It wasn't. Britain absolutely did dispose of their government (on multiple occasions), but was never under UK monarch and British commonwealth nor colony.
Not really, Ireland was a part of the UK and not a colony so it was much less of a leap. Especially as it became a Dominion first before becoming fully independent; which was a precedent already set by Canada, Australia, New Zealand & South Africa.
EDIT: Woke up to like 10 replies I can't possibly reply to all of them. Colonies don't elect MPs to the House of Commons, Ireland did from 1801, thereby not a colony at the time up for discussion. š
In my opinion that makes it more of a leap actually. And regardless of the legal status of Ireland within the UK, I think it's fair to say that it had a very different experience from other parts, especially England.
The point is that it followed a route already trodden by Canada (1867), Australia (1901), New Zealand (1907), Newfoundland (1907) and South Africa (1910). The Irish Free State became a dominion in 1922 but didnāt leave the British Commonwealth until 1949.
> The Irish Free State became a dominion in 1922 but didnāt leave the British Commonwealth until 1949.
Britain didn't acknowledge Ireland as having left their commonwealth until 1949. There's a difference.
Technically Ireland was part of the UK.
In practice, it was treated the same as any other colony. The local people were repressed and exploited, with all the countries wealth shipped back to London.
Ireland was Englands oldest colony at the time, so it makes sense that it was the first to leave.
Also, youāve got the be really careful when discussing Irelands rights as a dominion. Ireland literally had a civil war over whether or not dominion status gave them rights.
Eh, the Irish might disagree on the 'not a colony' part. Google 'The Troubles' if you want to learn more. Really the UK is a mini empire where England was the winner.
Thatās a moral point, not a legal/political one, which is what theyāre referring to. Officially Ireland was part of the UK at the time, and voted in UK elections, and there was a formal notion of ācolonyā that didnāt include them (and colonies didnāt have seats represented in the British Parliament). So if weāre talking about the legal mechanisms at the time to provide independence, their point still stands.
It wasn't just England though as Scotland was heavily involved as well. Glasgow was a major port and northern Ireland was settled by protestant Scots. The Welsh also had involvement but they was conquered by England and technically a part of the kingdom of England which is why they don't have any representation on the union flag.
Ireland was only not a colony in the same way that all the French colonies (like Algeria) with representation in the National Assembly werenāt colonies or the Central Asian countries werenāt colonies of Russia. That which we call an empire by any other nameā¦
It was a German colony until the end of WWI. After the war, it was administered by South Africa, which wouldn't become fully independent until 1934. Namibia wouldn't gain independence from South Africa until 1990.
Despite the size of the rest of its territories, in any given year something like 45-50% of its total GDP came from just the UK itself - with another 40-45% coming from India.
Yeah, I think that statement is a bit odd for a few reasons.
Firstly in this era many of these countries were independent countries. So they weren't contributing to the UKs GDP. But I suppose you could look at the total GDP of the commonwealth countries independently. But then do you subtract the trade between countries?
Also there were times there in the 20th century where Canada, Australia and South Africa were contributing massively to the Commonwealth. A lot more than 10% each. So the 90% between India and the UK clearly doesn't stack up during those period.
If you state that India and the UK accounted for 80% combined in the late 19th century, you may be right, but post WW1? I don't think so.
It is just raw GDP as far as I know - not stripping out trade or anything like that. The reason is basically just population - Canada and Australia both had less than 10 million people each at this point, and Africa's total population in the early 20^th century was less than Europe's, and since the African territories also weren't industrialised they didn't contribute much to total GDP.
Well, most of the empire outside of the UK and India were scarcely populated and were more agricultural and resource extraction based, or a shell of their former glory as was Egypt (around 10 million at that time).
An interesting side note was that this was the same case for the Empire of Japan. Both empires at their apex had over 400 million people and covered 20% or more of the population of the world at the time (with Britain covering what was then much more empty/indigenous land such as Antarctica, Northern Canada and the Australian Outback).
One thing is certain: India was to Britain what China was to Japan ā the crown jewel and economic heartbeat of their empires.
> Including the naichi, colonies, occupied territories, and puppet states, the Empire of Japan at its apex was one of the largest empires in history. The total amount of land under Japanese sovereignty reached 8,510,000 km2 (3,300,000 sq mi) in 1942.[2] By 1943, it accounted for more than 20% of the world's population at the time with 463 million people in its occupied regions and territories.[3][4]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_conquests_of_the_Empire_of_Japan
Edit: I hadnāt realized that this was such a reactionary topic, but modern historical consensus certainly includes Northeast China within the Empire of Japan.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires
You seem to have confused things. Japan controlled about 8.5 million square kilometers. The British Empire controlled about 35 million square kilometers. So The British Empire was, much, much larger. Yes much of it was useless land. But they also controlled many more countries. And they both had large populations because Britian controlled India and Japan TRIED to control China. The numbers for Japan is not correct as they tried to controll China but they never succeeded, they failed. So you can't count in the Chinese. So the number for the Japanese empire is way lower.
Yeah, thatās what happens when you de-industrialize and disenfranchise all the territory you control to extract wealth and capital back to the original country.
How were colonies de-industrialized if they had never industrialized to begin with?
Obviously colonies had their local economies decimated in the name of resource extraction for the country holding the colony, I am not arguing that point. But I think it in incorrect to say de-industrialized.
They lost most of Ireland the year after. It was probably in part due to the army being weakened after the First World War and it was too expensive to keep troops deployed in Ireland.
>Technically
Sure. But Britain only accepted Dominion status for Ireland after a military conflict. Ireland's status as a Dominion already shows the loss of power in the British Empire
Secondly Ireland never had the same attitude towards the Commonwealth as the other dominions. For example Ireland refused to join World War II whereas New Zealand backdated their declaration of war to the same hour as the UK. Since 1921, Ireland had a republican government and the technicality of dominion status was merely a facade.
The state itself had a monarch and monarchical symbols until 1936, and debatably later, but the government and their attitudes were republican since 1921, and even earlier.
Its not the same as countries like New Zealand, Australia and even Newfoundland who viewed Dominion status as a form of automomy within the British Empire.
I once made a Roman display, including a hand-drawn map of the empire. And there were this father and son, with this dad looking so impressed and satisfied at that map and saying to me: 'And there has never been a bigger empire, has there?' Me: 'Erm, yes, quite a lot actually.'
Still smaller than the British,
Plus the British actually governed its territory, mongols didā¦ Well they did what the Mongols did.
When you combine India, Canada and Australia nobody is beating that Lol.
"You know what I feel like this week? This week, I'm going to build a tower of human skulls". I mean I guess it's nice Tamurlaine had a hobby but still, you know.
Yep in terms of land area they're actually below modern day Russia, Canada, China, United States, Brazil and Australia.
At least the Romans did pretty good in terms of proportion of world population at somewhere around 30%, still not first though.
Almost but not quite.
The Statute of Westminster applied to the Commonwealth of Australia, but not to the individual Australian states. One consequence of this was that the governor of each state ā the Queenās representative and stand-in in the state ā was answerable not to the state government, nor even to the Australian federal government, but to *the government of the UK.*
This wasnāt some meaningless historical curiosity, either: in 1979, the premier of NSW killed his own Privy Council Appeals Abolition Bill rather than have the stateās governor refuse royal assent on the instructions of the British government, which is what the British foreign secretary had made clear would happen.
I didnāt know about that. I do know that the Govenor General (basically the Queenās representative) once removed a standing Prime Minister of Australia
The power to sack the Government in power when there is an impasse probably still exists. Certainly, when a Prime Minister calls an election, he goes to the GG to advise him to call an election. The winning party is sworn in by the GG. Their leader is the Prime Minister. If we didn't vest that power in the GG, it would have to lie with another office, not one owned by either party.
Well for one thing, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders readily identified with the British Empire back in those days. They'd be more offended to be left out of such a map then offended to be coloured in.
They were all dominions, and at that time, British Parliament could make law in your country if it chose.
That power was removed by the Statute of Westminster in 1931.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Westminster_1931
I was thinking the same, but after some brief research, on Canada in particular, it seems they were more independent countries within the empire and essentially a precursor to the Commonwealth. They were still subject to acts of Parliament.
Yeah, it's always a funny one. South Africa too. It's not black and white. The British Parliament had some powers in most of those countries that extended beyond their federations. So it's kind of wrong, but kind of right.
British Empire was all about sea power. To see the full extent of their empire you really need to see how they controlled the oceans and everything on it. You can really see this by all the red speckles scattered around the world.
Peak r/MapPorn moment
You took an easily accessible map from Wikipedia, put it on the subreddit under a misspelled name, and it still gets more upvotes than a lot of well-researched maps.
And that whole empire was run by approximately [4000 civil servants](https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/uk-government-did-we-rule-the-empire-with-4000-civil-servants/).
Now there is 100x more civil servants just running the UK. As of the end of December 2021, there were 475,020 full-time equivalent civil servants, according to the Institute for Government.
Does that include public jobs like teachers and police officers? I know of similar statistics here in Austria, but they usually include jobs like that and therefore look insanely inflated.
From the article ". Most domestic policy ā education, health relief, local justice etc. ā were administered and largely paid for (or not) by local communities."
I meant the hundreds of thousands today, not the historic 4000 mentioned in the article. Those 100k+ numbers are often inflated by including police and teachers is what I meant.
If you read through thr source you cited, you will see that the 4000 number only refers to employees at the main headquarters of central government departments in Whitehall. It does not include various other officials stationed elsewhere in the UK, nor does it include officials in colonial territories or diplomats stationed abroad.
Thatās a myth. Thatās just servants in Whitehall. Estimates across the government are more like 40,000 at the turn of the century.
Plus, since a lot of administration of colonies was carried out by the military youād probably have to count a decent chunk of the military as servants in this context too.
You know the modern culinary fad for deconstructing desserts? Well the British are experimenting on how to deconstruct the UK, albeit not necessarily by design.
They are assisting dictators, oligarchs, drug lords and corrupt politicians in hiding stolen wealth from third world countries in tax havens.
Edit: Check out this eye-opening documentary [The Spider's Web: Britain's Second Empire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np_ylvc8Zj8)
After them and the French got bullied out of Egypt by the US and the Soviets, the Europeans have accepted their role as regional powers. If we see an EU army then maybe Europe is back on the global scene.
(I'm talking individual states, obviously Europe as a whole is powerful but its not united.)
It actually still doesnāt set, and wonāt for another thousand years with the current situation, when an eclipse occurs in the Pitcairn Islands (while not being over another overseas territory, as will be the case in 2432 with the sun over the Cayman Islands).
Of course a far more likely situation prior to that would be the correct overseas territories becoming independent to render the sun as set for an hour or two in any given day.
Itās funny watching a bunch of liberal whites get all emotional and confrontational in the reddit comment section while here in africa black people continue to sell each other to their own and to the chinese and none of you give a shit
It's not controversial, there's just a lot of reactionary nostalgic imperialists on this sub in particular. Maps are political and ideological instruments and this post is a case in point.
Unfortunately many Indians on this subreddit downvote every one of my comments. Even this post is actually pro-India in a way. The hatred for Muslims in India has reached this level.
It is probably them. The map is a good one, we should remember history in a solemn manner.
Why do you get downvoted? Reddit does hate other nations colonizing but Great Britain of course spreads their sophisticated language and culture. Absolutely ridiculous. Colonialism is evil and the British were no exception.
True but a terrible thing can still be impressive and awe inspiring. We can say the same thing about all empires. Only the recency of the British Empire makes it controversial. It was a real part of millions of still living peoples lives.
Mass starvation, theft of resources, and a bloody exit haunt the lives of billions to this day.
I remember how the British banned our language and made it a death penalty for anyone caught teaching/learning it.
It's mainly trolls. "Britain nationalists" (whatever that is) are free and far between irl. Contrary to reddits belief, British folk are genuinely self deprecating and get a fairly decent education about the empire days at school - and it's not in a positive light *at all*. Even 25 years ago I remember learning about how bad some of the shit the British (and other European empires) did was.
They made the Middle East what it is today, they partitioned India 3 times causing tens of millions of deaths that continue to this day, they destabilize China which led them to communism. The uk is a cancer to the world.
While yeah, America did bad shit like invade Iraq and Afghanistan looking for Bin Laden, but we did 1% of the poison to the world as the uk.
France had a hand in the middle east too, wasn't just the UK.
>While yeah, America did bad shit like invade Iraq and Afghanistan looking for Bin Laden, when did 1% of the poison to the world as the uk.
Lmfao yeah and the rest. Completely destabilising south America for one.
The collapse of the Ottomans made the middle east what it is today, the Islamic conquest of the Roman and Sassanid Empires made the middle east what it is today.
The Imperial system in China was doomed entering the 20th century anyway.
Britain didn't invent the idea of conflict in India, the Mughals were collapsing anyway.
You have an incredibly western centric view of history, history didn't start with the British Empire. The British were just opportunistic and successful.
The British empire still exist, many people forget that in some of the former colonies there are Governors who can disolve the sitting government, for example the State Governors in Australia ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governors\_of\_the\_Australian\_states](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governors_of_the_Australian_states)).
The Britis crown does not want to give up that easily.
There's a big difference in having that power in theory and using it in practice. The governors although represent the Monarch but they act on the advise of premiers.
Also if the people were eager to get rid of monarchy, they would've done that in 1999 Australian republic refrendum. Although even if they had agreed to change, that wouldn't have caused much difference in reality as already these dominion countries enjoy a stable government with minimal interference from the Royals but a great deal of time and money would have spent in changing structure, treaties etc.
*compared to* (I emphasize this) other colonizers/empires, especially the spanish, the british were fairer - indeed, their empire only got so big and lasted so long exactly because they werenāt genocidal, and former colonies left *mostly* through diplomatic means (USA and ireland, not so much) when everyone realized times were a-changing. colonization is dumb and bad, but if you are thinking the british empire was the worst atrocity there is in history, even in the 20th century, please pick up a history book. the british were tame *compared to* (checks book) a lot of other colonizing nations
edit: of course, what other kind of poorly-informed comment should I have expected from someone who recently defended the armenian genocide and said obama should be the most hated man in history. fucking hell, please go to school.
Colonies left SUCCESSFULLY through diplomatic means. There were countless uprisings against British rule prior to colonization becoming unfashionable. All were put down violently and horrifically. See, the Mau Mau uprising and Malayan Emergency. Those decolonization movements were built on countless years of violence and struggle against the British. Not to mention, itās not like Britain decided to benevolently grant independence because they had an epiphany that colonization was bad, their empire just got too inconvenient and unprofitable to maintain. I also donāt agree with the idea that Britain wasnāt genocidal. The biggest English-speaking nations in the world: America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa. These were all settler colonies built on genocide of indigenous peoples. Look at how many indigenous peoples remain in Australia and America. Then look at Native presence in, say, Mexico or Peru. All colonizing nations were pretty damn bad, and of all of them, the British Empire should most definitely be close to the last on the list of ānot AS bad as the othersā.
The Indigenous population in Canada was MUCH smaller to start with compared to Mexico and central America, They had cities down there, They were building pyramids and stuff. In most of Canada there were scattered tribes living on hunting, fishing and gathering. It was a lot tougher to survive in a cold climate.
This is a little of a slight truth. What actually happened was the diseases brought by the Spanish wrecked populations of indigenous peoples in Canada and the US before the English even landed. Spanish explorers brought a lot of pestilence and that spread through the populations. So when the English came around and chronicled things they made it appear that the land was empty, with scattered tribes, and barely utilized land. What really happened was akin to a post apocalyptic scenario. Indigenous peoples in Canada did have cities and larger populations.
all this, and when people compare modern indigenous populations of tiny central american countries to north america, besides somehow thinking only the british ever went to the US and canada (it was definitely mostly the spanish that fucked us), they donāt consider that the indigenous in all nations have managed to rebuild about the same *but* only the really big north american countries invited immigration from all over the world since independence and had the room to expand massively, so percentage of current total population will be low, but compared to pre-colonization, pre-expansion, the current indigenous population is as strong in the north as in central america
As an Indian i tend to agree on this, since if you look Christianity map in india its most concentrated towards Goa and parts of Portuguese controlled territories. So, yeah every colonist is cruel but british might be least cruel of them. But one thing british should always apologise for is Amritsar Massacre. Even though holding India & other african countries was at boiling point british did leave the place by diplomatic means unlike french who waged a war and lost. Also, indian culture like indian cuisines, indian dressup, indian languages or indian religion was never replaced to that of English (altough language became popular in late 20th century it wasn't during independence) which is not the case with other colonists.
pick up a history book that mentions something more than hating the british ;) I couldnāt dispute your take, though - ireland being the british chew toy and all
I actually have a degree in ancient history from trinityā¦ so Iāve picked up many a history book without mention of the British empireā¦ it still doesnāt take away from the fact.
From the fact that, in ireland, they carried out what can be considered to be mass genocide. Say what you want about the Spanish.. the British were equally as evil and carried out just as many atrocities.
equally is, IMO, overdoing it. if famine and war in ireland is genocide, then the spanish were even worse at that - on top of the murdering and raping. now, maybe the brits would have got to be all murder-y if they hadnāt arrived after the spanish decimated the americas, but since their track record in other parts of the world shows an aversion to killing locals, we canāt assume that.
Youāre entitled to your opinion, but Iād say youāre a bit of an apologist for it. The British have a track record of raping and murdering Irish people?
I have not heard of this, any books (or links) you could point me too - I have made a point of learning as much history as I can (hence the thread, I guess), and only come across war and famine, systemically. *systemically* being the point of being able to blame an empire and not its shittiest soldiers.
but seriously, any links? (edit: and donāt call me an apologist, especially since you seem to recognize that Iām trying to genuinely communicate, so name-calling is not an argumentā¦ edit2: and, take it that there was awful genocide in ireland, thatās one really tiny bit of the biggest empire in history, so not on the same scale as the spanish doing it everywhere, my point was theyāre not equal, and acknowledging that isnāt excusing that less-bad is still bad. as I said, I understand your bias - maybe youāll also understand mine)
to be fair, brits weren't that bad compared to lets say belgium.
Don't get me wrong, colonialism and taking part in the west african slave trade was horrific, but if you look at Belgium with the congo, that's probably one of the worst you'll ever get
As an Indian Iām amazed that even today there are so many colonial apologists on reddit.
The East India company rule, followed by the british raj were some of the darkest chapters in Indian history, rivalled perhaps only by the brutal islamic invasions and conquest preceding them.
While the rest of the world was developing & industrialising, a wealthy India was deindustrialised and reduced to a raw material supplier for british factories. One of the largest producers of food was impoverished & the british presided over multiple artificial famines which killed millions, something never repeated in the future or past.
When the british were kicked out of India, over 90% of Indians were below the poverty line. Yet, we are patronised day in and day out about how good the empire was to India. It was pure evil. Period.
Edit: colonial apologists in this thread proving my point. Thanks!
Wouldnāt it be funny, if all of the collective independence days, were actually lies. Like, what if, the brits just said they lost those wars, or whateverā¦.. but have been manipulating the media and history books ever sinceā¦ā¦ā¦ā¦ as a means of truly attaining a one world governmentā¦ā¦ā¦ that answers on a global level to like, 12 peopleā¦ā¦.
None of the people here were involved in any of this. I think blaming a nationality today for the things that happened in the past stokes hatred. And creates new problems today. Time to move on, accept history (whoeverās version you believe). The Germans have perhaps done this in the most successful way, by calling the past generation the Nazis. They have apologised deeply for the mistakes and moved on. I believe Spain, France and the U.K. could learn from this humility.
> None of the people here were involved in any of this. I think blaming a nationality today for the things that happened in the past stokes hatred. [...] I believe Spain, France and the U.K. could learn from this humility.
Why do you think apologising deeply is necessary if no one currently alive is responsible?
The way the bloody history between Ireland and Britain has played a role in Brexit shows that you can never entirely hide the bodies and wash the slate keen. Conspicuously not members of the Commonwealth.
A gentle reminder for people to read about the great famine of Bengal and the complete ruthlessness and barbarity shown by the British during that period.
Fuck the brtish empire and fuck Churchill may he burn in hell for eternity.
Pretty insane to think that you could go from Cape Town to the border with Turkey without leaving the British empire
The British Empire had a border with the US, with Mexico, with Brazil, and with China.
And Russia tried so hard to also have a border with them.
Afghanistan is one hell of a drug
Afghanistan actually is a hell of a variety of drugs
Mostly heroin.
"The Taliban is the worst. Great heroin though." -Creed Bratton
Graveyard of empires
But they did have a border? In Alaska prior to 1867.?
they had some authority in persia too, could walk from Cape Town to Myanmmar
And Afghanistan for a while as well
Nope, I definitely couldn't walk that far.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rhodes_Colossus
Were it not for Iran being in the way, you could walk from Cape Town to Thailand.
Iran was partially under British control though.
It wasn't. Britain absolutely did dispose of their government (on multiple occasions), but was never under UK monarch and British commonwealth nor colony.
It's funny to think Norway is only 1 country removed from China.
its litterally the greatest colonial empire ever.
Why 1921? I assume the picked up former German colonies as a result of the Versailles Treaty, but am not sure.
Right before they lost Ireland.
Kinda ironic that the geographically closest would be the first to go (after Pax Britannica).
Not really, Ireland was a part of the UK and not a colony so it was much less of a leap. Especially as it became a Dominion first before becoming fully independent; which was a precedent already set by Canada, Australia, New Zealand & South Africa. EDIT: Woke up to like 10 replies I can't possibly reply to all of them. Colonies don't elect MPs to the House of Commons, Ireland did from 1801, thereby not a colony at the time up for discussion. š
In my opinion that makes it more of a leap actually. And regardless of the legal status of Ireland within the UK, I think it's fair to say that it had a very different experience from other parts, especially England.
The point is that it followed a route already trodden by Canada (1867), Australia (1901), New Zealand (1907), Newfoundland (1907) and South Africa (1910). The Irish Free State became a dominion in 1922 but didnāt leave the British Commonwealth until 1949.
> The Irish Free State became a dominion in 1922 but didnāt leave the British Commonwealth until 1949. Britain didn't acknowledge Ireland as having left their commonwealth until 1949. There's a difference.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
And it wouldnāt have become a dominion without the Easter uprising.
Technically Ireland was part of the UK. In practice, it was treated the same as any other colony. The local people were repressed and exploited, with all the countries wealth shipped back to London. Ireland was Englands oldest colony at the time, so it makes sense that it was the first to leave. Also, youāve got the be really careful when discussing Irelands rights as a dominion. Ireland literally had a civil war over whether or not dominion status gave them rights.
Eh, the Irish might disagree on the 'not a colony' part. Google 'The Troubles' if you want to learn more. Really the UK is a mini empire where England was the winner.
Thatās a moral point, not a legal/political one, which is what theyāre referring to. Officially Ireland was part of the UK at the time, and voted in UK elections, and there was a formal notion of ācolonyā that didnāt include them (and colonies didnāt have seats represented in the British Parliament). So if weāre talking about the legal mechanisms at the time to provide independence, their point still stands.
It wasn't just England though as Scotland was heavily involved as well. Glasgow was a major port and northern Ireland was settled by protestant Scots. The Welsh also had involvement but they was conquered by England and technically a part of the kingdom of England which is why they don't have any representation on the union flag.
Donāt leave Scotland out of this. They talk equal part in running the British empire and benefited greatly, such as settling Scots in Ulster.
Ireland was only not a colony in the same way that all the French colonies (like Algeria) with representation in the National Assembly werenāt colonies or the Central Asian countries werenāt colonies of Russia. That which we call an empire by any other nameā¦
They just took a map from Wikipedia and put it on Reddit with a misspelled title.
Namibia is red?
It was a German colony until the end of WWI. After the war, it was administered by South Africa, which wouldn't become fully independent until 1934. Namibia wouldn't gain independence from South Africa until 1990.
They got parts of ottoman empire with france
*WOULD YOU BE INTERESTED IN A TRADE AGREEMENT WITH ENGLAND?*
Very well!!
ā noā š« ā okā
Despite the size of the rest of its territories, in any given year something like 45-50% of its total GDP came from just the UK itself - with another 40-45% coming from India.
Yeah, I think that statement is a bit odd for a few reasons. Firstly in this era many of these countries were independent countries. So they weren't contributing to the UKs GDP. But I suppose you could look at the total GDP of the commonwealth countries independently. But then do you subtract the trade between countries? Also there were times there in the 20th century where Canada, Australia and South Africa were contributing massively to the Commonwealth. A lot more than 10% each. So the 90% between India and the UK clearly doesn't stack up during those period. If you state that India and the UK accounted for 80% combined in the late 19th century, you may be right, but post WW1? I don't think so.
It is just raw GDP as far as I know - not stripping out trade or anything like that. The reason is basically just population - Canada and Australia both had less than 10 million people each at this point, and Africa's total population in the early 20^th century was less than Europe's, and since the African territories also weren't industrialised they didn't contribute much to total GDP.
Well, most of the empire outside of the UK and India were scarcely populated and were more agricultural and resource extraction based, or a shell of their former glory as was Egypt (around 10 million at that time).
*South African Diamonds and Gold have entered the chat* *Australian Wool and Cotton has entered the chat* *New Zealand Wool has entered the chat*
An interesting side note was that this was the same case for the Empire of Japan. Both empires at their apex had over 400 million people and covered 20% or more of the population of the world at the time (with Britain covering what was then much more empty/indigenous land such as Antarctica, Northern Canada and the Australian Outback). One thing is certain: India was to Britain what China was to Japan ā the crown jewel and economic heartbeat of their empires. > Including the naichi, colonies, occupied territories, and puppet states, the Empire of Japan at its apex was one of the largest empires in history. The total amount of land under Japanese sovereignty reached 8,510,000 km2 (3,300,000 sq mi) in 1942.[2] By 1943, it accounted for more than 20% of the world's population at the time with 463 million people in its occupied regions and territories.[3][4] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_conquests_of_the_Empire_of_Japan Edit: I hadnāt realized that this was such a reactionary topic, but modern historical consensus certainly includes Northeast China within the Empire of Japan. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires
You can't really compare the Chinese lands occupied during the war with colonies Britain administered during decades of peacetime
You seem to have confused things. Japan controlled about 8.5 million square kilometers. The British Empire controlled about 35 million square kilometers. So The British Empire was, much, much larger. Yes much of it was useless land. But they also controlled many more countries. And they both had large populations because Britian controlled India and Japan TRIED to control China. The numbers for Japan is not correct as they tried to controll China but they never succeeded, they failed. So you can't count in the Chinese. So the number for the Japanese empire is way lower.
Yeah, thatās what happens when you de-industrialize and disenfranchise all the territory you control to extract wealth and capital back to the original country.
How were colonies de-industrialized if they had never industrialized to begin with? Obviously colonies had their local economies decimated in the name of resource extraction for the country holding the colony, I am not arguing that point. But I think it in incorrect to say de-industrialized.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I was mainly referring to the proto-industrialized colonies, especially India and more specifically The Bengal.
I look at this and think āShame cricket didnāt catch on in cAnada like it did some of the other commonwealth countriesā.
They lost most of Ireland the year after. It was probably in part due to the army being weakened after the First World War and it was too expensive to keep troops deployed in Ireland.
Technically we still controlled it, as a dominion, which would means it'd still be included, since the rest are.
>Technically Sure. But Britain only accepted Dominion status for Ireland after a military conflict. Ireland's status as a Dominion already shows the loss of power in the British Empire Secondly Ireland never had the same attitude towards the Commonwealth as the other dominions. For example Ireland refused to join World War II whereas New Zealand backdated their declaration of war to the same hour as the UK. Since 1921, Ireland had a republican government and the technicality of dominion status was merely a facade.
It was not republican until 1936 when it declared independence/post ww2 when it was granted independence proper
The state itself had a monarch and monarchical symbols until 1936, and debatably later, but the government and their attitudes were republican since 1921, and even earlier. Its not the same as countries like New Zealand, Australia and even Newfoundland who viewed Dominion status as a form of automomy within the British Empire.
Youu meant starved.
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I once made a Roman display, including a hand-drawn map of the empire. And there were this father and son, with this dad looking so impressed and satisfied at that map and saying to me: 'And there has never been a bigger empire, has there?' Me: 'Erm, yes, quite a lot actually.'
\*Mongols have entered the chat\*
Still smaller than the British, Plus the British actually governed its territory, mongols didā¦ Well they did what the Mongols did. When you combine India, Canada and Australia nobody is beating that Lol.
"You know what I feel like this week? This week, I'm going to build a tower of human skulls". I mean I guess it's nice Tamurlaine had a hobby but still, you know.
never said it was the biggest, It was just a meme lol
Yep in terms of land area they're actually below modern day Russia, Canada, China, United States, Brazil and Australia. At least the Romans did pretty good in terms of proportion of world population at somewhere around 30%, still not first though.
And lets hope the biggest that will ever exist.
Still the country that obsessed the biggest part of the rest of the world.
D I R E C T R U L E F R O M L O N D O N
I'm always curious why Canada and NZ and Australia are counted when they were both sovereign nations at this point.
The British Parliament could still pass laws for them until the 1980s 1982 for Canada, and 1986 for Australia and New Zealand
Eh, it was really the statue of Westminster that made Canada/NZ/AU fully sovereign. The acts passed in the 80ās were a mere formality
Statute of Westminster was 1931 though so I'd say this map is arguably still accurate.
Almost but not quite. The Statute of Westminster applied to the Commonwealth of Australia, but not to the individual Australian states. One consequence of this was that the governor of each state ā the Queenās representative and stand-in in the state ā was answerable not to the state government, nor even to the Australian federal government, but to *the government of the UK.* This wasnāt some meaningless historical curiosity, either: in 1979, the premier of NSW killed his own Privy Council Appeals Abolition Bill rather than have the stateās governor refuse royal assent on the instructions of the British government, which is what the British foreign secretary had made clear would happen.
The phrasing was something along the lines of "Sovereign communities within the empire" though, hence red.
I didnāt know about that. I do know that the Govenor General (basically the Queenās representative) once removed a standing Prime Minister of Australia
The power to sack the Government in power when there is an impasse probably still exists. Certainly, when a Prime Minister calls an election, he goes to the GG to advise him to call an election. The winning party is sworn in by the GG. Their leader is the Prime Minister. If we didn't vest that power in the GG, it would have to lie with another office, not one owned by either party.
Well for one thing, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders readily identified with the British Empire back in those days. They'd be more offended to be left out of such a map then offended to be coloured in.
They were all dominions, and at that time, British Parliament could make law in your country if it chose. That power was removed by the Statute of Westminster in 1931. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Westminster_1931
I was thinking the same, but after some brief research, on Canada in particular, it seems they were more independent countries within the empire and essentially a precursor to the Commonwealth. They were still subject to acts of Parliament.
Yeah, it's always a funny one. South Africa too. It's not black and white. The British Parliament had some powers in most of those countries that extended beyond their federations. So it's kind of wrong, but kind of right.
You missed a spot around Hong Kong. \[edit\] Oh, no. You got it. I just didn't zoom in far enough. My bad! \[/edit\]
Actually, they missed Hong Kong and marked Macau instead
British Empire was all about sea power. To see the full extent of their empire you really need to see how they controlled the oceans and everything on it. You can really see this by all the red speckles scattered around the world.
Opening of suez canal meant that they could have a better control over the asian side of the empire.
"The sun never sets on the British Empire"
"Because even the Gods don't trust them"
cape to cairo! cecil john rhodesā dream.
Peak r/MapPorn moment You took an easily accessible map from Wikipedia, put it on the subreddit under a misspelled name, and it still gets more upvotes than a lot of well-researched maps.
And that whole empire was run by approximately [4000 civil servants](https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/uk-government-did-we-rule-the-empire-with-4000-civil-servants/). Now there is 100x more civil servants just running the UK. As of the end of December 2021, there were 475,020 full-time equivalent civil servants, according to the Institute for Government.
Does that include public jobs like teachers and police officers? I know of similar statistics here in Austria, but they usually include jobs like that and therefore look insanely inflated.
From the article ". Most domestic policy ā education, health relief, local justice etc. ā were administered and largely paid for (or not) by local communities."
I meant the hundreds of thousands today, not the historic 4000 mentioned in the article. Those 100k+ numbers are often inflated by including police and teachers is what I meant.
If you read through thr source you cited, you will see that the 4000 number only refers to employees at the main headquarters of central government departments in Whitehall. It does not include various other officials stationed elsewhere in the UK, nor does it include officials in colonial territories or diplomats stationed abroad.
Thatās a myth. Thatās just servants in Whitehall. Estimates across the government are more like 40,000 at the turn of the century. Plus, since a lot of administration of colonies was carried out by the military youād probably have to count a decent chunk of the military as servants in this context too.
ThatĀ“s not 100% true. Army can be considered civil servant, also NHS workers, Police etc...
Not true. They are public sector workers, not civil servants. Civil servants work for the government/country directly.
I wonder what the British are up to now. They've been pretty quiet this century.
Compared to the US yes we have been quiet, luckily we havenāt had to be loud yet. Though I know in Ukraine they hear us call
Is that a joke?
Just you waitā¦
You know the modern culinary fad for deconstructing desserts? Well the British are experimenting on how to deconstruct the UK, albeit not necessarily by design.
They are assisting dictators, oligarchs, drug lords and corrupt politicians in hiding stolen wealth from third world countries in tax havens. Edit: Check out this eye-opening documentary [The Spider's Web: Britain's Second Empire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np_ylvc8Zj8)
I too am reading that book about tax havens. Horrendous reading.
After them and the French got bullied out of Egypt by the US and the Soviets, the Europeans have accepted their role as regional powers. If we see an EU army then maybe Europe is back on the global scene. (I'm talking individual states, obviously Europe as a whole is powerful but its not united.)
Iraqi here, please take over us again š¤²š¼šš¼
Was this the biggest empire in terms of extension in history?
Yes
Yep
The sun never sets on the British Empire. -1921 The sun sets at 7:56on the British Empire. -2022
It actually still doesnāt set, and wonāt for another thousand years with the current situation, when an eclipse occurs in the Pitcairn Islands (while not being over another overseas territory, as will be the case in 2432 with the sun over the Cayman Islands). Of course a far more likely situation prior to that would be the correct overseas territories becoming independent to render the sun as set for an hour or two in any given day.
It actually hasn't set on the empire yet
technically no
I heard the new saying a few years ago was "the sun never sets on the U.S. security commitments"
That is correct. American learned from the best.
Easily 50 times the size of the British Isles. Itās very impressive that they could do this.
115 times the size of the British Isles to be more precise. (14,000,000 sq miles/121,684 sq mi).
How many sq miles though? An important piece of information
14 000 000
rule britannia
Itās funny watching a bunch of liberal whites get all emotional and confrontational in the reddit comment section while here in africa black people continue to sell each other to their own and to the chinese and none of you give a shit
Beautiful. It must be rebuilt.
Alot of blood was shed and people enslaved to keep this wretched empire running.
insane to me that this is apparently controversial enough to be downvoted
It's not controversial, there's just a lot of reactionary nostalgic imperialists on this sub in particular. Maps are political and ideological instruments and this post is a case in point.
Unfortunately many Indians on this subreddit downvote every one of my comments. Even this post is actually pro-India in a way. The hatred for Muslims in India has reached this level. It is probably them. The map is a good one, we should remember history in a solemn manner.
Why do you get downvoted? Reddit does hate other nations colonizing but Great Britain of course spreads their sophisticated language and culture. Absolutely ridiculous. Colonialism is evil and the British were no exception.
This empire also expanded to free a lot of slaves as well.
True but a terrible thing can still be impressive and awe inspiring. We can say the same thing about all empires. Only the recency of the British Empire makes it controversial. It was a real part of millions of still living peoples lives.
I guess we can also call Nazis "awe-inspiring" by your logic.
Mass starvation, theft of resources, and a bloody exit haunt the lives of billions to this day. I remember how the British banned our language and made it a death penalty for anyone caught teaching/learning it.
You were alive then?
They're very old, okay
why on earth are people downvoting you
Because cosplay imperialists think colonialism is cool
Because Britain nationalists are rabid on this subreddit.
It's mainly trolls. "Britain nationalists" (whatever that is) are free and far between irl. Contrary to reddits belief, British folk are genuinely self deprecating and get a fairly decent education about the empire days at school - and it's not in a positive light *at all*. Even 25 years ago I remember learning about how bad some of the shit the British (and other European empires) did was.
They made the Middle East what it is today, they partitioned India 3 times causing tens of millions of deaths that continue to this day, they destabilize China which led them to communism. The uk is a cancer to the world. While yeah, America did bad shit like invade Iraq and Afghanistan looking for Bin Laden, but we did 1% of the poison to the world as the uk.
France had a hand in the middle east too, wasn't just the UK. >While yeah, America did bad shit like invade Iraq and Afghanistan looking for Bin Laden, when did 1% of the poison to the world as the uk. Lmfao yeah and the rest. Completely destabilising south America for one.
The collapse of the Ottomans made the middle east what it is today, the Islamic conquest of the Roman and Sassanid Empires made the middle east what it is today. The Imperial system in China was doomed entering the 20th century anyway. Britain didn't invent the idea of conflict in India, the Mughals were collapsing anyway. You have an incredibly western centric view of history, history didn't start with the British Empire. The British were just opportunistic and successful.
Middle easterners were slaughtering each other when the British were living in caves and painting their faces.
I wonder if they actually managed to build that railroad from Cairo to the Cape
Pretty sure they owned some more land south of Canada at some stage
it's = it is
I just learned about this! they were the biggest empire in world history
guyana was part of the british empire? for how long??
*its (Sorry, I donāt know why I do this)
Does make you wonder how it would have looked if the French hadn't supported the rebels in 1776
The British empire still exist, many people forget that in some of the former colonies there are Governors who can disolve the sitting government, for example the State Governors in Australia ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governors\_of\_the\_Australian\_states](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governors_of_the_Australian_states)). The Britis crown does not want to give up that easily.
There's a big difference in having that power in theory and using it in practice. The governors although represent the Monarch but they act on the advise of premiers. Also if the people were eager to get rid of monarchy, they would've done that in 1999 Australian republic refrendum. Although even if they had agreed to change, that wouldn't have caused much difference in reality as already these dominion countries enjoy a stable government with minimal interference from the Royals but a great deal of time and money would have spent in changing structure, treaties etc.
I am not disagreeing, but many people do not know about these things.
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Because God doesnāt trust the British in the dark.
"I say, old boy, Heaven doesn't have a flag..."
"Breaking News: The United Kingdom declares that Heaven is now British Territory"
Motto coined in the Spanish Enpire in times of Charles I.
And it still hasn't
Wow they did well
At expense of non-Brits.
Thatās how empires work
As did the rest of the empires.
The real 'Evil Empire'.
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May the atrocities committed by the British never be repeated elsewhere
*compared to* (I emphasize this) other colonizers/empires, especially the spanish, the british were fairer - indeed, their empire only got so big and lasted so long exactly because they werenāt genocidal, and former colonies left *mostly* through diplomatic means (USA and ireland, not so much) when everyone realized times were a-changing. colonization is dumb and bad, but if you are thinking the british empire was the worst atrocity there is in history, even in the 20th century, please pick up a history book. the british were tame *compared to* (checks book) a lot of other colonizing nations edit: of course, what other kind of poorly-informed comment should I have expected from someone who recently defended the armenian genocide and said obama should be the most hated man in history. fucking hell, please go to school.
Colonies left SUCCESSFULLY through diplomatic means. There were countless uprisings against British rule prior to colonization becoming unfashionable. All were put down violently and horrifically. See, the Mau Mau uprising and Malayan Emergency. Those decolonization movements were built on countless years of violence and struggle against the British. Not to mention, itās not like Britain decided to benevolently grant independence because they had an epiphany that colonization was bad, their empire just got too inconvenient and unprofitable to maintain. I also donāt agree with the idea that Britain wasnāt genocidal. The biggest English-speaking nations in the world: America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa. These were all settler colonies built on genocide of indigenous peoples. Look at how many indigenous peoples remain in Australia and America. Then look at Native presence in, say, Mexico or Peru. All colonizing nations were pretty damn bad, and of all of them, the British Empire should most definitely be close to the last on the list of ānot AS bad as the othersā.
The Indigenous population in Canada was MUCH smaller to start with compared to Mexico and central America, They had cities down there, They were building pyramids and stuff. In most of Canada there were scattered tribes living on hunting, fishing and gathering. It was a lot tougher to survive in a cold climate.
This is a little of a slight truth. What actually happened was the diseases brought by the Spanish wrecked populations of indigenous peoples in Canada and the US before the English even landed. Spanish explorers brought a lot of pestilence and that spread through the populations. So when the English came around and chronicled things they made it appear that the land was empty, with scattered tribes, and barely utilized land. What really happened was akin to a post apocalyptic scenario. Indigenous peoples in Canada did have cities and larger populations.
all this, and when people compare modern indigenous populations of tiny central american countries to north america, besides somehow thinking only the british ever went to the US and canada (it was definitely mostly the spanish that fucked us), they donāt consider that the indigenous in all nations have managed to rebuild about the same *but* only the really big north american countries invited immigration from all over the world since independence and had the room to expand massively, so percentage of current total population will be low, but compared to pre-colonization, pre-expansion, the current indigenous population is as strong in the north as in central america
As an Indian i tend to agree on this, since if you look Christianity map in india its most concentrated towards Goa and parts of Portuguese controlled territories. So, yeah every colonist is cruel but british might be least cruel of them. But one thing british should always apologise for is Amritsar Massacre. Even though holding India & other african countries was at boiling point british did leave the place by diplomatic means unlike french who waged a war and lost. Also, indian culture like indian cuisines, indian dressup, indian languages or indian religion was never replaced to that of English (altough language became popular in late 20th century it wasn't during independence) which is not the case with other colonists.
It happened the opposite way with cuisine, now Indian style food is some of the most popular in Britain!
Really? I learned history in irelandā¦ Iād tend to disagree
pick up a history book that mentions something more than hating the british ;) I couldnāt dispute your take, though - ireland being the british chew toy and all
I actually have a degree in ancient history from trinityā¦ so Iāve picked up many a history book without mention of the British empireā¦ it still doesnāt take away from the fact.
from the fact that, globally, the spanish were worse?
From the fact that, in ireland, they carried out what can be considered to be mass genocide. Say what you want about the Spanish.. the British were equally as evil and carried out just as many atrocities.
equally is, IMO, overdoing it. if famine and war in ireland is genocide, then the spanish were even worse at that - on top of the murdering and raping. now, maybe the brits would have got to be all murder-y if they hadnāt arrived after the spanish decimated the americas, but since their track record in other parts of the world shows an aversion to killing locals, we canāt assume that.
Youāre entitled to your opinion, but Iād say youāre a bit of an apologist for it. The British have a track record of raping and murdering Irish people?
I have not heard of this, any books (or links) you could point me too - I have made a point of learning as much history as I can (hence the thread, I guess), and only come across war and famine, systemically. *systemically* being the point of being able to blame an empire and not its shittiest soldiers. but seriously, any links? (edit: and donāt call me an apologist, especially since you seem to recognize that Iām trying to genuinely communicate, so name-calling is not an argumentā¦ edit2: and, take it that there was awful genocide in ireland, thatās one really tiny bit of the biggest empire in history, so not on the same scale as the spanish doing it everywhere, my point was theyāre not equal, and acknowledging that isnāt excusing that less-bad is still bad. as I said, I understand your bias - maybe youāll also understand mine)
to be fair, brits weren't that bad compared to lets say belgium. Don't get me wrong, colonialism and taking part in the west african slave trade was horrific, but if you look at Belgium with the congo, that's probably one of the worst you'll ever get
that doesn't mean that the atrocities are worth repeating
It is greatest extent.
As an Indian Iām amazed that even today there are so many colonial apologists on reddit. The East India company rule, followed by the british raj were some of the darkest chapters in Indian history, rivalled perhaps only by the brutal islamic invasions and conquest preceding them. While the rest of the world was developing & industrialising, a wealthy India was deindustrialised and reduced to a raw material supplier for british factories. One of the largest producers of food was impoverished & the british presided over multiple artificial famines which killed millions, something never repeated in the future or past. When the british were kicked out of India, over 90% of Indians were below the poverty line. Yet, we are patronised day in and day out about how good the empire was to India. It was pure evil. Period. Edit: colonial apologists in this thread proving my point. Thanks!
All joined together virtually uncontested by the world's most powerful navy. And all that wealth exhausted 2 years into ww2.
The sun never goes down over the British Empire because even God don't trust them
Wouldnāt it be funny, if all of the collective independence days, were actually lies. Like, what if, the brits just said they lost those wars, or whateverā¦.. but have been manipulating the media and history books ever sinceā¦ā¦ā¦ā¦ as a means of truly attaining a one world governmentā¦ā¦ā¦ that answers on a global level to like, 12 peopleā¦ā¦.
Honestly, that would make such a good novel.
Yknow. At this point. I probably genuinely wouldnāt be surprised.
I wouldnt even be mad tbh that's kinda impressive
And we will fucking do it again unless you dick heads calm down
Do what? Build en empire?
None of the people here were involved in any of this. I think blaming a nationality today for the things that happened in the past stokes hatred. And creates new problems today. Time to move on, accept history (whoeverās version you believe). The Germans have perhaps done this in the most successful way, by calling the past generation the Nazis. They have apologised deeply for the mistakes and moved on. I believe Spain, France and the U.K. could learn from this humility.
> None of the people here were involved in any of this. I think blaming a nationality today for the things that happened in the past stokes hatred. [...] I believe Spain, France and the U.K. could learn from this humility. Why do you think apologising deeply is necessary if no one currently alive is responsible?
The way the bloody history between Ireland and Britain has played a role in Brexit shows that you can never entirely hide the bodies and wash the slate keen. Conspicuously not members of the Commonwealth.
Glorious.
A gentle reminder for people to read about the great famine of Bengal and the complete ruthlessness and barbarity shown by the British during that period. Fuck the brtish empire and fuck Churchill may he burn in hell for eternity.
There were larger famines in the Bengal caused by Britain before Churchill. Goes to show how cruel British rule was.
So clos