12.

“The decade of 1830 had bought great economic hardship in Europe”. Support the statement with arguments.

                                                                OR

“The Ho Chi Minh Trail became advantageous to Vietnamese in the war against U.S.”. Support the statement with arguments.

The decade of 1830–40 had brought great economic hardship in Europe for the following reasons: 

i. There was large-scale unemployment in Europe. In most European countries, employment opportunities were low in number, whereas job seekers were many.

ii. Cities had come to be extremely overcrowded. As a result, slums had started coming up as more people migrated from the rural areas to the urban areas.

iii. Small producers in towns were often faced with stiff competition from the imports of cheap machine-made goods from England where industrialisation was more advanced, especially in textile production.

OR

The Ho Chi Minh Trail was a series of trails used by the Vietnamese to infiltrate troops and supplies into South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. This story symbolised how the Vietnamese used their limited resources to their advantage in the war.

The Ho Chi Minh Trail became advantageous to the Vietnamese in the war against the U.S. because

i. It consisted of a long network of footpaths and roads which was used to transport men and war materials and supplies from the North to the South.

ii. The not-so-useful trail was improved from the late 1950s, and from 1967, the trail was used by more than 20,000 North Vietnamese troops each month. The trail had hospitals and support bases all the along the way for any kind of emergencies.

iii. The materials or supplies were sometimes transported by trucks, but it was mostly the women (porters) who used to carry the materials. These women used to carry about 25 kilos on their back and 70 kilos on their bicycles.

More importantly, the trails were built very quickly even after regular bombing of the U.S. to destroy the trail. Thus, their efforts to destroy the trail failed.