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S4 Episode 16: An overview of the British Empire
32 Plays3 months ago
Today John and Dejan are discussing the British Empire. Listen to them discuss its origins, most notable themes, and effects.
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Transcript
Introduction
00:00:01
Dejan
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Debatable Discussions podcast. Today we're here talking about ah very interesting topic, in my opinion, which is history, the British Empire.
The British Empire's Reach
00:00:13
Dejan
So, John, can you give us a quick background on this?
00:00:18
debatablediscussions
Yes, the British Empire was the world's largest empire. It amounted to 25% of the world's land mass. So fairly astonishing.
00:00:28
debatablediscussions
And as many will associate it with, it really stretched across all four corners of the globe. Britain had territorial interests in every continent at one time of its history.
00:00:42
debatablediscussions
And still to this day, one can see the remnants of the empire in the large Commonwealth, one of the largest governmental organisations. And the British Empire itself is fascinating historically.
00:00:57
debatablediscussions
It's the part of history I'm most interested in simply because it combines so many different aspects, religion, trade, politics, domestic policy within Britain, the media.
Motives Behind the Empire
00:01:10
debatablediscussions
And it really forms to become this really fascinating period of British history and also phenomenon.
00:01:18
Dejan
So how did the British Empire empire actually come into existence?
00:01:23
debatablediscussions
Yes. So this is one of the major questions that underline empires. And Diane, I'll ask for your opinion in a second, because the thoughts behind empires is really that there are two views.
00:01:36
debatablediscussions
One is that they came about via economic reasons. So a desire for the country to be richer. And that comes in two forms of trade.
00:01:46
debatablediscussions
So the British expanded and they colonised other parts of the world for trade or land. That's a common reason for why the British Empire moved to America. As much as it was for this idea of religious freedom, America was economically promising.
00:02:02
debatablediscussions
Why? Because there was basically unlimited land for the people who moved there. And you've got that opinion versus the more modern opinion cited by scholars, perhaps more on the left wing of politics.
00:02:16
debatablediscussions
And that is that it was for more modern concerns such as expansionism on the belief of racial superiority. Or it was for this idea of conquest.
00:02:28
debatablediscussions
The British ah did it because they wanted to win wars. Now, this is an idea which I disagree with, purely because if you if you trace the British Empire and its rise, it's purely economic.
00:02:41
debatablediscussions
British colonies were in areas where were in areas which had the most amount of economic promise. An example of this and the one that always sticks to me is the Gulf of Aden in Yemen.
00:02:53
debatablediscussions
The British had this as a protectorate, the protectorate of Aden. And this was the second busiest shipping port after the Second World War. Yemen in itself doesn't really offer, you know, thing, you know, doesn't offer something very promising from a domestic angle.
00:03:12
debatablediscussions
However, economically it does. And that is why the British colonised this. It wasn't for this idea of conquest. They realised that commerce came first. What do you think, Diane?
00:03:23
debatablediscussions
Do you sort side with the idea of conquest or commerce?
00:03:27
Dejan
Well, I'm going to disagree with you there, John.
00:03:29
debatablediscussions
mean, it's hard, yeah.
00:03:30
Dejan
I'm going to disagree you there. As some of our viewers may know, I'm bit more sceptic when it comes to imperial powers,
00:03:32
debatablediscussions
Oh, yeah.
Debate on Empire's Economic and Power Dynamics
00:03:42
debatablediscussions
Yeah.
00:03:43
Dejan
both historically and now in Russia and the United States.
00:03:47
Dejan
Both are imperial powers, in my opinion, nowadays. But even historically, I'm not a a fan of empires. couple of reasons why, moral reasons why, but I do think that the purpose of an empire is somewhere of a mix between the two things you've said.
00:04:06
Dejan
I do think there is an obvious economic reason. A reason why India was a British colony, why parts of Asia were British colonies because of tea and other herbs and spices.
00:04:24
Dejan
But I also do think there is this notion of power that the British Empire wanted to exert.
00:04:27
debatablediscussions
Yeah.
00:04:30
Dejan
They wanted to exert this notion of power by conquest. So I don't think you can make the argument that was purely commercial. I don't think that's... strong enough for me. But also think the other argument of, oh, they just wanted to go and, you know, pillage and loot regions of the world. I don't think that's strong enough either, because as you said, there is a clear sort connection between land masses of the British Empire and the economic potential.
00:04:59
Dejan
But also the very reason as to why you would want to to to make that conquest, to conquer that place and not just trade with it, I think is this notion of power that Britain wanting to exert on the world, wanting to have this sort of monopoly spices, of tea, of opium.
00:05:20
Dejan
And this monopoly, yes, it did have some economic upsides for Britain, but also it did exert that notion of dependency upon the empire. Many people were dependent on the British empire, and that's something they wanted, think.
00:05:35
Dejan
My next question for you is...
00:05:38
debatablediscussions
Yes, I definitely do. Oh, no, was gonna say, I definitely agree with parts of your argument there. And I think the idea of power, I think we've talked about this on the podcast before, but power sort of underlines pretty much everything in international relations, we believe.
00:05:53
debatablediscussions
Why do countries do something for power? And my perspective on it is purely power. And I think it's economic power. That for me, it's really economic power, why the British Empire rose.
00:06:06
debatablediscussions
And the example I always like to give is Spain. Britain, we're not the first country to have an empire. the Spanish were.
00:06:14
Dejan
Yes.
00:06:14
debatablediscussions
Well, the Spanish weren't the first, obviously, was the Roman Empire, but in that modern period, the early modern period, Spain was the big kid on the block. They had access to the lucrative trade of the New World.
00:06:27
debatablediscussions
And the British Empire rose from actually pirates trying to rip off the Spanish in the Caribbean. And from that, they managed to form trading posts in the Caribbean, simply with this one aim, to rip off the Spanish and become richer.
00:06:43
debatablediscussions
yeah
00:06:44
Dejan
Now, you've talked about the Spanish Empire there, and there's another thing I want to mention about the Spanish Empire, which is Columbus in late 15th century.
00:06:49
debatablediscussions
Yeah.
00:06:55
Dejan
He established trade of people, so the slave trade, between the New World and parts of Europe.
00:07:04
Dejan
How much of a role did slavery play into the British Empire?
Slavery's Role and Abolition Efforts
00:07:08
debatablediscussions
So yes, slavery is associated with empires and fairly rightly. Slavery is absolutely heinous. It's obviously and clearly accepted as being universally morally wrong and heinous.
00:07:24
debatablediscussions
And it did play a large role in empires. You gave the example there down of the Spanish empire and there's another one sort of also from the Iberian Peninsula, the Portuguese empire.
00:07:36
debatablediscussions
these were two empires that were actually trading slaves before the British, the Portuguese in particular, because many other empires like the French, like the British, actually adopted the trade of slavery from the Portuguese who were using it from the coast of West Africa for their plantations in Brazil.
00:07:55
debatablediscussions
And slavery played a very important economic part in particular in the Caribbean colonies of the British Empire. And it made, unfortunately, some people, plantation owners in the Caribbean, extremely rich.
00:08:10
debatablediscussions
So, yes, slavery played an undeniable huge part in all the global empires of that time. Millions of slaves were transported. Many scholars such as Nigel Bigger, we've had on our podcast.
00:08:22
debatablediscussions
He's tried to to slightly, in my opinion, excuse the role of slavery in the British Empire. That is something, in my opinion, which can't be done. But biggest arguments are mainly that other empires did it or slavery, the phenomenon of the slave trade already existed.
00:08:31
Dejan
Okay.
00:08:38
debatablediscussions
However, I believe they they they are weak arguments. What I do believe is a stronger argument, but this shouldn't justify slavery, but it should be placed alongside it, is the British role in the global abolition movement.
00:08:55
debatablediscussions
This is something which the British Empire was a figurehead for, in my opinion, and the global leader. The British Empire abolished slavery in 1807 domestically, then across their empire in 1830.
00:09:08
debatablediscussions
And then from there was really committed to this idea of abolitionism. The West Africa Squadron was a a squadron of Royal Naval ships up to about 42 who were committed to stopping slavery in the Atlantic Ocean to the extent of actually if there was a French ship or if there was a US ship with slaves on board, they would stop the ship eventually.
00:09:16
Dejan
At.
00:09:34
debatablediscussions
and actually transport the slaves back to Sierra Leone, which at the time was known as Freetown, a free colony
Naval Supremacy and Its Impact
00:09:41
debatablediscussions
for slaves.
00:09:43
debatablediscussions
The British Empire also played a vital role in the global abolition movement. Diplomatically, they stopped the slave trade in Brazil in many other countries. like They led to ending in France through the Vienna Congress.
00:09:57
Dejan
So mentioning the role that some people played in the abolition movement there in the Atlantic Ocean brings me to another question, which is, did naval supremacy play a big role in the British Empire? Was that the sort of defining factor that i i made it the the the biggest empire in the world?
00:10:18
debatablediscussions
So yes, wholly, in my opinion. I believe that really what should be synonymous with the British Empire is naval supremacy. If you look at 19th century naval history, the British Empire wholly dominates it.
00:10:35
debatablediscussions
And if the British wanted to do something, the easiest answer and the easiest way of them doing it was using the Navy. Under Queen Victoria, we dominated the waters.
00:10:45
debatablediscussions
HMS Warrior is the ship that comes to mind.
00:10:46
Dejan
Thank you.
00:10:48
debatablediscussions
This was a world leading ship, primarily because it seized the power of steam and coal. And it was very effective, the British Navy, in the Opium Wars.
00:11:00
debatablediscussions
The British, frankly, managed to belittle China. Why? Because they had such a strong navy that they could just send in chips. Similarly, the British blockaded Greece in a matter of days when, I think it was a Gibraltar-born man, claimed that the Greek came authorities were doing something like harming his rights. It was rather unclear.
00:11:23
debatablediscussions
But the British sent in their navy and, well, the Greece sort of said, OK, it's fine. We'll leave you alone. Similarly with Brazil. How did British end the slave trade in Brazil?
00:11:33
debatablediscussions
They sent in a ship known as gunboat diplomacy, this method. And the Brazilians, terrified, said, OK, we'll leave you to it. So I think British Navy was a defining characteristic also in the 20th century with the World War, with World War I, World War II. But in the 19th century, British naval prominence was absolutely linked with their role in the empire and in the empire growing.
00:11:59
debatablediscussions
do you have to say about this, Diane?
00:12:00
Dejan
Well, I'll be very honest and that sort of the particular aspects of the British Empire are my most familiar. However, it does seem sort of logical.
00:12:13
Dejan
One could almost say that the British Empire hugely relied on the Navy as an island nation.
00:12:17
debatablediscussions
Yeah.
00:12:19
Dejan
You know, one of the, frankly, I think the only island nation to ever have an empire being the British Empire with Spain, Rome, Persia, e etc. all being continental empires.
00:12:36
Dejan
I do think that the British needed this, Davy. Otherwise, they would have been in big trouble, both offensively, but mostly also defensively. And
00:12:48
debatablediscussions
Yeah.
00:12:48
Dejan
Perhaps the most famous
00:12:53
Dejan
person that came from the British Navy is Horatio Nelson. He was an admiral in the in British Army.
00:13:04
Dejan
And of course, being an admiral, was in the Navy. So he's very well known for basically beating Napoleon in Napoleonic Wars.
00:13:15
Dejan
And the question, another one for me that I have for you is, ahead.
00:13:20
debatablediscussions
Yes, and that...
00:13:23
debatablediscussions
Oh, no, was just going to add in there, that victory in the Napoleonic Wars was purely because of the Navy.
00:13:29
Dejan
Yes.
00:13:30
debatablediscussions
And that does demonstrate that 19th... Well, not purely, but a large role in it was because of the Navy. And that does demonstrate that 19th century British naval prominence. Yeah.
00:13:41
Dejan
And my last question for you before we come on to the sort of decline of the empire is how much oppression was there in the British Empire?
Oppression and Anti-Colonial Movements
00:13:52
Dejan
lot of people sort disagree on this.
00:13:54
Dejan
Some are more apologists.
00:13:56
Dejan
Some sort of, in my opinion, maybe over-exaggerate. But the answer is how much oppression was there?
00:14:05
debatablediscussions
So yes, there was simply to say a short answer, lot of oppression in the British Empire. Whether that was anti-colonial movements, which were suppressed, or whether that was things such as massacres, the most notable one happened in 1919, the Amritsar massacre ah ah in India, in which I think it was around 380 people were killed.
00:14:28
debatablediscussions
There was also the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya, There were several famines that occurred across India. So it is linked that there was a loss of oppression in the empire politically, religiously.
00:14:39
debatablediscussions
Also, religiously, there are more niches to be made because there were benefits of one can say the word benefits of Christian missionaries coming into the empire in the sense of providing services such as health care.
00:14:40
Dejan
Yeah.
00:14:55
debatablediscussions
or ending cannibalistic and other inhumane rituals such as infanticide which occurred. However, that does not excuse the fact that there was basically undeniable and inexcusable oppression that occurred in the British Empire.
00:15:11
debatablediscussions
And I'll ask you for your opinion on this in a second, Diane. But a major question that surrounds this is how should we remember it?
Learning from the Past
00:15:19
debatablediscussions
Should we forget about it?
00:15:22
debatablediscussions
Some people, think, especially on the far right in the UK, are somewhat proud of it, confusingly. However, in my opinion, we've sort of got to accept it and move forward.
00:15:33
debatablediscussions
There is no empire in the world in which oppression did not occur. Examples of oppression, even countries like Sweden, for example, who are known to have slightly more peaceful histories.
00:15:41
Dejan
Thank you.
00:15:45
debatablediscussions
Oppression occurred in Swedish history. Oppression occurred in almost every country's history. There are things to be ashamed of in global history, wherever you look.
00:15:56
debatablediscussions
that means that I think, in our opinion, we've got to move on and accept the past. There is no point trying to forget it or trying to sort of rewrite it. We've got to move on and accept it.
00:16:08
debatablediscussions
How do you think we should deal with sort of legacy, Diane? Yeah.
00:16:11
Dejan
Well, that's a very, that's always a sort of loaded question, I think, because there's a lot of emotional... ideas there, both on the different sides of the sort of empire spectrum.
00:16:25
Dejan
But my main thing is that forgetting is a bad idea. And going to link this actually to something I saw yesterday, two days ago. two days ago, which is a recent survey that 65% of Romanians think that the communist regime was good.
00:16:43
Dejan
Now all the people who voted, mostly, were either very young or did not live at the time of the communist regime which ended in 1989.
00:16:55
Dejan
And especially, very few actually lived in this sort of mature period. In the time of 1945 to 1965, which was the worst time in Romania, one might say, that was the harshest period of communism.
00:17:11
Dejan
And that doesn't get mentioned anymore because people have forgotten about it. People only focus now on the and have forgotten about Everything else.
00:17:22
Dejan
I think that's a really bad idea for the reason that if people do forget the British Empire, maybe in 50 years' time, there will be a lot of people who will claim, you know what, it was so much better under the British Empire.
00:17:35
Dejan
And I'm sure people will. I'm sure people do that now, actually, but... I'm sure in the future, some politician will use the British Empire as a tool to gain more votes. And they will say, so much better under the British Empire. We didn't have immigrants.
00:17:47
Dejan
People didn't steal your jobs. People didn't sort of... You had places to live. We were rich. We were wealthy. We had freedom. And they're going to use the British Empire together with some fear-mongering in order to gain votes.
00:18:01
Dejan
I think that's a bad idea. I think the British Empire should be told in its... in its fullness, you know, both the bad parts and the good parts. And hopefully people should learn why, it wasn't sustainable and why ethically it's not good idea to go back to those times.
00:18:10
debatablediscussions
Yeah.
00:18:19
debatablediscussions
And as you said there, we should openly confront and acknowledge the past. Because, before the episode was telling me about this example of Romanian history.
00:18:29
debatablediscussions
And if you wrongly confront history with with a sort of wrong interpretation, which only focuses on certain parts, it comes back to bite you in a way, doesn't it?
00:18:39
Dejan
It does. It definitely does.
00:18:40
debatablediscussions
Because you you have people misrepresenting to sort of achieve in this case a political goal.
00:18:45
Dejan
Yeah.
00:18:47
debatablediscussions
And that's totally wrong because you can learn less from history. And as you gave in the example of Romania, it's, you know, to me, it just seems totally bizarre.
00:18:57
Dejan
I mean, if you go back to 1990, just after
00:18:57
debatablediscussions
And I'm sure, and it does to you as well, Jay-Anne.
00:19:03
Dejan
the revolution, coming to see there at the time, Ceausescu said, the young people in remaining future will mention in my name.
00:19:06
debatablediscussions
Yeah.
00:19:10
Dejan
And everyone said, you're crazy, no one's going to mention your name, and they shot him. Now, bizarrely he was right, because that period in time wasn't properly taught, it wasn't properly explained what actually happened, and there was a lot of nostalgia.
00:19:18
debatablediscussions
Yeah.
00:19:27
Dejan
Why? Well, frankly, I was 20 years old, And then 50 years later, I was 70, I was old, I was maybe ill, didn't have much access to sort of a social life anymore.
00:19:44
Dejan
Of course I would look back when I was 20 and I'd say, oh, that was the best time of of my life. Was the best time of my life because the the political regime? Because how the world operated? Definitely not, no. But there is that level of nostalgia that hasn't been combated because history hasn't been taught properly.
00:20:01
Dejan
I think... British Empire is at risk. I mean, I'm becoming sort of a bit bored of repeating
00:20:10
debatablediscussions
Yeah.
00:20:13
Dejan
this attack on the far right, but I feel like I have to, especially nowadays, which is that they are so used to using the past and using better time as a way of getting across their views.
00:20:30
Dejan
To get that coupled with the fact that they are basically instilling fear in the voters, I don't see why in 20 years' time there won't be an argument made such as this.
00:20:43
Dejan
Oh, nowadays, you don't have jobs, you don't have a way to support your families, one's proud of British culture, we need to go back to the Empire when everyone was proud of being British because we were the best power in the world.
00:20:55
Dejan
And frankly, I think a lot of people are going to fall for that because... They're not going to have great job prospects. They're have great social prospects. The NHS is going to be more failing than it is now.
00:21:07
Dejan
And going to say, you know what, everything in this country doesn't work anymore. How about we give these people a chance to take us back to our glory days? And that is incredibly dangerous. That is incredibly, incredibly dangerous.
00:21:20
debatablediscussions
Whether you agree with that or not, your your your clear idea is very true. History can be weaponised, especially interpretations of the past.
00:21:30
Dejan
And my final question, John, now that we've come to an end, is how did the Empire fall? What happened? When did it happen?
The Empire's Decline
00:21:37
debatablediscussions
Yeah.
00:21:37
Dejan
And why did it happen, almost?
00:21:40
debatablediscussions
Yeah. So as I've described, the British Empire, this empire which governed over 25% of the globe, so obviously the largest empire ever that occurred, and throughout the empire there was, I think...
00:21:54
debatablediscussions
There was this idea of exponential growth throughout. saw there were some losses such as in 1776 when America declared independence and then finally won that independence in 1783 after the Treaty of Paris.
00:22:09
debatablediscussions
But aside from that, the British government actually granted more concessions to what were known as the white settler colonies. And with this, the the empire basically grew up to World War I. However, World War and World War II, despite the British winning these wars, they were extremely costly.
00:22:30
debatablediscussions
and i i've got the figure here of two trillion was the cost of world war ii that's the modern day cost that it cost the british that's in money obviously there was a huge personnel lost so this huge economic loss had dire consequences for the british government simply because it's hard to manage 25 percent of the world with not very much money
00:22:56
debatablediscussions
And so coupled with nationalism movements such as the Indian Independence Movement in 1947, notably led by Mahatma Gandhi, this led to effectively the empire, in my opinion, internally imploding.
00:23:10
debatablediscussions
And the reason why, like the empire's rise, is economic. The British could not afford to effectively manage this global empire and therefore it slowly sort of dismantled.
00:23:25
debatablediscussions
And also it was before there was this greater sense, in my opinion, of economic dependence upon the British. However, this sort of started to sort of end towards the end of the empire. The white settler colonies, as i previously described, these are places like Australia, New Zealand, Canada,
00:23:42
debatablediscussions
these as their own entities started to become economically viable. And with the British being in an unfortunate and poor economic state, these countries then decided with the British, I think, that they were able to govern themselves and they slowly sort of progressed upon this path of separation.
00:24:06
debatablediscussions
That is to say, though, the king is still the monarch in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. So there is this still sense of attachment and a sense of unity that exists amongst the Commonwealth countries.
00:24:20
debatablediscussions
However, want a sort of one sentence answer to why did the British Empire fall, I would say it imploded due to economic reasons after World War Two.
Conclusion
00:24:31
Dejan
Thank you very much. And if you enjoyed this episode, do go back and listen to the episode with Nigel Bigger, as well as our other episodes on history in the past, the podcast.
00:24:43
Dejan
And see you next week.
00:24:45
debatablediscussions
See you then.