the English, the English, the English are best.

[davywavy]

We've left in the hands of three unfriendly powers
Examine the Irishman, Welshman or Scot
You'll find he's a stinker as likely as not

The English the English the English are best
I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest

The Scotsman is mean as we're all well aware
He's boney and blotchy and covered with hair
He eats salty porridge, he works all the day
And hasn't got bishops to show him the way

The English the English the English are best
I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest

The Irishman now our contempt is beneath
He sleeps in his boots and he lies through his teeth
He blows up policemen or so I have heard
And blames it on Cromwell and William the Third

The English are moral the English are good
And clever and modest and misunderstood

The Welshman's dishonest, he cheats when he can
He's little and dark more like monkey than man
He works underground with a lamp on his hat
And sings far too loud, far too often and flat

The English the English the English are best
I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest

And crossing the channel one cannot say much
For the French or the Spanish, the Danish or Dutch
The Germans are German, the Russians are red
And the Greeks and Italians eat garlic in bed

The English are noble, the English are nice
And worth any other at double the price

And all the world over each nation's the same
They've simply no notion of playing the game
They argue with umpires, they cheer when they've won
And they practice before hand which spoils all the fun

The English the English the English are best
I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest

It's not that they're wicked or naturally bad
It's just that they're foreign that makes them so mad
The English are all that a nation should be
And the pride of the English are ukmonty and me

The English the English the English are best
I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest



Following the debate over on ksirafai, I decided to whip up a quick poll on the greatest of all Human Inventions, the British Empire. Basically, I'm curious to know which year you think the Empire was at it's peak.

[Poll #556800]

Comments

1947+

[applez.livejournal.com]

Okay, more of 1947 onwards ... still, the UK deserves credit for recognising its Empire was over, before nationalist guerilla movements pressed the point too strongly, and shuttered the whole thing in an orderly fashion, under mostly-amicable conditions, giving rise to both a stronger Britain and a stronger Commonwealth.

Who would expect as good a conclusion when the US gets its turn?

Re: 1947+

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Two world wars; the first killed a generation of administrators, meaning we had to give responsible positions to natives, and the second emptied the coffers, meaing we couldn't pay 'em any more.
It was closing a business - lose the staff, can't pay the wages.

Re: 1947+

[skinny-cartman.livejournal.com]

well to be frank we'd been giving natives power in india for years in the uncovenanted ICS there were at most 1200 white men (and that figure is only due to salisbury period increases mostly it got by on about 800) in the indian civil service running a country of untold millions, they weren't superhuman they did it with local help which they trained up, technically anyone could apply to join the Covenanted ICS (the mainly white bit) its just that the exams favoured british public school students

Re: 1947+

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Have you ever seen the examination papers to join the Indian Civil Service? My God.
Put that in front of an A level student and see them tell you modern exams aren't dumbed down.

Re: 1947+

[skinny-cartman.livejournal.com]

well they are intended for graduates from balliol you know...

(well that was the college with most success at passing students)

Re: 1947+

[applez.livejournal.com]

The technical aspects of war certainly catalysed the Empire to its point of dissolution, but that Britain chose to dissolve it in its way was mostly A Good Thing (TM).

Also, the use of native administrators was going on for at least 50 years before the wars - was more than a little controversial for the Burmese, I can tell you.

Also, arguably, the last Imperial effort that actually profited Britain was probably the final conquest of India...from the Boers onward, it was just a net drain.

Re: 1947+

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Gosh, yes...George Orwell's incessant whinging about his time in the Burmese police, for example...

Re: 1947+

[applez.livejournal.com]

Well, the perspective I have from the administered is rather that they might put up with the Ingle, but had very little patience for the Indian bureaucrats they brought with them, who promptly bought up all the good real estate and started their own exclusive colonies under the aegis of Empire.

Sun never sets, and all...

[silver-blue.livejournal.com]

I tend to lose patience with criticism of the British Empire, which is relatively common these days.

Empire building was what great nations did in that period, and we did it better than anyone else. So I say "go us". Whatever else, for a country this size to have had such a huge global impact which continues to resonate today, is a pretty impressive achievement.

[skinny-cartman.livejournal.com]

I think of those listed 1815 has to be the obvious choice,
anything after the great exhibition in 1850 is in a period of British imperial decline as she starts to get out produced by the other up and coming industrial economies like Germany and the USA. by 1857 not only is she in decline economically but British land power has been found wanting in the crimean war (sure we won but serious deficiencies uncovered which we don't start putting right for nearly 20 years and Cardwell's army reforms) also the indian mutiny is in full swing (1857-58)testing our colonial resolve against something not quite european model army but far from the forces of the Mahdi which we can mow down with a maxim gun - granted thats later but the principle..)
Oh and victoria isn't empress until 1876, albert gets made prince consort in 1857 mind.

1905.. our economic strength is still weakening our navy is living off of high technology it doesn't understand how to use and the myth of british supremacy as they haven't fought a sea battle of substance since trafalgar 100 years before.

1940 - anytime after the first world war British empire is in terminal decline, its greatest myths have been shattered by that war and empire is becoming essentially a burden on britain mainly due to its own economic policies having worked against empire for years. and whilst we had to make a stand against the Nazi's if the principles of being British and having the empire meant anything it was also effectively a suicide gesture from the empire itself to help save the rest of the world, if we'd have sold out sure the empire could have continued but it would have just run on downhill and ended in a damp squib moment like a wet fart.
I can see an arguement for these being the final act of glory for the empire standing by its actual british principles of what is right and proper even if it destroys us in the process (of course it can be argued that an american war aim was to destroy the western european world empires and that their isolationist policy at first and the whole war loans and marshall plan of loans was part of a way to cripple the empires of britain and france economically post war to achieve the dissolution of the empires for greater free market profiteering by american industrial empires)

I plumped for 1815 as its really what empire encapsulates for me 1940 would be a close second I guess.

Oh and some of your other comments are very much cop outs as they don't answer the question when it ended is not a definate answer and isn't exactly a great year for the empire (for the people who gain independence perhaps) if you could pin down a definate year it did end in..
and anytime after it ended isn't a valid answer to the question by any form of logic it'd be like saying 1065 before william the conqueror showed up.. you know not even britain yet...

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Of course many of the answers are copouts - I find it very sad that Imperial History is not taught in schools these days, so how can we expect uninformed people to make historical judgements?
I know very well that if I'd included "1833 - Slavery abolished throughout the Empire", that would have agot a lot of votes because, well, it's something that everyone has heard of.

Did I get my dates wrong for Empress of India? Curses, must re-read my Flashman...

[skinny-cartman.livejournal.com]

aye she gets it from disraeli, 1855 onwards is Palmerston iirc.
Disraeli only rockets up during the 1860's

1833 is also just after the great reform act (1832) which is a fairly decent year.. of course its also just before the 1834 poor law amendment act where we start locking people up in workhouses which could be seen as a low..

similar to robin whilst I don't think the empire is something that could or should exist in the modern age (well perhaps with a major modification for an imperial parliament and/or dominion status for india, ireland etc etc.) it was something that was the done thing, we excelled at in the later imperial period (after the spanish and portuguese early period) and one that in the main we ran a lot better than everyone else.. People say that the British invented concentration camps in the boer war.. Take a look at the Germans and the Hottentot massacres and the literal death camps they set up there they are models for the later nazi period ones down to racial theories and experimentations, or look at the brutallity in the Belgian congo or the Italian's chemical weapons runs in east africa...

Hmm...

[applez.livejournal.com]

Slavery abolished, perhaps...but only after Liverpool is built. :-/

Lest we sing solely the praises of Empire, consider its uncomfortable truths as well, its efforts at settling taxable Sudanese herders, say.

Re: Hmm...

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

You can't have a century of human interaction and then look at it and say "hmn, well, that's all good I think", because people aren't made like that.
The question to be asked is really: "If the Empire hadn't been there, would the world have been better or worse? Would more people have lived or died? Would the net sum of human happiness been increased or decreased?"
To which I think the answer is that things would have been a great deal worse..

Exercises in Counterfactualism

[applez.livejournal.com]

Well, this does pose several questions.

If you remove the very concept of the British Empire from world history, do you do likewise with the other European powers? If so, to what point, up to and including Spain's conquest of the New World (and all that silver & gold which flushed through the European markets)?

The most damning thing of Empire, regardless of whose Empire it is, is that it relies on an idea, and forcefits the world to it...whether it wants it or no. At least European-style agriculture and settlement of Africa was a near-complete failure thanks to local conditions that no amount of policy was going to radically change.

If one wants to measure Britain's Empire against others, clearly Britain's was mostly better than Russia's, or Belgium's ... but France's? The USA's?

As for "worse" as a conclusion, that, I believe, depends on one's timescale. Arguably, much of the world's strife today results from this very Imperial process that was begun by Britain and others. Worse, all the wrong lessons have been learned by some who persist in its wake, from that very 'forcefit' process.

Moreover...

[applez.livejournal.com]

What I find interesting is what seems to me the strongest lesson from Empire - don't let existing reality get in the way of a shared idea stamped onto that reality.

This leads to everything from:

American political revolution...

...to utter ignorance of local ecology as sheep are introduced to Australia, or cattle to the American West or wheat to central African riverbanks.

Their Finest Hour

[zombiegoat.livejournal.com]

Without a doubt, the Battle of Britain. That corpulent douchebag Goering boasted he would bring Britain to her knees, and a handful of scrappy sleep-deprived British pilots with massive amounts of caffeine and the best fighter Europe saw until the P-51 Mustang made him shiver with embarrassment in front of Walt Disney's look-alike. Best speech (Churchill's "finest hour" crack), best stiff upper lip (going to the basement during the Blitz to have tea), best radar (the Germans didn't know what hit them).

But hey... how about some Lend/Lease love for the States? :)

Re: Their Finest Hour

[(Anonymous)]

"But hey... how about some Lend/Lease love for the States? :)"

If the USW treasury hadn't insisted upon an end to imperial preference as part of lend lease, sure.

You may also note the US joined in properly after the 3rd Reich kicked off on Russia. This saving europe from becoming a soviet hegemony. Help very welcome & all that, but I know self interest when I see it. Bankrupting the British Empire, (Churchill walked straight into that one, duh) and stopping europe going red wasn't done entirely out of a spirit of philanthropy.

Whilst on paper the British may owe a great debt also to the Soviets, I wonder if they'd have stopped at Berlin if they hadn't met Uncle Sam coming the other way? My guess is no, comrades.

In fairness...

[applez.livejournal.com]

The US was in no shape to interdict anyone militarily until 1942-43, and then with enormous risk. Sure we had some successful Marines who pissed-off the Japanese in the Pacific, and managed the Doolittle Raid, but taking on the Third Reich? It was an effort just to get enough landing craft for the D-Day landing when it happened.

Britain, for better or worse, enjoyed 2-3 solid years to rebuild it's army, even with the waste of Dunkirk. Nevermind a mostly-ready professional global navy, and a high quality, if smallish air force.

---

As for the Soviets, it's a very serious question as to whether they would have been able to successfully take Berlin if it wasn't for American assistance in trucks, fuel, tyres, boots, coats, and food. Perhaps even more controversially, would the Soviet airforce have been able to field as many modern fighters without American aluminium? Would the Luftwaffe's back been broken over Soviet skies without that help?

Re: In fairness...

[(Anonymous)]

"As for the Soviets, it's a very serious question as to whether they would have been able to successfully take Berlin if it wasn't for American assistance in trucks, fuel, tyres, boots, coats, and food. Perhaps even more controversially, would the Soviet airforce have been able to field as many modern fighters without American aluminium? Would the Luftwaffe's back been broken over Soviet skies without that help?"

Without the Eastern front, Germany would... well, who knows? Never leave an active enemy at your back, which has always made me wonder, why did the Third Reich attack the Soviet Union without crushing Britain, leaving a second front 'to rear' unless it believed Britain would make peace? They attacked the Soviets 2 weeks after Rudolf Hess flew to the nearest airstrip to the house where Winston Churchill was secretly spending the weekend and the conspiracy theorist in me must wonder why they just reclassified the pertaining documents for another 100 years..

Was it Britains finest hour, or did we throw away a mostly benign empire allowing the third world to become a fiefdom of amoral big business through 'independance'?
Was Churhill so dumb as to not read the small print in Lease/Lend where it said 'you can't protect imperial trade through tariffs any more' - or was his pro imperial stance just what the masses wanted to hear?

No, the greatest triumph of the British Empire was taking cricket to the colonies and bringing curry home.

Re: In fairness...

[applez.livejournal.com]

No, the greatest triumph of the British Empire was taking cricket to the colonies and bringing curry home.

Ooo...now that's something I think everyone can get behind. :-)

Re: In fairness...

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Hitler knew England did not have the military power to stage a successful invasion of Europe but knew Stalin did, and feared an attack to his rear if he committed himself to an invasion of England. Thus, safe in the knowldge that Churchill couldn't come into his rear, he decided to deliver a knockout blow to the Russians and secure his Eastern Border.
And the rest is history.

Re: Their Finest Hour

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Lend Lease was a very good thing, and helped a lot. However, US foreign policy would have got a lot more love if Turmen hadn't said, when Germany invaded Russia, that if the Nazis started to win there, the US should join in on the Nazi side and 'kill as many as possible'.
I've never liked Truman.
Foreign policy is almost always a matter of 'what is best for us'; fighting the Nazis was manifestly not best for the British Empire, but we did it anyway. It's a rare example of self-sacrifice in Foreign Policy. The US only really joined in the European theatre seriously when it became clear that a) Hitler had lost in the East, and b) if they didn't join in the Soviet Union would stretch from Calais to Vladivostok.

Re: Their Finest Hour

[(Anonymous)]

So, what do you think Rudolf Hess wanted? (Apart from smacking, obviously)

Re: Their Finest Hour

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Peace, or even some sort of alliance against the Russians, I'd expect.
Hitler could never understand why the British were fighting him - he thought we shared a joint destiny.