"In the history of mankind, no political entity ever came close to matching the British Empire at its peak. After World War I, the British Empire; the United Kingdom, its territories, protectorates, mandates, the Empire of India and associated Commonwealths covered more land and sea and included more peoples than any other empire in the history of the world. George VI, the last British King-Emperor, reigned over an empire larger than that of Alexander the Great, Caesar Trajan or Genghis Khan. Winston Churchill, at the height of the battle of Britain, famously said that, "…if the British Empire, and its commonwealths, last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘THIS was their finest hour'". Absolutely no one could deny that this was true. Yet, the British Empire was not to last a thousand years and almost before World War II was over, the dissolution of this monument to Anglo-Saxon civilization had already begun. Because it was so large, covering so many diverse lands and peoples, there has never been a greater setback to the cause of monarchy than the break-up of the British Empire whose collapse gave birth to so many republics across Africa and southern Asia. How could this have happened?
The causes of this catastrophe can be categorized in a number of ways. There were economic, strategic, military and political reasons for it. One of the greatest strengths of the British people, at least to my mind, was their ability to admit their own mistakes, look at them honestly and improve themselves going forward. The examples of this are numerous, in numerous fields, from politics to the military. However, when it came to foreign policy, past wisdom seemed to be increasingly forgotten in the events leading up to World War II. The First World War had left the British Empire at its peak in terms of size, but in economic terms it was stretched to the breaking point. The total war that Britain embarked on in 1914 had caused all other considerations to be set aside in favor of destroying Imperial Germany. Part of that included putting the British Empire deep in debt to the United States to buy the food, war materials and other necessary resources to keep Britain in the fight so that, by the time it was over, Britain owed billions of dollars to America. This, combined with a rise in the socialist movement within the trade unions after the war meant that the British Empire was economically unprepared for the strain and expense of an even larger, costlier world war in 1939. Before it was over, by choosing to fight in 1939 the British government was forced to turn over virtually its entire gold reserve to the United States to sustain the war effort.
In strategic terms, the strength of the British Empire depended on maintaining control of several vital "choke points" around the globe. British leaders had, for centuries, taken care to bring these "choke points" under the control of London so that, about the only one Britain did not control was the Panama Canal. To keep open the trade and supply lines vital to maintaining the empire, Britain had to maintain control of several strategic points such as Gibraltar, Malta and the Suez Canal through the Mediterranean and Singapore in South East Asia. After World War I all of these strategic points were totally secure and yet, due to foreign policy decisions, all were threatened by the start of World War II. In terms of foreign policy, the traditional British practice was to remain aloof from the continent to focus on maintaining control of the oceans and maritime trade routes which were vital to the empire. Britain would intervene on the continent only if the balance of power was disrupted to the point to become a potential threat to Britain's global possessions. However, after World War I the British government began making extensive promises to continental powers and made several decisions which imperiled Britain's strategic "choke points" around the …"
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