ELI5: How did the small island nation of England end up becoming the biggest empire on the planet?
OtherSpeaking of which, Sweden has had like 3 big ships that sank within one year of their maiden journey… if not directly on the first minutes of their maiden journey. Yes I am looking at you “Vasa”.
On the other hand, they caught up with their engineering…
Yes I am looking at you “Vasa”.
During an I.T. budget presentation, I mentioned one of the projects was "Vasa-like". I'm American, my co-workers were American and nobody else got it.
I guess “Hindenburg-like” is more universally understood.
Probably..... but the Hindenburg had a few successful runs under its belt before the fire.... Vasa didn't even make it to open water.
So “Oh, the huge memory… errors?”
Yeah I guess 17th century Scandinavian shipbuilding is a bit of a niche thing to know about...
Your analogy was Vasa-like
It slipped through the cracks like Vasa-line. I’ll see myself out…
I told a coworker my project was more Endurance than Titanic, and they laughed
Vasa is sort of well known in the Project Management world. I remember reading about it in a book and seen it in a conference.
They could have the best navy because after unification with Scotland in the early 1700s they were an island and could prioritise the navy to a degree the other european powers couldn't. Any army attacking Britain had to go through the navy first.
Yeah mainland Europe was a mosh pit in the 17th and 18th centuries. Some very nasty wars like the 30 years war, the great northern war, the war of Spanish succession, and then the French revolution and all the wars that came out of that. Much of mainland Europe was badly devastated and several empires collapsed. England/UK was spared and could pick up colonies abroad while their previous owners were distracted or occupied.
That's a great take and it probably mirrors America's rise as an economic superpower after WW2. I wonder what happens the next time Europe goes wild.
Just stay tuned ... and switch channels once in a while to Lebanon.
The Hawaiian and American Samoan empire rises. They’re isolated from the isolated.
“They also let their corporations take over areas for them. Their colonial forces could act very independently”
This is a huge part of it in my opinion. At its peak, The East India Company’s private army was twice the size of the Crown’s, and they were adept at identifying and exploiting political division.
Company officials in India had a lot of freedom to act as they saw fit and could respond to situations very quickly.
In comparison, France’s equivalent East India Company had less autonomy. They were reliant on communication from Versailles which slowed things down in general, plus I remember reading that their leadership was mostly aristocrats who didn’t really know what they were doing and didn’t have much incentive to care.
Source: the collected works of William
Dalrymple
Hell, EIC was powerful and rich enough to deploy the first ocean going iron warships in history, essentially completely independently of the RN.
I think the corporation thing is heavily glossed over a lot. It could be argued that England didn’t actually “control” all that much, but English companies sure did.
And England got very good at ship building and training sailors because the waters all around the UK are comparatively rough. By contrast, while much is made of the current rapid expansion of China’s navy, the South China Sea is protected by chains of islands which keep the waters relatively calm. Sailors compare the South China Sea to sailing a really big lake.
Not being pedantic, just trying to help, but you've used the word "sure" here as an adjective a few times, "sure effort" "sure number," the word you're thinking of is sheer.
Otherwise, it's a good analogy. 1492 The Year China Discovered the World is a great book on Asia seapower during the age of sail.
Also, to your point on Air Superiority vs. Sea Supremacy- it's still more important to rule the seas because ocean-going vessels are the best way to move goods and warplanes.
Early industrial revolution, relatively early enfranchisement of non-aristos, less religious drag thanks to reformations. Various empires that might have been competition happened to be in the process of decay when they came into conflict. New technology gave them access to almost the entire globe over a short stretch of time while scientific rational, technology, and industrialisation took way longer to spread so they were almost always at a huge advantage.
Great Britain, of which England covers 62%, is the 9th biggest island in the world and a damn sight more useable land than Greenland or Baffin Island. It was the British Empire not the English.
Not to mention, very early end to the feudal system due to massive labour shortage after the Black Death.
This enabled workers to sell their labour instead of being tied to the land, resulting in a wage-based economy that allowed for a strong middle/merchant class. Very important setup that led to England as a huge trading power and created the entrepreneurial culture for the industrial revolution.
Many other European nations did not move away from feudalism for hundreds of years, and in the case of Russia not until 1861.
true, though this applies to other European states which flourished after the Black death and then fell behind, just as much, if not more. England was also a relatively very well organised and taxed place under the Anglo-Saxons and then the Normans came along.
Followed by turning all the trees into ships, which necessitated using coal, which in turn powered the industrial revolution, which enabled global expansion.
Underrated comment and the real answer.
It was the British Empire not the English.
(we only blame the English for it tho)
Truth is, it was actually a Welsh empire, they're just that good at hiding the fact
with engineering provided by the Scottish, and fighting strength provided by the Irish.
it's a let off for the rest.
As an island they were pretty safe and could pour all their resources in a navy instead of land army.
it's a huge advantage to fight just about every war on foreign soil, bonus points if you can get your next victims to spend themselves helping you conquer the current enemy or get your potential rebels of military age in conquered territory to die fighting for you rather than against.
The island is not England, but presuming you mean the entirety of Great Britain, I'd argue the primary advantage it had was that it was not in fact small at all.
The entire Kingdom between 1600 and 1700 sat at around a top 10 country in population and was absolutely brimming with natural resources such as the soon to be incredibly important coal. During the century mentioned above, they also had tremendous access to wood and particularly hardwood.
It also sat at an absolutely perfect position to become the primary trading port for movement of goods from North America into mainland Europe.
So it had people, resources, and places to wield that influence which turned into power.
The other comment mentioning it being an island is closer to a wife's tale than an accurate depiction of the advantage GB held. In fact, England was nearly terminally involved in wars, with just as many threatening their soil as any other continental country over the same period. Once the kingdoms were unified and the Crown had hegemony over their immediate space, their security was less from geography and more to do with their systems of alliances and counter balances in the diplomatic goings on in Europe than it was some fear their enemies had over executing naval invasions.
To add to this, because they were an island they were forced to become very good at building and operating ships. Ships happened to be essential technological tools for trade, exploration, and empire building. For many countries ships were an option, but for Great Britain they were a requirement by virtue of their geographical situation.
And then they just said, any land that touches the ocean is ours, it stands to reason.
And they said that in English. When the locals didn’t understand then they decided to fix that linguistic barrier too.
Also we had a flag.
It doesn't count unless you have a flag.
No flag no country, according to the rules...I just made up.
My History of the English Language teacher had a great quote: "A language is just a dialect with a flag and an army"
Fun fact: Canada didn’t have a flag until 1965.
The official flag of Canada was 🇬🇧 until they approved 🇨🇦.
Type something like "eddy izzard flags" into YouTube and watch his bit about taking over the world with the cunning use of a flag... It's hilarious 😂
And I'm backing it up with this gun that I got from the National Rifle Association
Conquering the world through the cunning use of flags!
I heard that in Eddie Izzard's voice. And immediately remembered his stand up bit.
What... we spoke English a little louder?
While pointing guns at them, yes.
Sometimes you also have to add the letter ‘O’ to the end of any nouns you use in a sentence.
That's how Australia was born
they didn't need to have ALL the land, they just wanted the land that was next to theirs
Also being an island made us very difficult to invade; the last successful (violent) invasion being in 1066. We saw off several attempted invasions after that, with a little bit of luck (Drake) and a little bit of brilliance (Nelson) and once we established naval superiority it became far harder to attack us. As a result we needed to spend much less time defending our borders and could spend more time expanding them.
The UK now has very little forested space compared to the rest of Europe as we turned all our trees into ships!
More forested space than 100 years ago
Almost like they stopped building wooden ships
Fewer ships, though.
More forested space than 2000 years ago as well, many of the forests were planted as hunting lands for the Normans
And yet shipbuilding in the netherlands, the other maritime nation, was far more efficient and faster until they caught up and surpassed them. But that's where the advantage of being an island nation comes into play.
The Spanish and French could just waltz into the betherlands who just couldn't afford having a large navy AND land army, both financially and manpower wise. Also the population advantage.
But when they did become the dominant naval power, no other country could challenge them and an invasion would be all but impossible, especially since franspce and Spain sort of sucked at naval warfare.
French ships were built much better; the brits made up for it mostly with training and expertise.
And taking French ships
Aided by the afforementioned training and expertise.
The British shipyards were absolutely plagued by awful build quality though and there were all sorts of contemporary stories at the time of ships rotting away at launch and others that sank on their own within a couple years. The key really was that during the time period of the napoleonic wars, 20% of the Royal Navy’s tonnage had been captured from the Spanish and French navies.
At least part of it was because during that time period the Navy basically had every single shipyard in the nation cranking ships out for them, so you had a lot of shoddy builds and new shipyards popping up to capitalize on the staggering order count, as well as declining stocks of good timber and a surge in imported timber, you also had a lot of building going on with green timbers to avoid having to go through the time and expense of seasoning the timbers first, and so on.
a lot of shoddy builds and new shipyards popping up to capitalize on the staggering order count,
UK leadership giving taxpayer cash hand over fist to their mates who just setup a company, have never done that work before, and do a terrible job? Never!
The Dutch navy did come and burn Rochester at one point. Shame they couldn't have finished the job.
I've heard that british cuisine and women made them best sailors in the world, from a brit, no less.
British cuisine is terrific...If you mean the aggregation of worldwide foods over there.
You’ve not lived until you’ve had a pasty barm
Yes, not in spite of being an island, but because of being an island. And the right size of an island with a big enough population and enough natural resources.
Agriculture was also key. Consider why Rome exported wheat from Britain to Italy. There were a lot closer places, but ships traveled far better than ox carts.
Being an island provided relative protection from easy invasion and a cultural barrier to define the country. At a certain point in history, it was just the right size to take over the world.
You're wrong to dismiss the geographical advantages of being an island. Nearby European countries, specifically France, Netherlands and Germany(Holy Roman Empire), had to deal with dozens of military invasions and consequent sacking and looting while Britain has not been successfully invaded or occupied by a foreign force since 1066. Consider how much destruction there was in the 30 year war or Napoleonic wars, none of that happened in Britain, with the worst incident being the civil war/glorious revolution, but the level of destruction there was far more minor and government maintained continuity.
The UK has the oldest government in Europe (other than some microstates) much of the reason for that is geography.
The song Rule brittania is basically about how being an island nation lets them have a small army which makes them more resistant to coups or tyranical kings.
What do you consider as oldest government? The start of the monarchy?
The UK has continuity going back to 1066. If you want to nitpick, 1688. Every other state in Europe has had it's government overthrown and new system of laws put in place either by a revolution or external occupation.
Sweden, Norway and Denmark had been continuous monarchies since before 1066 and they weren't occupied or revoluted (is that a word haha). There were several personal unions between the three of various sorts, I don't know whether you count that as ending the continuity.
Continuity is what they write into the history books to teach the children, truth is best avoided. The royal line has ended or been replaced several times, though only once with the aid of the axeman, but the European royal families are so interbred that you can just grab any suitably royal descendant from anywhere in Europe and install them in place.
I'd go with 1651, the end of the Civil War, though 1688 is valid. 1066 is hard to claim, the best you could argue would be 1153 for the end of the Anarchy.
Also a lot of arable and farmable land.
And Sheep, many many sheep. kept the locals content.
To add to this, being an island proved very useful when it came to controlling the population of wolves.
There was no significant wolf presence in Britain (and especially England) after the early 13th century. The Normans eradicated them, so there was much less of a threat to grazing animals, particularly sheep.
This meant we could basically turn our country into a giant sheep farm and become a wool superpower.
By contrast, attempts to eradicate wolves in continental Europe were unsuccessful because more of them could just come over from Russia.
Damn I’ve never even considered that
Came here to say “wool”
There's also basically never earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis, volcanos, or other catastrophic events to worry about and reset progress.
I'm not sure how much that has to do with Britain's position, but not having buildings reduced to rubble periodically can't have hurt.
This. Ireland is the same. The weather is basically "meh". It's never very hot or very cold or very windy or very anything, really.
This makes for incredibly fertile land and prime living conditions year-round. It allows for pretty constant unencumbered development, where higher or lower latitudes might be forced to pause various types of activity (building, farming, training, etc) during the more extreme parts of the year.
It also sat at an absolutely perfect position to become the primary trading port for movement of goods from North America into mainland Europe.
I wouldn't call an island that's not attached to mainland Europe as perfect for the movement of goods between the US and mainland Europe.
You missed the most important factors for the growth of Great Britain, being that it was the home of the industrial revolution along with having a very strong Navy. Allowing for the trading of goods on a global scale.
preceded by the agricultural revolution that freed up manpower from food production to move to the cities and start manufacturing goods.
Also just by sheer dumb luck, their native livestock took well to domestication and labor and their plant species lent well to sedentary agriculture. It can’t be overstated how big an advantage this was over places like South America that naturally lacked things like work animals
You missed probably the single biggest factor, The Reformation. Basically Henry VIII converted the country from catholic to protestant and in the process took all of the land and treasure from the church that was wrapped up in Abby, Monasteries, Nunneries, Seminaries and similar as well as the land and houses of any nobility that wanted to remain catholic and not convert to protestant. He took all that and gave most of it to him self, suddenly the King was a very rich man and could afford to build a very big navy and army.
Instead of sending money to Rome the King got rich and the exchequer flourished. allowing the country to expand and grow even more.
Isn’t historical England a nation on an island? Just not the whole island.
Aye. But they'd sorted out the "rebellious Scots*" by the time of serious empire building, and the Welsh had long been subdued.
*crushed them like a torrent, according to the second verse of the national anthem
It was never an official verse, appearing in music halls in 1745 and falling out of the popular imagination soon after.
It breaks the hearts of many grievance obsessed Scottish nationalists, but the British state has never had a verse about crushing Scotland (they always forget the rebellious part) as part of its national anthem.
The first American colony was nearly 150 years old at the time of the Jacobite rebellion American independence was only 30 or so years off.
I had my 5 year old read this and then explain it to me so I could understand.
Pre industrial age, size isn't an advantage. Locality of resources is far more important. Not so heavy things could only travel slowly on land and slightly better on rivers. Iron ore and coal nearby for iron. Nearby forests that produce timber also arable land that can support small cities. Note that the British weren't an exception, the Portuguese and Dutch were also large empires for their time. The ability and desire to build ships and train sailors was a big factor so port cities that could operate year round are important.
Think of it like the game Civ: protected by water, forced to use boats (transport, exploration, trade) to get anywhere, smack middle of the to-be developed world
So you are an island, you do not border any other nations, you fully focus on your surrounding... which is sea. So you naturally have sailors and are inclined to build ships to explore.
So you have an entire history of not being worried of enemies and just focused on building more ships, better ships and training all your guys to be skilled sailors.
Age of exploration happens, you obviously has the biggest and best navy, you are able to colonise more lands in Africa, Asia, Americas than any other nation. You become even more prosperous.
You still do not border any enemies so you double down during the industrial revolution to ensure your navys can protect every single colony and trade route.
That's how you get the biggest empire on the planet.
Being the birthplace of the industrial revolution is so huge
Well, they had a ton of coal reserves that were fairly easy to mine and were fortunate to be the birthplace of the steam engine, which changed everything from industry to ship building
Of course, one early use of the steam engine is to run the pumps that dried out the coal mines, so there's a positive feedback loop involved.
Have you watched crash course world history by any chance?
Yes, but I have also taken college courses on the history of engineering.
Apparently Britian ran itself out of trees building wooden ships and making coke to smelt iron for cannons.
Then the blast furnace was invented which made coal suitable for working iron and steel without it gaining too much carbon and becoming weak.
Then they dug their coal mines to the water table and faced a crisis. When the above mentioned coal pumps were invented/made effective and a certain critical mass achieved.
Not only coal but extensive canals that enabled movement of that coal. Which enabled that industrial revolution in the early, pre-rail-network days. Which contributed to quickly and successfully establishing a rail network.
I live in the cotton capital
A place that is some 40 plus miles from the sea
But one of the biggest ports in the world during that time
the cotton capital
A ton of coal reserves that happened to coincide with a ton of iron mines right next door.
Pretty sure I had this happen in civ once.
Funny you say that. I'm currently playing a civ game right now and it's why I posted.
Are you interested in a trade agreement with England?
Oh. It's you. (Denounce)
What would Ghandi do?
eyes the nuclear option
Try Empire: total war, and you'll see why great Britain was easy mode once you have a good navy.
England definitely did not have a history of not being worried about enemies.
No nations did, this is an ELI5. A costal nation has comparatively less worries. If you want to talk about nuances we can go over to other more in-depth subreddits.
Cries in Sri Lanka. We've been colonised by Portugal, Duch and English although we are 100% surrounded by sea.
Teak is a decent alternative.
But its of no use if you don't have the means to build fleets of modern ships, masses of guns to arm them, and a modern land army.
Defending an island is simpler if you are on par with the enemy's technology so you can build good enough ships to stop an invading force. Sri Lanka or any other Asian nation could match European nations in shipbuilding and weapons technology when they arrived.
You do not just need technology, having a large enough population so you can maintain a large enough fleet is required too. Having all the required resources and food production locally make it easier to do. Having multiple states on the island made it harder to defend too, you really need a united island.
You should remember Great Britain has been invaded too. Roman, Germanic tribes, wiking, Normans, and Frech did it before 14th century. Later there's a border ward with Scotland where France supports Scotland.
There are coastal raids later and threats of invasion. The most famous is the Spanish Armada in 1588. There is tenicaly an invasion in 1688, it is called the Glorious Revolution. A bit simplifies is lots of English nobility did not like the kin and they invited William of Orange, the Stadtholder of the Netherlands to take over. There was an innovation but no significant English resistance.
It is from 18th century to the late 19th that the Royal Navy was dominant at sea and no one could invade. This is alos the time the empire grows, that is not a coincidence because the empire pays for the navy.
Those nations had hit that Age Of Exploration level. England, before exploration and industrial revolution and empire was engaging with France and Spain and the Norsemen. England was invaded in 1066, but after that, it was able to protect itself and extend power to continental Europe, and then across the world.
I an seriously under-informed about South Asian history, but I would gather that forces that might control the whole of India might have a harder time taking boats across to Sri Lanka.
England had the Scots to deal with for quite a while, then they discovered a neat trick and made the Scottish king the King of England..... Problem solved for the last 500 years.
Ok but that part is still very wrong. They were invaded by lots of people over the years.
Right?! Pretty sure the Norse and Danes were all up in their psyche lol
Saying England did not border any other nations and has an entire history of not worrying about enemies displays that you know almost nothing about English history.
England's history is one of monumental bloodshed and conflict with other nations, including those on the island.
Here's a little bit about France and England: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-French_Wars
I agree. Just finishing a tour of England, Wales and Scotland and I’d say the constant threat of invasion and non-stop territorial conflict led to leaders and people who are very aggressive and ultimately leads to imperialism. This is not just “subtleties”.
People grow weary of defending themselves and suffering weakness so they strike first.
I’d add that after hundreds of years of this, when some amount of unification was achieved, then this little island nation looked outward. Unified, the island is defensible and has great agricultural support for supporting imperialism and those years of fighting made them great warriors.
Have you seen the number of castles in Britain.
We had two walls from coast to coast to stop Pictish immigration into the Roman empire.
The normans occupied and imposed castles everywhere.
And Wales is full of castles from the English invasion.
It's a ELI5, compared to other land nations, England had it good as far as border conflict goes.
England was invaded and ruled by the Romans, Saxons, Normans, Dutch, Vikings... Not to mention England borders Scotland.
Age of exploration happens, you obviously has the biggest and best navy, you are able to colonise more lands in Africa, Asia, Americas than any other nation. You become even more prosperous
They didn't have the largest navy during the age of exploration yet and I date say in the America's, spain and Portugal had far more land that the British who only had Guyana and settlements in north America where they shared the continent with many other countries.
Britaim got invaded constantly. If anything our foreign policy and empire building was in direct response to fear of mainland powers invading
Two things, mainly. They learned to sail into the wind, which meant their navy could put sail and out fight any other navy. Second, they learned how to cast cannon in iron reliably, which was much cheaper than bronze.
With these two technologies (bonus for mounting the cannon broadside), they were the dominant naval power in an age of sail exploration.
I’ll add: they invented portable time keeping. Part of what made the British navy superior was their navigational accuracy due to onboard time keeping.
Measuring longitude is hard and dead reckoning is inadequate for oceanic voyages.
I'll also add that alongside the ability to travel and navigate, their strategy was to divide and conquer. What this meant was that there were lots of expeditions to find new land and resources, them either plunder or subjugate or both. Once subjugated, will enlist the natives to serve as part of their military force while having their nationals continue governing the colonies. This made for lots of resources being reallocated, easier to reinforce, and large global (but forced) cultural/ economic exchange happening
Plunder and subjugate?
That's one way of looking at it.
I don't think India could be conquered in a military manner by a few shiploads of British. But trade, and persuading the local authorities that being allied with the British is a win-win, at least for the ruling class is definitely a thing
That's actually true too and I'm ashamed to have left that part out. Actual British military force was not too large. I don't have actual numbers, but the strategy was to "politic" their way into having the locals congregate and fight "together" while supplying them with weapons and some soldiers. Iirc, India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan was a number of states not fully unified, divided by culture and religion that eventually became a puppet state.
Analogically in the game civ, it would be having cities states allied or taken over as puppet states. It removes a potential threat while also having continuous supplies and reinforcements.
The Greeks were sailing into the wind in the second century BC, the French, Spanish and Dutch ships were compareable to British ones, the first iron cannon was cast in England by an Englishman but with a French assistant, and all the European powers quickly adopted iron cannons. Innovations came from all over Europe, though Britian had an edge as the forerunners before the mid 19th century.
The French gutted their own navy in the terror, the Dutch were too small and at war on too many fronts and the Spanish collapsed their own economy with South American gold and silver.
For a while only the British had graphite to mould rounder, more accurate shot.
Agree with the cannon part, but it were actually the Portuguese who learned to sail into the wind. They were the earliest (and one of the least successful) explorers/colonizers. The maneuver is called 'volta del mar' - which is not English but a Portuguese term.
I think imoho the turning point was the loss of the Spanish Armada in the 1500's. Naval power in Europe transferred from Spain to Great Britain, and they used that to have colonies all over the world.
Their colonial method of rule was also very efficient. Divide and conquer the local people and set up small bases to rule from and let the colonised rule themselves through corrupted versions of their previous governments.
The plantation style system of awarding loyal subjects land was beneficial after they uprooted local populations.
Aside from the many other reasons, remember that the British Isles are NOT THAT SMALL! They #9 on most lists of largest islands, and would be #6 if you exclude those that are mostly uninhabitable (Greenland / Canadian Arctic). One of the other island nations on that list, Japan, also had a dominant empire at one point.
British engineering during the industrial revolution helped immensely. John Harrison solved the longitude problem by building accurate chronometers before anyone else. This allowed them to gain a huge naval advantage and access to new trade routes and territories since they could navigate far more accurately by being able to calculate not just their north-south position, but also their east-west position.
James Watt (Scottish) invented working steam engines which changed the trajectory of the entire human race by making it possible to have power anywhere, not just at certain locations where water wheels were practical. You could build far more mills and factories, and have trains to move goods around.
They were able to produce incredibly accurate cannon barrels by boring a hole into a cannon blank with a machine tool instead of casting a rough, inaccurate hole using sand molds. This gave them a further advantage maintaining naval superiority.
British engineers also came up with some of the first automated manufacturing tools, allowing them to build 176,000 ships blocks per year, which allowed them to defeat Napoleon.
England managed to revolutionize naval warfare, and had centuries of metalworking industry leading into the industrial revolution (and taking part in it).
This alone made England a global power, if not the first. Which implies a historical 'pole-position' in the global economy as it has developed.
(Armchair person here, not a historian)
i. A LOT of natural resources
ii. Island nation so subject to less conflict then most countries
iii. Emphasis on naval technology so during a critical time in human history had relatively advanced logistics and military to colonize and control outside territories
iv. Culturally and politically critical to western history so high population, high trade
v. England wasn't really "small" - you may be comparing the claimed size of a countries territory or "empire" sizes, but England was both very concentrated with actual control and an established society in its geography and, well, obviously had a very large empire that it was (see third point) very capable of controlling and expanding
If a nation can rule the seas, control trade routes and defend them, they become dominant powers with global access to resources and the prosperity that comes with it.
1) Its not that small
2) Its an island nation - they needed ships. Ships need wood
3) cut down all wood - oh no! nothing to burn to stay warm. Lets dig coal.
4) We need a way to dig out more coal. Lets build some steam engines to pump water out of mines
5) oh no! steam engines need coal! Lets build more steam engines and dig out more coal
6) Oh shit weve got loads of cheap coal - what can we use it for? Build many factories.
7) Oh shit, we profit now.
The British also understood that governance was key to maintaining colonies across their sphere of influence. They didn't allow their civil servants or industrialist, governors etc to strip the land bare of either local populations or of their cultures.
This meant that over time, British Rule could smoothly supplant itself over the populations and allow the locals to live their lives without much impact.
The Spanish were VERY different in their approach and it caused their empire to collapse in S.America as each territory needed a firm hand in maintaining strict order, religious obedience etc.
The British would also often empower marginalised minority groups as colonial administrators, who would then become more loyal to the Empire than their own country because of the discrimination they would have otherwise faced. This made it possible for Britain to maintain colonies with very little non-native military force
Back in the empire days, the UK included all of Ireland, now it's just Northern Ireland
Very true.
Being on an island close to mainland Europe allowed England to enjoy all the economic and technological benefits of being in Europe, while simultaneously staying out of - or largely out of - the major destructive wars that happened there. England quietly built an empire while its rivals were constantly invading one another.
Kept getting attacked by strong enemies which often integrated to make the existing groups stronger.
Britons, Romans, Saxons, Vikings, Normans just pulling the last systems down and rebuilding a stronger grouping after.
Boats and naval traditions as well as military reforms at various stages. Organisation and efficient taxation systems. It also was just the island of Britain, they married and fought well and for a part owned half of France.
Being an island was fairly beneficial
There is an old joke:
It was the beauty of their women, and the quality of the food, that made the British the finest sailors the world had ever seen.
The British government had two big advantages not mentioned here. One, it had a financial system that enabled it to borrow money reliably and at low rates. That meant they could afford to go to war at the drop of a hat. Their biggest rival, France, had a system where the French king could and did interfere, which drove borrowing rates up, since you never knew if you'd get paid back.
Two, the British government was effectively run by the mercantile class. That meant that the government left corporations alone to make money. India was largely conquered not by the government but by the British East India Company, which was rapacious and efficient. The British government only took over in India after the EIC's rule led to horrific famines.
As a sidebar, because the British government was primarily about protecting investments, British colonies were run with a relatively light touch. (Not a light touch, but a relatively light touch compared to, say, Belgium. Or Spain. Or Portugal. Or France.) Whatever power structures they could leave in place, they left in place. The French in Quebec, for example, barely rebelled, because the Brits let the (francophone) Catholic Church run the province's internal affairs. The Brits could not have run India without a panoply of tame maharajahs. So there were relatively few rebellions, and those could usually be crushed with the assistance of native troops.
Technology. GB had big breakthrough in 4 important fields.
1) Vacination - GB developed first ever vaccine. It was vaccine against most menance illness in himan history - small pox. Befor actual vaccibe they also utilised it early form Velioration, which was less effective but still very usefull. That gave them incredible boost in population.
2) Greenhouses and farming machinery - GB produced incredible ammount off food which boosted popolation growth further.
This two advancements resulted in overpopulation. At some point there were 9 million people just in London. 20-30 people lived in tiny room. And food became scarce. People was pretty happy and motivated to leave for conquests.
3) saltpetrer purification and sinteze. Crucial component for gunpowder, which was mainly obtained from feces. You might be facinated by fact Shit Wars was a thing.
4) metalurgy. Guns, cannonball etc need to be forged in a relied way in big ammounts.
Some people claim it because GB was constantly in wars. Whole Europe was constantly in wars. FRANCE was chempion by wars held and wars won.
Star navigation also was not GB trump cards as other nation got it in approximately same time.
This question reminded me of the book “Guns, Germs and Steel”
There have been several rather extensive (for reddit comments at least) debunkings of many of Jared Diamond’s arguments in that book, you’ll find them if you search r/askhistory for the book title.
That’s not to say it didn’t have some good ideas in it too, it’s just that Diamond tends to overstate many of his favourite arguments and ignore certain other factors. Overall, I appreciate the effort to make a formal geographical explanation for historical events whether or not all the details are correct — especially given that a key takeaway is how this stuff played out due to chance rather than the kind of racist values inherent to a lot of imperialism and empire building — but it’s also worth keeping in mind that Diamond does like to play fast and loose with some of the details and their relative importance. He wrote another book about the decline of the civilisation on Easter Island which has been more universally panned for its inaccuracy, he’s just one of those people that doesn’t stop running with an idea once he has one.
Britain was a unified nation & politically very stable in comparison to is rivals.
While France was having a revolution, Germany and Italy fragmented city states , Spain was in a sort of terminal decline & political shambles. Meanwhile Great Britain was isolated but unified ,a populous island with great natural resources & a geography that allowed it natural trade routes to the world.
That it didn't undergo a major political upheaval just as the industrial revolution was kicking off gave it a great head start over France. You can't finance a new steam powered coal mine or steel mill if your head has been removed in a guillotine.
When its rivals settled down politically or unified into larger nations Britain's advantage diminished and was eventually lost.
But wouldn't you be limited by your population size? Did England just "happen" to be "a good size" to make it happen? How much smaller before it wouldn't have worked out?
At the time, population was much more limited by disease and injury. And it doesn't matter how many people you have if you can't put boots on the ground of the island you want to attack.
Not really relevant in most time periods with people roaming and mercenaries work for coin.
The British were very good at finding people to work alongside them in the countries they colonised, they managed to control places with an insignificant number of their own people by getting local proxies to do it for them.
One big thing, England is small and the current US, Canada, India and Australia seem pretty big. But none of those were unified countries at that point. They were thousands of distinct groups, many in conflict with each other. England comes in and they're not fighting a country. They're trading with some groups, at war with others, making agreements and alliances with others, then stabbing them in the back.
It all pivoted when a careless pirate attacked the wrong ship off the coast of India and had a lucky shot. All around 1700.
Sultanate was furious and demanded England to respond.
England responded by being the sea police in the Indian Sea (lots of trade), paid by the Indians. They got cash, naval military power and kicked the Portuguese out.
With the industrial revolution powering this up = success.
Before the lucky shot incident, one could argue that Britain was far behind the Peninsula Catholics (not a school team, I mean Portugal and Spain). The chaos from the incident boosted British-India liaisons (I assume the Indians were not all that happy when their Naval police racketeered them and took over).
Also, American Pirates became more aggressive after a bunch of Spanish gold was sunk near the coast of Florida (maybe Georgia, buy I like to think Florida Man started here, looking for gold). These guys started to hurt Spanish trade, and a lot of them were British corsairs that avoided British Ships.
So Britain gains in India, Spain and Portugal lose in the Americas and in India.
Despite my romanization, I think these are key factors in the making of the British Empire, which was further enhanced by industrial revolution. Non-ironically, after these events the age of machines had begun.
Great book telling the story from 3 different angles Enemy of All Mankind
On the American side: Republic of Pirates
Arrrr.
Access to coal really helped them out when steam engines took off. Their technology advancements allowed them to dig deeper and more efficiently with coal powered engines- and they had a glut of it.
Really good navy. Lots of access to hardwood and other natural resources to build ships. Lots of opportunity to sail those ships and practice war. Also a strategic location for trading between Europe and Americas so lots of trade, lots of different people with new ideas coming and going.
Same way that it became a secondary power again after ww2, they used to have a mighty navy that was able to project power overseas
IMO it’s because they were first to crack the Longitude problem, so were the first to create very accurate charts and trade routes. Which is why the world uses Greenwich Mean time as its standard. You can’t control a foreign colony if you can’t reliably find it.
We were already a superpower because of our navy, but the Industrial Revolution gave us an incredible advantage in technology.
You do realise that that small island is not just England yeah? Please just have a wee google before you post stuff like this
England had excellent property rights which combined with its massive coal deposits allowed it to become the first industrial nation. By and large England had colonies because it was rich, rather than becoming rich because of its colonies.
They were really, really good at ships. Had so much coal, which would be the same as having so much oil today. They also let their corporations take over areas for them. Their Colonial Forces could act very independently.
Having lots of resources and the best Navy meant that over time, they spread out pretty far and won a lot of wars.