What were the reasons (major and minor) that led to the decline and disintegration of the British Empire?
What were the reasons (major and minor) that led to the decline and disintegration of the British Empire?
What were the reasons (major and minor) that led to the decline and disintegration of the British Empire?
What were the reasons (major and minor) that led to the decline and disintegration of the British Empire?
What were the reasons (major and minor) that led to the decline and disintegration of the British Empire?
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.
Another of these threads posted by you?What were the reasons (major and minor) that led to the decline and disintegration of the British Empire?
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.
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.