The Collapse of the British Empire
Why did the British Empire collapse?
To answer this question we must delve back from the 1830s when the actual collapse took place and look at Britain in the aftermath of victory at Waterloo – the final triumph of the Napoleonic Wars. In 1815 Britain lay as the world’s sole superpower, in a position of dominance unrivalled since the collapse of the Roman Empire. With no continental power able to challenge her, an unrivalled industrial base and a vast territorial and trading empire Britain appeared to be outwardly enjoying the greatest period in its history. However inwardly it was rifled with strife.
Not only had the Napoleonic Wars almost ruined Britain financially they had also witnessed the rise of the phenomenon of Luddism – a strange ideological quirk of history which was a social movement of the skilled craftsmen reacting against the new industries growing up across Britain which made them obsolete. As these very industries that the Luddites reacted against expanded Britain’s cities were growing rapidly – however the unrestrained nature of the British capitalist economy meant that the huge economic benefits that empire and industry were bringing to Britain were seen by only a tiny minority whilst conditions for the newly emerging proletarian class of workers remained unimaginably harsh. Child labour, starvation, pestilence and political repression experienced by the have nots contrasted starkly with the opulence, wealth and comfort of the haves. The world’s first industrial society was creating one of the most intense class conflicts in history.
Things were only made worse by the failings of the British government during this period. Under the Prime Ministerial tenure of the Earl of Liverpool (1812-1827) the British government incompetently failed to react to the social time bomb being created by the industrial revolution. In 1815 the infamous Corn Laws were passed which banned importation of grain until the price had risen to an ‘acceptable level’ – the Laws effectively guaranteed future famines, in 1819 British troops massacred protesters demanding wider suffrage at St Peter’s Field in Manchester and throughout his time as Prime Minister the Luddite movement grew in strength and militancy. Whilst calls for Catholic emancipation, reforms in the political system and assistance for both the poor and vast mass of unemployed grew the Liverpool government was forced to raise taxes to deal with the growing fiscal crisis of the UK government.
It is also noticeable that in 1825 the Great Indian Mutiny began after huge crowds of Indians attacked and slaughtered British troops in Delhi and forced the Mughal Emperor Akbar Shah II to come out of the Red Fort and provide political leadership. When the British restored their rule in Delhi in 1827 Akbar Shah II would flee the city but continue to be the figurehead of a long guerrilla war against the British in India.
For years a slow trickle of dead men would flow back from India to Britain whilst the government’s fiscal crisis was exasperated by the need to send ever greater funds to India in the attempt to fight the rebels. The pain of the war in India would not only be felt by the government’s coin purse but also by the British public.
Back in Britain the end of Liverpool’s reign as Prime Minister in 1927 and George IV’s reign as King in 1930 would change nothing. Despite the ever growing need for reform the Whigs (the more liberal of the two main parties in Parliament) failed to secure a majority in the Commons allowing the anti-reformist Tories to maintain control over government. William IV remained largely docile and subservient to Parliament. In the meantime the Radical Party started to become increasingly powerful – and would align itself with a new movement that emerged at the start of the 1830s.
The People’s Charter of 1830 marked the birth of the world’s first worker based mass movement – Chartism. From the start the movement’s demands for equality, universal suffrage and an end to Parliamentary corruption earned them more powerful supporters amongst the middle class Radical Party which provided much needed funds and coordination for the movement.
April 2nd 1832 marked the culmination of this first mass labour movement as the British Revolution, the British Civil War and the collapse of the British Empire all began. On that day the largest Chartist protest ever organised occurred in London – the crowd was estimated to number anywhere between 100,000 and ¼ of a million. Understandably the government was concerned and, as had been the usual reaction to such rowdy protests, the army was rolled out. However, it seems, the government had massively underestimated the strength of the force opposing them as just 1,800 troops were sent to confront a crowd perhaps 100 times their number. In a remarkable act of collective courage when the troops first opened fire the demonstrators did not flee but instead charged. The troops were overwhelmed and the protesters armed. Through the rest of the day London erupted into utter chaos. The government tried and failed to employ the police and other military units against the Chartists but all were either defeated or in the case of some defected over to the rebels. For around a week the rebels battled with the government in the streets of London as both Parliament and King William IV fled the capital. Then as the world’s wealthiest city awoke on April 7th something remarkable had happened. The state had been wholly defeated in London and the capital lay in the hands of the rebels. Faced with no government to run themselves the rebel chiefs decided to appoint the Council of London – an unassuming name for the body which would become the central leadership of the entire rebellion. The Council was made up of a mixture of working and middle class individuals well known by their community and capable of running the city in absence of normal government.
Realising the intense social situation in Britain at the time the incredible revolutionary eruption that followed the fall of London is not nearly as shocking to the historian as it was to the establishment in both Britain and Europe. Through April Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Sunderland, Hull, Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham the Valleys of South Wales and hundreds of other places in Britain witnessed their own Chartist uprisings seeking to emulate the success of the rebels in the capital. At the same time some elements of the army even defected – most notably 3,000 soldiers based in Portsmouth. With only a small armed force actually on the ground in Britain and a national rebellion ongoing in Ireland the government was largely unable to immediately respond to the wave of uprisings.
As April turned into May an uneasy sort of calm started to set in. In some areas the rebels had been victorious, in others they were beaten but in this month government forces started to rally and reorganise as it became clear that the rebels could not simply sit in their liberated towns and wait for the government to fall. The Council of London took the first step as it organised an army of volunteers to start to secure South-East England. Around the same time the first outside influences entered the conflict. In June an army arrived from Germany consisting of a mixture of Hanoverian troops loyal to King William and a large number of mercenaries. The Mercenary army had actually been partially paid for by various courts in Europe who were desperate to see the rebels crushed.
This new army would combine with loyalist forces in East Anglia and march upon London with an aim of reclaiming the capital. However at the Battle of Basildon (East of London) it faced a crushing and humiliating defeat to the rebel army.
In just a few weeks after Basildon the rebels made great strides in both Britain and Ireland. By August 1832 the loyalists only held the Eastern part of Ireland whilst much of England, Scotland and Wales had all been lost to the rebels. For the rest of 1832 the loyalists would progressively give up ground as the rebels made advances across the country. At the same time the first seeds of revolt began to appear in the colonies as in South Africa, Canada and Australia smaller scale risings were reported.
The tide of the war would be greatly changed when in the Spring of 1833 Arthur Wellesley – the Duke of Wellington and Napoleonic War hero – launched a coup within the loyalist camp. Whilst he had been the primary military leader of the loyalist forces from early on in the war he had grown increasingly frustrated at the bumbling of the government and most notable the King. He forced William to return to Hannover and effectively made himself supreme dictator and military leader of the loyalist armies.
Back in India the Civil war had caused an effective collapse in British authority as the armies on the subcontinent were effectively cut off from the Home Isles. This had led to the loss of several major cities to the rebels including Delhi and Bombay and had made it clear that the British had little hope of retaining power. As a result the Princely states rose up and began to devour the carcass of British India. British forces still in India began to retreat back to Bengal where they still maintained relative control.
Back on the continent the conservative Monarchies of Europe were growing increasingly terrified by the situation in Britain and feared that the British Empire might fall into the hands of a Republican government. This, coupled with fears of the consequences of the complete loss of European trading influences in India, led to the signing of the Amsterdam Pact. A spectacular agreement spearheaded by France which called for the occupation and division of the British Empire by France, Spain and the Netherlands – the Pact was even supported by the King of Prussia and Emperor of Austria. From the Summer of 1834 foreign forces would begin the occupation of the British Empire – impressively they often did so in coordination with locally based British forces and institutions who were eager to preserve their own regional authority.
But what of the wooden wall? At the start of the Civil War the British fleet had been comparable in size and strength to all the rest of the world’s navies combined.
Well, from the start the aristocratic naval leadership had been firmly loyalist. However the rebels had managed to capture a substantial portion of the fleet in harbour whilst many crews maintained sympathies with the rebels. This often led to mutinies and British ships fighting British ships. When the French, Dutch and Spanish fleets started to occupy the British Empire the confusion was only made worse. For without any central authority directing the fleet local commanders was free to run their own affairs. Some simply surrendered to the French, others fought isolated battles whilst others struck deals to secure their own interests in a post-Imperial landscape. The Royal Navy was simply in no position to resist the foreign intervention.
As the British Empire was swiftly occupied – with many areas being granted self governance – India once again moved to centre stage. As the Princes struck forth into British India the battered British army had withdrawn to Bengal. The French had initially been wary about becoming involved in India – not wanting to become involved in a slaughter and so stayed clear of India. However the British forces still in Bengal actually went so far as to request French assistance – in many areas the pogroms against the British once native forces had taken charge had been quite barbaric and fear was a major motivator for the British in Bengal. So the French entered Bengal, stabilised the region and would go on to establish French rule there.
Back in the British Isles the last British troops in Ireland faced defeat in late 1834 after a prolonged siege of Belfast ended. Following this the Republic of Ireland was officially proclaimed. Back on the main island since the coup against the Monarchy Wellington had managed to win several key victories – notably recapturing Birmingham and several industrial cities in Northern England. However, the rebels continued to dominate large areas of the country and had secured their own successes in the Anglo-Scots border region, in West Wales and in the South-West of England. Many feared that the Civil War could rage on for many years to come.
However those people had failed to consider the intervention of Charles Grey, the 2nd Earl Grey and the Whigs. Whilst many Whigs had chosen sides during the Civil War the centre of the Party and its leader, Charles Grey, had remained neutral (he had resided in loyalist controlled Oxford for most of the war). Following the loss of Ireland and the wider Empire Grey had started to agitate for peace in the name of saving Britain from utter oblivion. The campaign for peace secured its first major victory following the inconclusive Battle of Ipswich – the battle was supposed to mark a major breakthrough for the loyalists but ended in a draw and left Wellington willing to negotiate. In June a truce was declared whilst the first round of peace negotiations could take place. Whilst hostilities briefly reopened in August following a walkout by rebel delegates by the Autumn both sides agreed to bring the Civil War to an end in an quite incredible manner. Both armies would demobilise and the country would be reunited. There would then be an election with all male citizens over 21 and owning property eligible to vote. The newly elected Parliament would then be charged with creating a new state structure that all sides would agree to. The Civil War was over.
The losses suffered by Britain were incredible in scale. Australia and South Africa now enjoyed self government. Canada had been divided into three parts. Ontario and all else to the West had become the Union of Canada – a constitutional Monarchy reigned over by a lesser relative of the former King of Britain – William IV. Quebec was now a self governing colony of France (just as the Québécois had desired). Finally, the 4 English speaking Atlantic states of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador had been united into a loose federation. In Europe Ireland was now ruled by a native Republic whilst Helgoland was annexed by the exile King William’s other Kingdom – Hannover. The South Atlantic and Indian Ocean islands once ruled by Britain were transferred to France whilst the Falklands were granted to Argentina. The West African enclaves formerly held by Britain were divided between France and the Netherlands.
In the Caribbean some of the oldest British colonies were divided. As a means of securing American support for the European intervention in the British Empire the US had not only been promised the disputed territory of Northern Maine but also Bermuda, the Bahamas, the Turk and Caicos Islands. The Caribbean territories in particular were gratefully taken over by the still Southern dominated US government as new Slave states could be built of them. The USCA was granted Belize on the condition that Belize gained admittance as a fully fledged state into the Union. Spain gained the Cayman and Virgin Islands, but most crucially – the wealthy islands of Jamaica. The Dutch gained British Guyana, Trinidad, Tobago and Grenada. Meanwhile, the French were given the rest of the British Caribbean which consisted of numerous plantation islands in the Lesser Antilles.
The fall of the British Empire changed India more than any other region. Whilst the Dutch managed to reclaim their former colonies on Ceylon and the Maldives, whilst also gaining the British Malayan ports and France conquered Bengal the rest of British India fell to native states. Hyderabad was now the wealthiest and most populous state in India – it was also second only to the Sikh Empire in the Panjab in terms of military strength. Elsewhere the ruler of Bombay had crowned made his claim to sovereignty over all India clear and the Mughal Emperor established a regime around Delhi.
But back in Europe, Britain was in desperate need of rebuilding and stability.