British have invaded nine out of ten countries

Never mind. Don’t take it too hard.

Well done. You got it. Take cookie or something.

Which America do you mean North or South?

Oddity, just concentrate and read it once again. I know it’s difficult but it’s possible.
You really do not know that Britain often called commonly England, and USSR often commonly called Russia / Soviet Russia though there were other 14 union republics except Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic – RSFSR?

take2
Negative. It's obvious.
Oddity, just concentrate and read it once again. I know it’s difficult but it’s possible.
You really do not know that Britain often commonly called England, and USSR often commonly called Russia / Soviet Russia though there were other 14 union republics except Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic – RSFSR?
‘I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.’
W. Churchill October, 1939.

^ It's as though Churchill was deliberately excluding the Ukraine, Belorussia and Georgia etc. from the actions of the USSR.

 

Britons historycally were always advantaged by their isolated position, which made a full scale invasion rather hard, the very first ones to kick britons hard were the legionnaires of Julius Caesar, then saxons invaders after the fall of the western roman empire defeated the romano-british and then viking raiders became the terror of britons living on the coasts. Britons surely were not known as invaders historycally, they rather stayed in their homeland, and possibly fighting each other before what we know as the unification of England.

They became an empire under queen Victoria of England, conquering India and spoiling it of all what they had, a rather easy conquest since english had rifles and gunpowder while indians still fought with spears. They as well applied the divide et impera motto, inherited by the romans.

But overall, english empire lasted very little and was by no means comparable to huge and long lasting ancient empires.

 

That's not true we had an empire even before the act of union of 1707.
The EITC did not have rifles in mainstream service until the Sepoy rebellion of 1857 nor the British army.

The states of Inida did have muskets and gunpowder weapons well before we did. And they were by no means a peaceful and benevolent people. In fact many Indians still revere Britain to this very day.

Divide and Conquer actually helped keep India from going to war with itself as had been the case long before European sovereignty was established.
The concept itself is not uniquely Roman, particularly if you look towards the more easterly nations.

The British empire lasted quite a while, starting in 1587 and had some very long lasting effects like for example the fact that you're using my language to converse with people across the globe.

 

Well englishmen had it easy to colonise north america around 1600, since no big resistance was ever encountered, and english weapons far surpassed those of native americans, that was their very first accomplishement. Then they stole gradually territories and wealth to their sorrounding colonizing powers, primarly Netherlands and France. They are also responsible for the transportation of 3.5 millions of african slaves to america ( one third of total slaves that ever crossed the atlantic ) by the royal african company, and this ensured an enormous amount of wealth at the expense of millions of human lives. In 1783 americans colonies were lost because english crown taxed americans without them having any civil representation or rights. The first empire lasted so approximately 180 years, years of bloodshed at the expense of native americans and african slaves, as other europeans super powers did.

Then the english crown shifted it's attentions over asia, since america was lost, discovering lots of islands and giving them english names, but their most valuable possession was India, stolen from their french neighboroughs, conquering and dominating it using internal divisions at their advantage.

If you say the british had quite a huge trade and territories at some time in history, i agree with that, if you say they are the most aggressive and world conquering nation, i totally disagree. Romans fought an infinite amount of battles and dealt with many external and internal struggles to build their empire and keep it, while englishmen just had to wipe out spear wielding natives with their cannons and guns and then buy tons of black slaves to do the work for them and whatch them working and dying while becoming extremly rich, as other european colonial powers did, spoiling countries of what they had more than estabilish a solid and durable empire.

I'd say the longest and most solid empire of all was the roman's, there is really no comparison between them and the fragile and mutable colonial powers, whose fortunes could change literally in the blink of an eye

As for the language, it's due to the fact that the biggest in number of all the colonizers were english, also because of religious persecution after protestantism. And since America became the most powerful country, english naturally became one of the most spoken languages of the world of course. Just as chinese will become even more spoken than english throughout the world if the trend goes on, and without any colonialism or aggression.

 

True. The native Americans were more interested in trading than war as we were as well. And yes there were a few wars between them and the settlers but the crown had little authority over these colonies as they were private colonies. They stretched across the eastern seaboard with Quebec being acquired later and only represented only a small portion of colonial N. America.
And yes it was a big accomplishment as many of the settlers suffered from disease and hunger and still managed to take the biggest chunk of N. America. Mind you so did the natives.

As for slavery. Well believe it or not out of all the European nations, we were the most progressive when it came to slavery. Outlawed in 1833 and the trade itself was abolished in1807.

On top of that slavery was not started by Europeans but Africans. The only difference is that Europe commercialised it which was started by the Portuguese in the Kongo kingdom.

No they had rights just not representation when it came to taxation by the crown and not the colonial government. There's a reason they called it the 2nd continental congress.

We did not discover them and we used native names. They were found by the Dutch and Portuguese in the 1500's.
There were British trading posts in India before the 7 years war which enlarged our Indian territories by conquering French possessions in India.

Well look it up. The worlds biggest empire with the Mongols in 2nd place.

Doubt it. The Chinese economy is likely to out-price itself. The only reason that western companies outsource to China is because it's cheaper this in turn improves the GDP to the point where the cost of living will make it infeasible to keep production in China. To a small extent this is already happening as quite a few companies chose Vietnam over China. Even a few British firms have decided to come back home.

As you say fortunes can change in the blink of an eye as is the case in Chinese history.

 

To make it short, all colonial " empires " were an astounding mess, at the expense of natives, you cannot deny this. Of course, through time, governements and laws were estabilished, but this doesn't change the fact it all started with the intent to become really rich in little time, and so it was.

I'm not saying english are the worst, all colonial powers, spain and portugal to say the most, used brute force and political manipulation to gain enormous wealth at the expense of human lives.

Now, you say briton empire was the largest, followed by the mongolian, but every historian agreeds that the mongolian empire was like a giant made of clay, ready to fall at the first organized opposition. You can call it an empire, i call it a big and organized raid, but far from being an empire.

Slaves were sold by africans, still it doesn't make any better the abuse of blacks by white colonian powers, expecially englishmen.

Speaking frankly, calling an empire a thing based on indiscriminate abuse of slaves, repression of native population, and then flee when things get too hot, is rather hazardous to me. A much better form of empire, as i said before, was that of the romans, and the ancient chinese, those were true empires.

If you call britons aggressive and world conquerors, then so are all other european colonial powers of that time, the only difference is that englishmen were the largest in number to flee from europe to america, escaping from poverty and religious persecution. And since a large part of america was still occupied by other countries, they directed themselves towards new lands and isles, discoverying a lot of places, but i can hardly call that a " conquest ".

Britons had " conquered " even the south pole, now you can claim it as a conquest, but actually it is more a discovery... unless you think a great empire is so only by it's size, in that case an astronaut could claim to have the largest epire ever because he planted his flag on the moon.

 

I don't know about that. I think it's half and half. I mean the British in the the pacific has spawned some of the most economically strong countries in Asia.
And yes empires are built on making money. I mean you can't support overseas territories without cash. India was running at a loss until the 1st opium war.

I know. Some people have a habit of calling us so. I would say that France was perhaps the worst perpetrator of native rights in the 19th century. I would of mentioned Belgium but those abuses were of King Leopolds design.

For the time it was. After all medieval governments were not the most united nor competent. E.g. the Holy Roman Empire. You could go even further back to Alexander the greats empire where his authority was limited and easily fractured.
In fairness I do agree that Rome was perhaps one of the most successful empires and many of the ideas that they used were borrowed by Europeans. It's what we call the classical revival.

I wasn't excusing it. I just mentioned the origin that's all. And like I said we abolished slavery before most European nations. And we established the Atlantic slave squadron which was dedicated to stopping it. We freed well over half a million slaves, captured 1000 vessels, assigned Sierra Leone as a exclusive to former slaves and pressed the Webster-Ashburton treaty in the US.
Who else had done more during that time?

Well it wasn't based upon slavery except in the Caribbean and N. America. Btw most slaves were shipped to the former not the latter.
Also during Decolonization we didn't just flee. We were in Malaysia fighting Communists, Borneo, Indonesia, Yemen & Oman, Kenya and so on. All our engagements there were meant to ensure stability before we left and even afterwards because the order of the day was to leave these places in a better state than when first entered.

Also ancient China was not that united. In fact alot of regions were very autonomous almost as if they were there own state.

Well sure that's one reason why people go. It's not the only reason. Actually alot of N. America was sparsely populated. Not to say that there wasn't people living there.
Well an empire doesn't have to be built upon conquest. I mean that's what colonization means. To settle in empty places.

Well that was really more for the papers in regards to the S.pole. It wasn't a discovery because Capitan cook voyaged there to find the phantom "southern continent" in the 1780's I think.

No an astronaut cannot claim to have an empire because the international treaties regarding space exploration forbid state ownership of celestial bodies.

Btw as you're new I suggest you use the "Quote" button otherwise I won't be notified of your response.

 

Of course not every single action by colonizers/conquerors need to be evil. Not only brits benefied from all that trade, it could happen that tecnology and society evolve because of it, on the long term. On the short term however, there was a lot to lose for the conquered, it couldn't be otherwise.

Overall, i think the spanish were the worst, with their brutal conquistadores utterly destroying, humiliating and spoling the native civilization ( they were mad for gold ). No one is excused however, there were lots of other ways to get wealthy, but it would have required more time... those surely were violent and tense times.

As i said before, some good things were also made. Missionaries came from europe to estabilish catholic church, instructing natives and let them learn the language. After all the spoliation and violence, something good also had to happen at least. One thing was unforgivable however, to use african slaves till death while slavery in europe was forbidden, as if they were not human beings but rather beasts ( in fact, to justify the slavery, many whites arrived to state that they were inferior beings, unworthy of human rights, using some violent tribal sacrifices as an excuse for their being non human )

 

Well yes some slave owners were pretty cruel but most were concerned with keeping them alive to do the work.
I mean it's a bit of a flawed idea to buy a slave which would not of been cheap then kill him through exhaustion a month later.
So I'm sure that example you've presented would of been of the minority rather than the majority.

Also slavery was abolished in all overseas possessions of the British empire with the exception of Ceylon. Ceylon was slave free after the Indian penal code of 1861.

As for other European powers and their laws regarding slavery. I don't enough to make a sure judgement.
But I do know that France did rule it's territories as departments of the French gov which meant that colonial governments would not be able to make their legislation.

It would of been easy to mistake African peoples as being primitive which in a few cases is understandable but not representative of the whole Africa.