The British Empire: The Good, Bad, and Ugly Details of The World's Largest Empire

hello everybody welcome back to another mega projects video this one's all about the british empire a video where i'm going to be very very careful and this video is brought to you by surf shark safety and security online are critically important and you can protect yourself online with surfshot get 83 percent off in three months for free there's a link below this video [Music] said to be the empire on which the sun never said the british empire at its peak covered an extraordinary quarter of the land mass of the world despite britain itself accounting for just 242 495 square kilometers about 94 000 square miles making it only the 80th largest country in the world wedged between guinea and uganda in terms of size just in case you're interested and i bet you were by 1913 the british empire included some 412 million people scattered across seven different continents and the two world wars of the 20th century saw soldiers drawn from all corners of the globe to fight under the british banner the scale of the british empire was astonishing and the fact that such a small island was able to exert so much control over so much land is a feat that may never be achieved again but of course this is a story that is far darker than mere nostalgic triumph the tale of the british empire is one that was often built upon the pain suffering and death of those that it sought to subjugate the grand empire that expanded out from london may have reached new heights in terms of size technological advancement trade and exploration but it usually came at a painful cost with effects that are still felt today we're not going to sugarcoat the british empire today but equally so we're not going to present you with 20 minutes worth of colonial horror although we probably could this is a topic that has become decidedly dicey to discuss in recent years but avoiding talk about history rarely gets us anywhere the story of the rise of the british empire is both horrifying and fascinating so let's get into it if we've learned anything about history is that empires rise and fall with a surprisingly regular pattern some last for decades while others stretch to more than a thousand years but eventually they all fall the pandian empire is generally regarded as the longest lasting empire in history clocking up an impressive 1850 years now if you're scratching your head right now wondering why on earth you've never heard of the pandean empire well that just reiterates my first point and if you have heard of it well well done you big brain for those of you who don't know it this empire was in southern india from around the 5th century aed now if we're talking about size then it's hard to look past the subject of arbiteo today because the british empire eventually covered 35.5 million square kilometers or close to 14 000 square miles but if you're interested in the largest contiguous empire in history and again i'm absolutely certain you are because who isn't then we could talk about the second on this list the mongol empire which reached its peak in 1278 and you have a 24 million square kilometers that's 9.27 million square miles that's two and a half times the size of the us by the way they also butchered their way to success across the empire killing maybe as many as 40 million people in the process but well that's a story for another day indeed a story we could well cover here on mega projects probably if this video does well we will [Music] considering how large the british empire grew in such a relatively short period it's important to remember where it all came from because you don't need to go back to find a fairly insignificant nation the british were beaten into submission by the romans from 43 a.d onwards who ruled over the island for about three and a half centuries once the romans left britain saw germanic anglo-saxons arrive along with vikings from scandinavia it's also worth pointing out that britain was not a unified country at this point with england wales and scotland operating independently and at times with multiple groups fighting each other or begrudgingly co-existing in 1066 britain was invaded by the normans who eventually conquered wales most of ireland and gave it a damn good go up in scotland but if you've ever seen the movie braveheart [Music] you'll know how that one ended britain came under single rule in 1603 when james the burst of scotland also inherited the english crown and on may the first 1707 the kingdom of great britain was officially formed under the acts of union which were passed in both english and scottish parliaments now i've definitely skipped over a few interesting things then most notably the near constant bickering in conflict with the french and the barely vicious civil war that tore the country apart between 1642 and 1651. so during the late 15th and early 16th century britain was hardly a major player on the world stage and in fact it was just one of several european nations that would eventually compete for global supremacy most notably was spain who was already dominating south america and portugal and had trading posts around the world holland who were busy setting up colonies in asia south america and africa and of course the french began exploring and colonizing what is today canada in 1534 [Music] my point is that britain's place as would be rulers of large swaths of the world was far from set at this point in fact if you had to place a bet on it by the end of the 15th century you probably wouldn't have backed britain and what better foundation to build an empire on than piracy that's right considering how snooty we became over the coming centuries it is somewhat ironic that it all began with elizabeth first authorizing ships to intercept and blunder spanish and portuguese ships returning from america laden with treasure when you think about britain's first colony you might be slightly surprised to find that it was much closer to home than some far-flung exotic location that would eventually make up the british empire between the 1550s and 1620s britain began colonizing parts of ireland which essentially involved kicking the native irish off their land and replacing them with british settlers 400 years later and we're still experiencing the sectarian hate that sprouted from these british colonies the first colony established further afield was the roanoke colony and what is present at south carolina in 1585. things didn't exactly go well here and after a delayed return it was found entirely abandoned in 1590 with no trace of its inhabitants ever found apart from a cryptic message reading croatoan carved into one of the buildings and bizarre coincidence i looked at what else i'm recording today and i'm making a video about that very thing for another channel there you have it this was britain's early foray across the atlantic but as we know things progressed quickly from there but first if you want to hop around the world like those brits without all that pesky colonialism and via your computer you've got to give today's sponsor surfshark a try do you use the internet well of course you do do you have personal information that you'd rather keep personal well of course you do too well let me tell you something the internet is a weird place there are people out there who want to ruin your day they want to steal your details your identity and all of that stuff is a pain in the bottom surfshark has hacklog this searches database for your passwords which sounds like a bad thing but oh no surfshark are the good guys if they find that information they let you know change your passwords boom you're nice and safe and while you're in that nice warm comfort of safety why not be like hmm let's watch some netflix eh but then you log on to netflix and you want to watch i don't know something that's maybe not available on your local netflix well fire up surf shark jump over to another country and you will get a whole different range of stuff to watch this is amazing and i always thought this is going to be for people who you know people like me who want to log into american netflix because there's a huge selection but also when i'm on american netflix there's a whole bunch of stuff that i see locally that is not on american netflix like last time i checked all of the mission impossible movies also surf shark's totally unlimited so you can download whatever you want no logs no limits also great support and a 30 day money back guarantee if you don't like it but you will right now you guys can get 83 off in three months for free through the link in the description below or just use my code mega and now let us get back to the british [Music] while they may have attempted to stake their claim in what would be the continental u.s quite early it was the caribbean that really held more interest to the british colonies in saint lucia and granada were established in 1605 and 1609 respectively but both collapsed quickly in the face of incessant pressure from the local populations things went better for the british instant kits in 1624 bob bedos in 1627 nevis in 1628 where britain was able to establish sugar plantations in the same mold as the portuguese in brazil this was followed by the annexation of jamaica from the spanish in 1655 and the colonization of barbados in 1666. further north the first proper colony in what is now the united states was jamestown in virginia in 1607 and if you want to know more about that particular colony we've already covered it here on mega projects so why not take a look at that video after this one hey things spread quickly from there with several religious groups escaping persecution along with others simply looking for the ultimate new start arriving in the new world over the coming years and the eventual establishment of the 13 colonies came next now the british got involved in some pretty dark acts as the empire expanded but we can't talk about the establishment of the colonies in the americas without addressing the monstrous elephant in the room it's estimated that british ships transported roughly 3.1 million african slaves across the atlantic to work in plantations in the caribbean and north america and that's the number of how many left africa with a mortality rate of one in seven perhaps as many as four hundred thousand of five hundred thousand slaves died on route under the most horrifying conditions to our modern minds this is little more than utter savagery but this practice was wholeheartedly condoned by british authorities until 1807 when they finally abolished slavery and let's be brutally honest here the slave trade was a spectacular financial success and much of britain's early power was built upon this horrifying industry with cities like liverpool glasgow and bristol growing exponentially on the back of slavery [Music] and so from one heinous exploitation to another when the british first arrived in india in 1606 it's fair to say that few would have dared dream just how significant india would become to britain the jewel in the crown as it came to be known but things were not so cut and dry here in the early days the british east india company an organization set up to facilitate trade in the indian subcontinent established a series of trading posts along the coast with the full consent to be the local tribes or the mughal emperor britain by no means invaded india and in fact it joined a series of european nations that were trading with groups in the region however and you knew this was coming the east india company slowly but surely began worming their way into power by purchasing land and at times using intimidation or just outright violence they may have seemed like fairly innocent traders when they arrived but the east india company which i should add also had an army of over 250 000 men evolved into an insidious organization that began to quietly dominate large areas of india india proved to be a gold mine for the east india company and consequently for britain also one of the major commodities was opium which was increasingly exported to china this caused such an addiction problem it was banned by the qing dynasty in 1729 but the british weren't about to allow a perfectly profitable business to collapse oh no and this resulted in not one but two opium wars which led to british and eventually french troops barging their way into china to restore order and which led to britain's 99-year lease of hong kong by the way apart from opium the british profited handsomely from india by selling on its raw materials with huge markups while taxing the population to within an inch of their lives things exploded in 1857 with the indian rebellion where the local population rose with greater force than ever before leading to the deaths of 6 000 british soldiers and shockingly perhaps as many as 800 000 indian deaths this was ultimately put down but it led to the disbandment of the east india company with the british government taking formal control of india but this was just the start famines had become a horrifying part of life in the indian subcontinent and the great famine between 1876 and 1878 claimed between 5 million and 15 million lives depending on your source this did lead to a series of policy changes that stabilized food production and distribution and widespread famine was largely a thing of the past by the 20th century with the major exception of course being the bengal famine of 1943 in which up to three million people died before we move on and to really give you an idea of the economic mother lode that india became to britain i'll leave you with the figure of 45 trillion dollars that is the number that the economist utsa patnak recently calculated that britain effectively made from its rule in india the first true sucker punch delivered to that british stiff upper lip came with the loss of the 13 colonies in what is today the united states in the years that followed the british would attempt to portray an air of ambivalence over the loss of their colonies across the atlantic but they certainly put up a hell of a fight over them the american revolutionary war began in 1775 and lasted eight years in which things swung back and forth had the british been more decisive in the early years it's entirely likely that this particular war would have gone the other way but as the continental army grew in size and confidence they eventually prevailed and yes there were also the french who supplied money troops armaments and naval support that helped to tip the balance this was a fact conveniently forgotten in 2003 with the furious american response the french decision not to join the second gulf war i bet the cowardly french felt rather embarrassed when the u.s and britain finally found all those weapons of mass destruction apparently sometimes on mega projects we just like throwing hand grenades into the comments section don't we why anyway britain's pain losing the 13 colonies was eased considerably with another monstrous addition to the empire australia while the dutch had been the first europeans to land on the continent in the late 17th century it wasn't until james cook landed there in 1770 that it was formally claimed by the british crown it's kind of unbelievable that someone could just land on a shore raise a flag and lay cane to a piece of land totaling 7.7 million square kilometers or about 2.9 million square miles indeed it was already a land populated by an indigenous population that had called it home for 65 000 years and while we're talking about the aborigines australia was claimed through proclamation rather than treaties which had often been the case around the world for the simple and staggeringly obnoxious reason that the aborigines were deemed too uncivilized to require treaties and yes everybody the past was the worst britain began shipping convicts to australia in 1787. the 13 colonies had been a favorite holiday spot for british criminals beforehand but that particular resort was now under new ownership and the vastness of australia was seen as a perfect place to ship off all of those undesirables roughly 162 000 convicts made the journey up until 1868 but australia was also proving to be hugely profitable for the crown with wool and gold paying off handsomely [Music] as the 20th century dawned the british empire was approaching its peak and i know we've barely touched on much of it if you're wondering about africa well what happened later the british acquired its first colony in what is today south africa from the dutch in 1806 and slowly expanded from there leading to an anglo-zulu war and two bar wars where the british suffered heavily but managed to cling on as for the rest of africa well that leads us to another preposterous white colonial act that came to be known as the scramble for africa where seven european nations britain france spain portugal belgium and italy divided up africa amongst themselves ever wondered about all those ludicrously straight lines that formed many african borders well now you know why britain as the colonial superpower at the time received the largest share and took it upon itself to try and civilize the natives it's difficult to talk broadly about britain's involvement in africa because it was just so vast but it often follows a fairly similar pattern usually the british would choose a particular tribal ethnicity to rule over the rest of the country which meant they could sometimes leave the dirty work up to others the effects of this and the subsequent tribal hatred are still present to this day in sudan and nigeria to name just two the british empire reached its peak in 1921 the first world war had been catastrophic for everybody involved but britain had gained territory from the germans in africa the war had also seen roughly 3 million soldiers and laborers from across the empire fight for britain a figure that would be more than tripled during world war ii britain may have staggered victoriously from the second major conflict of the 20th century but it was the beginning of the end for the largest empire that the world had ever known which at its peak included 57 colonies dominions territories or protectorates quite simply the nation just didn't have the money or the manpower to cover such a vast area and one by one full independence came to countries across the empire and much of it was remarkably peaceful by that point britain wasn't really in a position to be dictating terms and probably quite enjoyed the role of handing out independence conveniently airbrushing the centuries of misrule out of the picture in 1945 the number of those living within the british empire outside of britain itself was 700 million but by 1965 that number had dropped to just five million most of whom lived in hong kong it's important to add that while many of the independent transitions were essentially peaceful what came next often wasn't one final accusation leveled against the departing british was that they failed to lay the groundwork for independence and as a result sometimes years later things got horrific in india the decision to partition a nation creating a new country pakistan where muslims could live led to between 200 000 and 2 million deaths in the subsequent violence with another 10 to 20 million displaced across africa countless new democracies emerged from colonization with great hope only to become embroiled in civil wars that would define the final decades of the 20th century if british rule could be terrible the tribal hatred often stoked before independence sometimes led to absolute carnage [Music] and that nearly brings us to an end of the story for the british empire a collection of territories the dominions that eclipsed all before it today the british empire is long gone but it's been replaced by the british commonwealth a group of 54 countries spread around the world this is a voluntary organization with some fairly vague benefits that include a single unified voice development assistance trade and academic links defense treaties and so forth as i mentioned at the start of this video there's a real darkness surrounding the british empire that is often conveniently sidestepped it's a topic that certain british people sometimes feel a little uneasy discussing but equally so we've also arrived at a point where people can't stand the idea of talking about anything positive that might have come out of the british empire and surely both of those extremes are helpful in painting an accurate picture of what really happened the british were responsible for millions of deaths and misery across the world it essentially started the slave trade often destroyed indigenous culture and exploited people in unimaginable ways so are there any positives we might be able to glean from the british empire well maybe a few infrastructure is probably the best and safest place to start as railways ports schools and hospitals were built across the empire that are still in use today while the introduction of modern technology healthcare and education no doubt benefited many around the british empire the british were also the first to outlaw then aggressively police slavery after 1807. yes they had started it yes they got to the point where it wasn't particularly profitable anymore and yes you can bicker out the reasons behind it all you want but those are the facts nowadays people want to reduce the british empire to either being good or bad which completely misses the point for a small number of people at the very very top the empire was a spectacular success as staggering fortunes were made we can also say that modern britain was built upon the scaffolding of the empire and it's entirely likely that the country wouldn't be what it is today without it but to parrot that the british empire was good is plainly ridiculous and probably says a lot about modern delusions that we often see in the first world colonialism whether the british or otherwise should always be remembered as a dark stain on our history but one that we can hopefully learn from the concept of subjecting other people is a human trait that goes back thousands of years and we're still trying to pick our way through the wreckage of some of the most recent attempts history can be a dark place to delve into but not looking back and examining closely is usually even worse now i do hope you've enjoyed this video at the british empire as i said at the beginning we tried to stay balanced and stick to the facts the good the bad and the times the ugly if you did find it interesting please do hit that like button below don't forget to subscribe thank you for watching [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Megaprojects

Views: 1,351,239

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Id: etwnG4-uA18

Length: 21min 27sec (1287 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 20 2021