The British Empire: a force for good

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

Well ,i guess i have something to contribute to a WWI history.

I actually live in Ypres ,a small city in the West of Belgium.As you would run through my city ,you would think by it's medieval look that it is a very old city.But in fact ,it's an exact copie of the city that stood here before 1914.
For for years my city was one of the center spot's of WWI.In the surrounding landscape of ypres lies hundred's of war graveyard's.Filled with Canadian's, English and German causulties of WWI.Farming arround ypres has a certain danger level ,as each year some farmer get's blown away by a WWI restover unexploded artillery shell.
On ten meter's of my house ,One of the biggest monumet's of WWI stand's in it's full glory.And every day ,at 20.00hrs gmt+1 ,and ode by trompet's is held at that very monument ,it's called the last post.
My city has the best WWI museum in the world.Each year ,people flok to my city to see all these thing ,especially british people ,and we earn well with the tourism.And each so many years ,some king's (mostly english or other high official's come to remember the war ,right next to my doorstep.And then i just look out of my window.
People working for the commonwelth come to my country to maintain the graveyard's.They have a little Anglican church and a english pub not far of the big market square. (beer at 0.5$ :crazyeyes )

And why all this? On a nice Belgium day ,some simple bloke from my city that maintained a canal port (you know ,to water lift ships) ,came up with a weird plan to stop the invading German army on that very day by himself ,just by fully opening the cannal port's ,that way flooding the Flanders lowlands.
And so the german's were stopped ,entrenched for four years in a horrible natural condition's ,followed by hard winter's.
You know ,that simple bloke may be one of the best soldiers of his generation.

And close to my city ,at passendale ,a bohemean corporal fought for the glory of reich.Frustrated by the event's that happened there ,he would later lead a reich of his own through the landscape ,and visit those old war place's he fought.

So i ask you ,were the brittish a force for good in my city?
In any way ,it shaped my city.As even it's medieval beauty was a product of english sheep.

 

[andycapp]

No one is certain who first sighted the Falklands, Vespucci, Magellan, Davis, Hawkins and Sebald de Weert all lay claim to this.

The first person to actually set foot on the islands, as distinct from noting them in logs and journals, was Captain James Strong who was driven off course by a storm enroute to Chile in 1690.

Strong charted the islands and named them the Falklands but did not claim them for Britain.

The treaty of Utrecht (1713) formally confirmed Spanish control of it's traditional territories in the Americas, which according to the Spanish, included the Falklands.

This did not stop other nations from wishing to control them for strategic reasons ie. Britain and France.

A Frenchman by the name of Antoine de Bougainville laid claim to them for Louis XV of France in 1764. He landed with a small group of settlers on the site just north of present day Port Stanley and built a small fort and settlement named Port Louis.

The British, unaware of de Bougainville's settlement, made a landing on West Falkland a year later in 1765 at a spot they named Port Egmont, laid claim to the island after hoisting the flag and sailed away.

The following year the British Admiralty sent out another expedition to establish a colony at Port Egmont.

The French agreed to tranfer their claim of the Falklands to the Spanish in 1767 at which time the colony was renamed Puerto Soledad and was governed from Spanish Buenos Aires.

In 1769 the Spanish Captain-General of Buenos Aires sent a military force to evict the British colony at Port Egmont.

After a year of negiation between the British and Spanish the British were allowed to return to Port Egmont as part of a diplomatic solution to "restore the King's honour" which was agreed to by the Spanish on the condition that the Brits then sailed away. The Spanish still claimed sovereignty of the islands as did the British.

The British formally renounced any colonial claims in South America when it signed the Nootka Sound Convention in 1790.

With the first moves towards independence in the Spanish colonies in South America the settlers in Puerto Soledad were removed to Patagonia by the Spanish authorities.

In 1820 the newly independent state of the United Provinces of Rio de la Plata (Argentina) sent a frigate to the islands to claim it as part of the Spanish colonial legacy.

In 1829(?) an American (US) sealing ship Harriet, was seized whilst in Falkland waters by the Argentinians for illegal sealing.

In response, the Americans sent the warship USS Lexington to Puerto Soledad and all but destroyed the settlement and took back the confiscated sealskins, and sailed away declaring 'the islands free of all government'.

Another Argentine Governor was sent to the islands and was promptly murdered by the surviving inhabitants.

The British, in 1833, took advantge of the situation and sent two warships to enforce the British claim to the islands (despite Nootka Sound) and evicted the Argentinians.

The British government formally declared the Falklands a colony in 1842 and in 1908 unilaterally declared sovereignty over the South Georgia , South Sandwich, Orkney and Shetland Islands and Graham Land and were grouped under the Falkland Islands Dependencies.

Did I say a brief history - that will do for now.

 

[andycapp]

Just noticed Kublai Khan's post, I suspect we're using the same source for our posts(?).

I was using 'Battle for the Falklands' by Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins - an excellent commentary on the Falklands!

 

[Kublai-Khan]

Originally posted by andycapp
Just noticed Kublai Khan's post, I suspect we're using the same source for our posts(?).

I was using 'Battle for the Falklands' by Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins - an excellent commentary on the Falklands!

I think that this problem is far to complicated,
i ve seen spanish maps that showed the falklands -or something that seems to be the falklands-
from before 1690.
I don´t think it will be solve anyway.
And if it is solved, it wont be in argentinean favor.
For obvious reasons.
You just have to look to what´s happening in Spain with gibraltar.

 

[andycapp]

The resident populations in both Gibralter and the Falklands want to remain British which will be the major hurdle to these territories returning to Spain and Argentina.

 

[knowltok]

I don't question that the British were a force for good in Belgium in the 20th century. My only question was how well they have guaranteed the security of Belgium. I am not saying this is the case, but I could see where Belgiuns could be a bit indignant at claims that Britain guaranteed their security given that the Germans were allowed to rearm and overrun the country in 1940. Don't get me wrong, I know that the British played a major part in liberating Belgium from the Germans, and I'm sure that the Belgians are grateful, I just wan't sure what the Belgian perspective was on guarantees of security given over four years of occupation.

 

[Kublai-Khan]

Originally posted by andycapp
The resident populations in both Gibralter and the Falklands want to remain British which will be the major hurdle to these territories returning to Spain and Argentina.

The falklands islands have a population of less than 3.000
inhabitants,
in a supermarket there is more people.
I don´t think that they have the right to determinate who is the owner of their territory.
Of course if you replace the native population with british population that is going to happen.
Anyway, the history is in our side, not the economical or militar power.
But i really don´t care about the falkland islands,
they are just 2 small islands with no resources at all.

 

[redtom]

Falklands
-The Falklands does have some worth to britain as it apparently has untold of oil reserves below the isles. It also produces wool for the British market.
-The majority of people in the Falklands are British and have absolutely no wish to join stinking poor country like argentina.
-We've fought for the islands in the past and it would be bad to give it back without a fight. Just think of all those dozens of British soldiers who fought and died for the islands. Then compare it to all those hundreds of murderous Argentines fighting for a fascist government.
-We first sighted it.

Gibraltar
-It was handed to us during the Treaty of Utrecht along with Minorca.
-The majority of people living on the point are British and want to remain part of the British Empire.
-It has huge strategic value to a naval nation like Great Britain, far as I know it played a huge part in the Second World War preventing the Nazis from overtaking the Mediteranean.

PS. We still have the largest official empire, the Russian Federation is an territory, now.

PSS What did the Danish ever do for the world?

 

[Sodak]

Originally posted by redtom
[... Just think of all those dozens of British soldiers who fought and died for the islands. ...those hundreds of murderous Argentines fighting for a fascist government.
-We first sighted it.

Uh, do I sense some strong bias here? "Murderous Argentines"? Only because they killed some Brits? Does this not make the Brits who killed Argentines "Murderous Brits"? It goes both ways, pal.

A "stinking poor country like argentina"!? At least the Argentine people have some manners and respect. Grow up.

Who cares who saw it first, what difference does that make? That sounds like a petty schoolyard squabble. Mine! No, mine! I saw it first! No, I did!

 

[Kublai-Khan]

Originally posted by redtom
Falklands
-The Falklands does have some worth to britain as it apparently has untold of oil reserves below the isles. It also produces wool for the British market.
-The majority of people in the Falklands are British and have absolutely no wish to join stinking poor country like argentina.
-We've fought for the islands in the past and it would be bad to give it back without a fight. Just think of all those dozens of British soldiers who fought and died for the islands. Then compare it to all those hundreds of murderous Argentines fighting for a fascist government.
-We first sighted it.

Gibraltar
-It was handed to us during the Treaty of Utrecht along with Minorca.
-The majority of people living on the point are British and want to remain part of the British Empire.
-It has huge strategic value to a naval nation like Great Britain, far as I know it played a huge part in the Second World War preventing the Nazis from overtaking the Mediteranean.

PS. We still have the largest official empire, the Russian Federation is an territory, now.

PSS What did the Danish ever do for the world?

a)
It has no oil, look as much as you want, but it has no oil.
Dozens of times, studies have been made in the islands but nothing could be discovered.
And wool is something just to cheap that you can get anywhere, the reason of the interest of britain in the falklands is more related with the antartic continenet.
b)
Yes, but the population was argentinean first, they replaced the population with british man later.
The occupation of the falklands is an act of piracy, I understand that after 170 years in a way we don´t have a right to claim soberany over the islands.
But we always claimed that the island were ours.
You should know that in a lot of times in our history the british government was very close to give us the islands by diplomacy and until the war england was our biggest market and "friend " in a way.
c)
Argentina has been always a democracy, we had a dictatorship at those times becouse USA-i am not making an american bashing(it is not my intention)- and their big friends like england were very afraid of communism in those times, remember cuba, allende in chile and the problems in el salvador and guatemala.
So they decided that it was good for democracy and freedom in the world to instaurate disctatorships in latin america, so we had a bunch of crazy ****s ruling us, trained in "escuela de las americas" and obssesed with the idea of a third world war against the comunist countries, who by the way killed 30.000 people , mostly university students.
The war was declared becouse it was clear that the dictatorship could no longer stay in power, the people wanted back democracy, so
the military coup decided to re-conquer the falkland islands to try to win the population support, they lost the war-they really didn´t believe that england was going to do something, we were so good friends..-
and after they lost the war we were a democracy again.

d)Until the middle 70´s -before the military coup-Argentina was considered a first world country, we were very simmilar to Australia and New Zeland for example.
Countries whose population was majorly conformed by european inmigrants. with an incipient industry and our principal activity was to export agricultural goods to england.

e)We've fought for the islands in the past and it would be bad to give it back without a fight. Just think of all those dozens of British soldiers who fought and died for the islands. Then compare it to all those hundreds of murderous Argentines fighting for a fascist government.

Should i answer this? You are really amazing, you are like a british redneck.
Only one men of the islands die, and the other casualties are what is expected in a war.
Do you know something about the ship Manuel Belgrano, i can find something for you, half of the argentinean victims died there, and it was not in the area of fight.

 

[smokeyjoe]

Britain had the largest official empire until Hong Kong returned to the Chinese. We are now about 6th in the imperial league table, behind (I think) France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Spain and Portugal.

The British Empire now consists of a few scattered island groups like the Pitcairns, and Gibralter.

An interesting fact is that about 50% of the worlds money laundering / tax evasion takes place through various British dependencies (Jersey, Sark, Isle of Man, various Carribean islands, etc)


As for the Falklands, Argentina removed a dictator and began an economic recovery, We were landed with Margret Thatcher for another 8 years and have a $2 billion airport on Ascension Island.

 

[Blackadder]

I think that apart from bacon, the Danish have been responsible for being for a time Scandinavia's greatest country. You see it lies in the correct geographical position to collect tolls for shipping (eg, control of Skagerak). Its history is rich in Viking heritage and then in the duel kingdoms of Denmark-Norway. Sweden was held under Danish sway for a short time but then the Sweds rebelled.
It colonised the fertile lands of Greenland, held Iceland and had a Caribbean island (I think). The rest of its history is left for a Dane to tell, I'm interested in its history also.


It looks to me like our discussion over the First World War is coming to an end so lets go to the War of Spanish Sucession.
Was Britain, Austria and the Netherlands (plus a few other countries) correct in causing massive bloodshed in Europe (as can be seen in the poem, The Battle of Blenheim) so we wouldn't face the danger of Franco-Spain, and that although many of you believe this was done for a selfish reason, it shows Britain as a force/empire for balance and therefore goodness throughout Europe?

 

[Knight-Dragon]

-The Falklands does have some worth to britain as it apparently has untold of oil reserves below the isles. It also produces wool for the British market.

Wool, I see. Are you still living in the, say, 17th century? Wool is not really a very important economic commodity nowadays.

-The majority of people in the Falklands are British and have absolutely no wish to join stinking poor country like argentina.

It's cos of this kind of highbrowed snobbish attitude that nobody wants to remain in the British empire and most people want independence.

-We've fought for the islands in the past and it would be bad to give it back without a fight. Just think of all those dozens of British soldiers who fought and died for the islands. Then compare it to all those hundreds of murderous Argentines fighting for a fascist government.

What fascist govt? Are you living in a time warp?

The Soviets lost millions of people conquering Eastern Europe too you know.

-We first sighted it.

So did the Celts (or maybe an even earlier people) who saw the British isles first. Look who's ruling the island now.

-It was handed to us during the Treaty of Utrecht along with Minorca.

We can always have another treaty so that you can hand it back if legalities are so important to you.

-The majority of people living on the point are British and want to remain part of the British Empire.

I don't know much bout Gilbraltar so I'll give you this one.

-It has huge strategic value to a naval nation like Great Britain, far as I know it played a huge part in the Second World War preventing the Nazis from overtaking the Mediteranean.

Great Britain no longer exist. The great part has been dropped off from the name of the country. And I think the British forces in Malta and Egypt played a greater part in preventing the Nazis fr taking over the Med.

PS. We still have the largest official empire, the Russian Federation is an territory, now.

........

PSS What did the Danish ever do for the world?

................

 

[Kublai-Khan]

Originally posted by smokeyjoe
As for the Falklands, Argentina removed a dictator and began an economic recovery

now we are in a terrible recession,
it is worst than the crack of 1929
our crisis will be in every newspaper tomorrow.
I thought i needed to say that to remain impartial,
and in my last post i would like to correct myself, the military coup killed 30.000 people, not the communists-
It was a result of my bag english.

 

[Sayhueque]

Well, what can I say, I will not dignify tom with an answer, his snobbish attitude deserves no reply.

But we can talk about "force of good".

Good, but for who? For the British. The British were not a force of good anywhere, they were a force of their own interests. I think it's pointless to discuss if they were good or bad, they were defending their interests wherever they went, regardless of the prior inhabitants, regardless of their culture, regardless of anything. The British Empire did nothing more than bring territories under english rule because it protected its interests best that way.

As well as the Americans saying 'we saved your bottoms in WWII" which is total piffle. The Americans saved their own bottom by intervening, and they did it because of their own interests too, not out of the goodness of their heart. They did it because it would have been worse for the US if Hitler occupied all of Europe. They launched the Marshall Plan because it would have been much worse for the US if the Russians took over Europe and communism was installed in the west.

Wherever men go, their selfish wish to protect their interests regardless of their method prevails. Whether it's good or bad, well, bollocks to it, it happens, and most times it's ****.

 

[andycapp]

Sayhueque, raises a valid point to consider WHO the British Empire was 'good' for?

He is also right to suggest that self interest rather than altruism is, and has been the main motivational force in international affairs throughout history.

 

[redtom]

Originally posted by Knight-Dragon
Wool, I see. Are you still living in the, say, 17th century? Wool is not really a very important economic commodity nowadays.

It's cos of this kind of highbrowed snobbish attitude that nobody wants to remain in the British empire and most people want independence.

What fascist govt? Are you living in a time warp?

The Soviets lost millions of people conquering Eastern Europe too you know.

So did the Celts (or maybe an even earlier people) who saw the British isles first. Look who's ruling the island now.

We can always have another treaty so that you can hand it back if legalities are so important to you.

I don't know much bout Gilbraltar so I'll give you this one.

Great Britain no longer exist. The great part has been dropped off from the name of the country. And I think the British forces in Malta and Egypt played a greater part in preventing the Nazis fr taking over the Med.

........

................

I know they don't have a fascist government now, but they did when they invaded the islands in the 80's. Though with political revolt at the mo, in argentina, this may no longer be true

On my passport it reads: "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", so rolleyes try be slightly correct in the future.

Britain is made up of Celtic people including myself who has Irish ancestors, idiot. Wales and not so much scotland is celtic and is a part of the United Kingdom.

The oil - Last time I read something about Falklands it mentioned they still believe there is oil under the islands.

 

[knowltok]

British redneck

That's a good one.

Its actually too bad more people don't realize that nations are and should be guided by national self interest. The US would have a much better world wide regard if we hadn't been so hypocritical. We said democracy on one hand, and dictatorship where we need it to fight comunism on the other. Maybe we didn't need the dictators at all, but if we would have just had the honesty to say, "We're putting this guy in cause he's against commies and promotes stability, and that is what we are most concerned with." We wouldn't have such the black eye today.

This kind of thing is still going on these days. Take Yugoslavia. We're there because its on Western Europe's doorstep, and stability in the region is vital to US interests. That should be enough. Hopefully we can help people and stop killings along the way, but why do we need to sugarcoat it. The same is true with Kuwait and the Gulf War. Wasn't having someone like Saddam in control of that much oil reason enough?

I think it is America's hypocritical stances on its actions that causes more trouble for it than its actions themselves.

 

[redtom]

If I sound like a redneck but I do get a bit protective of my home country, after all the Americans in over threads are just as protective of there's.

The empire was not built on expansionist issues it was built on Britains commercial interest, initially slaves, then cotton etc.. The reason's are Empire was so big was due to the fact we had more money and ships to expand. No British leader ever wanted to expand his empire beyond the economic interests of the nation, Take Gladstone, for example, he left a British general, George, to die because he did not believe Sudan was economically viable. As it would cost more to keep Sudan than to leave it for another Empirical power.

If want an example of a nation who built its empire because it thought it deserved/believed to own a massive empire, than look at France.

I, however, do conceid that the scramble for africa was expansionist. Or as Lord Salisbury put it: "Its better to gain empire now and find the wealth of the land later, than find later there is nowhere to build an Empire" (This is probably very badly misquoted, but you get the idea).

 

[Blackadder]

I agree with Redtom on this one, the British rarely expanded for the sake of expansion. Like I and many others had mentioned earlier, Britain did everything for its own benefit. However it cannot be ignored that of all imperialists, which was the 'kindest'?
The reason countries like India was granted freedom was because it was no longer economically sustainable. The reason Britain seperated Pakistan was to help make them internationally look good, even if it did prevent a huge civil war and the eventual 'freedom' of Pakistan anyway. The reason the British never really took advantage of other countries in Europe to expand mainland and always tried to keep the balance of Europe correct is because these were no longer seen as viable or economical conquests, the loss of Calais told us that. However Britain did indeed take both Gibraltar and Malta (not to mention Minorca etc), if only to control the Medditerranian sea.
The reason Britain had pacts with Belgium was a cotton trade and the necessaty of friendly mainlanders near them.

If the British did incidental good, it still makes them a force for good. Especially when compared with other empires.
Just one more thing, I would count The United Kingdom Of Great Britain as more than one country.
Alternatively, just call it Perfidious Albion

And Knight-dragon, what part of Malaysia are you talking about?
Some of it was Portugese, then Dutch, then British, so you may not have not noticed much of a change....