Nyvin said:
Those little industry areas (India and south Africa.) were found all over the world, even in places like Columbia.
Right, but we're talking about a large aggregate amount here. Also, textile sweatshops in India were on a level you can't really compare with Columbia or even the southern US.
And then the India area and southern Africa, which was about another fifth or so individually.
Err... India (plus neighbouring holdings such as Burma) is quite large. And I don't see any mention of the aggregate of holdings like Malaysia and all the little Carribean stuff, New Guineau, Pacific chains, etc. And, in 1900, the British owned a little more than just southern Africa .... they were in control of everything from the Cape to the Nile, except Ethiopia. By 1921 the British Empire holds 14.1 million square miles, a quarter of the Earth's landmass, with a population of 400-500 million, a quarter of the population.
Needless to say, a good portion (something like 50%)of the empire really wasn't 'the empire' at all.
What was it then? The system of indirect rule didn't happen until after the Imperial Conferences in the twenties. 100% of the British Empire in 1900, was the British Empire. In 1900, Britain was at a high point of the Victorian phenomena of New Imperialism, adding 9 million square miles of territory between 1870 and 1900, having re-asserted a more direct imperialism ever since Disraeli. The *only* country in the entire Empire with any self-governing capacity was Canada, since 1867; home rule was not implemented in Aus until 1901, NZ in 1907, South Africa in 1910 and everything else decades later. So I have no idea at all what you're talking about here, but it seems to be quite a misinterpretation of the sequence of events and timeline.
They didnt' perform much better then German tanks...considering both were pretty insignificant.
Strategically, yes, because there were too few of them and they were too difficult to deploy so they had little to no impact on the course of the war, but tactically, in specific local instances, they performed much better than the German tanks.
The victor of the war though (Britain) was to be the one of course credited with more of the 'better performance'
It had zip to do with that. The British were not the ones who estimated their tanks as having performed well ... it was the Germans.
No they didn't, the colonial army amounted to nothing more then 1.8% of their budget...ever.
So? Native auxilaries did not comprise more than a small fragment of the British Army in 1900. Also, colonial armies were only partially funded from the Imperial Treasury, they were primarily funded by colonial administrations.
The Spainish American war was a global war to a degree, therefore the US (and to an extent Spain) DID possess power projection on a global scale to some degree.
Sorry ... I'm going to have to discount this. Spain possessed power projection of some sort but it was obviously not sufficient. It was only a 'global' war for Spain, it was very much a regional affair for the US. Invading Cuba from Florida is hardly global projection.
Also not mentioned is the incredible Scramble for Africa, the last of which happened with 'France' conquering the Arab Islamic country (not tribesmen) inhabited country of Morocco in 1912. That is global confrontation to some degree.
The "Scramble for Africa" was, as I mentioned, mostly in the vicinity of the Congo, which did not occasion the need for any meaningful projection of power. Right now, if Australia were only inhabited by aboriginals anyone could ship a few regiments over but that's not force projection in the sense the term is usually used. Force projection is the ability to conduct operations against a reasonably powerful foe at a very far distance, such as British operations in India, Egypt, or against the Boers. Congo was just some skirmishing. As for Morocco, get a map ... for France this was definately a regional affair.
Also the whole scramble for pacific islands happened with France, Germany, US. That was also global projection too.
Global projection, but not global projection of any serious amount of military power.
And the last thing to mention was China being sliced and diced by other imperial powers. France, Germany, Russia, Japan, and even to a small degree the US taking part in it. Each country was developing it's own 'sphere of influence' on the other side of the planet, and there was warfare involved in some cases.
In fact the reason all mighty sole superpower Britain couldn't expand into latin america was the fear of a US-brittish war.
Sure, they had plenty of conquering to do and couldn't do it all at once, they'd be stretched too thin. Getting the Suez and setting up the basis for a railroad to Capetown by acquiring all of Eastern Africa was seen as a higher priority than adding a few more latin american holdings.They also had to weigh the advantages of acquiring latin american colonies against the disadvantages of losing American trade, since the US was a major source of agricultural imports at this time.
Italy did succeed in taking a large portion of the coastal part of the Absam (w/e it was...) empire. Saying they got nailed by spearmen is biased, it was brittish and french support for the abissmids that enabled their victory.
They took it, but they didn't keep it. Soon after the decisive defeat at Adowa, they were mopped up and forced out. British and French support was mostly diplomatic - the main reason the Italians were defeated was that they had been selling rifles to Menelik for four years, assuming he would "sell out". In any case it's mostly irrelevant as by the time of the Battle of Adowa, both sides had virtually exhausted all their supplies in any case (which, if the Italians had possessed any signifigant logistics capability, shouldn't have happened).
The real reason you don't see any kind of 'power projection' is because most of the world was already conquered by an imperial power and trying to invade would be a large scale war which couldn't be risked at the time (even by Britain) This simply led to the arms buildup and ultimately WW1.
There were, as you pointed out, numerous conflicts between moderately modern powers aside from Britain during this time, some of them quite major, but all regional in character (at least for the victors). The simple fact is nobody had the logistics at this time to conduct any kind of large scale operations at any great distance, except the British. That's force projection - logistical ability. Britain was primarily cautious because although it was vastly superior to any individual competitor, it did not have the capability to project force to two fronts simultaneously at a global level. This reality of the period, and what followed as a result, is considered a "lesson learned" in modern American strategic doctrine which is entirely built around exactly this capability. It is why America has gone from not just a superpower, or even a hyperpower, but has become in effect a global hegemony - at least for the time being.
Perhaps we're just at odds with definitions. If America was a superpower in 1950, I'd have to say Britain qualifies in 1900. But if America was a superpower in 1950, it is clearly something entirely different now. I am not saying the British were the 1900 version of America in 2000, they were a lone version of what America was relative to the world of 1950.
Now if I were to design one, it would either be a beaver (bonus to the time it takes to clear forests), or a Raging Granny (good for sabotaging enemy units).
