What were the reasons (major and minor) that led to the decline and disintegration of the British Empire?
What factors contributed to the decline of the British Empire?
- Thread starter Emperor Palpatine
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Stuff breaks, people die, empires fall.
I don't know what you're expecting from these answers (because they will be long if they even hope to be correct), wikipedia seems more suitable for it.
jahenders
Banned
The primary point of decline was the loss of the colonies and goods and trade therefrom. That loss was a general ongoing trend, but was hastened by WWI and WWII.
Other than the loss of colonies, Britain didn't so much decline as it was surpassed -- a new type of superpower (much larger, more populous, and economically powerful) took the stage -- US, USSR, and China.
Other than the loss of colonies, Britain didn't so much decline as it was surpassed -- a new type of superpower (much larger, more populous, and economically powerful) took the stage -- US, USSR, and China.
Riain
Banned
Britain's industry declined in relation to other countries who industrialised later, and who took the lead in newer industries such as electrical and chemical. Economically Britain peaked in the 1860s relative to other powers which was about when she undertook a flurry of acquisitions. As other countries caught up Britain's power was no longer so great and she was inevitably knocked down a peg or two.
As others have stated, the World Wars saw the decline of Britain speed up greatly. World War I saw the rise of nationalism within the Dominions. New Zealand, Australia, and Canada all were considered British in 1914, however in 1919 there was a different picture. Also, with the advent of the railroad and automobile, the power of large land-based nations grew dramatically (ie: Germany, Russia, and America). It was a combination of exhausting wars and the fact that most of the people in the Empire did not want to be part of the Empire.
Exhaustion from fighting two world wars separated by only twenty years apart thus being militarily/economically unable and unwilling to first stop the Dominions and colonies from breaking away, who were forming national identities separate from Britain.
That and the rise of other world powers such as the U.S. and Soviet Union, who had interests and possible benefits from the breakup of the British Empire.
That and the rise of other world powers such as the U.S. and Soviet Union, who had interests and possible benefits from the breakup of the British Empire.
The problem is the European empires were not going to last in the long term. The White Dominions developed independent identities, which I'd say is largely because they were separated by physical barriers (the ocean) from the home country. And the other colonies could not continue because they were based on injustice; you cannot keep a native people as second class in their own lands, and trying to do so quickly takes one down the road of committing atrocities and further injustices. And there was not a genuine interest from the British in making everyone equal members of one united nation. This all makes for a situation that can last temporarily in the history of man, but cannot endure.
What makes you think the British Empire actually declined at all? Don't forget that Elizabeth II is the Head of State of sixteen countries. I disagree with the idea that British Empire fell. I think it simply evolved.
It went from having the world's strongest navy to just barely being able to support a single carrier, maybe on the right day of the week. That's certainly something, but I don't think evolution is it.
Plus, suppose Britain had gone to war with Iran over that incident where their sailors got kidnapped. If Canada, Australia, or South Africa had been asked for help on that, they likely would have laughed in the PM's face. Can you say they would have been so aloof in 1914, or even 1940? Highly doubtful.
Britain was to small in population and economic power to compete in times of decolonization. The Empire grew apart, while the rising powers of the USA, UdSSR and later China still spanned vast areas and had a massive population.
The decline had multiple factors, but the first one is just geography. The USA spans a continent, Russia does, China...well China I dont know, but I think I made my point. While Britian is just that tiny Island on the periphery of Europe.
The factor which made Britain that lucky nation was in hard case of irony a factor of its decline.
The decline had multiple factors, but the first one is just geography. The USA spans a continent, Russia does, China...well China I dont know, but I think I made my point. While Britian is just that tiny Island on the periphery of Europe.
The factor which made Britain that lucky nation was in hard case of irony a factor of its decline.
Cricket & Other Sporting Matters
Oh well, obviously it is the manner in which other nations, such as India, Australia, and South Africa (and confederations such as the West Indies) mastered cricket and took the British on and outplayed them at their own game. Plus losing some top-spot 'England' players/resources in the years 1939-1945 in a spot of bother on the European continent and elsewhere around the world didn't help the fortunes of the 'England' national team. (Not to say that the members of other Empire teams didn't do their bit because some of them very clearly did, in that period, according to the history books...)
But there exists still a certain fraternity of nations and tradition of sporting excellence, in the field of THE COMMONWEALTH GAMES - one of the biggest huzzahs of athletes and others coming together on a regular basis on the planet. The Empire may be gone, but some of the traditions and ties that arose with it carry on. (The British 'home nations' manage to do quite well at it too.)
Another of these threads posted by you?
Oh well, obviously it is the manner in which other nations, such as India, Australia, and South Africa (and confederations such as the West Indies) mastered cricket and took the British on and outplayed them at their own game. Plus losing some top-spot 'England' players/resources in the years 1939-1945 in a spot of bother on the European continent and elsewhere around the world didn't help the fortunes of the 'England' national team. (Not to say that the members of other Empire teams didn't do their bit because some of them very clearly did, in that period, according to the history books...)
But there exists still a certain fraternity of nations and tradition of sporting excellence, in the field of THE COMMONWEALTH GAMES - one of the biggest huzzahs of athletes and others coming together on a regular basis on the planet. The Empire may be gone, but some of the traditions and ties that arose with it carry on. (The British 'home nations' manage to do quite well at it too.)
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Yes it is, actually. The British Empire as we tend think of it in the 18th, 19th and up to and including World War II, was a classic hard power empire, based on the strength of the British Navy. However, hard power empires are very expensive as they require you to maintain a fleet and a large standing army and to be willing to constantly fighting proxy wars and putting down colonial uprisings. Over the course of the 19th Century, the British gradually came to recognize that this was unsustainable starting in the early 20th began to move away from the use of hard power. This move was hastened by the World Wars, but had already begun to happen and would have happened regardless, even without them. The difference between Britain and the other 18th to 20th Century colonial powers is that British were smart enough to see the writing on wall and began to reorganize their empire, gradually transitioning from a hard power empire based mostly on military force into a soft power empire based on diplomacy and socio-economic ties. Hence, the British Empire evolved the British Commonwealth.
I don't like this "soft-power empire" idea. Not that I'm opposed to soft power or anything, but that's not what an empire is about. An empire is a brute-force construct, and historically softer empires like Athens or Carthage or Venice tended to get bowled over by your Spartans or Romans or Ottomans. Soft power didn't keep the British in Hong Kong, and apart from a relatively graceful exit from their old hard power empire, it's hard to quantify what the soft power "empire" does for London. Hell, can you really argue that it's a better set-up than the French model, which affords them much more influence over sub-Saharan Africa even to this day than modern-day Britain could ever dream of? Plus, the French get a friendly dictator in Niger to subsidize their massive nuclear power projects with cheap uranium. The British don't get anything remotely that lucrative from the Commonwealth.
Call it better, you may well be right. But don't go calling it Empire.
As others have noted, Britain didn't have the population to compete. The US had economy of scale. Ford invents mass production of the automobile, it can sell to a nation of 100 million. Even if the US is not the first to invent something, it can out invest and capture the market. The bulk of the British Empire's subjects were poor agrarian natives unable to afford the new wave of manufactured goods.
Empire planted the seeds of its own fall.
Consider India. This was an enormous region originally broken up into numerous groups which together possessed no real sense of unity.
Britain takes over, and works toward making it an administrative unit -- something much closer to a unitary whole, thereby showing Indians that it can be done, and carries certain advantages Further, the imposition of a foreign ruling group inevitably creates an "us vs them" mentality; the key word being the inclusive "us".
Imperial rule schooled a number of regions in the ideals of intergroup/intertribal identity (nationalism). It gave them a reason to find common ground with each other, and it not-infrequently trained their intellectuals in the administrative tools needed to support the idea (think Indians in the Civil Service)
It was inevitable that broad nationalist groups would eventually emerge, against which it was much harder to struggle than previously when all the groups were divided.
Others have pointed out the cost of maintaining an empire. Those costs become much greater when circumstances change from individual "tribes" refusing to pay taxes (the British solved this in Mesopotamia by cheaply bombing and machine gunning the villages of the offending tribe, a terrorist method not dissimilar to Germans shooting Belgian "snipers" to frighten the rest into good behavior) to enormous, broad-based strikes and passive resistance involving numerous united groups.
The World Wars certainly contributed, by weakening the British and showing peoples (like the Indians) the latent strength that they possessed. But the mere existence of extended imperial rule was going to create the national sentiment that caused trouble.
And then we should mention the resentment caused by obvious exploitation, the anger generated by events like Amritsar, the evident racist attitude of the imperials, and the effects of corruption or mismanagement (which, in the case of India, sometimes helped kill millions).
Even without the World Wars, the colonial system as they knew it was doomed to fail. The only question was, how tightly were the colonial powers going to hold onto it? The answer to that question will determine whether empire could evolve into a system of dominions, or whether most of the colonies instead get so fed up that they will only settle for independence.
Consider India. This was an enormous region originally broken up into numerous groups which together possessed no real sense of unity.
Britain takes over, and works toward making it an administrative unit -- something much closer to a unitary whole, thereby showing Indians that it can be done, and carries certain advantages Further, the imposition of a foreign ruling group inevitably creates an "us vs them" mentality; the key word being the inclusive "us".
Imperial rule schooled a number of regions in the ideals of intergroup/intertribal identity (nationalism). It gave them a reason to find common ground with each other, and it not-infrequently trained their intellectuals in the administrative tools needed to support the idea (think Indians in the Civil Service)
It was inevitable that broad nationalist groups would eventually emerge, against which it was much harder to struggle than previously when all the groups were divided.
Others have pointed out the cost of maintaining an empire. Those costs become much greater when circumstances change from individual "tribes" refusing to pay taxes (the British solved this in Mesopotamia by cheaply bombing and machine gunning the villages of the offending tribe, a terrorist method not dissimilar to Germans shooting Belgian "snipers" to frighten the rest into good behavior) to enormous, broad-based strikes and passive resistance involving numerous united groups.
The World Wars certainly contributed, by weakening the British and showing peoples (like the Indians) the latent strength that they possessed. But the mere existence of extended imperial rule was going to create the national sentiment that caused trouble.
And then we should mention the resentment caused by obvious exploitation, the anger generated by events like Amritsar, the evident racist attitude of the imperials, and the effects of corruption or mismanagement (which, in the case of India, sometimes helped kill millions).
Even without the World Wars, the colonial system as they knew it was doomed to fail. The only question was, how tightly were the colonial powers going to hold onto it? The answer to that question will determine whether empire could evolve into a system of dominions, or whether most of the colonies instead get so fed up that they will only settle for independence.
As a New Zealander, I don't find the Commonwealth to be united or believed in enough to constitute a valid replacement of the British Empire.
While there is a fondness of Britain in certain segments of the population, it's largely those who are middle aged or older. People in my demographic (20s), don't regard Britain as anything more than just another country in Europe really. We may share a head of state, but in a largely ceremonial role, and one that is perceived to be inevitably changed.
Britain isn't even in our top five partners for trade, which is Australia and other nations around the Pacific. The government seems focused on that as the future of New Zealand's economic growth and partnerships, not Europe and definitely not just Britain.
That is not to say we don't share cultural and other links with Britain. But Britain is not our future, and neither is the Commonwealth. We are a member of it, but it simply isn't an arrangement that can at all be equated to the British Empire, or an evolution of it. Military matters are not enhanced by our membership of the Commonwealth, and our trade ties are also largely not related to the Commonwealth.
Bit of a rant here, there just seems to be a trope, particularly in Future History that the Comonwealth will re-unite as an appendage of Britain once more. Geography and divergences in culture make it unlikely, and mostly just a means of improving Britain's status in the world once more - not something that should enthuse anyone else in the Commonwealth.
While there is a fondness of Britain in certain segments of the population, it's largely those who are middle aged or older. People in my demographic (20s), don't regard Britain as anything more than just another country in Europe really. We may share a head of state, but in a largely ceremonial role, and one that is perceived to be inevitably changed.
Britain isn't even in our top five partners for trade, which is Australia and other nations around the Pacific. The government seems focused on that as the future of New Zealand's economic growth and partnerships, not Europe and definitely not just Britain.
That is not to say we don't share cultural and other links with Britain. But Britain is not our future, and neither is the Commonwealth. We are a member of it, but it simply isn't an arrangement that can at all be equated to the British Empire, or an evolution of it. Military matters are not enhanced by our membership of the Commonwealth, and our trade ties are also largely not related to the Commonwealth.
Bit of a rant here, there just seems to be a trope, particularly in Future History that the Comonwealth will re-unite as an appendage of Britain once more. Geography and divergences in culture make it unlikely, and mostly just a means of improving Britain's status in the world once more - not something that should enthuse anyone else in the Commonwealth.
It had to throw away its financial muscle to keep other powers in line when they met it at relative industrial parity (i.e. Germany). Doing so meant they also couldn't maintain naval supremacy or the massive resources of the colonies, which again undermined London as the world financial center.
Also because of this British industry after WWI into the 1980s was consistently capital-starved and poorly managed and combined with some serious mistakes they lost their technological leads after the 1950s too.
On the other hand keeping the white dominions in might have been doable with a series of PODs.
Also because of this British industry after WWI into the 1980s was consistently capital-starved and poorly managed and combined with some serious mistakes they lost their technological leads after the 1950s too.
On the other hand keeping the white dominions in might have been doable with a series of PODs.