(a) There were many reasons why the industrial revolution first happened in England. (10 marks) (b) Napoleon's continental…

(a) Why the Industrial Revolution began in England

Several factors converged. The agricultural revolution raised food output and released labour through enclosures. Capital was available from trade, colonial profits and banks, and the Bank of England and country banks supplied credit. Coal and iron lay close together, and the canals and ports gave cheap transport. A stable parliamentary state protected property and patents after 1688, with no internal customs barriers. Colonies and sea power gave raw cotton, markets and shipping. A culture of practical science supported inventors such as Kay, Hargreaves, Arkwright, Crompton, Watt and Cort, and a rising population and domestic demand supported expansion. Together these made England's textile, iron and steam industries lead the world, though some of the factors, such as colonial gains, are debated by historians.

(b) Napoleon's Continental System

Through the Berlin (1806) and Milan (1807) decrees Napoleon sought to ruin Britain by closing continental ports to British goods. The result was largely a blunder, though not the only one. British naval supremacy at Trafalgar allowed Britain to trade elsewhere, and its Orders in Council blockaded Europe in return. Smuggling flourished, and the system hurt France and its allies more, causing shortages and discontent. It drew Napoleon into the Peninsular War (1808) to enforce it in Portugal and Spain, and into invading Russia in 1812 after Tsar Alexander withdrew. It did give some boost to continental industry. Yet the fair summary is that it was an overreach, which drained resources and hastened Napoleon's fall.

(c) The Chartist movement

Chartism arose from the People's Charter (1838) of the London Working Men's Association, demanding six points: universal manhood suffrage, secret ballot, equal constituencies, annual parliaments, payment of MPs and abolition of the property qualification. Petitions in 1839, 1842 and 1848 were rejected, and the movement was split between moral force and physical force and faded after 1848, so it failed in its immediate aims.

But it succeeded in establishing the idea that working men belonged in political life. Over time, five of the six points came into law: secret ballot (1872), abolition of property qualification (1858), payment of MPs (1911) and widening of the franchise through the Reform Acts of 1867, 1884 and later, and universal adult suffrage in 1918 and 1928. Annual parliaments alone did not.

(d) Non-Aligned leaders and military blocs

The statement is substantially true. Nehru, Tito, Nasser, Sukarno and Nkrumah, founders of NAM (Belgrade, 1961), wished to stay outside the military alliances such as NATO, the Warsaw Pact and the Baghdad Pact and SEATO, believing alliance dragged weak states into Cold War conflicts, and Nehru's Panchsheel and peaceful coexistence expressed this. They criticised foreign bases and the arms race, and sought autonomy in foreign policy.

Not all members agreed: some members such as Pakistan, Iran and Turkey were in alliances, and Cuba under Castro argued at the 1979 Havana summit that NAM was a natural ally of the Soviet bloc, which Tito and others opposed. Hence the founding leaders held to distance from blocs but the movement was never uniform.

(e) Nasser and Western pressure

The statement is largely accurate. After the 1952 revolution, Nasser became the main figure of Arab nationalism by opposing Western-led security pacts such as the Baghdad Pact (1955), buying arms from Czechoslovakia (1955), and refusing to be dictated to. When the US and Britain withdrew funding for the Aswan High Dam, he nationalised the Suez Canal in July 1956. Britain, France and Israel attacked in October, but US and Soviet pressure forced them to withdraw, which made Nasser a hero across the Arab world.

He rejected peace with Israel on Western terms, and championed Pan-Arabism and the Palestinian cause, though the defeat of 1967 damaged his standing.