A History Teacher Reacts | "Late British Empire" by History Matters

hey youtube welcome back to another history teacher reacts video with mr. Terry as I continued my quest for historical knowledge here on the Internet alright what we're doing is watching part two of the British Empire little two-part series um by history matters and so the first one was they titled the early British Empire and this one is the late British Empire and it looks like right here what they're doing is picking up Wow they with 1783 so you got a Treaty of Paris ending the American Revolution and American independence is now in effect but the British Empire sort of lives on so we'll go ahead and pick up here link to the original video will be down below if you want to go over here and support them give them a like at subscribe that would be great and if you like we're doing here love to have you as a subscriber right here okay let's go ahead and jump on in 1783 1783 and the Americans have left the Empire led by King George the 3rd famous for being crazy now had to find a new place for a penal colony and it found one in Australia so both Australia and New Zealand have been known to Europeans for centuries because of past Dutch explorers so I was saying here that there definitely is a direct link that when the British sort of lose would eventually be the United States that that definitely had a direct relationship to them pursuing Australia more and specifically I guess with the whole Peel penal colony thing that that you know Australia Australia is you know has become famous for itis oh you're your country was just founded as a penal colony you know that's kind of stuff that people always bring up but yeah I never really had tied together how direct maybe those might be fall of America to sort of the push into Australia by the British interesting it was Captain James Cook who sailed to both and claim them for Britain New South Wales was chosen as Britain claim colony in the first convict claims right people are already there it's been claimed right but I always found that term claiming interesting like what does that even mean there's people there right there's already natives there's other people you know because by that definition claim anything 1780 a so in the next year the French Revolution happened paving the way for the Napoleonic Wars which were a British victory victory he gave Britain a few new colonies such as Malta and South Africa importantly it also weakened Britain's great imperial rival meaning it could increase the size of his empire without much resistance which it did the century following the Napoleonic Wars is known as the Pax Britannica the British piece in which they use this they use this term so much because he got the Pax Romana the Roman peace now is supposed to be the you know the great period of the Roman Empire from from the creation of the Empire to the for the least the next couple centuries right and and then you get like the PAX Mongolia and then I don't know if people just name this themselves you got the Pax Britannica ever necessarily heard that label being really a put for for a British time period but I don't fit cheapens the term or something like that because when you do this you're immediately gonna think of like the Roman Republic or Mongol Empire its Britain was the world's sole superpower over the next few decades Britain which Ireland had formerly been incorporated into seized Guiana Singapore Assam and this territory in India Britain was helped in these ventures by the East India Company who oversaw Britain strike with China mostly in opium China had previously banned opium but Britain refused to listen and kept importing it anyway because money in 1830 yeah I'm talking about this last time if you saw the previous video the British wanted to trade everywhere right and China of course has the best natural resources of kind of this of the world and but didn't want any British goods I mean the Chinese economy and their own manufacturing fire suppressor past anything else going on the world and didn't want anything from Europe I mean anything to Europeans make or the British make you know specifically the Chinese probably make it better so they don't want imported goods right and and actually for a long time going back centuries before us when Europeans first started showing up the China I mean the Chinese have always been picky about what we treated they didn't need Goods what they would take was money though they would sell their stuff you know to Europe but they basically just wanted like gold and silver you know what I mean so basically just currency not really good so they limited that and we're very limited in their trade anyways they would if you don't like coming in coming into especially in the earlier years though but if Europeans came into China there were only a handful of port cities that would be allowed for them to go into no one was allowed to stay permanently and they basically had government minders with you watching you all the time and it was very very restrictive right with this but of course what happened slowly over time as Europeans became more and more entrenched and a little bit more forceful and you're definitely gonna see that peak with things kind of these more anti Western kind of movements that happen on a child out of China something like you know like like the Boxer Rebellion which had that and they're the result of these usually led to more and more influence into China and that was you know slowly happening over time and you see like the British we're trying to find keep keep trying to find ways to get in and the one thing they found out is if the general trading relationship wasn't going to allow like goods well find something that can't refuse like get him addicted to opium get him did into drugs which they were getting out of their other Imperial colonies in Asia the British were and got a lot of people hooked going right up to the top highest classes of society came on this and you see when when when eventually the the Chinese governments and and was trying to end this and wanted to kind of yeah just stop this and the British said no we're not leaving and of course to get the opium war so just based essentially a giant drug war to try to protect the British or the British to protect their ability to be able to sell opium which like I said is incredibly profitable and that's just going to lead to more havoc and and less autonomy for for the Chinese is now they're gonna be fighting against some of these modern military powers that have really come a long way you know in the Imperial Chinese government seized opium ships and destroyed it which led to armed conflict which Britain won gaining lots of money a continuation of opium selling in Hong Kong Britain's peso to Hong Kong economy bringing it into their own trade port the informal Empire consisted of places which weren't directly under British control but due to military and diplomatic pressure will often coerced into acting in Britain's interest there are more European powers and earned Western powers in general they're gonna have what they call Spears of influence they say indirect control another term that we're using your spheres of influence like it parts of China that were exclusively dominated economically by by Westerners right and a bunch of European nations had that a good half dozen or so probably so the British are one of them but you can see that happening here by the way they're getting a lot of their opium over here in South Asia what would today be like Afghanistan Pakistan that kind of region that's where the British are getting a lot of us and is still a producer of areas still a producer of this today to the northwest of India Britain turned its eyes to Afghanistan on the surface this was portrayed but the major reason was Russia Britain was afraid that Russia would seize either Afghanistan or Persia from which you could then invade India Britain was also worried that Afghanistan would make an alliance with Russia and so invaded this was a complete disaster and amounted to nothing more than a slaughter of British and Indian troops by the Afghan militia nasty stuff great game yeah between Britain and Russia is known as the great game spread beyond Asia and into Europe the Russians were increasing their influence in the Balkans and Britain was worried about Russian dominance there as well in order to curb Russia Britain France and the Ottoman Empire began the Crimean War which was a victory for the Allies and slowed the growing Russian also Crimean War probably one of the more important wars you may have never heard of as well it was a total worth but what they say is kind of balance of power and it also is interesting because some of these some of these alliances like the one with the Ottoman Empire the British and French had they go at the Ottoman Empire but then later you know they're gonna fight each other in World War one just gonna be less than a hundred years later here but you'll see you kind of see interestingly how how alliances change a lot especially in this modern era this Imperial one you get Mar so a lot more of like hey I'm an ally with you because you're an enemy of an enemy kind of thing now because we actually have like a nice tight friendly relationship but enemy of my enemy and this one it's it's Russia but then later you see of course the Russians are gonna ally with these other Western nations like France so it's it's amazing how quickly things can change when it comes to Alliance and alliances and politics but this is gonna be a major blow by the way to to Russia here with the results of the Crimean War power in North America Canada was established as a province and the borders between itself and the US were finalized Canada later gained autonomy by becoming a Dominion which meant that the colony was self-governing but foreign policy was left to Britain you know a lot of kids have asked me what if America never fought the in American Revolution what if they just kind of continued with kind of being a British colony what would what would have happened you know what I mean and the the the only the thing to do with precedents is you could set as a president is basically what happened to Canada cos can't so what would have happened I mean America probably would have turned into basically what Canada is right where you slowly get this autonomy but you have this kind of official yet unofficial direct leadership or direct relationship I should say with the British so yeah because I quote America be like if they had never fought the revolution and maybe it's not a great way to say it I'd say we basically be Canada be like Canada isn't think oh alright ok so then you can make your opinion from there but what that would be like about this time the British began to settle New Zealand at first the Maori the natives of New Zealand were fine with the Europeans as they brought traited them but eventually it dawned on them that the Europeans weren't going to stop coming yep this is but this is a common thing that have happened at a bunch of the early relationships that Europeans had with locals because every once in a while in it's the place especially in Asia they'd be kind of welcoming at first and allow they Beck are I will establish this relationship I see how it could be mutually beneficial and then it just becomes more and more forceful until they often just they lose their nation and some countries you know saw that as an example of what was going on in other nations you know one of the first examples you saw this that was it really was an example for other nations was what happened to the Philippines I mean right away with Ferdinand Magellan and the Spanish start getting there and they developed this relationship with them and all that and then it becomes very abusive eventually and and they see what happens one of the countries that saw that and really changed our foreign policy was was Japan actually so because at first like Japan was welcoming some of these early traders from like Portugal or other Western nations and then they saw like you know some of the atrocities and some of the awful things that were happening with like Spanish held Philippines and then change their tune completely said now we're done that was like the Tokugawa who are gonna close their borders off to Westerners and but yeah they use that and again it's just that the idea that it's like sometimes it starts off pretty beneficial and then just as it becomes profitable these Western nations become more and more forceful until you've basically been colonized completely and taken over like I guess happening here and sometimes it's too late like the Maori put up an incredible fight here and a lot of these groups did but it's just they're in a lot of ways get-get kind of how matched it's led to war which the British one leading to more European settlement in contrast to populating New Zealand Ireland faced one of the greatest deep populations in human history thanks to the potato famine which decimated potato harvests the British forced the Irish to grow cash crops which meant there was less space to grow food there the Irish grew potato since he had such a high caloric yield for the space they took up when the famine struck it was made always interesting when you look at the potato famine just the potato the value of potatoes that happened in Europe and you remember that potatoes are not native to Europe they came from South America and what was the Inca Empire and was brought over to to Europe and becomes a major staple food product pretty quickly all over Europe right in Russia and then of course in like the UK and in mainland Europe in places like Germany and interesting how how like it almost seems like how quickly they became almost reliant on the food like the Irish became so reliant that when the whatever that kind of like crop disease whatever that like was killing off the potatoes or whatever when that happened it led to direct starvation's and people dying in huge numbers and course that decimated the population either from death or from exodus out out of Ireland and as you saw there big chunk of people of course went to the United States and saw huge Irish immigration movement here in the later 1800s worth by the British government who ordered the food would still be exported from Ireland to Britain and that aid would be limited Ireland's population dropped by half and still has yet to recover I know that much way back in India Britain specifically the independent East India Company was having some trouble so background the East India Company's military was mostly very important net points who were Indian troops who served them the British officers these set boys became increasingly unhappy as their treatment worsened their pay stagnated and they were also forced to fight abroad despite British promises that they wouldn't have to British policy in India had also led to massive changes in its society as well which upset many of those living there for example the British levied heavy taxes and did nothing to protect the Indian textile industry yeah taxation without representation for example we've heard of that America um I don't know if they're gonna come back to it but you know looking at some of these changes you know going back I don't think they're gonna talk about it I'm one of the well I'm gonna let the video and see if they catch this and then if they do I don't I don't want to be redundant but some I want to say about one of the things that upset the see poise which again were Indians that served in the British basically the British military that way they love the British love to use that kind of indirect recruitment for their armies and stuff like that was more efficient more cost effective but going back to some of the changes practice of sati sati was a centuries-old practice of definitely a show of a social patriarchy where yeah like they say here if you haven't heard of this where if a husband died they would they would you know burn the body whatever but it was kind of expected that that the wife would follow suit and basically join their husband and death in the literal funeral pyre right so in the in the and when he dies that you go basically with them and the British thought that was barbaric and wanted to end that because again there's this old cultural practice if you go back to some of the some of the older texts that talk about this and this is what was one of the members one of the documents in one of the AP exams that that I had given out which was basically like a justification of that it was basically saying that a woman basically no longer serves a purpose once the husband is gone you know what I mean so so adding that and I would you know baby by this time to it had become less popular as as time went on there but yeah banning polygamy child marriage which definitely happened with the amount of arranged marriages between families in Indian culture and then yeah I love slavery okay so yeah is in its society as well which upset many of those living there for example the British levied heavy taxes and did nothing to protect the Indian textile industry the British were also arbitrarily grabbing more and more territory which understandably made some Indian rulers nervous furthermore the British were also keen proselytize Azhar many Hindus and Muslims felt the British wanted to convert all of India to Christianity none of this endeared the British to the Indians and in 1857 our on the road against the East India Company one set we could Mangal Pandey mutiny against the British by assaulting some officers and his execution made him a martyr the earlier British defeat in Afghanistan also gave confidence to the Indians it's it meant that the British could be defeated the actual rebellion began with it okay yes I didn't either pink or beef fat which offended both the Muslim and Hindu set boys when they refused to use the ammunition the British arrested them and they alongside others mutiny okay so yeah just a review an interesting thing that that starts a massive massive rebellion against the British originated from from you know there's a lot of instances but largely let it came from this instance so you got sea poised right so they're they're hired Indians that that worked for the British in the British military and there was these new rifles the Enfield rifle that had come out and the cartridges for for this basically required you you bite bite the cartridge and then you can be able to load it now these were greased right he's were greased so it could use more properly with with the weapon and it was greased and an animal fat okay and the problem with this is that was talked about I don't know if it was rumored or was official that it was basically greased in an animal fat either cow or pig so like beef pork whatever and the issue with that is the religious beliefs now so for these Indians see poise most of them were either Hindu or or Muslim and the problem with both of those animals for for Hindus beef and consumption of beef is against their religion and then for Muslims pig is so this was incompatible with their religious beliefs to be able to do this and they were refusing to use this rifle and then it kind of rolled from there into being just more of just not just a protest for using this rifle but ends up being basically just an anti British imperialist revolt that ends up of course being massive and a lot of people kind of consider this almost like although there has been other sort of revolutions and revolts in a way by the Union people this is the kind of the big one that gets a lot of notoriety and what some people say this is like the closest that India gets to what would have been like the American Revolution this is the difference so why don't you call it like the Sepoy revolution or something like that well I've heard a historical claim about that and they basically said well it's because the Indians lost if like if America had lost the American Revolution right her fight for independence whatever you want to call it it probably would have been called the American revolt you know in history and so I always thought that was kind of interesting when I when I had heard that anyway let's get to any one with the whole Sepoy Rebellion here when they refused to use the ammunition the British arrested them and they alongside others mutiny the rebelling Sepoy seized some cities including Delhi but eventually the British were able to defeat them the reasons for this were they're only a few Indian states actually joined the rebellion many were neutral and support for the British remain strong they talked about that before in the other episode which was there were so many of these princes in these kingdoms out here that were very much in the pocket of the British they had received and the British were pretty smart about this they would find these leaders and get help them get into power and establish a good relationship with them and then these these princes or whatever would basically almost serve like puppets of the British and because they worked hand in hand they benefited a lot from the British experience so yeah it was hard to get everybody to be unified you get so many powerful people Indians were absolutely working with the British and were loyal to them because they've been given so much so many benefits you know what I mean they could get their kids would get Western education you know that would happen and a lot of them yeah went on to go back to England go to London go to like a law school some like Gandhi for example who was able to benefit from these kind of relationships from his family because he was able to go to London go to law school and of course the irony and that though is he basically uses that education to go back to India and pursue independence right and that doesn't happen and just so you know that's not that's that's how long it's going to take until they get their independence is all the way till the 1940s and we're talking still here almost a hundred years before that the concept of being Indian didn't really exist India is an exceptionally diverse place and a Muslim from Bengal or Sikh from part a unifier in common with a Hindu from Delhi another reason for the rebellions failure was that it was not a pre-planned politically backed uprising and the British had much better organisation the cost incurred in money prestige and lives led the British crown to take control of the running of India and the East India Company was dissolved in 1858 and Queen Victoria was proclaimed the Empress of India so basically what they do so remember India has been indirectly basically ruled by a company right East India Company where I told you Walmart with an army kind of thing but of course they operate with the the permission of the of the of the the Queen so they used indirect rule for now Ford for many decades and that once it was over right and the sort of East India Company wins and Britain wins the Queen says you know what India now under direct control by the crown direct control not doing the indirect thing word control so they lose India Liuzza's and that gets rule even harder removing disloyal Chiefs called now abs from power Britain's dominance over its colonies was secured by increasing technological advancements brought about by the Industrial Revolution that just fueled these advancements for the steam powered ship trains the telegram and more advanced firearms this dominance couldn't last forever and towards the end of the century Britain found itself with new rivals these were the United States which was recovering from its Civil War the newly unified German Empire and a rising Japan which was looking to carve up Asia these are the new world players look at these four right here these are the new world players these are the first nations to industrialize right Britain was the first interesting Belgium a second but of course Belgium being a smaller nation didn't have quite the resources to keep up but Germany America begins rapid industrialization after the Civil War I mean it started before that but afterwards it really just exploded and then Japan after the Meiji Restoration when they store the Emperor back to power they start I think in a way kind of seeing what's going on in the world and they're like we need to advance technologically maybe even adopt a lot of this westernization because it's almost like I think the Japanese almost felt like we need to use Western as westernization in the process of that to defeat Westerners so they do that and a fact of all the nations evolved Japan industrialized the fastest I mean I've heard them say Japan industrialized in like ten years we're like somewhere like Britain it took a hundred years they were able to use all these different society they've got the resources and that also begins their imperial ambitions so what you're looking at with these four is the birth of really well Britain's already been doing it but attempted industrialization I like I like to use this this kind of train of thought where it's like industrialization led to imperialism right those that industrialized tend to imperialize because industrialization is an exponential process where the more you industrialized the more you need to industrialize you need more resources you need more trade markets you need more literal land your population is growing you have to basically spread otherwise you pop out and that of course this so you get this industrialization leads to imperialism and course appear ilysm is one of the big factors that's going to lead to the world war so you're seeing a domino effect here because another thing other things appear oles p realism leads to is other isms for example nationalism the more successful your country is with industrialization and appeal ISM the stronger the Pryor feeling of pride and almost cockiness in a way of a nation is inevitably a tied to that and then also militarism which is definitely an effective imperialism because the bigger your empire is the more you need to protect it so you more the grow your military the more your military are the more you need it to grow the more military you need the more military need the more suspicious people become and potentially the more likelihood of war so you can see these dominoes going through and really get of course topped over inevitably with the world wars so that's just a bigger framing that you can kind of think here context going on the new German Empire wanted colonies of its own and so turned to Africa this worried the precision in order to soothe tensions the Berlin conference was called to divide up Africa in a way that avoided war so Africa went from looking like this to this with unbelievable right Berlin conference basically a table you know of some some Europeans are gonna settle the entire fate of Africa here right so you have these Asian conquests coming a little bit slower and Africa was what they thought was totally kind of up for grabs and Scramble for Africa is like a big piece of pizza what's seven or so different European nations or Western nations come in and take basically all of it there's only two exceptions Ethiopia which militarily was the only nation to defend itself and that was against the Italians you do have Iberia which eventually becomes kind of a protector to the United States but every other piece was basically taken taken over with basically little to no influence or even listening to African leaders I mean there's Berlin conference you can't imagine there was you know a bunch of African leaders there actually given their opinion and there wasn't so their fate was totally taken out of their hands and then put into the hands here so this this imperialism tied to industrialization is just exploding it's leaving pleadings in this Western kind of dominating world here in the 18th 19th and 20th centuries Britain and France getting the lion's share so the British public's response to imperialism was mixed outright opposition to colonialism was very rare most people's attitudes that between nationalism pride Americans role as a colonial power this was primarily due to the belief that Britain was a civilizing force so it's like the the more they kind of believe that like our civilizations great and the more of us in the world more of our civilization in the world the better the world's going to be right look at some of the the famous literature that came out of there write something like white man's burden Rudyard Kipling or anything coming out of Cecil Rhodes right as some of the famous pieces that come out of that definitely explain that and we're kind of become staples of of this britain's conquest of africa was not as simple and straightforward a fell different substantial military advantages and for the africans it was conquering such as rifles machine guns and gunboats that Maxim machine gun was maybe the biggest one because it was conquering such as rifles machine guns and gum because muskets had now been common in a lot of places in in Africa that these were New Zealand too by the way one of the people but so they had muskets but the problem is is like with these older rifles like the British for example had progressed past that with early machine guns the Maxim machine gun here so you started to see that and that would just it was unbelievable how effective like these machine guns weapons were noose machine guns sort of what do you call them nests or whatever in these battles because that you look at you if you look at the fatality counts in some of these battles they're just incredibly high up you know with local African armies with European armies okay and they just they couldn't keep up with it and but yeah they're progressing it's like the Europeans are always technologically a step ahead but yet many Africans were able to win victories against the British such as the Zulus who slaughtered the British Battle of his they're not substantial on the same day the British won one of his best battles the Battle of Rorke's drift another group of Africans the Boers who were originally Dutch settlers also resisted British Isles Arthur Cohen Alf Africa in order to defeat Bo a guerilla warfare by denying them shelter the British place many women and children into concentration camps where they faced horrible conditions the conquest of Africa was short and was pretty much complete after 30 years with only Ethiopia and Liberia remaining independent the southern colonies in Africa were unified into South Africa which alongside Australia and New Zealand became a Dominion just like Canada the Empire grew to its territorial height after the First World War where Britain gained sizable Ottoman and German territories or that term the Sun never sets on the British Empire that's what that literally meant is look at they're in like every time zone possible right it's daytime the sun is shining somewhere and what was considered the the British Empire that's where that term comes from and now you can see a little bit more of what they're talking about I remember seen once I'm sure you'd be able to comment and I'm pretty quick I remember seeing some videos and seems some numbers about like what percentage of the of earth of the planet or whatever yeah the world's nations have fought the British before and I remember it was absurd maybe someone can find that number and and and let people know in the comments or something I've ever seen that news like are you kidding me it was like every like everybody has had some kind of run-in with the British before amazing it wasn't all gains for Britain though is throughout the world britain's holden island became untenable an island became an independent republic in 1922 ireland from the crumbling Ottoman Empire the British gained Palestine which it was decided would become a home for the world's Jewish people hundreds of thousands of Jews arrived in Palestine over the next couple of decades and their increasing numbers and political powers their cause several revolts against the British all of which were suppressed after the Second World War many more of them Balfour Declaration I did extensive research on this in college is one of the most important little pieces of documents in history and in modern history at least because it basically paves the way for this home for the Jews in the Middle East here after World War one and you've seen what the creation of the Jewish state has done for the political climate of the Middle East it's it's been nothing but tumultuous for now the over a hundred years there because it angered so many people locally as they you know with the with the with the with Palestine here and then it basically being being kind of established Sarah established for but but definitely kind of enabled the movement of juice to go back to the historic homeland which had been been kicked out of for or you know had left for for a long time for many centuries and in some cases millennia go back to like for example the the Romans and destruction of Jerusalem there and then being driven out and then after the the Islamic kingdoms came over and took over as well so and then but yeah and especially with a lot of this being established without a lot of the Arab input and their response ends up kind of failing to it and also was real to resulted in numerous Wars you know in the last century between the Jewish state and basically the entire Arab world so you can see how important this was but definitely looking if you don't know much about the Balfour Declaration we're not just to spend more time on this I'm here right now definitely look into it and you'll be able to see a lot more connections about why there are so many issues in the Middle East and a lot of it centers around and kind of starts with that domino that was started by the Balfour Declaration so definitely look into that if you don't know much about it because several revolts against the British all of which was the press after the Second World War many more arrived and the tensions rose again culminating in a civil war and the creation of Israel yeah the the Holocaust really in a way did wonders for the global community sort of respect the idea of Palestine as a home for Jews because of the Holocaust and the brutality oven and a sympathy that was created for the Jewish community as they were leaving you know Europe and trying to leave this persecution and then flooding into Palestine again all why the local community was very kind of upset about this was this was continuing to happen and you saw there were protests and try to stop it but ended up in failures so the Second World War was a British victory but her brought Britain to the brink of economic ruin Indians had been seeking independence from Britain since about five minutes after it turned up many Indians felt that their contribution to both world wars meant that they were owed independence in 1937 India held elections in which the Indian National Congress an advocate for independence won the largest share of the seeds you know the the decolonization process right started happening of course with the end of World War one now where this is only really happens though is people that lose the wars right in World War one we had this decolonization process that began self-determination right the basically the ability for a nation to determine if it wants its own independence or not and of course that took place that was the one of the big things that was being proposed by like President Wilson a lot of people were trying to make sure was part of the Treaty of Versailles and all this and it happened but only in colonies of the places that lost the Allies were no way interested in losing their colonies like the British or the French or something like that so you started to see decolonization happen from German colonies from British colonies are not sorry German colonies in the austro-hungarian Empire so kind of their colonies that's and then the Ottoman Empire it's why you see after World War one those nations get broken up into a bunch of different independent groups but you didn't see that process happened in so among the Allied nations and those allied nations those colonies like India for example we're upset I'm saying hey it's like you're fighting for the these are allowing these freedoms of these people but not us people that helped you win the war because like they were saying the all these nations recruited incredibly high numbers of people from their from their colonies right Africans and people from Asia and these higher numbers and it's like we got we fought we died and then got nothing out of the war and we're hoping you know this would kind of be leverage and that doesn't happen after World War one and now it's happening again after World War to where they're like hey we fought again even higher numbers and we're still not getting more rights right and that's when of course the independent ization movement really picks up as after World War 2 when also because of the economic and political turmoil that the world the world wars cause places like Britain are no longer able to keep their colonies like they were before they don't have the resources to do that so the independence movements are gonna come here gonna be far more successful because of that timing and that's where you're gonna start to see with India especially here in the after the war and really pick up you got Joe Hall Nehru and then Mohandas Gandhi which are gonna come in here and you're gonna start to see this and you start seeing in India you see in Southeast Asia and then in Africa and of course it took decades depending on where you were some of these places took many many decades to actually get their independence furthermore the famine of 1943 was mostly by Britain diverting food away from India had cost the lives of many many millions recent demands for the end of British rule the most famous opponents to the British were Mohandas Gandhi and Muhammad Ali Jinnah you know the the whole Bengal famine is something that people really criticize that Western culture is overlooking is this and since it's from a successful Western nation that it that that has allowed it to be drug under the rug almost as a genocide in a way because people talk about the deaths you know Holocaust or the brutality of the Japanese in world war two and then that lets these things kind of get swept under the rug and you may not be able to equate a lot of these exactly but nevertheless you have that you have that question being asked as why are some of these things being ignored like you saw that was basically and almost very directly affected by the British massive famine of death of millions ends up happening because of mismanagement actual decisions being made by the British here so yeah not something that should be you know lost over which definitely has been the most famous opponents to the British were Mohandas Gandhi and Muhammad Ali Jinnah Gandhi was not a policy it was very important since he practiced a nonviolent approach Jinnah is famous for advocating that India be divided so that Muslims could have their own state as well yeah the the FA I feel like I'm stopping I'm sorry if that's annoying to that I'm stopping there's just there's so many things I I want to talk about and this is definitely an area that I take a lot of pride in in trying to learn about and trying to make sure it's expressed is what you started to see here is now more movements in India it's actually unify the people member they talked about during all this British occupation people didn't identify as just Indian it's such a diverse country a lot of it it has to do with the religious diversity with Indian Indian Muslims and Indian Hindus unable to unify and get past their differences and that's what you started to see with with Jinnah who's kind of leading kind of the Muslim coalition here and then Gandhi kind of leading more of a like Hindu side and trying to bring these together right bring these movements together with a common show of force against the British and that's what they believed they needed because all these revolts and stuff they had they never had that unification and some of course its power in numbers but an interesting thing to add here they were just they just talked about was with Jinnah and the Muslim side was them from the get-go even before independence was happening at trying to establish that there needs to be a Muslim state founded from independent India here they did not that what they were really afraid of was that once the British leave because one thing the British did a fairly good job or a fairly good job at a did a job and was keeping the Hindu and Muslim communities from basically Nile aiding each other like from fighting each other and that sort of thing keeping keeping that more settled and of course Hindus are the majority in the nation and they're afraid that once the British leave that a Hindu majority would basically take over and oppress the Islamic minority so they want from the get-go that when if the British leave and if they get independence there needs to be a state established specifically for Indian and of course that's gonna happen it's they'll talk about here that's what Pakistan ends up being but interesting thing to happen that and British shows are Gandhi was actually against the the partition of India he thought that Hindus and Muslims should be able to unify and be able to work successfully in one state so he was he was never actually a fan of the the partition but by the way the British will be when they leave they they want to see this happen they think it'll be a more peaceful situation and in some ways it was and in some ways it was and we'll see if they get to that but then you're getting two more Indian history analyst videos talking about British history cuz like one of the the logistical nightmare of okay you're gonna set up two states and end up doing to actually to Pakistan's basically the one in the West and one in the east and which was a nightmare to try to organize is like hey you're you're part of Pakistan here but you're also part of Pakistan and you're under the same governing body but you're separated by an entire giant subcontinent that didn't work and of course what adds up everything is yet West Pakistan East Pakistan East Pakistan ends up becoming Bangladesh become its own independent nation but the logistical nightmare of okay now we have these different countries everyone needs to move now alright if you are a Hindu living in this eastern part or in this Western poor part you got to find a way to move your entire life and your whole family and your upbringing and your ancestry into what's supposed to be the Hindu home and then vice versa of course for Muslims and that is a logistic nightmare to do that and it actually end up when this ends up happening creating the largest migration in history and because the tensions were also high betina's groups it was extremely violent what are the numbers on the death of the the great migration like a million I think maybe people end up dying in the cross caravanning if you want to call across kind of caravanning violence because it's not like there was this it's not like a foreign exchange program or it's like all right you're gonna find this Hindu family right here and they live over here in this town and our Hindu family lives over here they're gonna move to this part of India then a Muslim family it's gonna go over here and we're gonna like match up families and what's going to happen is they're each going to move and take each other's you know homes and jobs and stuff like that know what an end up doing is basically making millions of people homeless and making people refugees and it's just like oh you're out go find a new life somewhere else and that was very difficult it was not managed very well at all but it was the thing to burn the the British leave they were kind of supportive oh because they like on paper this sounds like a perfect idea right they live home and then they'll have a home and then there won't be a need for any violence or anything like that and but a logistical nightmare in 1947 India gained its independence and was subsequently divided into India and Pakistan Britain was unable to fight this tide due to its weakness it simply couldn't afford to force India to stay furthermore Clement Attlee Britain's post-war prime minister was sympathetic to the Indian cause the division of India was not so peaceful though and it is believed that during the mass migration ethnic cleansing and fighting occurred afterwards as many as 2 million people to go in the aftermath of World War two Britain found itself opposed by two anti-imperialist superpowers the United States and the Soviet Union to Imperial a source of the 20th century colonies broke away from British rule some violently some peacefully a notable example of British imperial retreat is Kenya Kenya had been run similarly to most other colonies with white settlers owning lots of land birthing wealth and forcing horrible working additions on the natives many Kenyans notably Jomo Kenyatta attempted to get reforms from the British all of which were refused some Kenyans then turned to violence and what is known as the Mau Mau uprising began the Mau Mau resorted to guerrilla warfare but the British Way but to suppress the uprising after capturing its leaders both sides committed horrendous war crimes including torture and the murder of women and children in 1960 Britain announced that it would move towards an independent Kenya and in 1963 can you gain its independence with Kenyatta as its first president Britain's motives of this was simple the writing was on the wall and the Empire was going to end Harold Macmillan taking control that any more sure that the handover of power was swift to help promote good relations between Britain and its former colonies decolonization would continue for the next several decades until Britain's last major colony Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1997 thus marking the end of the Empire so in conclusion the legacy of the British Empire is undeniable one only needs to look at a map of countries that drive on the left to play cricket or rugby or still have the British monarch as the head of state opinions on the Empire range from being a civilizing force to an oppressive one what can't be said for definite is that without the Empire the world would have looked very different today I hope you enjoyed this outside and thank you for watching when I had just one more thing before we leave and it's the decolonization practice that a lot of these nations had you know Britain Britain was more of an indirect colonizing when it comes to rule of places they they thought it more financial and and politically efficient to rule indirectly get leaders people locals that are loyal and rule indirectly let them kind of do their thing but they of course answer the British where as a contrast like the French or very much more about direct rule which is also much more expensive so the British like to do that and leave one thing that was never that didn't happen in any of these countries or their British colonies French colonies whatever is a very good transition process to independence let's remember that these colonies especially in like Africa Asia the priority of these colonies was to benefit the mother nation back in Europe right you talk about it was it was furred you know also these elements of trying to civilize them and do all these things but especially in the economic sense this was all meant to be very tilted towards benefiting the Europe and it was an example basically no infrastructure was created in these nations it was all about extracting resources and manufacturing the course back in Europe right so it's nothing but extraction without much going back in like that wealth is going directly to Europe and it doesn't benefit really the locals that much only to the extent that the the colonizer invests into it which again is going to be a bare minimum to make money well when these European nations leave and this decolonization process ends they didn't leave these nations with anything they have no infrastructure they don't have anything they don't have jobs that can exist and continue to exist normally now that they've left right the factory the factories the processing all that stuff was owned by the British and and for example the British but other nations but back in those homelands so they were left with no structure with nothing to start with there's no capital meaning money to invest in themselves there's there's and there is no capital at all there also is no transition really for the government's like right go have elections and that ends up being a disaster in a lot of places where you have these ethnic groups and by the way the colonial borders that were set up here like at the Berlin conference made no local cultural sense they were total fabrications of trying to more agree about what's a border between this other that another European nation can have then what would make sense from a cultural standpoint meaning these borders cut off groups from other parts of their group it put together ethnic groups that have histories of not being able to necessarily work together and now it's like alright we're leaving this is your country good luck right and oh yeah you better like have elections and stuff like that then you get these elections and you find out there's all these diverse groups that probably have no Bufton business being in a country together that can't agree on any politicians yeah you're gonna have these elections but it's pretty hard to have a successful democracy if the guy that are you know that the person that wins here wins with ten percent of the vote you know what I mean and then you have thirteen other people that were being elected that have less than that it's hard to do that so you have political nightmare happening you have an economic nightmare because these countries don't have anything to start with and this decolonization process yeah they're independent but they're gonna struggle and you see that with the struggle of African nations today although Africa is growing economically and some places more stability some places many not many are in as bad a shape as they were and Africa kind of got left behind in the dust there because there was no transition process or incentive for these nations that are leaving to leave they're like how can you ask for more we're giving you independence or giving what you want you can't ask for anything else and it's been a struggle and basically a catch-up process ever since the Empire the world would have looked very different today I hope you enjoyed this episode and thank you for watching awesome well I really liked this little mini series this little two-part series it was great of course it's hard to some up the British Empire in to 20 minute videos course they went over you know glossed over a lot of things and of course they're gonna miss some things but don't be don't be one that gets kind of upset about that because it says it's just not possible you know to hit that I saw plenty of comments in the first video about all they miss this and this and this and of course they are right especially if your goal is to not necessarily be a giant comprehensive and every try to have every detail but try to sum something up into an entertaining ten minute video makes a little bit more sense there but if you do think there were things that maybe should have been covered I mean put them in there let's let our readers look at them and educate get edgy so anyway fantastic let's go ahead and we're gonna we're gonna kind of end things here if you like this video on the video series original video will be down below give them a like and subscribe love if you like them subscribe here and continue with me as I go through the internet and try to find more and more awesome history videos so we can all learn together some ways you can support the channel to subbing is fantastic another thing you can join is join our patreon right now one of the benefits of becoming a patron is to participate in a weekly poll for a video that will be on the channel so if you'd like a little bit maybe a little bit more influence on what happens in here you can do that I currently have it set to any of any someone of any value starting basically I think it's out starting at $1 right now if you pledge $1 you'll get to participate and that's that's fantastic a fantastic way to support the channel as well so I 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Channel: Mr. Terry History

Views: 77,925

Keywords: react, history, britain, england, british empire

Id: OOGVvph5f2s

Length: 50min 46sec (3046 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 13 2019