. [4]

(b) Source B was almost certainly published to stir French public and political opinion toward war, presenting the Ems incident as a national insult requiring a response; a newspaper editorial in this period typically reflected and amplified nationalist sentiment rather than offering neutral reporting, so its dramatic language served a persuasive rather than purely informational purpose. [6]

(c) The two sources agree that the Ems incident was treated as significant and provocative, but they disagree about where responsibility lies: Source A (the Prussian account) presents the king’s response as a simple, almost incidental refusal, while Source B (the French reaction) treats the same event as a deliberate insult to national honour. Neither source states outright that the incident was engineered, so their agreement is limited to the fact that both sides treated it as consequential, not to any agreement about intent. [8]

(d) Source C, from a modern historian with the benefit of hindsight and access to evidence unavailable to contemporaries, makes a specific claim (that Bismarck edited the telegram’s wording) that goes beyond what either Source A or B states directly, and this claim is now well supported in the historical record; however, as a secondary source it should still be checked against primary evidence rather than accepted purely on authority, and its precise wording (“sharpening its tone specifically to provoke”) represents historical interpretation rather than directly observed fact. [7]

(e) Source C directly supports the claim, asserting deliberate editing to provoke French opinion. Source B’s inflamed reaction is consistent with the claim’s premise — French opinion was indeed provoked — though Source B alone cannot show whether that provocation was engineered or accidental. Source A, the Prussian government’s own account, understates the incident’s drama, which is itself consistent with a strategy of releasing a terse, needling version of events designed to appear dismissive of France while leaving French opinion to do the rest. Own knowledge should add that Bismarck had clear political motives for war with France at this time (completing German unification by rallying the southern German states against a common enemy), which strengthens the case that the editing was deliberate rather than incidental. A well-supported judgement should conclude that, while no single source proves intent beyond doubt, the combination of Bismarck’s known objectives, Source C’s direct claim, and the provocative effect visible in Source B makes deliberate provocation the most convincing reading of the evidence. [15] (Marks for accurate use of all three sources with attention to provenance, own knowledge, and a sustained judgement.)

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Where marks are usually lost

• Narrating events chronologically on the (c) parts rather than sustaining a judgement against the specific claim in the question.
• On the document question, repeating what a source says without weighing its provenance (who wrote it, when, and why).
• Giving Garibaldi, or war alone, sole credit for unification without weighing the diplomatic contribution alongside it.
• Listing causes of the First World War without explaining how they interacted.

Official syllabus

Cambridge IGCSE History (0470) syllabus for examination in 2024, 2025 and 2026, Core Content Option A (“The Nineteenth Century”) and the assessment overview (Paper 1: Structured Questions, three-part essays, 60 marks; Paper 2: Document Question, five parts, up to seven sources, 40 marks) — cambridgeinternational.org. The exact mark split within each part is set by Cambridge’s own question papers and mark schemes each series and is not published in the syllabus itself; the splits above are illustrative only. Verified 2026-09-11.