(3) BRITISH EMPIRE (1707 – 1997)

 

Pax Britannica.

Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the waves!

To many – and certainly to modern history – THE Empire.

The largest empire of history – with a quarter of the earth’s land area, with a reach extending well beyond that to virtually every corner of the globe, including a command of the seas that effectively made them a British lake.

Essentially, the British made the world their pink bits – not a lewd innuendo (as it might be for the United States as part of its ‘soft’ influence – heh), but a reference to the tradition of mapmakers marking the British Empire in pink on maps.

Also the most populous empire of history, with a quarter of the world’s population (although not the most populous empire by relative proportion of the world’s population).

And above all the empire that more or less made the modern world – “to which we owe the development of transport and communication, the spread of science and technology, and the spread of the English language as a global lingua franca” – a global influence enduring in its American successor, not surprisingly as a former British colony and the subsequent “special relationship” between them.

“The British Empire is credited, even by its critics, for contributing to general economic development as it enforced a free-trade area over a quarter of the globe”, albeit lopsided in places – and the British as agents of industrialization and modernization. Even Karl Marx noted, with the sardonic wit that was his best stylistic feature, that the British were “conservatives at home and revolutionaries abroad”, tending to displace traditional and aristocratic elites for developing middle classes.

Politically, it was a forum for “the Enlightenment and its ideas of human rights”, the rule of law, social contract and political liberty – which of course would eventually be applied against the empire itself. That included such things as the abolition of the slave trade and slavery, or suttee in India.

The British Empire is often classified into the First and Second British Empires, although they are essentially continuous but for the loss of the American colonies in the American Revolution, which is the demarcation between them. However, it was the Second British Empire that took Britain truly to the glittering heights of world empire for which it is remembered, driven by its victory in the Napoleonic Wars, naval supremacy and the powerhouse – economic, financial and technological – of the Industrial Revolution.

By many metrics the British Empire would rank as top empire, so why only third here? Well, to be honest, I just find the top two entries more intriguing – with the top entry as more enduring and influential in its template for subsequent empires, including the British Empire. Also, as a modern empire, the wounds it inflicted are still too recent and raw.

Those wounds tend to be the focus of contemporary observers. However, such observations overlook the extent to which the British Empire was based on collaboration with their subjects, not least their uncanny ability to co-opt defeated warrior tribes – from the Scottish Highlands to the Gurkhas – for imperial service. It had to be – it is surprising just how limited British military forces were, apart of course from their prized naval supremacy, and how much of a shoestring they operated on, for a global empire.

Of course, the British were quite prepared to use brute force when they had to – “there would not have been a British Empire in the first place if its constituent peoples were free, or possessed agency in any meaningful capacity, to leave it whenever they were so inclined”. The British just preferred to use other more subtle means of influence and coercion when they could.

Of course, in their colonial wars, the British also relied on that classic art of war, picking curb stomp battles, through superiority of firepower. In the words of Hillaire Belloc – “Whatever happens, we have got – the Maxim gun, and they have not”. Or in the words of Edmund Blackadder – “back in the old days when the prerequisite of a British campaign was that the enemy should under no circumstances carry guns — even spears made us think twice”.

Ultimately however, such brutality, initially limited to small minorities of their subjects involved in active rebellions, “became harder to conceal and make palatable as time went on, and the British lost their grip on the levers of mass media and propaganda which played an immense role in justifying and enabling their regime to its own citizens as well as international observers”.

And so the empire declined and fell, amidst other powers that rose to challenge it, or in the case of the United States, replace it. However, there are no definitive endpoints for it – even today, Britain retains overseas territories – although many are nominated. Singapore in 1942 and Suez in 1956 are two common nominations. The independence of India and cession of Hong Kong (back) to China are others, and I’ve gone with the last here.

In the end, I tend to agree with the assessment of TV Tropes, that the British were neither the first, the worst or the most damaging of the imperialists, but merely the most successful.

 

 

DECLINE & FALL

 

Again – and how!

It may not have been as long as other classical declines I could name but then modern history tends to move faster. The British Empire reached its vaunted territorial height after the First World War, when it even managed to gain some more territory. In reality, the cracks were there from that war, but it took the Second World War for them to fall apart.

Still, the British can claim that they staked and gave up their empire on their finest hour – an apocalyptic struggle against the most destructive and predatory empires in history – with some fairness on one hand, but excluding such things as the Bengal Famine on the other. Ironically, it gained its true territorial height in the Second World War, with the occupation of former Italian or French colonies and other territory, but which soon evaporated.

 

THE BRITISH EMPIRE NEVER FELL

 

On the other hand, the British Empire never fell – as Britain still retains overseas territories. That and we still live in the world they made, literally speaking their language.

 

THE SUN NEVER SETS

 

The British Empire was THE empire on which the sun never sets. Still is, in fact, technically through its overseas territories. Looking at you, Pitcairn Islands.

 

METEORIC RISE

 

No – indeed, one of three empires in my top ten with the most gradual or incremental slow rises to power, albeit some of those increments were dramatic or even meteoric.

Of course, the long game here was the great game (heh – esoteric reference to the Great Game between Russia and Britain competing for empire in Asia) – ultimately ending with the largest empire in history.

I’d rank it as a slower rise to power than the Ottoman Empire but exceeded by one other empire in my top ten for least meteoric rise to power.

England lagged well behind Portugal, Spain, and France with relatively little by way of colonial empire for about two centuries until the late 16^th century. It then began and built a relatively modest colonial empire for yet another century through the 17^th century, albeit far-flung and lucrative in trade.

It was in the 18^th century, after about three centuries of relatively little or modest empire that the British Empire dramatically took off – rising to become the world’s dominant colonial power, predominantly by victories in war against its main imperial rival of France.

In the later part of the century, it had a dramatic reversal of empire with its loss in the American War of Independence, but more than made up for it with an equally dramatic revival of empire with its victory in the Napoleonic Wars at the start of the nineteenth century.

And of course, it was the century from 1815 to 1914, often dubbed the British Century or Pax Britannica, that saw the British Empire rise to the world’s largest empire. “During Britain’s imperial century between 1815 and 1914, around 10 million sq mi (26 million km²) of territory and roughly 400 million people were added to the British Empire” – an addition representing over 70% of the peak area in territory of the British Empire. While not its rise, that would have to count as meteoric, particularly as the large part of that – about 8 million sq mi – was in the last thirty or forty years or so during the so-called Scramble for Africa.

 

EVIL EMPIRE

 

And how!

The British often like to imagine themselves as ‘nice’ and their empire as the ‘nice’ one, as if they just went around the world playing cricket and sipping tea. In the words of TV Tropes, “home of men in red coats and pith helmets, being served lots and lots of tea by the locals…the great white Hunter, the adventure archaeologist”.

Or in the (ironic) words of D.H. Lawrence, “the English are so nice”.

Spoiler alert – although like all empires, the legacy of the British Empire is more complex than a mere matter of vindication or vilification, they were not and their Empire was not…nice. You don’t win and run global empires by being nice. And indeed there is a whole publishing industry, traditional and online, devoted to the British Empire as evil empire, including one hilariously over the top book “The Evil Empire: 101 Ways That England Ruined the World”.

It has some fairness to it – one could easily compile a Top 10 (or Top 101) list for the British Empire as evil empire. Perhaps the most insidious evil of the British Empire was its indifference to famine, which some historians equate to holocausts, particularly in Ireland and India – those punching bags of the British Empire, from which one could well compile that Top 10 British Evil Empire list all of themselves.

And this time, it’s personal. Yes, I married the evil empire, when I was colonized by my British ex-wife – which lent itself to my theory of the British Empire as a relentless creeping doom, starting with just helping the British with their luggage when they arrived, but ending with your complete submission, as they expect everything else from you as well.

“And what’s more, they’re very nice about being nice

about your being nice as well!

If you’re not nice they soon make you feel it”.