The British Empire

Things to Consider

What is Empire?

How is the modern concept of Empire different than those in the ancient and medieval worlds?

What is/was the purpose of Empire

The Largest Empire in the World

The British Empire lasted from 1500 ca. until after World War II

At its height the British Empire controlled ¼ of the Earth’s land

It was the empire that “the sun never set on”

Besides being the empire that controlled the most land, it also contained the most and diverse subject peoples

It was always Sunny in the British Empire

Methods of Control

Despite being a relatively well populated country – at least by European standards – a large and formidable navy, not an army, was what propelled the British to rule the world

After the British fleet defeated the combined French and Spanish fleets in the Battle of Trafalgar (1805) there was no power that could challenge Britannia’s supremacy of the seas

Much of the early exploration and conquest was also promoted and funded by private companies such as the East India Company

Imperial Propaganda

In order to pursue its imperial aims, the British government and the various companies produced propaganda of different types to elicit public support

The propaganda extolled the glories of English culture and the British empire which appealed to the public’s sense of patriotism

Simple, symbolic, but effective

British India

Perhaps the most economically valuable and culturally rich British colony was India

In the 16th Century the East India Company established a beach head in India in port cities

Some of the commodities to flow from India to Great Britain were: silk, coffee, tea

Opium grown in India was also an important export to China in the early 1800s

The Consolidation of British India

British India continued

By the middle 1800s the East India Company took advantage of the feuding Indian princes and conquered most of India

Superior arms and a small but well equipped core of British soldiers helped control the Raj or British rule

The Sepoy Rebellion

In addition to the British soldiers, the East India Company augmented its forces with Indian soldiers known as sepoys

In 1856 sepoys in Bengal (eastern India) rebelled because they were issued rifle cartridges greased in animal fat

The rebellion spread and British were massacred at Kanpur and Lucknow

It was a bloody rebellion

The Aftermath of the Sepoy Rebellion After the rebellion

was squashed in 1858, control of India was transferred to the British crown

Although the British would rule India until 1947, it was the beginning of the end of imperial rule

The British in South Africa

In 1806 the first British established its first South African colony in what is today Cape Town – known then as the Cape Colony

Many whites already lived there as the Dutch were the first Europeans there in 1652

The most powerful Bantu speaking people were the Zulus who arrived there in 15th century

In the 1830s the Afrikaners/Boers began their Great Trek inland and became known as Voortrekkers

19th century South Africa

The Anglo-Boer Wars (1880-81; 1899-1902)

By the late 1800s the Afrikaners had established the independent states of Transvaal and the Orange Free State

In 1877 the British annexed Transvaal and Griqualand West after diamonds were discovered near Kimberly

British authority was effectively challenged by the Zulus who defeated the British at Isandhlwana (1879) but were ultimately defeated at Ulundi

The Afrikaners took this as a sign to rebel in 1880

The Zulu War 1879

King Cetshwayo (1826-84)

The Anglo-Boer Wars

Despite being vastly outnumbered the Afrikaners/Boers were successful for a number of reasons› The bolt action

Mauser rifle› Guerrilla tactics› A zealous belief in

their cause

The First Boer War 1880-1881

The Afrikaners were successful in the first war against the British

In 1881 the British government reluctantly gave independence to Transvaal which was led by Stephanus Kruger

The British did not give up though for numerous reasons which included: the unwillingness of the Afrikaners to give rights to others and probably more importantly control of the Rand gold field

After a English backed coup of the Transvaal failed in 1886 another war was an almost certainty

The Second Boer War (1899-1902) The Afrikaners were

initially quite successful in the Second Boer War as they fought well and used guerilla tactics

The British then introduced the modern concentration camp

They imprisoned thousands of Afrikaner women and children

The End of Empire

A number of factors contributed to the end of the British Empire

Other countries pursued their own imperial aims that cut into Britain’s domination of the world

Global economics changed Independence movements in both the “white

dominions” and developing countries Although Great Britain still maintains some

colonies the true “Empire” ended after World War II